r. Such things naturally interest me."

"Ah! So poisons 'naturally interest' you, do they? Still, you waited to
be alone before gratifying that 'interest' of yours?"

"That was pure chance. If the others had been there, I should have done
just the same."

"Still, as it happens, the others were not there?"

"No, but----"

"In fact, during the whole afternoon, you were only alone for a couple
of minutes, and it happened--I say, it happened--to be during those two
minutes that you displayed your 'natural interest' in Hydro-chloride of
Strychnine?"

Lawrence stammered pitiably.

"I--I----"

With a satisfied and expressive countenance, Sir Ernest observed:

"I have nothing more to ask you, Mr. Cavendish."

This bit of cross-examination had caused great excitement in court. The
heads of the many fashionably attired women present were busily laid
together, and their whispers became so loud that the judge angrily
threatened to have the court cleared if there was not immediate silence.

There was little more evidence. The hand-writing experts were called
upon for their opinion of the signature of "Alfred Inglethorp" in the
chemist's poison register. They all declared unanimously that it was
certainly not his hand-writing, and gave it as their view that it might
be that of the prisoner disguised. Cross-examined, they admitted that it
might be the prisoner's hand-writing cleverly counterfeited.

Sir Ernest Heavywether's speech in opening the case for the defence
was not a long one, but it was backed by the full force of his emphatic
manner. Never, he said, in the course of his long experience, had he
known a charge of murder rest on slighter evidence. Not only was it
entirely circumstantial, but the greater part of it was practically
unproved. Let them take the testimony they had heard and sift it
impartially. The strychnine had been found in a drawer in the prisoner's
room. That drawer was an unlocked one, as he had pointed out, and he
submitted that there was no evidence to prove that it was the prisoner
who had concealed the poison there. It was, in fact, a wicked and
malicious attempt on the part of some third person to fix the crime
on the prisoner. The prosecution had been unable to produce a shred of
evidence in support of their contention that it was the prisoner who
ordered the black beard from Parkson's. The quarrel which had taken
place between prisoner and his stepmother was freely admitted, but both
it