“After entering your house did you meet any of the other occupants? any of your fellow-lodgers?”
“I don’t remember.”
“But you must make an effort to remember. Try.”
“I tell you, I don’t remember,” I repeated. His persistence irritated me.
“You appear to take as little interest in this case as though it were the life of a dog hanging in the scales instead of your own,” he said, and that was the truth.
Next day his face wore a somber expression.
“This is too bad,” he cried. “I have interviewed your landlady and your fellow-lodgers, and not one of them can swear to your alibi. I know you are innocent, but I don t see how I am to prove it.”
At last the trial began.
I sat through that trial, the most indifferent person in the court-room. I heard the testimony of the witnesses and the speeches of the lawyers simply because I was close at hand and could not help it. But I was the least interested of the many auditors, the least curious as to the result. Yet, stolid, indifferent, inattentive as I was, every detail of the trial is stamped upon my memory in indelible hues. Here is the story of it.
The first day was used in securing a jury.