When this information reached the law officers of the Crown, they hailed it with that amount of satisfaction which might be felt when a man procures by chemical agents from pollution the means of reproducing health. It could be doubted by no one that the evidence of such a _socius criminis_ as Hare, or _socia criminis_ as the amiable Mary, would be worth less than the value of an old song, insomuch that while the old song _might_ be true, the words of Hare, in a transaction where he himself was concerned, could _not possibly_ be true. He would represent, and the people knew it, the Janus head with one face looking simpering peace to himself, and the other bloody war to his friend. Nor was this foreknowledge of the man, founded as it was upon such an array of actions, belied by the result. The precognition was, from beginning to end, a long train of lies, wherein he represented himself as a good, easy soul--his wife as well--who allowed Burke to have his own way, neither advising him nor assisting him, only not obstructing; and even where he could not avoid some confession of participation, attributing his weakness to the easiness of his nature. How innocently he took a little liquor so as to make him, not drunk, but merely put him in a sort of "drunkish way!" How benignantly he sat on the chair at the side of the bed when the ruffian Burke was fighting like a tiger to squeeze the life out of the little old woman! As for the money, he merely accepted it--never earned it; and who refuses money? So glaring was the falsehood of the man's statement, and not less that of his wife, that the Lord Advocate was by no means sure of a verdict. _Socii criminis_ have shades of character, but they are only to be believed when they shew penitence, and strike with vigour their own persons; but Hare only held on and kicked out; and a jury true to their consciences might, after all, become disgusted, and find a verdict of "Not proven." The Complicity of the Doctors.