The prosecution of Shane O'Connell, which otherwise might have slowly languished and languishing died, took on new life owing to the evidence thus innocently delivered into the hands of the district attorney; in fact it became a _cause célèbre_. The essential elements to convict were now all there--the _corpus delicti_, evidence of threats on the part of the defendant, of motive, of opportunity, and--his confession. The law which provides that the statement of an accused "is not sufficient to warrant his conviction without additional proof that the crime charged has been committed" would be abundantly satisfied--though without his confession there would have been no proof whatever that the crime charged had been committed by him. Thus, without her knowing it, Miss Beekman was an essential witness and, in fact, the pivot upon which the entire case turned. The day of the great sporting event came. With it arrived in full panoply the McGurks, their relatives and followers. All Cherry Hill seemed to have packed itself into Part I of the Supreme Court. There was an atmosphere somehow suggestive of the races or a prize fight. But it was a sporting event which savored of a sure thing--really more like a hanging. They were there to make holiday over the law's revenge for the killing of the darling of the Pearl Button Kids. Peckham personally assured McGurk that everything was copper-fastened. "He's halfway up the river already!" he said jocularly. And McGurk, swelling with importance and emotion, pulled a couple of cigars from his pocket and the two smoked the pipe of peace. But the reader is not particularly concerned with the progress of the trial, for he has already attended many. It is enough to say that a jury with undershot jaws, who had proved by previous experience their indifference to capital punishment and to all human sympathy, were finally selected and that the witnesses were duly called, and testified to the usual facts, while the Pearl Button Kids and the rest, spitting surreptitiously beneath the benches, eagerly drank in every word. There was nothing for Mr. Tutt to do; nothing for him to deny. The case built itself up, brick by brick. And Shane O'Connell sat there unemotionally, hardly listening. There was nothing in the evidence to reflect in any way upon the honor of the O'Connells in general or in particular. He had done that which that honor demanded and he was ready to pay the penalty--if the law could get him. He assumed that it would get him. So did the Tutts. But when toward the end of the third day nothing had yet been brought forward to connect him with the crime Tutt leaned over and whispered to Mr. Tutt, "D'ye know, I'm beginning to have a hunch there isn't any case!" Mr. Tutt made an imperceptible gesture of assent. "Looks that way," he answered out of the corner of his mouth. "Probably they'll spring the connecting evidence at the end and give us the _coup de grâce_."