The police contention was that Yorke-Bannerman somehow managed to put the stuff into the milk beforehand; my own theory was--as counsel for the accused"-- he blinked his fat eyes--"that old Prideaux had concealed a large quantity of aconitine in the bed, before his illness, and went on taking it from time to time--just to spite his nephew." "And you BELIEVE that, Mr.Mayfield ?" The broad smile broke concentrically in ripples over the great lawyer's face.

His smile was Mayfield's main feature.

He shrugged his shoulders and expanded his big hands wide open before him.

"My dear Hubert," he said, with a most humorous expression of countenance, "you are a professional man yourself; therefore you know that every profession has its own little courtesies--its own small fictions.

I was Yorke-Bannerman's counsel, as well as his friend.