night, and must have been used with such carelessness or ignorance--it
is for you to say which'--[again the jury tried to look as if they
were prepared to say which, and again they broke down]--'that the
latch was raised too high, and stuck. Now, here I must draw your
attention to a very important circumstance. The person who entered the
house last, whether the prisoner or anyone else, and who fastened up
the front-door as it was found by the witness Lucy Jones the following
morning, that person must, for some reason or other, have failed to
notice the condition of the latch. She, if we assume it was the
prisoner, must be supposed to have been so agitated from some cause
that she failed to notice what she was doing when she raised the latch
with her key, and failed again to notice how the latch was caught when
she proceeded to fasten the door inside.

'Gentlemen, it is for you to ask yourselves whether a reasonable
explanation, an explanation that will justify you in coming to an
adverse verdict in this case, is furnished by the suggestion that the
prisoner's mind was excited by the crime she had just committed to
such an extent as to deprive her of the power of observing these
things.'

At this point Mr. F. J. Pollard began to be aware that his leader was
not pressing the case very vigorously. He looked round at his brother
in the solicitors' seat behind. That gentleman looked extremely angry.
He had noticed something curious in his counsel's manner from the
first. He now leant over and whispered to his brother:

'What's the matter with Prescott? I can't make him out. He talks as
if he were the judge summing up, instead of the counsel for the
prosecution.'

Mr. Pollard, the barrister, shrugged his shoulders and bit his lip. He
could do nothing. It was not for him to offer advice to his leader. A
man of Mr. Prescott's standing was not likely to tolerate any
interference from a young fellow just called.

But the offender proceeded to cap his misdeeds by a new suggestion,
which had never occurred to either of the Pollards. It had been noted
down long ago by Tressamer, though.

'The third difficulty in this case, gentlemen, is one which has
doubtless been present to your minds all the time I have been
speaking.'

This time the jury made a desperate effort to conceal their
astonishment, and to look as if they perfectly well knew what was
coming. But no one was deceived.

'I refer to the disposal of the body. On