his barber shop and put a bullet through his head. Now
however much you may sympathize with Angelo as a man and a husband there
isn't the slightest doubt that he killed Tomasso with every kind of
deliberation and premeditation."

"If the case is as you say," replied Mr. Tutt, replacing the bottle and
tumbler within the lower drawer and flicking a stogy ash from his
waistcoat, "the honorable justice who handed it to us is no friend of
ours."

"He isn't," assented his partner. "It was Babson and he hates Italians.
Moreover, he stated in open court that he proposed to try the case
himself next Monday and that we must be ready without fail."

"So Babson did that to us!" growled Mr. Tutt. "Just like him. He'll pack
the jury and charge our innocent Angelo into the middle of hades."

"And O'Brien is the assistant district attorney in charge of the
prosecution," mildly added Tutt. "But what can we do? We're assigned,
we've got a guilty client, and we've got to defend him."

"Have you set Bonnie Doon looking up witnesses?" asked Mr. Tutt. "I
thought I saw him outside during the forenoon."

"Yes," replied Tutt. "But Bonnie says it's the toughest case he ever had
to handle in which to find any witnesses for the defense. There aren't
any. Besides, the girl bought the gun and gave it to Angelo the same
day."

"How do you know that?" demanded Mr. Tutt, frowning.

"Because she told me so herself," said Tutt. "She's outside if you want
to see her."

"I might as well give her what you call 'the once over,'" replied the
senior partner.

Tutt retired and presently returned half leading, half pushing a
shrinking young Italian woman, shabbily dressed but with the features of
one of Raphael's madonnas. She wore no hat and her hands and finger
nails were far from clean, but from the folds of her black shawl her
neck rose like a column of slightly discolored Carrara marble, upon
which her head with its coils of heavy hair was poised with the grace of
a sulky empress.

"Come in, my child, and sit down," said Mr. Tutt kindly. "No, not in
that one; in that one." He indicated the chair previously occupied by
his junior. "You can leave us, Tutt. I want to talk to this young lady
alone."

The girl sat sullenly with averted face, showing in her attitude her
instinctive feeling that all officers of the law, no matter upon which
side they were supposed to be, were one and all engaged in a mysterious
conspiracy of which she and her unfo