“If I know anything of the law, none,” he said. “I’m sorry, Hatter; I did my best.”
Fayre’s eyes did not move from his face.
“That’s what I’ve come to ask you,” he said slowly. “You made a very brilliant speech. It was a magnificent defence, and it failed. To any one but myself it would seem that you had done your utmost.”
He paused and Kean turned on him sharply.
“I’ve worked harder over this case than I ever worked in my life,” he cut in.
Fayre nodded.
“I admit it. That’s not what I’m driving at. One or two things have come to my knowledge lately, facts that I have told no one, not even Grey.”
He paused again. He was finding it very hard to choose words for what he had come to say and Kean made no effort to help him.
“Ever since I discovered certain things,” Fayre went on, “I have been fighting against the conviction that you could have cleared Leslie if you had wished. Can you look me in the face now and say that you were not shielding some one from the beginning and that you undertook Leslie’s defence because you hoped by sheer eloquence to get him off without being forced to give this person away?”
Kean had strolled over to the hearth-rug and seemed absorbed in the selection of a cigarette from the box on the mantelpiece.