Sebastian ought to have stood by him. His colleague preferred the claims
of public duty--as he understood them, I mean--to those of private
friendship. It was a very sad case--for Yorke-Bannerman was really a
charming fellow. But I confess I WAS relieved when he died unexpectedly
on the morning of his arrest. It took off my shoulders a most serious
burden."

"You think, then, the case would have gone against him?"

"My dear Hubert," his whole face puckered with an indulgent smile, "of
course the case must have gone against us. Juries are fools; but they
are not such fools as to swallow everything--like ostriches: to let me
throw dust in their eyes about so plain an issue. Consider the facts,
consider them impartially. Yorke-Bannerman had easy access to aconitine;
had whole ounces of it in his possession; he treated the uncle from whom
he was to inherit; he was in temporary embarrassments--that came out at
the inquest; it was known that the Admiral had just made a twenty-third
will in his favour, and that the Admiral's wills were liable to
alteration every time a nephew ventured upon an opinion in politics,
religion, science, navigation, or the right card at whist, differing by
a shade from that of the uncle. The Admiral died of aconitine poisoning;
and Sebastian observed and detailed the symptoms. Could anything be
plainer--I mean, could any combination of fortuitous circumstances"--he
blinked pleasantly again--"be more adverse to an advocate sincerely
convinced of his client's innocence--as a professional duty?" And he
gazed at me comically.

The more he piled up the case against the man who I now felt sure was
Hilda's father, the less did I believe him. A dark conspiracy seemed to
loom up in the background. "Has it ever occurred to you," I asked, at
last, in a very tentative tone, "that perhaps--I throw out the hint as
the merest suggestion--perhaps it may have been Sebastian who--"

He smiled this time till I thought his smile would swallow him.

"If Yorke-Bannerman had NOT been my client," he mused aloud, "I might
have been inclined to suspect rather that Sebastian aided him to avoid
justice by giving him something violent to take, if he wished
it: something which might accelerate the inevitable action of the
heart-disease from which he was suffering. Isn't THAT more likely?"

I saw there was nothing further to be got out of Mayfield. His opinion
was fixed; he was a placid ruminant. But he had given me already