CHAPTER 22The trial of Basil Wilton for the murder of his wife had been fixed to take place at the Old Bailey early in November.
The court was crowded; the streets were thronged with disappointed sightseers. No trial of late years had so taken hold of the public imagination as this of Basil Wilton. The youth and good looks of the accused, combined with the fact that he was popularly supposed to have murdered his late employer as well as his wife, had aroused an enormous amount of excitement; and the fact of his love affair with Hilary Bastow—which had been allowed to leak out—had done nothing to allay it.
The judge was Mr. Justice Ruthven, as women whispered to one another with a pitying glance at the pale, delicate-looking young man in the dock.
There was a formidable array of counsel
