The cause of death was strangulation. Tommy started more and more. Leaning over the rail of the dock, he stared at the witness with all his eyes. He was sure of it. He had no doubt upon the point whatever. Unfortunately, there was no room for doubt. She had been killed by the pressure of a man's hands and fingers. Great violence must have been used. In fact, extraordinary violence. The skin of the throat was discoloured. Marks of a man's hands and fingers were most distinct. Indeed, so distinct, that when he first saw them they amounted almost to a model. There were slight bruises on the body, such as might have been caused by a fall. There was a livid bruise which ran from shoulder to shoulder across the back. It had probably been caused by pressure. For instance, by pressure against the edge of a carriage seat. His theory was that she had been forced back against the edge of the carriage seat, and in that position strangled. Falling from the train had not been the cause of death. The fall had nothing to do with it. When Sir Haselton Jardine sat down Tommy and Mr. Bates had quite a long confabulation. Tommy seemed half beside himself with excitement--I very well knew why! It struck me, however, that Mr. Bates did not seem very much impressed. Still, acting no doubt on his client's strenuous instructions, he subjected the doctor to a rigorous cross-examination. But it was all in vain. Poor Tommy! Mr. Bates first of all suggested, as it were, casually, that the woman was more than one-and-twenty. The doctor did not think it possible. Everything went to show that she was not. Then, after some fencing, he tried to induce the doctor to admit that she might have been strangled after she had fallen from the train. That she might have fallen from the train by accident. Been stupefied by the fall, and, on recovering from her stupor, that some one might have come along and strangled her. The doctor would have none of it, He deemed the thing incredible. Mr. Bates hammered away, but the doctor held his own. Tommy was done! He was done still more when it came to the second doctor's turn. He was a Dr. Braithwaite, a great swell from London. He had examined the body at East Grinstead. He corroborated all that Dr. Gresham had had to say, putting things, if anything, a little stronger against poor Tommy. He declined to move a hair's-breadth from his fixed conviction that the woman had been strangled--in the train. When he left the box every creature in court was aware that, unless something amounting almost to a miracle intervened, Tommy's fate was sealed. Sir Haselton Jardine, half rising from his seat, announced that that was the case for the Crown. CHAPTER XXXII. MRS. CARRUTH REMOVES HER VEIL. After luncheon came the speeches.