“Your Honor,” he said, addressing the judge, “I object to this expression. It is an unfair expression. It has no place in a judicial trial of which the sole object is to arrive at the truth. The prosecuting attorney has no right to undertake to prejudice the prisoner before the jury. That is an ungenerous expression. If the prisoner did not kill Mr. Collander, some one else did kill him, and if we don’t know, precisely, who that other person was we cannot dismiss him as mythical, as a ‘mysterious stranger,’ as though he were a figment of the imagination.” The judge did not reply. He was accustomed to these passages between the attorneys, staged always for effect, and he took no part in them if he could avoid it. The prosecuting attorney replied with ill-concealed irony. “If the prisoner did not kill him!” he echoed. “Quite so,” replied the Colonel, “and for your benefit, sir, I will say that I propose to show, in a moment, that she not only did not kill him, but that she could not have killed him.” The prosecuting attorney made a vague gesture in the air with his extended fingers. The aspect of irony remained. “Go to it,” he said. “Now, Ellen,” continued the attorney, “what made you think there was some one outside of the house on the ground below the porch who called Mr. Collander to the door?” The prosecuting attorney was on his feet before the sentence was ended. “Your Honor,” he said, “this thing is ridiculous. Colonel Armant has started in at the end of this case to set up one of the old stock defenses. Your Honor knows ’em; everybody knows ’em; they are the last resort of the guilty; the ‘alibi’ and the ‘mysterious stranger.’ He could not use the alibi because everybody saw this woman on the spot. Not even Colonel Armant with all his acuteness could get in an alibi. As it happened, Robert McNagel, the chief of police, was out at the engine house just below Collander’s residence. Colonel Armant was there; they were sitting in the engine house when they heard the shots. McNagel ran with the Colonel to Collander’s house; they were the first persons on the ground. McNagel was there when the woman ran out of the house and when she shouted, ‘Save me, Colonel.’ He went after her and brought her back, so the alibi had to be given up. The only thing left is the ‘mysterious stranger.’” The prosecuting attorney laughed.