Then he addressed the witness.
“Now, Mr. Barkman,” he said, “I’d like you to tell us precisely what you think happened on the night of the twenty-seventh. I want you to reconstruct this crime for us. I want you to show us just how Old Bill and Lyin’ Louie went about this thing.”
The witness moved as though rearranging himself in his chair. He shifted his shoulder a little to one side and he looked around toward the jury.
“Well, Colonel,” he said, “I think I can tell you just exactly what happened.”
He was not expecting to be interrupted. But he was interrupted by a sort of explosive assent.
The big attorney was looking at him, resting his huge body on both hands, on the table. The witness was for a moment disconcerted, then he went on:
“It was like this,” he said, “as I figure it out. Everybody knows that Old Bill was a bank-cracker.”
Again there was a sort of booming interruption.
“He was never a good bank-cracker,” the lawyer exploded; “he was a poor bank-cracker. He was such a damn poor bank-cracker that he got into the pen-i-ten-tia-ry house!”
The witness laughed.