"Can! Certainly I can! Why, it's too preposterous to stand for a moment! We've only to prove an alibi--to show that you were somewhere else, you know, at the time the crime was committed--and the whole business falls to pieces in an instant. You can do that easily, can't you?" The color had gone from her cheeks again, and she buried her face in her hands. "I don't know," she murmured indistinctly. "I must think. Oh, don't let it come to that!" I was puzzled--confounded. With her good name, her life, perhaps, in the balance, she wanted time to think! I could see that my chief was astonished, too. "I'll try to keep it from coming to that, since you wish it," he said slowly. "I'll not be able to call you, then, to testify in your own behalf--and that always hurts. But I hope the case will break down at once--I believe it will. At any rate, don't worry. I want you to rely on me." She looked up at him again, smiling. "I shall," she murmured softly. "I'm sure I could desire no better champion!" Well, plainly, if he won this case he would win something else besides. I think even the policeman in the corner saw it, for he turned away with a discretion rare in policemen, and pretended to stare out of the window. I don't know what my chief would have said--his lips were trembling so he could not speak for the moment--and just then there came a tap at the door, and the coroner's clerk looked in. "We're ready to begin, sir," he said. "Very well," cried Mr. Royce. "I'll come at once. Good-by for the moment, Miss Holladay. I repeat, you may rely on me," and he hastened from the room as confidently as though she had girded him for the battle. Instead, I told myself, she had bound him hand and foot before casting him down into the arena. CHAPTER II In the Grip of Circumstance The outer room was crowded from end to end, and the atmosphere reeked with unpleasant dampness. Only behind the little railing before the coroner's desk was there breathing space, and we sank into our seats at the table there with a sigh of relief. One never realizes how many newspapers there are in New York until one attends an important criminal case--that brings their people out in droves and swarms. The reporters took up most of the space in this small room, paper and pencils were everywhere in evidence, and in one corner there was a man with a camera stationed, determined, I suppose, to get a photograph of our client, should she be called to the stand, since none could be obtained in any other way. I saw Singleton, the district attorney, come in and sit down near the coroner, and then the jury filed in from their room and took their seats. I examined them, man by man, with some little anxiety, but they all seemed intelligent and fairly well-to-do. Mr. Royce was looking over their names, and he checked them off carefully as the clerk called the roll. Then he handed the list up to the coroner with a little nod.