Peacock proceeded. “There, gentlemen, is the crime, there too, the motive. To finish the picture evidence will be adduced.”
He sat down. Then getting up, he called the first witness for the People, the Gramercy Park caretaker, who had found the body. The witness was succeeded by others, by the policeman on the beat, by the coroner’s physician, by experts and servants.
By turn Orr took them in hand. With some he was curiously perfunctory. Of the caretaker, a meagre old man, with shifty eyes, who appeared very uncomfortable, he asked but four questions.
“When you found the body what did you do?”
“Ran and got the policeman, sir.”
“Where did you get him?”
“On Lexington Avenue and Twenty-third Street, sir.”
“Did you find him at once?”
“No, sir, I had to hunt a bit.”
“Between the time you found the body and the time you got back how many minutes would you say had elapsed?”
“About ten or fifteen minutes, sir.”
“That’s all,” said Orr.
It was not much. Yet with the policeman, a fat man with a red face and a blue nose, he was even briefer.
“When you reached the park with the last witness, how did you get in?”
“Walked in, sir,” the man answered with a grin.