If this agreement does not settle the question, there
is an end of all reasoning on circumstantial evidence.[46]
Here the five points or marks of similarity between the writer of the
letters and Philip Francis are of such diversity that it would be an
extraordinary coincidence if there had happened to be two men whom they
would fit: where so many lines converge so closely at a single point it
would hardly be possible for them to meet on more than one person.
The following brief extract from Webster's argument in the White Murder
Case shows the same sort of convergence of similarities: each
circumstance in itself is hardly strong enough to furnish ground for an
argument on analogy, but taken all together they point irresistibly in
one direction, namely, to the fact of a conspiracy.
Let me ask your attention, then, in the first place, to those
appearances, on the morning after the murder, which have a tendency to
show that it was done in pursuance of a preconcerted plan of operation.
What are they? A man was found murdered in his bed. No stranger had done
the deed, no one unacquainted with the house had done it. It was
apparent that somebody within had opened, and that somebody without had
entered. There had obviously and certainly been concert and cooperation.
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