Surprise, anger, then some deeper feeling rang in his voice as he replied: "I cannot.

I took down the first I saw and _the first hat."_ The emphasis placed on the last three words may have been meant as a warning to his audacious counsel, but if so, it was not heeded.
"Took down?
Took down from where ?" "From the rack in the hall where I hang my things; the side hall leading to the door where we usually go out." "Have you many coats--overcoats, I mean ?" "More than one." "And you do not know which one you put on that cold night ?" "I do not." "But you know what one you wore back ?" "No." Short, sharp, and threatening was this _no_.

A war was on between this man and his counsel, and the wonder it occasioned was visible in every eye.

Perhaps Mr.Moffat realised this; this was what he had dreaded, perhaps.

At all events, he proceeded with his strange task, in apparent oblivion of everything but his own purpose.
"You do not know what one you wore back ?" "I do not." "You have seen the hat and coat which have been shown here and sworn to as being the ones in which you appeared on your return to the house, the day following your sister's murder ?" "I have." "Also the hat and coat found on a remote hook in the closet under the stairs, bearing the flour-mark on its under brim ?" "Yes, that too." "Yet cannot say which of these two overcoats you put on when you left your home, an hour or so after finishing your dinner ?" Trapped by his own lawyer--visibly and remorselessly trapped! The blood, shooting suddenly into the astounded prisoner's face, was reflected on the cheeks of the other lawyers present.