“Why he was killed!” repeated the man in the chair. “Yes, precisely the reason. One must credit even a common thief with some intelligence. No one uselessly adds the crime of murder to a lesser crime. Masked assassins wholly unknown to the decedent would have gagged and bound him. It would have answered their purpose as well. But not the purpose of a known, unmasked assassin. Safety for him lay only in the banker’s death.” The attorney added: “That death was so unavoidably necessary—to cover the identity of the assassin—that the evidences of an accidental death were arranged with elaborate care. Is it not true?” The witness had been twisting his feet about; his face uncertain. Now it took on a dogged look. “It’s true that the thing was a slick job.” The attorney took one step toward the witness. “Now, Mr. Barkman,” he said, “can you tell me why assassins who had so carefully staged this tragedy to appear accidental should leave behind them two handkerchiefs, with eye-holes cut in them, thrust carelessly into a vase on a table? They might be found, and that discovery would, at once, negative the theory of accidental death.” “They wanted to get rid of the masks.” “But if they wore no masks? Is it not inconceivable that they would have placed them there to jeopardize all that they had so carefully planned?” The witness was watching the attorney, the dogged look deepening in his face. “If they didn’t wear masks, of course they wouldn’t have put them there—it would have been a fool thing.” The attorney moved out closer to the witness. The point, as one might say, of his voice seemed to sharpen. “Now, Mr. Barkman, if these masks were not put into the vase on the table by the assassins, then they were put there by somebody else; and if they were not put there on the night of the robbery, they were put there later; and if they were put there by some one later, it was one who had access to the house later; and if they were put there by one having access to the house after it was established the banker did not die from a natural cause, then they were put there to deceive.” He paused, and his final sentence descended like a hammer: “And the deception in presenting false evidence of _two_ men would consist in the fact that but _one_ man had, in fact, accomplished the crime.” The prosecuting attorney was on his feet. “Your honor,” he said, “this is all built up on the theory that the assassins did not wear masks. There is no evidence to support such a theory. The handkerchiefs that the assassins took off of their faces and hid in the vase are here in the case for everybody to see.” The attorney for the prisoners put out his hand and took up the two polka-dot handkerchiefs which were lying on the table before him.