"There is no reason, of course, why he should not have removed his beard, but as against that suggestion we will call evidence to prove that the man seen driving with the murdered chauffeur was invariably a man with a mustache and no beard, so that the balance of probability is on the side of the supposition that Merrill is not telling the truth. An unknown client with a large deposit at his bank would not be likely constantly to alter his appearance. If he were a criminal, as we know him to be, there would be another reason why he should not excite suspicion in this way."
His address covered the greater part of a day—but he returned to the scene in the garden, to the supposed meeting of the two men, and to the murder.
Saul Arthur Mann, sitting with Frank's solicitor, scratched his nose and grinned.
"I have never heard a more ingenious piece of reconstruction," he said; "though, of course, the whole thing is palpably absurd."
As a theory it was no doubt excellent; but men are not sentenced to death on theories, however ingenious they may be. Probably nobody in the court so completely admired the ingenuity as the man most affected. At the lunch interval on the day on which this theory was put forward he met his solicitor and Saul Arthur Mann in the bare room in which such interviews are permitted.
"It was really fascinating to hear him," said Frank, as he sipped the cup of tea which they had brought him. "I almost began to believe that I had committed the murder! But isn't it rather alarming? Will the jury take the same view?" he asked, a little troubled.
The solicitor shook his head.
"Unsupported theories of that sort do not go well with juries, and, of course, the whole story is so flimsy and so improbable that it will go for no more than a piece of clever reasoning."
"Did anybody see you at the railway station?"
Frank shook his head.