portance and mystery by the other side--by Lewis and his friends!
They tell you how the servant awoke at midnight--you know it is an
absurd trifle, but the word "midnight" sounds so much more solemn
and dreadful than the words "twelve o'clock p.m."--how she woke at
midnight and heard a door open--as if people didn't always open doors
when they wanted to go out! How she got up quietly--perhaps you may be
inclined to say treacherously--and stole downstairs. How she had
recognised the footsteps as those of Miss Owen. How she heard the
front-door go, and finally found it unfastened, except for the latch.
And all as if something very dreadful had taken place, instead of the
ordinary incident of a young lady going out for an hour to walk off a
headache!

'And, after all, what does it come to? Why, it sounds ridiculous, but
the whole end and result of all this is to prove the very thing which
I am most anxious to have proved on behalf of the prisoner--namely,
that she was out of the house when this murder was committed. They
have tried to incriminate the prisoner, and they have ended in proving
an unimpeachable alibi!'

He stopped to let his words sink into the minds of the jury, and
everyone in court took advantage of the break to change their
positions and breathe more freely. Whispers were exchanged, and the
feeling began to prevail that a good point had been made, and the
prisoner might very likely get off.

'With what happened after that the prisoner has nothing to do. Mr.
Lewis and his friends do not seem to realize, what I hope you will
realize, that the fact of footsteps being heard a few minutes after
is the strongest point in the prisoner's favour. Why, if no one else
had been heard to enter the house on that night, it would have looked
bad for her. But that is just what the prosecution, in their blind
mismanagement, have proved. They have shown out of the mouth of their
own witness that someone did come in; someone who had been waiting
outside ready to come in, and who took advantage of Miss Owen's exit
to slip in by means of a latchkey which he had found, or stolen, or
borrowed from the deceased.

'Now you have the clue. This girl, who stated that ten minutes had
elapsed, when it must have been only three, to judge by her notions
of time in other matters, this same girl wanted to insinuate that the
footsteps she heard the second time were the prisoner's. Gentlemen, I
ask you frankly not to believe it. I ask yo