n to a word. Is such
a story reasonable or likely? Hill says that Sir Horace had always
treated him well; and according to his earlier statement, when he
permitted himself to be terrorised into agreeing to this burglary, he
told himself that chance would throw in his way some opportunity of
informing his master. And he told you that Birchill, mistrusting his
unwilling accomplice, hurried on the date of the burglary so as to give
him no such opportunity. Well, chance throws in Hill's way the very
opportunity he has been seeking, but he is too frightened to use it
because Sir Horace happens to return in an angry or impatient mood.

"Let us take Birchill's attitude when Hill tells him that Sir Horace has
unexpectedly returned from Scotland. Birchill is suspicious that Hill
has played him false, and naturally so, but Hill, instead of letting him
think so, and thus preventing the burglary from taking place, does all
he can to reassure him, while at the same time begging him to postpone
the burglary. That was hardly the best way to go about it. Let us
charitably assume that Hill was too frightened to let Birchill remain
under the impression that he'd played him false, and let us look at
Birchill's attitude. It is inconceivable that Birchill should have
permitted himself to be reassured, when right through the negotiations
between himself and Hill he showed the most marked distrust of the
latter. Yet, according to Hill, he suddenly abandons this attitude for
one of trusting credulity, meekly accepting the assurance of the man he
distrusts that Sir Horace Fewbanks's unexpected return from Scotland on
the very night the burglary is to be committed is not a trap to catch
him, but a coincidence. Then, after drinking himself nearly blind, he
sets forth with a revolver to commit a burglary on the house of the
judge who tried him, on Hill's bare word that everything is all right.
Guileless, trusting, simple-minded Birchill!

"Hill is left locked up in the flat with the girl; for Birchill, who has
just trusted him implicitly in a far more important matter affecting his
own liberty, has a belated sense of caution about trusting his unworthy
accomplice while he is away committing the burglary. The time goes on;
the couple in the flat hear the clock strike twelve before Birchill's
returning footsteps are heard. He enters, and immediately announces to
Hill and the girl, with every symptom of strongly marked terror, that
while on his burg