The very night after, Hilditch confesses his guilt and
commits suicide."
"I still don't see where Ledsam's worry comes in," the legal
luminary remarked. "The fact that the man was guilty is rather a
feather in the cap of his counsel. Shows how jolly good his
pleading must have been."
"Just so," Wilmore agreed, "but Ledsam, as you know, is a very
conscientious sort of fellow, and very sensitive, too. The whole
thing was a shock to him."
"It must have been a queer experience," a novelist remarked from
the outskirts of the group, "to dine with a man whose life you
have juggled away from the law, and then have him explain his
crime to you, and the exact manner of its accomplishment. Seems
to bring one amongst the goats, somehow."
"Bit of a shock, no doubt," the lawyer assented, "but I still
don't understand Ledsam's sending back all his briefs. He's not
going to chuck the profession, is he?"
"Not by any means," Wilmore declared. "I think he has an idea,
though, that he doesn't want to accept any briefs unless he is
convinced that the person whom he has to represent is innocent,
and lawyers don't like that sort of thing, you know. You can't
pick and choose, even when you have Leadsam's gifts."
"The fact of it is," the novelist commented, "Francis Ledsam
isn't callous enough to be associated with you money-grubbing
dispensers of the law.
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