l perversion, what is the evidence?
Mr. Riley and Mr. Warren both say that the east door was fastened on the
inside, with strict orders not to have it opened at all; and so strict
were they, that they themselves went and came by the west door. No one
can be found who opened that door or saw it opened, or saw Mr. Davis go
in or out at it, and it is next the Marshal's desk, and in plain sight
of every one. No one could come in at it, without knocking and having it
opened from within. During the half hour before the rescue, there was no
one in the room but the prisoner, the officers and the counsel. The
doors were both in plain sight, the east door locked, and at the west
door two officers, between whom every person must pass. Both these
officers testify that Mr. Davis did not go out or in to their knowledge.
Byrnes, Neale and Sawin, the other officers, did not see him go, and
think he did not leave the room. Mr. Riley is confident he did not leave
the room. Mr. Wright found Mr. Davis in the room, half an hour before
the rescue, and is sure he did not leave. Not a man in the court room
saw him go or come, or believes that he did so. If Prescott's conjecture
is true, Mr. Davis must have gone out past the officers at the west
door, returned to the east door, knocked and been admitted by another
officer,--beside the inconsistencies about the men in the closet.

We might well ask, what if this were Mr. Davis? What does it prove? He
spoke to no one, except a "good day" to one man, and took no notice of
the crowd at the door. But I will not argue this supposition, for it is
not true. It was not Mr. Davis. He did not leave the room until he went
out for the last time.

Something has been attempted to be made out of Mr. Davis' conversation
with the officers in the room. A man engaged in a plot for a rescue,
would not be likely to expose himself to suspicion by violent remarks to
officers. But take the evidence as it stands. At the request of Mr.
List, he asked Sawin, whom he knew, if the man next Shadrach was a
Southern man. This was proper. The counsel did not wish a man to sit
next the prisoner, who might converse with him for the purpose of
getting admissions from him. They feared he might be an agent of the
claimant. He said privately to Mr. Sawin, whom he had known intimately
for years, that this was a dirty business he was engaged in. He did not
know Mr. Sawin to be an officer of the Court. He knew him as a city
constable;