"You may open the case, Mr. O'Brien," announced Judge Babson, leaning
back and wiping his glasses.
Then surreptitiously he began to read his mail as his fellow conspirator
undertook to tell the jury what it was all about. One by one the
witnesses were called--the coroner's physician, the policeman who had
arrested Angelo outside the barber shop with the smoking pistol in his
hand, the assistant barber who had seen the shooting, the customer who
was being shaved. Each drove a spike into poor Angelo's legal coffin.
Mr. Tutt could not shake them. This evidence was plain. He had come into
the shop, accused Crocedoro of making his wife's life unbearable
and--shot him.
Yet Mr. Tutt did not lose any of his equanimity. With the tips of his
long fingers held lightly together in front of him, and swaying slightly
backward and forward upon the balls of his feet, he smiled benignly down
upon the customer and the barber's assistant as if these witnesses were
merely unfortunate in not being able to disclose to the jury all the
facts. His manner indicated that a mysterious and untold tragedy lay
behind what they had heard, a tragedy pregnant with primordial vital
passions, involving the most sacred of human relationships, which when
known would rouse the spirit of chivalry of the entire panel.
On cross-examination the barber testified that Angelo had said: "You
maka small of my wife long enough!"
"Ah!" murmured Mr.
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