Wilson regarded the case of the twins as desperate—in
fact, about hopeless. For he argued that if a
confederate was not found, an enlightened Missouri
jury would hang them; sure; if a confederate was found,
that would not improve the matter, but simply furnish
one more person for the sheriff to hang. Nothing
could save the twins but the discovery of a person
who did the murder on his sole personal account—an
undertaking which had all the aspect of the impossible.
Still, the person who made the fingerprints must be
sought. The twins might have no case WITH them,
but they certainly would have none without him.
So Wilson mooned around, thinking, thinking, guessing,
guessing, day and night, and arriving nowhere.
Whenever he ran across a girl or a woman he was not
acquainted with, he got her fingerprints, on one pretext
or another; and they always cost him a sigh when he
got home, for they never tallied with the finger marks
on the knife handle.
As to the mysterious girl, Tom swore he knew no such
girl, and did not remember ever seeing a girl wearing
a dress like the one described by Wilson. He
admitted that he did not always lock his room, and
that sometimes the servants forgot to lock the house
doors; still, in his opinion the girl must have made
but few visits or she would have been discovered.
When Wilson tried to connect her with the stealing
raid, and thought she might have been the old woman’s
confederate, if not the very thief disguised as an
old woman, Tom seemed stuck, and also much interested,
and said he would keep a sharp eye out for this person
or persons, although he was afraid that she or they
would be too smart to venture again into a town where
everybody would now be on the watch for a good while
to come.
Everybody was pitying Tom, he looked so quiet and
sorrowful, and seemed to feel his great loss so deeply.
He was playing a part, but it was not all a part.
The picture of his alleged uncle, as he had last seen
him, was before him in the dark pretty frequently,
when he was away, and called again in his dreams,
when he was asleep. He wouldn’t go into
the room where the tragedy had happened. This
charmed the doting Mrs. Pratt, who realized now, “as
she had never done before,” she said, what a
sensitive and delicate nature her darling had, and
how he adored his poor uncle.
Even the clearest and most perfect
circumstantial evidence is likely to be at fault,
after all, and therefore ought to be received
with great caution. Take the case of any pencil,
sharpened by any woman; if you have witnesses,
you will find she did it with a knife; but if
you take simply the aspect of the pencil, you
will say she did it with her teeth. —
Pudd’nhead Wilson’s Calendar
The weeks dragged along, no friend visiting the jailed
twins but their counsel and Aunt Patsy Cooper, and
