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Title: The Dear Old Gentleman

Date of first publication: 1936

Author: George Goodchild (1888-1969)

Author: Bechhofer Roberts (1894-1949)

Date first posted: August 22, 2025

Date last updated: October 15, 2025

Faded Page eBook #20250831

This eBook was produced by: Al Haines, Cindy Beyer & the online Distributed Proofreaders Canada team at https://www.pgdpcanada.net

THE DEAR

OLD GENTLEMAN

GEORGE GOODCHILD

and

BECHHOFER ROBERTS

(“EPHESIAN”)

__________________________

HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS

NEW YORK and LONDON

1936

My son was delighted when I was summoned to sit on the jury to try Margaret Sampson for the murder of Bessie McIntosh.

“Some people have all the luck,” he said. “I wish they’d put me on the jury. Why, half the city will be trying to get into the court, if only to hear the old gentleman give evidence.”

I understood his attitude, without sharing it; for I am past the age at which I want to assume new responsibilities, especially those of a juror in a sensational murder trial. I admit that, like everybody else in town, I had followed with interest the episodes which led to the trial: the discovery of the poor woman’s corpse in a basement at Southridge Terrace, the search for the criminal, the sensational arrests of first one person and then another, and all the other details, exciting or gruesome, which certain newspapers had managed to print. It was quite another matter to be called on to decide the prisoner’s guilt or innocence. I had rather that anybody but I were given that responsibility. Suppose I made a mistake; suppose I were to misunderstand some item of the evidence and twist it unconsciously against the prisoner? Suppose, on the other hand, I attached too much importance to something urged on her behalf and, as a result, saved a guilty murderess from due punishment? It seemed a heavy burden to place on any man’s back, especially a man who, like myself, had reached an age at which he could hope to sit back and watch other people shoulder the more onerous burdens of citizenship.

“Nonsense!” replied my son, when I told him my misgivings. “You’ll have all the evidence before you, including the old gentleman’s; you’ll be guided by counsels’ speeches and, more than that, you’ll hear the judge’s summing-up before you have to return a verdict. Anyhow, if you’re determined to back out, I’m sure there are thousands who’d be only too glad to take your place.”

But he knew, as well as I, that there was no escape for me. Once summoned, I was bound to obey, and I could see no hope that either the prosecution or the defence would object to my sitting on the jury. Nor indeed did I wish to evade my task; we Scots take our civic duties seriously.

What did I know about the case when I went to the court-house? Not very much, though perhaps more than most people. They knew only what had appeared in the newspapers, but I was in the position of knowing also what the newspapers had not printed. For I was so to speak, a newspaper-man myself. I qualify that term because my association with the Press was the result of chance and not choice. I had inherited the Standard, our leading local daily, under my brother’s will four years before, and while I was content to leave its affairs in the editor’s experienced hands, I allowed myself the daily privilege—now that I had retired from active business life—of spending an hour or so with him and discussing, even deciding, matters of policy. This was the only pleasure, if I may call it so, which the Standard afforded me; I was proud, however, to carry it on in the spirit in which my brother had founded it, and, for his memory’s sake, to meet the small financial loss which annually occurred.

I knew that Bessie McIntosh had been found in the basement of a house in Southridge Terrace with her head battered in; that an eccentric old gentleman (the one to whom my son had referred) named Mr. Angus Aitken, the father of her employer—did I mention that she was a maidservant?—had spent the week-end in the house without, he insisted, becoming aware of the tragedy downstairs; that the police had first taken him into custody and then released him when they arrested Margaret Sampson; that this same Margaret Sampson had formerly been a maid in the same house and had remained on friendly terms with the dead woman; that she denied the crime and sought to impute it to old Mr. Aitken . . . yes, and a good deal more which turned out eventually, as the trial progressed, to be more inaccurate than accurate. I think it will be better if I pass over these days before the trial, when I had merely a casual interest in the case, and if I come at once to the opening of the trial, every moment of which is indelibly printed in my memory.

You must picture me sitting with my fourteen fellows in the jury-box—we Scots, you know, prefer fifteen jurymen to twelve—waiting for the proceedings to begin. I had already made some of my colleagues’ acquaintance in the jury-room before we filed into court. They were a decent lot of men, a representative body of citizens. I don’t know that I should altogether have wished to have them sit in judgment on any cause in which I was a principal: some of them, it seemed to me, small shopkeepers and such, did not have the requisite training for understanding the intricacies of wider spheres of life, or, perhaps, the motives which might lead a man or woman of assured position to stoop to certain crimes. On the other hand, they appeared reasonably competent to judge such a case as we were now called on to try.

They were, most of them, men who in their daily occupations might well come into contact with people like the unhappy Bessie McIntosh or her suspected murderess, or even with old Angus Aitken himself. If there must be a jury to try such cases, ours was a good enough specimen. Let it go at that. You will see that some of us showed ourselves more foolish than we ought to have been, and others maybe more shrewd than I would have thought.

I need not describe the court-room to you. They are all much the same, I believe. A raised desk for the Judge, and a space for the clerk, the shorthand-writer and other officials below him—all of them well able to see and take down the proceedings. We jurymen sat on one side of this space, with the witness-box beside us. Opposite us was the dock, railed in and sufficiently far from the body of the hall to prevent the prisoner’s coming into direct contact with unauthorized persons. Her counsel and his assistants sat not far from her, so that they could communicate with her when necessary. At the other end of the same long desks sat the counsel for the prosecution. Thus we jurymen could see three solid rows of lawyers, though even when we came in and they were only whispering together, we could see where the one set (the prosecution) ended and where the other (the defence) began. I knew some of them by sight, but none intimately. I realized at that moment what a blessing it was that my club, though containing a large proportion of the more distinguished men of the city, had always set its face against admitting lawyers. I should not have liked the impersonal dignity of the law to become confounded in my mind with the persons of card-room acquaintances or luncheon neighbours.

Close to the dock was the Press table, with half a dozen reporters sharpening their pencils.

One of these I knew well—Donald Kirkwall, the representative of my own paper, the Standard. He was a mop-headed youth with a freckled, smiling face and an engaging manner. My brother, in his lifetime, had made a favourite of young Donald and had specially commended the boy to me at the time of his last illness.

“Donald’s a good boy,” he said, “but he needs guarding against himself. He’s impulsive and he’s weak about the drink; apart from this, he’s the most promising member of my staff. I’ve tried to train him in every department of the paper, so that he can take charge some day; but he doesn’t know that. Keep an eye on him, won’t you? Under proper discipline and guidance there’s no telling where Donald Kirkwall won’t rise in his profession.”

I was glad to see this morning that the youth seemed sober and restrained, as befitted the solemn nature of his present task.

Two other youths at the table, shifty-faced, fidgeting, smiling, whispering—I guessed that they were the representatives of our competitive newspaper, the Sun, a gutter rag which had lately been roped into a large amalgamation with enormous capital and a complete lack of moral scruples. I shall have more to say of the Sun in relation to this trial and its sequels. The other journalists I took to be representatives of news-agencies, who would distribute reports of the trial to newspapers all over the country, for already the case had attracted national attention.

I secured a seat at the end of the front jury-bench, so that I had the whole court in view from the Judge’s dais to the crowded public benches at the back.

As we sat down, my neighbour, a red-headed carpenter from the docks, leaned towards me and, nodding towards the triple row of bewigged lawyers, whispered maliciously, “Another time yon wiggies would a’ be taking different sides! Yon long man wi’ the whiskers, he’ll be the Advocate Depute leading for the Crown; but I’ve seen him afore now defending a murderer instead of trying to make work for the hangman. And yon other, the purple-faced fellow wi’ his wig over his lug: can you no’ see him wi’ his thin mouth and sharp e’en, picking some puir de’il’s story to bits instead of acting for the defence, like to-day?”

Then I hushed him, for the door behind the dais had opened, and everybody in court was standing up for the Judge’s entrance.

His Lordship’s face was familiar to me. I had seen him more than once at civic banquets at which he was an honoured guest. With a few changes in detail, it could have served as a copy of the Sphinx’s head in Egypt. Cold, harsh, impassive, with big pouches under his eyes showing how he had grown old in the unhealthy atmosphere of the courts—yes, it was a face that reflected the impersonal nature of his office. If my own task as juryman was an onerous one, what of his?

He had to listen, day in and day out, to endless speeches, endless advocacy, endless arrays of witnesses, some truthful, others less truthful; he had to close his ears and eyes to sentimental appeals, and to everything but what helped to establish the merits of the case he was trying; he had to heed the evidence, note much of it down on the big pads of paper before him, mark the counsels’ arguments, weigh all this in his own mind and restate it, detail by detail, to the jury before they were sent out to consider their verdict. He dared not betray his sentiments; he dared not even feel ordinary human relief when he was able to right a wrong or acquit a man or woman unjustly accused; he dared not depart an inch from the strict path of impartial justice when he reviewed the evidence presented against a prisoner of whose villainy he himself had no doubts.

Day after day he had to sit there, or in some other court, balancing his fellows’ happiness and even their lives in the scales of the law. I pitied him from the bottom of my heart, though I knew, from my first look at him, that he no longer felt the qualms which oppressed me; he was stone all through.

He sat down and looked us over with that grey eye of his. I shivered when it fell on me, and even my talkative neighbour with the red hair sat up stiffly and drew in his breath. Then the Judge’s glance ran slowly over the rest of the court: the legal gentry, who had ceased to whisper among themselves, the officials and ushers and policemen and journalists; the crowded benches of curious people at the back, who were now as tense and silent as before they had been full of movement and conversation.

When the Judge had looked us over—and from the granite impassiveness of his face you would have thought that we were stone figures like himself—he dipped his hand into his pouch and jerked up a pinch of snuff on his thumbnail and into his nostrils. It was the first sign of common humanity in him, and we all relaxed at it. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a grin flicker over my neighbour’s lips, but only for a second. For then the Judge nodded, and there was a little scuffle behind the dock. The prisoner was being brought in from the cells.

Margaret Sampson was only a short woman; her face barely showed above the rails of the dock. She was pale, ghastly pale; and she trembled so that her small white hand on the edge of the woodwork danced like a piston in an engine. Three weeks, I knew, she had been waiting in the jail for this ordeal. No wonder there were blue rings around her eyes; no wonder her limbs trembled; no wonder her hair was disordered at the temples and streaked with grey, though she was still in the early thirties.

She must have been a bonny enough woman before all this happened; but hers was the sort of face which is lovely only when it is lit with vivacity and happiness. Tragedy had now made it a mask of ugly misery. Her lips were twisted and open at one side, so that I guessed that she was breathing in little gasps. She shivered as if she had come out of a warm room into a cold passage—with the icy horror of death waiting for her at the end of it. Such, at least, was the fear which I seemed to read in her large brown eyes, which gazed vaguely round at us all, until she saw the Judge. Then her hand stayed still; the slow, tremulous movement of her head stopped; she blinked several times and—it is so trivial to tell, but was so poignant at the time—the tip of her tongue came out and wetted her lips.

The Judge’s gaze met hers for a second, but passed on to the counsels’ benches. But she stayed there, gazing fixedly at him, with the pink tip of her tongue still protruding. Even my neighbour thrilled with a realization of her agony. I would have given a hundred pounds then to be away out of the court and back in my own home.

The clerk of the court gestured to the wardress, a severe, elderly woman, who laid her hand, quite gently, on the prisoner’s shoulder and inclined her towards a chair in the dock. As I could still see her face when she sat down, the chair must have been a high one and her feet must have lacked even the consolation of resting on the firm floor.

Nor was she left long like that, for a minute later the wardress bade her stand up again. The clerk rose also, coughed, suppressed a hiccup, and read out the indictment, peering at the woman in the dock over his glasses at the end of alternate sentences. Worded in the detailed, painstaking legal jargon which, to a layman, seems so often to defeat its own purpose of clarity, the indictment charged Margaret Sampson with the murder of Bessie McIntosh on the night of Friday, June 4, of the current year—barely five weeks ago.

Donald Kirkwall and the other reporters all turned to stare at the prisoner during the clerk’s reading. I do not know what they expected, but actually she listened to him without any alteration of her previous distress.

What next happened came as a shock to us all, despite our previous knowledge of what was likely to happen, for the clerk turned to us and, reading from another paper, said: “The panel pleads not guilty, and, without prejudice to that plea, specially pleads that the murder alleged in the indictment was committed by Angus Aitken, residing with Robert Aitken, accountant, in or near Southridge Terrace of this city.”

So the defence was not to be merely negative; Margaret Sampson’s lawyers proposed to show that not merely had their client not done the murder, but that the old gentleman was the real culprit. I had not expected anything so drastic as this, despite the various rumours I had heard; nor, I gathered from the whispered remarks round me, had my colleagues.

I pictured the old gentleman to myself as I had so often seen him in the streets of the city, shuffling along like a miser in a child’s picture-book, wrapped—summer and winter alike—in a seedy green overcoat which was buttoned over an even older and more threadbare brown suit. He always wore a battered, old-fashioned hat; boots so patched that many a labourer would have thrown them away, and a fantastically dingy pair of spats. He was tall and thin and rather bent, but his eyes were ever peering from side to side with keen, penetrating glances; and there was always a drop of moisture at the tip of his long, hooked nose. I had no idea how old he was, but he had been a well-known sight in our streets for at least a generation. To accuse him of a brutal murder seemed absurd on the face of it. But I must return to the trial.

Another characteristic of our Scottish procedure is that we do not begin a case, as in England, with speeches by counsel for the Crown and for the defence, who tell the jury the outlines of their respective cases. Instead, we begin with the hearing of all the evidence. The prosecution calls its witnesses, which the other side may cross-examine. Then the defence calls its evidence. Only after all the witnesses have been heard do the lawyers advance their arguments.

It is, no doubt, an improvement in one respect upon the English practice, for the jury are not offered, at the outset, a picture of the crime as it appears to the prosecution—a narrative which may well prejudice them unduly against the prisoner. On the other hand, our procedure must inevitably leave the jurors very much in the dark during most of the progress of the case, for they are not in a position to know which is the really crucial evidence, or why such-and-such a witness is called to testify especially to such-and-such a fact, or why counsel on the other side is so eager to make the witness modify his first statement on such a point. Indeed, I can easily picture a case where the jury would understand nothing of the vital points at issue, or even know which these were, until all the evidence had been heard and the counsel made their speeches.

In such a case, how should we jurymen be able to remember our impression of the vital witness, whether he had given us the impression of dubious memory or even dubious honesty?

Do I make myself clear? I do not deny that our procedure has its advantages, but at the same time I feel that it makes the jury’s task much more difficult. For my part, I did not anticipate in this trial any difficulty in remembering the gist of every principal witness’s evidence, or his or her demeanour under examination, but then I have spent the greater part of my lifetime in a trade which calls for strength of memory and for the logical ordering of facts. I could not expect the same powers from all my colleagues. However, this is beside the point. We were in a Scottish court and must abide by its procedure.

I will at once pay this compliment to the dignified Advocate Depute, who conducted the prosecution. He did his utmost to question his witnesses in such a way as to facilitate our task. I was very soon able to see what the Crown theory of the crime was, and how the various witnesses’ statements fitted into it.

The first witness was a police official, who was handed some documents and formally asked if the prisoner had made the statements contained in them, in his presence, voluntarily, in her sane senses and after the usual warning that they might afterwards be used against her. To all these questions he replied in the affirmative.

When the Advocate Depute sat down, up jumped the sharp-eyed counsel for Mrs. Sampson to cross-examine the witness.

“The husband of the prisoner was apprehended with her, was he not?” he asked the witness.

The witness explained that he had thought, at the early stage of the investigation, that the prisoner’s husband had also been in the city at the time of the crime. (Have I mentioned, by the way, that in Scotland we do not have coroners’ inquests, and that a preliminary enquiry into a suspected murder is conducted privately by an official called the Procurator Fiscal, who is responsible for authorizing the arrest of individuals who may have been concerned in the crime?)

It was only after the husband had been examined, the witness went on, that it was discovered that he had been absent at sea on the vital dates and could not, therefore, have had any direct connection with the crime.

In reply to further questions, the witness, who seemed an honest, unimaginative fellow, said that the prisoner was examined for four hours the first time by the Procurator Fiscal and for shorter periods on two later occasions when, certain new facts having come to the knowledge of the authorities, they thought fit to ask her to supplement her first declaration.

Like my colleagues, I paid particular attention to the first witnesses, though, as we afterwards realized, they had nothing of real importance to tell us. It was like the first sight of a new minister going into his pulpit, or, to take a profane example, the first view of a theatre-stage when the curtain rises on it; one naturally concentrates one’s senses on the scene for fear of missing something of vital importance. But, writing all this down in retrospect, I beg leave to dismiss these early witnesses briefly, since their statements did not justify the close scrutiny which we jurymen gave to them.

More important evidence soon drove theirs into the back of our minds, and I shall not delay any more with the questions of both counsel and the replies of the various official witnesses about how, when, why and where they obtained the declarations (which, to my neighbour’s annoyance, remained unread) from the prisoner, and released her husband from custody.

It was another matter when the name of Robert Aitken was called, and a tall, severe man of advanced middle age entered the witness-box. He was perfectly self-controlled: not a line on his face or the movement of a muscle betrayed the emotion he must be feeling, both at having had a murder committed in his house, and at his father’s having been designated by the defence as the criminal. No, he stood there calm and cool, and answered questions just as if he were giving evidence in a case which concerned him scarcely at all.

Not to waste time in detailing question and answer, I will state that Mr. Robert Aitken agreed that he was an accountant, with an office up-town, and lived in the house where the murder took place; that there were three floors in the house—two above street-level, and the other a basement; that he went to his country cottage to join his wife and children on the afternoon of Friday, June 4, as was his usual week-end custom; and that he was absent from the city till the following Monday morning, when he returned by a morning train and went straight to his office up-town. Bessie McIntosh, the dead woman, was in his employment; there was another maid at the cottage. He left Bessie McIntosh and his father at Southridge Terrace when he went away from it on the Friday morning.

“Were they the only persons left in the house that morning, Mr. Aitken?” asked the Advocate Depute.

The Judge, who was laboriously noting down word after word on the pad of paper on his desk, suddenly pointed his pen at the witness and croaked in his high, husky voice: “One moment, Mr. Aitken!”

We all started at this. The witness almost lost his composure at the unexpected intervention of the Sphinx on the dais. The wretched woman in the dock stared up at him with a gleam in her eyes, as if some new hope had come to her; and we jurymen turned our heads to observe him. But it was a false alarm: so far as we could judge at that stage of the trial, his question was an innocuous one, containing no reason for the witness’s surprise or the prisoner’s hope.

“Was your other servant in the country ever at Southridge Terrace?” the Judge asked.

The Judge nodded, waved his pen ever so slightly at the Advocate Depute, as if to permit the continuance of the examination, and bent to his papers again. The little interruption was over, and we all relaxed.

“How long was Bessie McIntosh, the deceased woman, in your employ, Mr. Aitken?” counsel asked, as if nothing had happened.

“She came to me first several years ago. Then she left me about three years ago, to commence a little business for herself.”

“A grocery business, I believe, but I was never there. She came back into my service just over a year ago.”

“She was there once, I think, in the spring of this year. Otherwise I always left her with my father in charge of my house.”

“So she wasn’t in the country with you on Friday, June 4, or the next day, Saturday, or Sunday?”

“Yes. I went to the country on Friday afternoon and returned on Monday morning.”

“But you did not go straight home on the Monday morning? What time did you go home?”

“I went straight from the railway-station to my office in the morning, and worked there till about four o’clock. Then I took the omnibus and dropped off at the corner of Southridge Terrace. I remembered that I must order some food for dinner; I called in at the butcher’s and ordered some meat. I then walked the rest of the way home.”

I almost smiled at this. The question and answer were not humorous in themselves, not in the least, but the triviality of them and of the other details which the witness had just elaborated made me for a moment feel light-headed. A woman had been brutally murdered; another woman stood in the dock in peril of her life; the witness’s father was himself suspect; and here were we—Judge, counsel, clerks, jury, reporters, police, public—all listening with grave attention to these ridiculously unimpressive questions and answers, and the Judge was even writing some of them down. You must not censure me for my momentary lapse from seriousness. If you put yourself in my place, I think you will understand how incongruous these details seemed.

You do not find them in the newspaper reports of a trial, or in murder stories: no, the writers of these confine themselves wholly to the more outstanding portions of the proceedings, so that the reader obtains the idea that a murder trial is one continuous series of hammer-strokes at the heart of the mystery, whereas, as I was now learning, even the most sensational trial must take its long, predestined course.

He said: “You took out your key, Mr. Aitken? Well, tell us exactly what then took place.”

The witness drew a deep breath. I was convinced that he needed to take a firm grip over his nerves before answering. And no wonder, for on his reply must necessarily depend in a considerable degree the outcome of the case.

“Before I could put it in the lock my father opened the door to me,” he said at last. “As he opened it, the butcher’s boy arrived from behind me with the chops I had lately ordered. My father looked past me at the boy and then said to me, ‘There’s no use sending anything for dinner here, Robert. There’s nobody to cook it.’

“ ‘I have not seen her since Friday,’ he told me, ‘and her room’s locked.’

“I did not know what to think, for Bessie was always a woman of steady habits; so I told the butcher’s boy to give me the meat, and I placed it on the lobby-table, with my hat.

“Then I went downstairs, followed by my father. The stairs lead down to a small passage, with three doors opening off it, to the kitchen, the pantry and the servant’s bedroom. I went first to the kitchen; the fire was low, but otherwise I did not observe anything unusual, nor did I look for it.

“Next I entered the pantry, thinking that perhaps I might be able to pass through its windows and into the small area on which the window of the maid’s room also looks. But when I reached the window I realized that neither could I pass through it, owing to the iron bars, nor, for the same reason, could I have entered the maid’s room from the area.

“I returned to the passage, tried the door of the maid’s room and found it locked. It occurred to me that possibly the pantry key might open that door also. I tried it, and it fitted. When I opened the door the bedroom was rather dark because the blind was drawn down over the window. Still, when I entered the room——”

Suddenly the Judge broke in again. The quiet voice cut across the witness’s words and silenced him instantly.

“Where was the window in relation to the door, Mr. Aitken?” the Judge asked.

“Immediately opposite it, my Lord, and the bed was on the right-hand wall between them.”

The Judge turned back to his notes, inserted a word or two and motioned to the witness. “Yes, well?”

“I passed the foot of the bed, thinking to pull up the blind, but as I did so I discovered the body—Bessie McIntosh’s body—lying beside the bed on the floor, with her feet towards the window. The body was almost naked, but its top half was covered by a dark cloth of some kind.”

Mr. Aitken shuddered and stopped, turning very pale, and I saw a lump rising in his throat.

The Advocate Depute must have observed this too, for he said hastily: “Please go on, Mr. Aitken. What did you do after you discovered the body lying there?”

His voice seemed to restore the witness’s strength; possibly it shook him out of his horror at the picture which he carried in his memory, and reminded him that he was now far away, both in time and place, from the events he was describing. He wiped his forehead with his handkerchief and, clearing his throat, went on with his narrative.

“I looked at the body and exclaimed, ‘Oh dear, she’s lying here!’ or words to that same effect. My father, who had followed me into the room, also made an ejaculation, and said: ‘She’s been lying there all this time, and me in the house!’ I stepped back at once, and taking my father with me, I hastened upstairs again, saying that we must immediately fetch the neighbours and the police to see what had happened.

“I hurried out of the front door and knocked at the next house, but there was no reply. Then I saw a gentleman whom I knew coming down the street; I ran down the steps to him and said: ‘There’s a woman lying dead in my house; will you come in and stay there while I fetch the police?’ But he hurried away from me without a word.”

I saw the reporters of the Sun smile broadly at this and scribble vigorously in their notebooks. This was the sort of comedy that their readers would naturally expect to spice their reports!

“He left me abruptly,” the witness continued, “and I decided not to seek aid from any other of my neighbours, but to fetch a doctor at once, and, if possible, to warn the police. Passing the butcher’s shop where I had bought the chops, I asked the proprietor to be kind enough to send his boy to the police-station while I sought the doctor, who lived at the corner. He accordingly sent off his boy, and I called on Doctor Wilson. He opened the door to me himself. I told him what had happened and asked him to come with me. He examined the body, and——”

It seemed so to me, but I supposed that it is part of the legal process not to allow a single relevant detail to be glossed over.

“Yes,” the witness replied to the Judge, “he came at once. I took him downstairs and showed him the body. He put his finger on the hip and said: ‘She’s quite dead; she’s been dead for some time,’ and asked me if I had sent for the police.”

The Judge nodded and made notes, while everybody remained silent. I now understood why he had stopped the witness reporting Dr. Wilson’s statements; the doctor was to be called to give his evidence in person, as also presumably was the police-surgeon, Dr. Havelock. Thus the apparent impatience of the Judge was justified. It was clearly both improper and a waste of time that one witness should trespass on another’s province. I began to feel a restored confidence in the cumbrous machinery of our legal procedure.

The Advocate Depute had stood immobile through this, with a dry expression on his face, as if he regarded the Judge’s intervention as unnecessary. There was, I felt, just a hint of sullenness in his tone when, after assuring himself that his Lordship had finished, he began again to question the witness.

“When you came in with Doctor Wilson,” he said, “did you find the body in the same state as when you left the house?”

“No, nothing particularly. I left the police in charge of the house that night and went to sleep at——”

“I saw him last in my office on the Friday afternoon, and not again till I returned home on the Monday afternoon.”

“Was the deceased woman in her usual health when you last saw her on the Friday morning?”

“Certainly. I remember telling her that I should be spending the week-end at the cottage, as usual.”

“When she left my employment three years ago, rather suddenly, she did so on account of her health; she was very bilious and much troubled with her stomach.”

There was a titter at this from the back of the court. The Judge looked up abruptly, and the noise ceased as if the offender had sunk into the ground.

“It’s no’ always biliousness,” whispered my neighbour, “that makes a lassie leave her master’s house in a hurry.” And he nodded at me knowingly.

“And how was her health after her return to your house, Mr. Aitken?” the lawyer continued imperturbably.

“She enjoyed much better health than before. For some time before her death she enjoyed very good health indeed; I often remarked on it.”

“Now, Mr. Aitken, do you know anything of any quarrel, or, say, a misunderstanding between her and any member of your family?”

Counsel nodded, as if this somehow confirmed his case and damaged the defence plea that old Aitken was the murderer.

“When did you return to your house after leaving it in the possession of the police?”

“Quite so. And did you happen to notice that any articles were missing from it?”

As the Advocate Depute put this question, he raised his finger as if to compel our attention to the witness’s answer.

“I did, indeed,” Mr. Aitken answered. “I missed several silver articles, which we had in daily use, from the sideboard in the dining-room.”

“Yes. I missed six silver table-spoons, six plated dessert-spoons, six silver toddy-ladles, a silver fish-slice, two silver tea-spoons and six plated forks, as well as a few other articles of a similar kind.”

“She was housemaid to us for some years, then she left us, and afterwards returned for another year. She was married out of our house.”

The Judge pointed his pen at the Advocate Depute as a signal to him to continue his examination. The lawyer, with the slightly petulant tone which he always adopted after such an interruption, went on, “And how long ago, Mr. Aitken, was this marriage?”

“She came to the house one day, I remember, with a child in her arms. I observed her talking to our servant.”

This answer, given in all seriousness, made my neighbour chuckle. It certainly suggested considerable self-complacency in the worthy Mr. Aitken.

I presume that the Advocate Depute saw the humour of this reply as much as we did; but his face remained utterly expressionless, and he sat down with a rustle of his gown. From a seat some distance along the same row, the principal counsel for the defence rose to cross-examine the witness. His face was ruddy and cheerful, and there was something about the untidy manner in which his wig lay on the side of his head that made him appear a little less impersonal and severe than his opponent. However, his voice was just as matter-of-fact, and there was nothing in his manner to suggest that he was about to open the campaign for the wretched woman in the dock. I suppose it was from reading foolish, romantic books that I rather expected the counsel for the defence to show himself more passionate and emotional than his predecessor.

There was a rustle through the whole court as the realization spread that the war was being carried into the enemies’ country. “What is his name?”

It was clear that the witness was on his guard, determined to say nothing that was not dragged from him by the lawyer. His very manner of speaking seemed to become more clipped.

“H’m. And what are his duties in connection with your business?” the lawyer went on.

“He goes about and collects the weekly rents of certain properties of which my firm is in charge.”

“Some of them are tall,” replied the witness, clearly surprised—as I was—by this question.

I sat there in the jury-box and wondered what on earth this description of the houses had to do with the matter we were trying. Counsel’s next question enlightened me.

“What was the state of your father’s health when you left him on the Friday?” he asked.

It was clear now that he was trying to show that the old man was far from being as decrepit as his age might indicate: if he could climb the rickety stairs of the tall old houses in the Lower Town, he must still be a man of vigour. I believe I saw the lawyer’s purpose before Mr. Aitken, for the latter did not hesitate at all in his answer.

Then, I think, the witness realized the purpose of this questioning, for he added quickly, “Since this sad business, of course, he——”

The witness seemed anxious now to avoid any further trap, for he thought carefully before replying, “I saw them in the course of the week before I went out of town. We used some of them at breakfast on the Friday.”

The red-faced, untidy lawyer sat down abruptly, and the witness prepared to leave the box. He was just turning when the Judge looked up.

“Mr. Aitken,” he said, in an almost confidential tone, “how old is your father?”

A gasp went round the court, and no wonder. It seemed incredible that an old man, well past the allotted term of human life, could be physically capable of the murder, as the prisoner’s special defence alleged he was. Yet, as her lawyer had so skilfully extracted from the witness, old Angus Aitken was capable of climbing high staircases in tumbledown houses.

Eighty-seven! There are limits to all things; never before, surely, had a man of eighty-seven been accused of a crime of violence, even by a prisoner who was seeking to transfer the blame from herself.

So, too, the Judge seemed to think, for he shrugged his shoulders ever so slightly and took another pinch of snuff. The witness again turned to leave the box, but he was halted by the voice of my perky red-haired neighbour.

“I’d like to know if anybody could climb into the bedroom from the street.”

The witness looked at the Judge, who frowned impatiently and turned over some pages of his notes.

When he found the entry he sought, he said severely to my neighbour, “You will observe that the witness has told you that, even if a person climbed into the area from the street, he could not enter the bedroom window on account of the bars.”

And leaving my fellow-juror to grumble under his breath, the Judge waved the witness out of the box.

I did not answer, for the usher had called out “Angus Aitken!” and I knew that we were coming to a dramatic encounter.

I saw Donald Kirkwall and the other reporters twist round eagerly to gaze into the body of the court. Even the three rows of lawyers craned to see the old gentleman appear—all except the Advocate Depute and his principal opponent, who disdained to share their colleagues’ curiosity. The Judge himself leaned back and raised his heavy eyes towards the witnesses’ entrance, refreshing himself with another pinch of snuff.

There came a whisper and then a low murmur of voices as Angus Aitken came gradually in sight of the people on the packed public benches. Then at last I saw him.

Eighty-seven! Here he came, shambling along in the same way that I had always noticed, his eyes darting from side to side, and with that eternal drip hanging from the end of his long beak of a nose. He was not wearing his old green overcoat, however; he was dressed in a comparatively new suit—a frock-coat and a pair of dark trousers, with well-starched linen at his neck and wrists. It cost me an effort to think of him as the scarecrow I had so often passed in the streets, until I noticed that he still wore his usual patched boots and age-stained spats.

He seemed spry enough when he climbed the steps into the witness-box, and his voice, though high-pitched, was as firm as his son’s had been when he repeated the oath. He looked round him with composure; he even stared at the trembling woman in the dock, and it was she who dropped her eyes, not he.

I felt the usual nudge at my side. “Ye’ll no’ be telling me he’s eighty-seven!” my neighbour whispered. “He canno’ be that auld.”

But when the old gentleman rested his hands on the front of the box, we saw that they were thin almost to transparence, and gnarled like the branches of an oak. His neck was sunken like a vulture’s; and I could almost see the skull shining through the tight, yellow skin. He was a very, very old gentleman: there could be no more doubt of it.

“I’m eighty-seven past. Last Hallowe’en, ye ken, I was eighty-seven,” the witness replied, and his tremulous, high-pitched voice had a Doric burr which rivalled that of my carpenter neighbour. His accent was in amazing contrast with the cultivated tones of his son; evidently the younger generation had enjoyed an education and social contacts which the old gentleman had not known in his youth. But I shall not attempt to report him with phonetic fidelity: this would be too wearisome for the reader.

The old gentleman did not answer. Instead, he put a hand behind his ear and looked blankly at the lawyer.

There was a pause, and then he said, “I’m that dull o’ hearing, sir. Could ye say it again?”

The Advocate Depute sighed, not so much, I was certain, because he would have to raise his voice to get answers as to claim our sympathy for his witness’s infirmity. I felt that a good actor would instinctively have done the same.

“We’ll try to make you hear, Mr. Aitken,” he went on, much more loudly. “How are you employed?”

There was an amused stir when he used that old-fashioned word, but it died away before the Judge had time to lift his eyes and rebuke it.

“She was a servant wi’ my son, and came back a second time. I first ken’t her when she came the first time to be a servant wi’ my son.”

Old Aitken raised his head in the way deaf people have, and the lawyer repeated the question loudly. Even so, the old man did not reply, as if it taxed his memory too hard.

The Advocate Depute did not insist. Instead, he asked, “How long ago was it that she left your son’s house?”

He shook his head and said, “She gaed awa’ to keep a bit shop for herself. It will be—no, my memory is no’ verra guid for dates; I canno’ tell you exactly. Anyway, she gaed awa’ and took up a bit shop wi’ another comrade and sell’t grocery guids. And then she came back again.”

The old gentleman seemed to pull himself together now, and the next answers came more pat to the questions.

A smile passed over the witness’s face: it was as if any horror at the recollection of that week-end was lost in his satisfaction at being able to remember the date.

“Ay, I breakfasted there that morning, but I dinna mind whether my son was gone to his office or no.”

The witness must have misunderstood the question, for he nodded and said, “Ay, she had been busy for three days wi’ a washing, and she was finishing the shirts and dressing them that day.”

The Advocate Depute’s eyebrows shot up at this incongruous reply, but he waved a hand to dismiss his unanswered question and carried on where the old gentleman had led him.

Again the witness must have misunderstood. He simply continued his previous remark, as if—it seemed so to me—he had prepared a story and was eager to deliver himself of it before it faded from his mind.

“Her master’s shirts were a’ laid by, and mine were finishing, and they were hanging on the screens at the side o’ the fire. And I came home to my dinner at the usual time, about four o’clock. And after I took my dinner, I had a custom of gaeing up to the park and taking a walk after my dinner. This was Friday, ye ken, and I was awa’ about two hours.”

But the old gentleman went on, still nodding and grinning with satisfaction at his memory.

“Ay, it was verra wet those days, and I was troubled wi’ cold feet; ay, my feet were awful cold.” He shook his head from side to side with senile self-pity. “There was no fire in my bedroom, so I went down to the kitchen fire to get my feet warmed, and Bessie McIntosh made my tea.”

“What o’clock was it? Och, I mind it would be well on eight o’clock. She made my tea, ye ken, and she poured it out; ay, and she took a cup o’ tea along wi’ me, Bessie did.”

A kind of stifled grunt came from the public benches and from my fellow-jurors at this. So the old gentleman used to sit down to tea with the servant-girl! That didn’t look like a murderer, did it?

The Judge, as usual, had only to raise his head to bring silence. Having done so, he asked a question. I was interested to note that, though he scarcely raised his voice, the old gentleman heard him perfectly.

The Advocate Depute, doubtless wishing to keep the old gentleman to his story while he could tell it so clearly, bobbed his head at him and encouraged him with a “Well, and then?”

“And then? Well, after the tea was by, I read the papers; I had the papers in my pouch. I stop’t there till half past nine o’clock.”

“Ay, at the kitchen fire. And then I said I would go and make ready for bed; and I went awa’ to my bed up the stair. I left Bessie McIntosh working in the kitchen, and in the morning I was wauken’t wi’ a loud squeal.”

The Advocate Depute had to stop him now, for he was going ahead too fast for the building-up of the case.

“First of all, Mr. Aitken, just tell us where is your bedroom in the house?”

“My bedroom? It’s just above Bessie’s, up the stair, on the lobby floor.” And hastily old Angus went on with his narrative. “As I was saying, I was wauken’t in the morning wi’ a loud squeal. And after that followed other two, no’ so loud as the first. It was an odd kind o’ squeal I heard. It made me jump out o’ bed and go to the top o’ the stair, but I could hear no noise. A’ was by in the course o’ a minute’s time; in a minute a’ was quiet again, and I heard nothing nor saw nothing. So I took out my watch.”

Again he chuckled as if at his own cleverness. “I aye kept the time below my pillow. And I looked what o’clock it was.”

The old gentleman chuckled. “I thocht that maybe she had got somebody to stay wi’ her.”

He bobbed his head up and down in silent laughter, and people at the back of the court tittered hysterically.

Before either the Judge or the Advocate Depute could intervene, the old gentleman demonstrated that his words had not the improper significance which had been read into them.

“There was a lassie, ye ken, that Bessie called a sister o’ hers. I thocht she would be in the room. So when I heard a’ quiet and no noise, I gaed awa’ from the stair to my bed again, and was no’ long in it till I fell asleep again. They were three loud squeals I had heard, and then a’ quiet again.”

He stopped and drew himself up with a sort of dignity, waiting for the lawyer’s next questions. I had a feeling that his mind was like a guttering candle, sometimes burning bright and sometimes flickering almost to extinction.

“Och, I lay till about six o’clock o’ the morning. Bessie aye used to come up to my room wi’ my porridge about eight o’clock, so I lay till then, but she didna come up that morning, and I was surprised she didna come. Ay, I wearied much for her.”

His face clouded over, as if he pictured himself back in bed, still wearying for the dead woman’s coming.

“I lay till nine o’clock. But she didna come wi’ my porridge, so I rose and put on my clothes.”

The lawyer led on the old gentleman, humouring him. “You made your toilet and dressed?” he said.

“Och, I forgot if I washed mysel’ before I went down. But I gaed down to her door and”—he tapped feebly three times on the wooden ledge before him—“and I gi’ed three chaps that way. I got no answer. I tried the sneck o’ her door—the latch, ye ken—but the door was lock’t. No key in the door; and so I went in the kitchen. The fire was weak, and I put some coals on. This was Saturday morning.” He paused.

“After that the front door-bell was rung. I went to the door. It was the servant from next door; I dinna mind the lassie’s name, but she wished the lend o’ a spade. She said her people were a’ gone awa’ to the coast the nicht before. I told her we had no spade, and shut the door again.”

“It would be about eleven o’clock. But did I tell ye about the front door no’ being lock’t?”

The Judge raised his head at this. It seemed to me as if part of a carefully prepared story had been overlooked, and that the Advocate Depute had let his witness go too fast.

“Ay, I will,” said the old gentleman. “The front door was no’ lock’t! The key was in the inside o’ the door, but the door was no’ lock’t, only sneck’t; it was upon the latch. So whoever had been in the house in the nicht, they had got out by the front door; there is no doubt o’ that.”

“Quite so, Mr. Aitken. You found the front door merely latched, whereas you had expected to find it locked with the key. I quite understand. Well, and then what happened?”

“I stopped in the house till about twelve o’clock, when I thocht I would go to the office. I locked the front door behind me. Then I gaed awa’ down to the Lower Town to see a property that I had in charge. A’ was richt, and I came awa’ up again to the office, and stopped till about two o’clock. Then I gaed up home, thinking that Bessie maybe would be waiting. But when I got there, a’ was quiet and no appearance o’ Bessie. So I made mysel’ a bit dinner, and yoked to the reading o’ the papers.”

“Oh, ay. About seven o’clock the bell was rung, and a young man came to the door. He said he came from Glasgow, and his name was Crawford. He said he had promised Bessie to call on her. I said she was no’ in, and he went awa’. Ay, and I went back to the kitchen and saw my shirts were still on the screens beside the fire. So I laid them by, one by one, and set them by in the kist where I keep my linen. Two o’ them were spotted wi’ bluid. And that was a’ for the nicht.”

“I mind it would be eight o’clock. This was the Saturday, ye ken. I thocht that, if Bessie had gone awa’ wi’ any o’ her acquaintances, she would make her appearance; so I sat and waited. But she didna. I sat for her till after nine, and then I gaed to my bed.”

“Weel, I made my breakfast again. Just a cup o’ tea and a herring to it; that was a’ my breakfast. Then I made ready for the kirk. I went to the kirk in the forenoon and, after it skailed, I gaed straight home. In the afternoon, after I had a bit bread and cheese, I went to the kirk again.”

My neighbour nudged me at this further proof of the witness’s old-fashioned habits; but there was a cynical smile on his face, as if he did not believe all of old Aitken’s tale.

Meanwhile, the old gentleman went on, “Ay, an’ after I was home, yon lad that called before, yon Crawford, he called again, asking for Bessie McIntosh. Says he, ‘Has she gone to the kirk?’ Says I, ‘I dinna ken.’ Says he, ‘Well, if she comes out the town, will she come this way?’ Says I, ‘Ay, I suppose she will.’ And he went awa’ again.”

“And what did you do on the Monday morning, Mr. Aitken?” the lawyer asked. I noticed that though he had, perhaps inadvertently, dropped his voice to its usual tone, the witness seemed no longer to have difficulty in hearing him.

“On the Monday morning I rose at eight o’clock, as usual, because I had to go through the properties that day. I gaed every Monday, ye see, to collect the rents in the Lower Town. I went to the office and got my rent-books; I gaed awa’ to lift what I could from the tenants, and I returned to the office and gi’ed in what cash I had gotten. Then I gaed awa’ home to Southridge Terrace.”

“About one or two o’clock. In the house a’ was quiet, and no sound. I ken’t that Mr. Aitken—that’s my son—would be home for dinner; and about four o’clock he came and I let him in at the door. He found Bessie’s body, ye ken. She was dead, and a’ bluidy.”

I heard (or perhaps sensed) a movement of sympathy among the public for the old gentleman. Undoubtedly his listeners had been impressed by the simple account of that lonely week-end and of his later discovery that, all the time, the dead woman’s body had been lying there.

Only my red-headed neighbour seemed unimpressed. He whispered to me, “There’s nane so blind as they who will no’ see!”

“Mr. Aitken,” the Advocate Depute went on, “did you make all your own meals from the Friday night to the Monday morning?”

“I made a’ I needed, sir,” was the reply. “I’m not verra particular.”

“I dinna think I did. I used only a tea-spoon, but I dinna mind what I saw.”

The lawyer then drew his attention to a number of spoons and forks and other silver articles—the things said to have been stolen from the house. They lay on a table near the clerk of the court.

The lawyer nodded, as also did one of his juniors, which persuaded me that, for some reason or other, this question bore directly on the defence which they expected to be offered to the court. Unfortunately, I had as yet no idea what line the defence meant to take, for, as I have said, there had been no preliminary speeches by counsel.

Again the lawyer nodded. Then, with an encouraging smile, he put a fresh series of questions to the old gentleman.

The old gentleman turned his head slowly and stared at the prisoner. Once again it was she who dropped her eyes.

I was not surprised that the witness did not answer to the point; he had already shown his inability to remember past dates.

The lawyer was sensible enough not to press him too hard. “Was this some years ago?” he asked mildly.

“Four or five years ago, yes. Have you seen her since she left your son’s service?”

“She came up along wi’ her husband to pay a visit to Bessie McIntosh. I saw her that nicht in my son’s house.”

“When was that, sir? Och, that was the same time, when she came wi’ her husband, the sailor, to Southridge Terrace. That was twelve months ago.”

“It would be two, three years ago. Oh, ay, and I saw her two weeks ago in the sheriff’s office. He showed her to me.”

“Quite so. You saw her at the sheriff’s examination. But except on those occasions that you’ve mentioned, you have never seen her since she left your son’s employ?”

“Eh?” Angus Aitken peered intently at the spoons and forks, as if he had forgotten about their presence. “Did I give them to her? Never!”

“Did you see her on the Friday night, the night when Bessie McIntosh went missing?”

“Quite so, Mr. Aitken, but please answer my question. Did you give her any money on either of those days?”

“Did you ever call at her house except on the occasion you have told us about?”

The Advocate Depute nodded affably, and cleared his throat as a preliminary to a new line of approach.

“Is this your bank-book, Mr. Aitken?” asked the lawyer, holding up a small book and handing it to him.

The old gentleman opened it and peered first at the name on its cover and then at the final amount in the body of the book.

The old gentleman smiled, sniffed and shifted his feet preparatory to leaving the witness-box. But at that moment the red-faced lawyer for the defence jumped up, wriggling his shoulders into his gown and tipping his wig even further over one ear.

Angus Aitken peered at him, rubbed his chin and stood irresolute. Then apparently recognizing what this advocate’s function was, he frowned and gripped the front of the box again.

“Now tell me, Mr. Aitken,” said the lawyer, “was your watch right that Saturday morning?”

“Well, it gangs verra regular.” He smiled as he said this, feeling perhaps that he was scoring off a persecutor who, as both he and we knew (though we knew nothing else of the intended defence), proposed to show that he was the murderer.

“Ay, it was exactly four o’clock when I wauken’t, and a fine, clear mornin’.”

“You didn’t leave your bedroom or dress till nine o’clock, or thereabouts?”

The lawyer was not in the least perturbed by the hostility of the witness’s tone. Doubtless, I reflected, nothing would suit him better than that the old gentleman should lose his temper.

“That Saturday morning? It was yon lassie from next door, asking for the lend o’ a spade. I told her we——”

“H’m.” The counsel interrupted him with a grunt. “What time was that?”

My neighbour nudged me. “The auld de’il’s thinking o’ the corpse,” he whispered.

The lawyer rubbed his chin, a gesture I was soon to associate with the beginning of a fresh trail.

“The milk?” the witness quavered, in so high a tone that the public laughed.

“Between eight and nine, you say. When does it usually come on Monday mornings?”

Aitken scratched his head, paused, and then replied, “I didna require any milk yon Monday morning, as I had to gang awa’ early to the Lower Town.”

“Perhaps you didn’t understand my question, Mr. Aitken. I asked you what time the milk usually came on Monday mornings.”

The old gentleman’s eyes narrowed. “It aye came about the same time,” he murmured.

“I had to go awa’ early to the Lower Town and there’s a milk-shop there on our property, and I went in there and got a ha’penny roll and a mutchkin o’ milk. That was a’ the breakfast I got to Monday morning.”

“Perhaps if you speak a little louder,” he suggested to the counsel. “You must remember that he’s a very old gentleman.”

The lawyer hitched his wig back on his head and repeated the question much more loudly.

Old Aitken still hesitated. Then he swallowed, and said with an effort, “I dinna think it came at a’ that morning.”

“He doesn’t think it came that morning,” he murmured, apparently to himself and his immediate neighbours. Then raising his voice again, “The milk’s always brought to the front door, isn’t it?”

The old gentleman replied at once, “Ay, to the front door,” and went on with nervous haste, “But I’m telling ye, the front door was no’ lock’t that morning, no, nor the chain on it, nor anything but the latch.”

“Did you hear any ring at the front door-bell that Saturday morning, at the time when the milk should have come?”

“Do you swear, then, that you did not open the door before your neighbour’s servant came for the spade?”

The old gentleman was trembling, either with indignation or with some other emotion.

“Mr. Aitken, did you not open the door to the milk-boy on the Saturday morning and tell him that no milk was required?”

I heard a movement of indignation from the people at the back at this persistent questioning of the old gentleman, but it ceased abruptly when Angus Aitken said tremulously, “Ay, there was one I told that to. I mind it now.”

“Then it isn’t true that your neighbour’s servant was the first person to whom you opened the front door that morning?”

But he was wrong, for old Aitken mumbled in reply, “Ay, it was the servant lass to whom I first opened the door.”

This was too much for all of us. Some, I suppose, like my neighbour, thought that Angus Aitken had been caught out in a lie. Others must have felt that so old a man could not help being bewildered by an expert cross-examiner.

“No, I didna,” he answered at last. “The servant lassie was the first that I opened the door to.”

“Mr. Aitken, you told us a very little while ago that you remember the milkman coming on Saturday.”

“I don’t care about that, Mr. Aitken. You told us that you remember the milkman coming on that Saturday morning. Well?”

Still no answer, until at last Aitken quavered, “I really canno’ answer that question. I’m an auld man, sir.”

“Mr. Aitken, can you not tell me whether you opened that door to any person before your neighbour’s servant came for the spade?”

“Ay, I can answer that. I dinna think I opened the door to any person till she came.”

But I was certain, from the lawyer’s mien and from the absorbed interest of the prisoner, that this was a vital point for the defence.

“Never mind that, sir! Are you sure that it didn’t come? That’s what I want you to tell me.”

The judge seemed as weary of this hammering as my neighbour was; at least, he looked questioningly at the lawyer and the latter varied his attack.

The lawyer clicked his tongue against his teeth and waved an arm in silent protest at this prevarication.

“Did you tell the milk-boy this, Mr. Aitken?” the lawyer went on hastily, as if hoping to extract more admissions from the witness in his present mood.

But the witness’s readiness to answer had vanished. “The boy rung the bell, and I said I didna wish any milk,” he replied.

“Could you open the door and speak to the milk-boy without taking off the chain?”

“So, Mr. Aitken, you now admit going to the door that morning and opening it to the milk-boy?”

The old gentleman was dropping into the respectful tones with which he had answered the questions of the Advocate Depute. I wondered if his tired brain was now confusing the latter with his present inquisitor.

“Mr. Aitken, do you now remember speaking to the milk-boy that Saturday morning?”

He certainly looked very old at that moment. His face was twisted like a weeping child’s with the strain of this cross-examination. Meanwhile the lawyer hammered away with his questions.

“Then I canno’ say,” said Aitken, and it looked as if he were going back to his previous hesitations. But the surprise on the lawyer’s face passed when the old gentleman said, “I suppose I would be dressed then.”

“If the milk-boy came between eight or nine, how could you be dressed if you did not get up till nine?”

The shot missed its mark, for old Aitken stared vaguely at the advocate and shook his head without answering. Either he was weary with the strain, or he had come to realize that a trap was being set for him.

The aged head swayed from side to side and leaned forward till I thought it would strike the rail of the witness-box. Then he mastered himself slowly and said, “I canno’ charge my memory if I was dressed or no’. I micht no’ be dressed.”

Deliberately or not, he had spiked his adversary’s gun. The lawyer’s gesture seemed to acknowledge defeat, and he was prudent enough not to pursue the same subject.

“Bessie?” he mumbled. “Bessie? But it was a’ ower wi’ Bessie afore that, ye ken.”

There must have been two hundred of us there in court, two hundred men and women, and I think we all drew a sharp breath simultaneously. It sounded like a giant’s sigh. And every one of us was saying the same thing to himself: ‘How did the old gentleman know then that Bessie McIntosh was already dead?’ Even the lawyer paused; he was, I believe, taken as much aback as the rest of us.

No, I was wrong to think that we were all united in our thoughts, for the cold voice of the Judge cut across the silence that followed that sigh.

“I think,” he said to the lawyer, “you ought to put that question to him in a different way. Ask him why he opened the door himself that morning.”

“Willingly, m’ Lord,” said the advocate, with a bow. “Mr. Aitken, why did you open the door that morning, and not let Bessie open it?”

“Well,” said old Aitken, “I just opened the door to let the milk-boy know that I didna wish any milk that morning.”

“No, no; I must have an answer to my question. Why did you open the door to him? Did you know that Bessie was dead?”

You would never have guessed that this was the same witness who had made the earlier, hesitating admissions.

The lawyer pointed a long, lean finger at him and insisted, “If you didn’t know that Bessie was dead, why did you go to the door?”

“Very likely, but why didn’t you leave time for Bessie to open the door before you opened it?”

“You had better ask the witness if he waited some time before opening the door,” said the Judge.

The counsel shrugged his shoulders angrily. “Very well, m’ Lord. Now, Mr. Aitken, kindly answer this question. Did you wait long before you opened the door?”

“Ay, I went down the stair and through the house before that, but I got no answer.”

The lawyer’s anger was intelligible to me. The delay, and the changed form of the question, had given the witness a chance to extricate himself. Of course, it was far too early in the trial for me to be able to say whether the old gentleman’s answer was correct or not; but it certainly was out of tune with his immediately earlier admissions.

“H’m. Had you all your clothes on then, Mr. Aitken?” was the next question.

“I canno’ say, sir,” answered Aitken. Then he seemed to stagger and a tear ran down his cheeks. “I’ve told ye everything in my heart,” he burst out passionately. “The memory o’ an auld man o’ seventy-eight is no’ so fresh as a young man’s. Be as easy wi’ me as ye can, sir; I’m willing to answer every question.”

The Judge looked up and for an instant even his stony face softened. But my neighbour’s voice rang through the court.

“Ma Lord, the witness swore his age was eighty-seven, but noo he says it’s no’ but seventy-eight!” he cried.

The Judge swung round at us like a gun in a turret, his expression changing to black anger. Then he turned to his notes, looked back a few pages and said nothing.

“I was born eighty-seven years ago last Hallowe’en, sir, and I’m eighty-seven past,” Aitken said.

The questions and answers began again. The witness seemed somehow to be refreshed by these incidents, and we went on for some little time without much hesitation. I could not tell whether his frequent failure to give direct answers was a sign of weakness of mind or of a determination not to assist his examiner.

“When you first saw the front door on the Saturday morning, was it locked on the inside?”

“Now, you heard a squeal, as you call it, about four o’clock that morning. What did you think of it at the time?”

“Och, I heard it just as if something was in great distress; but in a minute it was by.”

“I’ve tell’t ye I gaed to the head o’ the stair; but it was a’ quiet so soon, I didna think to go down.”

“When you found in the morning that Bessie was not there and her door was locked, why didn’t you call the police, Mr. Aitken?”

“H’m.” Just in time the lawyer stopped his wig from falling over his eyes. “Now, how long was it between the first squeal and the last?”

“I thocht nothing about it at the time. I was aye looking for her coming back, and I never thocht to call the police. I saw no marks nor anything in the house.”

The old gentleman rubbed his head and replied doubtfully, “Ay, it micht be.”

“When she didn’t come back all Saturday, why didn’t you send for the police?”

“I ken’t my son would be home on the Monday, and he would put a’ things richt.”

Old Aitken’s hand wandered tremulously over his pockets till he found what he wanted and produced a pair of horn-rimmed spectacles from a case. With some difficulty he placed them on his nose and over his ears.

“So I see,” remarked the lawyer sharply, “but did you ever use spectacles before you got this new pair?”

The question was repeated more loudly, and he answered, “Och, I had these as a present long ago, but I had new glass put in them yesterday.”

“That isn’t what I asked you, Mr. Aitken. Tell me, did you ever use spectacles before yesterday?”

My neighbour’s whisper broke in on my ear. “The auld scoundrel! He’s been trying to make himself look aulder than he is.”

The lawyer’s voice went on, “So, Mr. Aitken, though you didn’t need to wear glasses till yesterday, you still saw nothing unusual in the kitchen over that week-end?”

“So you tell us, Mr. Aitken,” the lawyer went on, “that you saw blood on your shirts. How did you account for it?”

The lawyer continued impassively. “So, although you heard squeals of great distress, although you could not find Bessie, although you found her door locked, and although you found blood on your shirts, you still did not think anything was wrong?”

“And you didn’t think to tell that young man, Mr.—er—Mr. Crawford, that she had been missing for so long a time?”

“H’m. Well now, another thing, Mr. Aitken. Did you look for the silver spoons when you wanted to take your meals?”

The old gentleman did not fall into the trap. He answered, “There was aye a silver tea-spoon in the kitchen.”

“I know nothing about it. I had no charge o’ the silver; Bessie had the whole charge.”

“I wasna verra particular for my dinner. I mind I had a dish o’ soused fish. It served me both Saturday and Sunday.”

“You had a fork!” The lawyer paused impressively. “What sort of a fork was it?”

The lawyer looked to me a little vexed; he certainly did not seem to be making very much progress with the witness, although, of course, these answers might, for aught we yet knew, have some benefit for the defence. Anyhow, he could not make the old gentleman admit that he had gone to the rifled sideboard.

“Just what I’m wearing now.” The old gentleman looked down with obvious pride at his suit. “A pair o’ mixed trews, a black vest and a black coat.”

“Are you quite certain, Mr. Aitken, that you never saw the prisoner within twelve months of these happenings?”

But then he stopped and raised a finger at his questioner as if he again detected a trap.

“Except when I saw her wi’ the sheriff two weeks ago,” he added, and a sly smile crossed his face.

The lawyer looked round at his colleagues and prepared to sit down. Then one of them tugged his gown and whispered to him, and he faced the witness again.

“Just one more thing, Mr. Aitken,” he said. “Was no milk taken in that week-end till the Tuesday?”

The old gentleman reflected. He was evidently puzzled, just as, to tell the truth, I was. We had heard so much about this milk, and we still hardly knew why it was so important.

At last Angus Aitken answered hesitantly, “Ay, on Sunday I did open the door for milk, but there was none taken in on Monday.”

The lawyer sat down now. The Judge finished the notes he was writing and looked at the Advocate Depute to see if he wished to re-examine the witness on any matter arising out of this long cross-examination. But there was no move among the Crown counsel, and the Judge slowly turned his head towards us.

My red-headed neighbour whispered to me, “I’d like fine to ask him how he murdered the lassie!” But he took care that nobody but I should hear this grim joke.

The old gentleman looked us over with his piercing glance and tottered down from the witness-box. As he shuffled towards the door of the court, I saw him pull the spectacles from his head; he seemed to do it very clumsily.

There was a buzz of conversation from the body of the court, until the Judge looked up again.

“We will adjourn for three-quarters of an hour,” he announced. “The jury may be glad of a rest.”

He prepared to rise. We all stood up and, waiting only for the door to shut behind him, we filed out into the jury-room. I was amazed to find how stiff my limbs were, and how weary my brain from attention to the long series of questions and answers, not to speak of the effort I was making all the time to relate them to the probable and possible theories of both prosecution and defence. I have felt the same headaching weariness after a tennis championship match, where one turns one’s eyes so often from side to side to follow the flight of the ball.

I mentioned this parallel to my red-headed neighbour, but he replied meaningly, “Auld Aitken’s neck would ache sorer, if we sent Bessie McIntosh’s real murderer to the gallows.”

During our recess in the jury-room a certain amount of conversation passed between us, though I took no share in it, preferring to reserve my judgment till the conclusion of the evidence.

My neighbour, however, was loud in his condemnation of old Aitken. It was clear as daylight, he said, that he had done the murder. How otherwise could we explain his curious behaviour over the week-end, his failure to make enquiries about the missing woman or to call in the police, his indifference to the spots of blood on his shirts, and, above all, his prevarication about the milk-boy’s visit?

To this another juror, a superior sort of man, replied tartly that it was far too early to draw any conclusions. The police and the prosecution must have a very strong case against the prisoner, or she would not be in the dock: what this evidence was, we should presumably hear when we returned into court. For his part, this juror added, he was by no means unfavourably impressed by the last witness’s demeanour and his answers. We must remember that Angus Aitken was a very old gentleman; one must not expect the same precision of memory from a man of eighty-seven as from a young person.

“Eighty-seven?” my red-haired neighbour broke in. “Why, the auld de’il as good as tell’t us he’s only seventy-eight!”

“He did nothing of the sort,” the other retorted. “That was a mere slip of the tongue, which he instantly corrected. Besides”—he held up a hand to stop my neighbour’s protest—“since when has a man of ‘only seventy-eight’ been considered other than old? Let’s keep a sense of proportion, gentlemen. It’s folly to discuss the evidence at this point. Let’s wait and hear the rest of the case for the Crown. If then we agree that it isn’t substantial, we can express our opinion that there’s no case for the defence to answer. But I’ve enough confidence in the authorities to feel sure that they’ve a plausible case, even if in the end we’re not convinced by it.”

There was no doubt of the good sense of these remarks, and nobody any longer took notice of my neighbour’s grumblings and mutterings.

We drank strong, unpalatable tea which an attendant had made for us, and munched some sandwiches sent in from a restaurant near the court. By the time we had finished our meagre meal an usher knocked at the door and asked us to take our places again in court, as his Lordship was ready to return.

Five minutes later the proceedings reopened. The first witness to be called was Dr. Wilson, the doctor whom old Aitken’s son, Robert Aitken, had fetched in as soon as he discovered the dead woman’s body.

I do not propose to describe in anything like full detail the questions put to him and his replies; or indeed the examination of other such witnesses who, whatever the importance of their testimony, did not play major roles in the tragedy.

It will be enough if I say that Dr. Wilson was a typical family doctor of our city (indeed, I have consulted him myself on the subject of my son’s health); that he is held in high repute among us, and that he gave his evidence clearly and without any sort of hesitation.

He described his being fetched by Mr. Robert Aitken and his inspection of the corpse in the basement of the house in Southridge Terrace.

“It was clear to me at once,” he said, “that it was not a case of suicide.” Twenty or thirty wounds had been inflicted on the dead woman, several of them sufficient in themselves to cause death.

“Did you form any opinion how these wounds had been inflicted, and with what kind of instrument?” asked one of the junior counsel for the prosecution, a young man with a mild, musical voice.

“My opinion was,” Dr. Wilson answered, “that it must have been a cutting instrument of considerable weight.”

The lawyer showed him an old rusty chopper which lay on the clerk’s table amidst a number of other articles, all labelled and numbered; and the witness agreed that this was a likely instrument to have inflicted the wounds.

“Was there any probability of these wounds being self-inflicted?” was the next question.

He added, in reply to further questions, that the body was almost undressed, and that marks on the bedroom floor, between the door and the side of the bed, suggested that the unhappy woman had been dragged in there while she was still bleeding from her wounds.

The defence had few questions to ask him, and none of these have impressed themselves particularly in my memory. He was soon replaced in the witness-box by another doctor, Dr. Havelock, the police-surgeon, who had reached the house soon after the discovery of the corpse.

He read out a report which he and a colleague had made at the time. In so far as this concerned the nature and number of the wounds, it confirmed Dr. Wilson’s statements. But in other respects it went much farther.

We learned that the dead woman was about thirty years old and had been in good health. The corpse was quite cold when the police doctors examined it, which meant that death had taken place many hours before. Finally, these doctors had reached certain conclusions which ought, perhaps, to be stated here as this witness read them out in court:

5. The injuries had been inflicted before or, some of them, immediately after death.

6. All the wounds with one or two possible exceptions had been inflicted by a person standing over her as she lay with her face to the ground.

7. The comparatively slight degree of strength shown in the individual blows pointed to a woman or a weak man—(“Aha!” murmured my neighbour at this alternative)—as having inflicted them.

8. The body appeared to have been dragged, face downwards, from the kitchen to the bedroom; the head and chest showed signs of having been washed.

Whenever this report had been read, the witness was questioned minutely about it. It appeared from his answers that he and his colleague chiefly based their conclusion that a severe struggle had taken place, on certain marks on the kitchen floor; but the doctor was unable to be very definite about this. He claimed, however, that the marks did help to establish that the body had been dragged from the kitchen to the bedroom, where another trail of blood confirmed this opinion.

He added that there could be no doubt that the floor in the kitchen and the passage had been washed, as if to remove the marks; but the washing had been insufficient to effect this completely.

“When, doctor, you saw on the Monday afternoon the washed places in the kitchen and passage,” the defence counsel asked, “were they dry or moist?”

My neighbour’s sharp whisper penetrated my ear. “Who else washed the floor but the auld de’il?” he asked.

The next witness was a detective who brought a new element into the case by deposing that a box standing in the dead woman’s bedroom had been rifled; the marks of a bloodstained hand were plain on its lid.

This evidence, which seemed to belong rather to the world of murder fiction than of fact, was followed by an even more sensational disclosure.

The detective was asked if he had found any other marks on the floor of the bedroom.

“Yes,” he said, “there were three prints of a human foot, a naked human foot.”

As he said this, the Advocate Depute signalled to an usher to lift up what seemed to be a square of floor-board on the clerk’s table. Looking at it, we could distinctly see three naked footmarks, all apparently of a left foot. With horror I recognized that the dull-brown, oily substance in which they were embedded was human blood. The detective said these were the marks to which he referred.

“Whose feet are they?” whispered my neighbour in awe. “The dead lassie’s?”

Such is the circuitous procedure in legal cases that we were not to have an answer to this question for some time. The prosecuting counsel changed the subject at once, asking the detective: “Did you receive information regarding some plate that had been pawned?”

I believe that, up to that moment, most of us following the evidence of the various witnesses had almost forgotten the existence of the unhappy prisoner. With one accord the whole court, except the imperturbable Judge, turned to stare at her.

Poor woman! She sat there with downcast eyes, one hand clutching the rail before her, her hair tumbling now about her ears. She was deathly pale and trembling. I noticed that all the reporters, including even young Kirkwall of my own sober newspaper, began once more to write feverishly in their notebooks; and I had no doubt that they were describing the demeanour of the wretched woman.

Again every eye turned on her. A spark of pity flashed through us all. She, poor thing, burst into tears.

“Yes, sir. I told her I was making enquiries about the murder of Bessie McIntosh.”

The defence lawyer objected when the witness was asked what Mrs. Sampson said when she was arrested, and for some minutes the two advocates wrangled. Then the Judge ruled that this one question should be put and answered, but no more on the same subject.

You may imagine the titter that ran across the overwrought public in court when, as a sequel to all this, the witness replied simply: “She didn’t say anything at all, sir.”

Next the witness was shown a cheap tin trunk, which he formally identified as one which he had taken possession of in the cloakroom of the main railway-station. He further identified a brown dress and a red dress which he had found in the trunk. We were, as usual, not told what bearing this evidence would have on the case.

Suddenly old Aitken’s name was mentioned again, for, when the defence counsel rose to cross-examine the detective, he asked the witness, “Did you see old Mr. Aitken on the night of the discovery of the murder?”

“Very well, m’ Lord.” The counsel turned again to the witness. “Did old Mr. Aitken say anything about the noise he heard?”

“He said he’d been wakened by a scream, sir, and he thought he heard other screams.”

“H’m.” The counsel’s face showed his satisfaction at the apparent inconsistency of this evidence with the old gentleman’s evidence in court.

“These were surely questions to be put to the witness himself,” he suggested.

The lawyer cocked his wig over one ear and turned almost furiously on the Judge.

“M’ Lord,” he said, slowly and emphatically, “I wish to lay before the jury the same evidence as would have been laid before it if Mr. Angus Aitken were the prisoner at the bar, charged with this crime. It is one of my defences, m’ Lord, that Mr. Angus Aitken is the person who committed this murder. Surely, m’ Lord, I’m therefore entitled to go into such evidence as the Crown could go into for the purpose of proving that accusation. If Mr. Angus Aitken gave this witness on the night of the discovery a different account of what he saw and heard from what he has been pleased to tell us, surely, m’ Lord, I am entitled to bring it out.”

“I have no objection to your putting questions to the witness with a view to contradicting anything that Mr. Aitken said in the box; but I doubt the correctness of a course of examination which may lead to the contradiction of statements made by Mr. Aitken elsewhere.”

I suppose this was sound procedure, but it seemed even to me a little unreasonable. My red-headed neighbour was almost ready to jump up and dispute the Judge’s ruling.

The defence lawyer’s face turned an even deeper shade of purple, and I saw his juniors’ looks of anger at the Judge. Discipline triumphed, however; the counsel murmured, “As you wish, m’ Lord,” flung his wig back into place, and changed the direction of his cross-examination.

But he succeeded in obtaining one curious admission from the witness, who stated that old Aitken had said nothing to the police about jumping out of bed and going to the head of the stairs when he heard the screams. According to the detective, the old gentleman told him positively that he merely rose up on his elbow and looked at his watch.

Again the subject changed in a tantalizing manner. I wanted, and I am sure my neighbour wanted, to know why the old gentleman had been let out and why the prisoner had been arrested in his place. There must have been a good reason, but we should have to puzzle it out for ourselves from the evidence placed before us.

A clue was offered us almost immediately, when the next witness, another detective, was called. As soon as I heard the Advocate Depute’s first questions, I regretted my previous doubts about the reasonableness of legal procedure, for here we were back again at one of the points where we had broken off before, and it was about to be cleared up.

“Did you notice three footsteps in blood on the floor of the bedroom?” was the first question.

“Did you measure the feet of the dead body to see if they could have made the footprints?”

He groaned when, before the detective could answer, the Judge’s icy voice sounded from the dais.

“How did you measure the prints?” his Lordship asked. “Did you measure their length and breadth?”

The advocate waited till it was certain that the Judge’s curiosity was satisfied, and then repeated his question.

“I found that her foot was longer than the measure of the marks on the floor.”

“Ah, well,” he murmured, “then the auld gentleman made them, paddling around in the lassie’s bluid.”

But this guess was not to be confirmed or denied yet, for the witness was asked no more questions about the footprints.

Instead, he corroborated other evidence about the washed state of the kitchen floor, and stated that he searched the house when he and other police-officers were left in charge of it the night after the discovery of the body.

“Did you find anything in the chest where old Mr. Aitken kept his linen?” he was asked.

“Old Aitken—I mean Mr. Angus Aitken, gave me the key and bade me look at the shirts.”

My neighbour sighed. It certainly looked as if the old gentleman had not tried to hide the shirts from the police. To this extent at least his conduct served to confirm his story. I felt that the discrepancies between his first story to the police and his evidence in court—as to his first sensations and actions when he heard the screams—might well be pardoned as a defect of age. In any case, I was not prepared to share my neighbour’s fierce suspicions of him until I had heard a great deal more of the evidence.

Now we had another new turn to the case, with the calling of Mrs. Peirson, a tall, gaunt female with a loose mouth and a shifty eye.

She told us, in answer to the prosecuting lawyer’s questions, that she occupied two out of the three rooms of which Mrs. Sampson’s dockside house—hovel, I thought, would be a better name—consisted. The prisoner, she said, left the house about ten o’clock on the Friday evening in question, wearing the brown dress which lay on the clerk’s table and which the detective had found in the tin trunk. About five o’clock next morning the witness heard a child crying and, passing into the prisoner’s room, found her little boy there, crying from loneliness. She comforted him, dressed him, and put him back to bed with a biscuit.

There was no means of opening their front door from outside, she said, since the only key to it had been lost. She and the prisoner usually came in by the back door, but this was locked all night, so that the witness was certain that, when Mrs. Sampson rang the bell for admission at nine o’clock on the Saturday morning, she had only just returned from a night’s absence.

Counsel pointed to one of the exhibits on the table, and the witness identified it by certain dressmaking details.

“About two o’clock in the afternoon, sir. She was going out with her wee laddie, and carrying yon brown trunk that’s on the table, sir.”

“She was wearing a blue poplin dress, sir. I’d often seen her wearing it before.”

“You’ve seen her at the prisoner’s house. Had you ever seen her wearing this red dress?” The lawyer pointed once more to the dress on the clerk’s table.

I heard my neighbour give a groan. He now was beginning to realize, as I was, how strong a case the Crown had against the prisoner.

The defence questioned her on only one point—the prisoner’s character. In reply to a junior counsel, a tall man of middle age, very smartly dressed and with a markedly English accent, the witness said that she had known Mrs. Sampson from a child and had always regarded her as a kindly, gentle and delicate woman.

As witness left the box, the Judge glanced at the clock over the public benches and abruptly adjourned the proceedings till the morrow.

We jurors went away, under the escort of a court official, to the hotel where rooms had been reserved for us, and where tea was waiting. At the request of our chancellor, or foreman (as he is called elsewhere), we decided not to discuss the case among ourselves, but spent the evening talking of other things.

Even so, my irrepressible neighbour, the red-headed carpenter, could not forbear from murmuring to me as we parted to go to bed, “I thocht at the first it was a’ so simple, and the auld gentleman had done it; but now I’m no’ so sure. How came the prisoner to be wearing Bessie’s red dress? And where was she a’ that Friday nicht?”

I was not certain whether we temporary captives would be allowed to read the daily newspapers, and I was correspondingly pleased when our guardian handed round copies of my own paper, the Standard, next morning. He shook his head, I noted, when one of our number demanded the sensational Sun. There was no news of any great importance, and I turned at once to the report of the trial, which was described as by “Our Special Representative, Donald Kirkwall”.

First there was a summary of the indictment and of the main facts of the day’s hearing, among which old Mr. Angus Aitken’s appearance in the witness-box was specially mentioned. After this, the lad gave a brief account of the evidence, sometimes giving only its gist and elsewhere quoting the exact words of both question and answer. It seemed to me a vivid method of description and, as you will already have noted, I have adopted it in my own account of the trial, though naturally I have gone into more detail than any newspaper would have space to print.

Thirdly, young Donald presented some pen-pictures of the chief participants in the trial: he showed a talent in this respect that I had not expected from him and, as I read his page (for the editor had given him a whole page), I felt a new respect for the boy’s talents. Never before had it occurred to me to regard him as more than an inky young reprobate, whose youth alone condoned his shortcomings. Now I began to see that my late brother was right in saying that Donald Kirkwall had powers of imagination and description which, if only he would exercise sufficient self-control, might take him far on the way to a successful career.

All my fellow-jurors, I noticed, turned also to the account of the trial. Several of them made appreciative comments on the boy’s work, which I proposed to convey to his editor when the trial was over. I did not intend to tell Donald himself, for I did not wish to increase his already ample self-esteem. The only dissentient from the general chorus was my red-headed carpenter, who complained that Donald had described the Judge much too respectfully. According to my colleague, his Lordship was a pig-headed old scoundrel who ought never to be allowed to occupy a responsible position. The rest of us treated these observations with contempt.

As soon as we had eaten breakfast, we were taken back to the court and resumed our positions of the previous day. I was astonished how familiar the scene appeared. I might have spent half my life in that jury-box instead of only a few hours overnight.

There was the unhappy woman in the dock, even more distraught perhaps than she had yet shown herself. There was the Judge, aloof, sphinx-like, imperturbable. There were the reporters, Donald Kirkwall among them, sharpening their pencils and staring round for any chance incident to enliven their columns. And the three rows of lawyers, the clerk, the packed public benches, and the ushers and policemen presented the same picture as on the previous day. Except that a feeble shaft of sunlight broke in through a grubby window behind the Judge’s back, we might well have imagined that the night’s recess had not interrupted the proceedings.

The first witness of the morning was another woman from the dockyard district, a neighbour of the prisoner’s named Jean Consort. Her evidence was damning for such hopes as the defence lawyers may have entertained of clearing their client from any connection with the tragic incidents at Southridge Terrace. For she deposed that, having often in earlier days made journeys to pawnbrokers on the prisoner’s behalf, she had done so again both on the Friday of Bessie McIntosh’s disappearance and on the following day.

On the first occasion, the Friday, the prisoner, who apparently had a distaste for personal visits to such establishments, asked the witness to take a looking-glass to a local pawnbrokers, on which the meagre sum of six shillings was lent. (This proved, of course, that the prisoner’s funds were very low that day.) Next day, however, the prisoner gave her no less a sum than two pounds with which to redeem numerous small articles which had, at various times, been deposited with the same pawnbroker.

Naturally the prosecution could not, at this stage of the trial, suggest to us jurymen the source of the funds which had arrived so suddenly; but we guessed what we were clearly meant to infer, namely, that the prisoner was the person who had rifled the dead woman’s chest and stolen her savings.

“Were you surprised at her having this money?” the Advocate Depute’s junior asked Mrs. Consort.

“So he was not in the city from the previous Wednesday to the following Tuesday?”

Presumably, then, the prisoner had not received the money from her husband. Incidentally, we had heard from the last witness yesterday, the woman who shared her home—please note how all these things fit in—that the prisoner had not received any letters on the Friday or Saturday.

On the Friday afternoon, she said, the prisoner told her that she was going to visit Bessie McIntosh that evening at Southridge Terrace.

“Well, sir, she said that he misliked seeing an auld servant about the house. He was aye wanting to know a’ about any visitor whom Bessie had. Mistress Sampson tell’t me she would no’ gang to see Bessie till ten o’clock, so that the auld gentleman would be abed before she came.”

After Jean Consort, a succession of other neighbours of the prisoner testified to her movements on the crucial days, to her lack of money on the Friday, to her comparative affluence on the Saturday, and to the fact that the brown dress found with the other in the trunk was indubitably hers and had been worn by her on the Friday evening when, by her own statement, she went out to call on Bessie McIntosh.

I was impressed by the thoroughness of the prosecution; they even called a woman who had made the brown dress for the prisoner and who was able to identify it beyond all possible doubt.

A railway porter was called to state that the prisoner had deposited the tin trunk in the cloakroom at the station on the Saturday afternoon, and that it had been opened in his presence by the detective, and the brown and red dresses found in it.

Then a pawnbroker was put into the box, and his evidence seemed damning against Margaret Sampson.

He stated that a woman, whom he recognized as the prisoner, came to his establishment on the Saturday morning and asked for £6 10s. on a quantity of silver which she offered him as pledges. This silver, he said, consisted of the plate which now lay on the clerk’s table—table-spoons, dessert-spoons, forks, etc.

“Six pounds ten, sir, the same as she asked. They were worth much more than that, sir.”

There was some laughter at this from the public benches, and the Judge gazed sternly at the foolish people.

Again there was a laugh from the back of the court. This time his Lordship said sternly that he would not tolerate such ill manners; if another such interruption occurred, he would clear the court.

One of the Advocate Depute’s juniors tugged his gown and murmured something to him. The great man looked angry at first, and then smiled somewhat artificially. Or so it seemed to me.

“Of course—yes, indeed,” he went on. “There was, of course, no report of the murder in the Press on the Sunday, nor until the Tuesday morning, the morning after the discovery. So, sir”—he turned to the witness—“your Sabbatarian scruples made no difference. But you read about the murder on the Tuesday, didn’t you?”

This was terribly strong against the prisoner, and I wondered what her counsel intended to ask when he rose to cross-examine the witness.

It looked to me as if the defence would have a hard task to discredit the prosecution’s case if they could not make a better show in cross-examination than this. Then I remembered my advice to my impetuous neighbour, and decided to reserve judgment.

The next witnesses struck even harder at the presumption of the prisoner’s innocence.

One of them was a girl who had been a fellow-servant with the dead woman in the Aitkens’ house up to a few months before, and who positively recognized the red dress as Bessie’s. This, I may recall, was the dress in which the prisoner had returned to her house on the Saturday morning, and which had later been found in the trunk by detectives.

Another was Bessie McIntosh’s former partner in the short-lived grocery business which she had set up in the interval between her two terms of employment by the Aitkens. She too recognized the red dress.

“She kept it in the kist in her room at Mr. Aitken’s, sir, wi’ her savings.”

And secondly, “Did you ever see him in the shop which you and Bessie McIntosh carried on together?”

Once again the progress of the case seemed to take a slant out of the direct course. This time it appeared to be the object of the prosecution to call witnesses who would rebut any doubts that we jurymen might have formed about the old gentleman’s good faith. Thus, Robert Aitken’s cashier was examined.

“Do you know the age of Mr. Angus Aitken, your employer’s father?” the Advocate Depute asked him.

The witness then gave details of the old man’s employment, which corroborated the latter’s statements in the box.

“What sort of a man is he mentally?” the Advocate Depute asked a little later.

“I think,” he remarked, “we have had as good an opportunity of judging as the witness, who is not a medical man. But you may ask him this.” His Lordship then put the question himself to the witness. “Is there anything wrong with the old gentleman’s mind that you have ever heard of?”

My red-headed neighbour growled audibly at the Judge, “Hold your gab, ye auld scoundrel! Ye’re here to judge, no’ to prosecute!”

Fortunately nobody overheard this observation or, I imagine, my neighbour would have laid himself open to punishment for contempt of court.

In any case, the point in question (namely, the real age of the old gentleman) was almost decisively answered by the next witness, a tradesman of good repute in the city, who swore that, being fifty-eight years old himself, he had known old Aitken for about forty years and that, at the time of their first acquaintance, the old gentleman had children older than the witness.

I figured out that, even on the assumption that old Aitken first became a father when he was twenty-one, this evidence placed his age in the eighties and thus offered reasonable confirmation of his statement that he was eighty-seven.

“Has old Mr. Aitken always borne a respectable character?” the tradesman was further asked by the Advocate Depute.

Up jumped the defence lawyer with the question, “You mean, you never heard anything against his character?”

But what these might be—unless, of course, they were simply the reports of old Aitken’s arrest after the murder and subsequent release—we were not to know, for once again the Judge intervened.

“This needn’t be opened up just now with the witness,” he said to the defence lawyer, who instantly sat down and allowed the witness to retire.

The next witness of any substantial importance was the neighbour’s servant who had called on old Aitken on the Saturday morning, asking for the loan of a spade. Her evidence corroborated his statements that he opened the door to her and sent her away, but there was a certain interest in her answers to questions put in cross-examination by the defence counsel.

“Now, tell me, did you ever hear Bessie McIntosh speaking of old Mr. Aitken?”

“You mean, he made a practice of watching you, of spying on your movements?”

“More’n that, sir, more’n that. Bessie said he’d step out in the street to watch us lassies dressing and undressing. She called him an auld deevil.”

Before the Judge could break in (as he so often seemed to do when old Aitken’s character was in question) the defence counsel hastily asked another question. It was a long time since he had succeeded in bringing out anything so prejudicial to the old gentleman.

“She did indeed,” the witness replied. “She said he could see a’ he ought to see, ay, and more.”

Then we heard the young man named Crawford, who had twice called at Southridge Terrace during the fatal week-end in the hope of seeing Bessie McIntosh. It turned out that she had been a maid in his father’s house in Glasgow some years previously, that she had called on him and his relatives when she was visiting that place a year or two ago, and that he had promised her to come and see her if ever he were in our city. He confirmed old Aitken’s story of his two unsuccessful calls, and neither the prosecution nor the defence elicited any new fact of importance from him.

The master of the Swordfish, the tramp vessel in which the prisoner’s husband was mate, testified that they had left port on the Wednesday night before the crime and been at sea continuously during the next three days.

The significance of this was clear to me. It meant that the husband could not possibly have sent the money which was in the prisoner’s possession on the Saturday, and which, the prosecution alleged (and it seemed reasonably certain) she had obtained by pawning the stolen silver. I would point out, as another proof of how well-knit was the Crown case, that we had already learned that she had received no letter on the days in question. I mentioned this as part of Mrs. Peirson’s evidence.

This led us to the next piece of evidence, given by a rent collector, who stated that the prisoner paid him a visit on the Saturday morning and paid off arrears of rent amounting to £4. As he had dunned her unsuccessfully for the money on the previous morning, she had presumably acquired it in the interval.

Again came a complete break in the presentation of the prosecution’s case. This time it was to introduce to us Dr. Lockhart, another police-surgeon, who, apart from corroborating his colleague’s evidence of the previous day, filled in one or two gaps in the story.

Thus he was asked to amplify the paragraph in the joint medical report which stated that the head and chest of the dead woman seemed to have been recently washed.

“The face, neck and chest,” he said, “had apparently been recently cleaned to a certain extent, but there was still an appearance of blood round the outside of the washed part, and it had not been entirely cleaned.”

“In all respects. The feet of the deceased were longer and broader in every way; also there was a decided bunion on her left foot, which would have left a mark.”

“My impression when I first saw them, and before any suspicion was attached to any person, was that they were made by a female foot.”

The Judge drew back with a frown, and my neighbour sniggered. The Sun reporters at the Press table wrote rapidly, from which I guessed that they intended in their report to amuse their readers with a quite disproportionate emphasis on this little incident. Donald Kirkwall, I was glad to see, made no note of it.

His Lordship leaned over again. His tone suggested that he wished to put the doctor in his place.

“Yes, my Lord,” replied the witness, again with that little smile that seemed to annoy the Judge.

“Have you compared the prisoner’s feet with the footprints on the flooring?” the Advocate Depute continued.

“And are the footprints on the floor such as might be made by the left foot of the prisoner?”

A buzz ran through the court. All the reporters scribbled furiously. My neighbour sighed heavily.

He was right; at least, it seemed to me that the last link in the chain of evidence connecting Margaret Sampson with the scene of the dead woman’s murder had been welded.

She must have been in the room, because her footprints were there. She must have taken the silver, because she was proved to have pawned it. She must have changed her own frock for the dead woman’s, for she had gone out on the Friday evening in the one and returned next morning in the other. True, it was not yet proved that she delivered the fatal blows; but even on this point we had the doctors’ united evidence that they had been dealt by a person of less than average strength, ‘a woman or a weak man’.

Every eye turned on her, and she shrank down, sobbing and hiding her face in her hands. The wardress bent over her, whispering in her ear, and at last she sat up again, with the tears streaming down her twitching face and heavy sobs breaking from her lips.

There was worse yet to come, for after her counsel had cross-examined the doctor without persuading him to change his evidence in any degree, an expert in chemical analysis was called, who deposed that the lower part of the brown dress—that is, the one the prisoner wore when she left her house on the Friday afternoon, and which she afterwards deposited in the tin trunk at the railway cloakroom—was soaked in human blood.

This blood, he added, belonged to the same blood-group as that of the deceased woman, a fact which, he explained, made it additionally probable that it was hers, though, of course, it did not positively prove this.

Whose else could it have been? This question was in my mind and, I am sure, in everybody else’s in that packed court-room. There could, alas, be only one answer.

And now we came to the last item in the case for the prosecution, that jigsaw which, from chaos, had gradually been reduced to clarity and completeness.

The Advocate Depute formally asked the Judge for permission to read two declarations made by the prisoner to the police shortly after her arrest, and signed by her as correct.

At once there was a flurry among the defence lawyers, and their leader rose to argue that these documents were inadmissible. His arguments were legal and technical, and I confess that I did not succeed in following them completely. I gathered, however, that his objection was threefold. First, one of the declarations had been obtained at a time when both the prisoner and her husband had been jointly charged with the murder. The fact that the husband had been at sea on the appropriate dates had then been acknowledged, and he was released; but, nevertheless (so argued the lawyer) the husband’s declarations, made during the period of his arrest, had been most improperly used by the police to aid them in obtaining declarations from the prisoner.

Secondly, he complained, the time occupied in obtaining one declaration, by question and answer, had been protracted for several hours, so that, in consequence, this interrogation represented an abuse of power.

And thirdly, he charged the authorities with having tricked the prisoner in respect of certain parts of her declaration by not revealing to her that they had found the brown dress when they questioned her about it. It was not right, he said, that these examinations, which were meant to give the prisoner an opportunity to explain away any apparent evidence against her, should be used for the purpose of tricking her into falsehoods which, had she known that the dresses had been found, she might never have uttered.

It all seemed rather sophistical to me, but the Judge took the lawyer’s arguments seriously and discussed them at some length, only in the end to state that, in his view, the declarations were admissible as evidence.

The first, which was very long and, like the other, was set out in the first person, began by describing the prisoner’s name, age, address, her husband’s name, and so on. Mrs. Sampson stated in it that she had seen Bessie McIntosh a few days before the date of the murder, when the latter had come to her house to ask her to obtain particulars about steamship fares and passport papers for America, where she was thinking of emigrating. This was the last time she saw Bessie alive.

“I was not in or near Mr. Aitken’s house on the evening of Friday the fourth, or the morning of Saturday the fifth of the current month of June, and I did not see Bessie McIntosh that night or morning, and I was in no way concerned in assaulting or murdering her, nor was I concerned in stealing any silver plate from that house on the said night or morning.”

She described her movements on the Friday evening, saying that, after taking a walk, she returned home about midnight and found the front door of her house open. “I remained in bed until between eight and half-past on Saturday morning without ever having been out of the house. I went out without breakfast to fetch coals from a shop at the dockside, and brought back the coals in a large basket covered with a piece of old carpet. I was out for only a quarter of an hour. During my absence Mrs. Peirson, who lodged in my house, had taken my child out of bed and dressed him.”

Later in the morning, the declaration continued, she went to the pawnbroker “to pawn some silver which I had received from Mr. Angus Aitken, the father of Mr. Robert Aitken, my late master, on the previous evening at my house. Mr. Angus Aitken came to my house at about a quarter past eight that evening, and I let him in and took him into my room. He carried a parcel wrapped tightly up in white cloth, and laid it down on the table; he asked me if I would do an errand for him, and promised to pay me well for it. He said he wanted me to pawn the silver that was in the parcel, saying that he was short of money and had to go to the Highlands, and did not like to take money out of the bank.”

As this paragraph was read out, my red-headed neighbour whistled under his breath.

“So that’s the way o’ it,” he whispered to me. “The auld de’il did the murder after a’, and laid his plans to put the guilt on yon lassie. Och, no,” he went on, “that’s no’ the truth of it, neither. There’s the footprints agin her.”

Mrs. Sampson told how she had received £6 10s. from the pawnbroker for the silver (just as he had told us in the witness-box) and given a false name, because old Aitken had begged her to do so, to prevent his son’s learning that the silver had been pawned. At a quarter to three that Saturday afternoon, she said, the old gentleman came again to her house and took the money, together with the pawn-ticket.

“He offered me five pounds for having done the errand and for not mentioning it to anyone. I told him that this was too much for my trouble, and took four pounds instead.”

Then her declaration admitted that she took the tin trunk to the cloakroom at the station, but, she said, it was empty, because she found that the clothes she meant to pack in it, preparatory to a visit to a friend in Glasgow, made it too heavy to carry. She intended to take the clothes to the station separately another time and pack them in the trunk.

The second declaration chiefly concerned the various dresses which had been mentioned in the course of the case. The red one, she said, did indeed belong to Bessie McIntosh, but the latter had sent it to her some weeks before to be dyed another colour at a shop near the docks.

I realized that these declarations were made at once after the prisoner’s arrest and before she knew what evidence would be brought against her. This explained why her references to the clothes were so incomplete an answer to the accusations concerning them, and I was not necessarily disposed to take her false statements too seriously. After all, no woman, innocent or guilty, can possibly answer charges unless she knows what they are; and it was this defect in the examinations on which her counsel had laid special emphasis.

Still, the story of old Aitken coming to her house with the silver, and giving her £4 out of the £6 10s. which it fetched, was very, very hard to believe; nor did I believe it. Moreover, there was that overwhelming evidence of her footprints on the bloodstained floor of the murdered woman’s bedroom to give the lie to her denial that she had visited Southridge Terrace on the night of the murder or during the two following days.

Unless, of course, some other woman, of whom we knew nothing and who had a left foot identically similar to the prisoner’s, had made them. I dismissed this thought instantly, as unworthy even of a tenth-rate detective story.

This concluded the case for the prosecution, and the court adjourned till the following day.

We jurymen went away to our hotel, silent and morose. The prosecution had built up a comprehensive case against the unhappy woman in the dock, and, so our attendant said, the next day would surely see the end of the trial.

Naturally, we had yet to hear the evidence for the defence, and the prisoner’s lawyer’s speech after the Advocate Depute had spoken. It might be that something new would be disclosed which would lighten the cloud which lay about Margaret Sampson. But for the life of me I could not see from what direction it might come.

As if by tacit consent none of us that evening discussed the events of the day. We ate our dinner silently, and silently separated to bed.

I slept very ill. My sleep was tormented by visions of wretched Margaret Sampson’s tear-drawn face as I had seen it opposite me in the dock. I envied young Donald Kirkwall’s youthful indifference to suffering, and the professional duties which made it possible for him to treat the whole trial as merely a journalistic task, to be carried out without respect of persons and without any thought of the tragic fate which now seemed to await Margaret Sampson.

But I, his employer, was to be one of the men who must draw the hangman’s noose round her pitiful, sob-racked throat.

I was not greatly surprised that the first witness put in the box, when the defence opened its case next morning, was the milkman about whose visit to Southridge Terrace on the Saturday morning so much had already been said. I remembered that it was in connection with this man that old Angus Aitken had shown himself confused and even self-contradictory during his long examinations. (I may mention that in Scotland, unlike England, it is not the custom necessarily to call the prisoner as the first witness for the defence.)

The milkman was a tall young man of the lower classes, clearly awed by the environment into which he had been brought. His voice was low at first, but he gradually raised it until we could hear him easily.

Naturally, it was now the defence lawyer, that red-faced man with the wry wig, who began the questions, and the Advocate Depute who followed with the cross-examination.

After the usual details about his name and occupation, the prisoner’s lawyer came to the crucial points.

“On that Saturday morning you went to Southridge Terrace at the usual time?”

The witness reflected darkly for a few moments, then smiled and said, “Ay, I’m speaking to my oath.”

The lawyer sat down with a satisfied nod, and the Advocate Depute rose to cross-examine.

The young man conscientiously calculated the number. I saw his lips working as he counted and he used his fingers as a sort of abacus.

Presumably the Advocate Depute hoped to suggest that the young man may have been mistaken in his memories of his call at the Aitkens’ house. The defence counsel jumped up to re-examine him and, as I supposed, to remove any doubt on this point.

“Do you remember any day, except that Saturday, Sunday and Monday, when milk was not taken in at their house?”

“Do you remember any day on which the door of that house was not opened to you?”

Perhaps after all . . . Then I found myself looking at the piece of stained floor-board on the clerk’s table, and more than once I noticed that Donald Kirkwall at the reporters’ table turned to do the same. Evidently the same thought was in our minds. Even if the old gentleman was wrong about the chain and other details, Margaret Sampson must have been in that grisly house.

The next witness was a foster-sister of the dead woman, a small, frightened creature in cheap mourning. She had little to say, but her evidence was strange enough in all conscience; for she stated that the last time she saw her sister alive, Bessie confided that the old gentleman was in love with her and sometimes talked of marrying her.

There were smiles in court at this assertion, and I saw the reporters busily writing it down in their notes. The prisoner’s lawyer looked at us meaningly—though, to be frank, it was not clear what meaning he wished us to attach to this evidence. Surely he hardly expected us to believe that old Angus Aitken had murdered Bessie McIntosh in a jealous rage?

The witness added that the old gentleman angered her sister by his inquisitiveness. She could not entertain visitors until he had gone to bed, or else he pestered the life out of her and them.

A former servant of the Aitkens also testified to the old gentleman’s inquisitiveness. This time his Lordship took a hand in the questioning.

“When you talk of his inquisitiveness,” he said to the witness, “do you mean that, when you went out, old Mr. Aitken enquired where you had been and what you had been doing?”

“Yes, sir. Yes, my Lord,” she stammered, overwhelmed by the solemnity of his manner after the more informal attitude of the defence counsel.

The Judge nodded, as if to himself, and I felt that he had demolished the effect that the defence was trying to build up. It was not unreasonable that the old man should concern himself with the behaviour of his son’s servants.

Then Alison Fraser, a sister of the prisoner, was called. She was examined by the junior counsel for the defence, the one with an English accent.

“Was your brother in the habit of giving your sister money after every voyage?”

Another witness called for the defence, Mrs. McLean, was a friend of both the deceased woman and the prisoner. She deposed that they were on friendly terms and spoke of each other affectionately.

Then she was asked by the defence junior, “When did you last see Bessie McIntosh?”

“Weel, sir, I was walking down the street wi’ ma husband and we saw the auld gentleman—auld Mr. Aitken—leave his house, and then, a minute or two after, Bessie came out and she said, ‘There goes that auld wretch!’ So I asked her if she didna like him, and she said, ‘I hate him, for he’s an auld wretch and an auld deevil.’ Those are the very words she said, sir.”

“Ay, she said she was verra uncomfortable and she would like fine to go awa’, and there was something she had to tell me, but she would no’ tell me because Sandy was by.”

The Crown did not cross-examine her, and she prepared to leave the box when the Judge, who had been turning back among his notes, beckoned to her to stop.

“Tell me,” he said, “when Bessie McIntosh told you that she wished to go away, did you understand that she was thinking of emigrating?”

The Judge struck his desk with his hand. “Answer my question, woman! Did she not talk of going abroad?”

The only other witnesses for the defence were a couple of detectives who had searched the house at Southridge Terrace after the discovery of the crime. Each was asked several questions about a linen bag in which the old man used to collect the rents of the Lower Town property; apparently, something had been said at some time about bloodstains being on it, but the detectives were unhelpful, and the matter was left vague.

We were all waiting now for the prisoner to be put into the witness-box. It was clear to everybody that the last word had not yet been said for the defence: so many of Mrs. Sampson’s lawyers’ questions had pointed to some definite plan of campaign which would seek to demonstrate that not only was she innocent of the murder (her first defence), but that old Aitken had committed it (her second plea). So far, however, we had been left groping in darkness, unable to join together the various hints which the questions of the prisoner’s lawyers had provided.

There was a curious pause. The Judge fiddled with his notes and glanced occasionally at the chief counsel for the defence, who was engaged in animated discussion with his juniors and with two gentlemen behind them, whom I took to be Mrs. Sampson’s agents, or solicitors. The Advocate Depute and his assistants looked towards them with interest; so did the clerk; so did young Kirkwall and his fellow reporters. Even the public at the back seemed to share our interest, and I saw heads crane towards the whispering lawyers.

At last Mrs. Sampson’s lawyer rose. I waited for him to call the prisoner’s name, and for her to leave the dock and pass into the witness-box.

He took my breath away by saying calmly, “That closes the evidence for the defence, m’ Lord.”

It was like a thunderbolt crashing into the silence of the court. The defence were not going to call the prisoner!

Her lawyer sat down again, grim and unrevealing. His opponents could not repress triumphant smiles.

Evidently the defence dared not risk their client’s coming under cross-examination. Such, at least, was my first impression; but then I thought, suppose they have some other plan in contemplation? Suppose they are relying, as they are entitled to do, on the legal presumption that their client is innocent until she is proved guilty? Are they not justified in forcing the prosecution to prove its charges, instead of presenting it with a witness who, in cross-examination, may well create the worst kind of impression on a jury composed, as I have already said, of men with no special claims to pass judgment on a fellow-creature?

I decided, not the first time in these three eventful days, to try to avoid all prejudice and to confine myself strictly to the material put before me by the counsel on both sides, with the help of his Lordship’s subsequent summing-up.

Meanwhile, up jumped the Advocate Depute. He coughed once or twice and intoned gravely, “May it please your Lordship, gentlemen of the jury, at the close of this most important, protracted, and somewhat complicated enquiry, it becomes my duty to address you on behalf of the Crown.”

And off he went, putting before us the whole gist of the case which he had so ably extracted from the many witnesses.

First of all, however, he said with obvious sincerity, “I feel it will be my duty to ask a verdict against the prisoner, but I will set a guard on my lips, as I have endeavoured to do all through this trial, in order that I may say nothing and do nothing that is not fair to the prisoner, and that I shall say nothing which is not warranted and which is not demanded of me by the public duty laid upon me.”

Our hearts might bleed, he went on, but our heads must do justice, in order that murder should be punished. Reminding us that Mrs. Sampson was accused of two crimes, murder and theft, he said that he proposed to take the latter first.

We could not doubt, he argued, that the silver articles now in court were the property of Mr. Robert Aitken and had been in his house at Southridge Terrace up to the Friday of the fatal week. By the next Monday or Tuesday they were missing. They were then discovered by the pawnbroker who had given evidence, and the prisoner had been identified as the person who pawned them. We had, he said, the best evidence possible about her guilt in regard to the theft of the silver. So too, in regard to the red dress which had belonged to Bessie McIntosh, the dead woman.

He turned now to the more serious charge and at once referred to the prisoner’s special defence, namely, that old Angus Aitken had done the murder.

“The first observation I have to make to you is that in the present trial you are certainly not trying old Mr. Aitken. The question is not whether he is guilty, but whether the prisoner at the bar is guilty or innocent of the charge made against her. This is the question to which, gentlemen of the jury, your attention must be directed; this is the only question which you can answer in this court. It is true, however, that everything that can throw light on the question is relevant, is admissible, is competent matter for enquiry.

“If the prisoner at the bar can show that she did not commit the crime with which she is charged, either because she was absent from the place, or because she had no opportunity, or because it was completed and perpetrated by someone else, someone known or unknown—all that would be relevant to the case. Still, as you see, gentlemen, it is only in reference to her that any enquiry can be gone into.

“Apart from the investigation of her guilt, all questions as to the supposed guilt of another party are irrelevant. Therefore, while you will anxiously weigh and consider every suggestion made as to the murder being committed by someone else—whether that party be Mr. Angus Aitken or somebody else—you will enquire into these matters solely with the view, and only to the effect, of seeing whether or not the prisoner is guilty of the charge to which she has pleaded Not Guilty.”

As the lawyer paused after this long sentence, my neighbour growled, “Och, man, stop blethering! Ye’re talking in circles.”

I could not wholly disagree with this comment: after all, if we jurymen decided that old Aitken had done the murder, we should naturally acquit the prisoner. Therefore it seemed to me, as to my neighbour, that old Aitken’s guilt or innocence was just as much a subject for us to ponder as the prisoner’s. However, I suppose it was all a matter of phrasing.

The Advocate Depute went on to say, in the usual manner, that if we had any doubt about Margaret Sampson’s guilt, we must, of course, acquit her; but he added, “It often happens in cases of this kind that more than one person may be charged. If guilt is brought home to one party, it will not be enough to say that some person else had a hand in committing the deed. Though there were more murderers than one, if the prisoner were one of them you must find a verdict of guilty against her. For the only question always is: Is the prisoner guilty, or is she not?”

It occurred to me that, while his logic was unexceptionable, and, I suppose, his law too, the matter was hardly so simple. Supposing, for example, my colleagues and I on the jury decided that the prisoner was only a secondary party to the murder, and that old Angus Aitken or somebody else was the prime mover, was it likely that we should consent to let her alone be hanged for it?

However, I rebuked myself for allowing my mind to wander into speculations of this kind, and gave my attention once more to the counsel’s arguments.

He now set out at considerable length and in consecutive order the material which we had heard from his witnesses. I have compared the manner in which the evidence was presented to us to a kind of jigsaw, in which the little pieces were gradually fitted into their proper places and order. The Advocate Depute now stated it to us in its final form, just as a man who has solved a jigsaw puzzle may examine and draw attention to parts of the completed picture.

There is no need for me to set down his remarks in anything like fullness, because they merely set out in a different manner what has already been mentioned in my account of the evidence.

As he completed each stage of his argument, the Advocate Depute asked us a formal question—and himself supplied the answer to it.

Thus he said at one point, “Are you satisfied, gentlemen of the jury, that Bessie McIntosh was murdered? I content myself with the medical report and the evidence given in reference thereto, as absolutely conclusive on the point that a murder was committed, a murder committed with extreme ferocity.”

Again he asked, how were the fatal wounds inflicted? He had no doubt that the chopper produced in court, which still lay on the clerk’s table, was the instrument used.

Then he spoke of circumstantial evidence, pointing out to us (as I had so often argued at my club) that it is a fallacy to suppose that circumstantial evidence is unreliable. “It depends on the kind and nature of the circumstantial evidence, for very often, gentlemen, circumstantial evidence is far more satisfactory than what is called direct evidence. It is less liable to corruption: a direct witness may lie; he may say he saw what he never saw; he may dream that he saw what he never saw. But when the evidence consists of isolated little circumstances, none of them pointing directly to the deed, none of them constituting a deed directly, but all requiring to be placed together and woven together with other circumstances, and when all these form one consistent chain, linking one thing with another and one person with another, this is most satisfactory evidence, gentlemen.

“If it is completely done, if the circumstances are conclusive, if coincidences as to time and place accord, if other elements, unsuspected and unforeseen and impossible to be prepared, are found exactly to accord with the result of a particular fact in reference to which enquiry is made—this, gentlemen, is more satisfactory than if you had one or two witnesses saying that they actually saw the crime done.”

He applied this principle to what he proposed to prove, namely, that every fragment of evidence about the prisoner’s movements and actions, both before and after the crime, pointed irresistibly to her guilt.

He examined the evidence given by and about Angus Aitken. As he began on this, I noticed that all the reporters again grew busy; evidently the old gentleman’s part in the affair was, in their opinion, likely to be of as great interest to their readers as it had been to all of us in court.

The Advocate Depute stated fairly the suspicions which might attach to the old man’s conduct and statements, but then he went on to defend him against his accusers.

“Angus Aitken, gentlemen of the jury, is a very old gentleman, and he cannot be expected to have a memory like a younger man in the prime of life.” That he should forget the milkman’s visit, counsel argued, was of small consequence.

She was an intimate friend of Bessie McIntosh. She knew the latter’s habits, and she knew the house. Where was she on the Friday night? Certainly not at home as she said; her lodger’s evidence was conclusive on this point. She had even told a witness that day that she was going to Southridge Terrace to visit her intimate friend, Bessie McIntosh. But she told the police afterwards that she had not gone there.

At the same time, he said, the jury must not convict Mrs. Sampson of murder just because she was shown to have told a lie, or a succession of lies, in her declarations to the police. No, we must study the facts, and only the facts. Indeed, we must even give her credit for not having premeditated the crime, for had she done so, she would not have told anybody that she was going to visit the victim.

To continue, he said, she returned home next morning carrying a bundle. She said it was a basket of coals, but surely (he argued) it was clear from the evidence of reliable witnesses what the bundle really was, for she pawned the silver only a few hours later.

He went on to examine her story about old Aitken’s having come to her house with the silver to pawn, returning next day and giving her nearly two-thirds of the proceeds for her trouble. “Gentlemen, is this credible for a moment? Can it be listened to for an instant?”

Why should old Aitken, with his money in the bank, do anything so ridiculous as to steal his son’s silver and get the prisoner to pawn it for him, all for a paltry pound or two?

“Is it not more probable that the prisoner got the silver from Southridge Terrace? And if she got it there, she was there on the night of the murder! This is the first item of evidence, real evidence, that connects her with the murder.”

Then there was the business of the dresses. There could be no doubt that Mrs. Sampson had left home in a brown dress and returned in a red one; and both these dresses had been traced—the brown one, with its lower part steeped in human blood—in the tin trunk deposited by the prisoner at the railway-station.

“The prisoner was with the deceased that night. Bessie McIntosh lay on her face and, while she was in that position, the chopper—or an instrument like that—was wielded with such fearful effect that her blood flowed in torrents. Thus the assailant’s clothes were bloodstained, and she would try to dispose of them.”

Counsel agreed that they might be burnt, but this would necessitate a big fire, which would be noticed by the neighbours at this time of year. Therefore, he argued, the bloodstained dress was placed with the other in the tin trunk and taken to the railway-station for concealment.

“Was ever a more dreadful tale told by silent witnesses?” he asked, reminding us also of the bloody footprints.

“I have lately read a story, a most ingenious story, in which it is suggested that the perpetrator of a crime was discovered because the eye of the murdered person retained upon its retina a picture of the hands of a clock at the very moment when he was struck down and killed. It is no poetic fancy, gentlemen, it is truth that the neighbourhood of the murdered body retains the impression of the murderer. The bloody footprints are there. They are not those of the deceased.

“Are they the footprints of Angus Aitken? Dr. Lockhart has said that they are not, that Mr. Aitken’s foot is wholly different. Dr. Lockhart says that the footprints are precisely such as would be made by the prisoner.”

He touched on a few other outstanding points in the evidence; then he ended solemnly and, I am sure, with a genuine feeling of distress at the task he was calling on us to fulfil, with these words:

“So, gentlemen, you have the story told by the facts, by the articles produced, which do not need the lies of the prisoner’s declarations to the police to enforce belief upon you. I therefore ask from you a verdict; for I contend that the evidence laid before you is sufficient, amply sufficient, to convict the prisoner at the bar. I say nothing of the peculiar atrocity with which this murder was committed; I say nothing of the attempt to place the heinous blame on Mr. Angus Aitken. You will weigh everything upon the evidence, and you will leave nothing to be determined without proof. May you be given grace and wisdom to return, according to your oath, a true verdict upon the evidence!”

As the Advocate Depute sat down, my eye caught Donald Kirkwall’s at the reporters’ table. For a moment, it seemed to me, the mask of journalistic efficiency dropped from him and was replaced by sheer human sympathy for the wretched prisoner. If this young man felt that the prosecution had so successfully urged its case that she was doomed, I realized that my colleagues in the jury-box must feel the same. For my part, I steadfastly sought not to pass judgment yet, until I heard her counsel address us and received the benefit of the Judge’s summing-up.

Her advocate now rose. His appearance was untidier than ever, his red face more grim and his wig more carelessly drooping over one ear. But his voice expressed confidence from its first syllables: no doubt he was acting a part, deliberately or unconsciously, but I have never known any man dissemble his feelings so well. To look at him, to listen to him, one might suppose that he had never been entrusted with a brief so authentic, so crystal-clear, so convincing in all its details, as the one which he was now to lay before us.

He began with a few references to the feeling of responsibility under which the Advocate Depute had claimed to labour: how much greater, he said, was his own sense of duty in presenting the arguments for his client!

“I think I will be able to show you,” he went on, “that all the evidence brought against her cannot lead to that positive certainty of guilt which must exist in your minds before a verdict of Guilty can be brought in. I claim confidently your verdict that these charges have not been proven.”

“Aha!” whispered my neighbour. “Yon’s his game, is it? He’s for No’ Proven.”

The lawyer reminded us that the prisoner was the “most intimate, most kind, most dear friend” of the dead woman. The wretched Margaret Sampson in the dock wept bitterly at this; perhaps he meant her to do so and thus to excite our pity.

And her supposed motive, he asked, for murdering Bessie McIntosh? Just to steal a few pieces of silver and a dress. Was it credible?

Circumstantial evidence, he went on, was all very well in its way—undoubtedly it had convicted many guilty prisoners who otherwise would have escaped the just penalty of their crimes—but it must be conclusive; it was not enough that it should merely point towards a person; no, it must so encompass him with the absolute certainty of his guilt, it must so exclude any possible alternative solution that there could not be the slightest doubt of any kind in a reasonable jury’s mind that he and only he was guilty. Was there such a certainty in the present case? Did the circumstances point so clearly towards the prisoner? Was every other alternative excluded? The lawyer shook his head slowly as he assured us that never in all his experience at the Bar had he known circumstantial evidence so diffuse, so full of gaps, so unsatisfactory, as in this case.

Suppose, he suggested, we applied some of the more important and uncontroverted evidence of the prosecution to an alternative solution.

“The murder is committed in old Mr. Aitken’s house while he is present, and when, according to the prosecutor’s case, the prisoner must have known that he was there. The murder is committed in a way which, according to the statement of the doctors, shows that there had been a severe conflict between the murderer and the deceased. And what my learned friend says is this: that the person who stood over the body of a friend, mangling it with a number of wounds, and doing this in a house in which she knew that a person was living—that this person, instead of going away from that house as fast as she could get, she stayed apparently in that house until a little before nine o’clock in the morning, washing up the floor, washing the dead body!

“And, gentlemen, these circumstances, according to him, are said to be consistent with the prisoner’s guilt. Are they so in your judgment?”

This was a good point, a very good point. Out of the side of my eye I saw my neighbour and another juryman nod meaningly at each other.

Was it not possible, the lawyer went on, that the prisoner’s story about her movements that night was true, and that, returning from a walk, she found the door of her house open?

For all we knew, Bessie McIntosh had given her the red dress as a token of their undoubted friendship. As for the footprint on the floor-board, it was curious that the prosecution had not brought any evidence to corroborate the statement of the doctor who stated that it matched the prisoner’s foot.

Indeed, what evidence was there at all that she had even been near the Aitkens’ house that Friday night?

“She says she got the silver from Angus Aitken, and, even accused as she is, I think I would believe her word sooner than his. You have heard him examined, and I do not think you will consider his evidence of the kind to command respect.

“The case of the Crown is that Angus Aitken, though in the house at the time of the murder and for three days with the dead body, is yet wholly unconnected with the murder. My learned friend is not satisfied with the suggestion that Angus Aitken may have been an accomplice; no, he insists that the old gentleman was wholly unconnected with it. Moreover, my learned friend relies on the evidence of this same Angus Aitken, who was himself at one time arrested for this crime.

“Now we know, gentlemen, that, though the prisoner is known to have been on the friendliest terms with Bessie McIntosh, Angus Aitken was not so. On the contrary, we have the evidence of Mrs. McLean, whom you saw and heard this morning, and who declares that the deceased complained to her of the old man’s conduct. The deceased told her that he made her life almost intolerable, and that she had a story to tell the witness which she could not tell her in the presence of the latter’s husband.”

He then took us over the old gentleman’s evidence, emphasizing its improbability as a whole and its dubiousness as to details. Old Aitken, he reminded us, had contradicted himself blatantly in his description of the milkman’s visit, and was himself contradicted by the milkman in regard to the chain being on the door.

To whose advantage was it that the kitchen floor should be washed during the week-end and an attempt made to remove the marks of the fatal struggle? Was it the prisoner’s, who, according to the prosecution’s case, had long since left the house? Or the old gentleman’s, who had stayed in the house and used the kitchen all through the week-end, and who had to explain his curious indifference to Bessie’s absence by stating that he saw nothing unusual or peculiar in the state of the kitchen?

Suppose even that the prosecution was correct in assuming that the prisoner came to the house at or after ten o’clock in the Friday evening; was it not admitted that old Aitken had been alone in the house with Bessie McIntosh since six o’clock that evening? Why, the murder may have been committed at any time between six o’clock and ten, in which case the whole of the circumstantial evidence on which the Crown laid such stress would be meaningless as proof against the prisoner.

“Who washed the deceased’s wounds? Who did that kindness to the injured woman? If the wounds that were washed were given before the fatal blow, I suggest that it was a man’s hand that inflicted them, and a woman’s hand that washed them.”

But all this, he went on, driving his wig from one side of his head to the other in his vehemence, was mere hypothesis. It was not his duty, he said, to offer us a solution of Bessie McIntosh’s death; this was the task of the prosecution. What he had to do was to show us that there was not a shadow of certainty—“Yes, gentlemen, certainty!”—which could lead us to return a verdict against his client.

He was, he proclaimed, confident that we should recognize the impossibility of finding her guilty, and that we should, “in the exercise of your duties, shortly restore a devoted wife and a noble mother to that sphere of life and those opportunities to discharge her functions as a good citizen, from which an unfortunate concatenation of irrelevant circumstances has temporarily torn her.”

I looked round: all the women there were in tears, and the men stared fixedly before them even while they clapped. My red-headed neighbour blew his nose sharply, and took the opportunity to rub a corner of his handkerchief against his cheek.

“Gentlemen,” he said to us, “I think it would be better if we retire now for a few minutes—it is well past noon. When we return, I will address to you the observations which I have to make in summing up the case.”

I have decided that I will not betray the secrets of our confessional, as I may call our discussions of the case in the privacy of the jury-room. I will, therefore, say nothing about the conversation which passed between us as we ate our meagre lunch and considered the two sets of incidents, or, rather, the two interpretations of the same incidents which had just been put before us by the lawyers. I may, nevertheless, go so far as to say that, to the extent that there was agreement among us, it was that the Advocate Depute had argued more cogently than his rival, though on certain points we hoped for such guidance from the Judge’s summing-up as would make it easier for us to fit them into a complete picture of the crime.

I, for one, anticipated much from the summing-up. I had often heard of the fullness, the conciseness and the scrupulous fairness with which the Bench delivers its summary of the evidence in a complicated case such as this was. I could not see that there were any legal points for his Lordship to decide; no, his task, it seemed to me, was to present once more, and without bias, the main features of the evidence and to put both sets of arguments before us in such a manner that we might decide, as clearly as our intelligence permitted, where the truth lay.

He began immediately we returned to the court. His voice remained as cold and passionless as it had been throughout the case; his sphinx-like features were uncharged with any sign of the emotional strain which was pressing on every other man and woman there.

Calmly he set out the main facts of the crime, as seen in retrospect. Bessie McIntosh, he said, must have met her death by murder; she could neither have inflicted the wounds herself, nor was there any trace of evidence which would point to the killing having been an act of self-defence.

“As regards the former,” said his Lordship, “you will judge whether there is not the usual evidence of theft in respect of the silver and of the red dress. These articles, the silver and the dress, were in the possession of the deceased up to the Friday, and here they are soon afterwards found in the possession of another party and——”

“Will your Lordship pardon me?” said the latter, jumping up. “There is no proof of the red dress being in the possession of the deceased up to the Friday. No witness spoke of that fact.”

I may be wrong, but looking back on it, I think that this small incident was really the crucial moment of the trial.

Had this interruption not been made, the summing-up might have continued calm and impartial to the end.

As it was, the Judge stopped in the middle of his phrase and glared down at the lawyer who interrupted him. His face, that granite, imperturbable face, slowly reddened until it was as ruddy as the lawyer’s. And I saw his Lordship’s hand, grasping his notes, tighten on them so fiercely that the paper tore in his fingers. Only then did I realize the reserves of passion in this man of stone.

His voice was shaking when he went on with his summing-up. He dismissed the interruption gruffly with the remark that the evidence on the point in question would appear later in his remarks, and he continued his comments on the matter of the theft.

But everything was different. Instead of impartiality, something like a note of argument entered his words. He emphasized certain details and dropped his voice on others. He intoned some of the evidence he was summarizing, and slurred over other portions. And always, yes, always, he now leaned to the side of the prosecution. I doubted my own impressions at first, but gradually I became convinced that they were right.

That small, comparatively unimportant interruption had turned the Judge from a monument of judicial impartiality into an advocate grimly determined to take advantage of his post to press to the utmost for the conviction of the prisoner. (I may add here, in the light of later knowledge, that this was the last case he ever tried; a week later he was a dying man. Something must have snapped in his brain, or his heart, that day—I still think this was the result of the interruption to which I have referred—and a man who, by a lifetime of application and integrity, had raised himself to one of the highest positions in his profession and had won the respect of all his colleagues and of the world, soon went down to his grave in a storm of controversy and calumny.)

At first, it is true, his remarks seemed on the surface to be in proper form. All the outward signs of impartiality remained, but I repeat, there could be no doubt of his growing bias.

I saw the defence lawyer raise his head and stare at him with a peculiar expression of bewilderment on his red face. Then it was the Advocate Depute’s turn to look up and, as I noticed, to glance at his rival with an almost deprecating gesture. Young Kirkwall, at the reporters’ table, suddenly put down his pencil and leaned back, as if he no longer cared to take down the Judge’s words; and he was followed at last by the majority of his colleagues, only one or two of them continuing their task.

So far as we of the jury were concerned, I believed that it was the Judge’s references to the evidence of one of the defence witnesses which startled us out into active suspicion. This was the woman who, as you will recall, stated that Bessie McIntosh, shortly before her death, said she wished to go away, complaining that Angus Aitken was “an auld wretch and an auld deevil”. According to this woman also, Bessie desired to tell her something about the old gentleman, but did not do so on account of the presence of the witness’s husband.

In regard to this evidence, the Judge said: “I need hardly tell you, gentlemen of the jury, that it is not proved that this thing which Bessie McIntosh had to say was anything material against this old gentleman’s character; I do not know whether the incident raises any such question in your minds. I can only tell you that it raises no sort of suspicion in mine. This woman she met was an old acquaintance, and surely it is the most natural thing to suppose that, when she said she had something to tell her, all that she wished to say was that she had decided to emigrate to America.”

I will swear that the Advocate Depute so far forgot his dignity as to whistle at this strangely unjudicial suggestion, the only possible basis for which was a sentence in the prisoner’s first declaration to the police. (No witness had spoken of the dead woman’s desire to emigrate to America, and, it will be remembered, the very witness, Mrs. McLean, to whom his Lordship now referred, had shown incredulity at the idea.)

Certainly somebody at the end of the lawyers’ benches let out a whistle of astonishment. The defence lawyer nearly jerked off his wig altogether in his emotion, and young Kirkwall, at the Press table, brushed a bundle of papers on to the floor as he swept round to a companion to reassure himself that he had heard the Judge correctly.

Around me in the jury-box I heard exclamations of astonishment and disgust. My little red-headed neighbour’s oath must almost have been heard by the Judge himself.

And this was not all, for then his Lordship, still to all outward appearance the embodiment of legal majesty, began to speak of old Aitken in a manner for which not even the foregoing lapse had prepared me.

“You will judge, gentlemen of the jury,” he began, “whether there is anything whatever proved against this old gentleman except this, that the servant women in his house and in his neighbour’s house said that he was ‘inquisitive’, meaning, however, that he did not care for them to entertain visitors in the house without his knowing who they were and that they were respectable. You will judge whether there is any ground of suspicion as to a man’s character in anything that may be thought by servants in his own house, who may be in the habit of having admirers about them. It is for you to judge whether we have anything in the whole course of this case which reflects in the least degree on the old gentleman.”

He mentioned one or two of the more suspicious parts of Angus Aitken’s evidence, and dismissed them airily with the comment that “He is a very old gentleman, and we must not judge him by standards applicable to a young man in full possession of his physical powers.”

“It is for you, gentlemen of the jury, to decide whether the special defence which has been put in by the prisoner, namely, that this brutal murder was done by Mr. Angus Aitken, and the attempts that have been made by her counsel to sustain it, convey to your minds anything but the impression of as wicked a tissue of falsehood as any to which you have ever listened; and whether, in place of arousing any suspicion of him in your minds, it does not satisfy you, if anything were yet wanting, of the complete and indisputable innocence of that dear old gentleman! And now you will retire and consider your verdict.”

I hardly remember how we left the court and went into the jury-room, for I was utterly overwhelmed by the conduct of the Judge. (I repeat that, though we did not know it at the time, he was a sick, even a dying, man; we had been listening, ever since that fatal interruption, to the ravings of a lunatic, tempered only by the half-remembered restraints of a lifetime of legal activities. A lesser man would have broken down altogether; but he had somehow managed to keep up the appearance, though only in lay eyes, of his former dignity.)

Not for anything will I even now reveal what passed between the fifteen of us during the time that we spent in deciding our verdict. Even at the end we were not unanimous, nor, of course, is this necessary in Scotland, where a majority verdict suffices. Nor did we allow ourselves to be influenced by the probability that a verdict of guilty against Margaret Sampson would be quashed on appeal because of the Judge’s misdirection. One thing, however, we were all agreed about; the position of the “dear old gentleman”, as the Judge had called him, was far from clear, and his evidence far from satisfactory.

We returned to the court after nearly an hour. His Lordship, now to outward seeming as majestic and imperturbable as in the earlier stages of the trial, took his seat. The prisoner, barely conscious perhaps of what was passing, stood up, and the clerk turned to our leader and said, “Gentlemen, what is your verdict?”

The clumsy fellow dropped the paper from which he was reading and there was a pause—age-long it seemed, though in reality scarcely a couple of seconds—while he bent down to pick it up.

“—By a majority, of opinion,” he went on at last, “that both charges as libelled against the prisoner are—” He called out the next words with a sudden increase in the volume of his voice—“Not Proven!”

There was a shrill cry from the public benches, followed by a roar of cheering. Faintly, for I confess that my eyes were dim with some undefined sensation, I saw the prisoner open her mouth wide, raise her arms in the air and, just as the wardress jumped to catch her, drop senseless in the dock. The Judge turned slowly towards us, still with that unmoved granite face, and—there is no other word to describe it—he gibbered at us for a second, and then was still.

Five minutes later, in a pandemonium of excitement, there ended what I have since seen described as the most sensational criminal trial of the century, and I found myself in the street, breathing deeply of the fresh evening air. I felt like a man who has been chained in a dungeon and is suddenly thrust out into freedom again.

Strangers surrounded me, recognized me, shook my hand, cheered me, patted me on the back. On one side of the door by which we left, a crowd had formed to acclaim the departure of the unhappy woman whom we had saved from the gallows, though, as they well knew, our Not Proven verdict still laid upon her some of the moral guilt of the murder. And on the other side, waiting at the witnesses’ door, was another gathering of men and women, especially women, who were sending up groans and yells of angry derision at a bent, slender figure in their midst.

Two or three robust men were trying to protect him from his assailants. A body of policemen rushed up and cleared a way for him to a waiting car.

Then I recognized who he was. There was no mistaking that old green overcoat, that shuffling walk, that sharp face peering keenly from side to side, the groping, talon-like hands.

On leaving the court I went straight to my own house, which is some distance from the centre of the city and has a pleasing view seaward. I should mention that it was my brother’s home for over twenty years, and that he chose the situation because it was at a handy distance from the offices of the Standard, which he had conducted with more or less success during all that period. In order to make room for certain cherished pieces of my own furniture I had, after his death, been compelled to dispose of some of his, and it was inevitable that the result should be a little incongruous, for he had a passion for the ornate, whereas my own tastes are towards the simpler Chippendale style. None the less, I was vain enough to think that the house had benefited from the mixture, and I liked to hear my visitors say how comfortable and “lived in” it seemed.

I smiled to think that my son, who had so envied me my unenviable summons to serve on the jury, was now far away—he had left, the day the trial began, for a reading-party in Brittany—and could not obtain those first-hand impressions of the case from me for which he hankered. His absence, however, made the house seem lonely.

After a hot bath, a change of clothes and a good meal, I felt much better, physically and mentally, though I had by no means shaken off the depressing atmosphere of the court, the discomforts of the hotel where I had stayed with my fellow-jurors, and, most of all, the memory of those last few tense moments in the jury-room. I had never imagined that a trial could take so much out of an innocent observer as this trial had taken out of me, and I could well imagine how much more onerous it must have been for those to whom its results were of paramount importance.

In many respects the case was unique—this had been admitted by those in a better position than myself to judge. We had been trying a woman for murder, while all the time a large number of people earnestly believed that the actual criminal was a man who had been called by the Crown to give evidence, the man whom the Judge in that amazing outburst had referred to as a “dear old gentleman”. It looked as if the prosecution had been bungled from the start, and that, had old Angus Aitken stood with Margaret Sampson in the dock, the result might have been different.

Yes, the trial was over, but its repercussions were deafening. I knew that the whole city was divided as by a swordstroke. Nothing like this had ever happened to it before. There were those who said that Margaret Sampson had vilified an innocent old gentleman in order to save her miserable life—an old gentleman whom everyone should admire for his integrity, his industry and his benevolence. On the other hand, Margaret Sampson’s protagonists whispered against that same dear, benevolent gentleman. They said he had a weakness for the young ladies; he ogled pretty girls in the street, and poor Bessie herself had said that he often saw more than he was entitled to see.

Yes, the trial was over—but only that part of it which had been conducted in the court-house. The dear old gentleman and Margaret Sampson were still being tried in the minds of the people who knew them, who had read the newspaper reports, and who had joined in the increasing discussions everywhere.

It was late in the evening when I decided to go along to the office to hear the opinion of Murgatroyd, my editor, on the business, and to find out what effect, if any, it had had upon the affairs of the Standard.

Murgatroyd, I was sure, would never leave his editorial chair until the paper was “put to bed”. My brother had often humorously referred to Murgatroyd’s over-developed sense of responsibility, which had made the jobs of young assistant editors so difficult. It amused my brother that a Yorkshireman like Murgatroyd should edit a Scottish newspaper at all, and that he should out-do our compatriots in their most characteristic qualities. He was said to read all the proofs of the paper himself, down even to the small advertisements, though these, however, in view of the paper’s restricted circulation, were no longer numerous.

From the day of its birth the Standard had managed to preserve a sense of dignity. It presented its news with decent regard for proportion and perspective, and was averse from the emotional outbursts and petulant recriminations which befouled the columns of our competitive rag, the Sun. My brother had made it clear to me, before he died, that he expected me to maintain this dignity, even against the changing tenor of the times.

Unfortunately, things had become more difficult. The Sun’s recent amalgamation, and its consequently increased resources, made its threat to our existence more serious. Its news service was greatly improved; new machinery had been installed; its two centre pages were now given up entirely to illustrations, and its headlines had grown twice as tall. The number of free commodities which one could obtain by the mere process of filling in a subscription form was remarkable; and its bulk was now prodigious. (Murgatroyd had sardonically worked out how many Sunday joints could be effectively wrapped up in one issue.)

I fully expected the Sun to make the most of the opportunity which the trial offered and to present all the horrors of the case suitably spiced. We of the Standard could not hope to rival them in that field, nor was it our desire to do so. What I had seen of young Kirkwall’s summaries convinced me that he had reached the limit of what was permissible in a respectable newspaper, and I suspected that, to ensure this, his stories had been trimmed by Murgatroyd’s discriminatory blue pencil.

As I expected, Murgatroyd was in his chair, with his desk littered with proofs. His coat was off, as it always was, and an enormous pipe hung from his mouth. The office was hazy with smoke and the floor a litter of matches.

“Why, Mr. Wilberforce!” he cried, perceiving me. “I was wondering whether you’d look in, or whether, perhaps, you’d be too tired. Take a seat, sir.”

I sank into the only other chair which the office possessed, and turned my gaze involuntarily to the poster file. The latest one—wet from the machine—bore slightly larger type than it was our custom to use. It read:

Murgatroyd, who was watching me, hastily took up a handful of crumpled posters from the floor beside him.

“This is what we’re up against,” he said. “I’ve managed to get them from the Sun office. Look at ’em!”

They were printed in huge red letters on a green background, and shrieked their messages:

“They’ll print whole pages of all the nastier bits of evidence to-morrow, not to mention photographs and drawings, and a loud pedal on the sob-stuff,” sneered Murgatroyd. “That’s what the Press has sunk to. And the public lap it up!”

He crumpled up the posters again and flung them towards an overfilled waste-paper basket; then pushed some galley-slips across to me. They were young Kirkwall’s summary of the last day’s proceedings, and I was glad to observe an absence of emotion. He occasionally indulged in a few personal impressions, but always with commendable restraint.

“Well, yes,” Murgatroyd admitted, “but not to any great extent. Donald gets carried away at times. He finds it difficult to forget that he isn’t writing for a rag like the Sun, but he shapes pretty well. If only I could get him to keep off the bottle!”

I remembered that my brother had mentioned this failing of Kirkwall’s, and had on one occasion dropped a hint to the young man in a fatherly way. Donald had not resented it, and had lately given me to feel that he was making an attempt at sobriety.

“Yes. But not alarmingly. As a matter of fact, during this trial he’s been sober all the time; you know, he’s turned in some excellent stuff. It looks as if he’s more prone to drink when things are dull. Put him on a good hunt with plenty of excitement in it, and he’s as sober as a judge. Oh, talking of judges, Mr. Wilberforce, what did you make of his Lordship’s outburst in court to-day?”

“Donald’s been trying to tell our readers that he suddenly went crazy. I had to tone that down. The most we can say is that the summing-up caused enormous surprise in court. Well, sir, I’m glad it was you who had to sit through that business, and not I.”

“We’re up a little—but not much. You can’t push up a circulation nowadays on straightforward news. That gang across the way”—he was referring to the Sun—“know it. You’ve got to have scoops and stunts nowadays, and that almost necessarily means bad taste and sailing mighty close to libel. The Sun is going to play this case for all it’s worth.”

“What more? Why, they can dish up the dregs for days and weeks on end. They can serve up the wildest theories in view of the Not Proven verdict. They can pay big prices for any exclusive bit of news or scandal about the principals because they can syndicate it among their chain of rags. And the public like it, sir.”

“Yes. The whole world’s changed since you and I went to school. Hot music, hot shows, hot newspapers, hot everything! The biggest market in the world is the market for emotions—and we of the Standard don’t carry our wares there.”

To my surprise he said this as if there were a sneaking regret at the back of his mind. Was it possible that the atmosphere of the Sun had been wafted across the narrow street which divided us?

“It’s better you should know how things are,” he said. “That gang are knocking us cold. We keep our circulation, it’s true; but they’re doubling theirs. And our advertisers are leaving us for them.”

He knocked out his pipe noisily on the edge of the fender and refilled it from an enormous pouch. Then the door opened and Donald Kirkwall entered the room. He was about to say something when he realized that his editor was not alone.

Murgatroyd looked over the burning match which rested on the bowl of his pipe. Like me, he had detected the queer little catch in Kirkwall’s speech. We soon had abundant corroboration of our suspicions by staring into Kirkwall’s excited eyes. The boy had been drinking.

I turned my chair and invited Kirkwall forward. Until that moment he had forgotten about his hat; he now removed it, and walked forward rather unsteadily. Then, his first embarrassment over, he smiled and completely disarmed us by his opening remark.

“I’ve had a few drinks,” he said. “Ran into the Sun gang, and encouraged them to talk. They’re all cockahoop.”

“Yes, sir. His story’s appearing in to-morrow’s issue. It’s great stuff—I’ve seen some of it. They’re getting new bills out. They’ll plaster the front page with it, and make us look cheap.”

“Sorry; I didn’t mean that. But it’s a scoop all the same. You see, this is the old gentleman’s great chance. He’s already right with his own following, but he wants to be right with the world. He tells in his story how he started Bessie McIntosh in that little grocery business, because he knew she wanted to better herself. It was a failure and he lost his money, but, bless you, he didn’t care two hoots, because virtue’s its own reward. And so on! Of course he didn’t write a word of the stuff. Davidson did that, but the old gentleman’s signed it. They’ve got his signature at the bottom—all spidery to show how weak and old he is. And that’s not all.”

“On the following day they’re going to run Margaret Sampson herself! The usual stuff, of course. You know: ‘My ordeal in the dock’ . . . ‘What it’s like to be on trial for murder’ . . . ‘Innocence Triumphant’ . . . the usual junk, with photographs of Maggie Sampson as a baby, as a schoolgirl, in a bathing-dress, and so on.”

Murgatroyd groaned, and young Kirkwall grew more bitter and excited. He banged the desk with his fist to emphasize the importance of his news. He had no certain knowledge of what Margaret Sampson’s line would be. “Perhaps,” he sneered, “the Sun’s star reporter hadn’t written it yet.” Anyhow, they were too canny to disclose its gist, but it was bound to mean increased circulation for the Sun—at our expense. Davidson, the Sun man, had asked him banteringly what we of the Standard were going to do as a ‘follow-up’ to the trial.

I saw Murgatroyd blink at this remark. Whether he was hurt by the metaphor or astounded by the claim, I had no means of telling. But Donald was not disconcerted by his editor’s lack of enthusiasm.

“Two aces,” he snapped, and I thought that the effects of his recent drinking were beginning to show.

“I will,” retorted Kirkwall. “Good, plain English. I know I’m drunk, but I’ve a good excuse. I’m sorry, Mr. Wilberforce, of course.”

“You know, sir—at least, Mr. Murgatroyd knows—that I’ve got rather peculiar eyesight. I have to wear glasses for reading and writing; but my long sight is particularly good—I might say, phenomenal. I can read a newspaper easily at two yards with my naked eye, but if I hold it closer, I have to wear glasses to read it. Chronic astigmatism, sir. I can read typewriting a mile off. Well, to-day in court something happened.”

He looked from me to Murgatroyd for some sign of encouragement, and received it from both of us, because there was no doubting his earnestness. He went on excitedly:

“You’ll remember, Mr. Wilberforce, that I had a seat at the Press table immediately below the bench where the counsel for the defence sat. Naturally, like everyone else, I was expecting him to put the prisoner in the box. When he didn’t, it was clear what he was after.”

“Oh yes. He was out for a Not Proven verdict—exactly what he got. If he put her in the box, she was likely to do him more harm than good, because you jurymen would feel more competent to return a definite verdict. If you happened to believe her story, you see, you’d find her Not Guilty, but if you didn’t believe her—well, it was odds on your finding her Guilty. So it suited him much better to leave you in the dark; it was Not Proven he wanted.”

“Yes, Donald,” I said, “that’s clear enough. But suppose that we had found her Guilty, just because we realized that he didn’t dare put her in the box?”

“He was ready for that. He’d got another shot in his bag, for use as a last resort, and the cleverness of this is that he’d then be able to make his points and save his client without her being exposed to cross-examination.”

“He had a statement of hers which he would read to the court, and the substance of which was so remarkable that they’d never have dared hang her. Fortunately for him, and for her, it wasn’t necessary to use it; his Not Proven gamble came off.”

“A statement by Margaret Sampson, in which she confessed that she was an accessory after the fact. I tell you he gambled on the verdict; but if he lost he always had that statement to——”

“Wait a moment!” said Murgatroyd. “How do you know that there was a statement of that kind?”

Murgatroyd looked sceptically across at me, to see how I regarded this astonishing claim.

Kirkwall went on, “When I say I saw it, I don’t mean I was able to read it all. Her counsel had it ready when you and the other jurymen, Mr. Wilberforce, returned to give your verdict. He took it from his brief case. I was cleaning my glasses when my eye caught some typewritten words. I think he must have seen me peering at ’em, for he covered the document with some other papers. But I wrote down in my notebook the words I’d seen.”

Kirkwall produced his notebook and put on his spectacles. He had marked the place with a rubber-band, and soon found what he wanted. He looked up to make sure he had our attention, and then read out a passage which he had underlined in his shorthand notes.

“ ‘I found Bessie lying on the floor, with her elbow below her, and her head down. There was a pool of blood on the floor.’ That’s all I saw,” Donald said. “And I wouldn’t have seen that but for my long sight. It was part of a very long statement—twelve pages or more—and it must have been made by the prisoner. Don’t you see what that means, sir?” he asked, turning to me.

“It might mean anything,” Murgatroyd interrupted him. “You can’t sever a passage from its context and deduce anything reliable from it. It might be a statement made by anybody, and quite unconnected with this case.”

“And the defence guards it—brings it into court? No, sir, it had the closest bearing on the case; and, had it been read out there, it would have put an entirely new complexion on the crime. Don’t forget, if the jury had found her Guilty, the clerk would have had to ask her if she’d anything to say why sentence should not be passed on her. Then this statement would have been read.”

“Quite so,” said Murgatroyd, “but it wasn’t. And it never will be, since she’s free. So that’s that! Have you anything else to say to us, Donald?”

Young Kirkwall gulped down his resentment at this summary dismissal. He gave me a sharp nod, ignored Murgatroyd, grabbed his hat and left the office.

“It’s a pity!” he murmured. “The boy has talent and tremendous energy, but at times he runs so fast he goes clean off the rails. The best thing about him is his loyalty to the paper. The Sun’s been trying to get him, but they won’t.”

He relit his pipe and automatically took a sheaf of proofs which a compositor’s assistant had brought in.

“By the way, Mr. Wilberforce,” he said, as his eyes began to run down the galleys, “if you’d care to look at our circulation figures, I have them here.”

I postponed that matter until a more suitable occasion, for my brain was scarcely in a condition to grapple with figures. I left Murgatroyd’s room and walked round the office. Before I quitted the building the presses had started to hum, and another issue had gone to press.

As I walked home in the starlight I recalled young Kirkwall’s expression as he left the office, and wondered whether Murgatroyd’s faith in the boy’s loyalty might not receive a shock in the near future.

Before retiring for the night I left instructions with my manservant for the morning issue of the Sun to be brought to me as quickly as it could be got. Usually I refused to have the rag in the house.

It was at my bedside soon after seven o’clock, by which time the morning was already sunny and warm. I found Kirkwall’s assertion borne out by my first glance at the front page, and I read Angus Aitken’s alleged story with considerable interest.

Having listened to him in the witness-box, I failed to recognize him in this emotional outburst, and it was evident that, at best, it was a much re-written and exaggerated account of an interview, although the Sun, with its habitual dishonesty, did not admit this. The story was overladen with false sentiment. Constantly the dead woman was referred to as “my poor Bessie”. That the old gentleman had financed her in her grocery venture was proved by the reproduction of a cheque for a hundred pounds, drawn to her and bearing his signature. The whole trend of the article was to show that he and Bessie were like father and daughter. But he hinted at two lovers whom she had had, and whose names he had never known; and he stated that, after she had broken off her relations with these men, she had always been nervous of going out alone after dark. One might draw one’s own conclusions from these facts.

As for Margaret Sampson, the article suggested that the public must interpret her behaviour as it thought best. He—the assumed writer—had always found her an honest, charming woman, a good mother and a good wife; and it had been a dreadful shock for him when the footprints on the bloodstained floor turned out to be hers. He feared that the solution to this horrible mystery would now never be discovered, but, despite his natural astonishment at Mrs. Sampson’s false statements about him to the police, he bore her no ill-will. He concluded with an apt verse from the Scriptures.

The Standard, brought to my bedroom at the same time, carried young Kirkwall’s summary of the last day of the trial, part of which I had read in proof form the previous evening. I compared his account of it with that in the Sun, and appreciated the difference. Murgatroyd was right: we had no emotions to sell, and I was glad of this.

It was only nine o’clock when I received a telephone call from my editor. I scarcely recognized Murgatroyd’s voice, it was so tense with excitement. He had something important to show me; would I please come down to the office at once? Yes, it was to do with the Sampson case—and called for immediate attention. To save time I had the car brought round while I bathed and dressed, and within half an hour I was walking through the almost deserted Standard building to Murgatroyd’s room.

Kirkwall was with him, looking even more unkempt than when I had last seen him. His face was haggard, and his nerves seemed all on edge.

“Oh, I’m all right, Mr. Wilberforce,” he replied with a smile. “You see, I had a bad night.”

I looked at Murgatroyd, who was fiddling with his pipe, and he in turn looked at Kirkwall.

“I’d better explain,” said Kirkwall. “Mr. Wilberforce, I’ve got something that the Sun would sell its soul to get. I’ve got Margaret Sampson’s statement, the original, genuine statement which she prepared for use as a last resort in the trial. It’s the truth about the death of Bessie McIntosh! It’ll knock the stuffing out of old Aitken and a lot of other people too. Here it is, sir.”

He handed me a batch of typewritten sheets, fastened together at top and bottom by thin pink tape. I saw Murgatroyd peering at me in a most extraordinary manner, and gathered from his anxiety that he was in some doubt about the effect of this document upon me.

The first page—under the blank sheet at the front—was labelled: “Mrs. Sampson’s Statement, made on June 28.” Somebody had underlined this date with a red pencil.

“Have you read this?” I asked, somewhat unnecessarily, glancing at Murgatroyd.

He nodded grimly, and I pressed my shoulders well back into my chair and started to read it.

“On Friday night, June 4 last, I went up to the Aitken house to see Bessie McIntosh,” it began. “I had been up seeing her a fortnight before, and had promised to come up again that night. We generally arranged for my coming on Friday night, as she then had most time, none of the family but the old gentleman being at home; and I usually went late, to let him away to bed, because, being of a jealous and inquisitive turn, he prevented us from talking freely. Old Mr. Aitken was always very glad to see me, and very civil any time he happened to be in the kitchen when I went to see her. Before I went, I put my child to bed about half past nine. As I did not expect to be long out, and he went to sleep quickly, I did not give Mrs. Peirson any charge, as I knew she would attend to him if he wakened.

“When I reached the house of Mr. Aitken in Southridge Terrace, I went to the front door, and Bessie answered it. She told me the old gentleman was still in the kitchen, but took me downstairs.

“The old gentleman was sitting in the big chair in the kitchen when I went in. He said, ‘Oh, is that you, Margaret? How are you?’ There was bread and cheese, and a tumbler and glass and two plates on the kitchen table, and a bottle of whisky.

“I sat down on a chair at the end of the table next the door. Soon after the old gentleman poured out a glass of spirits and gave it to me. I tasted it, and he told me to drink it up; but I did not, and he poured the rest back into the bottle. Bessie, in a displeased way, said to him that this was not the way to treat a person—that he ought to send the bottle round.

“He said, ‘Ye ken, Bessie, we’ve had two, three since the afternoon.’ And he said that he would not mind, but that Mr. Robert Aitken, his son, had said once before, when they were left alone in the house, that they had done well in drink, and spoke about them using so much. He added, ‘However, if you haud your ill tongue I’ll give you half a bottle.’ She said: ‘I’ve a tongue that would frighten somebody if it were breaking loose on them.’ The old gentleman said something as if to himself, but I did not hear what.

“He poured the whisky into a tumbler on the table, and at the same time gave me a ten-shilling note and bade me go out for half a bottle of whisky. Bessie gave me the key of the back door into the lane, and I went out by the kitchen back door, leaving it open, and locked the lower door after me, and went down the street, and along the first street that crosses it as you come out from the house, and along to Cross Street, to a public-house in Cross Street, on the right-hand side coming up from St. James’s Street, and not far from Mr. Buchanan, the butcher’s. It would be a few minutes after eleven when I got to the public-house.

“It was shut, but I knocked twice or thrice, as there was a light inside visible at the top of the shutter, but I did not get admittance; so I came back and turned round the corner into the lane behind Southridge Terrace. When I got to the back of Mr. Aitken’s house I opened the lane door, and went in and locked the door behind me. I found the kitchen back door shut, that which I had left open. I knocked, but received no answer. The light was burning, but I saw nobody in the kitchen. I rapped at the door with the lane door-key; after a little, old Mr. Aitken opened the door.

“He told me he had shut the door on ‘yon brutes o’ cats.’ I went into the kitchen and put the money back on the table. The old gentleman locked the door and came in after me.

“I told him the public-houses were shut, and I could get nothing; I then said: ‘Where’s Bessie? It’s time I was going away home.’

“He went out of the kitchen, I supposed to look for her, and I went out with him. When in the passage and near her bedroom door, I heard her moaning in the bedroom, and turned and went in past the old gentleman, who seemed at first inclined to stop me. I found Bessie lying on the floor with her elbow below her, and her head down. There was a pool of blood on the floor. The old gentleman came in close after me.

“She was stupid and insensible. She had a large wound across her brow. Her nose was cut, and she was bleeding a great deal. There was a large quantity of blood on the floor. She was lying between her chest and the fireplace. I threw off my bonnet and cloak, and stooped down to raise her head, and asked the old gentleman what he had done this to the girl for. He said he had not intended to hurt her, but it was an accident. I laid her down; and she had nothing on but her shift. I took hold of her and supported her head and shoulders, and I bade him fetch some lukewarm water. He went out into the kitchen.

“I spoke to her, and said, ‘Bessie, Bessie, how did this happen?’ And she said something I could not make out. I thought he had been attempting something wrong with her, and that she had been cut by falling. He did not appear to be in a passion; and I was not afraid of him.

“He came in again, bringing lukewarm water in a dish. I asked him for a handkerchief and some cold water, as the other was too hot. He brought them in from the kitchen, and I put back her hair and bathed the blood away from her face, and saw she was badly cut. I said to the old gentleman: ‘Why did you do such a thing as this to the girl?’ And he said he did not know, and seemed vexed and put about by what had happened.

“I asked him to go for a doctor, but he said she would be better soon, and he would go after we had got her sorted. The old gentleman then went into the kitchen again; and I supported her, kneeling on one knee beside her.

“In a little she began to open her eyes and come to herself, but she was confused. She understood when I spoke to her, and gave me a word of answer now and then, but I could get no explanation of things from her, so I just continued bathing her head. I bathed it for a long time, till she got out of that dazed state and could understand better.

“I asked her whether I would not go for a doctor, and she said, ‘No, stay here beside me.’ I said I would.

“I did not trouble her much with speaking to her at that time. While I was sorting out her head, the old gentleman came into the room with a large tin basin with water and soap in it, and commenced washing up where the blood was all round about us, drying it up with a cloth and wringing it into the basin. I had raised Bessie to sit up, and was sitting on the floor beside her.

“As he was near us, he went down on his elbow, and spilt the basin with a splash when he was lifting it. He spilled the water all over my feet and the lower part of my dress, and my boots were wet through.

“After Bessie had come quite to herself, I tied a handkerchief, which the old gentleman brought me at my request, round the cut on the brow. I assisted her to rise off the floor, and took her over to a chair near the bedside. She was very weak and very unsteady on her feet, and she asked me to put her into bed, just as she was. After she was put into bed I continued bathing the blood away from the nose, which continued bleeding a little. The old gentleman was drying and redding up the blood, and the water that had been spilt over where Bessie had been lying.

“When she was put to bed she appeared to be getting weaker, and lay with her eyes shut, and I said to the old gentleman, the doctor should be got now.

“He came and looked at her, and said: ‘No, there is no fear, and I will go for the doctor myself in the morning.’

“I thought she was asleep, but she heard what had been said, and turning her eyes to me, she said: ‘No.’ I understood her to mean that she did not wish a doctor brought at present.

“She lay in bed till the morning was beginning to break, or till, as I supposed, it would be well on till three o’clock. She had been sleeping, and gradually came to herself again, and I thought there was no danger. Latterly she spoke a good deal to me as I sat by the bedside when the old gentleman was out. He sat a while by the bedside, after redding up the floor; but he rose and went to the kitchen, and was going about both in the house and upstairs. I heard him making up the fire, and moving about; and when I went to get her a drink of water, I observed he had put the teapot to the fire, I supposed for her. He was but and ben several times, but afterwards came and sat down at the bedside, and remained there till she rose. I was twice in the kitchen during this period; once when I went for water for her, and once when I took my shoes and stockings (which I took off after the water was spilt on them) to the kitchen fire to dry.

“She told me that, on a Friday night some weeks ago, the old gentleman went out with a gentleman friend to dinner and did not return till eleven o’clock, when he was gey full. He asked her to help him off with his coat, which she did, and then she went downstairs, and to bed. She said that between one and two in the morning he came down to her room and tried to use liberties with her.

“She made an outcry about it, and was angry then, and spoke to him next morning about it, and said she would tell his son, her master. He begged her to say nothing about his having done so, or about his having come home the worse for drink; since, unless for the drink, he would never have done it. She said also that there had been words between them ever since; that the old man was in terror in case it would ever come out about what she had told me, and that he had offered her money; but that for her own character she would never tell his son on him. But she said she was going to make the old gentleman smart for all he had put upon her in the past, and make him pay well for this night’s work.

“She said that, after I went out for the half-bottle of whisky, they had a great quarrel, and he was very angry because he thought, when she said about her tongue breaking loose, she was hinting a threat to tell me on him. She said they had already had words on this same subject during the day, and, when it began again on my going out, she left the kitchen to take off her corsets, which were uncomfortable.

“She gave him some words on leaving the kitchen, and he was flyting and using bad language to her in the passage after she was in her room, and she was giving it him back while loosing her corsets. When she was about to take them off, she went and shut the door in his face, but he came back immediately, and struck her in the face with something and felled her so that her face was cut and she lay there.

“What I have stated was told me by Bessie during the time I sat with her. It was not told me all at once, but it is the substance of what she said. We did not speak on any other subject. She also asked me if she was badly cut, and I said she was, and she said that when the doctor came in the morning she would need to tell him some story or other how she got it.

“I asked the old gentleman once, when he came into the room, how he had ever allowed himself to be provoked to strike the girl after his own doings with her. He did not give me a direct answer, but just said it could not be helped now, although he was very sorry; but he would make everything right to Bessie, and make up for it as Bessie very well knew; and, if I would never mention what I had seen, he would never forget it to me.

“I said it was a pity I had anything to do with it, and that I did not know what to do, as I had left my child without anybody in charge of it. Bessie said that Mrs. Peirson, the lodger, would take care of the child; that I could go away before the doctor came, but that, if she must tell about this in the morning or when young Mr. Aitken came home, she was afraid she would just have to tell who did it.

“This was before the old gentleman, but he said, ‘No, no, Bessie, ye’ll no need to do that.’

“And he begged me never to say anything about this matter, and he would put everything to rights. I said I had no occasion to speak of it, and I promised never to mention it, and Bessie and he could take their own way. He would not rest content till I would swear it, and he went upstairs and brought down a big Bible, with a black cover on it, and in presence of Bessie he made me swear on the Bible that I would never tell man, woman, or child anything I had seen or heard that night between him and Bessie, and he said he would swear never to forget it to either her or me. He said he would make her comfortable all her life. After this he sat at the bedside.

“About three o’clock, I suppose it was, Bessie told him to go away into the house. He said he was very well where he was. I told the old gentleman to go away for a little, which he did, and I helped her out and assisted her. She said after she rose that she felt very stiff and cold, and if she could get into the kitchen to the fire. I put a blanket round her, and I called to the old gentleman, and he and I took her into the kitchen. She walked in, assisted by us, but I think she could have gone herself. She sat down on the kitchen floor at the fire, on a small piece of carpet.

“The old gentleman, at my bidding, went into the bedroom and brought the pillow and bedclothes; and I put the pillow under her head, and the blankets on her, and tucked them in below her. Some time after that she fell asleep for a while, but wakened and complained that she was too near the fire, and moved herself, with our help, without rising from the floor to her feet, away from the front of the fire, and turned herself, so that she lay with her feet in towards the fire and her head further from it. She lay in this position for a good while. The old gentleman was sometimes about the kitchen when I remained, and sometimes about the house. He was in the bedroom more than once.

“After lying there in the kitchen a considerable time, Bessie got restless and uneasy, and complained of feeling worse. I thought she was getting sick, and I brought her water. In a very short time—I suppose at this time it would be between four and five—she got worse very rapidly, and she said to me to go for a doctor.

“With that I drew on my boots and went into the bedroom, and threw on Bessie’s red dress which was hanging there, over my own, as mine was all wet and draggled. As I came out of the bedroom the old gentleman was coming down the stairs, and I said to him that Bessie was very ill, I was going for a doctor, where would I go to?

“He said: ‘I dinna ken where any doctor lives near, but wait a minute till I see how she is.’ I knew there was a doctor in the neighbourhood, and without waiting for him, because I thought he did not want a doctor, and I wished one brought at once, I went upstairs to the front door, but found it locked, and the key was not in it. I went down into the kitchen again, and he was leaning over Bessie with his hands on his knees, looking at her.

“I went forward and asked him for the key, and saw that Bessie had become far worse than when I left her. I thought she was dying.

“She appeared to be insensible but not dead, as she was moving. It was the first time I thought she was going to die, and I insisted on him letting me out for a doctor. He said he would not: he would do it in his own time. I went upstairs again and into the parlour, and opened the shutters, and put up the back window to see if I could see anyone stirring about the back of the other houses, but saw no one.

“I was leaving the parlour to go into the dining-room to look out in front, when I heard a noise in the kitchen, and I turned downstairs as fast as I could, and as I came in sight of the kitchen door, I saw the old gentleman striking Bessie with something which I saw afterwards was the meat-chopper. She was lying on the floor with her head off the pillow, a good piece along the floor, and he was striking her on the side of the head.

“When I saw him I skirled out, and ran forward to the door, crying to him; and then I got afraid when he looked up, and I went back up the lobby and part of the stair, where I could not go further, as I got very ill with fright and palpitation at the heart, to which I am subject. My fright was caused by hearing him coming out of the kitchen, and I thought he meant to murder me, and I stopped and leaned or held to the wall on the stair without the power of moving, and began to cry: ‘Help, help!’ He came to the stair-foot and said to me to come down, he was not going to meddle with me.

“I saw he had not the chopper in his hands as he came; and I cried: ‘Oh, let me awa’!’ He said he would do me no harm. I said the girl is killed, and what was I going to do. He came and took me by the cloak and said that he knew from the first she could not live; and if any doctors had come in, he would have to answer for her death, for she would have told.

“I was crying, and said: ‘Oh, what am I to do out of my house all night, and Bessie killed!’

“He said, ‘Don’t be feart; but if you tell that you know about her death you will be taken for it as well as I. Come down, and it can never be found out.’

“I went down to the kitchen in great agitation. I did not know what to do. I was terrified because I was in the house and saw the body lying there, and myself connected with her death. He said: ‘My life is in your power, and yours is in my power,’ but if both of us would keep the secret it never would be found out who did it, and that, if I would inform on him, he would deny it and charge me that I did it. He said it was as much as our lives were worth if either of us would say a word about it.

“So he bade me help him to wash up the blood from the floor, but I said I could not do it. He took the body by the oxters and dragged it into the bedroom, and took the sheet and wiped up the blood with it off the floor. The sheet and the blankets he had thrown up off the floor on to the end of the table; and when he took off the sheet to wipe up the blood, I saw the chopper all covered with blood lying beneath it, or else it rolled out of it on to the table. I beseeched and begged of him to let me go away, and I would swear never to reveal what I had seen, in case of being taken up for it myself as well as he. He said that the best way would be for him to say that he found the house robbed in the morning, and leave the pantry window open. Then he said no, that would not do, for the window had bars across it, but he would find a way somehow.

“He said that I knew very well he liked Bessie; but he was sure from the first that she was not able to recover from what he had done to her; and, when I asked him what tempted him ever to strike her, he said I knew that Bessie had a most provoking tongue, and that she had been casting up things to him, and he was mad at her; that he had no power of speaking while she was at him, and that he had just struck her in a passion; and that even on the Sunday night, a week before, he had just been on the brink of doing the same to her.

“He cleaned up the floor and lobby with a clout, and took the blankets and the sheet and the chopper and the bit carpet into the bedroom. He got some water about the sink in a tin basin and washed himself. He had taken off his coat and was in his shirt-sleeves since after the time he killed the girl. His shirt was all blood when he took it off to wash himself, so he pulled off the buttons and put it into the fire. He put on a clean one from the screen, and went to his own room and changed his brown suit for dark trousers and vest. He then went down to the cellar for coals, brought them up, and put them on the fire.

“The bell rang: he bade me open, but I said, ‘No, I’ll not go to the door; go yourself.’ It was the milk-boy. The old man took up no jug with him. He was in his shirt-sleeves when he went up, but in a black coat when he came down again. He brought no milk with him.

“After that he brought the silver, and said I had better take it to pawn in a false name, so that nobody could trace it. He afterwards said I had better not pawn it, but put it away some place. He told me I surely had a tin box, and that I should take the things and find some water where they could be sunk and never heard tell of. He took out his purse and gave me £1 7s. I consented to take the things, and promised never to breathe a syllable of what had passed. He said if I did, it would be my life as well as his, and that he would set me up in a shop, and never see me want.

“I went out from the house after eight o’clock, it might be half past eight, taking the things in a bundle. He opened the back door to me, and came down and opened the lane door with the key. I went along the lane westward, and in by the back court into my own close, where Mrs. Peirson let me in.”

I laid down the document. At the end was the signature of Margaret Sampson, to which was attached the names of two witnesses, her lawyers. It aroused in me a feeling of deep repugnance, even horror; yet I was bound to admit that it was of the utmost importance, and would no doubt have caused the greatest sensation had circumstances caused it to be read in court.

Murgatroyd was staring at me, waiting for my comments, but Kirkwall, I thought, seemed embarrassed, for reasons which my first question to him made clear.

“I know it is. That’s Sampson’s signature, and the circumstances in which I—er—found it prove conclusively——”

He caught my eye, and I think he knew what thought was passing through my mind, for he blushed.

“Donald, I can think of only one way by which you could have got possession of this,” I said.

“There were several ways, sir,” he replied. “But I took the one that seemed to offer the least trouble and delay.”

“Publish it, sir. It’ll be exclusive. It will put the Standard right on top again. It’s the biggest scoop of the year. We’ll have that gang across the street gnashing their teeth. This document proves that old Angus Aitken did the murder.”

“But will anyone believe him after the publication of this document? It’s so obviously true: if you read between the lines you can see how it was drawn up. Sometimes she just lets herself go, and sometimes her lawyers ask her questions and write down her answers. And look at the date—June 28! That means she made it and signed it before the trial, before she knew what evidence the Crown would have against her. Look at the bit about the milkman! It absolutely corroborates what the man said himself, and what old Aitken kept on denying. Oh, Mr. Wilberforce, it’s the scoop of the century!”

“That’s my funeral, sir. You’re not to know how I got it. Suppose, even, I did get into trouble over it—well, it’s worth it.”

“We shall need the best legal advice. Look at the libel in it on old Aitken!”

I ignored him. “That means you would entertain publication?” I asked Murgatroyd.

He stirred uneasily. I knew he hated to admit that he seriously considered publication of this appalling document, but it is seldom that a man is placed as he was—with his principles on the one hand, and with his professional recognition of a first-class scoop weighing the scales heavily on the other.

“They’d risk a libel action or anything to put it on their front page,” added Kirkwall. “And it’s so obviously true.”

I reflected what my brother would have done in the circumstances. He had left me sole owner of the paper. I was its guardian, the tribune to whom all matters of policy must be submitted. My brother, I knew well, would rather have seen the Standard reduced to utter obscurity than befoul its columns with such a document. I knew that this delicacy was considered old-fashioned and unreasonable by many persons whose interests lay in newspapers. Like Murgatroyd, they insisted that times had changed—and especially in the years since my brother’s death. One must march under the new banner of sensationalism, these people held, or not march at all. The onus of a decision was upon me.

Murgatroyd ought instinctively to know the right line of action, but I suspected that the close proximity and competition of one tentacle of that newspaper octopus which lived by disseminating the “new journalism” were confusing his standards. In despair, he was ready to meet an attack of mud with the same ammunition.

Young Kirkwall made a sound that was almost a sob, and Murgatroyd appeared to be bitterly disappointed.

“Why not?” asked Kirkwall. “Why not, sir? Our lawyer can tone it down and——”

“For one reason,” I said, “because it may not be true. It is just the word of one person against another. None of us knows if it’s the truth, in part or in whole. It may be nothing more than a statement cunningly drawn up to meet an emergency. Even if it were true, I should hesitate to publish it as it stands.”

“It’s not going to happen even once in our lifetime,” I said, at the risk of sounding pompous. “No, Donald, I admire your loyalty to your paper while I deplore the methods you chose to adopt. But for thirty years now the Standard has been a respectable newspaper. If it can’t live respectably, if it cannot survive the competition of the Sun by decent methods, then for goodness’ sake let it die decently—and the sooner the better.”

Murgatroyd seemed impressed by this, but I must confess that the echo of it sounded futile in my own ears. I wished I had taken more time and chosen my words differently. Still, it expressed my feelings accurately enough, and I no longer had the slightest doubt that I was acting as my brother would have wished, and that I was right in so doing.

“You know best, sir,” said Murgatroyd. “But it’s tempting, isn’t it?”

“Yes, but unfortunately it isn’t up our street,” I said, using a phrase which I hoped would appeal even to Kirkwall.

Then, touched by his depression, I decided to relax the rules which governed our staff.

“You took a big risk, my boy,” I went on, “and I’m not pretending that I approve of that sort of action, but Mr. Murgatroyd and I will forget that you ever mentioned this matter to us. If you like to put this document into the hands of another editor—preferably not the Sun group, but further afield——”

“Mr. Wilberforce,” he gasped, “I’m on the staff of this paper. It’s my paper, so to speak. Do you think I’d be such a cad as to offer my stuff——”

“I am sorry, Donald,” I said quickly. “That was a very tactless suggestion of mine. Please forget it!”

“That’s all right, sir,” he said, with a sudden smile. “I’ve slipped up badly—that’s all. You see, apart from getting stuff for the paper, I’m keen to get to the bottom of this murder. You were right just now. Maybe we haven’t even now got anywhere near the whole truth of what happened that night at Southridge Terrace. But I think we might, sir. I’m beginning to have some ideas about it.”

“Then make the ideas produce facts, Donald—verifiable facts. Follow up the case if you feel like that about it! Devote all your time to it! We will help you all we can, won’t we, Murgatroyd? But we can deal only with facts, remember! Facts—not mere accusations, or sensational theories.”

“Yes, Donald, I do. The circumstances of this case are so exceptional that I’m prepared to handle it in an exceptional way. If you can prove decisively and beyond the possibility of reasonable doubt how Bessie McIntosh died, we’ll print it. I don’t care if it seems to put us for once in the same category as the Sun; I don’t care if it saves us or ruins us. Produce the truth, and we’ll print it.”

Kirkwall’s face radiated happiness. Murgatroyd appeared, not unnaturally, a little astonished at my attitude, but he raised no objections. Kirkwall shot out of the room like a shot from a gun.

“I hope that young man won’t get us into any serious trouble,” the editor remarked. “He’s left that statement behind too. What shall I do with it?”

When I left the office I carried the abominable document in my pocket. In the High Street I caught a fleeting glimpse of young Kirkwall. He was swinging himself aboard an omnibus which was travelling at considerable speed, and I shut my eyes lest he should miss his step. But he got aboard safely, and I saw the conductor wagging an admonishing finger at him.

I noticed, too, that the omnibus was bound for Higher Tollgate, which is not a great distance from Southridge Terrace.

I will admit that I was unnaturally excited by what had taken place that morning, and when I returned to the peaceful surroundings of my own garden I asked myself why I, who had always prided myself on my equanimity and self-control, should now be behaving almost like those who, to use Murgatroyd’s expression, delighted to “lap up” the sordid details of the most horrible crimes. I decided that it was not due to my personal desires, but that I had, by the process of the law, been projected into this unholy theatre, wherein I had been compelled to watch, examine, analyse and even adjudicate upon the behaviour and allegations of the players in a gruesome drama.

To make matters worse, young Kirkwall had given me what appeared to be a glimpse behind the scenes. I wished he had not. I wished that I could have had an opportunity to banish from my mind all that I had heard and seen, to forget that, even in these days, foul murders could be committed.

Hitherto my life had been far removed from such disturbances. I had read accounts of such crimes, but I had never attached any serious attention to them. They had seemed utterly remote from me. Other men and women, I had noticed, were not so constituted. To them such events were vividly and poignantly real.

It was a little disturbing to me to reflect that I was not really immune from such sensations; hitherto, it seemed, my imagination, not my true nature, had been unstirred, and, now that one of these tragedies had occurred inside the orbit of my daily affairs, I was just as sensitive to it as my fellows.

The garden, which had so long been my pride, brought few pleasant thoughts this morning. I found myself standing before a delightful border of summer flowers, oblivious to their shades and perfume until I forced my senses to take notice of them. They were superb, despite the effects of the drought. My little fountain, burbling in the sunlight, afforded me no immediate pleasure. Instead, I found myself thinking of the basin of water which, according to Margaret Sampson, the old gentleman had spilt over her feet, if I could place any faith in her terrible document.

My tour of the garden, which it was my habit to make several times each day, was ruined by what I had learned at the office, combined with the ordeal which I had recently endured. Why had I now permitted—nay, encouraged—young Kirkwall to follow up the case? How much wiser it would have been to have dropped it completely, and left the unsavoury dregs for our competitors to wallow in!

In this repentant state of mind I wandered into the library through the French window on the terrace. I wrote a few unimportant letters and re-read two chapters of Francis Iles’s remarkable novel, Malice Aforethought. I chose it deliberately, because it dealt with a notorious murder of a few years ago and because the author succeeded so brilliantly in chronicling the trial through the eyes of the prisoner. And yet, how remote the book seemed from me, after the raw horror of life that I had just been examining. I found my mind slipping back into that noisome pit in solid fact dug by old Angus Aitken and Margaret Sampson.

With a growl of despair, if not rage, I pulled out the document which I had brought from the office, and in a few moments was immersed again in its pages. This second examination revived the old, tantalizing questions.

Was it true? How much was true? Was the whole thing a clever attempt to implicate the ‘dear old gentleman’ because he declined to back up the writer’s first clumsy declarations to the police? What was there in this statement to which an unbiassed person could point and say, “This is not borne out by the facts”, or “This is not to be believed”?

To satisfy my own mind I took pencil and paper and made notes as I went along. When I had finished I looked over what I had written:

Mrs. Sampson’s statement was drawn up before the beginning of the trial. But in certain important respects it corroborated evidence of which she could not then have had exact knowledge. It fitted this evidence better than the Crown’s theory.

Spilling the water over Mrs. Sampson’s feet. Here was a plausible explanation of her footprints. Thus it favoured her statements being true.

Reference to call of the milk-boy, and Angus Aitken answering the door. Borne out by the evidence.

Her failure to go for doctor. Very unconvincing.

Her account of the conversation which passed between her and Aitken, when it was quite clear to her that he had battered the girl to helplessness. Impossible to believe. She would surely have run from the house at the first opportunity.

The swearing on the Bible. Too melodramatic for credence, taking into account Mrs. Sampson’s character so far as it was known. Probably untrue.

General conclusions: The statement too rich in detail and too close to known facts to be entirely the work of imagination. At the same time it is not in itself sufficient to prove that the old gentleman had any share in the crime.

Here I was compelled to stop, but I was aware that I had done little more than skim the surface of the document. Had I dealt with it in adequate fashion, my notes might have taken up as much space as the statement itself. Could one, for instance, believe that after old Aitken had battered Bessie McIntosh with a chopper—even presuming that this was due to some insufficiently motivated brainstorm—he had, during Mrs. Sampson’s absence, repeated the attack?

It seemed to me that, instead of clarifying the tragedy, Margaret Sampson had made it far more complicated. The scene which she had presented was fantastic in the extreme. She and the murderer of her friend alone in that house the whole night! No, the statement as it ran might well be a cunning combination of fact and fiction.

It was far easier to believe that she, being in urgent need of money, had come to the house, which she knew so well, with the intention of stealing the silver; that Bessie had caught her in the act and that she had suffered for her intervention. But then Bessie, from all accounts, was a healthy, powerful girl, while Sampson was of poor physique and indifferent health. What was one to make of it all?

Murgatroyd called in to see me during the afternoon about some matters connected with the Standard’s finance. Another big advertising contract had not been renewed. It was inevitable that the subject which the whole city was discussing should be mentioned. He had heard that there was some doubt about the publication of Margaret Sampson’s special article, which had been announced to appear in the Sun next day.

“There’s trouble,” he said. “Mrs. Sampson can’t be found! At least, that’s my information. She and her husband have left the house in which they were living, and the Sun office is in a panic. It’s announced her article for to-morrow, and it can’t deliver the goods. I can’t understand her running away, because I heard that she was to get five hundred pounds for signing the article, and that’s a fortune to a woman of her class.”

“No. As a matter of fact, Donald hasn’t been to the office since he left us this morning. I’m afraid he’s gone on the drink again.”

I doubted this, for when I had last seen Kirkwall, boarding the bus in the High Street, I got the impression that it was something stronger than drink which was controlling him. But Murgatroyd was inclined to brood on Kirkwall’s little failing, despite his sincere appreciation of the boy’s abilities when sober.

“I’d like to see the Sun gang badly let down,” he said as he left me. “Jove, what a laugh it would be!”

Some hours later I sat down to dinner, feeling unusually lonely. I missed my son’s cheery presence and bright conversation; the dining-room seemed larger and darker than it actually was. I made up my mind not to indulge in morbid thoughts, but to endeavour to sit through a musical revue which was showing at the local Hippodrome.

“A ve-ry good show, if I may say so, sir,” said Jessop, my manservant, on hearing of my intention. “I hope you’ve booked your seat, sir.”

I had to admit that I had not done so, at which Jessop suggested he should do it for me and thus save me what might turn out to be a fruitless journey. He was on his way to the telephone when it rang.

“It’s that young Mr. Kirkwall,” he said, coming back into the dining-room. “He wishes to speak to you personally, sir.”

Wondering what new mischief was in Donald’s mind, I went to the instrument and heard his lively voice.

“That you, Mr. Wilberforce? Kirkwall speaking. I’m at Southridge Terrace—yes, at the Aitken house. Could you possibly come along? I can’t explain on the telephone, but I think it would be worth your while.”

I wanted to ask him what it was he wished to see me about, but there was an interruption of the line, during which Kirkwall’s voice dwindled to a ghostly whisper. I asked him to speak up, and if he could hear me. Then the line went dead. I returned to Jessop, who was pouring out my coffee.

“Never mind about the Hippodrome, Jessop. I have to go out—on a matter of business.”

It seemed scarcely worth while, for Southridge Terrace could be reached on foot within ten minutes. As I walked towards it I doubted the wisdom of my change of plan, for a laugh would doubtless do me more good than visiting the scene of a ghastly crime. Kirkwall, I supposed, must have got the key of the house from young Aitken, who, I knew, had been living at his country cottage since the murder to avoid the embarrassment of the crowds of people who were eager to see where poor Bessie McIntosh had met her end. Old Angus Aitken, according to rumour, had taken up his abode elsewhere in the city, and was carrying on with his work of rent-collecting as if nothing untoward had happened.

As I approached the house I observed a group of people immediately opposite it, on the other side of the street. One of them was pointing towards it, and then, becoming bolder, he led his companions across the road and pointed over the railings to the basement area, where Bessie’s bedroom was situated. Finally they passed along, with their heads together, and I could well appreciate young Aitken’s decision to vacate his home for the time being.

I had reached the gate when a young man and a woman came towards me. Suspecting that they too might be interested in staring at the house, I walked on.

“That’s the house,” the young man was saying. “The fourth along. You wouldn’t think such a thing could happen in a nice street like this, would you?”

I heard his companion draw in her breath, and saw her cling more tightly to his arm.

When the street was clear of these sensation-seekers, I hurried back to the house. At the gate I hesitated. Why had I come? What sense was there in it? So deep was my aversion, I felt like turning away, but at that moment the front door was opened a few inches and I saw Kirkwall’s face through the narrow aperture, and his forefinger beckoning me.

I passed through the iron gate, hurried up the few steps, and was admitted. Kirkwall shut the door.

“Glad you came, Mr. Wilberforce,” he said. “I spotted you from the upstairs window. There’s been a regular procession past this house all evening. D’you remember the architect’s plans of the house you were shown in court?”

“Then you know that Bessie McIntosh was murdered downstairs, where she slept. On this floor are the dining-room and parlour, also a small room which I think used to be a morning-room. For some years it had been used as the old gentleman’s bedroom.”

The bedroom led off the end of the lobby, where there was a kind of secondary lobby. The room contained an old-fashioned four-poster bed, two hideous pictures, and a painted washstand with its basin, jug and carafe. The floor was bare, save for a well-worn Persian strip alongside the bed, and darkened with a cheap walnut stain.

“Well, I do, because I was caught out in a thunderstorm. It rained hard from eight o’clock until about half past nine.”

He peered through the window, which was partially curtained. “Can’t show you for a moment; there are a lot of nosey parkers outside again. Ah, they’re leaving, thank goodness!”

He waited a few moments and then drew back the curtains and called my attention to a brown smudge on the left-hand pane of the lower half of the window. He begged me to examine it closely, and I saw that the discoloration was due to minute particles of earth.

“Yes. Now look at the window-sill, sir! You can see what I mean without opening the window.”

I saw that the window-sill bore a substantial amount of fine brown earth. This was curious, because the road outside was of macadam.

“Wondering where it came from?” asked Kirkwall. “It’s from one of the tubs outside the front door. Didn’t you notice them?”

I had observed two clipped box trees in green tubs by the door, but I had momentarily forgotten them.

“No, sir. The tubs are at the top of the steps. Anybody who wanted to fling dirt at the window would have to take all the trouble of opening the gate and climbing the steps to get it. I agree that the tubs are available for anyone coming to the front door, but surely no person about to ring the bell would want to throw a handful of earth at the window. Besides, as you can see from the smudge on the window, it was very damp earth, not particularly attractive as a missile.”

“Why, that somebody wanted to get to the old gentleman without anybody else knowing. Whoever it was dared not ring the bell, because Bessie would answer it. Whoever it was—and I’m not quite certain about that yet—knew the old man’s window, and, unable to reach it and tap on it from the street or the steps, because of the space between the railings and the house, took a handful of earth from one of the tubs and threw it at the window.”

“Oh no, sir. I’ve proved, haven’t I, that it had to be immediately after rain, and it hasn’t rained much, if at all, since that night. Don’t forget the drought, sir! We’ve had an amazingly dry spell of weather since the fourth of June, when the murder was. Besides, it’d be a much wilder assumption to suppose that anybody has come in here since the murder—on one of the rare occasions, if any, when it’s rained—and thrown a handful of earth at the window of an empty house.”

“I’ve already satisfied myself about that, sir. The window-cleaning company comes to the house every other Friday. The last time they called was on the morning of the day of the murder. They haven’t been since, as the house has been shut up.”

Kirkwall pulled the curtain to with a little sigh of disappointment and impatience. He evidently expected me to be greatly impressed by a discovery which, for all I knew, had no connection whatever with the murder.

“You may yet be right, Donald,” I replied, rather patronizingly. “Let’s assume that you are, and that someone did call who wanted to see the old gentleman in strict privacy. Where does that get you?”

“It depends who the caller was,” said Kirkwall, closing his right eye slyly.

I knew that he was not speaking the truth, and that he was smarting under my scepticism. This quickness to take offence was one of his failings, and I had observed it on other occasions. He seemed to guess my thoughts, and made an appeal to me.

“Mr. Wilberforce, you probably think I’m impulsive. So I am. But this case has got me by the short hairs. I feel that, if I hammer away at it hard enough, everything will come clear. I’ve got a definite theory; but I don’t want to talk about it, because it may all go wrong. On the other hand, something tells me I’m right. You were quite justified in pointing out the danger of attaching too much importance to that mess on the window. But it happens to fit in with my theory, and that’s why I can’t overlook it. It may be ten to one against me being right”—he looked slyly at me again—“but a ten-to-one chance often wins races, they tell me. I don’t yet know what you really think of Mrs. Sampson’s statement, but it seemed to me to be partly true and partly lies.”

“Anyhow,” he went on, “I’m not going to bother you with anything irrelevant in future. You told me that you and Mr. Murgatroyd want the facts, and I’ll hand them to you as I get them.”

His faith in himself was a joy to see, even though it might be, as I feared, based on nothing but enthusiasm. He was waving his arms about as he spoke, like a professional tub-thumper, and, so doing, he knocked the carafe from the washstand. It was shattered to fragments, and the stale water poured across the floor.

“That comes from getting excited,” he grumbled. “I’d better mop it up.”

Grabbing a towel he started on the job, collecting the pieces of glass as he proceeded. The floor was very uneven, and the water, instead of spreading over a wide area, took a course along the direction of the floor-boards. Kirkwall was close to the opposite wall when his head suddenly went down.

Kirkwall, having no pin, used a match. I saw him push the end between the ill-fitting floor-boards. Finally he stood up, with one hand cupped.

“Beads,” he said, opening his hand that I might see them. “Six white ones and two red.”

I glanced at the beads. They were extremely small, scarcely larger than a pin’s head. I expected Kirkwall to shoot at me some ingenious theory based on their presence, but he merely grunted and placed them in a used envelope which he found in his pocket. Then he finished his cleaning, placed the towel over the towel-horse to dry, and deposited the many broken pieces of the carafe on the top of the washstand.

“Because, if you look at the floor, sir, you’ll find that the stain has run between all the boards. These beads are absolutely clean and must have fallen there after the stain was applied. And that wasn’t so long ago; the stain’s hardly scratched yet, you see, even by the door. And you’re not going to tell me, sir, that old Aitken has a bead-edging to his nightshirt.”

“Sorry, sir, but if you knew how beautifully this fits into my theory you’d forgive a little facetiousness. Where do the beads come from? Young Aitken’s a widower, and he has no daughter. I know quite well that Bessie may have dropped them, or that someone, a guest perhaps, may have used this room fairly recently, but—but I like my theory best. Hadn’t we better go now, sir? It’s getting dark.”

I was only too glad to think of leaving the house, and I was relieved that he did not suggest that we should go downstairs, where the murder had been done.

We walked through the narrow passage into the lobby, and Kirkwall was about to open the front door when the gate outside squeaked.

“Oh, gosh!” he exclaimed. “Somebody’s coming. Get into the dining-room, quick!”

“But why?” I said. “Haven’t you young Mr. Aitken’s authorization to be here?”

“It was the only thing to do. Robert Aitken’s sick of the whole business. Nobody can get near him.”

It seemed to me, on the contrary, that there was every reason for thinking of it, for the person outside was slowly climbing the steps and I could hear the rattle of keys.

“I got in by one of the back windows,” Kirkwall whispered to me. “But we can’t get out that way now. There isn’t time. Quick, into the dining-room!”

My exasperation and bewilderment were so great that I had no time to object to his peremptory treatment of me. He hesitated at the top of the stairs which led down to the basement, and shook his head. He almost pushed me to the end of the lobby.

On the right was the narrow passage to the old gentleman’s bedroom, and on the left a shallow recess. It was a choice now between the bedroom and the recess, and Kirkwall indicated the bedroom.

“Phew!” he gasped, when we arrived there. “It may only be a visitor. If so, he’ll go away when he finds there’s no one at home.”

“Yes, he’s certainly taking his time,” the boy answered. “I’ll have a look.”

Before I could stop him he opened the bedroom door. A cold shiver ran down my spine as I heard the front door shut and the sound of somebody entering the house. The situation was embarrassing, to say the least. I pictured myself in the police-court, humiliated by questions which would be most difficult to answer.

“He’s coming here,” he whispered. “There’s only one way. Under the bed!”

The sound of shuffling feet could now be heard through the closed door. Kirkwall looked at me appealingly, and then slipped under the bed with the agility of an eel. There came a tug at my trouser-leg and, with bitter shame, I followed his example and lay beside him, feeling meaner than I had ever felt in my life, and with my heart beating so loud that I was sure it could be heard all over the house.

Then the door opened, and there was a dry little cough followed by a slight wheezing. Fortunately the valance of the bed came down nearly to the floor, so we were well concealed. But in one place it was caught up a little, and I contrived to get my eyes close to this.

Into my short range of vision came a pair of patched boots, two grubby spats, the neat ends of an incongruously new pair of dark trousers, and the whiskered fringe of a threadbare green overcoat. With a catch of my breath I realized that the visitor was the old gentleman, old Angus Aitken. I recalled that in court he had coughed like that at intervals, and wheezed as if he had asthma. Then the spats, the overcoat, and the shuffle!

Kirkwall gripped my arm, fearing, I suppose, that I was unreliable in such a crisis. But here he was wrong, for my fear of being discovered was certainly as great as his. An over-zealous newspaper reporter might be treated with a certain amount of leniency by the magistrates, since his livelihood depended upon his obtaining news. But in my case . . .

The boots and spats left my field of view. A few moments later the shuffling stopped, and there was a tinkle from the direction of the washstand. I assumed that the old gentleman was fingering the pieces of the broken carafe, and wondering what had happened.

It was a high-pitched ejaculation from the old gentleman. Of course, he had found the saturated towel also. Then there was more shuffling, and certain noises which I was unable to identify. An interminable time seemed to pass, and he still stayed. What could he be doing in this room, and at this time of the evening? Here he was—alone, as he thought—in a house which most people in his position would have shunned like the devil, so soon after the tragic events that had happened there. Possibly he had come for some article of clothing which he needed, but, if so, he was taking a long time to find it. Possibly he chose this twilight hour because he did not want to be observed by the curious people who had been staring at the house ever since the murder.

My position was most uncomfortable, apart from being undignified. My throat was dry and irritating, likewise my nose. A good cough or sneeze would have been most beneficial, and the attempt to suppress these only increased the desire. My breath sounded like a pair of bellows in action, but Kirkwall appeared not to suffer in the least from his unnatural attitude. He lay so still that he might have been dead.

There was a movement beside me, and a ray of light shone into our darkness. It was due to Kirkwall’s slowly lifting his end of the valance, on the side whence the old gentleman’s muttering seemed to come. I put out my hand to stop this crazy act; I reached the youth’s arm, but it had no effect. Slowly the valance went up and at last revealed Angus Aitken slowly shuffling towards the door. In his right hand he was clasping something, but I failed to see what it was. The door closed after him, and the sound of his shuffling footsteps died away. There was a pause, and then we heard the front door close.

Kirkwall slid from under the bed, and was on his feet long before I was. He looked round the room to see if the old gentleman had left any sign of his search, but everything looked the same as when we had come in.

“He came here for something, and took it away with him. That’s why I took a chance and raised the valance. I saw it in his hand, sir.”

“So did I. But it may not be of the slightest importance. If he’s lodging out, there may be things here that he needs.”

“If it’s anything to do with the murder, the police will not have overlooked it.”

“They overlooked those beads, sir, and the dirt on the window. I don’t think so much of the police—not our local police, anyway. I can’t let him get away like this.”

“And it may not. You’ve done enough mischief already. If I’d guessed for a moment that——”

“Mr. Wilberforce, will you excuse me if I run off? I can catch him before he gets out of the terrace.”

He did not wait for my approval, but hurried away, leaving me alone in that death-haunted house. Within a minute I was out on the pavement, breathing the unpolluted air of the summer evening. I made my way home by a circuitous route, because I felt a need for exercise to restore my equanimity.

I thought of the beads, the smudge on the window, and old Aitken’s unexpected visit. Was Donald Kirkwall justified in attaching any importance to them, separately or together? No, it seemed to me that not one of these items, taken by itself, signified anything definite, and I equally failed to see that they were in any way connected.

In fine, the evening seemed to have been wasted. Not only this, but I had been placed in a peculiarly ignominious position. Hiding under a bed! I, a respectable member of society, copying the behaviour of a peeping spy, an illicit lover, or a common housebreaker! I suppose there was a humorous side to it, as Donald thought, but it was still too early for me to realize it.

Jessop let me in and remarked, “Why, sir, do you know your coat’s covered with dust and cobwebs?”

After a glance at my face he hurried off, and, with that insight which is the hall-mark of a good manservant, brought the whisky decanter and a syphon of soda-water into the library. I took a turn or two along the terrace, to watch the sunset, and then settled down to a book.

My privacy was soon interrupted. A few minutes later Jessop entered the room again.

I laid down the book with a sigh and told him to send the boy in. Donald came bounding over the carpet, bright-eyed and brimming with excitement.

“What came off, Donald?” I said wearily. “But perhaps you’d like a drink first?”

“No, sir,” he said firmly, as if he were putting the devil behind him. “I’m getting all the kick I want out of this business. I followed old Aitken and caught him up at the tram-stop. He’s lodging at the ‘Grey Owl’—that cheap pub in Forges Street. He went straight to his room, so I had to think how to——”

“Not exactly, sir. I only wanted to see what he’d taken from Southridge Terrace.”

“I discovered that the telephone in the pub was downstairs. I knew there was a public ’phone-box at the corner of Forges Street, so I went along there and ’phoned the ‘Grey Owl’. I asked to speak to Mr. Aitken, and was told that he’d gone to bed. So I said it was tremendously important, and would they please fetch him to the telephone? They told me to hold on, but I ran as hard as I could up the street and reached the pub just as old Aitken came downstairs in an old dressing-gown. Then I nipped upstairs, found his room and slipped inside.”

I shook my head at this, but I suppose I did not wholly conceal my interest, a fact which Donald was quick to realize.

“I found what I wanted, sir. It was stuffed into the pocket of his overcoat. What do you think it was?”

“A baby—quite a young one, naked and propped up with cushions—the usual sort of thing. On the front of it was the name of the photographer and, on the back, the number of the negative. I made a note of ’em, and put the photograph back in his coat.”

Kirkwall brought out of his pocket the envelope into which he had slipped the beads, and I saw a word or two and a number scribbled on the back of it in indelible pencil.

“That’s why I’ve got to catch the night-train to Manchester, sir,” he added.

Naturally, as we did not publish a Sunday issue, the office was almost empty on Saturdays, though one reporter would be on duty to deal with emergencies, and Murgatroyd usually put in an hour or two. (I often wonder if Sabbatarians realize that Sunday, on the other hand, is a busy day for newspaper-men, since Monday morning’s issue has then to be prepared and printed.)

“Quite right,” I said. “Well, and what do you expect to discover in Manchester?”

“Old Aitken’s been married: he has a son, and perhaps more than one, for all we know.”

“So had Noah, sir, and you’re talking about the time of the Flood,” Kirkwall retorted irreverently. “But this photograph is quite recent—it’s three or four years old at most. I can tell that by the print.”

I doubt if Donald had considered this possibility, but even so, my suggestion had no visible effect.

“We all have feelings, Donald. I, for instance, have a feeling of shame at the disgraceful predicament you placed me in earlier this evening. Most of our mistakes in life are due to feelings.”

“So are most of our successes, Mr. Wilberforce,” he interrupted me. “Of course, I could get on the ’phone and ring up the photographer, but I don’t think I should get very far that way. Seeing him will save time in the long run. Of course, if I’d pinched the photograph I could get it copied at the office.”

“All right, sir,” he said, smiling shamelessly. “Golly, I had a narrow escape. I’d only just left the old boy’s bedroom when I ran full into him on the landing. He glared at me as if he suspected something, but I didn’t give him a chance to ask any questions. Well, sir, if I’m to catch that train I must——”

Jessop came into the room. He started to speak and then gulped in a most unusual way.

“There’s a gentleman, sir—an old gentleman. He—he says, sir, that he’s Mr. Aitken—old Mr. Aitken.”

Nothing could have been more certain to take my breath away. Even Kirkwall’s forehead puckered. Our discomfort was so evident that Jessop, fortunately unaware of its exact cause, added a remark.

“It is the old gentleman, sir. I recognized him by his pictures in the paper.”

Then he in turn became uneasy, for the old gentleman’s photograph had not appeared in the Standard, and the Sun was not supposed to enter my house.

It was then that young Kirkwall changed his mind about the whisky. He seized my glass, begged my pardon, hastily poured himself out a drink and gulped it down. A moment or two later the old gentleman entered the room. His horrible green overcoat over the new suit made him look his old scarecrow self. I noticed the usual drop of moisture on the end of his long, thin nose. He mopped this with a large silk handkerchief as he advanced towards us.

“I can stand well enough on my ain feet, as ye’ll be pleased to know, Mr. Wilberforce,” he said.

“Nay, ye’ll bide, my mannie,” said the old gentleman, pointing at him with his clawlike hand. “I mind ye were in the court at the trial, and it was tell’t me ye were a reporter on Mr. Wilberforce’s paper.”

“This verra nicht, half an hour ago, ye came from my bedroom at the house where I’m lodging, so it came into my head to gi’e chase to ye.”

“I telephoned to your office, and they tell’t me that I’d maybe find ye wi’ Mr. Wilberforce. They were richt.”

“I’m an auld man wi’ some experience o’ the world,” he went on. “And I’m no’ so daft as no’ to ken what two and two make.”

“That’s a valuable gift,” Kirkwall agreed. “But I wish you’d get down to brass tacks. You saw me at the ‘Grey Owl’! But it’s a public-house, open to anyone——”

Kirkwall glanced at me, and I thought it was time I took a hand in the conversation.

“Surely you are mistaken, Mr. Aitken,” I said in my most ingratiating voice. “Our friend may have gone to the ‘Grey Owl’. On occasion such places attract him, don’t they, Donald? But the suggestion that he entered your bedroom—— Really, Mr. Aitken!”

But the old man was not to be won over by soft speech. I saw his thin lips compressed until they were completely hidden, and the tufted grey eyebrows descended a little.

“Och, it’s no’ the first time ye’ve followed me. Ye followed me down Southridge Terrace this evening, walking close upon my heels. I wore my spectacles, and they show me what’s coming up ahint me.”

“I see,” said Kirkwall. “As a matter of fact, I thought you put them on to admire the legs of that girl in front.”

The old man looked like murder. He raised his fist shoulder-high, and I saw Kirkwall regarding him with impudent interest, for his attitude was no longer that of a decrepit old man. It was an astonishing change, but it lasted only a second. Then the taut figure shrivelled, and Angus Aitken was again as we knew him.

“Sorry,” Kirkwall said. “But I don’t see the point of this conversation. I’m free to go into any pub I like, and to walk in any street in this city.”

“Certainly,” I agreed. “But Mr. Aitken is making an accusation against you, and I think you should answer it. Did you, or did you not, take anything from his room?”

“Of course not,” Kirkwall replied. “What on earth should I want to take from his room?”

“Ye’re no’ so fly,” said the old man, addressing both of us. “I dinna say that anything was stolen. But there’s a conspiracy to watch my movements, to spy on me, and maybe it’s in your minds to write about me in your newspaper. I’m warning ye, Mr. Wilberforce.”

“I’m warning ye to have a care for the law. The wicked lies that were tell’t about me in court could no’ be prevent’t, but we’re no’ in the court the noo. If ye dare to write anything in your paper against my guid name I’ll——”

“Ay, I do. I ken fine ye’re angered that I gaed to the Sun wi’ my story about puir Bessie——”

“Mr. Aitken,” I said, “had you come to us with that story, we should have been pleased——”

“I haven’t finished, Mr. Aitken. I was going to say we should have been pleased to burn it.”

The old gentleman’s eyes blazed with anger. He picked up his shabby hat and jammed it hard on his head. Then he pointed his finger straight at me.

“Keep yon lad to his proper business, or maybe he’ll ha’e cause to be sorry—verra, verra sorry.”

With a sniff he shuffled towards the door. Before I could push the bell for Jessop to let him out, Kirkwall sprang to the door and opened it. As the old man passed him the boy whispered something to him.

The effect was astonishing. Aitken swung round so violently that he nearly fell. He raised his arm, hesitated, lowered it again, coughed and blew his nose, and then went out.

“I’d rather not repeat it, if you don’t mind, Mr. Wilberforce. You see, it was part of a theory I’ve formed. I wanted to see how he’d take it. Well, he took it, didn’t he?”

I eyed him suspiciously as he came back towards me, and he realized that I resented being left out of the secret.

“Not at all,” I said, recovering my dignity. “But it’s all rather strange.”

“Not really, sir. It was just one little point which, if true, is going to be helpful. It wouldn’t make any sense by itself, anyhow. You’ve often accused me of being impulsive, sir, but so far everything has come out right, and I believe the whole thing is going to come out clear before I’m finished.” He suddenly noticed the time. “Great Scott! I’ve got to run if I’m going to catch that train to Manchester. Is that O.K. by you, sir?”

“I suppose so, Donald. You’ve got me guessing, but go ahead. Charge up your expenses to the paper—but I suppose you’d do that, anyhow.”

“Thank you, Mr. Wilberforce!” he cried, wrung my hand and rushed out of the house.

When he had gone I reflected that the evening had been an eventful one. I certainly did not regret missing the Hippodrome show. Young Kirkwall had brought something new into my life, and at the moment I was not quite sure whether I liked it or no. Hitherto I had regarded the newspaper, whose owner and custodian I was, as something detached from myself—something which mirrored the outside world, however inadequately, and which was as impersonal as any other mirror. I now began to see that this picture was false, and that the Standard was a live thing, and that the lives and activities of men and women went into its making.

Young Kirkwall, for example, lived for the paper. He had gone off to Manchester with as much zest as he had broken into the house in Southridge Terrace and burgled the old gentleman’s room in the ‘Grey Owl’—and all this chiefly to serve his paper. Doubtless there was an element of personal ambition in his actions, but this was secondary to the main enthusiasm. In a word, he would do anything for his paper. And here was I, as a result of an evening’s adventures with the boy, beginning to feel something of the same impulse.

I told myself that my only interest in encouraging Donald to ferret out the secret of the murder was to serve justice—or, at worst, to satisfy my curiosity about an episode into which chance (and the jury summons) had led me. But I knew this was untrue. For the first time in my life I, the proprietor of a newspaper, had begun to realize how a newspaper is brought to life and kept alive. I wanted to find out the truth about Bessie McIntosh’s murder for the Standard; I was bitten by Kirkwall’s microbe.

I, of all people! I, who had been brought up in a quiet Border town where nothing ever happened, and where my father was minister with a comfortable living. On his death, which occurred when I was at Oxford, his will made the future easy for me, and I settled down to a humdrum existence in a business connected with church furnishings, in which he had been the principal shareholder. My elder brother, being of an adventurous spirit, had gone abroad five years before, and was then editing a newspaper in the Middle West of America. Aided by his share of our substantial inheritance, he started a newspaper of his own in the same State, and did well with it, for he sold out to a Philadelphia combine and came back to Scotland, where he rightly believed there was a demand for the intellectual type of newspaper.

The Standard fulfilled his life’s ambition, because he was not dependent upon profits made by the journal. Thus he was able to indulge his taste, and keep the contents of the paper at a high level. While he was establishing its success, I continued my uneventful life, which, for all its lack of action, proved a very pleasant one.

In my family, my business and my garden I found enough to think about, until my wife’s death. She died in one of those dreadful influenza epidemics just after the war. In the morning she was well; by nightfall she was dead. It was then that life seemed not worth living, and but for our little son, who would assuredly one day need me, I hesitate to think what might have happened to me in my stark loneliness. Even now, fifteen years afterwards, there is one rose in my garden which I dare not pluck, because it was her favourite flower, because I plucked it so many times for her. It dies on its stalk and sheds its crimson petals on the warm earth, as I once shed my tears. . . .

But on this evening that I am describing, life somehow seemed good again. My son was growing up and doing well at the University. My business—handed over to a junior partner and still prospering. My garden—is there anything in the world so satisfactory as a matured garden, which one remembers throughout its whole gradual upgrowth? The Standard—did I not now at last realize the grip that the service, the active service, of a newspaper had on so many men and women of widely differing types?

Yes, I felt I owed gratitude to my young employee, Donald Kirkwall. I had always liked the boy, despite his drinking habits and his apparent disregard for certain decencies of life; and now I could almost forgive him these vices, because I too was tasting of the enthusiasm which, unrestrained, bred them. I was a new man, and not, I think, a worse one; from blasé middle age I was in the process of transformation into a keen journalist.

But not into a gutter journalist! It was not only competitive satisfaction, but a feeling for public decency as well which made me welcome a paragraph in the Sun next morning, in which its editor thought fit to state that, through unforeseen circumstances, he was not printing the promised article by Margaret Sampson. He implied that he had honourable reasons for this; but I knew that the real reason was her inexplicable disappearance, of which Murgatroyd had informed me. I could well imagine my editor’s whoop of delight when he saw our vulgar rival’s public, if disguised, admission of failure. The Sun’s mud had turned to dust!

He was talking to me on the telephone before I had finished breakfast. Had I seen the Sun? he asked. What a shocking let-down! Yes, he had confirmed that Margaret Sampson was missing, and that there was little likelihood of the promised article ever appearing.

“Maybe she was advised to let sleeping dogs lie,” he chortled. “Well, there it is! By the way, I’ve a job for young Kirkwall. Is he ever coming to the office again?”

“Well, we can do with him. Howard’s got measles, or something silly, and we’re working short staff. Watson’s stuff is terrible. He only seems to know two hundred words—and they’re all bad ones or clichés.”

“What about that girl reporter you told me you’d taken on?” I asked. “You seemed enthusiastic about her last week.”

Murgatroyd invariably got his grouches off his chest early in the morning, so I paid little attention to his complaints. Throughout the day I heard caustic remarks from readers of the Sun, who had whetted their lips in anticipation of Margaret Sampson’s article, and at lunch at my club I had the misfortune to sit opposite Duncan, who edited that paper and whom I thoroughly disliked.

Despite the fact that we were not alone, Duncan showed a tendency to talk shop. At any previous time I should have discouraged this, but my new interest in journalism—and, perhaps, a natural pleasure in his misadventures with Mrs. Sampson’s article—made me a willing listener.

“There’s a howl about a missing document,” he said. “Have you heard about it?”

“That’s the mystery. It appears that a deed-box was opened two nights ago at Tapley’s office and a document was stolen. Tapley came to see me last night. He’s Mrs. Sampson’s lawyer, you know.”

“I don’t know whom he suspects, but his object in seeing me was to warn me against publishing the document, if it’s submitted to me. Naturally I asked him how I was to identify it, but he was giving nothing away. All he would say was that it’s a private and confidential document connected with the McIntosh murder, and that he’ll take immediate action if it’s published. Didn’t he come to the Standard?”

“He knows we don’t publish that sort of thing,” I said primly, and made Duncan frown.

“The whole thing’s very odd,” he went on after a long pause. “The police apparently haven’t been informed, and here’s Tapley all hot and bothered about it. What can this document be?”

“Bah!” he grunted. “There’s another thing too—that infernal woman who let us down—Margaret Sampson. There’s a row about it, and I’ve had the devil’s own time with the directors. Five hundred pounds she’s flung away, and for what reason?”

Strangely enough, a possible explanation had just then entered my mind, so I shot it at him while it was hot.

“Suppose, only suppose, my dear Duncan, that the stolen document would prove that the article which Margaret Sampson had promised to write—or shall I say, to sign—for your admirable paper, was a parcel of lies?”

“Merely a supposition, of course. But if this were the case, isn’t it likely that she’d think twice before branding herself as a liar before the whole world? She might also take it into her head to disappear before some enterprising person thought fit to make known the contents of that document.”

I have never seen Duncan so overwhelmed. He put down his knife and fork, leaned back in his chair and stared at me, at first incredulously, and then with admiration. I was almost as astonished as he was, for my hastily formulated theory fitted the case excellently.

“Curse you; I believe you’re right!” he said. “I say, do you know anything about it?”

“Are you suggesting, my dear Duncan, that I go about stealing documents from deed-boxes?”

I fancied I could watch his brain working. He had lost the Sampson article, but here was the opportunity of an even bigger scoop—the document whose theft had apparently scared Margaret Sampson so much that she feared even to take the £500 for merely signing her name. If it was in the city, it might be got. What did Duncan or his proprietors care about the lawyer’s threats, where circulation was concerned?

He left the club as quickly as he could, and I watched him with mischievous amusement. I spent the afternoon at home, weeding my rock-garden. Shortly after five o’clock a telegram came from Kirkwall:

From this I concluded that his undisclosed theory was standing the test, and I became impatient of the hours which intervened. It was half past ten when he sailed in, with his hat stuck on the side of his head, until he remembered it and flung it on to the couch.

“Rotten train,” he said. “No restaurant car, and a million stops. I haven’t had a drink since——”

“No, I won’t!” he said. “I’ll keep off it while this hunt’s on. That’ll give you more confidence in me, sir, eh? Phew, I’ve had a busy day. The photographer sold his business a year ago, and his successor wanted time to look up the data. And I’ve been to a nursing-home——”

“Yes, and a lodging-house and a registry-office. Anyone’d think I was selling vacuum-cleaners. But it’s all clear—so far! Who said that melodrama was dead?”

“Right you are, sir. Well, first of all the photographer said he’d refer to his books, but he was busy and asked me to come back an hour later. I did, and by that time he was able to hand me the dope.”

“The data, sir. The photograph was taken between six and seven years ago. It wasn’t paid for at once, but charged to a Mrs. Margaret Fraser.”

“Margaret Fraser! I seem to have heard that name somewhere,” I said, and he grinned. “Why, Donald, it’s Mrs. Sampson’s maiden name.”

“Exactly. She called herself ‘Mrs’ because of the—er—circumstances. The photographer had a note of the address she gave, and I went along there. It was a lodging-house, kept by the same woman who had it then. She remembered Mrs. Fraser—or Sampson—and was able to describe her quite well. Margaret Sampson had a baby at a nursing-home round the corner, and came to the lodging-house when the doctor let her out. She stayed there five months, during which time the child, a boy, was ill most of the time.” Kirkwall referred to his notebook. “The kid died at the end of April.”

“Six or seven years ago, you say? How long is that before she married Sampson?”

“Just over a year, sir. I questioned the woman who keeps the lodging-house about the child’s father. She said the mother told her that he was abroad and that she’d come to England to have her baby. But, of course, she couldn’t pull that over the registrar—I called at his office next—and the child’s birth was registered without any father’s name.”

“Not at all. The lodging-house woman told me—nasty, sly old beast, she is—that she’d never believed Mrs. Sampson’s story about the father being abroad, because letters used to arrive with a Scottish postmark, but never so much as a postcard from abroad. She kept an eye on Mrs. Sampson’s movements, and finally she managed to spot the address on one of these letters. It was from this city; that’s all she could remember at first. But when I suggested Southridge Terrace, she was certain I was right.”

I had anticipated the end of his story, but, as a whole, it came as an enormous surprise to me. So the dear old gentleman was perhaps the father of a child by his one-time maidservant. It was impossible to suppose that the staid Robert Aitken was involved. On the other hand, the old gentleman’s interest in the baby might be due to benevolence. Still, his possession of its photograph, and his recent interest in this, did to some extent confirm Kirkwall’s suspicion.

“I don’t know,” Kirkwall replied. “But he’d hidden it away somewhere. You remember how long he was finding it? He may have feared that it’d be found by someone, and questions asked. For all we know, he may have feared that some friend of Mrs. Sampson would break into the house and steal it, to hold over him in case he said too much about the night of the murder. But that’s a minor matter. What is important is that the dear old gentleman has been found out.”

“I’m not so sure of that, Donald. But even if you’re right, where does it get you?”

“A long way, sir. You needn’t doubt these facts, sir. You know that Mrs. Sampson—or Margaret Fraser, as she was then—was a servant at Southridge Terrace for some time. She left for a while and came back for a year, until she was married five years ago. That squares with the dates. First she was in service with the Aitkens, then she went to Manchester to have her baby, and after it died she came back and gave out that she’d been in a job in Aberdeen. A year later—that’s five years ago—she married Sampson. My next job, sir, is to have a talk with her.”

“A great deal; but she won’t know what it is till she’s given herself away. And even if I can’t find her immediately, I may be able to establish what I want without her.”

I saw that he was tired, and thought it kinder not to bother him with details. What he had already told me was sufficient to keep my mind busy. He seemed anxious to get away, and so we parted.

But on the morrow Kirkwall did not keep his appointment, and Murgatroyd growled something about his unreliability.

The boy was despatched. He came back later to say that Kirkwall’s landlady was a little upset because he had not been home all night, though he had wired her from Manchester to expect him. The day passed, and still no news came from Kirkwall.

By evening I began to brood on his absence and, to add to my anxiety, old Angus Aitken’s last words in my house rang in my ears. “Keep yon lad to his proper business, or maybe he’ll ha’e cause to be sorry—verra, verra sorry.”

Of course, this might be just the foolish threat of a vain old man. He would not dare to do anything to Donald, even if he could! If he could? I remembered his amazing appearance of ferocity when he threatened the boy, and no longer doubted his capacity for violence.

Kirkwall’s disappearance filled me with uneasiness. I was well aware of the boy’s inconsequential habits, but I could not recall a previous failure to keep an appointment; true, on several occasions he had been late, but he always arrived so full of apologies that one had to forgive him.

Murgatroyd’s conclusion was that he was drinking again, and was probably lying now in a friend’s house oblivious to everything but his own wretched craving. This I refused to believe. There was no doubt in my mind that he had meant to meet me at the office. Something must have happened to make it impossible for him to be there. But what?

I put aside old Aitken’s warning as an unreasonable solution. Kirkwall was young, sturdy, and well able to look after himself. How could the old gentleman hope to put an end to investigations which might prove embarrassing to him? No, the idea was too fantastic, too melodramatic.

In any case, he had little to fear from Kirkwall. Having been called at the trial of Mrs. Sampson as a witness for the Crown, he could never be charged in connection with the murder of Bessie McIntosh; under our Scottish law he enjoyed immunity. He might be open to a charge of perjury: I did not know the law sufficiently well to be able to settle this point, but I doubted whether the authorities, even if they were satisfied that he had lied in court, would care to admit publicly that their principal witness was a perjurer. I could not bring myself, therefore, to believe that he either would or could injure Kirkwall.

On the following morning I learned that nothing had yet been seen or heard of the boy, and again I battled with the notion that old Angus Aitken stood behind this mystery. This time I found it easy to overrule my deductions and reasoning of the day before. If the old gentleman had had a hand in the murder, I now argued to myself, he might fear the process of the law far less than he feared the weight of public exposure.

“Well, what do you make of it now?” I asked Murgatroyd, when I paid my usual call at the Standard office in the late afternoon.

“That would necessitate your telling them about the work on which Kirkwall was engaged.”

“You know best, Mr. Wilberforce,” my editor replied, obviously thinking the opposite. “But why not give him until to-morrow morning? You know what he is. He’s capable of riding off on a wild-goose chase, forgetting that other people may be anxious about him.”

The old bee was buzzing in Murgatroyd’s bonnet, and he suspected nothing more serious than a prolonged drinking bout. But I now had a better opinion of Kirkwall. Given plenty of work to do, work of the kind which appealed to him, he would feel no craving for artificial stimulants.

I pulled myself up, with an uncomfortable feeling that Murgatroyd was laughing at me under his simulated surprise. Confound the man! Why could he not display some human emotion? Had the cold and sober columns of the Standard reduced him after long years to an icicle? Or was his apparent lack of anxiety due to his often expressed opinion that ‘the devil looks after his own’—in this case young Kirkwall?

A moment later Murgatroyd was called on the telephone to talk to the machine-room; I took the opportunity to leave the office, for our conversation appeared to be unfruitful.

I hesitated for a moment outside the local police-station, and then walked on. They were fastening the shutters in the High Street, and the electric signs outside the picture-houses were lighting up. Outside the shops men waited, and I must have witnessed the affectionate meeting of a dozen young fellows with their sweethearts. They all seemed to make their way towards the Rialto, a hideous new ‘Super-Cinema’, and I blinked at the title of its chief film as it was spelled out, letter by letter, across the whole front of the building in red and white lights—M-U-R-D-E-R.

Here was this long queue of people, mostly young men and girls, eager to spend their hard-earned shillings for an entertainment in which murder was the chief ingredient. Were their lives so barren of interest that they must seek the fetid atmosphere and the darkness of that picture-house, and have their emotions jerked into activity by the relation of some ghastly crime which, I felt sure, would be so far removed from reality as to be absurd? Or was it the darkness that appealed to them—the opportunity for caresses where no unsympathetic eye could see them? Then I reflected that, whatever might be the real lure, it was hardly for me to despise them. Had not the murder of Bessie McIntosh jolted me out of my habitual placidness? Was it not I who had sent young Kirkwall on his quest—to ferret out the facts of that horrible episode?

These unprofitable reflections were passing through my mind when a girl collided with me as she ran out from the door of a shop which had just closed. She apologized breathlessly, and then stopped and stared at me. I got a glimpse of blue eyes, of abundant curly hair rebelliously peeping from under a tight-fitting black hat, and of two fugitive dimples, which seemed capable of smiling of their own accord. The face, I thought, was paler than it should have been in one who otherwise looked so healthy.

“You probably don’t remember me. I’m Ailsa Hunt, and I came once to a garden-party at your house. Donald brought me—Donald Kirkwall. But that was a year ago, and——”

“So funny—running into you—like this. All day I’ve been wanting to ring you up or something; but I thought you’d be annoyed. I went to the Standard office, but they couldn’t tell me anything—about Donald, I mean. I didn’t know until this morning that he’d gone away. You see, he promised to have lunch with me, but he didn’t turn up, so I asked his landlady. She says he’s been away all the week-end. But when I saw him on Saturday night——”

This information was welcome, for it meant that I was not the last person to have seen Donald. But we could not stay talking on the pavement, where we were constantly being jostled by other pedestrians.

“If you can spare me a few minutes, Miss Hunt, I should like to have a chat with you about Donald,” I said. “There’s a quiet little café just round the corner.”

“Of course,” she said, “we can’t afford to be married yet. But you won’t be interested in our affairs.”

“Indeed, I am,” I told her, “and especially in so far as they concern last Saturday night.”

“Well,” she went on hastily, “he wired me from Manchester that morning to say he was away—you see, he doesn’t usually have to work on Saturday—but would catch the train that would reach here just after ten. I met him at the station, and he told me that he’d been to Manchester on business for the Standard. He seemed very happy, but very tired.”

She misinterpreted my question, and I smiled at the flash in her eyes and at the haste with which she leaped to defend him.

“Donald’s absolutely loyal,” she said. “He never tells me anything about the paper—I mean, about the confidential side. But I knew it was something specially important. I can always tell that.”

“Well, he doesn’t drink then. Oh, I oughtn’t to have said that, ought I? But I’m sure you know. It’s not his fault really, Mr. Wilberforce. It’s—it’s—— Oh, he got it from his father, but I know he could cure himself if only we—— You see, when he’s with me he doesn’t drink at all, and that’s why I’m so anxious to—— Oh, I’m sorry, Mr. Wilberforce.”

“I see that you are loyal as he is,” I commented, and she blushed again. “What is more, I think you are right about him. This drinking of his is an idle habit; he needs active interests to overcome it. However, tell me about Saturday.”

“When he came out of your house,” she went on, “he told me that you were pleased with what he’d done.”

“He said he was positive he’d got down to the truth about something—he didn’t say what, though I think I can guess—and that he meant to write the biggest story of the year. At least, he said century,” she corrected herself with a smile. “Then he told me about a newspaper-man who’d worked his way up from reporter until he owned a chain of papers. Donald loves talking, and I like to listen. We—we didn’t take much notice where we were walking; it was such a beautiful night. Then we found ourselves down near the harbour, and I told Donald we ought to turn back.

“We were just turning when two men came along. They passed us under a street light, and Donald seemed to recognize one of them. To my surprise he asked me if I’d mind going back alone. I asked him why, but he wouldn’t tell me. He said that, if he didn’t see me yesterday, he’d call for me to-day at one o’clock so that we could have lunch, and then he hurried after the two men.”

“No. You see, Mr. Wilberforce, I wasn’t really interested in them at all.” She caught my smile and dimpled.

“I really can’t remember,” she replied. “Ought I to? Is it very important? I mean, is Donald in any trouble?”

“There hasn’t been much time for a letter, has there, my dear? You’ll probably get one to-morrow morning.”

She was making me more and more uncomfortable. She had realized that I was worried, just as she was. And my worry was increased by what she had told me. Two men—and one of them old! Old Angus Aitken’s sinister figure again came before my mind’s eye. Perhaps my first wild suspicion had not been so far off the mark after all.

“You’ll get your letter,” I said, patting her hand. “And I shall be hearing from Donald too.”

As we parted, she said, “Thank you so much for cheering me up. Donald’s always told me how kind you are.”

But I knew that she was no more cheered up than I was, as I rejoined the crowd in the city’s main street. It was time I went home for my evening meal, but this fresh information about Kirkwall was pointing me towards a certain line of action. Why should I not go to see old Aitken and question him about the boy’s disappearance?

Whether he knew anything or not, his answer would be the same; but his attitude should assist me in deciding if he was in any way responsible for Kirkwall’s absence. For a few minutes longer I walked aimlessly through the streets, and then I resolved to follow out this intention.

The ‘Grey Owl’ public-house lay half-way towards the harbour, a part of the town which I visited very infrequently. It was not bad as such places go, and I believed that it had acquired quite a reputation for its cooking. I presumed that the old gentleman had chosen this tavern in the Lower Town both because it was relatively cheap, and because it was near the neighbourhood where his work was centred.

A strong smell of fish came up from the quayside as I reached the ‘Grey Owl’, and I saw that its bars were crowded with sailors and dockyard men. One of these blundered out as I passed the first door, and nearly knocked me off my feet. Instead of apologizing, he asked me tipsily why I didn’t look where I was going, and caused me to regret that I did not know the appropriate answer to his rudeness.

My enquiries after the old gentleman were unproductive at first. Someone thought he was in the dining-room, but he was not. Another servant of the house was sure he had seen Mr. Aitken go out a few minutes before. The boots volunteered to look into the old gentleman’s bedroom, and came down after a considerable delay to say that he was not there.

At last I had the satisfaction of seeing Angus Aitken come in from outdoors. He was shuffling along as usual, one hand dragging at his side, and in the other an incongruously gay, if somewhat faded, bunch of flowers. He had evidently decided to wear his new suit always now, and I noticed that it was already beginning to show signs of shabbiness, though it still seemed smart by comparison with that dreadful old green overcoat.

He eyed me suspiciously, turned his head towards a door marked ‘Parlour’, but at last nodded towards the stairs, up which he preceded me at a much slower pace than I believed to be usual with him. Perhaps it was for my special benefit that he puffed and wheezed at every step, and had a fit of coughing as we reached the landing.

His small bedroom was littered with his belongings, and possessed only one chair. He offered me this with ostentatious courtesy, but I preferred to stand, as he had done when he visited me. There was a wash-basin in the room, and, putting the plug in the vent, he ran some water in the basin and dropped the end of his bouquet into it.

“The lassies are gey fond o’ flowers,” he began, and stopped abruptly, turning on me with a suspicious glance. Unwrapping his scarf from his scraggy neck, he hung it over the end of the bedstead, and laid his hat on the bed itself.

“You remember,” I said sharply. “The young reporter whom you followed to my house.”

“I’ll admit nothing, Mr. Aitken. You followed him because you feared he might have discovered something. Isn’t that so?”

“If you followed him once, you might follow him again. You might follow him to—Manchester, shall we say?”

At this I saw him prick up his ears, but the next moment he was wagging his head like a mandarin doll.

“I’ll make things plainer. Kirkwall has been missing since Saturday evening. In my presence you made a threat——”

“It was a definite threat, a very definite threat to him. Now that young man is missing—missing after a visit to Manchester which may have had a certain significance for you.”

Again I regarded him intently, but this time he was on his guard, and just went on shaking his head until I tired of the movement.

“Ye’re speaking in riddles,” he said. “I’ve nothing agin the laddie, except that’s it no’ becoming to any man to listen to gossip, and to spy on his elders. Well, maybe he thocht he was acting in the interest o’ your paper. Ay, I was fasht, but it didna last. I’m no’ so long for this world that I’d be wishing to bear anybody malice. Does the guid book no’ say that——”

I silenced him with an exclamation, and he shook his head as if at my irreverence. This sanctimonious attitude annoyed me far more than his aggressive outburst in my house.

“You’ve had a friend there since. First, in a nursing-home and then in a lodging-house.”

“In Manchester. Perhaps you recall a little boy who was born there and buried there?”

“Not for a man of your intelligence, Mr. Aitken. And if you need anything to revive your memory, you’ll find it somewhere in this room. The photograph of a baby boy, whose mother was Margaret Fraser, now known as Margaret Sampson—the woman who was charged with the murder of Bessie McIntosh.”

The old man stood there, looking benevolently at me. Then he wagged his head again.

“Ye’d better be ganging awa’ home,” he suggested with a kindly smile. “I’m sorry to hear about yon reporter laddie, and to see how it’s worrit ye.”

I almost rushed out of the place, feeling that I had made a hopeless mess of things. The interview had gone askew, and I could not think why. My youngest reporter would have made a better job of it.

I should have thought out my line of approach with more care. That decrepit half-skeleton had made me feel very much like a fool. I had got nothing out of him, nothing at all, except a sneaking regard for his sly imperturbability.

My manservant’s intuitive powers were remarkable. Jessop knew immediately that I was out of temper, and served my dinner in silence, until I myself broke it in deference to his tact.

“I beg your pardon, sir. That word’s a habit I can’t get out of. I learned it in Devonshire.”

After dinner I tried to give my attention to a wireless concert, but as both singers and musicians were far below the standard which one would expect from so wealthy an organization, I switched off and decided that a book might be more effective in taking my mind from anxiety about young Kirkwall.

But I could think of nothing else. If the old gentleman was not responsible for the boy’s disappearance, who was? Ought I to be sitting here and do nothing? Was it not my duty to go to the police, since Kirkwall had no relatives in the town? Even the pretty girl who loved him had come to me, as if she looked on me as his guardian.

A bell rang and startled me for a moment out of my thoughts. I was not sure whether it was the front door or the telephone, but Jessop entered after a few moments and told me that a Miss Ailsa Hunt had called to see me. I put down my book (noticing, incidentally, that I had been holding it upside-down), and told him to show her in. She had changed her dress since I last saw her, and looked more attractive than ever.

There was colour in her cheeks, and she was breathing hard as if she had been hurrying.

“Sit you down, my dear,” I said, offering her a chair. “You’re out of breath.”

“Something—something terrible’s happened!” she gasped. “I’ve had a telegram. It’s about Donald.”

She fumbled in her handbag and passed me the telegram, which was addressed to “Ailsa”—but without any surname—at her home, and read:

“Not necessarily Donald,” I pointed out. “You may have written to other—— Oh, I see,” I broke off, for her eyes blazed with contempt and anger. “We mustn’t assume the worst about his condition,” I ended lamely.

“I wish I hadn’t troubled to come and tell you!” she cried. “But I thought——” And she burst into tears.

She dried her eyes after a minute or two, and said, with comparative calmness, “I’m sorry, Mr. Wilberforce. I oughtn’t to have said that. But I must go to Starkness at once. I haven’t had time to find out how to get there, but I’ve enough money, I think. Which is the quickest way?”

I referred to a railway guide, but I scarcely turned as far as the page I needed before my duty became clear to me.

“We’ll go by road,” I said, throwing the guide aside. “I’ve a fast car, and I’m sure we shall save time by using it.”

“It’s fine of you! I’ve brought a few things in a suitcase. It’s in the lobby. I—I meant to go whatever—— And now . . .”

She embarrassed me by beginning to weep again. I rang hastily for Jessop, and told him to bring the car round to the door.

Jessop regarded me with dissimulated surprise when I reappeared, dressed for the road. I handed him my suitcase and the smaller one belonging to Ailsa.

“Very good, sir,” he mumbled, and I detected a shake of the head as he went towards the door.

Murgatroyd was still at the office, as I expected, and my message made him whistle.

“Well, well, well,” he said. “So he’s got himself drowned now, has he? What’ll he do next?”

“Very good, sir,” he said, and meant it. In his view, I suppose, it was better that Donald should be ill than that I should appear to be eloping with a young woman.

We were soon out of the town and into the country, which was still not wholly dark. I had never been to Starkness by road, but I knew the route well as far north as Inverness. Starkness is a small fishing-port some seventy miles farther on the north-west coast. The journey would have been delightful but for its cause. The clouds which had massed in the sky during the evening were now blown away, the air was clear, and the sunset colouring superb. Moreover, as Jessop had realized, I was in very charming company.

“I wonder how Donald got into the sea?” she said, as the car purred northward.

“Something to do with those two men, I suppose. Oh, I hope—I hope we find——”

“I’m sure we shall,” I said hastily. “You mustn’t read more into the telegram than it says. Do you know the Highlands well?”

“No,” she answered. “I was born in Peebles, and I’ve never been further north than Perth. I’ve always meant to go to the Highlands for our honey——”

I abandoned the attempt to distract her from her thoughts of her lover, and I dreaded to think what would happen to her if her fears for him were confirmed. The telegram’s ‘critical condition’ was so ambiguous: I prayed that the crisis might be past, favourably past, by the time we arrived.

Carefully avoiding looking at her, I began, after a time, to point out landmarks on the road. I found her quick to appreciate colour and contour, and as we sped in the half-light along that glorious highway—surely one of the loveliest in the whole wide world—and came among the mountains and the cool, mysterious lochs, she seemed to forget her fear in the presence of so much beauty.

I looked at the glowing sunset on the hills and, for the thousandth time, I quoted, half under my breath:

“You may call it my evening prayer, if you like, my dear,” I replied. “ ‘At the going down of the sun and in the morning . . .’ It was written in the War, you see, about the young men who died. I—I lost a son then, Ailsa. He was only seventeen; he ran away and enlisted. They told us that he was ‘missing, believed killed’, and so, you see, my poor wife and I always went on hoping and waiting, waiting and hoping, day after day and month after month. But we never heard anything more, and I never shall. I think his death broke my wife’s heart, as it nearly did mine.”

“I know you have a son, Mr. Wilberforce,” she said. “Donald’s told me. But I didn’t know——”

“Not many people do, my dear. I have had two sons. The elder was killed in France. People nowadays have forgotten, most of them, what those days meant to fathers and mothers; they think only of what the War meant to the men who took part in it. They suffered, yes, some of them suffered terribly, but so did we who had brought them into the world and raised them up to manhood. They suffered and died; but we suffered too, and some of us still live.

“I am very fond of my son—the son that Donald has spoken of; but it’s a different sort of love from the love I felt for his brother. You know, Ailsa, sometimes I think that I look on Donald almost as if he were my own son, the son who was taken from me. They would be about the same age now, just a year or two difference—— But I mustn’t talk like this to you. Forgive me!”

Our silence lasted while the yellows and crimsons of the sky faded into purple, and at last into an indescribable velvety blue. The stars came out and a sudden chill pierced the air.

Half an hour later she was really asleep, with her head on my shoulder; nor did the occasional jolting of the car wake her.

We arrived at Starkness in the small hours, to find the little town as silent as a cemetery. Ailsa wakened as we came to its first outlying houses and reproached herself for falling asleep.

“Yes. I think our best plan is to find an hotel. Then we can telephone to the hospital.”

We roused a yawning night-porter, who showed us a couple of rooms after I had knocked into his foolish head the fact that we did not propose to share a double one.

I went to the telephone with considerable apprehension, and asked for the night-sister. Ailsa stood by me, pale and trembling with anxiety. There was a little delay, and then the news came. It so shook my nerves that the receiver missed its bracket and hung swaying on its length of wire.

I recovered from my momentary horror, and placed my arm round her shaking shoulders.

“Why, no, sir. It’s not five minutes’ walk. Just across the square and up Frith Street.”

We passed out into the cool night air, and speedily found the hospital. After some minutes in the waiting-room, we were taken to one of the wards and led to a bed which was surrounded by a screen. Nearly sixteen years had passed since I had an experience like this, and my feet seemed heavy and noisy on the polished floor.

“I’m afraid you’re only just in time,” the nurse whispered, and I heard Ailsa catch her breath.

We passed round the screen, and tiptoed towards the dying man. He was muttering, and his head was swathed in bandages. As his back was towards us, the nurse motioned us to go round the other side so that we should not disturb him.

“Bad concussion,” she whispered. “Something must have hit him before the fishermen picked him up. And they took hours before they brought him here.”

Suddenly Ailsa gave a startled cry. I was near to following her example, for the man’s face, which we could now see, bore no resemblance to Donald Kirkwall’s. I saw that he was in the early thirties, but his face was strange to me.

She was evidently bewildered, but Ailsa recovered herself and came to the rescue.

She took a soiled, stained notebook from a heap of other articles, and an envelope from under its elastic band. The address on the envelope was indecipherable; the ink had run with the sea-water. But when the nurse took out the letter itself, I realized why the hospital had telegraphed to ‘Ailsa’, for this name was signed to it, and her address was stamped at the top of the notepaper. The water did not seem to have blurred the letter badly, presumably because Ailsa had written it in pencil and used ink only for the envelope.

“Yes—it’s from me. But it was sent to a Mr. Kirkwall. I—I don’t understand.”

One glance at the inside of the book was sufficient. It was nearly full of notes—some in shorthand and some in longhand—and the writing was Kirkwall’s. I remembered having seen the book in his hands, and there were some notes referring to old Aitken. The last twenty pages were in shorthand, and I could not read a word of them. Moreover, the sea-water had got at the pages, and the marks made by the indelible pencil which he used were smudged.

“This book must have been stolen with the letter,” I said. “They both belonged to Mr. Kirkwall, whom we expected to find here. May I take the book?”

“I don’t think so,” the nurse objected. “You see, there are a number of other effects, and if this man’s a stranger to you——”

“But I assure you that the notebook must have been stolen. Why, the letter proves it.”

She stilled my rising voice with a nod towards the patient, whose eyes had slightly opened during the last few moments, and who was now gazing towards us in a misty, uncomprehending way.

“I was hoping you were his wife,” she whispered to Ailsa. “He’s been asking for her.”

The lips of the dying man moved, but scarcely a sound came from them, and I doubted whether he was really conscious of our presence.

“I’ve seen him before,” she whispered. “He’s one of the two men whom Donald followed. I’m sure of it. Oh, if he could only tell us what happened—what his name is!”

“But we know that,” said the nurse. “He told us an hour or two ago; he was conscious for a minute then. It’s Jock Sampson. And his wife’s name’s Margaret or Maggie.”

This news came as a staggering shock, and yet I felt I should have taken such a possibility into consideration. It had come out in court that Margaret Sampson’s husband was mate in a small coasting steamer named the Swordfish, plying between Scottish ports. Kirkwall had been near the harbour when he had gone on his strange quest. Obviously he had gone after this man, though the reason was not yet clear. And here was Sampson, with Kirkwall’s pocket-book in his possession. It needed no great imagination to draw a tragic conclusion from this fact; and Ailsa, like myself, was already drawing it.

“I’ll take you back to the hotel,” I whispered. “There’s nothing more we can do here.”

“I’ll come back,” I promised her. “His mind may clear towards the end—or he may even take a turn for the better.”

The nurse had her own opinion about this, for her expression seemed to suggest that only an ignoramus would make such a remark. I handed her back the notebook, and then led Ailsa away to the hotel.

“That man stole the book,” she said, “because it contained something about him or his wife. He was picked up in the sea. Then Donald—Donald must——”

“No,” I said. “There are other explanations. It doesn’t follow that any harm has come to Donald. Certainly the notebook was stolen, but Donald may be—anywhere.”

She shook her head miserably, and then, as she began to climb the stairs, she caught both my hands and clung to them, while her eyes smiled wanly.

“It’s so ungrateful of me, Mr. Wilberforce, after all you’ve done. I ought to try to hope. I will try; really I will. Are you—going back there?”

I went out again, hating the task imposed on me. Now that I had denied any connection with Sampson, it was doubtful if I should be allowed to see him. But there was the matter of the notebook to be cleared up.

On my return to the hospital I was kept waiting a long time, and finally I decided to try to get a word with the house-surgeon. It was a quarter of an hour before he came downstairs to see me. He put the situation clearly. He couldn’t have his patient worried by visitors who were not related to him in any way. Yes, Sampson was sinking, but might easily last out until morning.

I then put my case, as a small boy might to his headmaster. There were good grounds for believing that Jock Sampson had done some serious injury to a member of my staff. It was possible that he might make some statement before he died, a statement of the utmost importance to those concerned. If his death was inevitable, what objection could there be to my sitting beside him?

A few minutes later I was sitting by the bed, in that ghastly white ward which seemed to reek of death. When I thought I had been there for two hours, my watch told me that only twenty minutes had passed. At intervals Sampson would murmur, and once I caught his wife’s name. I wished I could have helped him by bringing the woman of his thoughts to his side.

The low, despairing cry ended in a gurgle. I thought he was on the point of dying, but there came sounds of deep breathing, and all was quiet again. An hour passed, and then a terrifying thing happened. The regular breathing changed, and Sampson opened his eyes wide. He raised his head from the pillow, and I saw his gaze shorten to my face.

He passed his shaking fingers over his bandages; his head sagged, but he managed to keep it above the pillow. The nurse came forward.

“Wait!” he murmured, fighting against her attempt to make him comfortable. “I maun tell ye . . . I did it. . . . Ye’ll find the body . . . the auld well . . . near the shed . . . the well . . .”

This time the rattle in his throat was unmistakable. I felt a chill down my spine as the head dropped to the pillow.

I sat there, crumpled up in the chair. So much for my vigil! What he had been trying to say was plain enough, but what could I say to Ailsa? How could I hand on this terrible news without breaking her heart? The well near the shed! I had no idea where these lay, nor did I greatly care. All I could think of was the anxious girl who had loved Kirkwall so deeply.

I could not hold myself blameless. It was I who had encouraged him to meddle in this matter. The trial of Margaret Sampson had been over. The law had had its say. Why had I not been satisfied with that? My brother would not have wasted a moment of time to delve into the mud thrown up by that eruption. But Ailsa of the blue eyes, the soft, fugitive dimples, the generous heart—she was waiting in the hotel for news of her lover.

The doctor’s voice broke into my reflections. I did not even know that he was present, but now I noticed that Sampson’s head was covered.

“Yes, I’m satisfied he’s a murderer. That notebook belongs to the boy he—— May I take it?”

“I’m sorry. We’ll have to call in the police. I expect they’ll want to ask you some questions. Where can we find you?”

I told him the name of the hotel, and then walked heavily out of the place. The hotel was much too near for my liking just then. I passed by it, and came to the little harbour. It was moonlit, and marvellously peaceful down there.

For an hour or more I must have paced up and down, up and down, trying to decide what was the best thing to do. Should I tell the girl at once and appeal to her courage; or should I let her think that Sampson had died without speaking, and let her draw her own conclusions from what she already knew? Was it easier to receive bad news in one hard, crushing blow, or to spread the agony over time? Would it lighten her load if she could go on believing that there was still a chance that Kirkwall might come back, however slender the chance was?

Dejected and weary, I made my way back to the hotel just as the early dawn began to break. I passed Ailsa’s bedroom, halted, and came back again. I listened intently, and persuaded myself that she was asleep, so that it would be cruel to wake her. I went to bed, hating the day that was breaking, soon to be drenched with summer sunshine. ‘At the going down of the sun and in the morning. . .’

I suppose I must have slept at intervals, though I was scarcely aware of it. At half past seven the cup of tea arrived which I had remembered to order. Soon Ailsa and I must meet, and then I should have to tell her whichever story I decided on. As I had not dared to tell her the truth on my return from the hospital, it was now inevitable that I should continue to put off the evil moment. This was for her sake, I told myself—but I knew that it was even more for my own.

She knocked at my door shortly after eight. I opened it with considerable misgiving, and saw her regarding me steadily. So anxious was she, that she even forgot conventional courtesy for a moment.

“Oh—good morning, Mr. Wilberforce,” she said at last. “I—I wondered if you were back.”

“No,” I lied. “The end came very suddenly. He certainly mumbled something, but I doubt if he was really conscious; and in a moment or two he was dead. They wouldn’t let me take your letter or the notebook.”

At breakfast she ate nothing, said nothing; and I began to wonder whether my lying was being justified. Certainly the truth might have caused her to break down utterly, but this might have been a relief from the strain of doubting, which was now paralysing her.

“But that notebook, and the letter,” she burst out. “He couldn’t have got them without injuring Donald, and Donald’s been missing for days. His notebook may tell us something. You must get it, Mr. Wilberforce. They’ve no right to keep it.”

I explained as well as I could. The hospital officials could not hand over the dead man’s effects to anyone who came and asked for them. They had only our word that the notebook was stolen, and the whole matter would have to be dealt with by the police, whom I promised her to visit at once.

This was made unnecessary by the arrival of a police-sergeant at the hotel. I saw him in the privacy of the writing-room, and summed him up at once as officious, pugnacious and unimaginative. He had, I remember, a huge wart on the side of his nose, and I thought, absurdly, of this resemblance to Oliver Cromwell.

“Ye were?” he grunted. “I hear that ye’ve made certain allegations against a person named Jock Sampson, who died early this morning at the infirmary?”

“Sampson had in his possession a notebook belonging to a young reporter of mine—I should mention that I am a newspaper proprietor—and also a letter which was sent to the reporter by a young lady. I believe——”

“No’ so fast,” he groaned, and turned over a page in his notebook. “What is the name o’ the young man?”

“The dead man—can ye tell us anything about him? So far no relatives have been traced, and the Infirmary knows no more than the person’s name.”

“I believe he’s the husband of Margaret Sampson who was recently tried for murder. You may possibly have heard of that, sergeant?”

“Would ye be meaning the McIntosh murder?” he asked. “Ay, I’ve heard o’ that. But what makes ye think this man is the accused woman’s husband?”

“The name, and the fact that he was mate in a small boat. Also, when he was delirious, he constantly said the name Maggie, which is short for Margaret.”

“No, it isn’t,” I said sharply. “The chief reason why I’m certain he’s the husband of Margaret Sampson is because he was in possession of Mr. Kirkwall’s notebook.”

“Were ye expecting to find yon notebook in the possession o’ Margaret Sampson’s husband?”

“Kirkwall would be interested in this man. It was his job to get copy for my newspaper. Obviously he must have met him somewhere, but since then he’s been missing for several days. Now this man is picked up at sea, with Kirkwall’s notebook in his pocket. How do you account for that?”

“I’m no’ trying to, Mr. Wilberforce. I’m only concerned wi’ the facts. When was Mr. Kirkwall first found to be missing?”

He was rapidly getting on my nerves, and I saw the argument going round endlessly in circles.

“All the circumstances point to his having met Sampson,” I said. “We find Sampson in possession of the notebook, an article with which Kirkwall would not have parted voluntarily. Sampson could only have got hold of that book by force——”

His interjection took my breath away. Why had I not thought of that? But the next moment I realized why I had never stopped to consider it.

Sampson’s last words had banished such a theory. Apart from which, the coincidence would have been incredible. It was in my mind to tell the sergeant that Ailsa Hunt had recognized Sampson as one of the men whom Kirkwall had followed, but I meant to try to save her from official questioning.

“He didn’t find it,” I said. “I was with him when he died, and his last remark made everything clear to me.”

“Ah!” the sergeant said. “I was tell’t he said something. What was it?”

“He said: ‘I did it. You’ll find the body near the shed.’ And something about an old well.”

I expected the policeman to be keenly interested, but he merely wrote down my words with great deliberation, and then sat stroking his heavy jaw.

“And from those words ye draw the assumption that he murdered Mr. Kirkwall?” he asked.

He shook his head as if my question were a foolish one, and asked if I had anything else to say.

“Yes. I would like to have the notebook. In a sense, it is the property of my newspaper, and what it contains is naturally confidential.”

“I appreciate that,” he said; “but I’m afraid that, for the time being, we maun take the book in charge. Mr. Kirkwall may, o’ course, be able to prove ownership later.”

“The matter will be investigated. Och, ay, there’s one other point. We maun secure identification o’ the dead man. If he’s the husband o’ Margaret Sampson, as ye’ve tell’t me, that should be easy. Ye would be helping me by giving me her address.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I don’t know it, nor does anyone else. Mrs. Sampson went away immediately after her acquittal.”

“Mistress Sampson will be asked if it was the property of her husband; if she denies it, Mr. Kirkwall can claim it. And now, what would be your permanent address?”

I thrust a card into his hand and was glad to see the back of him, for he seemed incapable of realizing how closely connected all these things were. Ailsa met me in the lounge, and must have known from my expression that the interview had been unprofitable.

“But I want the letter,” she said. “Even if they keep the notebook, there’s no reason why they should keep the letter! It was intended only for Donald, and there’s nothing in it of the slightest value to anyone else.”

“But I can prove I wrote it—by my handwriting. Won’t you have another try?”

“We’ll call at the police-station on our way,” I told her, without much hope of success.

An hour later we left the hotel, and Ailsa reminded me about the letter. I could well understand her reluctance to have it read over by a group of provincial policemen, though, from the specimen whom I had met, I doubted if they were likely to find any amusement in a girl’s love-letter. We called at the station and I saw an inspector, who was less unsympathetic than his sergeant.

After a long delay the letter, stained and almost illegible, was handed to her, but not until she had signed for it and given her address.

“It’s a wee thing irregular,” said the inspector, “but the letter would no’ appear to be important.”

To judge from Ailsa’s expression, she thought differently, but we thanked him and quickly returned to the car.

The weather had changed overnight, and the sky was again covered with heavy, ominous clouds. The country-side, so recently gay with sunshine, reflected the gloom of the sky. The steady drone of the engine stimulated me to reflection, especially morbid reflection. I pondered on the chain of incidents until I thought I could fill in the gap between the night of Kirkwall’s disappearance and the finding of Jock Sampson.

Kirkwall, I decided, had recognized Sampson under the street-lamp. Perhaps he knew that the Swordfish was soon due to sail, and that in all probability Sampson would spend his last night ashore with his wife. Sampson probably parted from his companion, and Kirkwall, keen to find where Margaret Sampson was hiding, set off after him.

Somehow Sampson became aware that he was being followed, and suspecting that Kirkwall’s intention was to track down his wife—to make copy out of her for some unscrupulous rag like the Sun, whose reporters, he must have known, were looking everywhere for her—he had succeeded in turning the tables on the boy. By some means he had killed him. I wanted to believe that it was an accident—a powerful blow struck in a moment of fury. I had seen that Sampson was big and muscular. In any case, the result was the same. He had then concealed the body, after removing the notebook and its enclosed letter, in an old well near a shed. He had been trying to tell me where this place was. I shuddered at the memory, and the car shot across the road.

A little later I saw her reading the letter which she had recovered. When she finished it her hand was trembling and she was weeping. She had placed the envelope on her lap, with its obliterated address, but it lay there face downwards, and I could see some marks on it. They had been made in indelible pencil and, though blurred, were still decipherable.

I remembered the envelope. Donald had used it to write down the name of the Manchester photographer and the number of the photograph which he had seen in old Aitken’s bedroom. But under this was another pencilled address, which seemed to have no connection with the photograph. As Ailsa picked up the envelope, I stopped her.

“There’s an address on the back,” I said. “Not the Manchester one; the other. What is it?”

She held it a few inches from my eyes, and it seemed to me to read as she said. And there were initials before the words, which looked to me like ‘M.S.’ If so, they surely referred to Margaret Sampson. So Kirkwall had traced her!

“Friday? That was the day he left for Manchester. It means he must have written that address the same day, or afterwards, and it looks as if it was written after he wrote the Manchester address. Of course it may mean nothing, but——”

“I was wondering whether Donald had found Mrs. Sampson’s address. There’s a village called Gildaith only a few miles out of town, you know, and the buses go there. It’s worth investigating, I think; because, if I can find Margaret Sampson, we’ll certainly be able to get the notebook back. Yes, and I can tell her the bad news about her husband.”

As I drove southward I changed my earlier theory to some extent. Kirkwall certainly did not know Margaret Sampson’s address when he went after her husband. He must, then, on the supposition that he had found her address, have traced Jock Sampson to where his wife was living.

Had he seen her? No, that did not follow: he might have drawn an obvious conclusion and noted down the address on the back of the envelope. Had he prowled round the house, hoping to prove his suspicions, and been caught by the angry husband? If so, why had not Sampson noticed the address on the back of the envelope and destroyed it at once?

What ought I to do? Go to the police as soon as I reached home and give them all the information which I possessed, or pay a visit to Gildaith first and satisfy myself that there was a definite connection between it and Kirkwall’s disappearance?

I dropped Ailsa at the door of the hat-shop where she worked, hoping that she could satisfactorily explain her morning’s absence to her employer.

She thanked me charmingly for all I had done, and looked so curiously at me that I realized she was waiting for me to say something. I should have liked to be able to encourage her to hope for good news of Donald, but words would not come. I now wished that I had been candid with her all along. Sooner or later she must know the truth.

I drove on to the office, where Murgatroyd had a young reporter on the mat, and was laying down the law to him. The offender had turned in a story which, on enquiry, had proved to be only partly correct, and Murgatroyd had almost allowed it to go into the paper.

“Do that again, and you’re fired,” he roared. “You’re working for the Standard, you understand? Not for the Sun! Now get out, and keep your ears closed to public-house gossip!”

The youth passed me at the door with a scarlet face. He tried to wish me good-afternoon, but the only sound that came was an inarticulate groan.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Wilberforce,” said Murgatroyd. “I ’phoned Starkness this morning, and I’m glad the corpse wasn’t Donald’s after all. Queer that Sampson should go out that way, isn’t it? Any connection with his wife’s trial, do you think?”

And, as I shrugged my shoulders, he went on: “We’re missing young Kirkwall here, you know. Won’t you take him off the Sampson business? It’s not our line. Why, sir, what’s the matter?”

I told him everything that had happened in the past eighteen hours, and for the first time, I think, during our business association, he was thoroughly shaken.

He could not light his pipe, and at last he put it down and sat at his desk with his chin resting on his hands.

“Well, well, well!” he muttered when I had finished, and again, “Well, well!”

Then the irrepressible newspaper instinct struck through his emotion, and he made some notes with a pencil.

“Jock Sampson’s dead, anyhow,” he remarked. “We’ll be first with the news of that.”

“Confound Sampson!” I cried. “It’s Donald I’m thinking about—Donald, whom he’s murdered.”

“Yes, yes, of course. But I can’t believe it. That boy—he was so full of life—too much so at times. How did he get himself into that mess?”

He looked at me oddly, so that I remembered that it was I, and not he, who had encouraged Kirkwall to follow up the Sampson affair. But he said nothing of this.

“True enough,” he said instead. “I shall have to write this story myself. I can’t put one of the staff on to hinting at our own fellow’s murder.”

I marvelled at the queer blend of sentiment and professional habit in the man. One side of him mourned Kirkwall almost as I did, and the other was preparing to make a newspaper story of his death.

“Of course,” he added, “we can’t be certain yet. But it looks pretty bad. I’ll send someone down to Gildaith. I suppose we ought to tell the police too.”

“One minute,” I said. “Do you happen to know if the Swordfish is in harbour?”

He picked up the telephone and put through a call. He quickly learned that the Swordfish had not berthed. She had been expected at noon, but was presumably delayed by the bad weather.

“I can get the bit about Sampson done, anyhow,” he said, “and hold it for press till the captain confirms the loss of his mate. He must have gone overboard in a bad sea. I don’t think we’d better say anything about poor young Kirkwall yet. Are you going to the police now, sir?”

“Why not leave it, sir, for an hour or two? You see, the skipper of the Swordfish may have something to tell us.”

I knew perfectly well that he was playing for time, partly from habit, and partly because he was jealous of such exclusive news as had already come to him. He did not want the Sun to hear of Sampson’s death.

When he caught my eye he looked away, picked up his pipe again and lit it, and murmured: “Of course, it’s for you to decide, Mr. Wilberforce.”

“We’ll wait a bit,” I said. “I think I’ll run out first to Gildaith.”

“What for? To tell Mrs. Sampson her husband’s dead? She’ll see it soon enough in to-morrow’s Standard.”

Crash! The thunderstorm broke as I left the office, and I thought it best to go home till it passed, instead of trying to drive out to Gildaith through the blinding rain.

He guessed that I had not lunched, and brought me a plate of sandwiches and some sherry. As soon as the rain stopped I drove out to Gildaith.

Gildaith is not so much a village as a district. True, there is a church, around which are clustered the few houses that originally formed the village, but during the past decade a number of unsightly dwellings have been erected over a wide area of land, without regard to any sort of cohesion or plan. Near the church I asked for Rowan Cottage, and, on my third enquiry, I was directed along a lane west of the manse, and told that I should find the cottage about a mile on the right.

The road was in dreadful condition, largely, I gathered, because the water-mains had recently been brought along it to meet the needs of the outlying district; and the afternoon storm had transformed the thoroughfare into a quagmire.

Nearly two miles on I saw a lonely old stone-built cottage, lying back from the road and enclosed in a poorly-tended garden. A large rowan tree overhanging the road gave me my clue, and I saw from the name printed on the gate that this was Rowan Cottage.

I opened the gate and walked up a stone-flagged path to the front door. There was no bell, so I used the knocker, first softly—I have a prejudice against sudden noises—but more loudly when no answer came. It was soon evident that no one, neither Margaret Sampson nor anybody else, was at home, unless she was working in the garden at the back.

Following the path, I went round the north side of the cottage and came to a back entrance. No one was in sight; the big garden, which ended in an orchard, seemed empty. I peered through the kitchen window and saw a dresser full of crockery and a bunch of wild flowers in a mug on the table; they were almost fresh, which suggested that the cottage had lately been occupied. But certainly it was empty this afternoon. Had Mrs. Sampson vanished again, now that poor Kirkwall had traced her? Or had she merely gone away somewhere for the afternoon?

If there had been any other cottage near I could have made enquiries, but to do this I should have to go back at least half a mile. I thought it best to make certain first that the place was deserted.

Near the kitchen door was a wooden outhouse, which I took to be a laundry or bicycle-shed. As it was just possible that Mrs. Sampson, or whoever lived in the cottage, was busy inside and had not heard me, I went across and tried the door. It was locked.

I was making up my mind what to do next—to go back towards the village and make enquiries, or to wait awhile in the hope that Mrs. Sampson would return—when I noticed that a trench had lately been dug from the house across the orchard and to the nearest point of the road. It had been filled in again, but the light earth made a sharp line through the vegetable-beds and the coarse grass of the orchard. Evidently Rowan Cottage was in permanent occupation, for this trench could only mean that the owner, following the example of so many other sufferers from the drought, had connected it with the main water-supply from the village.

Then I gasped, for from the back of my mind there sprang the memory of those last words of Jock Sampson: “The well . . . the shed . . . Ye’ll find the body—the auld well—near the shed.” There must have been a well here in Rowan Cottage, if the main water had only lately been connected! Was it here, then, that we should find poor Donald’s body?

Faint with nausea, I went back to the kitchen window and, holding my hand against the glass to shield my eyes from the outdoor light, I peered through it again. In a far corner, over the sink, I saw plainly a new brass tap connected to bright lead piping. Beside it was a pump-handle, evidently a relic of the old water-supply. So there had been a well in use here; and now that the main was connected, it was definitely an “auld well”.

I turned away, trembling. I was convinced that my search for Mrs. Sampson had brought me to the place where Donald’s body was hidden.

“Near the shed”! Yes, it would be somewhere there. I should have seen it earlier if it had not been masked by a coarse privet-hedge and the trunk of an old elm. Over its mouth was a wooden lid divided into two parts, one of which bore an iron handle.

For a few moments I stood there, lacking the courage to raise the cover. Then slowly I bent down and lifted the iron handle.

The well was too deep for me to see down to the water, so I raised the other half of the cover. Now I could see the surface of the water, though not clearly, for it was at least fifty feet down. In the car was an electric torch, with a powerful long-distance ray. I fetched it.

Standing on the brink of the well, I flashed the torch down it. Horror overwhelmed me; the light was just strong enough to show me something lying under the surface of the water.

I sprang back, letting the cover fall again across the well-head, and leaned panting against the old elm. I closed my eyes, drew a dozen deep breaths and, as soon as I could move, rushed out to the car and drove back at top speed to the town.

I pulled myself together as I entered the Standard office, reluctant to display my feelings even to Murgatroyd. But the attempt at self-control must have been a failure, for he at once rose to his feet and hurried to my side.

“You look as if you need something stronger,” he said. “Hadn’t you better sit down?”

I nodded, gulped, and handed him back the empty glass. He picked up his pipe and stood polishing its bowl.

“Yes, and Mrs. Sampson’s gone again. She must have seen her husband murder him.”

“Now I must go to the police. I suppose they’ll want me to go back with them.”

He nodded glumly, and some imp in my brain told me that this was the first time in his editorial career when he did not look at a tragic incident from its news angle. But as I was going out of the door which he held open for me, he shattered even this illusion.

“Don’t talk to anybody except the superintendent, sir; you can’t trust the others,” he said. “They’re nearly as bad as firemen.”

“One or other of them’s sure to sell the story to the Sun, and we don’t want that gang to get it.”

At the police-station I asked to see the superintendent, not in deference to Murgatroyd’s wishes, but to save time. He heard me gravely, but showed no particular emotion.

To him, I suppose, the murder of young Kirkwall was just another case. But he was prompt enough, and in twenty minutes he was seated beside me in my car, while behind us came an ambulance in which were several policemen.

I was amazed to see a motor-bicycle standing by the gate of Rowan Cottage when we arrived, with a young man beside it. He touched his leather helmet vaguely as I drove up, and I was disgusted to see that he was one of our reporters from the Standard. Evidently Murgatroyd was living up to his usual practice.

“You newspaper-men never miss a thing, do you?” he said, and I am sure he neither noticed, nor would have understood, my shame.

I led the way round the cottage, followed by the policemen and the reporter—they tried its doors as they passed—and pointed to the privet-hedge and the elm.

I heard the well-cover raised; then the superintendent snapped an order to his men. Two of them doubled back past me to the ambulance, and returned with a rope and a huge iron hook. I saw one of them pulling on a pair of rubber thigh-boots.

“Get out of the way, blast you!” somebody cried, and I realized that our vampire reporter had pushed himself forward. It was then that I realized that I should have to break the horrible news to Ailsa Hunt; I could not let her read it for herself in to-morrow’s Standard.

Then came a curiously hollow voice, that of the man who was being lowered into the well.

There was no reply to this, at least none that I could hear. The lupin blossoms fell from my hand. I was walking blindly, leaving a trail of yellow petals behind me.

I shuddered at this cry, and pain stabbed my eyes. Oh, Donald, Donald! . . . Somewhere behind Ypres . . . They shall not grow old, as we that are left grow old. . . .

The next thing I remember was a man passing me towards the ambulance, coiling a rope.

My pity for the dead woman was overwhelmed by the hysterical relief I felt about Donald Kirkwall. I was too dazed, too grateful to remain rational.

“No, no, it wasn’t, was it? Quite a different sort of corpse, eh, superintendent?”

“Take a swig of this,” he said, pushing a flask into my hand. “You’re not used to this kind of thing.”

The police had forced a door of the cottage, and there I came to my senses again. I wondered why I had not realized the truth before. Jock Sampson’s failing mind in the hospital had been full of his wife only; he had not thought of Kirkwall, as I had.

Mistaking me for a police officer, he had tried to tell me about her. It was natural that I should misunderstand him, for I was as preoccupied with Donald’s fate as he with his wife’s. So it was she whom he had murdered and thrown down the old well by the shed. Not Donald. But where was he? My agony of mind began again.

There was fortunately no need for me to see Margaret Sampson’s body: the superintendent himself had identified her.

“Looks as if she’d been strangled,” he said. “Oh, it all seems pretty straightforward, in view of what Sampson told you at the hospital. Besides, one of my fellows has just found out that the cottage belongs to a man named Fraser, Mrs. Sampson’s brother. He and his wife are on holiday somewhere, and they must have left the keys with Sampson or his wife. They’ll get a shock when they read about this in the papers! Yes, it’s all pretty clear, but it doesn’t account for your missing reporter.”

Investigation of the kitchen-range showed a mass of curious ash. It looked as if Sampson had burnt his wife’s clothes.

“Here’s her handbag, sir,” a policeman came in and said to the superintendent.

The latter turned to me. “I suppose Sampson realized that this wouldn’t burn properly,” he said, “and so he threw it down the well.”

I glanced at the thing on the table, a cheap silk bag with a metal clasp and a fringe of tiny red-and-white beads; and my mind flew back to that visit to Southridge Terrace, when Kirkwall and I had so ignominiously hidden ourselves under a bed. In one place the fringe of the bag was torn and a number of the beads were missing.

Donald had found similar beads between the floor-boards in old Aitken’s bedroom. He had slipped them into an envelope, very likely the same envelope on the back of which he had pencilled the addresses, and which had brought me to Rowan Cottage. If so, there was no reason why the beads should not still be in the envelope; they would lie snugly at the bottom, unnoticed. I must ask Ailsa for it.

In due course we left the cottage, and soon after we reached the town the doctor’s report was available. He said that Margaret Sampson had undoubtedly been murdered. She had died from suffocation caused by strangulation; there was no water in the lungs, as there would have been if she had been drowned.

It did not surprise me to find that Murgatroyd had held up the presses. By sheer good luck the Standard had another wonderful scoop, for the Sun had gone to press ignorant of the discovery of either Jock Sampson’s or his wife’s body.

Copy and galley-proofs flew round the office for the next hour, and I found myself acting as a senior but anonymous reporter, though my one desire was to go home and let my mind relax into less disturbing channels.

“Good work, Mr. Wilberforce,” said Murgatroyd when he read the long article I had dictated to Miss McKay. “And here’s a piece of news to round things off. The Swordfish is in harbour, and the captain reports the loss of Jock Sampson in a heavy sea——”

“Together with a stowaway, whose name he doesn’t know. But his description, sir, his description——”

“I’m afraid so, sir. But Sampson was picked up; so why not Donald? The boy was a mighty fine swimmer, and—and anything may have happened.”

The presses were humming as I went away. I was incapable of doing anything more until I had rested. Then I must see the captain of the Swordfish and hear his story; but that would have to wait. Besides, whatever he might say could make no difference to Donald’s fate.

After a bath and an hour’s sleep, my mind was a little clearer. With the certainty that Kirkwall had been on the Swordfish with Sampson, it seemed likely that his notebook might contain information about what had happened on board. Perhaps my friend, the police superintendent, could persuade his stubborn colleagues at Starkness to forward the book. They had had ample time now to transcribe its contents, and, since Kirkwall’s disappearance concerned our local police more than them, there seemed no good reason why they should withhold it.

I rang him up and put this argument to him. He agreed with me and promised to get in touch with Starkness.

Ailsa arrived late in the evening, Jessop bringing her to the house in the car. I withheld nothing from her this time, and even admitted my former deception. She listened attentively while I ran over all the details, and did not lose her self-control.

“I’m glad you didn’t tell me at Starkness what you thought Sampson meant,” she said. “Since we came back I’ve had time to think things out, and it isn’t quite so hard as it might have been.”

“Oh, I have, nearly,” she said. “But I want to be brave and face the facts. Sampson had every reason to—to get rid of Donald if he believed he was a detective, posing as a stowaway. He must have already killed his wife when Donald and I saw him. Perhaps Donald knew it. Perhaps he’d seen——”

“No, my dear, he can’t have done. He’d only just come back from Manchester, if you remember.”

“If I remember!” she said proudly. “But you’re quite right. He can’t have known.”

She sighed. “Oh well, I shall go on hoping, but I’m ready now to face the worst. If you only knew how terrible it is to be waiting and waiting, and not knowing! But you do know. I forgot that.”

Neither of us spoke for a minute or two, and then she said, “Why did you want me to bring that envelope, Mr. Wilberforce?”

She handed it to me and I took out the letter, placed it on one side and peered inside the envelope. In the bottom of it about half the beads remained, and I emptied them into the palm of my hand.

“I wish he’d left it alone after the trial. Why couldn’t he let the poor woman be?”

I realized from this how little Donald could have told her of his enquiries; he was loyal indeed.

“I know that newspapers must have news,” she added with unconscious cruelty, “but there are so many other things in the world. Why must people be made to read about murder and death and crime? But, of course, I shouldn’t say this to you, Mr. Wilberforce.”

“You’ve a perfect right to your opinion,” I said, “and I would disagree with you only on one point. The public demands the sort of news you speak of; those of us who hesitate to provide it are sharply penalized by the very people we wish to serve. But you’re tired. Jessop will drive you home. May I keep this envelope?”

I gave her back the letter, and folded the envelope in such a way that there was no further risk of losing the beads.

Then, with a sudden sense of shame at my indifference to her suffering, I told Jessop that I would drive her myself to her home.

Next morning the Standard was the talk of the town. Though we told no more than the circumstances of the discovery of the two bodies, this was enough. Murgatroyd had plastered the hoardings with posters; but at least they were dignified posters. Against our full-page account, all that the Sun could offer was three smudged lines in its Stop Press column.

My elated editor was at his office early. Indeed, he telephoned me he had been walking about the town since the start of the working day in order to enjoy at first hand the effect of our exclusive news. It was tremendous, according to him. Nothing like it had ever happened in the history of the Standard.

I ought to take a look at the publishing office, he said. It had been besieged by newsagents and ordinary citizens clamouring for copies of the paper, which by nine o’clock was unobtainable elsewhere. Yes, and orders were coming in from all over the country.

“They call us old-fashioned, sir,” Murgatroyd gloated, “but now we’ve given ’em something to think about.”

I went to the office in the middle of the morning to find out how I could get in touch with the captain of the Swordfish, but I put this off when a personal telephone message came for me from the superintendent of police that he had just received Donald Kirkwall’s notebook from Starkness and was sending it round.

A constable soon arrived with it, and Murgatroyd ran his eye over the pages, blurred out and smudged with sea-water.

“It seems to start from the time when he saw Jock Sampson that night. But I can’t read his shorthand properly. We’d better get it typed out by Miss McKay; she’s used to his stuff. There’s a good deal of it, but she’s pretty quick. Still, she’ll have a job; the water’s got at it badly.”

I nodded, and Murgatroyd pushed a bell and gave his instructions to the young woman who entered. He suggested that we might have an early lunch while the work was being done, and we went along to the club, where everybody was discussing our news of the murder of Margaret Sampson by her husband, and his death.

The general opinion, so far as I could gather it, was that Sampson had murdered his wife because he had discovered that she was guilty, after all, of killing Bessie McIntosh. One man declared, on what he called sound authority, that Sampson was a hard, puritanical fellow with a great regard for his good name. He had probably been driven out of his mind by the terrible publicity of the trial, and had decided that, despite the jury’s ambiguous verdict, she was a murderess who must be punished, if not by the law, then by him.

Always, I noticed, somebody would chip into these theories with some such phrase as, “Yes, but what about old Aitken? What about the Judge’s dear old gentleman? Surely it’s obvious that he murdered Bessie McIntosh? Why didn’t Jock Sampson kill him?” And so on. All the old interest in the trial was revived now by its grim sequel.

The editor of the Sun came into the dining-room, and sat as near as he could to Murgatroyd and myself. He passed a congratulatory word across the table, but his twisted smile robbed it of all sincerity.

“He’s sore. How sore!” Murgatroyd whispered to me. “If we stay here there’ll be another murder—two murders.”

So, to remove temptation from his rival, we went back to the office and talked there while the young woman finished transcribing Kirkwall’s notebook. At last she knocked and entered, with her hands full of loose sheets.

“Those shorthand notes, sir, of Mr. Kirkwall’s,” she said to Murgatroyd. “I’ve typed them out as best I can. But there are some words I can’t read.”

“Never mind,” said Murgatroyd, seizing the papers and handing them to me. “Where’s the notebook?”

“I know what you’re going to say, sir; so I’ll get in first,” he said. “These young women come into the newspaper business; they take men’s jobs, and in this office, by your wish, they get men’s pay. But they’re not satisfied with that; no, they expect to be coddled and treated differently from men. And this I won’t stand for.”

I shrugged my shoulders and turned back to the typescript, which Miss McKay had, for some reason, not troubled to arrange in the order of its pages.

“Fancy a man reporter turning in his copy in the wrong order!” cried Murgatroyd, smiling at my exasperation as I rearranged them.

“Give ’em to me, Mr. Wilberforce,” he added, as the girl re-entered and placed Kirkwall’s notebook on the desk with a petulant slam. “See here, Miss McKay,” he said, “you haven’t put these pages in order.”

“Miss McKay,” he said, “I’ve just been telling our proprietor that I’m very pleased with the way you’ve been doing your work. We’ll make a proper journalist of you yet, eh? That’s all.”

He winked at me. “I’m a married man, as you know, Mr. Wilberforce,” he remarked, “and I’ve daughters of my own. I know how to handle the sluts. Handle ’em hard and handle ’em soft, but never take your hand off the reins. Well, and what had poor Kirkwall to say?”

I was glancing through the first pages, which were evidently a description of his movements after leaving my house on the evening of his disappearance. Knowing him, I had no difficulty in understanding the purpose of these notes; they were intended as the rough basis of an article, or series of articles, but a number of personal observations had also crept in.

“I’d better read it to you, Murgatroyd,” I said, “and maybe we can puzzle it out together. Two heads are better than one.”

“ ‘Left W.’s house about eleven p.m. Saturday, meeting A. outside.’ He means, of course, that he left my house and met the young woman outside——”

“She was waiting for him,” I explained. “I know her. Please let me continue. ‘We walked about for, say, twenty minutes, and looked at lights on river; A. said we should go back, and we turned. Suddenly I saw Jock Sampson, Margaret’s husband, walking down the pavement with another man. I had been trying to trace her ever since the trial, but she had left the house in the Lower Town. I thought this luck too good to miss, so I said good-bye to A. and went off after S.’

“By the way, Murgatroyd,” I said, breaking off my reading, “how would Kirkwall be able to recognize Sampson?”

“Yes, that’s likely enough, and Donald wouldn’t be likely to miss him. Well, he goes on, ‘They went on down to the harbour and turned towards the Victoria Dock. I realized that S. was probably rejoining his vessel, so I ran after him to try and catch him before he went through the dock-gate. Unfortunately I was just too late; he and his companion passed through, but I was stopped by the policeman on duty at the gate.

“ ‘He asked me what I wanted. I told him that I’d seen S. and one of his shipmates going in.

“ ‘ “One of his shipmates?” laughed the policeman. “That was the captain of the Swordfish. What do you want with ’em?”

“ ‘ “Oh, have you?” he said. “Then you’d better wait till he comes out again.”

“ ‘ “But suppose he’s sailing to-night?” I said. “He may not be back for a week.”

“ ‘ “I can’t help that,” said the policeman. I showed him my journalist’s card, but it had no effect.

“ ‘ “You leave S. be,” he said. “He’s had enough worry already from you reporters. Run away home!”

“ ‘He wouldn’t let me through, so I pretended to go away. Actually, I went along the dock wall until I saw a place where I could climb over. I waited till the policeman had gone back into his box, and then scrambled over the wall and crept down to the water-side, looking for the Swordfish.

“ ‘They were just casting off when I came up with it,’ ” I read on, “ ‘and the gangway was pulled on board under my nose. I thought of shouting for S., but it occurred to me that, even if anybody heard me, which was doubtful in all the noise they were making, they would not be likely to stop the engines on my account. So I did the only thing possible: I saw my chance when the stern of the Swordfish swung past the quay, and jumped aboard.’ ”

“He would,” chuckled Murgatroyd. “He was a tiger for a story, was Donald!”

“Let’s get on,” I said bitterly. “ ‘It was pitch-dark on board, except for the dock lights and one or two lamps in the cabins and charthouse, and I knew that nobody was likely to discover me till we were out of the river. I crouched down behind one of the lifeboats and waited.

“ ‘As soon as I knew we were well out at sea, I made my way forward to the foot of the companion which led up to the bridge. I took it for granted that S. and the captain would be up there, taking the ship out. I had decided on my course of action: if I was to get the information I wanted and find out where Margaret S. was hiding, I must not let her husband know that I was a journalist; I must find some excuse for being aboard and try to wheedle the information out of him.

“ ‘ “A stowawa’!” he shouted. “A stowawa’ in this craft! Ye’re daft!”

“ ‘The captain must have heard him, for he looked down the companion at us and said to S., “What’s the trouble, mister?”

“ ‘ “We’ll give him stowaway,” said the captain. “Call the bos’n, mister.”

“ ‘Sampson gave a hail, and a huge sailor lumbered up out of the darkness.

“ ‘ “Look who’s here, bos’n,” said S. “A stowawa’, as if the Swordfish was a liner. Take him awa’ and make him usefu’ till we hand him over to the pollis. They’ll stowawa’ him.” He turned to me, “Get aft, ye daft fool, and work out your foolishness.”

“ ‘The bos’n took me by the scruff of the neck and led me away. When he found I had never been to sea before, he told me to get a mop and a bucket of water and clean out the fo’c’sle. It was a beastly, smelly job, not improved by the increasing roughness of the sea.’ ”

“I wish I could have seen him,” Murgatroyd said. “Our Donald doing a job of real work for a change!”

“ ‘After an hour’,” I went on, “ ‘three of the crew came down to the fo’c’sle and turned in. They could not understand why I had stowed away on a coasting vessel, and told me that I had made a mistake. I let them think this and tried to make friends with them, but without success. As the bos’n seemed to have forgotten about me, I crawled into one of the bunks and went to sleep, knowing that I should have ample opportunity next day to try my hand with S.

“ ‘In the morning he sent for me and gave me a tremendous dressing-down. At the end he said that, though I did not deserve any consideration, the captain had decided to give me a chance to clear off the ship at our next port of call instead of handing me over to the police. I pretended not to know that they were doing this to save themselves the trouble of having to charge me in the police-court, and told S. how grateful I felt. Then I tried out a little plan I had thought of.

“ ‘ “Couldn’t you let me stay on board for a bit, sir?” I said. “You see, I’m in trouble.”

“ ‘ “Ye’ll be in worse trouble if ye dinna gang awa’ out o’ here and make yoursel’ usefu’,” he said.

“ ‘ “Oh, listen,” I said. “I dare say you’re a married man yourself, aren’t you?”

“ ‘He looked at me queerly when I said this. “An’ if I am?” he said.

“ ‘ “Well, sir, haven’t you sometimes had trouble with the wife, and thought what a good thing it would be if you could teach her a lesson?” He looked so savage that I gabbled on, “That’s how it is with me, sir. I’ve had a row with the wife, and I want to teach her a lesson. That’s why I’ve run away to sea. She’ll have the shock of her life when she doesn’t find me at home. See the idea?”

“ ‘I hoped that somehow this gambit might make him open up, and, if we got into conversation about the difficulties of married life, he might tell me, as a piece of news, that he was Margaret S.’s husband.’

“You see,” I said to Murgatroyd, “Donald hadn’t the least idea that Sampson had murdered his wife.”

“ ‘Then I meant to ask him where he had sent her after the trial, which was what I was after. But it did not work. Sampson gave me a dirty look and sent me back to the bos’n. I was put to peeling potatoes and helping the cook in other ways. I was also very seasick. The cook was not a bad fellow—like the others, he thought it rather a joke that I had stowed away on a coaster instead of a liner—and after our work slackened down a bit we got talking.

“ ‘I saw no reason for pretending that I did not know who S. was, and asked the cook what he thought about the trial.

“ ‘He, I discovered, was a partisan of Mrs. S. “The auld gentleman did it,” he said, “auld Aitken. Yon wee woman would no’ lift her hand against her best friend. It’s clear as daylicht that auld Aitken murdered the lass.”

“ ‘ “Him?” replied the cook. “De’il a word will he say about the whole affair! A man speired him about it in the dockyard the other day, and S. gaed for him like a wild beastie. Ay, it was no use the other man saying he was no’ meaning any offence; S. laid him out on the pier wi’ both fisties. Like a wild, raving animal he was. So none o’ us is like to talk about it in his hearing.”

“ ‘This was plain enough, and I began to realize that I had had all my trouble for nothing.’ ”

“No, not for nothing,” Murgatroyd chuckled. “It’ll do young Donald a world of good to have peeled potatoes in a rough sea.”

“You forget that he’s missing,” I pointed out. “We don’t know what harm has come to him.”

Murgatroyd’s smile vanished. “You’re right, as usual, Mr. Wilberforce,” he said gravely. “I’m sorry.”

“ ‘I asked the cook when we were due to dock,’ ” I continued, “ ‘and he said that it depended where we were bound for this trip. But I gathered that we were fairly certain to put in at a port next day, when I should in all probability be pushed on to the quay and told to clear out. So if I was to do any good, I must get to work quickly. I made up my mind to enter S.’s cabin some time that evening, as soon as it was dark, and see if I could not find some clue where his wife was hiding. It should not be very difficult. I knew that he spent many hours on the bridge, and, by questioning the cook about the routine of the Swordfish, I soon discovered the exact time when S. would be on duty.

“ ‘During the afternoon, however, a disquieting thing happened. The bos’n came into the galley—luckily I was hard at work again on those wretched potatoes—and asked the cook if I was giving trouble. The cook spoke up for me and said that he was very glad to have some help. Then the bos’n said, “I’m wondering why the mate’s taken sic a dislike to him, Cookie. If looks could kill, Meester Stowawa’ would be at the bottom o’ the sea.”

“ ‘I pricked up my ears at this, and asked the bos’n what he meant. “Well,” he said, “I was speaking about ye to the mate, and he carried on in a terrible manner. He said ye deserved to be slung overboard for nosing into other folks’ affairs. Ay, and he said something about the way reporters canno’ keep their snotty noses in their own middens. Ye’re no’ a reporter, are ye?” he asked me.

“ ‘ “I wish I was,” I said quickly. “You wouldn’t find me stowing away on a lousy coaster like this!” He laughed and went away, and I did some hard thinking.

“ ‘Was it just a coincidence that S. had cursed me and reporters in the same breath? Or had he seen through my little game? Then it occurred to me that I had overlooked something. If I recognized him through having seen him in court during his wife’s trial, he was just as likely to recognize me. I had forgotten that the Press table in court was right beside the dock, so that S., watching his wife, could hardly help noticing me. I was reasonably certain that he had not recognized me up to the time of my conversation with him earlier in the day, but was it not likely that he had since remembered my face and associated me with the trial? No wonder he wished me at the bottom of the ocean.

“ ‘The cook said to me, “If ye take my advice, brother, ye’ll steer clear o’ the mate. Jock S. has gotten a gey awfu’ temper when he’s roused.”

“ ‘I assured him, with the completest sincerity, that I would do my utmost not to encounter the mate till we reached harbour and I was put off the ship.

“ ‘As soon as it was dark and I knew that S. was on the bridge for several hours, I crept forward and, taking care to keep in the darkness, tried the door of his cabin. To my surprise it was locked, though I had already learned from the cook that nothing was kept locked in the Swordfish at sea except the store-cupboards and the captain’s safe. However, this did not matter much, for I knew that the lock would not be a difficult one to force if I used a piece of stiff wire.’ ”

I could not help interrupting myself at this point and murmuring to Murgatroyd that, really, young Kirkwall’s methods were appalling. In pursuit of a story he had already shown himself capable of theft and of entering an untenanted house; and here he was, proposing to add to these felonies the further offence of breaking into Sampson’s cabin.

“He was mad keen,” was the editor’s only comment, and I returned to the typescript.

“ ‘I made my way back to the galley, where I had noticed a suitable piece of wire. While the cook’s back was turned, I took it and returned quietly to the mate’s cabin. As I thought, it was only an ordinary catch-lock, so that not only was it easy to open, but I should be able to close it behind me by merely shutting the door.

“ ‘It took me only a minute to force back the catch. Luckily I was able to do this and slip inside just in time not to be seen by a sailor who came running past. Then I had to make a decision: how could I search the cabin for some clue to Margaret S.’s present whereabouts without giving myself away? I had to use a light of some kind, and anybody going by might notice it.

“ ‘At last I did the obvious thing, because it was the last thing one would expect an intruder to do. I pulled the curtain across the window of the cabin and lit the oil-lamp. If anybody happened to notice it, they would think that the mate had left it alight when he went on the bridge; they might conceivably try the door, but they would find it locked. Paraffin was not so expensive that they were likely to worry S. about it on the bridge. There was the chance that he might come down for something, but I had to take that risk anyhow.

“ ‘It was the usual sort of cabin, with a bunk raised on a pair of mahogany drawers, a composite table and toilet-set, a mirror, a shelf or two, and an extra bunk. I knew exactly what I wanted to find and what I was up against: either Margaret S. had written to her husband from her hiding-place, or she had not; either he had kept the letter, or he had not; and if both these conditions were fulfilled, either the letter was somewhere in the cabin, or all my trouble would go for nothing.

“ ‘I looked first at the half-dozen scraps of paper stuck into the frame of the mirror. None of them seemed to refer to his wife at all. Then I went through the articles on the table and the shelves, but again I drew blank. I pulled open the drawers under the bunk. They were crammed full of clothes, old boots and every sort of thing that S. had accumulated on his voyages, but there was nothing pointing to Margaret. Indeed, I was struck by the absence of any photographs of her, or old letters from her, and so on. The only suggestion that S. was a family man was a photograph, in a cheap wooden frame screwed to the wall, of a baby two or three years old. I supposed that this was the Ss.’ child who had been mentioned at the trial.

“ ‘At the side of this photograph I noticed screw-holes in the paint which suggested that another, similarly framed photograph had been fixed there. Whose? In all probability his wife’s. Why had he removed it? Then I realized that it was silly to waste time, and set to work to replace the drawers in as nearly as possible the state I had found them.

“ ‘There seemed nowhere else to look now for any trace of Margaret’s present address. I raised my hand to turn out the lamp when I noticed S.’s shore-going coat hanging on the door. There was just a faint hope of finding something there. I searched the pockets.

“ ‘They contained a few odds and ends: the stub of a pencil, a dirty handkerchief, a penny, an old button and a letter written in pencil on cheap paper by somebody who found writing difficult. It was dated five days ago, and the address was Rowan Cottage, Gildaith. The writer signed himself Peter Fraser. He said he was sure poor Maggie would be acquitted, and neither she nor S. was to worry about their boy, who had taken kindly to his uncle and aunt—evidently the writer and his wife.

“ ‘They were going to take the boy with them next day, the letter went on, on their holiday visit to the writer’s parents, and the sea-air would certainly do the bairn good. It was kind of S. to offer to keep an eye on the cottage when he was ashore, and he would find the key in the usual place. It was clear to me that Peter Fraser was Margaret S.’s brother and S.’s brother-in-law.

“ ‘I did not want to take extra risks, so I scribbled the address on the back of an envelope in my pocket, put the letter back where I found it, turned out the lamp and cautiously opened the door. There was nobody about, and I slipped through the door, shut it behind me and hurried back to the fo’c’sle. I wanted to make my notes there, but the sailors would not let me turn up the lamp which was swinging from the roof, so I went off to the galley and asked the cook if he minded my writing a letter there.

“ ‘ “Ye’re no’ writing a piece about life on the ocean wave, are ye?” he asked, grinning.

“ ‘I grinned back and told him that what I thought of the sea was not fit to put on paper. “No, it’s a letter to my wife,” I added, “to say that I’ve had enough of sailoring and I’m coming home at once.”

“ ‘ “Och, ay,” he said, with a leer, “it’s considerate o’ ye to gi’e her fair warning.”

“ ‘I am finishing these shorthand notes now in the galley. One odd thing has happened since I started writing them. I have found a piece of brownish cotton on my sleeve, which I cannot explain. I am sure it was not there earlier, and I have no idea how it got there. But it is the same colour as the mahogany drawers under Sampson’s bunk, and I have a horrid suspicion that he may have fastened it over them—the old trick—to see if anybody opens them. If so, it means that he suspects me, and that he has really recognized me as one of the journalists at the trial. Which may be deuced awkward, though I do not see what he can do about it, even if he does suspect me. Short of murdering me, he is helpless.

“ ‘Anyhow, I shall soon know, for, just as I am writing down these last notes, Cookie has gone to the door and come back with the news that we are in sight of land and S. is coming down the deck, calling for me. We will see what he wants.’ ”

“It is indeed,” I said, “and I don’t like the look of it. What do you think? Do you think Sampson murdered him?”

“But nobody saw what happened. The captain may find it convenient to assume that.”

“I know. But suppose he stunned Donald and threw him overboard. He’d one murder on his conscience already. He may have jumped overboard, with the intention of getting ashore and——”

“He may have meant to commit suicide. If not, the only alternative is that they both went overboard in the struggle. We know that Sampson somehow got possession of Donald’s notebook. I suppose he snatched it from him. He could not read it because it was mostly in shorthand, and that is probably why he did not destroy it at once. No—that’s not right. He would have destroyed it immediately, whether he could read it or not, if he had had time. But Donald tried to get it back and, if the boat lurched at that moment, they may have gone into the sea together. That seems to meet the facts as we know them, doesn’t it?”

But I doubted the accuracy of my reasoning. “The best thing is to see the captain of the Swordfish,” I said. “And the cook too.”

“I don’t see how they can help. They’re not likely to go back on their first report, and it may even be true, so far as they know,” said Murgatroyd. “Will you sign these cheques now, sir?”

I signed them almost without looking at them, while Murgatroyd paced up and down, knocking his pipe on the palm of his hand. I glanced at him from time to time as I worked my way through the pile of cheques.

He went over to the window and stood looking out at the Sun offices down the street, and I heard him chuckle.

“I didn’t speak. I was just thinking about that gang across the street. They were going to wipe the floor with us. Well, it doesn’t look much like it at the moment, does it? If they could see the adverts we’ve roped in on the strength of this morning’s scoop they’d——”

He turned round on me, shouting, “Come here! Quick! Quick! I don’t—I can’t——”

My sight was not as keen as his, but the figure at which he pointed was nearer now. It looked like Donald Kirkwall. It was!

His hat, crumpled as usual, sat on the side of his head, and he had a bundle of newspapers under his arm. As he came across the road towards the office I noticed that his suit was creased and dirty, and he seemed to limp.

“I knew he’d turn up,” said Murgatroyd. “That boy wasn’t made to be drowned.” And he filled his pipe with shaking fingers.

“Good morning, Mr. Wilberforce—and you, Mr. Murgatroyd. I hope you haven’t been anxious about me.”

“You’re a hard-hearted brute.” Donald laughed. “Oh, gosh, what a time I’ve had!”

He collapsed into a chair, puffed out his breath, and passed a finger across a badly bruised eye.

“My notebook!” he exclaimed. “How on earth—Sampson took it from me before he knocked me down and tried to drown me. I grabbed him though, and took him with me. I say, what a scoop we’ve got to-day! Poor old Sun—they’ll never forget it. I’ll see to that. So he killed her, did he? No wonder he was raw at finding me on board. What a life it is!”

“Perhaps you’ll be good enough to tell us where you’ve been all this time?”

“Most of it’s in that notebook,” he said. “Give me an hour to transcribe it and put in the trimmings, and you’ll have another front-page story for to-morrow’s issue. ‘How I Baffled the Murderous Sailor’, by Donald Kirkwall, the boy reporter.”

“You’re late,” said Murgatroyd. “You’re always late. We’ve had your notes transcribed already.”

“What happened after Sampson called you out of the galley, Donald?” I asked. “We know the rest.”

“I told you we both went overboard,” Kirkwall said. “There was a devil of a sea, and I didn’t see anything more of Sampson. He was picked up, sir, wasn’t he, and then died? It’s in the Standard this morning. But not in the Sun!”

I nodded, and he went on, “Thank goodness the water was fairly warm or I shouldn’t have lasted ten minutes. I must have been swimming for an hour when I was picked up by a trawler. I tell you it’s jolly hard to be drowned in these overcrowded waters! She was going out to the fishing-grounds, and I had to go too.

“I’ve done a pretty good article on trawling, by the way. I never knew it was such rotten work. Anyway, I enjoyed it, or should have done if it hadn’t been for the beastly smell. They landed me at the harbour a quarter of an hour ago, and here I am, ready to press the old nose to the grindstone.”

My joy at seeing him alive was more than I cared to reveal, though I did not try to imitate Murgatroyd’s gruffness.

“Go and write your story,” the editor said, “and send out a boy for some steak for your eye.”

“Great stuff this!” said Kirkwall, tapping the front page of the morning’s issue of the Standard as he stood up. “Who wrote it?”

“The proprietor, of course,” I said. “Somebody has to teach you amateurs how to write!”

“We found the address on the back of the envelope in your notebook,” I said.

“Miss Hunt has it. I’ve had the pleasure of meeting her in your absence. But the envelope’s here.”

“I’m sorry about Margaret Sampson,” he remarked. “I wanted to see her badly.”

“I can tell you something about them, Donald. They came from a handbag that belonged to her. It was found in the well, with her body.”

“Her handbag, was it?” he said. “I hadn’t thought of that. I was thinking of a dress or a hat. I see.”

Murgatroyd was obviously wondering what all this talk was about, for I had not mentioned the beads to him.

“Oh, I’m pretty well at the end. Give me three more days, Mr. Wilberforce, and I’ll bring you the whole story. And what a story!”

He looked at me for encouragement, but I was feeling that we had done enough. Bessie McIntosh was dead. Margaret Sampson was dead. Jock Sampson was dead. Donald himself had barely escaped death. Our stage was looking like the last scene of Hamlet.

“We’ll talk about that later on,” I said. “The best thing you can do is to go home. Oh no! There’s a young lady in a hat-shop who might be interested to hear that you are back.”

“You’re right, sir. I’ll ring her up, and then I’ll write my epic of the sea. Then—only three days more, gentlemen, and you shall have the whole, complete, up-to-the-moment inside story of the Southridge Terrace mystery. Auf wiedersehen, gentlemen.”

“Somehow I can’t help liking the boy,” he admitted uncomfortably. “I wish I had some more like him. No, I don’t, though,” he admitted, “not on a respectable paper like this!”

We did not print Donald’s account of his encounter with Jock Sampson next day, nor the day after. He telephoned an excited protest to Murgatroyd each morning, but otherwise he did not come near the office.

“You see,” Murgatroyd told me grimly, “he’s still taking what you said seriously.”

“That you’d publish the inside story of the Bessie McIntosh murder when he got it.”

“Well, he says he’s getting them, and I’m not so sure he isn’t,” he added. “That’s why I haven’t ordered him back to the office. He only asked for three more days to round off his investigation.”

“I’ve no idea. I wish I had. I should have liked him to do the Sampson funeral.”

“Don’t you know, sir? Oh, of course, you don’t read the Sun.” Murgatroyd allowed himself to smile at this. “The fact is that many people still don’t believe she had anything to do with the murder of Bessie McIntosh; they think she’s been the victim of circumstances, not to speak of her husband’s insane violence. So the Sun’s got up a subscription, and she’s to have a spectacular public funeral to-morrow morning. We’ve got to cover it, even though it is the Sun’s show.”

“We won’t touch it,” I said. “Leave that to them! That’s final, Murgatroyd.”

“You know best, sir.” He sighed. “But Donald would have done it beautifully.”

On the following morning Kirkwall deigned to turn up at the office. Murgatroyd telephoned to tell me this, and begged me to come down to see him earlier than usual, as there were important matters to discuss in regard to Donald’s now completed investigation.

This put me on my guard. It showed me that my editor was taking the matter seriously, far more seriously than I was, because I was now more than ever persuaded that there were no new facts to be discovered about the McIntosh murder. Donald’s quest had by no means been a waste of time, even by the lowest journalistic standards, since it had resulted in the discovery of poor Margaret Sampson’s body. But one had to draw a line somewhere; and I felt that it was high time for him to settle down again at his normal work.

I entered the office by the back staircase to avoid the crowds waiting in the High Street to see the funeral. When I reached Murgatroyd’s room, he and Kirkwall were already there. Donald wore a new suit and looked smarter than I had ever seen him, though the black eye spoiled the effect.

“Fine, sir. I’ve got all the story of the McIntosh murder together, and I want to show it to you.”

“If you won’t let us write up the funeral, sir,” he said, “there’s no reason why we shouldn’t—er—enjoy it, is there?”

I went across and gazed down on the High Street. Masses of people covered both pavements, and the police were diverting the ordinary traffic. Coming slowly towards us was a hearse, drawn by black-plumed horses and surrounded by dejected-looking mutes. Margaret Sampson’s coffin was covered with wreaths; and behind it was a long line of walking mourners and motor-cars.

A camera-man stood in the roadway to photograph the procession as it passed the Sun building; I winced at the thought of what would appear on Monday morning in its picture-pages. Most of the men below raised their hats as the hearse approached, and I was amazed at the artificial solemnity of the whole affair.

Had the town gone mad? Or was I mad? Surely poor Margaret Sampson might have been allowed to be buried quietly and not turned, even after her death, into more fodder for sensation-seekers.

It was Donald Kirkwall at my elbow who exclaimed; and the next moment I saw why.

Shuffling along behind the hearse and at the head of the mourners on foot was Angus Aitken, the dear old gentleman!

He wore the new dark suit that I had first seen at the trial, the same patched boots and filthy spats; but for once he had discarded his deplorable green overcoat. His keen eyes no longer looked from side to side, but stared in front of him. I could not see it, of course, at this distance, but I felt certain that the eternal drop of moisture hung from his long, hooked nose.

The photographer took him as he passed, against a background of now grinning faces and a carefully placed group of Sun placards.

“Well, this beats cock-fighting!” said Murgatroyd, hurling his beloved pipe on the floor.

The funeral passed. The old gentleman vanished with it. The photographer waved a triumphant hand to his colleagues at the Sun windows. The crowds began to disperse. It was evident to me that people were divided in their opinions of the old gentleman’s appearance at the ceremony.

Some, I gathered from their gestures, regarded it as a disgraceful exhibition of shamelessness, but others—and, I think, the majority—seemed to feel that his behaviour was the strongest possible pointer to his innocence throughout; nobody whose conscience was unclean, or whose character was not almost transparently sincere, would have dared to behave in so eccentric a manner. By walking behind Margaret Sampson’s coffin, he showed that he had forgiven her attempt to throw the guilt of Bessie McIntosh’s murder on him. Either, then, he was a great gentleman or a great hypocrite. Like, as I say, the majority of the people in the street, I could not help inclining towards the former alternative.

I was shocked, therefore, by Donald Kirkwall’s first remark when we turned back to Murgatroyd’s desk.

“Just you wait, sir! Didn’t Mr. Murgatroyd tell you on the ’phone? I’ve got the whole story.”

He pulled a batch of typescript out of his pocket. Murgatroyd and I sat down in the two armchairs, while Kirkwall chose to perch himself on the edge of the desk.

“Oh, by the way,” he said, “I think we ought to have Margaret Sampson’s statement handy for reference. It’s in your safe, isn’t it, Mr. Murgatroyd?”

Murgatroyd unlocked the safe and handed me the document which Donald had stolen from Mrs. Sampson’s lawyers.

“I’ll just give you my general argument,” Kirkwall began. “I needn’t read you the whole story that I’ve written, because you know a good deal of it already. I’ll just use it as a guide to the facts.

“First of all, I think we should dismiss most of the arguments which Mrs. Sampson’s advocate put to the court. They didn’t mean much, anyhow; as you know, he was really trying to persuade you that the Crown’s case wasn’t strong enough against her to warrant conviction. And in regard to details, like, for instance, the yarn about the old gentleman’s having brought her the silver at her house and so on, we really needn’t waste time on them, because they’re mostly superseded by her formal statement which you have in your hand now, Mr. Wilberforce, and which she and her lawyers prepared for use in court in case you found her guilty. But I think we may take it that a considerable part of that statement was true.”

“Well, for one thing, her confession that she was really in the house at Southridge Terrace that night, and was an accessory after the fact to the murder. This can’t possibly be denied, but her statement leaves a number of things unexplained. For example, she didn’t suggest in it any plausible reason why Bessie was murdered. That’s one of the main points I’ve been working on, and you must let me take you back a few years to make it clear.

“The old gentleman, we know, has been living in that house with his son for a number of years. During that time they’ve employed several servants, among them, of course, Bessie McIntosh and Margaret Sampson. Now I’ve managed to trace two or three of the other servants who were there at various times.

“None of them was keen to talk about old Aitken, but I managed to establish one fact which they all admitted. It’s this. The old gentleman made advances to all of them, one after another, whenever he was left alone in the house with them. He used to bring them flowers and sweets. He used to drink with them. He used to spend his time with them in the kitchen. He took an interest in every little thing they did. He went further than that; he——”

“That’s got nothing to do with it,” Kirkwall replied. “The old gentleman’s a freak. He’s thirty years younger than his age. He——”

“One moment, Donald,” I interrupted him. “Surely you realize that all those things are capable of another construction besides the one you are putting on them? He may have been moved by sheer benevolence, an old man’s benevolence which——”

“Oh, nonsense, sir!” Kirkwall cried. “I tell you he tried to force his way into their rooms. Look here, sir, I’m sorry. I’ll show you afterwards what the girls said to me, but let me go on with my story now. Just assume, for the present, that my view of his behaviour is the right one.”

“Next, we know that Margaret Sampson left her place at Southridge Terrace because she was going to have a child. I discovered that in Manchester, didn’t I? There’s not the least doubt in my mind that the old gentleman was the father of that child.”

“Next, she has the child in Manchester, but it died. After that she went back to the Aitkens’ for a year and then married Jock Sampson, who knew nothing of her previous trouble. Meanwhile, Bessie McIntosh became the servant at Southridge Terrace. Old Aitken became fond of her, so fond that he set her up in a grocery business. You’ll remember that he said so in his article in the Sun, and produced the counterfoil of the cheque to prove it. The business failed; he lost his money, and Bessie went back to Southridge Terrace.

“The old gentleman was still very fond of her, so fond of her that, as we know from her sister’s evidence at the trial, he frequently talked about marrying her. So far as we can judge from the evidence generally, Bessie couldn’t make up her mind: the old gentleman was pestering her in various ways, and she sometimes thought of emigrating to America.”

“Wouldn’t she have married him like a shot if he’d really asked her?” Murgatroyd said.

“I don’t know,” Donald replied. “I dare say she doubted whether he’d really go through with it, or whether his son wouldn’t somehow prevent him. Besides, she may not have relished having him for her husband, even if he had a couple of hundred pounds in the bank, especially if there was any other way of getting the money out of him. Anyhow, gentlemen, that doesn’t arise. He certainly seems to have talked to her about marriage, and that’s all I want to say at the moment on that point.

“Now I’ve made a lot of enquiries about him, not only from the servants but from the minister of his church and from a number of other people who knew him. They all admit the same thing, namely, that he’s clean daft where women are concerned. He’s always following them about, and giving them cheap presents, and ogling them, and—well, generally making himself a nuisance to them. I’ve got all my notes here, and you can see them afterwards. There can’t be the slightest doubt on this score and”—Kirkwall looked cheerfully across at me—“you can’t possibly make out that it’s only old-gentlemanly benevolence. That story simply won’t wash. However, let’s get on.

“I come back now to Mrs. Sampson’s statement. One of the things that puzzled me when I read it was her reference to water having been spilled over her feet, so that she took off her shoes and stockings to dry them. Now why did she put in so trivial a thing as that?”

“Very likely, but that had an obvious purpose. She was quite clearly trying to explain how it was that she had left her bare footprints in the dead woman’s room.”

“Wait!” I cried. “She made her statement before the trial began. We’ve no reason to suppose that she knew that her footprints had been found in the house.”

“Oh, come, sir! She may have heard about it quite easily. Besides, you’ll remember that—” he glanced at his typescript for a moment—“Yes, it was Dr. Lockhart. He stated in court that he’d measured her feet in order to compare them with the footprints. Surely she guessed then what had happened. And so she was careful to insert in her statement what she considered a reasonable explanation. Indeed, I shouldn’t altogether be surprised if her lawyers hadn’t asked her for an explanation; they may even have hinted to her what to say. But the main thing is, anyhow, that she was walking about in Bessie’s room in bare feet, and I don’t, for a moment, believe that her explanation was the true one.

“Next, let’s go back a day or two. Her husband, Jock Sampson, went to sea a couple of days before the murder, and she was left with her little boy and the lodger, Mrs. Peirson. Now I thought that Mrs. Peirson told the truth at the trial, but I also thought that she could have said a great deal more. So when Jock Sampson and his wife were both dead, I went along to Mrs. Peirson and suggested that she could now speak openly about what she knew.

“She knew a lot, just as I guessed. I’ve got the notes of our conversation here, and I’ll just give you the main facts. She said that Margaret Sampson was nearly always hard up. And why? Because she spent most of her money on drink! I’m not suggesting that she was a hopeless drunkard; she hadn’t the money for that, but she certainly spent more on drink than she could afford, and naturally Jock Sampson never knew. He didn’t drink himself, and he would have gone up in the air if he’d guessed that she did.

“I asked Mrs. Peirson how Margaret Sampson got the money to buy drink with, for, as we all know, her husband couldn’t give her much. Mrs. Peirson said that Margaret always seemed flush of money after she’d paid a visit to Bessie McIntosh at Southridge Terrace; Mrs. Peirson’s notion was that Bessie lent her the money, but that’s not my view. The point I want to emphasize is that Mrs. Sampson could, apparently, get money whenever she happened to visit Southridge Terrace.”

“Do you see what I’m getting at, sir? Who gave her that money at Southridge Terrace? Bessie McIntosh, who had so little to give? Or the old gentleman, whom Margaret Sampson could always threaten to expose in connection with the child she’d had in Manchester?”

“As a matter of fact, I don’t. I spoke a bit too quickly just now. To be frank, I did at first think she was blackmailing him, but now I’ve come to a different conclusion. You see, it wouldn’t have suited her any more than the old gentleman to have the truth come out about that Manchester affair. She knew what her husband might do if he learned about it.

“No, the conclusion I’ve come to is this. She got the money from the old gentleman all right, but she didn’t get it by blackmailing him. No, she got it for what, as I say here in my story in deference to the delicacy of the Standard readers, may be called ‘services rendered’. In other words, she remained the old gentleman’s occasional mistress.”

“My dear boy!” I protested, but he impatiently turned the page of his typescript and went on.

“Now then, what happened on the night of the murder? We know that Margaret Sampson was dreadfully hard up. She was being dunned for the rent, and she’d no money. So she decides to go round as usual to Southridge Terrace. I imagine that she hoped to find Bessie already asleep and the house in darkness, but, as we know from her statement, she found that the old gentleman and Bessie had sat up later than usual in the kitchen, drinking. I think they all drank a good deal—I believe her statement in regard to that—and, in my opinion, she took an opportunity to whisper to the old gentleman that he might expect her to return to the house later on, after Bessie had gone to bed. It wasn’t the first time this had happened, you may be sure.

“Right! The party breaks up, Margaret leaves the house, Bessie goes to bed, and the old gentleman goes to his own room. Margaret Sampson hangs about till she’s sure that Bessie is asleep. Then she returns to the house and, at the top of the steps, she takes a handful of soil—damp soil, Mr. Wilberforce!—from one of the plant-tubs outside the front door and throws it against his window to show she’s come back. I suppose it was her usual signal.

“By the way, I’ve tried to find out from the window-cleaners if they ever before found earth-marks on the window and mud on the sill, as we did; but they’ve sacked some men lately and I couldn’t get any definite information. Not that it really matters, because we’re dealing only with this particular night.

“The old gentleman recognizes the signal, comes along to the front door and lets her in. And the next part of my story begins several hours later—perhaps, as the old gentleman mentioned in his evidence, at ‘exactly four o’clock and a bonny clear morning’. It was then, you see, that Bessie came into the old gentleman’s room and found Margaret Sampson there!”

“You’ll see how it all fits in, sir,” said Donald, but it seemed to me that my direct demand for proof had shaken him. “Just let me tell you what happened after this.”

“Let him tell his story, Mr. Wilberforce,” said Murgatroyd. “We can examine it afterwards.”

“Very well,” I said. “Go ahead, Donald, but don’t, for a moment, think that you are making me believe this story.”

“Well, what do you think happened that night, sir?” Kirkwall retorted. “You can’t get away from it that the murder was done, that Margaret Sampson and the old gentleman were in the house and that Bessie was killed. You heard the old gentleman’s story in court, and you didn’t believe it——”

“Yes, I have. If you’d believed his story, you jurymen were practically bound to accept the rest of the case for the Crown, and find Margaret Sampson guilty. Oh, all right,” he went on petulantly, “let’s say, then, that you were not wholly convinced of the truth of the old gentleman’s story. And you don’t believe Margaret Sampson’s story in her statement, or you’d have printed it. You said as much. So why not hear my theory, and see if it doesn’t fit the circumstances better than either?”

“That’s how he talks to his editor usually, Mr. Wilberforce,” he said. “Nice little soul, isn’t he?”

“I’m sorry, sir,” he said to me, rather red in the face. “But I do want to put the whole story before you.”

“So Bessie comes into the room and finds them together. Imagine her feelings! She realizes that the old gentleman has only been fooling her when he talks about marrying her; she realizes that she hasn’t really any hold on him at all—at least, that she can’t hope to use his affection for her to make him pay her passage to America or to set her up in another business over here. Maybe she was already suspicious of him and Margaret, for, you’ll remember, she passed some queer hints about him to that friend of hers she met in the street a few days before; on the other hand, she may merely have been referring to his generally naughty behaviour towards her.

“What’s more, she realizes that Margaret Sampson, her best friend, has been fooling her all the time. Here’s Bessie thinking that the old gentleman is mad keen about her, and it turns out now that Margaret is his real mistress. Can’t you see what happened then?”

“What?” Murgatroyd asked, pricking Kirkwall’s enthusiasm with his dry tone.

“It’s obvious, isn’t it? Bessie would make a scene, tell ’em both exactly what she thinks of ’em, and probably end up by threatening to tell the whole world about them. Maybe she even knew about that child Margaret had in Manchester, and now she puts two and two together and realizes that the old gentleman was the father. Yes, she must have raised Cain. And then she’d run down again to her room, very likely to put on some clothes and leave the house. She must have been hysterical with rage and jealousy.

“Picture the other two! Margaret Sampson’s the more frightened, perhaps, because she knows that her husband would soon find out a lot of other things—the drinking, for example—if once Bessie arouses his suspicions. Not to speak of the little trouble in Manchester!

“So she throws on her dress—the brown dress—and chases downstairs after Bessie. The old gentleman is a bit slower; he probably stops to dress fairly completely. He’s not the sort of fellow to risk catching cold even at a crisis like this—after all, you can’t live to be eighty unless you take care of yourself. And you’ll remember how he talked in the witness-box about his ‘puir, cauld feet’.

“The trouble starts all over again in the kitchen. Bessie won’t shut up. She won’t promise not to say anything. She won’t listen to reason at all. She just goes on nagging the pair of them until, at last, the old gentleman loses his temper. You and I know, don’t we, Mr. Wilberforce, that he’s got a pretty dirty temper when he’s roused? Remember how he nearly went for me in your house?

“He picks up the nearest thing to hand—the chopper—and he goes for Bessie. I don’t think Margaret Sampson would have any hand in this. She probably just looked on, horrified. Or possibly Bessie, who was a much stronger woman, had thrown her out of the way. Anyhow, the old gentleman strikes Bessie and goes on striking until she’s dead. This fits the medical evidence that all those blows were struck by a woman or a comparatively feeble man. Old Angus Aitken may have a diabolical temper; his physique is certainly phenomenal for a man of his great age; but even he can’t be expected to exert force beyond his own muscular powers.

“What was to be done now? You can imagine the old gentleman and Margaret Sampson coming to their senses over the wretched Bessie’s body. There were signs that her face was washed; well, I assume, as her counsel pointed out, that Margaret Sampson was the one who did that. She probably hoped that Bessie wasn’t really dead, and that somehow she could be brought round; but as soon as she’s got so far as washing her face, she sees that it’s hopeless. And then the old gentleman takes charge.

“He knows that they must try to cover up the crime. They can’t dispose of Bessie’s body, but they can drag it into her bedroom as the first step to an alibi. This, of course, was how Mrs. Sampson came to leave the footprints on the floor, without which she might very possibly never have been brought into court.

“Then the old gentleman takes the key of her room, locks the door from the outside and puts the key in the larder door, which, as he knows, it fits. What next? He tells Margaret Sampson that they must make it all look like the work of a burglar. He takes out some of the family silver, gives it to her, and tells her to sink it in the harbour or somewhere else where it will never be found.”

“And why not?” Kirkwall answered. “He knew that she was frightened to death of her husband’s finding out about her relations with him, let alone about her share in the murder. How right she was to fear Jock Sampson is clear enough from what happened to her, isn’t it?”

“True,” Murgatroyd agreed. “And then, you say, she went away with the silver?”

“Yes, but something else happened before that. She discovered that there was blood all over her dress. Not over her shoes and stockings, mark you; for they were still in the old gentleman’s room. So she talks it over with him, and he tells her to slip on one of Bessie’s dresses, carry away her own dress with the silver, and dispose of it somehow. Off she goes, unlocks the bedroom door—it must have been a grisly business for her—and opens Bessie’s chest to take out the red dress. Maybe it was only then, and not before, that she made the prints on the floor; on the whole, I think it probably was. Or they’d have spotted them and wiped them up. While she’s about it, she takes some money that Bessie has saved in the chest. It’s no more good to Bessie, so she might as well use it.

“She slips on the red dress in place of her own—or maybe she does that upstairs; I don’t pretend to know; anyhow, she locks the bedroom again and puts the key back in the larder door. And then she really does go away, and that’s that.

“The old gentleman dithers about, answers the door to the milkman—he hadn’t thought yet of the yarn about the front door being only on the latch—and, when Margaret Sampson’s gone, tries to wash up the blood in the kitchen. He knows that nobody will come into the house till the Monday, so he prudently decides to go about his usual business with as little change as possible—including two visits to church next day! But there’s one awkward little thing: he finds he’s got blood on his clothes too. So he takes them off again and begins to wear his other suit, the dark suit which he has hitherto kept for special occasions.”

“What did he do with the old suit, according to you, Donald?” Murgatroyd asked.

“He told the truth about that, I’m sure. He said he sold it in the Lower Town; and I expect he did. But he lied when he said that he’d already sold it before the murder. I’ll bet it was next day he sold it. I’ve been trying to trace it, and I’m bound to tell you that I’ve failed. Of course, he may have burnt it, but I don’t think so; or the police would probably have found buttons in the grate. He may even have dumped it somewhere in the Lower Town; but even then it’d be likely to turn up. No, I can only suppose that he sold it or gave it to somebody whom he could trust not to talk about it.

“Now there’s only one detail left, so far as he’s concerned. He must have noticed during the week-end that he hadn’t properly succeeded in washing the kitchen floor, and the passage between it and Bessie’s bedroom; I expect there were still bloodstains there. So he has another go over the week-end, as late even as the Monday morning; and that’s why the doctors and the police noticed that parts of those floors were still damp. That’s all for him.

“But Margaret, like a fool, makes things worse for herself and rather more awkward for him. For, instead of throwing the silver away as he told her, she decides to pawn it. Remember, she went to Southridge Terrace in the first place to get money from the old gentleman. I assume that he hadn’t enough on him to pay off the rent which she was being pestered for, so, instead of drowning the silver, she has the bright idea of pawning it.

“He would have told her how stupid this was, but she didn’t realize it. You must remember that she’d always sent other people to the pawnshops before, so she wasn’t known there; and I suppose she imagined that if she gave a false name she’d never be traced. After all, the hypothetical burglar would probably pawn the silver; why shouldn’t she pretend to be the burglar’s accomplice? But naturally, once she and the pawnbroker were confronted, he recognized her; and she was in the soup.

“I don’t believe her yarn about the old gentleman making her swear secrecy on the Bible. He didn’t need to do anything so melodramatic. But even after she was arrested she naturally didn’t want to give too much away, though she could no longer pretend to be innocent in regard to disposing of the silver. So she concocted those early statements to the police, which were clearly untrue, and, I presume, she hoped that the old gentleman would somehow get her out of the mess. As we know, however, he did the only thing open to him. He denied everything; didn’t know a thing except that he’d heard ‘lood squeals’, had always expected that Bessie would turn up, and so on and so forth.

“He lied his way out of custody, and, once he was called as a witness against her by the Crown, he’d nothing much more to fear. Margaret Sampson had told so many lies that, even if she told the truth now, it was doubtful if anybody would believe her.

“And what is very important, she didn’t dare tell the whole truth—no, not even to her lawyers. Because, if she did manage to get off and she’d admitted being the old gentleman’s mistress, she’d still have her husband to reckon with. So that’s why her statement, which you’re holding in your hands, Mr. Wilberforce, only tells a part of the truth, and not, to my mind, the most important parts of it. Thanks to you and your colleagues in the jury-box, and thanks, above all, to the Judge—oh, by the way, I hear that he’s dying—she did get off.

“Unfortunately for her, Jock Sampson wasn’t such a mug as she thought. Either he guessed what she was trying to suppress, or some kind person—Mrs. Peirson, possibly, though she denies it—dropped him a hint. So when he took her down to her brother’s empty cottage after the trial, he forced the truth out of her. That was the end of her, and the end of him—and jolly nearly the end of me.”

Kirkwall tidied the sheets of his story and notes. “Well, gentlemen, are you satisfied?” he asked.

“What about those beads, Donald?” Murgatroyd asked. “Where do they come in?”

“Stupid of me to forget ’em,” the boy said. “Of course, it was those beads and the earth on the window which put me on the right track. The moment I spotted them I realized that the old gentleman had had a secret visitor, who was pretty certain to be a woman. Men don’t shed beads in a bedroom, do they? And it must have been recently, because they came there after the floor was stained. Well, we know now where the beads came from. They dropped off Margaret Sampson’s handbag. Do you see how beautifully it all fits in?”

“Great stuff! Great stuff, Donald!” Murgatroyd cried, polishing his pipe. “Yes, great stuff!”

I paused before I answered. I hated to wreck his triumph. Then I pulled myself together: it had to be done.

“I believe that something happened very like what you’ve told us, Donald,” I began.

“Wait! I agreed to let you go out and get the facts, if you could. You’ve worked hard, you’ve shown considerable ingenuity and intelligence, but, Donald, you simply haven’t brought me the facts. Have you, now?”

“Of course I have!” he cried. “Don’t you call the old gentleman’s son at Manchester a fact? Aren’t the beads facts? Isn’t Mrs. Peirson’s statement a fact? Isn’t it a fact that Jock Sampson strangled his wife because he’d found out her relations with the old gentleman? Doesn’t my whole story square with the facts? It is the facts, sir!”

“It may be, Donald,” I said gently, “but so far as you and I are concerned most of these facts are, and will remain, mere assumptions. We can’t prove any of them, can we? No, don’t interrupt me. Listen!

“I still maintain that, if the old gentleman admits writing to Margaret Sampson at Manchester when she had the child, he can say, and certainly will say, that it was mere benevolence that made him write to a woman in trouble. He will deny that it was his child. The same with the beads. We could tax him with them, and he’d simply say that he can’t understand how they got into his room. All Mrs. Peirson told you is that Margaret Sampson used to get money at Southridge Terrace. For all we can prove, she may have got it from her friend, Bessie McIntosh.”

“It’s no use, Donald, no use at all. The only people who knew what really happened that night at Southridge Terrace were Bessie McIntosh, Margaret Sampson, and the old gentleman. The two women are dead, and the old gentleman is not likely to give himself away. I’m not going to say that your story isn’t impressive; I’m not going to say that it isn’t very nearly true. All I say is this: the Standard is not going to print it.”

The wretched Kirkwall looked plaintively at Murgatroyd, but the editor, as usual, followed my lead.

“If we were to print your story, Donald,” he said, “the old gentleman would break us with a libel action. We shouldn’t have a leg to stand on.”

“That’s not quite the point, Murgatroyd,” I said. “If Donald had brought us facts, yes, facts, I’d print them and let the old gentleman do what he liked. But I will not allow the Standard to print a story, no matter how true it may appear to be, which anybody could describe as a mere piece of sensational copy. That’s why, Donald, I haven’t let your story about your encounter at sea with Jock Sampson appear. It would have suited a good many papers, but it didn’t happen to suit the Standard.”

“I did, and I was foolish. I ought to have seen then, as I see now, that the facts are not obtainable—or, if you prefer, that they can never be printed as indubitable facts, simply because there’s no living person who can or will vouch for them. Isn’t that so, Murgatroyd?”

I was ashamed for a moment to have appealed to him against Kirkwall; it was unfair. Still, I knew I was right, and I saw that my next duty was to console Kirkwall, so far as I could, for his disappointment.

I went over and patted his shoulder, but he shrank away from me and rushed out of the room.

“He’ll be all right,” said Murgatroyd. “It’s bad luck on the boy, though. That was a great story!”

I left the office, feeling that I had hurt young Donald more than I had ever hurt anybody. And this meant hurting that charming partisan of his in the hat-shop. As I went down the High Street I glanced inside the shop. Ailsa saw me and her face lit up in a smile.

“Donald’s a little disappointed over an affair at the office,” I confided to her. “Will you be seeing him to-day?”

“Then why not bring him along to my house for dinner—just the three of us? Shall we say half past seven?”

“It’s sweet of you, my dear. If I don’t hear from you by half past six, I’ll expect you. No need to dress, of course. Is that arranged?”

I spent the rest of the day in the garden, and decided that I needed a short holiday. I wanted to put all this business of the McIntosh murder and the old gentleman and the trial and the Sampson murder behind me. Yes, I’d go down to my cottage by the sea, and fish. It was years since I had been there, but here was my chance to pick up a link with my old life.

Jessop asked me if I should be in to dinner, and I warned him that we should probably have two guests.

Just after half past six, however, Ailsa rang me up to say they were not coming.

“No. I’ve been waiting for him since six. I’m terribly sorry. It’s too bad of him.”

“I don’t think so. But, of course, he may be working on something else. Have you tried the office?”

“He’s not there. Yes—I suppose he’s working outside,” she said doubtfully. “Good-bye, Mr. Wilberforce. I’m so sorry about it all.”

I was sorry too, and I was still more sorry to guess what Kirkwall was doing, though naturally I said nothing of this to the girl. I rang up Murgatroyd.

“I believe it’s the ‘White Horse’ as a rule. But he sometimes drops into the ‘Royal’. He meets the Sun fellows there, and he likes to rag them.”

I hung up the receiver and told Jessop I was going out for a walk, and I should be alone for dinner after all.

Donald was not in the ‘White Horse’, and I walked on to the ‘Royal’ and looked in through the open door at the long and crowded bar.

He was there, leaning against the wall at the far end, with his hat at a more than usually outrageous angle, and arguing fiercely with a young man whom I recognized with distaste as one of the Sun reporters. A number of other newspaper-men surrounded them, listening with interest and amusement.

I could see from Kirkwall’s flushed cheeks that he had been drinking heavily, and while I watched he rapped on the counter with the bottom of his tumbler and called on the others to name their drinks.

There was nothing I could do about it. I had no right to expose him to ridicule, or myself either, by trying to drag him out of the place. He had a perfect right to get drunk if he wished.

But I should have liked to bring him to his senses, to make him see that he was not merely undermining his health, but ruining also the happiness of the girl who loved him. What a fool he was to run off like a petulant child, and to soak himself in drink, just because he had met with a professional disappointment! Thinking about him spoiled my appetite for dinner, and I did not drink anything with it. Jessop raised his eyebrows at both these things, but wisely said nothing.

The police superintendent telephoned to tell me that Kirkwall had just been brought in by one of his men, suffering from a head-wound. He had collapsed in the street, almost into the arms of this constable.

By the time I reached the police-station, the doctor was finishing with Donald. Two stitches had been put into a cut on his forehead, and he looked pale and sick. There was no charge against him, though I think the police knew that he had been drinking; still, they always tried to spare the reputation and the pockets of pressmen.

Donald followed me silently to my car, and we did not speak till he was seated in my library. Then I closed the door and asked him if he realized what he was doing.

“Golly, I do look a wreck!” he said. “What with a black eye and this chunk of sticking-plaster! You see, sir, it was like this: I had a few drinks at the ‘Royal’—well, to tell the truth, quite a lot of drinks. I started on a kind of pub-crawl, and finished up at the ‘Grey Owl’, where old Aitken’s staying.”

“The girl behind the bar had a grand buttonhole. I chaffed her about it, and she told me that the old gentleman had given it to her this morning. Then she told me that he wasn’t very well; she thought he’d caught cold at the funeral.

“ ‘He’s so old and frail,’ she said. ‘Why, he might die at any moment.’

“That stuck in my mind. I don’t quite know what happened, but a few minutes later I found myself upstairs, tapping at his door. I went in and found him sitting on the bed, half-undressed. He glared at me and told me to get out before he had me thrown out. But I got between him and the bell, and told him——”

“I told him that I knew he’d murdered Bessie McIntosh, that I’d got the whole story—the dropped beads, the signal on the window-pane, the business with the silver—yes, the whole story just as I’d told it to you and Mr. Murgatroyd. He was scared all right. Scared? He looked as if he’d murder me for two pins.

“I was standing quite near him at the end—must have been—for he suddenly lurched out towards me. He’d got something in his hand; I don’t know what it was, bottle or something, I expect, but it hurt like blazes. Next thing I knew I’d run out of his room and out into the street. There was blood all over my face, and I saw a policeman coming along. He gave me an arm to the police-station. That’s all.”

“Donald,” I said, “this is a shocking business. What did you hope to gain by breaking in on the old gentleman?”

“It was just a crazy idea. I’d never have dreamed of it if I hadn’t happened to drop in at the ‘Grey Owl’ and the barmaid hadn’t spoken about him. I’m sorry, sir.”

“Well, anyhow, I’ve played the game by him. I wouldn’t tell ’em at the station who’d hit me.”

He laughed suddenly. “I say, sir, the old gentleman must be in a stew now. Suppose I’d given him away, and he had to tell the magistrate what I’d said to him?”

“And suppose he told the magistrate,” I said, “that this was the second time you’d intruded on him, not to speak of your burgling his son’s house?”

Ailsa came in and was going to say something to me when she saw Kirkwall. I saw her trim figure stiffen and her eyes grow angry.

“So I see.” Then she turned to me. “I’m sorry to have bothered you, Mr. Wilberforce,” she said slowly. “You see, I thought perhaps he—he—— But I see I needn’t have worried. I’ll go now, if you’ll excuse me.”

She paid no attention to Kirkwall’s cry, but went on into the lobby. I ran after her and caught her arm.

“I know, but he needs sympathy now. Believe me, my dear, he knows what a fool he’s been. It won’t happen again.”

“You can. I’ve been talking to him. I think he’d promise you to stop drinking if you asked him now. He’s had a rather bad time, and one thing’s led to—— Better come back, my dear!”

She hesitated, and then went back into the library. Donald looked from me to her, and slowly came over to us.

“I’m sorry, old girl,” he said, and it sounded much more charming than it will read. “I’ll never let you down again. Let’s walk, shall we?”

Next morning, Murgatroyd told me in his usual telephoned report, Donald arrived at the office on time, cheerful and brimming over with energy.

“I’ve put him on the Buchan wedding,” he said. “He isn’t much of an ornament at the moment—something’s happened to his other eye now—but that’s their look-out. He’s got over his troubles now, I hope.”

I hoped so too. In any case, he would have to fend without me for a fortnight, since, as I told his editor, I was off for a fortnight’s holiday at the seaside, and I wished to be spared any bother about the paper and its staff. I knew I could safely leave them in Murgatroyd’s hands. I reached the cottage in the early afternoon, telling myself that I was going to wash away all the anxieties and shocks of the past weeks.

I was wrong. While I rocked to and fro in my small boat with my eye on my deep-sea rod, while I battled my way through the bunkers of the nerve-racking local nine-hole golf-course, my mind insisted on dwelling among the things I wished to forget.

I kept remembering the old gentleman’s attack on Kirkwall. It was not the viciousness of it—for this I could forgive, in the circumstances—but the fresh revelation of his sudden capacity for violence. I remembered also the evening when he followed the boy to my house, and I wondered what Donald had whispered to him which had driven him into another similar paroxysm of fury. But what did it all matter? The less we had to do with the old gentleman in future, the better for all of us and for him.

Murgatroyd sent me Kirkwall’s account of the Buchan wedding, wisely disregarding my remark that I did not wish to see the paper during my absence from town. It was well done, extremely well done, and it proved to me that the boy was trying to go straight.

In the same letter my editor told me a less pleasant piece of news. The Sun had at last succeeded in enticing away our chief sub-editor, who had been with the Standard for ten years. Ah, well, this was Murgatroyd’s trouble not mine.

Refreshed by my holiday, I returned home and heard an excellent report about Donald.

“He’s settling down again, sir,” said Murgatroyd, that first afternoon. “I’ve been keeping an eye on him, and there’s no more drinking. I think he’s trying his hand on a novel in his spare time, and that’s giving him all the excitement he needs.”

“He won’t tell me, but I’ve got an idea that it’s about the McIntosh murder, with all his precious theories thrown in. He’ll never be able to forget it, you know.”

“Oh, bless you, sir, nobody’ll ever publish it! You know what these young people are like: they all think writing a novel’s so easy, they’ll just dash one off in the evenings and make a best-seller of it. If you saw the sort of rubbish that even experienced journalists like Donald turn out and call novels, you’d be surprised.”

“That’s all right, then,” I said, but I frowned at the suggestion that Kirkwall was still worrying about the wretched case. Why couldn’t he forget it? And, for that matter, why couldn’t I?

“By the way,” Murgatroyd went on, “have you heard that the old gentleman’s seriously ill?”

“I only know that he’s in the Belmont nursing-home. You see, you won’t have any mention of him in the paper, so we don’t enquire.” Murgatroyd smiled a little bitterly. “I’ve only read about it in the Sun.”

“If it’s only to keep Donald from going round to cover the story,” I said, “it’s worth while letting the Sun have the monopoly of it.”

But I was unlucky even in this, for an hour or two later, when we were still busy with matters that had accumulated during my holiday, a telephone call came through to Murgatroyd from the nursing-home.

“Well, well, well!” he said, when he had finished speaking. “That’s torn it! Old Aitken’s sent word that he wants to see Donald there at once. It’s urgent. What shall we do?”

Murgatroyd rang a bell and told his secretary to see if Kirkwall was in the building.

A minute later Donald came in. He smiled shyly when he saw me, and hoped I had had a pleasant holiday.

The boy swung round at me. “What am I to do? He’s awfully ill, you know. Am I to go?”

“Not the slightest. I promise you, I haven’t interfered with him in the least since you went away. I don’t want you to think——”

“I think I’d better be there,” I explained. “There’s been enough trouble between Donald and the old gentleman already. I’d like to be there to see fair play—for both of them,” I added, with a nod towards Kirkwall’s scarred forehead.

But Donald knew that my real purpose was to damp down any enthusiasm he might feel to involve himself again in this pitiful series of episodes.

He hurried me through the streets to the nursing-home, which was in a quiet square behind the Cathedral. The porter was evidently an old friend of his, for Donald addressed him familiarly as Harry. We explained why we had come, and Harry put through a call to the matron.

“Och, he’s gey bad. He’s in for what we call a serious abdominal oper-ration. At his age, ye ken, it’s——”

“Doctor Cantler, the best man we’ve got in the town. Hallo,” Harry said, as the telephone rang. “Verra guid, matron. Will ye please gang up to the second floor, Mr. Kirkwall?”

We took the lift, and a nurse showed us into a small room where the old gentleman lay in bed.

He looked incredibly old and weary and, though he was looking straight at us, it took him some little time to realize that we were there, and who we were.

“I will go,” I suggested, for it was clear that there was no danger of any untoward incident.

“I’m no’ so young any more,” he mumbled. “Maybe it’s time I made my arrangements.”

His gaze shortened till it rested on Donald’s scarred forehead, and it seemed to me that the slightest possible smile twisted the old gentleman’s thin lips.

“Ay, I struck ye a muckle blow,” he said softly. “I broke a glass in my hand. It was a guid glass.”

“Because it’s a’ down in writing, ay, in my own hand. But I’m needing a solemn promise before I give it to ye.”

“I’ve written a letter to ye, Donal’ Kirkwall, but ye must promise that ye’ll no’ open it or read it or maybe put it in your paper till I’m dead. Do ye understand me, young man; and ye too, Meester Wilberforce?”

I hated the whole business, and my tone showed it when I said, “I will guarantee, Mr. Aitken, that your letter will not be opened in your lifetime.”

“I’m no’ about to die, I’m hoping,” he went on, “but I’m a verra auld mon, and the doctors aren’t aye so careful as they should be. Accidents happen; ay, accidents happen.”

He raised himself up slowly on his elbow, but fell back again. His nod summoned Donald to the bedside.

“Ay, yon’s it. I’ve written it a’ down, a’ about me and puir Bessie, ay, and puir Maggie Sampson and the daft fool she marrit. But ye must give me your solemn oath that ye’ll no’ open it till I’m gone.”

He winced with pain and closed his eyes. A nurse looked in at the door, and Donald and I left the room.

“Good afternoon, Wilberforce,” he said, as cheerfully as if we were meeting on the golf-course. “Been interviewing my interesting patient?”

“Oh, there’s a chance. Why not? If he’s got the courage at his age to come in for an operation, he may have the will-power to pull through.”

“Yes, but that doesn’t mean anything. In some ways he’s like a man of fifty. He’s a phenomenon, you know.”

“Right. I’ll expect you the usual time, Wilberforce. Half past ten on the first tee.”

Before we left the nursing-home I saw Kirkwall go over to the porter, slip a coin into his hand and give him some sort of message.

I have no idea which of us was the more astonished as we made our way back to the office. Kirkwall was evidently trying to repress his excitement out of respect for me, and kept one hand in his pocket, clutching the old gentleman’s letter. I simply could not understand the whole affair.

“Last dying words and confession of the notorious old gentleman!” he cried. “Not to be opened till he’s gone to his just reward. But then——”

“My dear Donald,” I said savagely, “you don’t seem to give the old gentleman credit for any sense at all. Don’t you realize what he’s doing?”

“It’s perfectly clear. You told him, last time you met, your whole theory about the McIntosh murder and what led to it. He thinks, I suppose, that the only reason why we haven’t published it in the Standard is because we are afraid of libelling him. And he also thinks that, if he dies and there is no more question of libel, we shall print your story as you told it to him.”

“Well, Donald,” I mocked him, “the old gentleman may be neatly spiking your guns by giving you a death-bed message in which he again protests his entire innocence of the murder and again throws the whole guilt on Margaret Sampson.”

“Not being a sensational journalist, Donald, I am not attempting to theorize about the contents of a sealed letter. I am only telling you what seems to me to be at least probable.”

“But if you’re right, why does he give me the letter? For all he knows, I’ll destroy it.”

“If it’s what Mr. Wilberforce thinks, Donald, the old gentleman will have given a copy to his lawyers or somebody else, with orders to publish it the moment he’s dead. And that would just about ruin the Standard, wouldn’t it, if we published your story and suppressed his dying message?”

“It’s a good thing,” I commented, “that I have never had the least intention of publishing Donald’s story, now or later.”

Kirkwall mastered himself somehow, and we were spared a repetition of his earlier nervous outbreaks in similar circumstances. He handed the envelope to Murgatroyd, who threw it into a drawer and went on discussing the business with which we had been dealing before. Donald went out to his own desk.

I was signing some letters when Murgatroyd asked the surprising question: “What time’s the operation, Mr. Wilberforce?”

He pushed a couple of small packets of paper across the desk to me. I recognized them as dummies, or drafts, of the next morning’s issue, with the names of principal items of news, advertisement matter and so on, pencilled on them page by page.

“You won’t want to see the top one, sir,” the editor said. “That’s just normal. It’s the other one I want you to look at.”

The whole front page of the second dummy was headed, “McIntosh Murder Story”. On different parts of the page Murgatroyd had pencilled minor headings and items, such as, “Reproduction of old gent’s signature and last lines of confession”, “Kirkwall’s story of tracing murder truth”, “K’s affair with Sampson on Swordfish”, and so on. There were small oblongs for photographs, and I read beneath them the names of the old gentleman—very big in the middle of the page—Bessie McIntosh, Mrs. Sampson, her husband, and other protagonists in the affair.

“It’s clear, isn’t it, sir? It’s just on six now. Donald’s been sure to tip the porter at the nursing-home to ring him up the moment the old gentleman dies. The porter will be hanging round the door of the operating theatre, waiting for the news. And then we’re entitled to open the letter and read it. Possibly, as you suggested, he may be trying to make fools of us after his death. On the other hand, there’s a reasonable chance that this envelope may contain his confession.”

“If it does,” said Murgatroyd solemnly, “it’s up to us to print the whole story. You’ve admitted yourself, sir, that the one thing which would turn Kirkwall’s story from a mere theoretical reconstruction into an actual record of facts would be for the old gentleman—the only living person who knows the truth—to agree that the story is true. Then it’s facts, sir, facts! And you promised long ago that you’d print the facts!”

He was right. I had committed myself, but I had never imagined that matters would turn out like this.

“My dear fellow,” I protested, “you know perfectly well that we’ve decided to take no further action in this business.”

“I know nothing of the kind,” Murgatroyd retorted, without any of his usual deference. “I know that you said you’d print the facts, and if this letter shows that we’ve got the facts—well, aren’t you going to keep your word, sir? Aren’t you going to print ’em? Aren’t you going to give us the biggest scoop that’s ever—— Yes, I know what you feel about it, sir; and so do I, as a rule, but this is different. This isn’t a dirty Sun story, this is facts! Facts!”

“Now listen, Murgatroyd,” I began, but he stretched out his hand towards me impatiently and turned his head away. I gasped, followed his glance, and saw Donald Kirkwall in the door.

“Had the news, Donald?” Murgatroyd asked, in the same moment as he bent down to take the old gentleman’s envelope from the drawer.

“Porter’s just ’phoned. He’s got it from one of the nurses. The dear old gentleman collapsed under the anæsthetic”—he looked at his watch gaily—“just three and a half minutes ago. I promised Harry a pound for every minute under five after the old boy’s death that he got the news to me. He’s made two pounds, has Harry!”

Murgatroyd handed me the envelope. “Here you are, sir. It’s up to you to open it.”

I hesitated, and a queer, impatient cry came from Donald. Then I took a paper-knife and snapped the envelope open.

A thin sheet of notepaper lay inside, wrapped in another to prevent its being read against the light. I took it out and handed it to Kirkwall.

“It’s yours, Donald,” I said, “You’d better read what he’s got to say.”

I will omit his and our interjections as he read out the old gentleman’s letter, and simply set it down as I remember it, thus:

Belmont Nursing Home,

Monday, August 2.

mr. donald kirkwall, yes, you know the rights of it, it all happened the same way that you telled it to me at the grey owl. you might have been there yourself, you telled it all so right. I killed bessie McIntosh at Southridge Terrace in the small hours of saturday morning, june 5 last, just as you said. maggie Sampson was by, but she did no lay her hand on bessie. you know my weakness, it was my child she bare in manchester, but he died, and shes obliged me since, when her husband was away to the sea. bessie was gey jellous, and thats how it happened. she would no promise to hold her clattering tongue, so I—but you know all, donald Kirkwall. Only one thing you do not know. I gave my brown suit to a forrin sailor in the lower town, he was going on a long journey and would no be back before all was over and no suspishon. Im telling you this because, when I hit you at the grey owl, you did no tell the pollis: so you shall know now. better everybody should know when I am gone, than for me to go to the doctors with this on my conscience, for Im a religious man, donald, and know my own weakness.

“Front page stuff, eh, Mr. Wilberforce?” said Murgatroyd, assuming a matter-of-fact voice. “Like the dummy I showed you.”

“We can’t really print this horrible story,” I said. “It’s not our style; people don’t expect it from us, and anyhow, I’m sure they are all weary of the whole affair.”

I looked across at him for his habitual agreement. ‘You know best, sir’, I waited to hear him say.

He did not. He said, instead: “We certainly must use it, sir. It’s the biggest thing we’ve ever touched.”

Donald’s eager voice broke in, shrill with all the hopes and anxieties of the past weeks.

“It’s facts, sir, facts! This confession proves the whole story. You promised us you’d——”

“All right,” I said. “Print it! Turn us into a dirty imitation of the Sun! Lose us all the reputation we’ve built up during all these years! I’m disgusted with the whole thing.”

I jumped up from my chair and hurried out of the building. I knew I was making a fool of myself. I could have used my power and stopped the whole story. Or I could have accepted it as a marvellous gift to a struggling newspaper, one that would send our name all over the world, drive up our circulation to numbers it had never known, and double our advertising revenue. Instead of adopting either course, I was allowing the story to go in and grumbling about it.

I felt very old, very weary, very much out of touch with the world as I went down the street.

But I could not help saying to myself, as I passed the Sun building, “Aha, my fine fellows! You think we’re old-fashioned, eh? You think we mean nothing to the present-day public? Wait till to-morrow morning, and see what we do to your public! We may disgust our own readers, but, by heaven, we’ll stir yours!”

Somebody seized my arm. It was a friend of my son, a cheerful young partner in a shipbroking firm.

“You’re looking glum, Mr. Wilberforce,” he said. “Come into the club and play me a hundred up.”

It seemed as good an idea as any other, and we played billiards for an hour or so. He was a better player than I, but with a well-argued handicap I was able to run him close in two or three games.

“Hallo, Wilberforce!” he said. “I’m shocked to see you wasting your youth at billiards!”

“How’s the Standard? Still going strong, eh? I tell you, your paper’s a credit to the city. We’re all proud of it, though I don’t suppose you get as many compliments as you deserve.”

“It’s a shame,” he said. “I’ve got a first-rate story for you, only you mustn’t dream of using it. If you did, the stewards would take my licence away; the B.M.C.’s strict about this sort of thing. I’ve just come from an operation; I was giving the anæsthetic. The patient died on the table; at least, that’s to say he died in the conventional sense of the word—his heart stopped beating and he was no longer breathing. He stayed like that for five minutes and twenty-five seconds. Five minutes and twenty-five seconds, Wilberforce! And then, damme, we brought him back to life.”

“We injected coramine into his heart; it’s the modern substitute for adrenalin, you know, as a heart restorative. I’d heard of its being used like that, but I’d never tried it myself. Damme, it worked! Yes, he’s as good as new now, and he’ll go on living for years. I tell you, Wilberforce, we’ve had some excitement this evening at the Belmont.”

“Oh, you know him. Old Angus Aitken, the Judge’s dear old gentleman. He’s eighty-seven, or so he says. That’s why—— Hallo, what’s the matter?”

I knew he was telling the truth, and I rushed out of the club, just as I was, in my shirt-sleeves.

I burst into Murgatroyd’s room and found him there with Kirkwall. They were purring at each other.

Murgatroyd wrenched off the telephone and shouted to the operator to put him through to the nursing-home.

Harry, the porter, had presumably gone off duty just after six, or he would have had the sense to ring up Donald again and warn him of the mistake.

“Isn’t that just like the old gentleman?” Murgatroyd complained, when he confirmed the news of Aitken’s revival and I had, in confidence, explained the circumstances. “Now what are we going to do? Go ahead with the story and chance it?”

“You’re going to scrap your whole front page,” I said, “and work to the other dummy you showed me.”

“But, Mr. Wilberforce,” Donald protested, “he did die really, didn’t he? I mean, he was dead for over seven minutes. Surely that justifies us in using his confession and my story?”

“You know best, sir,” said the editor, and pressed every bell he could reach.

We passed an unpleasant three-quarters of an hour, while the whole process of getting out the next issue of the Standard seemed to be reversed. I was sorry for Murgatroyd and Kirkwall, but in my heart of hearts I was glad that we had at last come to the end of this whole damnable episode. I felt confident that the old gentleman would live long enough now for the whole story to become a mere memory.

When the tumult died down, and the office seemed to be reasonably calm again, I called Kirkwall back into the editor’s room.

“Murgatroyd,” I said when the boy arrived, “what have you done about a new chief sub-editor?”

“I see,” I said. “Well, I’ve a suggestion to make. Why not give the job to Donald here?”

“Yes, but there’s one difficulty,” I went on, making my voice sound very grave. “I’ve made up my mind that I won’t have a bachelor chief sub-editor. No; he’s got to be married, and married at once!”

“I see you agree with me, Donald. You’ll be drawing a good salary now, so why not take a taxi to Miss Hunt’s house and—well, do what’s necessary?”

“You want the facts, do you, sir? You won’t be satisfied with a mere probability?” he said.

“Give this to Ailsa for a wedding-present,” I told him, handing it across the desk.

“Don’t get run over, Donald!” Murgatroyd shouted after him, as he dashed out of the office, spluttering thanks.

“Have I done the right thing, Murgatroyd?” I asked my editor, and waited for the inevitable answer.

Ailsa looked beautiful and charming at the wedding, and I was glad to see that Donald’s black eye had at last become a more appropriate colour for the ceremony.

When we came out of the church and cheered as the car—my car, driven by a no longer expressionless Jessop—drove away, my son touched my elbow.

There was the dear old gentleman, just as I seemed always to have known him. Green overcoat, battered hat, patched shoes and dirty spats, bent shoulders and the everlasting drop at the end of his nose—yes, he had not changed at all.

He shuffled across the road, pushing his way by sheer persistence through the little crowd before the church doors.

“Yon’s a bonny lass,” he said. “Donal’ Kirkwall’s no’ guid enough for her, eh?”

I did not answer. I felt unclean, even to have him within speaking distance of me. He seemed not to notice my distaste, though his keen eyes were fixed intently on me.

“There’s one thing I’m wishing to ask ye, Meester Wilberforce. Maybe ye mind that, when I lay in yon nursing-home, I ga’e ye a letter to open only if I died. Where is it?”

“Fine, fine!” he chuckled. “Och, but it was nothing but a wee joke I thocht to play on Donal’. There was nothing in yon envelope, ye ken, but a bit paper—just a bit blank paper. And him thinking that I was gi’ing him something important! Hee, hee, hee, hee!”

The dear old gentleman cackled with his senile merriment. His head shook from side to side as he laughed, and the drop of moisture at the tip of his nose began to swell and swell until it suddenly fell.

Misspelled words and printer errors have been corrected. Where multiple spellings occur, majority use has been employed.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER		PAGE
I.	HE IS MENTIONED	15
II.	HE GIVES EVIDENCE	39
III.	HE IS JUSTIFIED	69
IV.	HE LEAVES THE COURT	98
V.	HE WRITES AN ARTICLE	124
VI.	HE LOSES HIS TEMPER	154
VII.	HE IS HIMSELF AGAIN	186
VIII.	HE IS PHOTOGRAPHED	220
IX.	HE SURPRISES EVERYBODY	250

CHAPTER I
HE IS MENTIONED

CHAPTER II
HE GIVES EVIDENCE

CHAPTER III
HE IS JUSTIFIED

CHAPTER IV
HE LEAVES THE COURT

CHAPTER V
HE WRITES AN ARTICLE

CHAPTER VI
HE LOSES HIS TEMPER

CHAPTER VII
HE IS HIMSELF AGAIN

CHAPTER VIII
HE IS PHOTOGRAPHED

CHAPTER IX
HE SURPRISES EVERYBODY

CHAPTER I HE IS MENTIONED

CHAPTER II HE GIVES EVIDENCE

CHAPTER III HE IS JUSTIFIED

CHAPTER IV HE LEAVES THE COURT

CHAPTER V HE WRITES AN ARTICLE

CHAPTER VI HE LOSES HIS TEMPER

CHAPTER VII HE IS HIMSELF AGAIN

CHAPTER VIII HE IS PHOTOGRAPHED

CHAPTER IX HE SURPRISES EVERYBODY