Meanwhile questions coarse as oaths, answers frank as sword thrusts, clashed and resounded. One and all Orr's charges were substantiated. The testimony was damning to Harris, infecting everything he had said. From behind the rail Peacock volleyed and thundered. But truth when you get at it is a stubborn thing. So far as Harris was concerned there it stood and there too, during the production of it, Orr stood, quite like an Angora lapping milk. You could hear him purr. The eyes of Sylvia glistened like mica. Now and again Annandale laughed outright. It is always insufficient to be innocent of a given charge. You must appear so. Annandale did not. Alternately he was bored and buoyant. But not dejected, never depressed. He did not seem to feel that his life was at stake. That is the attitude of the habitual ruffian. But sentiment was veering. Public opinion is a wave that thinks, thinks again, changes its mind, volatile as a woman. At the opening everybody knew that Annandale was guilty. Now nobody was quite so sure. The Recorder caressed his beard. "I think," he announced, "that I will give the jury a recess." CHAPTER IX THE TWELFTH JUROR Tumultuously the session was resumed. At the door was a riot. There a squad of police fought back surging nondescripts clamoring for admission, fighting for entrance to the continuous show. A woman fainted. Another had her gown torn off. One man retired with a blackened eye. During the recess Orr got for a moment with Sylvia and Mrs. Waldron. "Aren't you hungry?" he asked. Sylvia took his hand and pressed it. In her eyes was victory, in her face delight. "I never knew before how Protean you are. You have won." Orr tossed his head. "Not by a long shot. Besides, there is the jury. Eleven look imbecile and the twelfth looks ill. There is no telling at all what they will do or will not. But aren't you to eat anything?" He turned to Mrs. Waldron. "Aren't you hungry?" "Very," said the lady, "but I can't do a thing with Sylvia. I----" She would have said more, but the jury had filed in. The judge was entering, preceded by the cry "Hats off!" Orr slipped back to his corner, to which Annandale, with his matinee air and the keeper for usher, had already returned. For a moment Orr bent to him, then to his associates but briefly. Bending again to Annandale he told him to take the stand. The move, wholly unexpected, unusual, almost exceptional in murder cases, created an impression that was excellent, a sense of admiration for the fearlessness of the defense. From the prosecution came low growls of content. They were to be fed at last. In anticipation they licked their chops. But the excellence of the impression dwindled. In the direct, Annandale denied, of course, that he had committed the murder, denied that he had ever contemplated it, swearing that to the best of his recollection he had made no threat at all.