he attacked the moral character of your father,
was remarkable, coming from him--the friend of the dead man. As the
action of defending counsel it was perfectly legitimate. It gave rise
to some discussion in purely legal circles--whether Holymead did right
or wrong in violating a long friendship in order to get his man off.
The academic point is whether he ought to have violated his personal
feelings for an old friend, or violated his duty to his client by
doing something less than his best for him.

"Apart from the circumstantial and inferential evidence against Holymead,
there is the fact that his wife knows that he committed the crime. Her
acts point to that; her conduct throughout springs from the desire to
shield him. Even the removal of the letters from the secret drawer was
prompted more by the desire to save him than to save herself. Their
discovery would not have been very serious for her, but it would have put
the police on her husband's track. If I remember rightly, she asked you
to keep her in touch with all the developments of the investigations of
the police and myself. You told me that she was greatly interested in the
fact that I did not believe Birchill was guilty, and particularly anxious
to know if I suspected anyone. At Birchill's trial she did me the honour
of watching me very closely. I was watching both her and her husband.
When she discovered through her womanly intuition that I suspected her
husband; that I was accumulating evidence against him; she sent round her
friend, Mademoiselle Chiron, with some interesting information for me. An
extremely clever young woman that--like all her countrywomen she is
wonderfully sharp and quick, with a natural aptitude for intrigue. Of
course, the information she gave me was intended to mislead me--intended
to show me that Mr. Holymead had nothing to do with the crime. But some
of it was extremely interesting when it dealt with actual facts, and some
of the facts were quite new to me. For instance, I had not previously
known that a piece of a lady's handkerchief was found clenched in your
father's right hand after he was dead. The police very kindly kept that
information from me. Had they told me about it I might have been inclined
to suspect Mrs. Holymead and to believe that her husband was trying to
shield her. His conduct would bear that interpretation if she had
happened to be guilty. The police unconsciously saved me from taking up
that false scent.

"