unfortunate for him. It had
dragged his past into the light of day, and he stood before them a ruined
man. He had tried to live down the past, and but for Birchill he would
have succeeded in doing so. But now no one would employ him as a house
servant after the revelations that had been made in this court. They had
seen Hill in the witness-box, and he would ask the jury whether he looked
like the masterful cunning scoundrel which the defence had described, or
a weak creature who would be easily led by a man of strong will, such as
the prisoner was.

As to what took place at the flat, they had a choice between the
evidence of Hill and the evidence of the girl Fanning. Hill had told
them that he had tried to dissuade the prisoner from going to
Riversbrook to burgle the premises, because his master had returned
unexpectedly; Fanning had told them that the prisoner was in favour of
postponing the crime, but that Hill had urged him to carry it out. Which
story was the more probable? What reliance could they place on the
evidence of Fanning? He did not wish to say that the witness was utterly
vicious and incapable of telling the truth--a description that the
defence had applied to Hill--but they must take into consideration the
fact that Fanning was the prisoner's mistress. Was it likely that a
woman, knowing her lover's life was at stake, would come here and speak
the truth, if she knew the truth would hang him? He was sure that the
jury, as men who knew the world thoroughly, would not hesitate between
the evidence of Hill and that of Fanning.

The case for the defence depended to a great extent on the plan of
Riversbrook which Hill candidly admitted he had drawn. His learned
friend had called evidence to show that the paper on which the plan was
drawn was of a quality which was not procurable by the general public.
That might be so, but what his learned friend had not succeeded in
doing, and could not possibly have hoped to succeed in doing, was to
show that Birchill could not have obtained possession in any other way
of paper of that kind. Yet it was necessary for the defence to prove
that, in order to prove that the plan was not drawn at Fanning's flat by
Hill under threats from Birchill, but that Hill had drawn it at
Riversbrook, and that he gave it to Birchill in order to induce him to
consent to the proposal to break into the house. There were dozens of
ways in which paper of this particular quality might have got to