The Case For The Defence

The Case for the Defence
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The Case for the Defence is a thriller by Graham Greene, an English novelist, which deals with a strange murder trial. The defendant, guilty of murder of a woman and having four eye-witnesses to testify against him is thought of standing no chance of acquittal. Yet, a twist in the story renders the jurymen helpless and they haveto acquit him for lack of evidence. In the end, he or his twin brother meets with a horrible death, having been crushed under a bus. The readers are left to conclude about the dead person's identity as well as the nature of divine justice.


[edit]Plot

In this story, a man named Adams murders an old lady; the murder case is named as the 'Peckham Murder Case'; there are four witnesses to thatbrutal murder. Gradually, the murder case is introduced in the court where one Adams brother stands in the box while another Adams, identical in looks takes his seat at the back. The sitting Adams is with his wife. The witnesses are called to share their memories of the murder night and one after the other they do. The last witness, Mrs. Salmon, also the prime person in the story identifies theman standing before her as the murderer; but soon as she is pointed to look at the Adams at the back, she is confused. There is a dilemma hanging in the air as to who is the real murderer. The Adams standing in the box thereby is acquitted as lack of evidence takes over. But later on, justice overpowers the plot of the Adams. While going out of the court, one of the Adams brothers is hit by aspeeding bus, his skull being exactly hammered just as the way Mrs.Parker's had been and the other brother cries over his dead brother's body. The real murderer is still unknown to the reader. So , all we can deduce from this story is the concept of divine Vengeance - may be under the influence of some plan or idea, a criminal could escape; but since the devil gets his due, so did he.


Analysis of:The Case for the Defence 

Death penalties are strictly forbidden in England today, but if we go only eighty years back in time, to the late 1930s, this sort of penalty were still very much in use. 

In the crime; The Case for the Defence, we follow the case for a Mr Adams. He is the main suspect of murdering an old woman. She was found battered to death in Northwood Street, right outsideLondon. The case is looking quite bad for the defendant, as the one witness after the other give evidence that he is guilty. But at the time when the situation seems really hopeless for Mr Adams, the case takes a shocking turn. The ideal witness, Mrs Salmon, enters the witness box and is about to swear that they have taken the right man, when the defendants twin brother stands up. Her certainty of theguilt of the defendant is in a second turned to totally confusion. Mr Adams and his twin brother looks like two drops of water, and it’s impossible to be absolutely sure of which one who is the guilty one. Because of the loss of evidence, the suspected twin and his brother are set free. The huge amount of press that is right outside the entrance is waiting for the twins to come out. In just asecond, one of the twins is pushed right in front of a bus and dies. Then there is just one big question left; did the guilty twin die? Or is he the one who is alive, who now runs free? 

The story is told through the eyes of an anonymous person. If it’s a man or a woman, I don’t know, but we do know that he or she is in the court during the trial. In the first paragraph, the storyteller says “Theynamed it the Peckham murder in the headlines…”, so if I should guess what part the storyteller is in the court, I would guess for a journalist for a newspaper. Also at the end of the story, when the twins are acquitted, he or she is only six feet away. This makes my theory most likely correct. The person who is telling the story describes the witnesses and how they present their evidences...