The relations, however, were not satisfied with this state of affairs, and Mr. Frank Stokes, as next-of-kin, brought an action, which Colonel Pilcher did not defend, and succeeded in getting the probate set aside, and the deceased lady was declared to have died intestate. In the meantime the prisoner had succeeded in spending about £5,000 of the estate. When arrested he stoutly denied that the will was a forgery, but after evidence had been given at Bow Street he was committed for trial. The writing upon the will showed a close resemblance to that of Miss Kerferd, but the bank manager of the deceased lady stated in the witness-box that in his opinion it was an imitation. A remarkable fact was brought out in his evidence. Up to the year 1903 Miss Kerferd had invariably formed the letter with a particular loop, and this was seen upon all the cheques, which had been retained by the bank. After that date, however, she made her "k's" in a totally different manner, and the looping of former years never occurred in any of her writing. Now in the will alleged to have been written in 1898 it was significant that the "k's" were formed in the manner of later years, and not as Miss Kerferd made them in 1898. Certain mistakes of spelling in the will were also characteristic of the prisoner, whereas Miss Kerferd never made such slips. The names of the witnesses upon the will, which by the way were also wrongly spelled, were those of men who had been dead several years, but their relatives gave evidence that these signatures were not genuine. Evidence was also given by the present writer as to the age of the ink upon the alleged will. The body of the will and the signatures of both witnesses were all written in the same kind of ink--a fact of importance in connection with the half-confession subsequently made by the prisoner. On his appearance at the Old Bailey, Pilcher was defended by Mr. Marshall Hall, and after two days' trial, he acted upon the advice of his counsel and agreed to plead guilty to uttering the will, though he persisted in his denial of having forged it. When the prisoner's counsel rose to make this statement there was dead silence, for everyone in court was aware that something unusual had happened, and there passed over the room one of those feelings of tension that make each individual in a crowd lose sight of everything except the unfolding of the drama before them.