continued: "I have other testimony--and better. [This compelled
interest, and evoked murmurs of surprise that had a detectable ingredient
of disappointment in them.] If I seem to be springing this evidence upon
the court, I offer as my justification for this, that I did not discover
its existence until late last night, and have been engaged in examining
and classifying it ever since, until half an hour ago. I shall offer it
presently; but first I wish to say a few preliminary words.

"May it please the court, the claim given the front place, the claim most
persistently urged, the claim most strenuously and I may even say
aggressively and defiantly insisted upon by the prosecution is this--that
the person whose hand left the bloodstained fingerprints upon the handle
of the Indian knife is the person who committed the murder." Wilson
paused, during several moments, to give impressiveness to what he was
about to say, and then added tranquilly, "WE GRANT THAT CLAIM."

It was an electrical surprise. No one was prepared for such an
admission. A buzz of astonishment rose on all sides, and people were
heard to intimate that the overworked lawyer had lost his mind. Even the
veteran judge, accustomed as he was to legal ambushes and masked
batteries in criminal procedure, was not sure that his ears were not
deceiving him, and asked counsel what it was he had said. Howard's
impassive face betrayed no sign, but his attitude and bearing lost
something of their careless confidence for a moment. Wilson resumed:

"We not only grant that claim, but we welcome it and strongly endorse it.
Leaving that matter for the present, we will now proceed to consider
other points in the case which we propose to establish by evidence, and
shall include that one in the chain in its proper place."

He had made up his mind to try a few hardy guesses, in mapping out his
theory of the origin and motive of the murder--guesses designed to fill
up gaps in it--guesses which could help if they hit, and would probably
do no harm if they didn't.

"To my mind, certain circumstances of the case before the court seem to
suggest a motive for the homicide quite different from the one insisted
on by the state. It is my conviction that the motive was not revenge,
but robbery. It has been urged that the presence of the accused brothers
in that fatal room, just after notification that one of them must take
the life of Judge Driscoll or lose his own the momen