“And I,” murmured Cleek, taking in the trim contour and the keen eyes of this man who was to have been Merriton’s father-in-law—­if things had turned out differently.  He found he rather liked his looks.

“There is nothing—­one can do?” Brellier’s voice was politely anxious, and he spread out his hands in true French fashion then tugged at his closely clipped iron-gray beard.

“Anything that you know, Mr. Brellier, that would perhaps be of help, you can say—­in the witness box.  We are looking for people who know anything of the whole distressing tragedy.  You can help that way, and that way alone.  For myself,” he shrugged his shoulders, “I don’t for an instant believe Sir Nigel to be guilty.  I can’t, somehow.  And yet—­if you knew the evidence against him—!”

A sob came suddenly from ’Toinette, and Brellier gently led her away.  It was a terrible ordeal for her, but she had insisted on coming—­fearing, hoping that she might be of use to Nigel in the witness box.  By the time they reached the great, crowded room, with its table set at the far end, its empty chairs, and the platform upon which the two bodies lay shrouded in their black coverings, she was crying, though plainly struggling for self possession.

Brellier found her a chair at the farther side of the room, and stood beside her, while near by Cleek saw the figure of Borkins, clad in ordinary clothes.  He tipped one respectful finger as Brellier passed him, and greeted him with a half-smile, as one of whom he thoroughly approved.

Then there was a little murmur of expectancy, as the group about the doorway parted to admit the prisoner.

He came between two policemen, very pale, very haggard, greatly aged by the few days of his ordeal.  There were lines about his mouth and eyes that were not good to see.  He was thinner, older.  Already the gray showed in the hair about his temples.  He walked stiffly, looking neither to right nor left, his head up, his hands handcuffed before him; calm, dignified, a trifle grimly amused at the whole affair—­though what this attitude cost him to keep up no one ever knew.

’Toinette uttered a cry at sight of him, and then shut her handkerchief against her mouth.  His face quivered as he recognized her voice, then, looking across the crowded room, he saw her—­and smiled....

The jury filed in one after the other, twelve stout, hardy specimens of the country tradesman, with a local doctor and a farmer or two sprinkled among the lump to leaven it.  The coroner followed, having driven up in the latest thing in motor cars (for he was going to do the thing properly, as it was at the country’s expense).  Then the horrible proceedings began.