"I think I do," said Dr. Daincourt, with a smile.
"I do not refer to the general issues of human life," said the lawyer, in explanation; "I refer to legal matters, especially to criminal cases the solution of which rests upon circumstantial evidence. Circumstances the most remote, and apparently absolutely worthless and trivial, have been woven by a legal mind into a strand strong and firm enough to drag a prisoner out of the very jaws of death."
"And this Nine of Hearts is one of those slender threads?" said Dr. Daincourt, in a tone of incredulous inquiry.
"Very likely. You may depend I shall not lose sight of it."
"You spoke of two links," said Dr. Daincourt, "and you have shown me that which you believe to be a tangible one. What is the link which you say is shadowy and less dependable?"
"I will explain. The jury were discharged, being unable to agree upon their verdict. It may leak out through the press by-and-by--pretty much everything does leak out through the press nowadays--but it is not known at present to the public how many of the jury were for pronouncing the prisoner guilty, and how many for pronouncing him innocent."
"I have heard rumors," said Dr. Daincourt.
"I," said the lawyer, "have positive information. Eleven of them declared him guilty, one only held out that he was innocent. Arguments, persuasions, logical inferences and deductions, the recapitulation of the evidence against him--all were of no avail in this one juryman's eyes. He would not be convinced; he would not yield. He had made up his mind that the prisoner was innocent, and that he, at least, would not be instrumental in sending him from the dock a felon."
"I can see nothing in that," said Dr. Daincourt.
"There are," continued the lawyer, "in civil and criminal records, instances of a like nature, some of which have been privately sifted, with strange results, after the cases have been finally settled. I recollect one case which may bear upon this of Layton's. I do not say it does, but it may. It occurred many years ago, and the jury were locked up a barbarous length of time without being able to come to an agreement. There was no possible doubt, circumstantially, of the prisoner's guilt; the evidence was conclusive enough to convict twenty men. One person, however, would not give in, and that person was on the jury. The prisoner was tried again, and unhesitatingly acquitted. During the time that had elapsed between the first and second trials additional evidence was found which proved the prisoner to be innocent. The juryman who held out on the first trial happened to have been some years before a friend of the prisoner, a fact, of course, which was not known when the jury were empanelled. After the result of the second trial he publicly declared that he had been guided by his feelings and not by the evidence."