en, very calm and
self-possessed, but very pale. Directly he appeared Mr. Thurwell rose
and shook hands with him, a friendly demonstration which brought a faint
glow into his cheeks.

He was offered a chair, and the services of the solicitor of the place,
the latter of which he declined. Then the chief constable, a little
flurried and nervous at the unwonted importance of his office, rose, and
addressed the bench.

The case against the prisoner was, he said, still altogether incomplete,
and he had only one witness, whose evidence, however, he felt sure,
would be such as to justify their sending the matter to be decided
before a judicial tribunal. No doubt they all remembered the painful
circumstances of Sir Geoffrey Kynaston's death, and the mystery with
which it was surrounded. That death took place within a stone's throw of
the cottage where the prisoner was then living, under an assumed name,
and more than three miles away from any other dwelling place or refuge
of any sort. He reminded them of the speedy search that had been made,
and its extraordinary non-success. Under those circumstances a certain
amount of suspicion naturally attached itself to the prisoner, and a
search warrant was duly applied for, and duly carried out. At that time
nothing suspicious was discovered, owing in some measure, he was bound
to say, to the scrupulous delicacy with which the magistrate who had
signed it--looking toward Mr. Thurwell--had insisted upon its being
carried out. Subsequently, however, and acting upon later information,
Detective Robson of Scotland Yard was appointed to look into the case,
and the result of his investigation was the issuing of the warrant under
which the prisoner stood charged with the murder of Sir Geoffrey
Kynaston. Their worships would hear the evidence of Detective Robson,
who was now present.

Detective Robson stepped forward, and was sworn. On the 15th of June
last, he said, he searched the prisoner's cottage on the Thurwell Court
estate. He there found in the secret recess of a cabinet, which had
apparently not been opened for some time, a dagger, produced, in a case
evidently intended to hold two, and which was an exact facsimile of the
one, also produced, with which the murder was committed. He found also a
towel, produced, which was stained with blood, and several letters. With
regard to the towel, he here added, that in one corner of the room was
fixed a small basin, and on the floor just bene