pect that
it would be admitted, upon responsible persons entering into the customary
recognisances."

Saxham rose. He had drunk the coffee, but he could not eat. "Like all the
rest of them, in spite of his show of coolness," thought the
Superintendent.

"I will ask you for time to telephone to some friends who will, I have no
doubt, be willing to give the required undertaking, and arrange for a
colleague to visit my patients. You will take a glass of wine while I step
into the next room? The telephone is there, on the writing-table."

"And a loaded revolver in the drawer underneath, and poisons of all kinds
handy on the shelves of a neat little cabinet," thought the
Superintendent. But he said: "With pleasure, sir, only I must trouble you
to put up with my company."

A tingling thrill of revulsion ran through Saxham. He set his teeth, and
conquered the furious, momentary impulse to knock down this big, burly,
smooth-spoken blue-uniformed official.

"Ah, very well. The usual procedure in cases of this kind. Please come
this way. But take a glass of wine first. There are glasses on the
sideboard there, and claret and port in those decanters."

"To your very good health, Dr. Saxham, sir, and a speedy and favourable
ending to--the present--difficulty." The Superintendent emptied a bumper
neatly, and with discreet relish, and followed Saxham into the
consulting-room, and once more, at the sound of the measured footfall
padding behind him over the thick carpet, the suspect's blood surged madly
to his temples, and his hands clenched until the nails drove deep into the
palms. For from that moment began the long, slow torture of watching and
following, and dogging by the suspicious, vigilant, observant Man In Blue.

A Treasury Prosecution succeeded the Police-Court Inquiry, and the accused
was formally arrested upon the criminal charge, and committed to Holloway
pending the Trial. The Trial took place before Mr. Justice Bodmin in the
following July, occupying five days of oppressive heat in the thrashing
out of that vexed question, the guilt or innocence of Owen Saxham, M.D.,
F.R.C.S. who for airless, stifling years of weeks had eaten and drunk and
slept and waked in the Valley of the Shadow of Penal Servitude. Who was
conveyed from the dock to the cell and from the cell to the dock by
warders and policemen, rumbling through back streets and unfrequented ways
in a shiny prison-van. Who came at last to look upon the Owen S