“Why, the usual thing,” he said, as he once more began to fidget nervously with his bit of string. “The prisoners had pleaded not guilty, and the evidence for the prosecution was gone into in full. Mr. Parlett repeated his story of the £4,000 legacy, and all the neighbours had some story or other to tell about Alfred Wyatt, who, according to them, was altogether a most undesirable young man. “I heard the fag end of Mrs. Marsh’s evidence. When I reached the court she was repeating the story she had already told to the police. “Some one else in the house had also heard Wyatt running helter-skelter downstairs at eight o’clock on the Thursday evening; this was a point, though a small one, in favour of the accused. A man cannot run downstairs when he is carrying the whole weight of a dead body, and the theory of the prosecution was that Wyatt had murdered old Dyke on that Thursday evening, got into his motor-car somewhere, scorched down to Wembley with the dismembered body of his victim, deposited it in the spinney where it was subsequently found, and finally had driven back to town, stabled his motor car, and reached King’s Cross in time for the 11.30 night express to Edinburgh. He would have time for all that, remember, for he would have three hours and a half to do it in. “Besides which the prosecution had unearthed one more witness, who was able to add another tiny link to the already damning chain of evidence built up against the accused. “Wilfred Poad, namely, manager of a large cycle and motor-car depôt in Euston Road, stated that on Thursday afternoon, 19th November, at about half-past six o’clock, Alfred Wyatt, with whom he had had some business dealings before, had hired a small car from him, with the understanding that he need not bring it back until after 11 p.m. This was agreed to, Poad keeping the place open until just before eleven, when Wyatt drove up in the car, paid for the hire of it, and then walked away from the shop in the direction of the Great Northern terminus. “That was pretty strong against the male prisoner, wasn’t it? For, mind you, Wyatt had given no satisfactory account whatever of his time between 8 p.m., when Mrs. Marsh had met him going out of Lisson Grove Crescent, and 11 p.m. when he brought back the car to the Euston Road shop. ‘He had been driving about aimlessly,’ so he said. Now, one doesn’t go out motoring for hours on a cold, drizzly night in November for no purpose whatever. “As for the female prisoner, the charge against her was merely one of complicity. “This closed the case for the prosecution,” continued the funny creature, with one of his inimitable chuckles, “leaving but one tiny point obscure, and that was, the murdered man’s strange conduct in dismissing the woman Nicholson. “Yes, the case was strong enough, and yet there stood both prisoners in the dock with that sublime air of indifference and contempt which only complete innocence or hardened guilt could give.