There was no trace of anxiety on his face, and he listened with interest and apparent unconcern to the damning evidence brought against him. The watchman came up for examination first. ‘May it please you, my Lord,’ said he, ‘this is all I know of this matter; that on the night of the 9th January, being a black dark night from want o’ the moon, I came of a sudden round the corner of —— Street, and was half on top of something lying on the pavement before that I well knew what I was about. A man rose up from under my very feet, and, guessing there was something amiss, I caught at him, and we struggled a minute, but I’d to let go my lantern and it went out in the falling. That moment came a voice from the ground, “_Run, Phil, run, lest this bring you into trouble_,” and with a great blow the man knocked me down and ran. I was a moment rising, and I stood to listen which way he’d gone, but I heard naught but the steps of a man without shoes a-scudding down the street, for all the world as you may have heard the tail of a codfish flapping the flags o’ Billingsgate. I followed after, but I lost him in the darkness before I well knew. I came back to see if aught could be done for the wounded man, but he was going fast by then, and did but breathe once or twice again, with never a word—and, my Lord, I know no more.’ ‘Have you any notion of the hour?’ ‘The hour was some ten minutes before three o’ the clock.’ ‘In what direction did the man run?’ ‘He ran in the direction of St. James’ Square.’ There was a little ripple of excitement through the Court. Then Peter, looking older by ten years, was brought into the witness-box. ‘At what hour did you open the door to your master?’ ‘At three o’ the clock, my Lord; the watch had passed a moment before.’ ‘Did your master say anything to you on coming in?’ ‘He said, “I’m half asleep, like yourself, Peter,” and passed on up the stairs.’ There was then brought forward a mass of secondary evidence, as to the relations which had existed between Philip and his father, and so on. But even with this the trial did not threaten to be a long one. No complications seemed to spring up, the whole case was virtually settled long before all these matters had been gone into. The summing up came at last:— ‘Gentlemen of the Jury, you have heard a long evidence; I shall now take notice of a few points, which I think are the most material. ‘The indictment against the prisoner at the bar is for a very great crime: it is for murder, and, moreover, for the murder of a parent. You must now consider the evidence.