Page:Burton Stevenson--The marathon mystery.djvu/281

Rh he is visibly disturbed; at the moment of his arrest, he was preparing to escape; he refuses to explain where he was at the time the crime was committed; he’s involved in steel speculation and presumably needs ready money.”

“Well?”

“Well,” said Godfrey earnestly, “that very perfection is its greatest weakness. It’s too perfect. Any one of those things might have happened; perhaps any two of them; but that they should all have happened outrages the law of probabilities. That every link of the chain is complete means that it has been artificially produced, like a stage storm, where the lightning flashes at just the right instant. The fellow who arranged it wanted to be too sure—he overleaped himself.”

“That may all be true,” I said slowly, after a moment, “but it would be worse than folly to use that argument with a jury. To say that a man isn’t guilty because the evidence against him appears to be conclusive”

“We’re not going to use it to a jury; we’re using it between ourselves, in the effort to find a working hypothesis. And here’s another argument which would carry no weight with a jury, yet which with me, personally, is conclusive: I know Jack Drysdale; I’ve known him for a long time; and I know that it’s utterly impossible that he should have committed such a crime. He’s not a very original fellow; not at all a genius; he’s never done anything, perhaps, which either of us would think really worth doing; but he’s kind, and honest, and gentle, and honourable. I re-