o stay away, and when the case finally comes to
trial has only the naked accusation of the complainant to disprove.
Or, to put it in more technically correct fashion, the complainant
has only his own word wherewith to establish his case beyond a
reasonable doubt. A bold contradiction is often so startling that
it throws confusion into the enemy's camp.

I once defended a worthy gentleman named Cohen on a charge of
perjury, alleged to have been committed by him in a civil case in
which he, as defendant, denied that he had ever ordered a set of
stable plans from a certain architect. The latter was a young man
of very small practice who had an office but no clerks or draughtsmen.
He certainly believed with the utmost honesty that my client had
come to his office, engaged him to design a stable, and approved
an elaborate set of plans that he had drawn. When it came to paying
for them Mr. Cohen declined. The architect brought suit, and at
the trial swore to the dates and places of the interviews between
Cohen and himself, and to all the surrounding circumstances and
details connected with the execution of the plans in question.
His lawyer expected that the defendant would interpose the defense
that the plans were inferior, defective, or worthless. Not at all!
Mr. Cohen swore that he had never ordered the plans and, in fact,
had _never seen the architect in his life!_ He alleged that until
the suit was brought he had never even _heard_ of him, and that
either the architect was demented or a liar, or else some other
Cohen had given the order. The architect and his lawyer were
thunderstruck, but they had no witnesses to corroborate their
contentions, since no one had ever seen Cohen in the other's office.
The jury disagreed and the architect in some way secured Cohen's
indictment for perjury. But during the criminal trial, at which
I defended him, Mr. Cohen calmly persisted in his denial that he
had ever enjoyed the honor of the architect's acquaintance, and
after two prosecutions, in each of which the jury hopelessly
disagreed, the indictments against him were dismissed. From this
it may easily be inferred that no fact is too patent to be denied.
Frequently the more heroic the denial the greater its verisimilitude
to truth. The jury feel that no prisoner would _deny_ a fact that
it would be much easier to _explain away_--and believe him.

I once represented an Italian called the King of Mulberry Street,
who was ch