"Take your time; don't be in too great a hurry," said the latter; so Brill turned to look again. It needs but that two or three people should stare intently at some one object for the eyes of all there to be drawn in the same direction. So it was in the present case. Brill awoke to the fact that the spectators were not looking so much at him as at someone behind him. He turned, letting his eyes follow the direction of theirs, and confronted John Brancker. The two men looked at each other. For the first few moments it seemed to Brill that he was gazing into the face of a man whom he had never seen before, but as his eyes took in one by one the different items of John's attire, and then wandered back to his smooth-shaven chin and pointed collars, and when he became conscious that everyone in the room was waiting with a sort of breathless anxiety to see whether he would recognize the man before him, then he began to fancy that the face he was looking at was not altogether strange to him, and that he must have seen it before. In such a case fancy goes a long way on the road to certainty. But Brill felt the responsibility of his position, and was nervously anxious not to make a mistake. "Well," said the Coroner, after a pause, during which, as the saying goes, a pin might have been heard to drop, "are you satisfied that the person to whom you sold the knife is nowhere among those present?" Brill drew a long breath, glanced furtively round the room again, and then said in a low voice: "There is one gentleman here that seems something like the party who called at my shop in August." "Be good enough to point out the person to whom you refer." "That is the gentleman," said the witness, turning and indicating John Brancker with his finger. A low murmur, like an inarticulate sigh, ran through the room, and then the silence became more intense than before. "Are you prepared to swear that is the gentlemen to whom you sold the knife you have seen here to-day?" "No, I am not prepared to swear to anything of the kind." "To the best of your belief is he the person to whom you sold the knife?" "No, I won't go even as far as that," answered Brill, dogmatically. "All I can say is that there is a strong likeness between him and the party who came to my shop; but, for all that, I'm not going to swear that it was him." Nor from that point could anything move him. John Brancker rose to his feet. "Don't say anything now," whispered Mr. Avison. "I must, sir--I must," answered John, with a passionate ring in his voice. Then turning to the Coroner, he said: "Sir, as I stand here, a living man, I swear that I never saw or spoke to this person before to-day, that I was never inside his shop in my life, and that I never purchased a knife like the one in question either of him or of anyone else." Having said these few words, John resumed his seat.