“Oh, very well,” Winwood replied sulkily; “I’ll say no more.”

He sank into a chair with the manner of a man who shuts himself up and turns the key; and so remained⁠—excepting when the internal pressure approached bursting-point⁠—throughout the subsequent proceedings, silent, stony and impassive, like a seated statue of Obstinacy.

“I take it,” said Marchmont, “that you have some new facts that are not in our possession?”

“Yes,” replied Thorndyke; “we have some new facts, and we have made some new use of the old ones. But how shall I lay the case before you? Shall I state my theory of the sequence of events and furnish the verification afterwards? Or shall I retrace the actual course of my investigations and give you the facts in the order in which I obtained them myself, with the inferences from them?”