e firm as a boy; and when Hepworth senior retired, Ellenby--with the
old gentleman's assistance--had started in business for himself as a
ships' furnisher! Nothing of all this came out at the trial. Ellenby
had not been cross-examined. There was no need for it. But it seemed
odd, under all the circumstances, that he had not volunteered the
information. It may, of course, have been for the sake of the brother
and sister. Hepworth is a common enough name in the North. He may
have hoped to keep the family out of connection with the case.

As regards the woman, my friend could learn nothing further beyond the
fact that, in her contract with the music-hall agent in Rotterdam, she
had described herself as the daughter of an English musician, and had
stated that both her parents were dead. She may have engaged herself
without knowing the character of the hall, and the man, Charlie Martin,
with his handsome face and pleasing sailor ways, and at least an
Englishman, may have seemed to her a welcome escape.

She may have been passionately fond of him, and young Hepworth--crazy
about her, for she was beautiful enough to turn any man's head--may in
Martin's absence have lied to her, told her he was dead--lord knows
what!--to induce her to marry him. The murder may have seemed to her a
sort of grim justice.

But even so, her cold-blooded callousness was surely abnormal! She had
married him, lived with him for nearly a year. To the Jetsons she had
given the impression of being a woman deeply in love with her husband.
It could not have been mere acting kept up day after day.

"There was something else." We were discussing the case in my friend's
chambers. His brief of eleven years ago was open before him. He was
pacing up and down with his hands in his pockets, thinking as he
talked. "Something that never came out. There was a curious feeling
she gave me in that moment when sentence was pronounced upon her. It
was as if, instead of being condemned, she had triumphed. Acting! If
she had acted during the trial, pretended remorse, even pity, I could
have got her off with five years. She seemed to be unable to disguise
the absolute physical relief she felt at the thought that he was dead,
that his hand would never again touch her. There must have been
something that had suddenly been revealed to her, something that had
turned her love to hate.

"There must be something fine about the man, too." That was another