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Chapter 2

Dangerous Witnesses

I

DO NOT know whether the witnesses for the defence

and for the prosecution were separated into groups by

the President, and whether it was arranged to call them in

a certain order. But no doubt it was so. I only know that

the witnesses for the prosecution were called first. I repeat

I don’t intend to describe all the questions step by step. Be-

sides, my account would be to some extent superfluous,

because in the speeches for the prosecution and for the de-

fence the whole course of the evidence was brought together

and set in a strong and significant light, and I took down

parts of those two remarkable speeches in full, and will

quote them in due course, together with one extraordinary

and quite unexpected episode, which occurred before the

final speeches, and undoubtedly influenced the sinister and

fatal outcome of the trial.

I will only observe that from the first moments of the

trial one peculiar characteristic of the case was conspicu-

ous and observed by all, that is, the overwhelming strength

of the prosecution as compared with the arguments the de-

fence had to rely upon. Everyone realised it from the first