“What’s your explanation, Mr Stump?” is another question put by the counsel for the accused.
“Don’t need much, I reck’n,” is the reply. “He’d be a durnationed greenhorn as can’t see, clur as the light o’ day, thet young Peint war plugged by thet ere bullet.”
“By whom fired, do you think?”
“Wal; thet appear to be eeqully clur. When a man signs his name to a message, thar’s no chance o’ mistakin’ who it kums from. Thar’s only the ineeshuls thur; but they’re plain enuf, I reck’n, an speak for theirselves.”
“I see nothing in all this,” interposes the prosecuting counsel. “There’s a marked bullet, it is true—with a symbol and certain letters, which may, or may not, belong to a gentleman well known in the Settlement. For the sake of argument, let us suppose them to be his—as also the ball before us. What of that? It wouldn’t be the first time that a murder has been committed—by one who has first stolen his weapon, and then used it to accomplish the deed. It is but a piece of ordinary cunning—a common trick. Who can say that this is not something of the same sort?”
“Besides,” continues the specious pleader, “where is the motive for a murder such as this would be—supposing it to have been committed by the man you are now called upon to suspect? Without mentioning names, we all know to whom these initials belong. I don’t suppose the gentleman will deny that they are his. But that signifies nothing: since there is no other circumstance to connect him in any way with the committal of the crime.”
“Ain’t thar though?” asks Stump, who has been impatiently awaiting the wind up of the lawyer’s speech. “What do ye call this?”
Zeb, on delivering himself, takes from his tinder-pouch a piece of paper—crumpled—scorched along the edges—and blackened as with gunpowder.
“This I foun’,” says he, surrendering it to the jury, “stuck fast on the thorn o’ a muskeet tree, whar it hed been blowed out o’ the barrel o’ a gun. It kim out o’ the same gun as discharged thet bullet—to which it hed served for waddin’. As this chile takes it, it’s bin the backin’ o’ a letter. Thur’s a name on it, which hev a kewrious correspondings wi’ the ineeshuls on the bit o’ lead. The jury kin read the name for tharselves.”
The foreman takes the scrap of paper; and, smoothing out the creases, reads aloud:—