“And yet you will recall that on one occasion a Mr. P. called at the Twenty-fourth street house and found the angel child downstairs undressing.
“Was there one of these letters put in evidence! Is it credible that if a single one of these letters contained the slightest intimation of indecency that it would not have been put in evidence?
“Could there have been these successive ill-treatments month after month and yet not a single line in all those letters except words of tender appreciation? Contrast those letters with this, for instance: ‘Men celebrated for licking toes,’ the letter of this most modern St. George, who leads the angel child up to the true light. After days of description of the baseness and debauchery of Stanford White, it seems as if the spirit of Stanford White itself would have come here to say to Evelyn Thaw: ‘What! Not one word of kindness—not one word to say for me?’”
Here Jerome’s voice broke, his chin quivered, and he sobbed for a moment. Drying his eyes, he continued:
“The law will not allow it.” (Jerome, still talking of the spirit of White, added: “I am not on trial. I have no one here to speak for me.”)
Jerome’s eyes filled with more tears as he went on:
“‘Can you not say one word for me? Only one word for me,’ the spirit seemed to say.”
The tears started down Jerome’s face. He faced the jury, holding aloft the photograph taken by Eichemeyer—the one on the bear rug. Then he cried with evident feeling:
“Can’t you say for me something? On the stand she said, ‘I know no one who was nicer or kinder than Stanford White, except for this one awful thing. He was exceptionally kind to me and to my family.