“Yes, precisely the reason. One must credit even a common thief with some intelligence. No one uselessly adds the crime of murder to a lesser crime. Masked assassins wholly unknown to the decedent would have gagged and bound him. It would have answered their purpose as well. But not the purpose of a known, unmasked assassin. Safety for him lay only in the banker’s death.”
The attorney added:
“That death was so unavoidably necessary—to cover the identity of the assassin—that the evidences of an accidental death were arranged with elaborate care. Is it not true?”
The witness had been twisting his feet about; his face uncertain. Now it took on a dogged look.
“It’s true that the thing was a slick job.”
The attorney took one step toward the witness. “Now, Mr. Barkman,” he said, “can you tell me why assassins who had so carefully staged this tragedy to appear accidental should leave behind them two handkerchiefs, with eye-holes cut in them, thrust carelessly into a vase on a table? They might be found, and that discovery would, at once, negative the theory of accidental death.”
“They wanted to get rid of the masks.”
“But if they wore no masks? Is it not inconceivable that they would have placed them there to jeopardize all that they had so carefully planned?”
The witness was watching the attorney, the dogged look deepening in his face.
“If they didn’t wear masks, of course they wouldn’t have put them there—it would have been a fool thing.”