"Something of horror, you say."
"It was my impression, and I cannot account for it. Not so with his bewilderment and astonishment. To my mind they are easily explained."
"He asked no questions concerning the card?" remarked Dr. Daincourt.
"He asked no questions," said the lawyer, somewhat irritably, "concerning a hundred matters upon which the witnesses should have been hardly pressed. Can you not see that this accentuates my conviction that the Nine of Hearts is a link in the chain?"
"Yes, supposing you had not already arrived at a false conclusion with respect to poor Layton's knowledge of the possession of the card."
"I will stake my life and reputation," said the lawyer, earnestly, "upon the correctness of my conclusion. I will stake my life and reputation that, until that moment, Edward Layton did not know that the card was in his pocket."
"Then somebody must have placed it there."
"As you say, somebody must have placed it there."
"But in the name of all that is reasonable," exclaimed Dr. Daincourt, "what possible connection can you trace between a playing-card, whether it be the ace of clubs, or the king of spades, or the nine of hearts--it matters not which--what possible connection can you find between any playing-card and the awful charge brought against Layton?"
"That," said the lawyer, drumming upon the table with his fingers, "is what I have to discover. You do not know, doctor, upon what slight threads the most important issues hang."