'We can't doubt, I think, that this was a part of the feather on the arrow. You've seen micro-photographs in which you can compare every detail, you've heard it identified by the man who attached it to the arrow: in short - as in other things in this case - you've been able to see and decide for yourselves. Well, how did that feather get there? How does this fact square with the prosecution's theory that the prisoner dragged down the arrow and used it as a dagger? That's the picture, I submit, you've got to keep in your minds. If he stabbed the deceased, there are a lot of things I'll submit with my hand on my heart that he didn't do it. He didn't tear the feather apart with a power beyond him. He didn't shove one end of it into the teeth of a crossbow. He assuredly didn't put the whole apparatus into Spencer Hume's suitcase - which, you recall, was not even packed or brought downstairs until six-thirty.
'Just a word about that suitcase. I'll suggest to you that in itself it destroys any reasonable doubt of this man's innocence. I'm not suggestin' that Miss Jordan packed a week-end cross-bow among the collar-studs and the slippers. No; I mean that it was standin' downstairs in the hall, and someone used it. But how does this apply to the prisoner? The suitcase was packed and brought downstairs at six-thirty. From that time until the time the three witnesses entered the study, it was always under somebody's eye. Did the prisoner leave the study at any time? He did not. You've heard that too frequently -especially from the prosecution. Did he approach the suitcase, to put in a cross-bow or a decanter or anything else (which, I suggest, were already somewhere else waiting to be put in)? Did he, in short, have anything to do with the suitcase? He did not have an opportunity before the crime was discovered, and he most certainly didn't have an opportunity afterwards.
'Why, burn me — HURRUM — members of the jury, I'll call your attention to another point. Part of the missin' feather is in a suitcase which, we can decide, James Answell's ghost didn't take to Paddington Station. But there's another part of that feather. You know where it was, and is. You saw it there. It was in what, for the sake of convenience, I've called the Judas window. Still keepin' in mind the prosecution's belief that Answell used the arrow as a dagger, how does this square with the presence of the feather in the Judas window?
'It doesn't. There's no doubt the feather is there. There's no doubt it got there at the time of the murder. Inspector Mottram, as you've heard, took away that door on the night of the murder, and has kept it at the police-station ever since. From the time the murder was discovered to the time Inspector Mottram took the door away, there was always somebody in the study; so the feather couldn't have landed there at any time except the time of the murder. Only a minute ago you saw Professor Parker recalled to the witness-box; you heard him identify this feather as undoubtedly the last missin' piece; and he told you why he thought so. It is the feather, then, and it was there. Well, how does my learned friend say it got there? Now, I'm not here to toss dull ridicule at a group of men like Counsel for the Crown, who've conducted their case with scrupulous fairness towards the accused, and given the defence all the latitude we could hope for. But what can I say? Just fix your minds on the stupefyin' suggestion that James Answell wildly arose and killed Avory Hume, and at the same time a bit of feather off that arrow managed to get into that hole that supports the knob-spindle in the door. Can you think of any reason for it, however ingenious, that doesn't become mere roar-in' comedy?
'You've already heard reasons why the prisoner could not conceivably have come near the cross-bow or the suitcase; in fact, it's never been suggested that he has. The same, in general, applies to the feather in the door and the little mechanism of thread on the spindle. That little mechanism. I think you'll agree, was prepared beforehand. Answell had never been in the house before in his life. That little mechanism was meant to work only from outside, to let the knob down from the other end. Answell was inside the room, with the door bolted. As I say, merely to ridicule is useless; but I'm convinced that the more you think of it the more out of question it will become, or you're a greater group of fat-hea - URR -or you're not the intelligent English jury I know you are.
'Still, the feather was there. It got there somehow; and it's not exactly a common place to find one. I'll venture to suggest that you could go home to-night and take the knobs out of all the doors in your own house: and all down the street through your neighbours' houses: and still you wouldn't End a feather in the Judas window. I'll further venture to suggest that there's only one set of circumstances in which you could find both the feather and the thread-mechanism in the Judas window. It's got nothing to do with an arrow snatched down from the wall to stab, except in so far as a drugged man inside could be used as a scapegoat. That set of circumstances is the one I hinted at a while ago: someone who stood outside that bolted door, and fired an arrow into Avory Hume's heart when the murderer was almost close enough to touch him with it.
'With your indulgence, then, I'm goin' to outline to you the way in which we believe the crime was really committed; and I'll try to show you how the facts that have been produced support it and bear against the prosecution's case.
'But, before I do, there's one thing I feel I must face. You can't disregard a beetle on the back of your neck or an unexplained statement in a court of law. Members of the jury, yesterday afternoon you heard the prisoner tell a great big thundering lie: the only lie he has told in this room: a lie that he was guilty. Mebbe he didn't say it under oath; mebbe you were inclined then to believe it all the more because he didn't. But you know now why it was told. Mebbe he didn't care then whether or not he convicted himself; others, you observe, have been tryin' hard enough to do it for him. But you'll judge whether you think the worse or the better of him for saying what he did. And the time has come now when I can stand up and accuse my own client of falsehood. For he said he stabbed Avory Hume with an arrow, whose feather broke off in the struggle. Unless you believe that statement, you cannot and you dare not return a verdict of guilty; and that statement you cannot and you dare not believe; and I will tell you why.
'Members of the jury, the way in which we believe this crime was really committed
4.32 p.m.-4.55 pjn.
From the Closing Speech for the Crown, by Sir Walter Storm
'... thus my learned friend need have no fear. I shall not ask you to wait until my lord addresses you before you learn this: If you are dissatisfied with the story of the prosecution, the prosecution have thereby failed to make out their case and it is your duty to return a verdict of not guilty. I do not think that any of you, having heard my opening speech in this case, could labour under any misapprehension as to that point. I put it before you, then, that the burden of the proof was on the prosecution, as I trust I shall always do when it becomes my duty to lay such a case before a jury.
'But it is likewise my duty to stress against the prisoner such of the material facts as constitute evidence. Facts: as I said in my opening speech. Facts: as I have said all along. Therefore I must ask you, dispassionately: how many of the material facts in this case have been altered or disproved?