The Silent Witness (1912)
The president of a state bank finds that the District Attorney has evidence that will send him to jail. The banker calls on the official of the law, and succeeds in bribing him to suppress the case. Not only is the District Attorney a grafter, but his secretary is of much the same caliber. During the conference between the District Attorney and the banker, the dishonest secretary is hidden in an adjoining room, and unseen by the others, he takes a photograph over the transom just at the interesting moment when a considerable sum of money changes hands. The secretary develops the picture and finds that it is excellent. He proceeds to blackmail his employer, and finds it possible to live extravagantly without work. He laughs at the District Attorney, and retains the evidence of the official's crimes. Among the friends of the secretary is a young couple, and the secretary, becoming idle and dissipated, proceeds to make love to the wife. He hides his passion until one evening when he finds the wife alone. He then tries to embrace her. The husband comes back at this moment, and makes a rush for the would-be despoiler of his home. A lamp, the only light in the room, is upset, and the place is dark. Then there is a flash and a shot, and the young blackmailer falls to the floor, dead. The police are promptly on the scene, having heard the shot, and find the couple in the room with the body of their one-time friend. The wife thinks the husband fired in anger, the husband believes the wife shot to protect herself. The woman faints, the man "confesses," and is led off to prison. Neither they nor the police suspect the District Attorney, but he is the guilty man. Driven half mad by the constantly increasing demands of the blackmailer, he had followed him through the streets, determined to end his life of torment. At the house he saw his chance and took it. The District Attorney is called upon to prosecute a man he knows to be innocent. Then the situation is further complicated by the wife, who, to save her husband, confesses that she is the guilty person. The District Attorney, in his summing up, accuses them both. His speech is well under way when an unexpected witness appears at the last moment. The slain man occupied a furnished room, and the place was being put in order for a new tenant. The maid, in the course of her work, discovered a packet, cunningly hidden, containing proofs of the District Attorney's guilt and the strong inference that he was the only person who was interested in putting the secretary out of the way. Suddenly confronted with this evidence, the prosecutor broke down and confessed. Husband and wife, each of whom had tried to take the consequences of a crime to save the other, find that both are guiltless, and are set free.
All Releases
Domestic
–
–
International
–
–
Worldwide
–
–
GenresDrama
Short
IMDbPro
See more details at IMDbPro
