“Very sad!—quite so! Very sad case, I call it.” Demarest went on speaking, with a show of feeling: “Most unusual case, in my estimation. You see, the girl keeps on declaring her innocence. That, of course, is common enough in a way. But here, it's different. The point is, somehow, she makes her protestations more convincing than they usually do. They ring true, as it seems to me.”
Gilder smiled tolerantly.
“They didn't ring very true to the jury, it would seem,” he retorted. And his voice was tart as he added: “Nor to the judge, since he deemed it his duty to give her three years.”
“Some persons are not very sensitive to impressions in such cases, I admit,” Demarest returned, coolly. If he meant any subtlety of allusion to his hearer, it failed wholly to pierce the armor of complacency.
“The stolen goods were found in her locker,” Gilder declared in a tone of finality. “Some of them, I have been given to understand, were actually in the pocket of her coat.”
“Well,” the attorney said with a smile, “that sort of thing makes good-enough circumstantial evidence, and without circumstantial evidence there would be few convictions for crime. Yet, as a lawyer, I'm free to admit that circumstantial evidence alone is never quite safe as proof of guilt. Naturally, she says some one else must have put the stolen goods there. As a matter of exact reasoning, that is quite within the measure of possibility. That sort of thing has been done countless times.”
Gilder sniffed indignantly.
“And for what reason?” he demanded. “It's too absurd to think about.”
“In similar cases,” the lawyer answered, “those actually guilty of the thefts have thus sought to throw suspicion on the innocent in order to avoid it on themselves when the pursuit got too hot on their trail. Sometimes, too, such evidence has been manufactured merely to satisfy a spite against the one unjustly accused.”
“It's too absurd to think about,” Gilder repeated, impatiently. “The judge and the jury found no fault with the evidence.”