could see no reason why you should kill your
cousin."

"But you believed me guilty?"

The barrister looked his questioner straight in the eyes. He saw there the
glistening terror of a tortured soul. Somehow he expected to find a
different expression. He was puzzled.

"Why have you come here, Mr. Hume?" he abruptly demanded.

"To implore your assistance. They tell me you are the one man in the world
able to clear my name from the stain of crime. Will you do it?"

Again their eyes met. Hume was fighting now, fighting for all that a man
holds dear. He did not plead. He only demanded his rights. Born a few
centuries earlier, he would have enforced them with cold steel.

"Come, Mr. Brett," he almost shouted. "If you are as good a judge of men
as you say I am of tobacco, you will not think that the cowardly murderer
who struck down my cousin would come to you, of all others, and reopen the
story of a crime closed unwillingly by the law."

Brett could, on occasion, exhibit an obstinate determination not to be
drawn into expressing an opinion. His visitor's masterful manner annoyed
him. Hume, metaphorically speaking, took him by the throat and compelled
his services. He rebelled against this species of compulsion, but mere
politeness required some display of courteous tolerance.

"It seems to me," he said, "that we are beginning at the end. I may not be
able to help you. What are the facts?"

The stranger was so agitated that he could not reply. Self-restrained men
are not ready with language. Their thoughts may be fiery as bottled
vitriol, but they keep the cork in. The barrister allowed for this
drawback. His sympathies were aroused, and they overcame his slight
resentment.

"Try another cigarette," he said, "I have here a summary of the evidence.
I will read it to you. Do not interrupt. Follow the details closely, and
correct anything that is wrong when I have ended."

Hume was still volcanic, but he took the proffered box.

"Ah," cried Brett, "though you are angry, your judgment is sound. Now
listen!"

Then he read the following statement, prepared by himself in an idle
moment:--

"The Stowmarket Mystery is a strange mixture of the real and the unreal.
Sir Alan Hume-Frazer, fourth baronet, met his death on the hunting-field.
His horse blundered at a brook and the rider was impaled on a hidden
stake, placed in the stream by his own orders to prevent poachers from
netting trout. His wife, nee Somers, a Brist