“There’s no money in this case,” said the solicitor, “and I’m afraid there is no kudos. It is one of those disagreeable cases which are not only irreclaimably sordid, but also as dead as mutton. In order to obtain a small sum of money, a woman of the ‘unfortunate’ class has poisoned a man with whom she lived. She is one of those cold-blooded persons who are born for the gallows. There is enough evidence to hang her ten times. We shall be forced to submit to the inevitable.” “You disappoint me,” said Northcote. “I was thinking of a real fighting case.” The solicitor smiled, with a faint suggestion of patronage. “I beg your pardon, I’m sure,” said the young man, quickly. “Had there been any life in the case you would not have carried it to one so obscure. Even as it is, I ought to be grateful to you--and I am grateful indeed--for putting it in my way.” “The circumstances of this case are somewhat peculiar,” said the solicitor. “We are under rather severe pressure in the matter of time. The case will be called on the day after to-morrow at the Central Criminal Court.” “That hardly explains away your kindness towards myself. Even at this short notice you could have got plenty of men to have consented to a verdict.” “I am aware of it, but then it is not quite the method of Whitcomb and Whitcomb. We like ‘Thorough’ to be our motto. If we accept a client, we feel we owe it to ourselves to leave no stone unturned, irrespective of position or emolument.” “But I understand this case is too dead to be fought?” “Ah, we are now about to approach the first of the ‘peculiar’ circumstances. At five o’clock this evening Tobin himself was holding this brief, but at that hour his bicycle had the misfortune to collide with a motor-car, and the poor fellow now lies in hospital with a compound fracture of the right thigh.” “Poor fellow, poor fellow!” “I think you and I are agreed that Tobin is without a rival in a case of this nature.” “You must forgive me if I express surprise that Tobin should have accepted the brief.” “That is easily explained. Tobin is the generous-hearted Irishman who is never weary of affirming that Whitcomb and Whitcomb gave him his start. He never refuses us, and I am afraid we, in the interests of a client, trade occasionally on his good nature.” “Then the practitioners of law are sometimes more disinterested than they seem.” “My dear fellow, among a considerable body of men must there not be a leaven of human nature? And my own experience is that human nature is so much more disinterested than the young and cynical like to consider it.” “That is well said,” replied Northcote, feeling the rebuke to be merited. “And so you see,” said the solicitor, “in regard to this wretched woman whom we had undertaken to defend, we were in the position of being able to brief a first-rate man for a third-rate fee.” “Yet a third-rate man would have served your purpose equally well, if one is allowed to hazard the remark.”