The Opening of the Defence.

Excellent! I smell a device.

Twelfth Night.

LATE that afternoon the prosecution rested. It had made out a case of great strength and seeming impregnability. Favorably as every one was disposed to regard the prisoner, the evidence against him was such that, to quote a man who was pretty free with his opinions in the lobby of the court-room: “Orcutt will have to wake up if he is going to clear his man in face of facts like these.”

The moment, therefore, when this famous lawyer and distinguished advocate rose to open the defence, was one of great interest to more than the immediate actors in the scene. It was felt that hitherto he had rather idled with his case, and curiosity was awake to his future course. Indeed, in the minds of many the counsel for the prisoner was on trial as well as his client.

He rose with more of self-possession, quiet and reserved strength, than could be hoped for, and his look toward the Court and then to the jury tended to gain for him the confidence which up to this moment he seemed to be losing. Never a handsome man or even an imposing one, he had the advantage of always rising to the occasion, and whether pleading with a jury or arguing with opposing counsel, flashed with that unmistakable glitter of keen and ready intellect which, once observed in a man, marks him off from his less gifted fellows and makes him the cynosure of all eyes, however insignificant his height, features, or ordinary expression.

To-day he was even cooler, more brilliant, and more confident in his bearing than usual. Feelings, if feelings he possessed — and we who have seen him at his hearth can have no doubt on this subject — had been set aside when he rose to his feet and turned his face upon the expectant crowd before him. To save his client seemed the one predominating impulse of his soul, and, as he drew himself up to speak, Mr. Byrd, who was watching him with the utmost eagerness and anticipation, felt that, despite appearances, despite evidence, despite probability itself, this man was going to win his case.

“May it please your Honor and Gentlemen of the Jury,” he began, and those who looked at him could not but notice how the prisoner at his side lifted his head at this address, till it seemed as if the words issued from his lips instead of from those of his counsel, “I stand before you to-day not to argue with my learned opponent in reference to the evidence which he has brought out with so much ingenuity. I have a simpler duty than that to perform. I have to show you how, in spite of this evidence, in face of all this accumulated testimony showing the prisoner to have been in possession of both motive and opportunities for committing this crime, he is guiltless of it; that a physical impossibility stands in the way of his being the assailant of the Widow Clemmens, and that to whomever or whatsoever her death may be due, it neither was nor could have been the result of any blow struck by the prisoner’s hand. In other words, we dispute, not the facts which have led the Prosecuting Attorney of this district, and perhaps others also, to infer guilt on the part of the prisoner,”— here Mr. Orcutt cast a significant glance at the bench where the witnesses sat — “but the inference itself. Something besides proof of motive and opportunity must be urged against this man in order to convict him of guilt. Nor is it sufficient to show he was on the scene of murder some time during the fatal morning when Mrs. Clemmens was attacked; you must prove he was there at the time the deadly blow was struck; for it is not with him as with so many against whom circumstantial evidence of guilt is brought. This man, gentlemen, has an answer for those who accuse him of crime — an answer, too, before which all the circumstantial evidence in the world cannot stand. Do you want to know what it is? Give me but a moment’s attention and you shall hear.”

Expectation, which had been rising through this exordium, now stood at fever-point. Byrd and Hickory held their breaths, and even Miss Dare showed feeling through the icy restraint which had hitherto governed her secret anguish and suspense. Mr. Orcutt went on:

“First, however, as I have already said, the prisoner desires it to be understood that he has no intention of disputing the various facts which have been pres............