"'I could not say now, sir,' replied Mr. Chipps 'I don't really remember. It was a name I had never seen before. But I see so many visiting cards one way and the other in 'is lordship's 'all that I can't remember all the names.'

"'Then, after a few minutes' waiting, you gave his lordship the card? What happened then?'

"'Is lordship didn't seem at all pleased,' said Mr. Chipps with much guarded dignity; but finally he said: 'Show him into the library, Chipps, I'll see him," and he got up from the card table, saying to the gentlemen: "Go on without me. I'll be back in a minute or two.'

"'I was about to open the door for 'is lordship when my lady came into the room, and then 'is lordship suddenly changed 'is mind like, and said to me: 'Tell that man I'm busy and can't see him,' and 'e sat down again at the card table. I went back to the 'all, and told the party 'is lordship wouldn't see 'im. 'E said: 'Oh I it doesn't matter,' and went away quite quiet like.

"'Do you recollect at all at what time that was?' asked one of the jury.

"'Yes, sir, while I was waiting to speak to is lordship I looked at the clock, sir; it was twenty past ten, sir.'

"There was one more significant fact in connection with the case, which tended still more to excite the curiosity of the public at the time, and still further to bewilder the police later on, and that fact was mentioned by Chipps in his evidence. The knife, namely, with which Charles Lavender had been stabbed, and which, remember, had been left in the wound, was now produced in court. After a little hesitation Chipps identified it as the property of his master, Lord Arthur Skelmerton.

"Can you wonder, then, that the jury absolutely refused to bring in a verdict against George Higgins? There was really, beyond Lord Arthur Skelmerton's testimony, not one particle of evidence against him, whilst, as the day wore on and witness after witness was called up, suspicion ripened in the minds of all those present that the murderer could be no other than Lord Arthur Skelmerton himself.