And squeezed away in the "stop press," so inconspicuous that Julia, who did not see the papers till tea-time, was the first of the three to notice it, stood the news: "_Brixton Murder. Saturday night. The Crown has briefed Mr. Hector Brunton, K.C., for the prosecution of Lucy Towers._" 4 Hector Brunton sat alone in his chambers at King's Bench Walk. Within the dusty book-littered room brooded silence. From without, from under trees already browning for a hint of autumn, sounded the occasional tup-tup of feet on the flagstones, the occasional staccato of a raised voice. The noises fretted Brunton, distracting his attention from the multitudinous papers prepared by the director of public prosecutions in the case of Rex _v._ Towers, which stood piled on his ink-stained desk. "I'm getting jumpy," he thought, turning from the signed and sealed findings of the coroner's jury, through the verbatim reports of the proceedings before the magistrate, to the actual indictment. Concentrating, the K.C. reread the words of that indictment. CENTRAL CRIMINAL COURT THE KING _v._ LUCY TOWERS Lucy Towers is charged with the following offense: _Statement of Offense_: Homicide. _Particulars of Offence_: Lucy Towers on the fifth day of July, in the County of Middlesex, murdered her husband, William Towers, by shooting him with a revolver. Reading, an expression almost of mania flickered across Brunton's face. Behind the words of the indictment, his mind visualized the actual crime: the woman, some blowzy Messalina of the slums lusting horribly for a mutilated lover: the lover, a puppet in her adulterous arms: the husband, shot down in cold blood because he dared to come between the woman and her desires. A fitting client--thought Brunton--for this other adulterer, this Ronald Cavendish with his gutter-press backing, to defend. But he would defend her in vain! The K.C.'s long fingers prodded among the papers. Ever since the Cairns case, he had derived--subconsciously--a satisfaction, a secret chop-licking satisfaction, from his title of "hanging prosecutor." It was as though, harrying Mrs. Cairns to her death, he had taken his revenge on all women. And he thought: "Hilda Cairns escaped my rope. Lucy Towers shall not escape it." Concentrating again, he reread the entire evidence. Outside it grew darker--silent. He switched on the opal-shaded reading-lamp; and sent David Patterson home. It was good--good to be alone with this chess-game of death: Messalina for its queen, his brain the mover of those pawns which would sweep her from the board. Brunton's gray pupils shrank to pin-points. There were flaws, flaws in the evidence. The chess-board, as prepared by the solicitors for the Crown, lacked one pawn; the pawn of premeditation. Given himself, with his gift of oratory, to defend her, Lucy Towers might escape the black-cap sentence of the murderess.