A Husband’s Revenge   But Washington and the press were more
astonished by the District Attorney’s failure to call another
witness—Samuel F. Butterworth. A Tammany sachem, Butterworth had
happened to be in Washington on political business when Sickles
discovered the truth about his wife and Key. Butterworth had
called on Sickles in response to a note asking his advice on
what course the injured husband should take. As they talked, Key
appeared in Lafayette Square and began making signals toward the
Sickles house with his handkerchief. It was Butterworth who
rushed out of the house alone and detained Key long enough for
Sickles to go upstairs, find and load both his derringer and a
revolver, and rush out to kill him. Butterworth would have been
a hostile witness, and Ould knew that if he called him to the
stand he would be legally barred from cross-examining him; but a
first-class attorney would have taken the risk because the mere
fact of Butterworth’s actions cast an aura of calculation over
the crime—the ve