So, torn by conflicting emotions, he sat there still, stiff and
motionless in his seat as an Egyptian statue.

Then counsel went on to deal in greater detail with the question of
motive. There were two motives the prosecution proposed to allege:
first, the known enmity of recent date between the two parties, believed
to have reference to some business dispute; and, secondly--here
counsel dropped his voice to a very low key--he was sorry to suggest
it; but the evidence bore it out--mere vulgar love of gain--the
commonplace thirst after filthy lucre. They would bring witnesses
to show that when Mr. Montague Nevitt was last seen alive, he was
in possession of a pocket-book containing a very large large sum in
Bank of England notes of high value; from the moment of his death
that pocket-book had disappeared, and nobody knew what had since
become of it. It was not upon the body when the body was found. And
all their efforts to trace the missing notes, whose numbers were
not known, had been unhappily unsuccessful.

Guy listened to all this impeachment in a dazed, dreamy way. He
hardly knew what it meant. It appalled and chilled him. The web of
circumstances was too thick for him to break. He couldn't understand
it himself. And what was far worse, he could give no active
assistance to his own lawyers on the question of the notes--which
might be very important evidence against him--without further
prejudicing his case by confessing the forgery. At all hazards, he
was determined to keep that quiet now. Cyril had never spoken to
a soul of that episode, and to speak of it, as things stood, would
have been certain death to him. I would be to supply the one missing
link of motive which the prosecution needed to complete their chain
of cumulative evidence.