Now, let us consider first of all. What about the motives? Here is Bazzard. Bazzard has no motive—no motive whatever—for attempting to secure the release of the prisoner. Miss Helena Landless has admitted in that box on her oath that her hatred of Jasper had nothing whatever to do with the assassination of Edwin Drood. Her hatred of Jasper does not rest on the fact that Jasper has killed Edwin Drood at all. It rests on the fact that Jasper has treated in an unfortunate way her brother, and her friend, Miss Rosa Bud. So there you have her confession that she had a very real motive for hunting down the prisoner. Miss Helena Landless has told her story. She says she was Datchery. What is the first thing that strikes us about that extraordinary story? I asked her whether she made up her face, and she said she did not. Now, had she said that she made up her face, had she said she had painted herself wrinkles, it might have been just possible to ask a sane man to believe that she could go about Cloisterham, where she was well known, and not be recognised: but how can she have the effrontery to go into that box and ask the Jury to believe that she went about the town where she had been living for nine months, and where she was perfectly well known—round the Nuns’ House where she had been at school; round Canon Crisparkle’s house where she had been a visitor; and round the Cathedral—and that, with her face absolutely unchanged, and merely a white wig and a blue coat! And she asks you to believe that she did that, and that she called on the people who knew her best, and that they did not recognise her! Really, after that, can we be expected to believe one word of her evidence? Really, that is so strong and so monstrous an attempt on our credulity, that I am willing to waive all the other nonsensical parts of her story. There is her way of avoiding suspicion. She wishes to pass as an old buffer. Her idea is to order with a gargantuan meal an enormous quantity of wine and not to drink it! When I pressed her, she said she poured it away. Is it reasonable? It is not necessary to the character of an old buffer that she should drink a pint of sherry. But her whole story! I asked her where she learned to keep tavern scores. Gentlemen, you know what the way of keeping tavern scores means. It is the notorious old English custom of “scoring a man up.” As many of you may know, and as Mr. Bazzard has sworn, in evidence, it is a custom particularly of Norfolk. That is a perfectly natural action for Bazzard. Had Miss Landless said a Norfolk man or a countryman had told her, we might have believed her. But she said she learned it in Ceylon! I am rather surprised she did not say it was an accomplishment taught at Miss Twinkleton’s! Her theory that she could act as an old buffer is so absurd——because when she was thirteen years old she put on her brother’s knickerbockers. It is absurd. As if that would help a