"The defendant will keep his lousy confessions to himself!" shrieked the judge. "I will not have the importance of our Very Complicated Monstrous Proximilator machine vitiated by these unwanted confessions!" Bork shrugged. "I just wanted to clear up a couple of details, your honor. I just like to be tidy." "We don't _need_ your help," responded the judge crushingly. "The Very Complicated Monstrous Proximilator machine tells us _all_ we want to know." He turned to the prosecutor. "You may proceed." "The state rests." * * * * * Bork's lawyer advised the court that no defense would be presented. The prosecutor exhorted the jury that its duty was plain. The judge gave final instructions, and the jury filed out. It returned in four minutes. "Gentlemen of the jury, have you reached a verdict in such a gratifyingly short space of time?" the judge asked, beaming. The foreman arose. "We have, your honor." "Just for the record, what is your verdict?" twinkled the judge. "Not guilty, your honor." The prosecutor jumped up. "Why, that can't be!" he shouted. "It's a _prima facie_ case, unrefuted and therefore patent. What else do you _need_?" "Yeah!" agreed the judge, outraged. "We need some plain, old-fashioned evidence of a crime," answered the juryman, unperturbed. "Old-fashioned?" The fuming prosecutor rejected the heresy, pushing it away from him with both hands. "This is all unscientific now," he warned. "The Very Complicated Monstrous Proximilator machine--especially the new model with the forty-three meters which replaces the old thirty-nine meter machine--is the _ne plus ultra_ of justice!" "Oh, no, it isn't," dissented the foreman. "Did your evidence place the deadly weapon in the defendant's hand? Did your evidence even tend to show the holes in the woman's chest were _made_ by a gun? She said nothing about a weapon, if you will recall. She merely said, 'Why are you pointing that at me, Bork? What are you going to do, Bork?'" "But he had plenty of motive," pleaded the prosecutor. "Oh, we'll go along with _that_," assented the foreman. "And the defendant admitted it!" pursued the prosecutor triumphantly. The foreman shook his head. "Admissions don't count. The judge said so himself." "So even though you know he's guilty," the prosecutor said hollowly, "you're going to let him go?" "That's right," agreed the foreman happily, and cleared his throat. "We, the jury," he pronounced, "find this fellow innocent of what he did!" End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Happy Homicide, by Frank Banta