The cross-eyed cross-examiner leant across towards me and leered. 'And this is the man,' he exclaimed, with a triumphant air, 'whose sister you pretended you had got to sign this precious document of yours?' 'Whom Mr. Ashurst got to sign it,' I answered, red-hot. 'It is not _my_ document.' 'And you have heard that she swears it is not her signature at all?' 'So they tell me. She is Higginson's sister. For all I know, she may be prepared to swear, or to forswear, anything.' 'Don't cast doubt upon our witnesses without cause! Miss Higginson is an eminently respectable woman. You gave this document to Mr. Ashurst, you say. There your knowledge of it ends. A signature is placed on it which is not his, as our experts testify. It purports to be witnessed by a Swiss waiter, who is not forthcoming, and who is asserted to be dead, as well as by a nurse who denies her signature. And the only other person who knows of its existence before Mr. Tillington "discovers" it in his uncle's desk is--the missing man Higginson. Is that, or is it not, the truth of the matter?' 'I suppose so,' I said, baffled. 'Well, now, as to this man Higginson. He first appears upon the scene, so far as you are concerned, on the day when you travelled from London to Schlangenbad?' 'That is so,' I answered. 'And he nearly succeeded then in stealing Lady Georgina Fawley's jewel-case?' 'He nearly took it, but I saved it.' And I explained the circumstance. The cross-eyed Q.C. held his fat sides with his hands, looking incredulously at me, and smiled. His vast width of waistcoat shook with silent merriment. 'You are a very clever young lady,' he murmured. 'You can explain away anything. But don't you think it just as likely that it was a plot between you two, and that owing to some mistake the plot came off unsuccessful?' 'I do not,' I cried, crimson. 'I never saw the Count before that morning.' He tried another tack. 'Still, wherever you went, this man Higginson--the only other person, you admit, who knows about the previous existence of the will--turned up simultaneously. He was always turning up--at the same place as you did. He turned up at Lucerne, as a faith-healer, didn't he?' 'If you will allow me to explain,' I cried, biting my lip. He bowed, all blandness. 'Oh, certainly,' he murmured. 'Explain away everything!' I explained, but of course he had discounted and damaged my explanation. He made no comment. 'And then,' he went on, with his hands on his hips, and his obtrusive rotundity, 'he turned up at Florence, as courier to Mr. Ashurst, at the very date when this so-called will was being concocted?' 'He was at Florence when Mr. Ashurst dictated it to me,' I answered, growing desperate.