For the
prisoner's proceedings on the night of the murder, however, supposing
she had committed it, and still more on the morning after, it would have
been difficult to find a better epithet; the only drawback was that this
one had seen service in the cause of almost every murderer who ever went
to the gallows--as counsel for the prosecution remarked in his reply,
with deadly deference to his learned friend.
"On the other hand," he went on, wagging his eyeglasses with leisurely
deliberation, and picking his words with a care that enhanced their
effect, after the unbridled rhetoric of the defence--"on the other hand,
gentlemen, if criminals never made mistakes, inconceivable or not as we
may choose to consider them--if they never made those mistakes, they
would never stand in that dock."
It was late on the Saturday afternoon when the judge summed up; but a
pleasant surprise was in store for those who felt that his lordship must
speak at greater length than either of the counsel between whom he was
to hold the scales. The address from the bench was much the shortest of
the three. Less exhaustive than the conventional review of a
complicated case, it was a disquisition of conspicuous clearness and
impartiality.
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