efore impossible to know how he would take this
account, which threw so serious a light upon an association with the
dead man, of which he himself had said nothing.

"Nothing could shake James Terry's account of the facts he had placed
before the jury, and when the police informed the coroner that they
proposed to place George Higgins himself in the witness-box, as his
evidence would prove, as it were, a complement and corollary of that of
Terry, the jury very eagerly assented.

"If James Terry, the bookmaker, loud, florid, vulgar, was an
unprepossessing individual, certainly George Higgins, who was still
under the accusation of murder, was ten thousand times more so.

"None too clean, slouchy, obsequious yet insolent, he was the very
personification of the cad who haunts the racecourse and who lives not
so much by his own wits as by the lack of them in others. He described
himself as a turf commission agent, whatever that may be.

"He stated that at about six o'clock on the Friday afternoon, when the
racecourse was still full of people, all hurrying after the day's
excitements, he himself happened to be standing close to the hedge which
marks the boundary of Lord Arthur Skelmerton's grounds. There is a
pavilion there at the end of the garden, he explained, on slightly
elevated ground, and he could hear and see a group of ladies and
gentlemen having tea. Some steps lead down a little to the left of the
garden on to the course, and presently he noticed at the bottom of these
steps Lord Arthur Skelmerton and Charles Lavender standing talking
together. He knew both gentlemen by sight, but he could not see them
very well as they were both partly hidden by the hedge. He was quite
sure that the gentlemen had not seen him, and he could not help
overhearing some of their conversation.

"'That's my last word, Lavender,' Lord Arthur was saying very quietly.
'I haven't got the money and I can't pay you now. You'll have to wait.'

"'Wait? I can't wait,' said old Lavender in reply. 'I've got my
engagements to meet, same as you. I'm not going to risk being posted up
as a defaulter while you hold L500 of my money. You'd better give it me
now or--'

"But Lord Arthur interrupted him very quietly, and said:

"'Yes, my good man.... or?'

"'Or I'll let Sir John have a good look at that little bill I had of
yours a couple of years ago. If you'll remember, my lord, it has got at
the bottom of it Sir John's signature in _your_ handw