"You ought to have been there, Patrick! By jinks, you had ...!" exclaimed Wilkinson some months later as he watched the rings of smoke from his cigar float upwards to the ceiling of the Millionaires' Club. "I fixed him, didn't I, Colonel?"

Colonel Morehead thought a moment before replying:

"I shouldn't wonder if you did, Peter. You furnished the evidence of deliberation—that essential element in a murder case—the lying in wait. Yes, your admirable efforts in that direction will probably land Ilingsworth in the chair."

"Probably! Oh, thunder," put in Patrick Durand, one of the cleverest criminal lawyers in the city, "that man Ilingsworth is dead already!"

Colonel Morehead placed the finger-tips of one hand against those of the other as he made answer:

"If he'd been merely one of a crowd of maddened depositors, acting in the heat of passion, it would have been second degree, without a doubt. And yet,"—and the Colonel darted sharp glances first at Durand and then toward his client,—"in my opinion, the star witness of the prosecution was your daughter Leslie. The jury believed every word that she said."

And indeed such had been the case at Ilingsworth's trial. Assistant District Attorney Leech had made no mistake in the order of summoning his witnesses. After her father, bluff, arrogant and eager—and over-willingness is a bad virtue in a witness—had finished his testimony, Leslie had taken the stand and had wholly removed the bad impression Wilkinson had made on the jury through his evident desire that Ilingsworth should be convicted. Moreover, Leech had trained the girl, as he did all his witnesses, to answer the essential facts, and nothing else. And to make his task all the easier, Ilingsworth's lawyer, a hanger-on of the criminal courts—for Ilingsworth had had no funds to employ first-class counsel, and a prisoner without money is a doomed man in New York—had wallowed through the trial without a glimmering of common sense. From the first, as might have been expected, he had played directly into the hands of the People. But his blundering had not been without its interesting side—interesting, at least, to a few of his hearers. For despite the Assistant District Attorney's strenuous objections, the Court had overruled his contention that the entire conversation between Giles Ilingsworth and Leslie that memorable afternoon was irrelevant and immaterial, and in consequence the good-for-nothing lawyer had led Leslie on to tell in detail all of Ilingsworth's grave charges against her father. And it was at that point, and barely before the girl had uttered two hundred words, that a reporter of the Morning Mail had succeeded in wriggling his way through the lawyers inside the rail, and had not crept back into his place and resumed the taking of copious notes until the court stenographer to whom he had whispered: "Say, old man, I want all this, word for word, by two o'clock, at any price," had nodded his willingness to accept the fifty-dollar bill that he was sure the Morning Mail must vouchsafe him for this hurry job.

And so it happened that an hour later the Morning Mail man was telling Mr. Ougheltree of the Twentieth Century Bank and head of the bankers clique that owned the Mail, that he had to stand by this man Ilingsworth from start to finish. And as a result of this interview the few spectators at the afternoon session of the court had heard the celebrated Worth Higgins inform the Court that he had been retained to conduct the case for the defence, as well as the Court's complimentary remarks in reply.

But Worth Higgins had been of little service to the defendant, though he had drawn from his witnesses, especially Ilingsworth, all that they knew or suspected about Wilkinson's management of the seventeen bankrupt trust companies—a feat which, as will readily be imagined, was all that the Morning Mail required of him. In truth, Higgins had done Ilingsworth more harm than good. The defendant had deliberately purchased a gun; had lain in wait; had shot a man down in cold blood. Not the man he had aimed at, it is true, but the principle was the same.

"Will the defendant deny that he did the shooting?" had been Higgins' query to Boggs.

"Of course he will," had been his fellow-counsel's answer. "He's as innocent as a new-born babe."

And with that Higgins had put the defendant on the stand and heard him deny it—a weak, wabbling denial it was, in reality merely a recital of his wrongs.

"That's all," Higgins said, when the testimony was over, and then he had added in an aside to his junior: "His goose is cooked."

Nevertheless, at the suggestion of the Morning Mail man, he had taken all the exceptions possible, remarking to that gentleman's intimation that the case was going up for an appeal: "A good thing it is, for it's a gone case here."

And Higgins had been quite right. For, a short time after this the jury had filed back and pronounced the one word of doom.

In common with everyone in the court-room, save Ilingsworth and his daughter, Leslie had expected just such an ending. All through the trial she had longed for the words that would relieve her from the thraldom of uncertainty in which she was held; yet when the foreman had pronounced the verdict it had shocked her inexpressibly, left her indescribably sad. For some moments she had struggled to regain her composure, and fearful of a break-down, she had fled, but not in time to escape seeing Ilingsworth slump down into his seat with a faint moan. At the door the sound of many voices and exclamations of pity had reached her ears. She halted, and looking back she saw that the commotion was the result of some woman who had fainted. And then it was that she saw, too, the never-to-be-forgotten picture of Elinor Ilingsworth, friendless and helpless, looking hopelessly down upon her father while she endeavoured to soothe him with endearing words. Impulsively Leslie had started back, a vague intention of putting her arms around the girl's neck, of taking possession of her, as it were, and carrying her, who needed care so much, to her own home. But like a flash the futility of such a course had dawned upon her. For the realisation had been borne in upon her that it was her own testimony, more than anyone else's, that had been the means of convicting the girl's father; and that for her to offer words of sympathy to the daughter would be a mockery if not an insult. It was, therefore, with a sigh that Leslie had again retraced her steps, forcing herself to be content with giving the girl a glance of infinite pity.

"Conceding that Leslie's testimony did for him," Wilkinson was now saying to his cronies at his club, gulping down his Scotch, "conceding that, but who set her on—made her testify? It was I who bit into that fellow's heel, and don't you forget that I'm proud of it."

Morehead stared through the cloud of collecting smoke.

"I wish, Patrick," he proceeded to say to Durand, in his own calm way, "that you could have been there for just one reason: I am anxious to know whether my view of the effect of Peter's testimony on the jury is correct."

Patrick Durand waved his hand.

"You ought to know, Colonel."

"Don't you think it had a good effect on 'em, Morehead?" queried his client.

Morehead rose and stretched his legs, and without glancing, even, at Wilkinson, he said bluntly:

"Durand, I watched them closely—each one of the twelve. And, mark my words, if it hadn't been for Leslie, I don't believe one man in the twelve would have believed a word that Peter said."

Wilkinson turned red.

"What the devil do you mean, Morehead?" he roared. "Is this an insult?"

Morehead never flinched.

"Sit down, Wilkinson," he commanded curtly. "I'm talking to Mr. Durand. What do you think, Patrick?"

Patrick Durand glanced over the rims of his glasses at the ceiling.

"Representative men, were they, Colonel?" he asked.

"A good mixture," said the Colonel. "I never saw a better...."

Durand drew a long breath.

"It looks bad—mighty bad, Colonel, for us," he observed calmly.

"What do you mean? How bad for us?" insisted Wilkinson, his face still red with the imputation cast upon him.

Durand looked at him long and searchingly, doubtful whether to take him into their confidence or not. Presently he said:

"It's just this, Brother Wilkinson: If an ordinary jury isn't going to believe a man when he tells the truth, what are they going to do when he deliberately lies?"

"But hang it, man," exploded Wilkinson, "I didn't lie; I told the truth."

"Yes, Wilkinson, you told the truth in this Ilingsworth case, but it's your own case we're thinking about. There'll be a jury in that, too."

"You fellows make me tired," growled Wilkinson. "My case—if it ever comes to trial——"

"Oh, don't you worry about that! It will come to trial, all right," put in Flomerfelt, speaking for the first time, and helping himself to a fresh cigar.

"It won't if my overtures to District Attorney Murgatroyd are accepted," retorted Peter V.

The two eminent counsel lifted up their eyes in mild surprise.

"You don't mean to say you're going to bribe Murgatroyd?" came in chorus.

"Why not?"

"You've got enough indictments against you already, Peter," they warned him, "without having Murgatroyd charge you with an attempt to bribe."

"No, indeed, you can't bribe Murgatroyd," spoke up Flomerfelt, with a knowing smile. "Though I'll tell you what, Colonel," he went on, "there is a chap who's not above suspicion on that staff."

Morehead winked.

"The hold-over from the last administration?"

"You mean Leech?" gasped Wilkinson.

Flomerfelt nodded.

"It's better to hear you say the name than to say it ourselves, Peter," remarked Morehead.

"Why, then the case needn't come to trial!" exclaimed Peter V., joyously. "We can get at Leech."

"Not in a hundred years!" ejaculated Flomerfelt. "Murgatroyd stands behind these indictments in your case, don't you forget that. And even if Leech tries them, Murgatroyd will be there to see.... The Assistant District Attorney won't be able to move out of the beaten track. Your case will come to trial, never fear."

"Well, then, let it come," grunted Wilkinson, a little ruffled by the demeanour of Flomerfelt and his counsel. "But by that time this man Ilingsworth will be dead; we'll shove everything on him."

"I don't believe Ilingsworth will be dead," remarked Morehead. "Indeed I do not."

"Well, even if he isn't," retorted Wilkinson, huskily, "he's wholly discredited. A man who'll murder may commit other crimes; the jury will believe anything of Ilingsworth by the time we're through with him."

Morehead held up his hand.

"Durand and I have gone over this whole thing; have looked up every man on Flomerfelt's list; they won't stick to us, that's all. Wilkinson, your crowd are down on you. And what's more, the Morning Mail now stands behind Ilingsworth, and they're going to stick by him. So if we make this attempt to unload iniquity on Ilingsworth and fail, we'll do two things we don't want to do: One is, we'll make the dangerous admission that there has been iniquity; and the other, psychological problem as it is, is quite as much to be feared——"

"Fire ahead," interrupted Wilkinson.

"I'm banking on Beekman—banking on his personality with his jury, and I don't want the ghost of a doubt to show in his face. That's why I sent him to Europe. Of course we need the evidence he's getting over there—it's good stuff. But I sent him now in order that he shouldn't even read, save in a casual way, this story of Ilingsworth. A true story is a mighty bad story, Peter. So we'll cut Ilingsworth out of this case. If the People produce him—and I'm satisfied they won't—why we'll try to get him on the cross-examination. Durand and I have talked it all over, and our game is going to be a game of denial from start to finish. I doubt whether the People make out the case against you. If they don't we've got 'em nailed. And if the judge sends the case to the jury, we'll deny everything the People put up against us. But it's a lucky thing for you that they'll believe your daughter Leslie."

"It's a pity, Wilkinson," said Flomerfelt, with something like a sneer, "that while you were about it, you didn't swing this thing in a more careful way. Of course it's too late now. You bit off more than you could chew that time! You thought you could get away with the goods—got careless! I've seen many a safecracker do the same thing."

Wilkinson flushed.

"Do you mean to compare me with——" he began; but Flomerfelt left the question unanswered.

"This is no Sunday-school picnic, and you may as well understand it now, Peter," said Morehead. "We've got to work for our living in this case, and you've got to do your share, have got to understand that it's a running fight from now on to the end."

"I'll do my part," Wilkinson assured them, burying his hands in his pockets. "But I want you to find out who the judge is going to be, and when the time comes, give me the names of the jury, and I'll get at them all right."

Colonel Morehead rose to his lanky height and clutched the shoulder of his opulent client.

"Wilkinson," he cried, shaking a lean hand in the other's face, "you don't know what you're talking about! And you might as well make up your mind now that you can't touch Murgatroyd, and you can't touch the Court. And Murgatroyd is there to see that you don't touch the jury. We—Durand and I—have got charge of this thing. You keep your hands off...."

"But you're going to pull me out, aren't you?"

" ... In our own way. So far I've always had my own way in my cases," declared Patrick Durand, "and if I can't have it in this one, why, I'll retire, that's all."

"Yes, you must do as they say, Peter V." advised Flomerfelt, suavely, and then lowering his voice so that the others should not hear, he added: "If in the course of human events it should become necessary to lay a bribe in order to get you clear, I'll attend to that myself."