But forewarned by this trifling experience, Mr. O'Brien induced the
customer, the next witness, to swear that Crocedoro had not in fact made
any move whatever with his razor toward Angelo, who had deliberately
raised his pistol and shot him.

Mr. Tutt rose to the cross-examination with the same urbanity as before.
Where was the witness standing? The witness said he wasn't standing.
Well, where was he sitting, then? In the chair.

"Ah!" exclaimed Mr. Tutt triumphantly. "Then you had your back to the
shooting!"

In a moment O'Brien had the witness practically rescued by the
explanation that he had seen the whole thing in the glass in front of
him. The firm of Tutt & Tutt uttered in chorus a groan of outraged
incredulity. Several jurymen were seen to wrinkle their foreheads in
meditation. Mr. Tutt had sown a tiny--infinitesimally tiny, to be
sure--seed of doubt, not as to the killing at all but as to the complete
veracity of the witness.

And then O'Brien made his coup.

"Rosalina Serafino--take the witness stand!" he ordered.

He would get from her own lips the admission that she bought the pistol
and gave it to Angelo!

But with an outburst of indignation that would have done credit to the
elder Booth Mr. Tutt was immediately on his feet protesting against the