"Then perhaps it will be no surprise to you to know that a lady named Inglewood was discovered murdered at her house in Bedford Place some time ago, with an identical seal pinned upon her breast, and further, that a woman was found in Angel Court a short time back. Her throat was cut, and she lay within a few yards of where you were arrested. Upon her body was found a portion of paper to which part of a seal adhered, and this paper, which is in our possession, exactly fits the piece that has been torn from the one found in your pocket-book." "It does!" I cried, amazed, for in a moment I recognised the serious suspicion now resting upon me. "Now; what have you to say?" "I have nothing to add," I said dreamily. "And you still refuse your address?" "Yes." "Very well, then; we must find out for ourselves." After a few words to the detectives in an undertone, he turned and said,-- "Inspector, you will charge him on suspicion of the wilful murder of the woman--and, by the way, let one of the men sit with him to-night. I'm going down to the Yard." "Very well, sir," replied the officer, and they all left the room, with the exception of the statuesque constable. CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN. A GUILTLESS CRIME. Down one dimly-lit, dreary corridor, along an other, and up a flight of spiral stairs, I walked listlessly, with two warders at my side. A low door opened, a breath of warm air, a hum of voices, and I was standing in the prisoners' dock at the Central Criminal Court, Old Bailey. As I entered and faced the grave-looking judge, and the aldermen in their fur-trimmed scarlet robes seated beside him, I heard the stentorian voice of the usher cry "Silence," and immediately the clerk rose, and with a paper in his hand, said in clear monotonous tones: "Prisoner at the bar, you are indicted for that you did on the night of August the fifteenth, eighteen hundred and eighty-seven, wilfully murder Ethel Inglewood, one of Her Majesty's subjects, at Number 67, Bedford Place, Bloomsbury, by stabbing her with a knife. Are you guilty, or not guilty?" Mr Roland, Q.C., who, with Mr Crane, had been retained for my defence, rose promptly and replied, "Prisoner pleads not guilty, m'lord." There was a dead silence. All that could be heard was the rustling of the briefs of the great array of counsel before me, and the busy hum and din of the city that came through the open window, while a stray streak of dusky sunlight, glinting across the sombre Court, fell like a bar of golden dust between myself and the judge. The twelve benevolent-looking yet impassive jurymen sat motionless on my left, and on my right the crowd of eager spectators craned their necks in their curiosity to obtain a glimpse of one who was alleged to be the author of the mysterious crime. Mine was a celebrated case.