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The spectators' seats became noisy due to the bold public confession from his wife and his lawyer.
Especially those who attended this court were affected by the love story between me and Archduke Richard.
Dreamy groans and muffled gasps erupted.
A smile crept onto my face at the reaction I was hoping for.
Here, we had to look like the love couple of the century.
“….”
At the same time, the Archduke's lips slowly parted.
It may seem like a slight change to others, but I, who had been facing his face daily in the cramped visiting room lately, noticed it.
'He must have been completely shocked.'
He was probably very surprised by my confession.
He would not have done anything even if he had received a death sentence from the judge at that moment.
It was natural for him to be confused after hearing a public confession that was not agreed upon.
Of course, the Archduke was not the only one who received a shock at this court.
“A-You, are you insulting this sacred court now with such obscene words?”
The face of the head of the police department, who heard a love confession instead of the expected confession, reddened.
He shouted irritably, and she gave him a rude expression.
“Insulting the Holy Court?
Is there anything in the world more sacred than love?”
“Lawyer, if you keep talking about things that have nothing to do with the trial, I will throw you out of the courtroom.”
The judge hit his gavel hard and shouted.
Of course, it will later be revealed that no speech by the lawyer in the courtroom is irrelevant to the case.
I smiled innocently.
“Impossible!
I will begin the case now, Your Honor.”
Well, there are two ways to exonerate the client.
1.
Proof of innocence.
2.
Making all evidence proving the accusation useless.
The first method is the best, but it is not easy.
Proving murder is easy, but proving non-murder requires a strong alibi.
However, the Archduke was arrested at the crime scene, so he has no alibi.
Then, I had no choice but to choose the second method, destroying all the certificates and evidence provided by the police department.
“I request that the witness be questioned.”
I planned to deal with the testimony first. ففي شهادته، التي تأكّدتُ منها في مقالات الصّحف وسجلّات التّحقيق، كانت هناك ثغرات.
I suddenly turned to the witness, the gardener, and his throat trembled with tension.
“Can you describe the garden of Baron Haydn’s palace in which you work?”
“Yes...?
This is... the large and small trees alternated, and we placed statues of legendary figures at each new turning point.”
“When was the time you saw the victim?”
“I think it was between ten and eleven o’clock at night, which is my patrol time.”
“Are there oil lamps in the garden?”
“No, we don’t have any because the embers from the lamps could fall into the garden and start a fire.”
I smiled at the expected answer, and continued asking questions.
“It must have been pitch black, an ideal situation for the accused to have committed the crime.”
“Yes... that's right.”
Soft whispers rose in the hall upon hearing the question, which seemed to recall the crime.
The police chief, as if expecting me to make a mistake, raised the corner of his mouth in a wry smile.
I ignored him and continued the interrogation.
“You said you saw the accused standing in the dark garden holding a dagger?
Since he was holding the dagger, this must have been before he stabbed the victim.”
“Right.”
The witness answered with a little hesitation, as if my question highlighting the Archduke’s crime more was a bit strange.
I continued my prepared question in a very low voice.
“Are patrols part of your work?”
“That's right.
We take turns between the gardeners.”
“What do you do during patrol?
I don’t know very well what patrols are.”
This time, sighs erupted from here and there in the spectator seats.
‘It says she is a lawyer, but she has been asking unnecessary questions for some time!’ ‘Isn’t she just an idiot?’ There were complaints like this too.
The gardener thought the question was irrelevant to the case, so he frowned slightly and then opened his mouth.
“Verify that there are no dangerous elements in the garden, or intruders.”
“What actions do you take if you detect a dangerous presence or intruder?”
“I sometimes remove the danger myself, and if it is difficult on my own, I inform others in the palace.”
As questions continued about the management of the park, which no one cared about, sighs of boredom echoed from here and there.
“Lawyer.
Resolve your personal curiosities that are not relevant to the case separately.
I repeat, I can dismiss you by the authority of the judge.”
The judge could take it no longer, so he finally came forward and issued a warning.
I nodded and looked at the witness.
“You said you clearly saw the accused standing in the garden holding a dagger.”
“Yes.
Looks like I've answered this several times already.”
The gardener, who was answering meekly, gradually began to show his annoyance.
Of course, the police chief's expression was no different.
Victor's expression, watching the trial from afar, had long darkened with his disappointment in my plea.
"good."
Finally, the preparation of the ingredients is finished.
It's time to start cooking.
I opened my eyes wide and looked at the gardener.
“What action did the witness take when he saw the accused that day?”
“What is the procedure...?”
The gardener shuddered in surprise at my sharp tone, different from before.
He repeated my question carefully, as if trying to understand my meaning.
So, I reminded him of his previous statement again.
"A man with a gun is definitely a dangerous element.
He is also an intruder.
According to the witness's statement, if such a person had been discovered during patrol, shouldn't he have immediately removed him or informed others?"
In an instant, the court was filled with cold silence.
Everyone seemed confused by the sudden shift in the atmosphere.
I did not miss that moment when everyone was focused, and I directed my words to the witness in a more intense tone.
“But there is no record that the witness ever reported this.
Why?”
“Certainly at that time...there was nothing wrong in the garden.
And the Baron was not lying on the ground...”
I interrupted the gardener's excuses in confusion and snapped my fingers.
“There was no problem.
That's right.
That's what happened.”
"What?"
“Because what the witness saw was not a man with a gun.”
“...!”
With my firm, confident voice, the spectators' seats erupted and the police department employees whispered.
The police chief suddenly got up from his seat.
“The defense lawyer rejects the witness’s testimony as false testimony without any reason!”
“I did not say it was perjury.
I was simply correcting the mistake.”
I looked at the police chief clearly and answered.
According to the article, the person who saw the Archduke before the crime was the gardener, and the person who reported it after discovering the dumped victim with the Archduke next to him was the maid.
'Why didn't he inform the gardener?'
It was an uncomfortable feeling I had ever since I started investigating the case.
I concluded that it was a 'testimony error'.
Unless everyone has a strong memory like me, memory can easily become polluted.
Information that is known after the time of testimony unconsciously creates false memories.
This is exactly why investigative agencies provide photographs of several similar people to a witness to identify the criminal.
“When looking at the record of the witness’s testimony, he initially said he was not sure, then he said he saw a strange man, and after the incident was published in the newspapers and he received interrogations from the police department several times, he finally testified that he saw the Archduke carrying the dagger.”
As expected, as the gardener's testimony continued, he became increasingly suspicious of Archduke Richard as the killer.
As the investigation progressed and Archduke Richard was accused of guilt, the gardener's memory came back to superimpose the suspect's face on a passing scene.
This tendency becomes more evident with age, and the gardener was old enough to do so.
“I didn't lie!”
cried the gardener in a trembling voice.
So I calmed him down quietly.
“I didn't say the testimony was a lie.
I'm just saying there's something wrong with your memory.”
“It's impossible!”
He fell into the trap.
I smiled broadly.
“So, can you describe the appearance of the defendant that you saw that day?
The color of the clothes, or the style of the hair.”
“It was very dark so I couldn't see well...but I think it was the Archduke's face...”
“You saw nothing else at all, but you saw his face clearly.
I can't quite understand it.”
I did not expect the witness to admit error so easily.
So, I smiled lightly and opened the prepared materials.
This error in testimony had clear scientific evidence in addition to subjective conviction.
“These are the witness’s medical records.
I got them from the clinic the witness goes to.”
Therefore, I visited the clinic that the gardener goes to every day.
Honestly, I barely got those records after I told the doctor how to recover the money his friend stole.
Ironically, I was a debt and fraud specialist in my past life.
"The witness's eyesight has deteriorated significantly recently.
He is having extreme difficulty distinguishing objects in the dark.
Everyone here has probably seen him struggling to read the words of an oath to testify previously."
The audience buzzed when they heard my words.
They clearly witnessed the gardener stuttering his oath.
The judge's face frowned after reviewing the documents.
I changed my tone and tried to calm the witness.
“You said there are statues of many mythical figures in the park?
Most of them are holding something in their hand.
So, in the dark, they could easily be mistaken for a person.”
“……”
The witness's face contorted with confusion.
I took that gap and finally asked the witness.
“Are you really sure you saw the accused that day?”
"…I don't know."
With his answer, the police chief's face distorted.
The judge's expression appeared confused, as if he did not expect the testimony to be retracted.
I confirmed the truth to the judge again.
“Your Honor, this overwhelming witness testimony has been rejected.”
“But the dagger is clear evidence...!”
The police chief's voice trembled as he tried to hide his confusion, rejecting my argument.
I sent a calm look towards the police chief.
It's time to present counter-evidence and destroy their evidence.
“Oh, that's right.
The dagger that the accused lost.
But I found that dagger that was said to be missing.”