himself from one of the court inkstands
whenever it ran dry. In appearance he was a florid and pleasant looking
man, and his hobby off the bench was farming his own land and breeding
prize cattle.

There were the usual preliminaries, equivalent to the clearing of the
course or the placing of the pieces, which bored the regular habitues of
the court but whetted the appetites of the more unsophisticated
spectators. First there was the lengthy process of empanelling a jury,
with the inevitable accompaniment of challenges and objections, until
the most unintelligent looking dozen of the panel finally found
themselves in the jury box. Then the Clerk of Arraigns gabbled over the
charges: wilful murder of Roger Glenthorpe on 26th October, 1916, and
feloniously stealing from the said Roger Glenthorpe the sum of L300 on
the same date. To these charges the accused man pleaded "Not guilty" in
a low voice. The jury were directed on the first indictment only, and
Sir Herbert Templewood got up to address the jury.

Sir Herbert knew very little about the case, but his junior was well
informed; and what Mr. Braecroft didn't know he got from the Crown
Solicitor, who sat behind the barristers' table, ready to lean forward
at the slightest indication and supply any points which were required.
Under this system of spoon-feeding Sir Herbert ambled comfortably along,
reserving his showy paces for the cross-examination of witnesses for the
defence.

Sir Herbert commenced by describing the case as a straightforward one
which would offer no difficulty to an intelligent jury. It was true that
it rested on circumstantial evidence, but that evidence was of the
strongest nature, and pointed so clearly in the one direction, that the
jury could come to no other conclusion than that the prisoner at the bar
had committed the murder with which he stood charged.

With this preamble, the Crown Prosecutor proceeded to put together the
chain of circumstantial evidence against the accused with the deliberate
logic of the legal brain, piecing together incidents, interpreting
clues, probing motives, and fashioning together the whole tremendous
apparatus of circumstantial evidence with the intent air of a man
building an unbreakable cage for a wild beast. As Colwyn had
anticipated, the incident at the Durrington hotel had been dropped from
the Crown case. That part of the presentment was confined to the
statement that Penreath had registered at the hotel un