"None whatever. All the symptoms pointed to it. He was sitting at the breakfast table when he suddenly ceased eating, and his eyes grew fixed. The knife which he held in his hand was dropped, but as the attack increased he picked it up again and thrust it into the table in front of him--a purely automatic action, in my opinion. When he sprang up from the table a little while afterwards he was under the influence of the epileptic fury, and would have made a violent attack on the people sitting at the next table if I had not seized him. Unconsciousness then supervened, and, with the aid of another of the hotel guests, I carried him to his room. It was there I noticed foam on his lips. When he returned to consciousness he had no recollection of what had occurred, which is consistent with an epileptic seizure. I saw that his condition was dangerous, and urged him to send for his friends, but he refused to do so." "It would have been better if he had followed your advice. You say it is consistent with epilepsy for him to have no recollection of what occurred during this seizure in the hotel breakfast room. What would a man's condition of mind be if, during an attack of petit mal, he committed an act of violence, say murder, for example?" "The mind is generally a complete blank. Sometimes there is a confused sense of something, but the patient has no recollection of what has occurred, in my experience." "In this case the prisoner is charged with murder. Could he have committed this offence during another attack of _furor epilepticus_ and recollect nothing about it afterwards? Is that consistent?" "Yes, quite consistent," replied the witness. "Is epilepsy an hereditary disease?" "Yes." "And if both parents, or one of them, suffered from epilepsy, would there be a great risk of the children suffering from it?" "Every risk in the case of both persons being affected; some probability in the case of one." "What do you think would be the effect of shell-shock on a person born of one epileptic parent?" "It would probably aggravate a tendency to epilepsy, by lowering the general health." "Thank you, Sir Henry." Mr. Middleheath resumed his seat, and Sir Herbert Templewood got up to cross-examine. CHAPTER XVI Sir Herbert Templewood did not believe the evidence of the specialist, and he did not think the witness believed it himself. Sir Herbert did not think any the worse of the witness on that account. It was one of the recognised rules of the game to allow witnesses to stretch a point or two in favour of the defence where the social honour of highly respectable families was involved.