“As you say. A bold, bad fellow. That’s all, except that cousin Mark had a big stick, a loaded stick with a knob head, and he took it down to Carwell Hall.” “What’s the verdict?” “To be continued in our next. The judge was going to sum up in the morning. In the paper we haven’t got.” Lomas lay back and watched the grey sea rise into sight as the boat rolled to starboard. “What do you make of it, Fortune?” “There’s the rudiments of a case,” said Reggie. “The Carwell estate is entailed. Mark is the heir. He didn’t love the man. The man was going to marry and that would wash out Mark. Mark was the last man with him, unless there is some hard lying. They had a row about money and girls, which are always infuriating, and Mark had a weapon handy which might have killed him. And nobody else had any motive, there’s no evidence of anybody else in the business. Yes, the rudiments of a case.” “I don’t see the rudiments of a defence.” “The defence is that Mark says that he didn’t.” “Quite, quite,” Lomas nodded. “It’s not the strongest case in the world, but I have had convictions on worse. The jury will go by what they made of Mark in the box.” “And hang him for his face.” Reggie turned over a paper and held out the portrait of a bull-necked, square-headed young man. “I wouldn’t say they’d be wrong,” Lomas said. “Who’s the judge? Maine? He’ll keep ’em straight.” “I wonder. What is straight, Lomas?” “My dear fellow, it all turns on the way this lad gave his evidence, and that you can’t tell from a report.” “He don’t conciliate me,” Reggie murmured. “Yet I like evidence, Lomas.” “Why, this is adequate, if it’s true. And Mark didn’t challenge it.” “I know. Adequate is the word. Just enough and nothing more. That’s unusual, Lomas. Well, well. What about tea?” They picked their way over some prostrate bodies to the saloon and again gave up the Carwell case. But when the boat had made her slow way through the clatter of the Tyne, Reggie was quick to intercept the first customs officer on board. “I say, what was the result of that murder trial?” The man laughed. “Thought you wanted the 3.30 winner, you were so keen, sir. Oh, Mark Carwell’s guilty, of course. His mother’s white-haired boy, he is. Not ’alf.” “The voice of the people,” said Lomas, in Reggie’s ear. On the way to London they read the judge’s summing up, an oration lucid and fair but relentless. “He had no doubt,” Reggie said. “And a good judge too,” Lomas tossed the paper aside. “Thank heaven they got it out of the way without bothering me.” “You are an almost perfect official,” said Reggie with reverence. In the morning when Reggie came down to his breakfast in London he was told that some one had rung up to know if he was back in England yet. He was only half-way through his omelet when the name of Miss Joan Amber was brought to him.