"He corroborated the evidence of James Buckland as to the hour when the
gentleman in the fur coat had engaged him, and having filled his cab in
and out with luggage, had told him to wait. And cabby did wait. He
waited in the dense fog--until he was tired, until he seriously thought
of depositing all the luggage in the lost property office, and of
looking out for another fare--waited until at last, at a quarter before
nine, whom should he see walking hurriedly towards his cab but the
gentleman in the fur coat and cap, who got in quickly and told the
driver to take him at once to the Hotel Cecil. This, cabby declared, had
occurred at a quarter before nine. Still Sir Arthur Inglewood made no
comment, and Mr. Francis Smethurst, in the crowded, stuffy court, had
calmly dropped to sleep.

"The next witness, Constable Thomas Taylor, had noticed a shabbily
dressed individual, with shaggy hair and beard, loafing about the
station and waiting-rooms in the afternoon of December the 10th. He
seemed to be watching the arrival platform of the Tilbury and Southend
trains.

"Two separate and independent witnesses, cleverly unearthed by the
police, had seen this same shabbily dressed individual stroll into the
first-class waiting-room at about 6.15 on Wednesday, December the 10th,
and go straight up to a gentleman in a heavy fur coat and cap, who had
also just come into the room. The two talked together for a while; no
one heard what they said, but presently they walked off together. No one
seemed to know in which direction.

"Francis Smethurst was rousing himself from his apathy; he whispered to
his lawyer, who nodded with a bland smile of encouragement. The employés
of the Hotel Cecil gave evidence as to the arrival of Mr. Smethurst at