point of death, and his physicians have never left his house. Every
hour he seemed to grow weaker; but although his bodily strength is
apparently leaving him forever, his mind has remained clear and
active. Late yesterday evening word was received at our office that he
wished my father to come at once to Chetney House and to bring with
him certain papers. What these papers were is not essential; I mention
them only to explain how it was that last night I happened to be at
Lord Edam's bed-side. I accompanied my father to Chetney House, but at
the time we reached there Lord Edam was sleeping, and his physicians
refused to have him awakened. My father urged that he should be
allowed to receive Lord Edam's instructions concerning the documents,
but the physicians would not disturb him, and we all gathered in the
library to wait until he should awake of his own accord. It was about
one o'clock in the morning, while we were still there, that Inspector
Lyle and the officers from Scotland Yard came to arrest Lord Arthur on
the charge of murdering his brother. You can imagine our dismay and
distress. Like every one else, I had learned from the afternoon papers
that Lord Chetney was not dead, but that he had returned to England,
and on arriving at Chetney House I had been told that Lord Arthur had
gone to the Bath Hotel to look for his brother and to inform him that
if he wished to see their father alive he must come to him at once.
Although it was now past one o'clock, Arthur had not returned. None of
us knew where Madame Zichy lived, so we could not go to recover Lord
Chetney's body. We spent a most miserable night, hastening to the
window whenever a cab came into the square, in the hope that it was
Arthur returning, and endeavoring to explain away the facts that
pointed to him as the murderer. I am a friend of Arthur's, I was with
him at Harrow and at Oxford, and I refused to believe for an instant
that he was capable of such a crime; but as a lawyer I could not help
but see that the circumstantial evidence was strongly against him.