e house. Becoming
alarmed, she went across to fetch Mr. George Grodman, a gentleman known
to us all by reputation, and to whose clear and scientific evidence we
are much indebted, and got him to batter in the door. They found the
deceased lying back in bed with a deep wound in his throat. Life had
only recently become extinct. There was no trace of any instrument by
which the cut could have been effected; there was no trace of any person
who could have effected the cut. No person could apparently have got in
or out. The medical evidence goes to show that the deceased could not
have inflicted the wound himself. And yet, gentlemen, there are, in the
nature of things, two--and only two--alternative explanations of his
death. Either the wound was inflicted by his own hand, or it was
inflicted by another's. I shall take each of these possibilities
separately. First, did the deceased commit suicide? The medical evidence
says deceased was lying with his hands clasped behind his head. Now the
wound was made from right to left, and terminated by a cut on the left
thumb. If the deceased had made it he would have had to do it with his
right hand, while his left hand remained under his head--a most peculiar
and unnatural position to assume. Moreover, in making a cut with the
right hand, one would naturally move the hand from left to right. It is
unlikely that the deceased would move his right hand so awkwardly and
unnaturally, unless, of course, his object was to baffle suspicion.
Another point is that on this hypothesis, the deceased would have had to
replace his right hand beneath his head. But Dr. Robinson believes that
death was instantaneous. If so, deceased could have had no time to pose
so neatly. It is just possible the cut was made with the left hand, but
then the deceased was right-handed. The absence of any signs of a
possible weapon undoubtedly goes to corroborate the medical evidence.
The police have made an exhaustive search in all places where the razor
or other weapon or instrument might by any possibility have been
concealed, including the bedclothes, the mattress, the pillow, and the
street into which it might have been dropped. But all theories involving
the willful concealment of the fatal instrument have to reckon with the
fact or probability that death was instantaneous, also with the fact
that there was no blood about the floor. Finally, the instrument used
was in all likelihood a razor, and the deceased did no