old and was weak, inasmuch as the facts, if facts, were not acted upon by the management.  Still their testimony was very clear and very positive, and, taken together with that of the blackmailers, sufficient to ensure conviction.  After our lunch I laid this view before Oscar.  He agreed with me that it was probably the chambermaids’ testimony which had weighed most heavily against him.  Their statement and Shelley’s had brought about the injurious tone in the Judge’s summing up.  The Judge himself had admitted as much.

“The chambermaids’ evidence is wrong,” Oscar declared.  “They are mistaken, Frank.  It was not me they spoke about at the Savoy Hotel.  It was ——.  I was never bold enough.  I went to see ——­ in the morning in his room.”

“Thank God,” I said, “but why didn’t Sir Edward Clarke bring that out?”

“He wanted to; but I would not let him.  I told him he must not.  I must be true to my friend.  I could not let him.”

“But he must,” I said, “at any rate if he does not I will.  I have three weeks and in that three weeks I am going to find the chambermaid.  I am going to get a plan of your room and your friend’s room, and I’m going to make her understand that she was mistaken.  She probably remembered you because of your size:  she mistook you for the guilty person; everybody has always taken you for the ringleader and not the follower.”

“But what good is it, Frank, what good is it?” he cried.  “Even if you convinced the chambermaid and she retracted; there would still be Shelley, and the Judge laid stress on Shelley’s evidence as untainted.”

“Shelley is an accomplice,” I cried, “his testimony needs corroboration.  You don’t understand these legal quibbles; but there was not a particle of corroboration.  Sir Edward Clarke should have had his testimony ruled out.  ’Twas that conspiracy charge,” I cried, “which complicated the matter.  Shelley’s evidence, too, will be ruled out at the next trial, you’ll see.”

“Oh, Frank,” he said, “you talk with passion and conviction, as if I were innocent.”

“But you are innocent,” I cried in amaze, “aren’t you?”

“No, Frank,” he said, “I thought you knew that all along.”

I stared at him stupidly.  “No,” I said dully, “I did not know.  I did not believe the accusation.  I did not believe it for a moment.”

I suppose the difference in my tone and manner struck him, for he said, timidly putting out his hand: 

“This will make a great difference to you, Frank?”

“No,” I said, pulling myself together and taking his hand; and after a pause I went on:  “No:  curiously enough it has made no difference to me at all.  I do not know why; I suppose I have got more sympathy than morality in me.  It has surprised me, dumbfounded me.  The thing has always seemed fantastic and incredible to me and now you make it exist for me; but it has no effect on my friendship; none upon my resolve to help you.