“Well, they have had their victims; I hope that they do not sleep worse at night for the rest of their lives when they think of the victims that they selected.
“Two things the state has made no attempt to explain—who it was that stole the note from Patrick Ives’s study and who it was that laughed when Madeleine Bellamy screamed. Whoever took the note, it was not Susan Ives. She had no possible motive in denying having taken it; she freely admitted that she searched the study for some proof of her husband’s duplicity, and she also admitted that Elliot Farwell had informed her that he believed her husband was meeting Madeleine Bellamy at the cottage that very night. The note, which we presume was making a rendezvous, would in no way have added to her previous information. Any one of six or eight servants or six or eight guests may have intercepted it; whoever did so knew when and where Madeleine Bellamy was to be found that night.
“The laugh is more baffling and disconcerting still; the state must find it mightily so. It will be instructive to see whether they are going to ask you to believe that it was uttered by Stephen Bellamy as he saw his wife fall. In my opinion only a degenerate or a drunken monster would have chosen that moment for mirth. Possibly it is Mr. Farr’s contention that he was both. Providentially, that is for you and not for him to decide.
“The state has still another little matter to explain to your satisfaction. According to its theory, Stephen Bellamy and Susan Ives arrived at the scene of the crime in a car—in Mr. Bellamy’s car. The murderer of Madeleine Bellamy did not arrive in a car—or at any rate, no car was visible two minutes later in that vicinity. There were no tire tracks in the space behind the house, and the state’s own witnesses have proved that on both Stephen Bellamy’s visits his car was left squarely in front of the cottage door. If someone left an unlighted car parked somewhere down the main drive, as the state contends, it was not he. His car would have been clearly visible to any human being who approached the cottage. It will, as I say, be instructive to see how the state disposes of this vital fact.
“I have touched on these matters because I have desired to make clear to you two or three factors that are absolutely incompatible with any theory that the state has advanced. If they are to be disposed of in the most remotely plausible fashion, some other theory must be evolved, and I believe that you will agree with me that it is rather late in the day to produce another theory. I have not touched on them—and I wish to make this perfectly clear—on the ground that they are in no way necessary to our defense. That defense is not dependent on such intriguing details as who took the note, or who laughed, or whether the murderer approached his goal on foot or in a car. The defense that I advance is simple and straightforward and independent of any other circumstances.
“Of all the things that I have said to you, there is only one that I hold it essential that you carry in the very core of your memory when you leave this room on as solemn an errand as falls to the lot of any man. This only: That the sole defense that I plead for Stephen Bellamy and Susan Ives is that they are innocent—as entirely and unequivocally innocent as any man of you in whose hands rests their fate; that this foul and brutal murder was against their every wish, hope, or desire; that it is to them as ghastly, as incredible, and as mysterious as it is to you. That and that only is their defense.
“It is not my task, as you know—as in time Judge Carver will tell you—to prove them innocent. It is the state’s to prove them guilty. A heavy task they will find it, I most truly believe. But I would have you find them something more than not guilty. That is the verdict that you may render with your lips, but with your hearts I ask you to render another more generous and ungrudgingly. ‘Innocent’—a lovely, valiant, and fearless word, a word untainted by suspicion or malice. A verdict that has no place in any court, but I believe that all who hear your lips pronounce ‘Not guilty’ will read it in your eyes. I pray that they may.
“I said to you that when you left this room you would be bound on the most solemn of all errands. I say to you now that when you return you may well be bound on the most beautiful one imaginable—you will return in order to give life to two who have stood in the shadow of death. Life!
“You cannot give back to Susan Ives something that she has lost—a golden faith and carefree security, a confidence in this world and all its works. You cannot give back to Stephen Bellamy the dead girl who was his treasure and delight, about whose bright head clustered all his dreams. You cannot give back to them much that made life sweetest, but, gentlemen, you can give them life. You can restore to them the good earth, the clean air, the laughter of children, the hands of love, starlight and firelight and sunlight and moonlight—and brightest of all, the light of home shining through windows long dark. All these things you hold in your hands. All these things are yours to give. Gentlemen, I find it in my heart to envy you greatly that privilege, to covet greatly that opportunity.”
He sat down, slowly and heavily, and through the room there ran an eager murmur of confidence and ease, a swift slackening of tension, a shifting of suspense. And as though in answer to it, Farr was on his feet. He stood silent for a moment, his hands clasped over the back of the chair before him, his eyes, brilliantly inscrutable, sweeping the upturned faces before him. When he lifted his voice, the familiar clang was muted: