This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
THAT ROYLE GIRL
107

woman was singing "Home, Sweet Home" In Los Angeles.' You'll have your work cut out to break that up."

"I've broken it already," Calvin repeated, stubbornly.

"But you're not going to enter a charge against herself."

"No, I'm afraid not."

"That's too bad."

"It certainly is."

"Of course," said Ellison, considering. "She'll make a good thing out of it, as the case stands; as chief witness for Ketlar, and especially if you claim loud enough that he killed for her, she'll be worth show money on any vaudeville circuit; but nothing like what she'd get if you tried the girl herself. Of course, the jury would acquit her with the usual cheers. It looks to me as if she made a big mistake claiming that she stayed outside on the beach."

"I will break the alibi and convict Ketlar," Calvin iterated, not permitting his mind to wander.

"Far be it from me to discourage you, whatever the fate of previous efforts have been. I only don't want you to labor under the delusion that your verdict is going to be much influenced by this." Ellison swept his hand over the reports and exhibits on Calvin's desk. "When you've a girl like this young lady against you, a situation arises for which Harvard Law School is simply no preparation at all.

"You're going to have a jury of men, you know; the defense will see to that, and they'll challenge anybody that's over thirty—unless he's over sixty, too. You're going to have a nice impressionable panel of boys to pass on the question of guilt and punishment, Calvin, and they're going to be mighty interested in Joan Daisy Royle. The defense won't bother much about proof and evidence. Why should it, when it has her? David