“Yes, sir,” she answered, with a faint expression of surprise.
“Ah!” he said. “That is to establish at the outset a claim upon one’s sympathies. Now I am acquainted with the bare facts of this unhappy story, Mrs Baxter. What have you to say to qualify them? I ask you to speak to me with perfect confidence and freedom.”
“Thank you, sir, from my heart. I know the value of conciseness, and I will not say a word more than I must.”
“Very well. You are convinced of your son’s innocence?”
“Charlie is innocent, sir.”
“Just so. Now, as to the proofs?”
“If such there were, sir, I need not have troubled you.”
“To be sure you need not. Let us say, then, the admissible likelihoods?”
“It would have been the act of a madman, would it not, knowing that he must be found out?”
“Yes?—very well. I do not propose to comment for the moment.”