Page:Henry Northcote (IA henrynorthcote00snairich).pdf/74

 manifest impatience than any he had yet shown, "you can hardly have read your brief. There is nothing to extenuate the crime; and the evidence of it is overwhelming."

"Circumstantial, apparently."

"You must know that in a capital charge the prosecution relies almost invariably upon circumstantial evidence."

"So much the worse for it in this particular instance."

"I am at a loss to understand." The solicitor spoke in accents of alarm. "There is not a man living who could overthrow the present evidence."

The young man smiled darkly. The symptoms of his inebriation had yielded to the clarifying influence of a liqueur and two cups of strong black coffee. His calmness was now forming a memorable contrast to the marked excitement of the older man.

"My dear Mr. Whitcomb," he said, "I suggest, as you wish to get to Norbiton, that we adjourn this discussion until Friday evening, by which time Emma Harrison, alias Cox, alias Marshall, will be restored to society."

"Such an undertaking is entirely reckless," said the solicitor bluntly. "Quite the last thing that Tobin himself would attempt would be to upset the theory of the prosecution. The chain of evidence could not be more complete. Even he, in the opinion of many the most brilliant common law man we have at the present moment at the bar, would be content to urge extenuating circumstances, and call witnesses in their support."

"Since you have seen fit to entrust the conduct