"But the object of all in the court-room is to see that justice is done, though the heavens crumble. "I have examined no witnesses. I shall examine none. But I ask this in the latitude of the Court, and in the name of that Justice whose servants we one and all are, as much myself, advocate for the prisoner, as the district attorney for the people of the State of New York, as the jury in the box, as the judge on his bench: that the next witness, Thomas McCarthy, shall be allowed to tell his own story in his own way, relating facts which may not seem germane to the case, but which I claim are as pertinent as the pistol with which the crime was committed or the _corpus delicti_ itself. I ask this of the Court and I request the Court so to direct." "This is hardly regular, Mr. Donegan." "I ask this in the name of Justice!" "This is a court of Justice, Mr. Donegan." The judge's manner had a slight rebuke. "But if the district attorney is agreeable--" The district attorney, a little nettled, but rather awed before the tremendous purpose of Donegan, shrugged his shoulders. "Very well, Mr. Donegan," the judge nodded. "The district attorney--" Donegan addressed the jury--"is calling Thomas McCarthy to prove the identity of Anna Janssen. He is an officer of the City of New York, a witness for the State of New York. The attorney has called him to prove that the prisoner in the dock is Anna Janssen. I shall not examine him. But when he has given his testimony for the district attorney he will have given his testimony for me. "And I shall have proven that the chorus girl who killed Alastair de Vries is not the woman who stands in the dock!" There was an instant's sighing from the courtroom, a momentary relaxation. So Donegan had fought and won his first fight, and now they were going to hear the History of the Spicy Isles. Now all the mystery would be lifted that had been hanging about the court-room like a necromancer's mist. "Call Thomas McCarthy!" Donegan barked from the side of his mouth. "Officer Thomas McCarthy." "Thomas McCarthy to the stand!" As he stood in the witness-box, McCarthy seemed to bulk tremendously in the room. As Anna Janssen seemed to fill the court spiritually, so he seemed to fill it physically. Emanations of strength, emanations of power came from him like current from a battery. He was not six feet tall, but so erect did he stand, so free was his carriage that he seemed to tower above all in the court-room. He was not a big man, but he suggested tremendous strength, so easily with the smallest movement did the sinews ripple beneath his coat. Brown as copper, his face had not the strange mystery of Anna Janssen's, because his eyes and hair were black, where hers were fair. Yet he was strange.