"It is, as I have already said, not my object to accuse any other person, and I will give up the inquiry as to whether it was Miss Frick herself who visited the pawnbroker that day; my object is only to show that if Mr. Jurgens has mistaken another woman for my client, Evelina Reierson, it is not at any rate the first time that day that she was the object of a mistaken identity.
"What I have now adduced ought in itself to be sufficient to change the opinion of the jury, if they have hitherto considered my client to be guilty. But I am in the fortunate position of being able to prove that what has hitherto appeared to be the most weighty evidence against my client is, on the contrary, the clearest proof of her innocence. I refer here to the circumstance that the witness, Mr. Howell, has declared that he, at the time when the theft must have been committed, had seen the accused in front of the cupboard where the diamond was kept, and that he had even photographed her in this position. The photograph, in which all will recognize my client, is now here in court. When I say that I can prove that this circumstantial evidence is false, I mean that here, also, we have a case of mistaken identity, and I can prove that the person who is photographed here (he took the photograph in his hand) is not, and cannot be, the accused. The proof is a simple one, although I must confess that only an accident has enabled me to produce it. (The young counsel here pulled out a large magnifying glass from his pocket, and handed it, together with the photograph, to the judge.) Will the court, and the gentlemen of the jury, and I would ask my colleague, the public prosecutor, to do the same, look at the photograph through the magnifying glass? You will then, gentlemen, see that the person who has been photographed wears a ring on the ring finger of the left hand.
"Will you next examine the hand of the accused? When she was a little girl, she broke the ring finger of her left hand in a fall. The bone did not set properly, so that there is now a protuberance, which prevents her from wearing a ring on that finger."
The counsel then raised the young girl's hand so that all could see it, to which she quietly submitted, but without lifting her eyes from the floor and without a change of expression on her waxen face.
"All will be able to convince themselves of the truth of this. I do not think that any declaration from a medical authority is necessary. And, gentlemen, let the magnifying glass show you yet another thing. You will at once see on the left of the lady's head an object on the shelf above. It is the little ivory elephant with the clock, of which mention has already been made in the course of evidence. The glass, gentlemen, will enable you not only to see the clock in the forehead of the elephant, but also to plainly discover the position of the hands. What time do the hands show? They show the time to be twenty minutes to six.
"Where was my client at that time? On this point we have full information from the evidence before us. She had not returned by this time. She only came in through the garden gate at five minutes to six. And she could not, under any circumstance, be dressed at twenty minutes to six in the jacket which she only received from Miss Frick at six o'clock, or shortly afterward!
"Gentlemen, when you have assured yourselves as to the correctness of what I have told you, you will perhaps remember what the witness, Mr. Rodin, the able photographer, said in court:—
"'The photograph cannot lie!'
"With the permission of the court, I will postpone any further remarks till the jury have convinced themselves that everything is as I have stated."
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