The Grand Jury returned a true bill against Lady Shillito. David had been studying the case from the morrow of the inquest, that is as soon as Rossiter had learnt of the coming trouble. The latter though he regarded Cousin Arbella as a rather amusing minx, an interesting type in modern psychology (though really her type is as old as--say--the Hallstadt period) had no wish to see her convicted of murder. Furthermore he was getting so increasingly interested in this clever David Williams that he would have liked to make his fortune by helping him to a sensational success as a pleader, to one of those cases which if successfully conducted mark out a path to the Bench. So he insisted that David Williams be briefed for the defence, and well fee'ed, in order that he might be able to devote all his time to the investigation of the mystery. David had an uphill task. He went down to the North in November, 1908, conferred with Lady Shillito's solicitors, and at great length with the curiously calm, ironly-resolved Lady Shillito herself. The evidence was too much against her for him to prevent her being committed for trial and lodged in reasonably comfortable quarters in Newcastle jail, or for the Grand Jury to find no true bill of indictment. But between these stages in the process and the actual trial for murder in February, 1909, David worked hard and accumulated conclusive evidence (with Rossiter's help) to prove his client's innocence of the deed of which she believed herself guilty. To punish her as she deserved he allowed her to think herself guilty till his defence of her began. The prospect of a death on the gallows did not perturb Lady Shillito in the least. She was perfectly certain that if found guilty her beauty and station in life would avail to have the death penalty commuted to a term of imprisonment which she would spend in the Infirmary. Still, that would ruin her life pretty conclusively. She would issue from prison a broken woman, whom in spite of her wealth--if she retained any--no impossibly-faithful Colonel would marry at the age of forty-five or fifty. So she followed the opening hours of the trial with a dry mouth. With the help of Rossiter and of many and minute researches David got on the track of the consultation in Harley Street, the warning given of the possible cancer. He found in Sir Grimthorpe's laboratory sufficient strychnine to kill an army. He was privately informed by the family doctor (who didn't want to press matters to a tragedy) that although he fully believed Arbella capable of the deed, she certainly had--so far as the doctor's prescriptions were concerned--obtained nothing from him which could have killed her husband, even if she had centupled the dose.