A. No, sir.

Q. I thought not.  Did any person give it?

A. No, sir.

The audience drew a deep inspiration, as if with one accord!  They had ceased to reason.  Again and again had we been brought, as we all felt sure, within a single syllable of the truth, only to find ourselves at the next word more mystified than ever.  It would hardly have surprised us more if the prisoner had informed us that Mr. Darrow still lived.  The excitement was so intense that thought was impossible, so we could only listen with bated breath for someone else to solve the thing for our beleaguered and discouraged minds.  After a word with his colleague, Maitland resumed.

Q. A blow was given, yet no person gave it.  Was it given by anything which is alive?

A. It was not.

You could have heard a pin drop, so silent was the room during the pause which preceded Maitland’s next question.

Q. Did you arrange some inanimate object or objects outside the eastern window, or elsewhere, on the Darrow estate so that it or they might wound Mr. Darrow?

A. No,—­no inanimate object other than the hypodermic syringe already referred to.

Q. To my question:  “A blow was given, yet no person gave it.  Was it given by anything which is alive?” you have answered:  “It was not.”  Let me now ask:  Was it given by anything which was at that time alive?

A. It was.

There was a stir all over the court-room.  Here at last was a suggestive admission.  The examination was approaching a crisis!

Q. And you have said it was not a person.  Was it not an animal?

A. It was.

“An animal!” we all ejaculated with the unanimity of a Greek chorus.  So audible were the exclamations of incredulity which arose from the spellbound audience that the crier’s gavel had to be brought into requisition before Maitland could proceed.

Q. Did you train a little Capucin monkey to strike this blow?

A. I did.

A great sigh, the result of suddenly relieved tension, liberally interlarded with unconscious exclamations, swept over the court-room and would not be gavelled into silence until it had duly spent itself.

Even the Judge so far forgot his dignity as to give vent to a half-stifled exclamation.

Maitland proceeded: 

Q. In order that this monkey might not attack the wrong man after you had armed him, you taught him to obey certain signals given by little twitches upon the cord by which you held him.  A certain signal was to creep stealthily forward, another to strike, and still another to crawl quickly back with the weapon.  When circumstances seemed most favourable to the success of your designs,—­that is, when Miss Darrow’s voice and the piano prevented any slight sound from attracting attention,—­you gently dropped the monkey in at the window and signalled him what to do.  When Mr. Darrow sprang to his feet you recalled the monkey and hastened away.  Is not this a fairly correct description of what occurred?