On that glistening evening the prospect from Stone Buildings, Lincoln’s Inn, was restful and soothing. Just below the motor mowing-machine placidly “chug-chugged” as it clipped the finest turf in London. The muted murmurs from Kingsway and Holborn roamed in placidly. One sleepy pigeon was scratching its poll and ruffling its feathers in a tree opposite, two others--one coyly fleeing, the other doggedly in pursuit--strutted the greensward. “A curious rite of courtship,” thought Bellamy, “but they seem to enjoy it; more than I enjoy the job of reading this brief!” Had these infatuated fowls gazed back at Mr. Bellamy they would have seen a pair of resolute and trustworthy eyes dominating a resolute, nondescript face, one that gave an indisputable impression of kindliness, candour and mental alacrity. No woman had etched lines upon it, nor were those deepening furrows ploughed by the higher exercise of the imagination marked thereon. By his thirty-ninth birthday he had raised himself to the unchallenged position of the most brilliant junior at the Criminal Bar, though that is, perhaps, too flashy an epithet to describe that combination of inflexible integrity, impeccable common sense, perfect health and tireless industry which was Edward Bellamy. A modest person, he attributed his success entirely to that “perfect health,” a view not lightly to be challenged by those who spend many of their days in those Black Holes of controversy, the Law Courts of London. And he had spent nine out of the last fourteen days therein. But the result had been a signal triumph, for the Court of Criminal Appeal had taken _his_ view of Mr. James Stock’s motives, and had substituted ten years’ penal servitude for a six-foot drop. And he was very weary--and yet here was this monstrous bundle of papers! He had just succeeded in screwing his determination to the sticking point when his telephone bell rang. He picked up the receiver languidly, and then his face lightened. “I know that voice. How are you, my dear Philip? Why, what’s the matter? Yes, I’m doing nothing. Delighted! Brooks’s at eight o’clock. Right you are!”