Then with the dignity of long experience, he added with quiet impressiveness: "I have, as you know, faced crime these many years in all its aspects.
I have tracked the ignorant, almost imbecile, murderer of the slums, and laid my hand in arrest on the shoulder of so-called gentlemen hiding their criminal instincts under a show of culture and sometimes of wide education.

Human nature is not so very different in high and low; and what may lead an irresponsible dago into unsheathing his knife against his fellow may work a like effect upon his high-bred brother if circumstances lend their aid to make discovery appear impossible.
"Mr.Roberts is the friend of many a good man who would swear to his integrity with a clear conscience.

I would have sworn to it myself, a month ago, had I heard it questioned in the slightest manner; and I may live to swear to it again, notwithstanding the doubts which have been raised in my mind by certain strange discoveries which link him to this unhappy affair by what we are pleased to call circumstantial evidence.
For, as I am obliged to acknowledge, the one great thing we rely upon, in accusations of this kind, is so far lacking in his case: I mean, the motive.
"I know of none--can, in fact, conceive of none--which would cause a gentleman of even life and ambitious projects to turn a deadly weapon upon an innocent child with whom he is not, so far as we can discover, even acquainted.

Dementia only can account for such a freak, and to dementia we must ascribe this crime, if it is necessary for us to find cause before proceeding to lay our evidence before the District Attorney.
All I propose to do at present is to show you my reasons for thinking that the arrow which slew Angeline Willetts--or, as we have been assured by unimpeachable authority, Angeline Duclos masquerading under the name of Angeline Willetts--was set to bow and loosed across the court by the gentleman we have just mentioned." Here Mr.Gryce stopped for a look of encouragement from the severely silent man he was endeavoring to impress.

But he did not get it.