ere--'

"'Is it the fact?'

"'Yes. Brighton, yes. But, look here--flight! flight! Holiday, I tell
you. Holiday.'

"'Holiday!' cries Humpo. 'Do you tell me holiday, sir? Holiday! I thank
you for that word. We will examine it in a moment. This was at Brighton,
then. The business of the witness whom we have recently seen in the box
was to serve the papers on you and on the deceased. Now come back a
little. Let me ask you to carry back your mind to the summer of 1915--,
and with his wagging forefinger, and his sloshing tongue, and his
mopping at his face, and his throwing back of his mane as though it were
a cloak from under which he kept rushing in to stab home another knife,
he takes the unhappy man through all the stuff he had got out of old
Bright--Sabre's apparently uncalled-for interest in the girl, first
getting her from her father's house to the neighbourhood of his own,
then under his own roof, and all the rest of the unholy chain of it.
Then he has a chat with Twyning, then mops himself dry, and then hurls
in again.

"'Now, sir, this holiday. This pleasant holiday by the sea! Did you make
any preparations for it, any little purchases?'

"'No. Purchases? No. Look here--'

"'Never mind about "Look here," sir. No purchases? Did you hear the
evidence of the witness--the Alton chemist who declared on oath that you
made a purchase in his shop on the very day before you started, a
purchase you have admitted? Remembering that, do you still say you made
no purchases for your--holiday?'

"'Nothing to do with it. Nothing--'

"'Nothing to do with it? Well, sir, we will accept that for a moment. Do
you often go shopping in Alton?'

"The poor beggar shook his head. No voice in his throat.

"'Do you shop there once in a month, once in six months?'

"Shook again.

"'Are there chemists in the Garden House, in Tidborough, in
Chovensbury?'

"Nods.

"'Are you known in all these places I have mentioned?'

"Nods.

"'Are you known in Alton?'

"Shakes.

"'Are all these places nearer to you than Alton?'

"Nods.

"Humpo's finger shoots out about two yards long; dashes back his mane
with his other hand; rushes in from under it. 'Then, sir, will you tell
the jury why, to make this purchase of oxalic acid on the day before you
leave home, why you go to a place in which you are unknown and to a
place farther away from you than three other centres, one at your very
door?'

"Sabre sees like a hit in the face this n