The Attorney-General rose again, and said—
"That is the case, my lord, and gentlemen of the jury, for the prosecution; and we leave it in your hands to deal with as you shall think fit."
Todd's counsel now rose to commence the speech for the defence, and he spoke rather ingeniously, as follows—
"My lord, and gentlemen of the jury—
"I have, upon the part of my client, the prisoner at the bar, most seriously to complain of the vast amount of extraneous matter that has been mixed up with this case. To one grain of wheat, we have had whole bushels of chaff; and gentlemen have been brought here surely to amuse the court with long-winded romances.
"Gentlemen, the prisoner at the bar is clearly and distinctly charged with the murder of one Francis Thornhill, and instead of any evidence, near or remote, fixing that deed upon him, we have nothing but long stories about vaults, and bad odours in churches, and moveable floor-boards, and chairs standing on their heads, and vaults, and secret passages, and pork pies! Really, gentlemen of the jury, I do think that the manner in which this prosecution has been got up against my virtuous and pious client, is an outrage to your common-sense."
Todd rather looked up at this. It was something to hear even an Old Bailey counsel call him virtuous and pious; and a gleam of hope shot across his heart that things might not be quite so hard with him after all.
"This, gentlemen of the jury," continued the counsel, "is an attempt, I must say, to take the life of a man from a variety of circumstances external to the real charge to which he is called upon here to plead. Let us examine the sort of evidence upon which it has been thought proper to put a fellow-creature to this bar upon a charge affecting his life.
"In the first place, we are told that a number of very respectable men went out from their various respectable houses, and never went back again. Pray, what has that to do with the death of one Francis Thornhill? Then we are told that the respectable men went to get shaved; and then that Sir Richard Blunt had a shave no less than eight times at the prisoner's shop, and yet here he is quite alive and well to give his evidence here to-day, and no one will say that Sir Richard Blunt is not a respectable man. Then we have a bad smell in the church of St. Dunstan's. Really, gentlemen of the jury, you might as well say that the prisoner at the bar committed felony, because this court was not well ventilated.
"We are told, to come more particularly to the evidence, such as it is, bearing upon the case, that Francis Thornhill left a certain shop intending to go into the City to a Miss Oakley, and that on the road he went into the prisoner's shop to be shaved, and from that we are asked to infer that he was murdered there, because nobody saw him come out. Really, this is too bad! Hundreds of people may have seen him come out, and no doubt did do so, but they happened not to know him, and so just because no one was passing who could say, 'Ah! Mr. Thornhill, how do you do? I see, you have had a clean shave to-day,' the prisoner at the bar is to be declared guilty of murder.