be prowlin' round at this hour of the day--night's more to 'is
likin'.' I could hardly contain myself when I saw who it was even though
I had already discovered the passage to Withersby Hall. I had not yet
realized that 'Jonathan Brent' and Brellier were one and the same, though
I discovered that the former had a perfectly legitimate office in London
in Leadenhall Street. But when I saw him I knew. After that I wasted no
time. Since then we've been having a pretty scramble to get safely away
without giving any clues to the other men, and to put Scotland Yard upon
their track. They're down there now, and have got every man of 'em I dare
swear (and I hope they are keeping my friend Black Whiskers for me to
deal with). That is the cause of my lateness at the hearing of the case.
You can fully understand how impossible it was to be here any earlier."

The judge nodded. "Your statement against this man Borkins--?"

"Is as strong a one as ever was made," said Cleek. "It was Borkins
who--in a fit of malicious rage, no doubt--conceived the idea of
interfering with his master's work to the extent of inventing the means
to have Sir Nigel Merriton wrongly convicted of the murder of Dacre
Wynne. You have seen the revolver, the peculiar make of which caused it
to be the chief evidence in this gruesome tragedy. Here is the genuine
one."

He drew the little thing from his pocket, and reaching up placed it in
the judge's outstretched hand. That gentleman gave a gasp as he laid eyes
upon it.

"Identical with this one, which belongs to the prisoner!" he said--almost
excitedly.

"Exactly. The same colonial French make, you see. This particular one
belongs, by the way, to Miss Brellier."

"_Miss Brellier!_"

Something like a thrill ran through the crowded courtroom. In the silence
that followed you could have heard a pin drop.

"That is correct. She will tell you that she always kept it in an unused
drawer in her secretaire locked away with some papers. She had not looked
at it for months, until the other day when she happened to examine one of
those papers, and therefore went to the drawer and unlocked it. The
revolver lying there drew her attention. Knowing that it was the same as
the one owned by her fiance, Sir Nigel Merriton, and figuring so largely
in this case, she took it out and idly examined it. One of the bullets
was missing! This rather aroused her curiosity, and when I questioned her
afterward about it, when the inqu