William Baker, a retired banker, was a man of great positiveness of ideas. Engaged in a controversy with a friend over a murder trial in which circumstantial evidence decided the fate of the accused, he proved the danger of inference at the sacrifice of his own life. Planning carefully to throw every suspicion upon a body servant, he commits suicide. The servant is arrested, tried and convicted on circumstantial evidence, but upon his conviction Baker's ante-mortem statement is handed the judge and the faithful servant is freed, with the Baker fortune to pay him for the mental torture he endured.
