"That was a neat stroke of business that we did the other night, sir, though it is I who say it," remarked Mr. Byrne.
"Yes; you managed it very cleverly, and it is on that very subject that I have come to see you again."
"I am yours to command, Mr. Warburton."
"If I recollect rightly, when I saw you before, you gave me to understand that you were in Court on the day that Ambrose Murray took his trial for the murder of Paul Stilling?"
"I was in Court at the time, and I retain a very clear recollection of the different features of the case."
"Can you tell me what impression you formed at the time as to the guilt or innocence of the prisoner?"
"Now you put a very difficult question to me. Anyone who has seen much of criminal trials will tell you what an exceedingly unsafe thing it is to form an opinion from a prisoner's demeanour as to his guilt or otherwise."
"Never mind the prisoner's demeanour in this case. I simply want to know what your own impression was, as a result of what you saw and heard at the trial."
"Well, the weight of evidence, as no doubt you are aware, was dead against the prisoner, and that very fact will, as a rule, go a long way in the formation of a person's opinion. Still, in spite of that, at the time it was my impression that, whoever else it might have been, Murray was not the murderer."
"I am glad to hear you say that," said Gerald, heartily. "Because, after being shut up for twenty years, Murray has escaped from prison."