arly that Danvers had made ready a means of escape.

The prosecution rested with the testimony of this man, without one ray
of hope for Danvers Carmichael that I could see, unless some of the
jurymen were enlightened enough to refuse a conviction in a capital
case on any evidence which was circumstantial or conjectural. Motive,
abundant motive, had been proven; nearness to the crime at the time of
the murder; the ownership of the weapon, a black spot for the defense
to wipe out; and last, the means planned for an escape in case of
discovery, as testified to by the boatman of Leith.

CHAPTER XXVI

THE DEFENSE

On the day that Magendie took the case I had a taste of another kind of
lawing than Pitcairn's, for the London man, to speak in a common
phrase, oiled everybody. He poured oil over Carew; he drenched Hugh
Pitcairn in it; smoothed the jury with it, and I learned to the full
the legal value of the unantagonistic mind. After this he turned a
light on the case from the other side, giving it an entirely different
appearance, holding up the slateful of charges against Danvers, and
sponging them carefully off one by one, until I was amazed at his
abilities.

There were three important gentlemen, conversant with the duke's
habits, to prove that the duke's lung trouble had accustomed him to
fresh air, that he slept with all of his windows raised, and that it
was his custom to have the window open near him, no matter what the
weather. And following came Huey, with the statements that both of the
pistols had been at Stair House since before Mr. Danvers's marriage,
and that he had put one of them, with a new hagged flint, in the desk
at which his grace was writing, within a few days of the murder. Father
Michel followed, saying that Danvers had spent the evening of the
murder with him, trying to persuade him to go on a sail for a few days,
leaving his house about midnight in a composed and quiet frame of mind,
with his cap in his hand, it being his custom to go about in all kinds
of weather in that manner, a habit contracted at the English school
where he was educated. And before any one could stop him, Father
Michel, who I knew was tutored to the illegal conduct by Magendie, said
earnestly:

"I consider it my duty to state, with no betrayal of my sacred offices,
that I know, by the confessional Mr. Carmichael to be innocent of this
foul deed."

Pitcairn was roaring objections in a minute, with Carew sustainin