REGINALD ANSWELL was not exactly under escort: when the warder took charge of him, and led him to the box, he seemed a free man. But just behind him I saw a familiar figure whose name eluded me until I remembered Sergeant-Major Carstairs, who guards the entrance to H.M.’s lair at Whitehall. On the sergeant-major’s face was the sinister look of a benevolent captor.
Again you could hear the rustle of the wind in trees of scandal; every eye immediately tried to find Mary Hume as well, but she was not in court. Reginald’s long and bony face was a little pale, but very determined. I remember thinking then that he looked a tricky customer, and had better be handled as such—whatever H.M. had in mind. But this may have been due to a surge of dislike caused by the slight (manufactured) wave in his dark-yellow hair, or the cool glaze of self-possession on his features: the latter more than the former. He took the oath in a clear, pleasant voice.
H.M. seemed to draw a deep breath. It was to be wondered, in view of the wiles that lay beneath the surface, whether H.M. would find himself cross-examining his own witness.
“Your name is Reginald Wentworth Answell; you have no residence, but when you’re in London you live at D’Orsay Chambers, Duke Street?”
“Yes.”
“I want you to understand,” said H.M., folding his arms, “that you’re not obliged to answer any question which will incriminate you—about any activities.” He paused. “This question, however, won’t incriminate you. When the police talked to you about your general movements on the evenin’ of January 4, did you tell ‘em the whole truth?”
“The whole truth, no.”
“Are you ready to tell the truth now, under oath?”
“I am,” said Reginald with great apparent sincerity. His eyes flickered; there is no other way to describe it.
“Were you in London early in the evenin’ on January 4th?”
“I was. I drove from Rochester, and arrived at D’Orsay Chambers a few minutes past six o'clock.”
It was possible that H.M. stiffened a little, and an odd air of tensity began to grow again. H.M. tilted his head on one side.
“So-? I understood it was ten minutes past six o'clock. Wasn’t it?”
“I am sorry. It was a little earlier than that. I distinctly remember the clock in the dashboard of my car.”
“Had you intended to see the deceased that night?”
“Yes. Socially.”
“When you got to D’Orsay Chambers, did you see the witness Horace Grabell?”
“I did.”
“Did he tell you about the deceased’s visit to your flat on Friday?”
“He did.”
“Did he tell you the deceased had taken your pistol, and gone away with it?”
“He did.”
“And what did you do then?”
“I could not understand it, but I did not like it. So I thought I had better not see Mr. Hume after all. I went away. I—drove round a bit, and—and before long I left town. I—did not return until later.”
H.M. sat down rather quickly. There had been a curious intonation in that “before long”; H.M. had seemed to catch it, for we all did. And Sir Walter Storm was very quick to rise.
“You tell us, Captain Answell,” began the Attorney-General, “that you ‘drove round a bit,’ and ‘before long’ you left town. How long?”
“Half an hour or a little more, perhaps.”
“Half an hour? As long as that?”
“Yes. I wanted to think.”
“Where did you drive?”
Silence.
“Where did you drive, Captain Answell? I must repeat my question.”
“I drove to Mr. Hume’s house in Grosvenor Street,” answered the witness.
For a second the implications of this did not penetrate into our minds. Even the Attorney-General, whatever his thoughts might have been, hesitated before he went on. The witness’s air of pale candor was that of the “engaging” Reginald Answell I had seen yesterday.
“You drove to Mr. Hume’s house, you say?”
“Yes. I hoped you would not ask that.” He looked briefly towards the prisoner, who was staring at him. “I told them I could do him no good. I understood I was not to be called as a witness.”
“You understand that it is your business to tell the truth? Very well. Why did you go to Mr. Hume’s house?”
“I don’t know, exactly. I thought it was a queer show, a very queer show. I did not intend to go in; I only intended to cruise past, wondering what was—was up.”
“At what time did you arrive at the house?” demanded the Attorney-General. Even Sir Walter Storm could not keep his voice quite level, in wondering himself what was up.
“At ten minutes past six.”
The judge looked up quickly. “One moment, Sir Walter.” He turned his little eyes on the witness. “If you arrived there at ten minutes past six, that must have been at the same time as the prisoner?”
“Yes, my lord. As a matter of fact, I saw him go in.”
There are, I suppose, no degrees of a man’s being motionless. Yet I had never seen H.M. convey such a mere impression of absolute stillness as he did then. He was sitting with a pencil in his hand, enormous under his black gown; and he did not even seem to breathe. In the dock, James Answell’s chair suddenly scraped. The prisoner made a curious, wild gesture, like a boy beginning to put up his hand in a classroom, and then he checked himself.
“What did you do then?” asked the Attorney-General.
“I did not know what to do. I wondered what was happening, and why Jim was there. He had not spoken about coming here when I saw him last at Frawnend. I wondered if it concerned me, as having been a suitor of Miss Hume’s. For what I did,” said the witness, drawing himself up, “I do not apologize. Any human being would have done the same. I knew that there was an open passage leading down between Mr. Hume’s house and the house next door—”
Sir Walter Storm (be it recorded) seemed forced to clear his throat. He was not now like a man either cross-examining or examining, but one trying to get at the truth.
“Had you ever been to the house before, Captain Answell?”
“Yes, several times, although I had never met Mr. Hume. I had been there with Miss Hume. Mr. Hume did not approve of our acquaintanceship.”
“Go on, please.”
“I—I—”
“You hear what counsel tells you,” said the judge, looking at him steadily.
“Continue your story.”
“I had heard a great deal of Mr. Hume’s ‘study’ from Miss Hume. I knew that if he entertained Jim anywhere, it would be there. I walked down the passage beside the house—with no motive in mind, I swear, except to get near them. Some way down the passage, on the right-hand side, I found a short flight of steps leading up to a glass-paneled door with a lace curtain over it. The door looks into the little passage outside Mr. Hume’s study. As I looked through the curtain, I saw the butler—who was taking Jim there—knock on the study door.”
The change in the air was as though a draft had begun to blow and scatter papers on counsel’s table.
“What did you do then?”
“I—waited.”
“Waited?”
“Outside the door. I did not know quite what to do.”
“How long did you wait?”
“From about ten or twelve minutes past six, until a little later than half-past six, when they broke in.”
“And you,” demanded Sir Walter, pointing, “you, like others, have made no mention of this to anyone until this moment?”
“No. Do you think I wanted them to hang my cousin?”
“That is not a proper reply,” snapped the judge.
“I beg your Lordship’s pardon. I—put it that I was afraid of the interpretation which would be placed on it.”
Sir Walter lowered his head a moment. “What did you see while you were outside the glass-paneled door?”
“I saw Dyer come out about fifteen minutes past six. I saw Miss Jordan come down about half-past six, and knock at the door. I saw Dyer return then, and heard her call out to Dyer that they were fighting. And the rest of—”
“One moment. Between six-fifteen, when Dyer left the study, and six-thirty, when Miss Jordan came downstairs, did you see anyone approach the study door?”
“I did not.”
“You had a good view of it?”
“Yes, the little passage has no light; but there was a light in the main hall.”
“From where you were standing outside that door—hand the witness up a plan—could you see the windows of the room?”
“Yes. They were immediately to my left, as you can see.”
“Did anyone approach those windows at any time?”
“No.”
“Could anyone have approached those windows without your knowledge?”
“No. I am sorry. I suppose I incur penalties for not telling this—”
I make a pause here, for there was a similar kind of blankness in the room. We have heard much of last-minute witnesses for the defense. This one, though called for the defense, was a last-minute witness for the prosecution who put the rope firmly round the prisoner’s neck. James Answell’s face was a color it had not been at any time during the trial; and he was staring at his cousin in a vague and puzzled way.
But there was another kind of pause or change as well—that is, if it did not exist only in my own prejudiced mind. Up to this time, sallow-faced and stiff-lipped Reginald had seemed (in a quiet way) inspired. He compelled belief. He brought to this case what it had heretofore lacked: an eyewitness to support circumstantial evidence. It may have been a certain turn in his last sentence, “I suppose I shall incur penalties for not telling this—” which gave a slightly different glimpse. It did not last long. But it was as though a cog had failed to mesh, or a shutter had been drawn aside, or the same glutinous quality of hypocrisy had appeared in his speech which had appeared once before. The man was lying: I felt convinced of that. More, you could see he had gone into the box with the deliberate intention of lying in just that way. He had made an obvious attempt to draw Sir Walter Storm’s attack—
But surely H.M. knew that? H.M. must have been prepared for it? At the moment H.M. was sitting in the same quiet way, his fists at his temples. And the point was its effect not on H.M., but on the jury.
“I have no more questions,” said Sir Walter Storm. He seemed puzzled. H.M. roused himself to a reexamination which was really a cross-examination of his own witness. And when H.M. did get up, he used words that are not common at the Old Bailey, and have not been since the days of Sergeant Arabin. But there was not only violence in it; there was a sort of towering satisfaction which made him seem about a foot taller.
“I’ll give you just two seconds,” said H.M., “to admit that you had an attack of delirium tremens, and that everything you said in that examination was a lie.”
“You will retract that, Sir Henry,” said the judge. “You are entitled to question the witness on any matters that have risen out of Sir Walter’s cross-examination; but you will express yourself in a proper manner.”
“If yrludship pleases,” said H.M. “It’ll be understood why I’m takin’ this line when I do question....Captain Answell, do you want to retract any statement you’ve made?”
“No. Why should I?”
“All right,” said H.M. with massive unconcern. “You saw all this through the glass panel of the door, did you?”
“Yes.”
“Was the door open?”
“No. I didn’t go inside.”
“I see. Aside from the night of January 4, when was the last time you visited that house?”
“Nearly a year ago, it may have been.”
“Uh-huh. I thought so. But didn’t you hear Dyer testify yesterday that the door with the glass panel the old door, had been removed six months ago; and they substituted an ordinary solid wooden door? If you got any doubts on the matter, look up the official surveyor’s report—it’s one of the exhibits here—and see what he has to say about it. What do you have to say about it?”
The witness’s voice seemed to come out of a gulf. “The—the door may have been open—”
“That’s all,” said H.M. curtly. “At the conclusion of our evidence, my lord, I’m goin’ to suggest that something’ is done about this.”
To say that the blow was a staggerer would be to put the matter mildly. A witness had come out of the void to testify to James Answell’s certain guilt; and, just eight seconds later, he was caught in flat perjury. But that was not the most important point. It was as though a chemical change had affected the sympathies of the jury. For the first time I saw some of them honestly looking at the prisoner, and that is the beginning of all sympathy. The word “frame-up” was in the air as palpably as though it had been spoken. If H.M. had expected Reginald to play a trick like that, it could have been no more effective. And the sympathy was mounting.
If H.M. had expected...?
“Call your next witness, Sir Henry,” said the judge mildly.
“My lord—if the Attorney-General’s got no objection—I’d like to ask for one of the Crown’s witnesses to be recalled. It’s merely for the purpose of identifyin’ some articles I’d like to put in evidence; and it could be done best by a member of the household whose knowledge of the articles has been established.”
“I have no objection, my lord,” said Sir Walter Storm, who was surreptitiously mopping his forehead with a handkerchief.
“Very well. Is the witness in court?”
“Yes, my lord. I’d like to have Herbert William Dyer recalled.”
We had not time to reflect over each new twist of this infernal business when Dyer entered the box. But the prisoner was sitting up, and his eyes were shining. The grave Dyer, as neat as yesterday if in slightly less somber clothes, bent his grizzled forehead attentively. By this time Lollypop was busy arranging near the table a series of exhibits mysteriously swathed in brown paper. H.M.’s first move was to display a brown tweed suit with plus-fours—a golf suit. Evelyn and I looked at each other.
“Ever see this suit before?” questioned H.M. “Hand it up to him.”
“Yes, sir,” said Dyer, after a pause. “It is a golf suit belonging to Dr. Spencer Hume.”
“Dr. Hume not bein’ within call, I presume you can identify it? So. Is that the suit you were lookin’ for on the night of the murder?”
“It is.”
“Now just feel in the right-hand coat pocket. What do you find there?”
“An inkpad and two rubber stamps,” said Dyer, producing them.
“Is that the inkpad you were lookin’ for on the night of the murder?”
“It is.”
“Good. We got some other stuff here,” continued H.M. offhandedly; “laundry, and a pair of Turkish slippers, and the like; but that’d be out of your province. We can get it properly identified by Miss Jordan. But tell me if you can identify this?”
This time there was produced a large oblong suitcase of black leather, having initials stamped in gold on the flap beside the handle.
“Yes, sir,” replied Dyer, stepping back a little. “It is undoubtedly Dr. Hume’s. I believe it is the one Miss Jordan packed for Dr. Hume on the night of the—circumstance. Both Miss Jordan and I forgot all about it; or at least—she having been very ill afterwards; and, when she asked me what had happened to it, I could not remember. I have not seen it since.”
“Yes. But here’s just one more thing that you’re the one to identify. Look at this cut-glass decanter, stopper and all. You’ll see it’s full of whisky except for about two drinks poured out. Ever see it before?”
For a moment I thought H.M. had got hold of one of the prosecution’s own exhibits. The decanter he produced was indistinguishable from the one the Crown had put in evidence. Evidently Dyer thought so too.
“It looks—” said the witness. “It looks like the decanter which Mr. Hume kept on the sideboard in the study. Like—that other—”
“It does. It was meant to. Between those two, could you swear which was which?”
“I’m afraid not, sir.”
“Take one in each hand. Can you swear that my decanter, in your right hand, is not the real one you bought from Hartley of Regent Street; and that the first exhibit, in your left hand, ain’t a copy in inferior glass?”
“I do not know, sir.”
“No more questions.”
Three witnesses then passed in rapid succession, being not more than five minutes in the box among all of them. Mr. Reardon Hartley, of the firm of Hartley and Son, Regent Street, testified that what H.M. called “my” decanter was the original one supplied by him to Mr. Hume; the prosecution’s exhibit was a copy which Avory Hume had bought on Friday afternoon, January 3. Mr. Dennis Moreton, analytical chemist, testified to having examined the whisky in “my” decanter, and to having discovered in it one hundred and twenty grains of brudine, a derivative of scopolamine. Dr. Ashton Parker, Professor of Applied Criminology at the University of Manchester gave the real evidence of the three.
“I examined the crossbow there, which I was told belonged to Avory Hume. In the groove down the center of the crossbow, evidently used for the reception of a missile—here,” said Dr. Parker, indicating, “the microscope showed flakes of what I believed to be dry paint. I judged that these flakes had been rubbed off due to the sudden friction when some wooden missile was fired from the bow. Under analysis, the paint was ascertained to be a substance known as ‘X-varnish,’ used exclusively by Messrs. Hardigan, who sold to the deceased the arrow in question. I present an affidavit to that effect.
“The arrow here was—ah—kindly lent to me by Detective-Inspector Mottram. Here the microscope showed along the shaft of the arrow signs that flakes of paint had been chipped in an irregular line from it.
“In the teeth of the windlass on the crossbow I found the piece of blue feather which you see there now. This I compared to the broken feather on the end of the arrow. The two pieces made up a complete feather, except for an irregular bit which was missing. I have here photomicrographs of the two pieces, enlarged ten times. The joinings in the fiber of the feather can be seen clearly, and leave no doubt in my own mind that they came from the same feather.”
“In your opinion, had the arrow been tired from this crossbow?”
“In my opinion, it unquestionably had.”
This was hard hitting. Under cross-examination, Dr. Parker acknowledged the scientific possibility of an error; it was as far as he would go.
“And I acknowledge, my lord,” said H.M. in reply to a question from the bench, “that so far we’ve not shown where this crossbow or the other articles came from, or what happened to the missin’ piece of feather. We’ll remedy that now. Call William Cochrane.”
(“Who on earth is that?” whispered Evelyn. H.M. had said once before that you would no more cause a commotion in Balmy Bodkin’s court than you would cause one on a chessboard; but the curiosity of the court had now reached as flaming a pitch as it could go. It was stimulated still more by the quietly dressed elderly man who took the oath.)
“Your full name?”
“William Rath Cochrane.”
“What’s your profession, Mr. Cochrane?”
“I am the manager of the Left-Luggage Department at Paddington Station—the Paddington terminus of the Great Westcoast Railway.”
“I think we all know the process,” rumbled H.M., “but I’ll just go over it here. If you want to leave a bag or a parcel or the like for a few hours, you hand it across a counter, and you get back a written slip that allows you to claim the parcel again?”
“That is right.”
“Can you tell the date and the time of day when the parcel was handed in?”
“Oh, yes. It is on the ticket.”
“Now, suppose,” said H.M. argumentatively, “a parcel is handed in, and nobody comes to claim it. What happens to the parcel?”
“It depends on how long it has been left there. If it seems to have been left there indefinitely, it is transferred to a storage room reserved for that purpose. If it is not claimed at the end of two months, it may be sold and the proceeds devoted to railway charities; but we make every effort to find the proper owner.”
“Who is in charge of this department?”
“I am. That is to say, it is under my discretion.”
“On February 3, last, did anybody come to your office and inquire about a suitcase which had been left there at a certain definite time on a certain definite date?”
“Yes. You did,” replied the witness with a shadow of a smile.
“Was there anyone else present?”
“Yes, two others whom I now know to be Dr. Parker and Mr. Shanks.”
“A week after we had been there, did another person—another person in this case—also call and inquire about it?”
“Yes; a man who gave the name of—”
“Never mind the name,” said H.M. hastily. “That’s not our business. But about the first people who asked for it. Did you open the suitcase in their presence?”
“Yes, and I was convinced that the suitcase belonged to one of them,” said Cochrane, looking hard at H.M. “The contents of the suitcase, not usual contents, were described before the suitcase was opened.”
H.M. indicated the big black leather suitcase inscribed with Spencer Hume’s initials. “Will you look at that and tell us whether it’s the suitcase?”
“It is.”
“I’d also like you to identify some other articles that were in the suitcase at the time. Hand them up as I indicate. That?” It was the golf suit. “Yes. These?” An assortment of wearing-apparel, including a pair of gaudy red leather slippers. “This?” Up went the decanter H.M. had put in evidence, the decanter containing drugged whisky from which two drinks were gone. “This?”
“This” was a siphon of soda-water with its contents depleted perhaps two inches. Next came a pair of thin gloves in whose lining the name Avory Hume had been written in in indelible ink. Next came a small screwdriver. Next in order, two drinking glasses and a small bottle of mint extract.
“Finally, was this crossbow in the suitcase?” demanded H.M.
“It was. It just fitted in comfortably.”
“Was this piece of feather caught in the teeth of the windlass?”
“Yes, my attention was called to it. It is the same one.”
“Uh-huh. At a certain time of night on Saturday, January 4, then, a certain person came there and left that suitcase?”
“Yes.”
“Could that person be identified, if necessary?”
“Yes, one of my attendants thinks he remembers, because—”
“Thank you; that’s all.”
For a brief space of time Sir Walter Storm hesitated, risen just halfway to his feet.
“No question,” said the Attorney-General.
The whispering of released breath was audible. Mr. Justice Bodkin, whose wrist seemed tireless, continued steadily to write. Then he made a careful full stop, and looked up. H.M. was glaring round the courtroom.
“My lord, I’ve got one last witness. That’s for the purpose of demonstratin’ an alternative theory as to how a murderer got in and out of a locked room.”
(“Oh, Lord, here we go!” whispered Evelyn.)
“This witness,” continued H.M., rubbing his forehead reflectively, “has been right here in court since the beginnin’ of the trial. The only trouble is, it can’t talk. Therefore I’m bound to do a bit of explaining. If there’s any objection to this, I can always do it in my closin’ speech. But since a couple o' words of explanation will tend to produce another actual bit of evidence—another exhibit for the defense—I’d like the court’s indulgence if I say that our evidence can’t be completed without it.”
“We have no objection to my learned friend’s proposal, my lord.”
The judge nodded. H.M. remained silent for what seemed a very long time.
“I see Inspector Mottram is at the solicitors’ table,” said H.M., while Mottram’s heavy face turned round abruptly. “I’ll just ask him to oblige me by pullin’ out one of the Crown’s own pieces of evidence. We’ve had shown here the steel shutters on the windows of the study, and the big oak door as well. Let’s have the door out again....
“The inspector—and all policemen here too—will have heard of a little dingus called the Judas window. It’s supposed to be confined exclusively to gaols. The ‘Judas window’ is in the doors of cells. It’s the little square opening, with a cover over it, through which coppers in general can look in and inspect the prisoner without being seen themselves. And it has a good deal of application to the case.”
“I do not understand you, Sir Henry,” said the judge sharply. “There is no ‘Judas window,’ as you call it, in the door there before us.”
“Oh, yes there is,” said H.M....
“Me lord,” he went on, “there’s a Judas window in nearly every door, if you just come to think of it. I mean that every door has got a knob. This door has. And, as I’ve pointed out to several people, what a whackin’ big knob it is!
“Suppose you took the knob off that door; what’d you find? You’d find a steel spindle, square in shape, runnin’ through a square hole—like a Judas window. At each end of this, a knob is attached by means of a little screw through a hole in each end of the spindle. If you took everything out, you’d find in the door an opening—in this case, as we’ll see, an opening that must be nearly half an inch square. If you don’t realize just how big a space half an inch can be, or how much you can see when you look through it, we’ll try to indicate it in just a minute. That’s why I objected to the word ‘sealed.’
“Now, suppose you’re goin’ to prepare this simple little mechanism in advance. From the outside of the door, you unscrew the knob from the spindle. You notice that there’s a very small screwdriver contained in the suitcase that was left at Paddington Station; so I’ll just ask the inspector to do it for us now. Ah! That gives you, in the end of the spindle, a little hole where the screw has been. Through this hole you tie tightly a very heavy length of black thread, with a good length of slack. Then you take your finger and push the spindle through its hole to the other side of the door, the inner side of the door. There’s now only one knob—the one inside the door—fastened to the spindle; on the other end is attached your length of thread, and you’re playing out the slack. Whenever you want the spindle and knob back up again, you simply pull the thread and up it comes. The weight of the knob inside the door is sufficient to make it hang down dead straight, so you’ve got no difficulty in gettin’ the square spindle back in the square hole; it comes up in a straight line and slides in as soon as the edge of the spindle crosses the edge of the Judas window. As soon as it’s back in again, you jerk off your thread; you put the outside knob of the door back on the spindle again; you screw it up again...It’s heartbreakin’ly simple, but the door is now apparently sealed.
“Again suppose you’d prepared the mechanism in advance, with the thread already twined. Somebody is in that room with the door bolted. You start to work your mechanism. The feller inside don’t notice anything until he suddenly sees the knob and spindle beginnin’ to be lowered a little way into the room. You want him to see it. In fact, you begin to talk to him then through the door. He wonders what the—he wonders what is goin’ on. He walks towards the door. He bends down, as anyone will when wantin’ to look close at a knob. As he bends forward—a target only three feet away from your eye, where you can’t miss—”
“My lord,” cried Sir Walter Storm, “we are willing to grant all liberties, but we must protest against this argument in—”
“—with your arrow balanced in the opening,” said H.M., “you fire through the Judas window.”
There was a sort of thunderous pause, while Inspector Mottram stood with the screwdriver in his hand.
“My lord, I’ve had to say it,” said H.M. apologetically, “in order to make clear what I’m goin’ to show you. Now, that door has been in the possession of the police ever since the night of the murder. Nobody could ‘a’ tampered with it; it’s just as it was...Inspector, have you unscrewed one knob from that spindle? So. Will you sort of tell my lord and the jury what there seems to be—tied to the hole in the spindle?”
“Please speak up,” said Mr. Justice Bodkin. “I cannot see from here.”
Inspector Mottram’s voice rose, a ghostly kind of effect, in the silence. I am not likely to forget him standing there under the glow of the yellow lights, with the oak paneling, and the yellow furniture, and the tiers of people who were now frankly standing up. Even the white wigs and black gowns of counsel had reared up furtively to obscure our view. At the core of all this, as though in a spotlight under the white dome of the Old Bailey, Inspector Mottram stood looking from the screwdriver to the spindle.
“My lord,” he said, “there appears to be a piece of black thread tied to the hole in the spindle, and then wound a few lengths round—”
The judge made a note in his careful handwriting.
“I see. Proceed, Sir Henry.”
“And next, Inspector,” pursued H.M., “just push the spindle through with your finger—use the point of the screwdriver if it’s more convenient—and take the whole thing out. Ah, that’s got it! We want to see the Judas window, and...ah, you’ve found somethin’, haven’t you? There’s somethin’ lodged in the opening between the spindle and the Judas window, stuck there? Quick, what is it?”
Inspector Mottram straightened up from inspecting something in the palm of his hand.
“It would appear,” he said carefully, “to be a small piece of blue-colored feather, about a quarter of an inch, triangular in shape, evidently torn off something—”
Every board in the hardwood floor, every bench, every chair seemed to have its own separate creaking. At my side Evelyn suddenly sat down again, expelling her breath.
“And that, my lord,” said H.M. quite mildly, “together with the identification of the last piece of feather, will conclude the evidence for the defense. Bah!”