“You will understand my friend’s uneasiness, gentlemen,” says the little barrister, and pinned Mr. Lunt to the statement that it was Sir Albert who had planned this iniquitous scheme. “And when Cranford had gone, Mr. Lunt, of course you warned your brother at once this desperate fellow was on his track. No? Curious. Yet you went down in your motor to your own house at Colney Towers, not much more than a mile away. You reached the house between 12 and 12.30? Perhaps? Oh, don’t begin to forget things now. What did you do then?” As far as he remembered Mr. Lunt took a stroll. “On your oath--did you not go and meet your brother?” Mr. Lunt (who had sat down) started up to deny it. He had not gone outside his own park. “Would it surprise you to hear that on the path from your house to Sir Albert’s there were found next day fresh footprints which your boots fit?” Mr. Lunt often walked that way. “What clothes were you wearing?” Mr. Lunt could not remember. He went as he was. “You don’t deny you were wearing a coat with an Astrakhan collar?” Mr. Lunt could not say--he had such a coat--he did often wear it. “Very well. And, as you were saying, you have had quarrels with your brother about the policy of the firm?” “Not quarrels, no,” Mr. Lunt protested eagerly, and struggled to explain them away. “On the day after the murder you had a large scratch on your forehead which was not there before the murder?” Mr. Lunt could not remember the scratch. Anybody might have a scratch. He was let go. And the jury looked at each other. After lunch, first witness for the defence, came Lady Lunt to say that the scheme to trick Cranford had been Victor’s, and that on many subjects there were bitter quarrels between Victor and Albert. Radnor Hall corroborated. Reggie followed, and brought the crisis of the battle. Mr. Fortune, eminent in his profession, had examined the body. Clutched in the left hand were some black tufts--fragments of Astrakhan. When he visited the scene of the crime he had found on the brambles close by other tufts of Astrakhan. He had traced recent footprints which corresponded exactly to the size of a pair of Mr. Albert Lunt’s boots. He produced measurements and casts. In the depths of one of the neighbouring coverts he had found a Smith-Southron .38 magazine pistol, from which three shots had been fired. And a vigorous cross-examination could do nothing with these facts. Then came other witnesses to prove that Victor Lunt had been wearing Astrakhan, and Cranford a raincoat. Last witness for the defence--Cranford himself. Last question for the defence--“On your oath, did you murder Albert Lunt?” “On my oath, no.” The once-confident counsel for the Crown went delicately now. It was plain enough that he thought his case did not justify him in pressing the prisoner hard. “When you were told Albert Lunt was out you made no further attempt to see him. Why?” “I thought it was a plant. I thought the two of them were putting me off.”