“Then Sir Leonard got up and made the speech of his life. He began with one of his most impressive exordia. “‘Gentlemen of the Jury, the prisoner at the Bar is accused of murder. If she is found guilty of that foul crime she will meet in three weeks’ time a shameful, felon’s death. On my poor efforts depend her defence: on your verdict her liberty or death. Gentlemen, it is an awful responsibility that you and I must share.’ “He made no attempt to disguise the fact that his client was a hardened little scoundrel, but he impressed on the Jury how much more she had to gain, and gain in perfect safety, by marrying Richard than by taking the frightful risk entailed by murdering him. She would not have been the calculating little intriguer which she had shown herself, if she had failed to realise the inevitable suspicion which was bound to fall upon her when the terms of the will became known. People of her type did not commit murders, they steadily fleeced, and so great was the dead man’s infatuation she had every reason to believe she could force him to marry her, when she could fleece him to her heart’s content. “So did he dismiss the question of motive. “He emphasised the sharp and irreconcilable conflict in the medical evidence. Would the Jury ever know a moment’s peace if they sent her to the gallows when such doctors could disagree? “He made much of the absence of the revolver, and--this will interest you, Robert--he asked how could the shot have been fired? The dead man was shot from the front at point-blank range. He must have stood stock still and calmly allowed the prisoner to blow his brains out. Was it conceivable? “The letter of which the prosecution made so much was perfectly capable of bearing the construction the prisoner put upon it. In a peroration of majestic power he demanded that the prisoner be given the benefit of the doubt. ‘If she is guilty,’ he concluded, ‘she will not escape, for there is One Who knows all: Vengeance is His, He will repay!’ “The Judge’s summing up was quiet and eminently judicial. On the whole it inclined, and I think rightly, to the defence. The police had not made out their case. “At length the Jury filed out, and Patty was taken out of Court, her eyes blazing with excitement, and two red stains flaming in her cheeks. The Jury were out for three and a half hours. It was known afterwards that two of them long held out for a verdict of guilty, but in the end gave way, and in a quivering silence the foreman pronounced ‘Not guilty,’ which would undoubtedly have been ‘Not proven’ in Scotland. “And that, Robert, was the end of the ‘Balland Mystery’--till you took that afternoon stroll.” “What happened to Patty?” I asked.