is age to
do a thing like that seems to me really deplorable. And the barefaced
evasiveness of his evidence! He simply could not account for his
movements during the evening at all. When I asked him what he had been
doing at 9.21, and where, he actually said he _didn't know_.

Rather curious--very few people _can_ account for their movements, or
anyone else's. In most criminal trials the witnesses remember to a
minute, years after the event, exactly what time they went upstairs and
when they passed the prisoner in the lounge, but nobody seems to
remember anything in this affair. No doubt it will come in time.

The trial was very realistic. I was able to make one or two excellent
judicial jokes. Right at the beginning I said to the prosecuting
counsel, "What _is_ an apple-pie bed?" and when he had explained I said
with a meaning look, "You mean that the bed was not in _apple-pie
order_?" Ha, ha! Everybody laughed heartily....

VIII.

In my address to the jury of matrons I was able to show pretty clearly
that the crime was the work of a gang. I proved that Denys and Joan must
have done the bulk of the dirty work, under the tactical direction of
the Barkers, who did the rest; while in the background was the sinister
figure of Mr. Winthrop, the strategical genius, the lurking Macchiavelli
of the gang.

The jury were not long in considering their verdict. They said: "We
find, your Lordship, that you did it yourself, with some lady or ladies
unknown."

That comes of being a professional humourist....

IX.

I ignored the verdict. I addressed the prisoners very severely and
sentenced them to do the Chasm hole from 6.0 A.M. to 6.0 P.M. every day
for a week, to take out cards and play out every stroke. "You,
Winthrop," I said, "with your gentlemanly cunning, your subtle
pretensions of righteousness--" But there is no space for that....

X.

As a matter of fact the jury were quite right. In company with a lady
who shall be nameless I did do it. At least, at one time I thought I
did. Only we have proved so often that somebody else did it, we have
shown so conclusively that we can't have done it, that we find ourselves
wondering if we really did.

Perhaps we didn't.

If we did we apologise to all concerned--except, of course, to Mr.
Winthrop. I suspect him.

A.P.H.

* * * * *

[Illustration: THE END OF THE SEASON.

_Sympathetic Friend._ "WELL, YOU'VE LAID HER UP NICELY FOR THE WI