d to step down from the witness-box, when
Mr. Loram shot up like a jack-in-the-box.

"You have made certain statements," said he, "concerning the scarab
which Mr. Bellingham was accustomed to wear suspended from his
watch-guard. You say that he was not wearing it when he came to Mr.
Hurst's house on the twenty-third of November, nineteen hundred and two.
Are you quite sure of that?"

"Quite sure."

"I must ask you to be very careful in your statement on this point. The
question is a highly important one. Do you swear that the scarab was not
hanging from his watch-guard?"

"Yes, I do."

"Did you notice the watch-guard particularly?"

"No, not particularly."

"Then what makes you so sure that the scarab was not attached to it?"

"It couldn't have been."

"Why could it not?"

"Because if it had been there I should have seen it."

"What kind of a watch-guard was Mr. Bellingham wearing?"

"Oh, an ordinary sort of watch-guard."

"I mean, was it a chain or a ribbon or a strap?"

"A chain, I think--or perhaps a ribbon--or it might have been a strap."

His lordship flattened his eyelids, but made no further sign, and Mr.
Loram continued:

"Did you or did you not notice what kind of watch-guard Mr. Bellingham
was wearing?"

"I did not. Why should I? It was no business of mine."

"But yet you are sure about the scarab?"

"Yes, quite sure."

"You noticed that, then?"

"No, I didn't. How could I when it wasn't there?"

Mr. Loram paused and looked helplessly at the witness; a suppressed
titter arose from the body of the Court, and a faint voice from the
bench inquired:

"Are you _quite_ incapable of giving a straightforward answer?"

Miss Dobbs' only reply was to burst into tears; whereupon Mr. Loram
abruptly sat down and abandoned his re-examination.

The witness-box vacated by Miss Dobbs was occupied successively by Dr.
Norbury, Mr. Hurst, and the cloak-room attendant, none of whom
contributed any new facts, but merely corroborated the statements made
by Mr. Jellicoe and the housemaid. Then came the labourer who discovered
the bones at Sidcup, and who repeated the evidence that he had given at
the inquest, showing that the remains could not have been lying in the
watercress-bed more than two years. Finally Dr. Summers was called, and,
after he had given a brief description of the bones that he had
examined, was asked by Mr. Loram:

"You have heard the description that Mr. Jellicoe has given of the