“That brute what cut up the young woman he was walking out with is committed for trial at the Old Bailey,” he said.

“I reckoned he would be, the dirty brute,” replied Mrs. Tovey, who was almost as keen a criminologist as her husband. “And I’d see he didn’t get off, neither, if I was on the jury.”

Mr. Tovey turned and looked at her gravely. “ ’Tis all very well for you to talk like that,” he said reprovingly. “It’s a terrible thing to be on a jury when a man’s life depends on what you says. Nobody knows that better than I do, I’m sure.”

“Yes, I remember the state you was in that time,” replied Mrs. Tovey. “Dear, dear, best part of a week you was at it, and Ivy just born and all. What was the chap’s name? I remember he was a doctor who’d killed one of his patients by giving him a dose of something.”