EIGHT. I want to try this thing. Let’s see how long it took him. I’m going to pace off twelve feet—the length of the bedroom. (He begins to do so.)
THREE. You’re crazy. You can’t re-create a thing like that.
ELEVEN. Perhaps if we could see it … this is an important point.
THREE (mad). It’s a ridiculous waste of time.
SIX. Let him do it.
EIGHT. Hand me a chair. (Someone pushes a chair to him.) All right. This is the bedroom door. Now how far would you say it is from here to the door of this room?
SIX. I’d say it was twenty feet.
TWO. Just about.
EIGHT. Twenty feet is close enough. All right, from here to the door and back is about forty feet. It’s shorter than the length of the hall, wouldn’t you say that?
NINE. A few feet, maybe.
TEN. Look, this is absolutely insane. What makes you think you can—
EIGHT. Do you mind if I try it? According to you, it’ll only take fifteen seconds. We can spare that. (He walks over to the two chairs now and lies down on them.) Who’s got a watch with a second hand?
TWO. I have.
EIGHT. When you want me to start, stamp your foot. That’ll be the body falling. Time me from there. (He lies down on the chairs.) Let’s say he keeps his canes right at his bedside. Right?
TWO. Right!
EIGHT. Okay. I’m ready.
(They all watch carefully. TWO stares at his watch, waiting for the second hand to reach sixty. Then, as it does, he stamps his foot loudly. EIGHT begins to get up. Slowly he swings his leg over the edges of the chairs, reaches for imaginary canes, and struggles to his feet. TWO stares at the watch. EIGHT walks as a crippled old man would walk, toward the chair which is serving as the bedroom door. He gets to it and pretends to open it.)
TEN (shouting). Speed it up. He walked twice as fast as that.
(EIGHT, not having stopped for this outburst, begins to walk to simulated forty-foot hallway.)
ELEVEN. This is, I think, even more quickly than the old man walked in the courtroom.
EIGHT. If you think I should go faster, I will.
(He speeds up his pace slightly. He reaches the door and turns now, heading back, hobbling as an old man would hobble, bent over his imaginary canes. They watch him tensely. He hobbles back to the chair, which also serves as the front door. He stops there and pretends to unlock the door. Then he pretends to push it open.)
EIGHT (loud). Stop.
TWO. Right.
EIGHT. What’s the time?
TWO. Fifteen … twenty … thirty … thirty-one seconds exactly.
ELEVEN. Thirty-one seconds.
(Some of the JURORS adlib their surprise to each other.)
EIGHT. It’s my guess that the old man was trying to get to the door, heard someone racing down the stairs, and assumed it was the boy.