"One."
"What is it?" he asked eagerly.
Robert Pettifer clapped the palm of his hand down upon the cuttings from the newspapers which lay before him on his desk.
"This—no other verdict could possibly have been given by the jury. On the evidence produced at the trial in Bombay Mrs. Ballantyne was properly and inevitably acquitted."
"Robert!" exclaimed his wife. She too had been hoping for the contrary opinion. As for Hazlewood himself the sunlight seemed to die off that garden. He drew his hand across his forehead. He half rose to go when again Robert Pettifer spoke.
"And yet," he said slowly, "I am not satisfied."
Harold Hazlewood sat down again. Mrs. Pettifer drew a breath of relief.
"The chief witness for the defence, the witness whose evidence made the acquittal certain, was a man I know—a barrister called Thresk."
"Yes," interrupted Hazlewood. "I have been puzzled about that man ever since you mentioned him before. His name I am somehow familiar with."
"I'll explain that to you in a minute," said Pettifer, and his wife leaned forward suddenly in her chair. She did not interrupt but she sat with a look of keen expectancy upon her face. She did not know whither Pettifer was leading them but she was now sure that it was to some carefully pondered goal.