Well pleased with her flattery, Thorne returned the smile, but he warned her that when those twelve men got into the jury room they would get down to facts.
And it so happened that the twelve men got down to the facts before they even started for the jury room, for already the prosecutor had begun his speech and was stripping the case of everything save the truth.
"This, gentlemen," he now told the jury, quietly, "is not an unusual case; it's an every-day story growing out of jealousy and hatred; one bad man shot another bad man—that's all."
At this the temperature of the crowd dropped from the fever-heat of frenzied sympathy down to the freezing-point of common-sense. Challoner stirred uneasily; Shirley Bloodgood shivered; only Miriam Challoner sat with the same placid look on her face.
Murgatroyd now left his jury, walked to the table where the prisoner sat, and without taking his eyes from the face of the accused, he continued:—
"... This man Challoner is a wilful, deliberate murderer! This is not his first offence—he began to murder years ago...."
At this point the prosecutor went back to the time when Challoner married a beautiful young girl, emphasising the fact that he had married this mere slip of a girl for her money.
"Her money! And he has never earned a dollar since!" he told his listeners with great scorn. "And his life! What has he made of it? Ah! You men know the things that are done in this city between midnight and morning, and the up-hill fight that is being made to clean it of corruption and vice! Well, this degenerate, this profligate, did these things of the under-world. They appealed to him; he was no mere youth to be led astray!"
Challoner winced; not that he quailed before the menacing posture that the prosecutor had assumed, but because of a guilty consciousness that the accusing lips meant every word that they uttered. The audience shifted uneasily in their seats; Shirley Bloodgood held her breath as she placed a protecting arm about Miriam, which Miriam gently shook off; for what need had she for sympathy?
Murgatroyd returned to his place in front of the jury rail, and briefly reviewed the evidence.