“Truth at the bottom of the decanter, eh?” he inquired. “Well, if that’s the method you can give me just two fingers and all the soda. The truth’s sometimes dangerous when it’s undiluted. And, remember, I warned you frankly that it might not be convenient to tell you very much just at present. The arrangement was that you were to give your views and I was to say what I thought of them.”
Wendover acknowledged the accuracy of this.
“At least you might give me something in the way of general principles, though. They aren’t hush-hush matters, at any rate.”
Sir Clinton came over, lifted his tumbler, and went back again to his seat before replying.
“That’s true enough,” he admitted. “But I don’t think general principles are likely to take you far in this case. I can make you a present of them without giving much away.”
Wendover poured out his own whiskey and soda and returned to his chair.
“Go on,” he said. “Make a lecture of it, if you like. The night’s still young.”
“I’ve a good mind to take you at your word, and you’ll have only yourself to thank if it bores you. To begin with, then, there are three basic points on which a prosecutor has to satisfy the judge—or the jury, if it’s a jury case. These are: opportunity, method, and motive. It isn’t absolutely necessary to prove motive; but one does what one can to establish it if possible. A jury might be chary of convicting unless they saw something of the sort.”
“You might expand that a bit,” Wendover suggested. “All you’ve given me is three words.”
“Take them one by one,” Sir Clinton went on. “First of all, opportunity. The accused man must be somebody who had a real chance of committing the crime—somebody who isn’t excluded by ordinary physical impossibilities. If a body with its throat freshly cut were to fall into this room at the present moment, it would be no use trying to bring a case against the Mikado or the President of the United States. We know that they’re thousands of miles away at this time. It would be physically impossible for them to have done the trick.”