If your grandfather ever fought a duel with that weapon, he’d have run his man through, wouldn’t he?
Providing he got the chance, of course!
“But here are two stab wounds, and both of them short.
That’s not accident, that’s necessity.
That’s a short knife, to my mind anyhow.
He might have gone short the first time, but not the second.
Never the second.”
I was re-reading my notes.
“What do you mean by the wig?” I asked.
“Well, that hair was peculiar.
It had no root, for one thing.
A hair that’s torn out usually has a root; and there was no dust on it, nothing that ought to be on hair in active service!
Nothing but a lot of brilliantine.
Mind you, that’s only a chance.
Still, it has its points.
A man old enough to have white hair and wear it long is too old to have put that body in the sewer.”
“You mean that whoever it was was disguised?”
“I say there’s a possibility of it.
You see, men often disguise themselves to commit crimes.
That and to make an escape are practically the only times any criminal uses disguise at all.
In other words a murderer is seen at or near the scene of the crime, and identified by certain marks; hair, eyebrows, clothes or what not.
But in his own proper person he has none of those marks.”
“And they won’t bring that out at the trial?”
“Well, why should they?” he said reasonably.
“It wouldn’t help Blake any.
How do we know he didn’t wear a wig that night?”
“Then why bring it in?”
He smiled.
“For the effect on the jury,” he said.
“Nobody has shown that Jim Blake wore such a wig, or even owned a wig.
As a matter of fact I don’t believe he did.
But get Lowell to work that three hours and the unknown in a white wig, and dress clothes, and at least he’s got a talking point.”
Chapter Twenty-five
I TOOK THOSE NOTES to Godfrey the next day, and by the eagerness with which he seized on them I realized his desperation.
“Where on earth did you get all this?”
“Never mind, Godfrey.
It’s our case; that’s all.”
And that was the situation the day before Jim’s trial opened; Laura arriving in the early morning, having left her children for once, and outraged over the whole situation.
But not for a moment taking the outcome seriously; coming in from the car, smartly dressed and vocative, followed by that mass of hand luggage which she requires for a twenty-four-hour journey.
“Don’t look at me.
I’m a mess, but of course I had to come.
Of all the ridiculous and pointless accusations!
How are you, Joseph?
How d’you do, Clara!
Charles told me to see that I had an extra bolt on my door!
Isn’t that like him?
That cabinet looks well in there.”
Nor did she once consider a possible unfortunate outcome for Jim until the trail began.
Then the dignity of the court, the gravity of the counsel for both sides, all the panoply of a trial in which a sovereign state with all its resources is opposed to a single individual in a prisoner’s box, began to impress her.
Our faces, too, must have told her something of our doubts; Judy pale and thin, and Katherine as if she had been chiseled out of marble.