The attorney moved out closer to the witness. The point, as one might say, of his voice seemed to sharpen.
“Now, Mr. Barkman, if these masks were not put into the vase on the table by the assassins, then they were put there by somebody else; and if they were not put there on the night of the robbery, they were put there later; and if they were put there by some one later, it was one who had access to the house later; and if they were put there by one having access to the house after it was established the banker did not die from a natural cause, then they were put there to deceive.”
He paused, and his final sentence descended like a hammer:
“And the deception in presenting false evidence of two men would consist in the fact that but one man had, in fact, accomplished the crime.”
The prosecuting attorney was on his feet.
“Your honor,” he said, “this is all built up on the theory that the assassins did not wear masks. There is no evidence to support such a theory. The handkerchiefs that the assassins took off of their faces and hid in the vase are here in the case for everybody to see.”
The attorney for the prisoners put out his hand and took up the two polka-dot handkerchiefs which were lying on the table before him.
“It is the cleverest criminal,” he said, “who always makes the most striking blunder. The accomplished assassin of Lord William Russell carried away the knife with which his victim was supposed to have cut his own throat. When the human intelligence, set on murder, undertakes to falsify the order of events, the absurdity of its error increases with its cunning.”
He shook the two handkerchiefs out and stretched them in his fingers.
“They are here for everybody to see,” he echoed, “and if everybody will look, he will see that these two handkerchiefs were never tied around the faces of assassins; he will see—everybody—that, while these handkerchiefs have eye-holes cut in them, the corners of them are as smooth and uncreased as though they had been ironed; if they had been tied around the faces of assassins, they would show the strain and the fold of the knot!”