On the Saturday, Ronnie, as usual, went down to Daffadillies. Mollie had returned to Clyst Fullerford. Julia and Aliette, informed of the new work, were enthusiastic.

"It'll be a public prosecution, I suppose?" asked Julia.

"Of course. All murder cases are conducted by the director of public prosecutions. But I haven't got the brief yet."

"Not even a watching brief?" put in Aliette.

Ronnie laughed. "Where did you pick up that phrase?"

"In the newspapers, I suppose." Aliette, remembering from whose lips she had last heard the expression, blushed faintly. And next morning, Sunday, the front page of the "Democratic News" again reminded her of Hector.

Standon, nervous lest some of his titled brethren in Fleet Street should appropriate the stunt, devoted his Napoleonic leader-page to "The Quality of Mercy."

Standon dared not, of course, comment on a case which was still "sub judice," but Standon could and did dare to comment at great length on "one-sided justice," on the delays demanded by the police at inquests, on the hardships suffered by those who could not afford "our overpaid silks," and on the crying need of a "public defender."

"Our 'hanging prosecutor,'" howled Standon, "is paid by the state. Who pays for the defense of his victims? Why, even as I write, there lie in Brixton Prison a man and a woman who--for all we know--may be as innocent of the charge brought against them as I am. Next week they will be haled before the coroner. The police will have sifted every vestige of evidence against them. But who will have sifted the evidence in their defense? No one! I ask the great-hearted British people, whose generosity to the weak and unhappy never fails, whether this is justice or a travesty of justice; whether, in any properly constituted community, the very finest legal brains obtainable would not have been placed immediately and without any fee whatsoever entirely at the service of these two unfortunates, who now lie in a felon's cell, hoping against hope, if they are innocent, as I believe them to be innocent, that some public-spirited person will come forward and give them, out of mere charity, money. Money! The shame of it!! The shame of it!!!"

The "silly season," when newsprint gasps for "copy" as a drowning man for air, was already on Fleet Street; and Standon's article, duly garnished with photographs of Lucy Towers, of Bob Fielding, the ex-sailor, and of "Big Bill" Towers, started a controversy which relegated both submarines and battleships to the editorial scrap-heap.

"Mark my words," said John Cartwright, calling for Ronnie on the Tuesday morning, "the Cairns case will be nothing to this one. If by any chance you were to get Lucy Towers off, you'd be a made man."

"But surely,"--for a moment the wild idea that by some amazing piece of fortune Hector Brunton might be briefed for the prosecution crossed Ronnie's mind--"surely, if Standon's out for publicity, he'll never let you brief me for the actual trial? He'll have one of the big guns, Marshall Hall or somebody like that."

"No, he won't." John Cartwright chuckled slyly. "Oh no, he won't. He'll make a discovery."

"A discovery?"

"Yes, a young man. 'A new light in the legal firmament--a David to slay Goliath.' That'd look well in the Democratic News.' Besides," Cartwright chuckled again, "Marshall Hall would cost them a week's advertising revenue, and you're Julia Cavendish's son."

"I've no wish to trade on my mother's reputation," said Ronnie stiffly. But, as Cartwright's car came nearer and nearer to the coroner's court, he realized that if by any possible miracle Hector Brunton were briefed for the prosecution, he, Ronald Cavendish, would trade on any one's reputation rather than not be entrusted with the defense.