o
have they been convicted on direct testimony also. That is not,
though, a reason for declining to accept such testimony. The
possibility of error exists alike. But because men may err do they
refuse to act? Because wheat may be blighted does the farmer refuse to
sow? No, gentlemen. Until we have means of knowledge beyond our
present faculties we must accept this kind of evidence or grant
practical immunity to crime."

The exordium concluded, Peacock warmed to his work. What he said he
seemed to literally tear from his mouth. It was an arraignment not
delivered but hurled, headlong, with the force and rush of a cavalry
charge. Before it Orr's points sank overwhelmed. To replace them with
others of his own Peacock made new ones, evolving them with a fire and
lucidity that was pyrotechnic. They were like bombs exploding before
the jury's eyes. He arraigned the defendant, arraigned the defense,
stampeded their tactics, denounced Annandale's manner, which he
declared to be that of a hardened criminal, and pictured him as a
jealous husband who, in accordance with a plot long premeditated, had
first lured his victim to his house, then following him thence had
murdered him in the darkness, but who now swore that he was drunk and
remembered nothing. "Assuming that he was drunk," Peacock shouted,
"his intoxication was a feigned disguise, assumed for the purpose and
legally an aggravation of his dastard crime."

Beneath, in the unlovely street, an organ was tossing a jig. The jolts
of it mounted to the court, fusing with Peacock's voice, adding their
vulgarity to his own, and it was to the wretchedness of them that he
said at last: "My duty is done."

He had scored points by the dozen. In as many seconds Orr had their
heads off by half.

"Harris, gentlemen, is the rock of the People's case. His hand
fashioned it. Without him it crumbles. Let me array for you Harris
against Harris."

Leisurely Orr began, showing the man's hand for what it was, not dirty
and disreputable merely, but discredited.

"Apart from that hand where is the promised evidence? Where is it?
Where is that evidence? Gentlemen, not a bit of evidence have you had,
not a molecule, not a minim, not a mite. At best or at worst any
evidence producible against this defendant would be circumstantial. In
telling you the value of such testimony the District Attorney has been
good enough to leave it to me to explain that testimony of this
character must, to be co