“May it please the court, the claim given the front place, the claim most persistently urged, the claim most strenuously and I may even say aggressively and defiantly insisted upon by the prosecution is this—­that the person whose hand left the bloodstained fingerprints upon the handle of the Indian knife is the person who committed the murder.”  Wilson paused, during several moments, to give impressiveness to what he was about to say, and then added tranquilly, “WE GRANT THAT CLAIM.”

It was an electrical surprise.  No one was prepared for such an admission.  A buzz of astonishment rose on all sides, and people were heard to intimate that the overworked lawyer had lost his mind.  Even the veteran judge, accustomed as he was to legal ambushes and masked batteries in criminal procedure, was not sure that his ears were not deceiving him, and asked counsel what it was he had said.  Howard’s impassive face betrayed no sign, but his attitude and bearing lost something of their careless confidence for a moment.  Wilson resumed: 

“We not only grant that claim, but we welcome it and strongly endorse it.  Leaving that matter for the present, we will now proceed to consider other points in the case which we propose to establish by evidence, and shall include that one in the chain in its proper place.”

He had made up his mind to try a few hardy guesses, in mapping out his theory of the origin and motive of the murder—­guesses designed to fill up gaps in it—­guesses which could help if they hit, and would probably do no harm if they didn’t.

“To my mind, certain circumstances of the case before the court seem to suggest a motive for the homicide quite different from the one insisted on by the state.  It is my conviction that the motive was not revenge, but robbery.  It has been urged that the presence of the accused brothers in that fatal room, just after notification that one of them must take the life of Judge Driscoll or lose his own the moment the parties should meet, clearly signifies that the natural instinct of self-preservation moved my clients to go there secretly and save Count Luigi by destroying his adversary.

“Then why did they stay there, after the deed was done?  Mrs. Pratt had time, although she did not hear the cry for help, but woke up some moments later, to run to that room—­and there she found these men standing and making no effort to escape.  If they were guilty, they ought to have been running out of the house at the same time that she was running to that room.  If they had had such a strong instinct toward self-preservation as to move them to kill that unarmed man, what had become of it now, when it should have been more alert than ever.  Would any of us have remained there?  Let us not slander our intelligence to that degree.