ead the minions of
justice, and whose punishment would ensure his own safety. He was thus
a double murderer.

So the tongues wagged. Meanwhile the object of these rumours had made
his way round in a towering passion to the seat from which his
solicitor was trying to get away.

'What does this mean?' he cried, as soon as he got near enough to
speak without being heard by others. 'Are you playing me false? Where
is Mr. Prescott?'

'He was called away into the other court,' said Mr. James Pollard, the
barrister's brother, who was a partner with his father in the
Porthstone firm.

'He ought not to have gone. Your brother managed the case wretchedly.
I wasn't allowed to say the most important thing of all.'

'My brother did the best he could. No one could dream that Prescott
would desert us like this. I shall never give him another brief, I
promise you.'

By this time they had got outside the door of the court-house. They
turned towards a hotel close by, where a general luncheon was put on
the table for the convenience of people having business in the
assize-courts. The civil court had risen a few minutes before the
other, and the place was crowded with solicitors, witnesses, jurymen,
and the general public.

'Look here, Mr. Pollard,' Lewis said, as they fought their way into
the room, 'I could have proved that about the jewels up to the hilt if
I had been allowed. Why, my aunt was speaking to me about them that
very night, and she said Miss Owen knew of them.'

'And why on earth didn't you tell me all this before?' retorted the
solicitor.

'I thought I had.'

'Thought you had! Goodness me! that's just like you laymen. You keep
back the chief points in a case, and then you're angry with us because
we don't guess them by instinct. Why didn't you tell the judge this
when he was examining you?'

'Because it wasn't said in the prisoner's presence.'

'Pooh! Why, it was evidence of motive. But there, it's no good trying
to explain the law of evidence to you. If any thing's gone wrong, you
have yourself to thank for it--a good deal, that's all. What shall you
take?'

And they fell to on the refreshments before them.

Meanwhile the barristers, whose self-imposed code forbade them to
enter a public hotel room in a town where the assizes were being held,
had straggled off, some to the County Club, and others to the
common-room reserved for their especial use in the chief hotel of the
place.

Among the latter was