Q. I thought not. Did any person give it?
A. No, sir.
The audience drew a deep inspiration, as if with one accord! They had ceased to reason. Again and again had we been brought, as we all felt sure, within a single syllable of the truth, only to find ourselves at the next word more mystified than ever. It would hardly have surprised us more if the prisoner had informed us that Mr. Darrow still lived. The excitement was so intense that thought was impossible, so we could only listen with bated breath for someone else to solve the thing for our beleaguered and discouraged minds. After a word with his colleague, Maitland resumed.
Q. A blow was given, yet no person gave it. Was it given by anything which is alive?
A. It was not.
You could have heard a pin drop, so silent was the room during the pause which preceded Maitland’s next question.
Q. Did you arrange some inanimate object or objects outside the eastern window, or elsewhere, on the Darrow estate so that it or they might wound Mr. Darrow?
A. No,—no inanimate object other than the hypodermic syringe already referred to.
Q. To my question: “A blow was given, yet no person gave it. Was it given by anything which is alive?” you have answered: “It was not.” Let me now ask: Was it given by anything which was at that time alive?
A. It was.