He then went on to point out how no evidence had been brought forward to prove that the prisoner had ever regained possession of the revolver after he had thrown it out of the window, so that it was open for any one who might have found the weapon, to use it with deadly effect against Mr. Westwood, or, for that matter, against some one else. Finally, he ventured to point out how it was scarcely within the bounds of possibility that the murder could have been committed by any one except the prisoner. He trusted, however, that the jury would give the amplest consideration to the points upon which he had dwelt. The result of this summing up was that it took the jury two hours and a half instead of five minutes to find the prisoner guilty. It only took the judge five minutes to sentence him, however; but those persons who had been looking forward to so exciting an incident as an execution, with a black flag hoisted outside the gaol to stimulate the imagination in regard to the horror that was being enacted within, were disappointed, for the Home Secretary commuted the capital sentence to one of penal servitude for life. The man's character had not been an unblemished one. Fifteen years before he had suffered eighteen months' imprisonment for fraud in connection with the floating of a company--a transaction into which it seems scarcely possible for fraud to enter--but since his return he appeared to have supported himself honorably at Midleigh. He had worked himself up to a position of trust at the great Midleigh brewery, and it was said that in addition to the few hundreds which remained to his credit in Westwoods' bank, he had saved some thousands of pounds. It appeared, however, that what he had said in Dick Westwood's drawing-room about having a wife and child, was untrue, for certainly no no one claiming to be his wife had come forward during the trial. Thus, within three weeks of the tragedy at the Court, the people of Brackenhurst had begun to talk of other matters--during a fortnight no other topic was possible in the town. After Mr. Westwood's death there was no run on the bank: but even if there had been, plenty of gold would have been forthcoming to meet all demands. It was then that the people began to discuss the probability of Mr. Westwood's having died a wealthy man, and the likelihood of his having made a will. They feared that Claude Westwood would not find himself better provided for than he had been at his father's death; for they took it for granted that his brother would have made his will on the assumption--the very reasonable assumption--that he was no longer alive.