With difficulty the demonstrations of approval that broke out in every part of the room were checked by the court officers.
Moved by that inevitable heart-stopping vision of "hanged by the neck," every spectator turned to the handsome woman in the dock.
The calmness with which she received the stares of a thousand eyes was marvelous. No one expected that she would now break her mysterious silence. When, therefore, she rose and turned her eyes towards the court the spectators sat fairly spellbound with surprise.
"May it please your honor," she began in a firm, clear voice; then, lifting one slender white hand, she pointed to the door at the back of the witness stand.
Every eye followed her gesture. A tall female figure, heavily veiled, accompanied by one of the associate counsel of the defense, stood in the doorway. The next moment she raised her veil, advanced rapidly, and took her place beside the prisoner.
The scene that followed resembled a street riot, rather than the solemn proceedings of a courtroom. Men, wild with excitement, mounted their chairs, women rose in their seats, pushing, jostling, and crowding each other in their frantic efforts to get a better view of the highly sensational proceedings. The confusion was indescribable, the noise deafening. Not until McWhorter was seen to spring to his feet did the court officers' vigorous rapping and loud cries for order produce any effect. Instantly all was silence. Rigid suspense held the spectators breathless. With the light they had missed in his eye and the fire they had longed for in his voice the young lawyer spoke, addressing the judge:
"May it please the court,—nice customs must bow to desperate needs. When a man is called upon to face in defense of a woman's life such odds as I found in this case, when he sees justice outwitted by the devil's trick,—circumstantial evidence,—he must resort to the devil's weapon,—cunning. Such evidence as has been here given has hanged many a man, and I believe that when a man of any heart, any soul, any chivalry, sees that it is likely to hang a woman it becomes his duty to combat fate as the defense has done in this case.
"I ask your honor, I ask the jury, I ask the witnesses, to look upon these two women. As they stand there side by side, there is a marked difference in their heights, a decided difference in the color of their hair, a striking difference in the color of their eyes, a very perceptible difference, even at this distance, in the tone of their skin; and, I may add, a difference of eight years in their ages. The woman who has just been pronounced guilty of murder is the wife of a gentleman who throughout this trial has sat within the shadow of the jury. She is innocent, as God is my judge. Every moment of her life up to this very instant can be accounted for. In substituting her to-day for the real prisoner, the defense had no desire to circumvent justice. We merely wished to save this court, this community, from the everlasting shame of hanging a woman whose guilt has not been proved. We wished to show to your honor and to these gentlemen of the jury that it is monstrous to accept as conclusive such evidence as has been given in this case. May it please your honor, this jury has just pronounced a verdict of 'guilty' against my own wife. I move that here and now this verdict be set aside."
The request was granted, and, although McWhorter was charged with unprofessional conduct and threatened with disbarment, his client was promptly acquitted on the new trial which the court ordered.
