The formal business of opening the assizes had been gone through on the afternoon the judges arrived. Sir Daniel Buller had been trumpeted off to the Court-house, and had sat with as much patience as he could command—and that was not a great deal—while a rather short-sighted and very fidgety clerk of arraigns, afflicted, moreover, with a severe cough, stumbled his way through the important documents already described. This proceeding was necessary in order to inform the loyal inhabitants of Mynyddshire, chiefly represented by errand-boys and loafers from the neighbouring taps, who their red-robed visitors really were, and what they had come to do.
On the following morning, therefore, the judges were free to proceed to work. They drove down tothe court at half-past ten, accompanied by the swelling Reynolds and the visibly crestfallen chaplain, and escorted by the inevitable javelin-men, who swarmed about the place all day under the pretext of keeping order.
Sir John Wiseman went quietly off to his own court, and began at once at the unexciting work of trying whether the drippings from a wholesale piano warehouseman’s spout had or had not damaged the hats in a neighbouring hat store, and, if so, whether the wholesale piano warehouseman was to blame, and if to blame, how much he ought to pay to the aggrieved hatter. Two of the gentlemen so unfairly deprived of seats upon the bench were engaged in this important case, and it occupied more than half the day.
But it had a rather poor audience. The crowd had rushed into the other court, where the gentlemen of the grand jury were answering to their names as often as the infirmities of the clerk of arraigns would allow them to discover whom he was calling. As soon as the necessary twenty-three were sworn, Mr. Justice Buller began his charge.
After a few civil remarks on the state of the county as regarded crime generally, and brief references to some of the other cases, he came to the all-absorbing topic. And now the reporters, who had sat listlessly under the infliction of the previous remarks, woke to sudden life, and every word of his lordship was caught and taken down as eagerly as if it had dropped from the lips of Shakespeare.
And this is what he said:
‘And now I come to what is by far the gravest case in the calendar—one of the gravest cases that has ever come before me in my judicial experience. The prisoner, Eleanor Owen, is accused of the most serious crime, short of treason, known to our law. Gentlemen, it is not for you to try whether she is guilty. You have to hear the witnesses who will be sent in before you on behalf of the Crown, and if you are satisfied that they are speaking the truth, and the effect of their evidence on your minds is such as, if uncontradicted, to raise a fair presumption of the prisoner’s guilt, then it is your duty to find a true bill against her. From the depositions taken bythe magistrates, which have been put before me, I do not anticipate that you will have much hesitation in coming to your decision. The case is entirely one of what is called circumstantial evidence, as such cases most generally are, and must be from the nature of things. Doubtless there are difficulties in the case—many and grave difficulties—with which it will be the duty of this tribunal to deal when the prisoner comes, if she does come, before us. The fact that the prisoner is charged with the deliberate murder of her friend—I may almost say her benefactress—with whom she had been living on terms of intimacy for a considerable time, and for no motive that has yet been suggested except a low and mercenary one, is calculated to arouse a natural repulsion in the mind, and to indispose it to believe that the charge is well-founded. But, gentlemen, these things, as they come before you, are matters of evidence. If the witnesses you are about to hear satisfy you that there is aprimâ faciecase made out against Eleanor Owen, that there are grounds for suspicion which she ought fairly to be called upon to answer and explain away if she can, then it is your dutynot to hesitate, but to bring in a true bill for murder. And I must tell you, gentlemen, that so far as my reading of the depositions has guided me, this is not a case in which the crime admits of being reduced to any lesser charge. There are none of the elements present which may, and often do, justify a jury in reducing the charge of murder to that of manslaughter. There is no question, so far as I have been able to discover, of sudden provocation, of accident, or anything of that sort. Whoever committed this crime must, if you believe the evidence, have done so knowingly, designedly, and with premeditation, and therefore your finding, if you find against the prisoner must be one of wilful murder. Gentlemen, I leave you to your deliberations.’
With these words his Lordship dismissed the grand jury; and the barristers, in their wigs and gowns, some of them with briefs and a good many with none, came streaming into the well of the court, filling up the seats specially reserved for them, and overflowing into those occupied by their colleagues of the ‘lower branch.’ It seems rather hard on the Bar that some mysterious rule ofetiquette, which they themselves probably do not understand, should forbid them to enter the assize court till this particular stage in the proceedings. Or can it be that this rule had its origin in the wisdom of their remote predecessors, devising artful means to escape the infliction of a tedious charge without appearing disrespectful to the Bench?
A lull followed. The judge, accustomed to have the eyes of men upon him, calmly betook himself to letter-writing. The high-sheriff, not so accustomed, fidgeted in his seat, looked round and counted the javelin-men in court, wondered how long the grand jury would be, and remembered, let us hope with remorse, the time when he was a grand juryman himself and wasted the time of the county by unnecessary questions to the witnesses. The fact is that the grand jury is played out. Everything for which they originally existed is now done by somebody else. Every case that comes before them now has already been investigated once by the committing magistrates. Their duty is simply to accuse the prisoner, nothing more; and it would be quite sufficient ifthey would just read the depositions and sign the indictment. But man, brief man, placed on a grand jury, and shut into a room without the interference of a legal authority, delights to show himself off by vain and superfluous inquiry. And hence it was that more than half an hour elapsed before the foreman was seen returning into the court with a trumpery indictment for larceny.
The interval had been usefully employed by the clerk of arraigns in compiling a petty jury, something in this fashion:
The Clerk of Arraigns (taking up a ticket, rather larger than a visiting-card, from a heap before him): ‘John Henry Mullerall!’ (To his clerk, a humble person in plebeian attire, who is popularly believed to know a great deal more about the procedure than the judge and the whole court put together): ‘Did he answer?’ (The clerk hasn’t heard him.) ‘John—Henry’ (very loudly) ‘Mull—— Oh! I see it’s Muggle’—(at the top of his voice) ‘Mugglewrath!’ (testily) ‘Are you there?’
John Henry Mugglewrath (from a seat close by): ‘Here!’
The Clerk of Arraigns: ‘Oh! there you are.Whydon’tyou gentlemen answer when you hear your names? Go into the box, please.’
After about ten minutes of this sort of thing, twelve respectable inhabitants of Mynyddshire were collected in the jury-box. Then they all had to stand up while their names were read over a second time. Then the clerk of arraigns counted his tickets to make sure he had used up twelve, while his clerk counted the jurymen to see that they came to the same number. Then all was ready to begin.
Meanwhile, those gentlemen at the counsel‘s table who rejoiced in the possession of briefs made a great show of reading them, and making copious notes and interlineations with pencils of different colours—red, blue, and black. The public were greatly impressed as they watched these young giants of intellect at their work. There they were, mastering the most knotty points with ease, and constructing ingenious arguments, doubtless, as they went along. One gentleman excited the greatest interest, and quite threw his brethren into the shade, by pushing aside his brief and drawing towards him one of the loose sheets of foolscapwhich the kind forethought of the authorities had provided, and beginning to write on it in an abstracted manner. The onlookers deemed him to be wrestling with an opinion on some weighty question bristling with legal difficulties. They little guessed that he was addressing congratulations to a maiden aunt on the occasion of her approaching birthday.
But what really occupied the minds of the spectators, and kept their lips moving in subdued conversation, was the ending of the judge’s charge.
‘He has made up his mind that she is guilty,’ whispered Mr. Jenkins, the stationer from Queen Street, who had come to the court in the capacity of a common juryman, but had not been among the names first selected.
‘And I don’t wonder at it,’ replied his neighbour, a farmer from near Porthstone, who had been summoned in the same way. ‘A bad lot, I’ll be bound. Wouldn’t say nothing when her was before the magistrates. That looks bad, don’t it?’
‘Silence!’ bawled a javelin-man just behind them, a rebuke which the worthy farmer at firstthought was meant for himself. But the word was repeated instantly by other javelin-men, and then he perceived that the grand jury had at last achieved a stroke of work, and that the satellites of justice were merely drawing attention to that fact in their usual impressive manner.
The clerk of arraigns now received the document, and proceeded to expound its contents in this manner:
‘Gentlemen of the Grand Jury, you find a’—here he stopped and turned it over to read what was on the back, a task which occupied several seconds; but he completed the sentence as if no break had occurred—‘true bill against’—another pause, he was looking for the name concealed amid the mazes of technical phraseology. This time the foreman rashly attempted to help him out by murmuring, ‘Joseph Hall.’ The clerk of arraigns turned round and glared at him, then resumed his investigation, and finally brought out the name in a tone of triumph, as of one who gloried in overcoming obstacles, and was not to be baffled by any indictment in the power of man to draw—‘Joseph Hall, for stealing a coat of the value of thirtyshillings; also for receiving the same, knowing it to be stolen.’
He then turned again, and bestowed an impatient nod on the waiting foreman, who withdrew, a crushed and miserable man.
‘Put up Joseph Hall,’ was the next command.
The governor of the gaol leant forward and repeated the order to a warder, who had already heard it perfectly and dived below, apparently through the solid floor of the court. The next moment Mr. Hall appeared, with easy nonchalance, and leant forward in a graceful attitude on the bar of the dock, while the clerk of arraigns proceeded to acquaint him with the crime of which he was accused.
Exhibiting no surprise at this piece of information, which, considering he had been lying under the accusation for two months, was perhaps hardly to be wondered at, Mr. Hall in emphatic tones pronounced himself innocent.
‘What?’ said the clerk of arraigns, stretching anxiously forward.
Mr. Hall repeated his sentiments.
‘What does he say?’ exclaimed the clerk ofarraigns, appealing to the court generally for assistance.
The response was a loud but confused roar of voices from the Junior Bar, out of which the only clear sound that penetrated to the unfortunate man’s brain was the word ‘guilty.’
‘He says he’s guilty!’ he remarked to his clerk, in what he intended for an aside, but which was perfectly audible over the whole building.
At this point the judge, becoming impatient, leant over and tapped the clerk of arraigns on the shoulder. He turned round.
‘He pleads guilty, my lord,’ he said, thinking that the judge wished for information.
‘No, he doesn’t, Mr. Hughes. He said “Not guilty,”’ answered the judge.
Mr. Hughes was nearly beside himself by this time. Leaning forward in the direction of the prisoner, he shouted fiercely:
‘Whatdoyou say? Are you guilty or not?’
‘No,’ came in tones loud enough for him to hear at last.
‘Thenwhycan’t you speak distinctly? The names you are about to hear called are those ofthe jurors who are to try you if you have any objection to them or any of them you shall make it as they come to the book to be sworn and before they are sworn and you shall be heard. John Henry Mugglewrath, stand up.’
And, leaving this overwhelming communication to gradually make itself clear to the prisoner’s mind, the clerk of arraigns went on swearing in the jury as hard as he could go, with the assistance of the judge’s clerk (who recited the oath) and his own clerk (who handed the Testament, as it is called, though really containing only the works of the four Evangelists). It need scarcely be observed that the jurors never came to the book at all. The book came to them.
A rather flighty young counsel, who seemed to consider the whole thing somewhat in the light of a joke, or a species of amateur theatricals on a large scale, having presented the case for the prosecution, Mr. Hall was called upon for his defence.
It then came out that the poor man, than whom no more honest creature ever walked the earth, had been made the victim of a truly diabolical hoax.He was sitting reading the newspaper in a public-house, the Three Hens—he had not even been drinking, mind, simply reading the newspaper—when a perfect stranger, whom he had never seen before nor since, but whom he should know anywhere, came in, with an overcoat (the one produced in court) over his arm. The stranger, with a craft for which an innocent being like Mr. Hall was no match, began by offering refreshments. These consumed, he asked Mr. Hall to do him the favour of pawning his overcoat for him. Mr. Hall naturally put the question, Why didn’t he pawn it himself? The stranger replied that he was unfamiliar with pawnshops, that he doubted his ability to make a good bargain, and that he was willing to pay his new acquaintance a commission on the proceeds. This last offer Mr. Hall had magnanimously refused, but out of mere good-nature he went forth to do the stranger’s bidding. The pawnbroker, however, with a distrust in human nature which stamped him as having an evil mind, called in a passing policeman, and gave this victim of his own kindly disposition into custody. The sequel was inevitable. The constable was led by the unsuspiciousHall to the bar of the Three Hens, but the mysterious stranger had gone and left no trace. Poor, humble, with nothing but his good character to rely on, Mr. Hall now cast himself with confidence on the discernment of the gentlemen before him.
The gentlemen had made up their minds already. But they could not give their verdict till the judge had had his turn. Mr. Justice Buller set to and occupied exactly fourteen minutes in telling the jury that there was not much evidence of stealing, but there was strong evidence of the receiving. The jury then occupied exactly fourteen seconds in deciding that the prisoner was guilty of stealing.
It then transpired that this was not the first time Mr. Hall had been the victim of appearances. His trusting nature had led him on six previous occasions to incur the censure of the law. He was, therefore, now bidden to take up his abode where no such temptations could assail him for the next five years.
By this time several other bills had come in from the grand jury, and it had become apparent thatthe all-absorbing murder would not be tried that day. The audience gradually drifted off, and the remainder of the day’s performance took place before a half-empty house.
‘May it please your Lordship,
‘Gentlemen of the jury, I am merely repeating a commonplace when I say that I rise to address you under a very heavy sense of responsibility. As you have heard, the prisoner at the bar is charged with the crime of wilful murder. It is now my duty, acting on behalf of the Crown, to tell you how that crime was committed, according to the view which I have to ask you to take; and to bring before you the witnesses whose evidence, if you believe it, goes to establish the guilt of the accused.’
Thus Mr. Prescott. It was the third day of the assizes. On the Tuesday afternoon, after a true bill had been found, Mr. Justice Buller hadannounced that he should set apart this day for the trial of the great case. The court had opened at ten o’clock. It was crammed to suffocation. The intensest excitement, whetted by the interval of delay, reigned supreme. All eyes were strained towards the dock as the words were uttered:
‘Put up Eleanor Margaret Owen.’
Another moment and she stood before them. Clothed in black from head to foot, pale as a lily, and trembling in every limb, she sank upon the chair behind her, and covered her face with her hands.
A great throb of sympathy shook the court. Sobs were heard. The most prejudiced of those who had bandied her name about for the past few weeks felt a dim sense of shame. Only a few out of all those present were unmoved: the judge, schooled to conceal all trace of emotion, nay, schooled to stifle it as it rose; the jury, too overcome by the duty thrust upon them to be just then alive to what was happening; the counsel on both sides, who, for different reasons, forbore as long as they could from looking at the dock.
She was beautiful. All the suffering she hadgone through had not been able to affect that, unless to render her beauty more spiritual and delicate. Her hair of that light glistening brown which is best known as golden; her drooping eyes of deepest blue; her wide, square forehead, unshaded by that device of ugliness, the artificial fringe of hair; the full, open lips; the rounded chin—every mark of a certain order of loveliness was there.
And she wore no veil. Some of the women present condemned her for that. The matron of the prison had besought her to use one. Her answer was decisive. She had never put a veil on since childhood, and she would not wear one now. She would not shrink beneath a false charge. She would show her face to them all.
She spoke bravely; but she had not realized all that was before her. And when she came up the dark winding stairs from the underground cells, and found herself in that—great God! was it some crowded theatre, or a solemn court of justice?—her physical strength gave way, and she scarce knew what happened for some moments.
Then her will asserted itself again. She stoodup. She faced the judge, the jury, the crowded bar, the fashionable dames in the gallery, and showed no more signs of fear. Her name was called, the hideous accusation was made. She answered it out loud. Her counsel, dreading another scene like that already recorded, had bent across the table and warned the clerk of arraigns beforehand of what the plea would be. The jury were sworn, including in their number the two onlookers whose remarks on the previous day had been so suddenly cut short. The last formula had been recited by the clerk.
‘Gentlemen of the jury, the prisoner at the bar stands indicted for that she did wilfully murder one Ann Elizabeth Lewis. To that she has pleaded that she is not guilty. Now, you are to try the issue, and to say whether she is guilty or not.’
And now the counsel for the prosecution had begun his speech.
‘Two years ago the prisoner was left an orphan by the death of her father, the Rector of Porthstone. She went to live in the house of a lady who had known her from a child, and who lived in the sameplace. With that lady she remained down to the first of last June, and it is that lady with whose murder she now stands charged.
‘Miss Lewis, the deceased, may be described as eccentric. She was in the habit for some years before her death of making very large purchases of jewels——’
‘I beg your pardon.’ It was the counsel for the prisoner who rose to his feet and interrupted. ‘My lord, I am sorry to interrupt my learned friend at this early stage, but may I ask him if he has any evidence that the prisoner knew of the existence of these jewels. If not, my lord, I submit he is not entitled to refer to them at all.’
The Judge: ‘What do you say, Mr. Prescott?’
‘My lord, I am entirely in your lordship’s hands. This is the first time it has been suggested to me that the fact of the deceased’s having this jewellery was not a matter of common knowledge in the household. I therefore can’t say at this stage whether I shall be able to distinctly fix the prisoner with such knowledge.’
The Judge: ‘Of course you mean to bring this in as motive?’
Mr. Prescott: ‘Yes, my lord.’
The Judge: ‘It is a very important matter. If the jury were satisfied that the prisoner did not know of these purchases, and if there were no other motive suggested, it might have a very great effect on their minds.’ [At this point the jury tried to look as if something were having a great effect on their minds, and did not altogether succeed.] ‘Perhaps you had better not say anything about the jewels now. You will have another opportunity after you see what your evidence is.’
Mr. Prescott: ‘If your lordship pleases. Well, then, gentlemen, I will come at once to the night when this crime was committed.’
Here Mr. Pollard was observed to write something on a slip of paper and hand it to his leader. Mr. Prescott stopped to glance at it, and then went on:
‘I may, however, mention one thing before leaving the question of motive, and it is this. I shall be able to prove to you that the deceased on one occasion, in the presence of a witness, made some promise or offer to the prisoner as to remembering her in her will. It is, of course, foryou to say what weight you will attach to that circumstance.’
Here the jury tried to look as if they knew what weight to attach to it, and again utterly failed.
‘On the first of June a nephew of Miss Lewis’s, and her only surviving relative, as I am instructed, and who will be called before you, arrived at Porthstone. He had just returned from Australia, and went to see his relative. He dined there, and spent the evening. At 10 o’clock he came away to his hotel and at once retired to bed.
‘The deceased lady had also retired to her room, and from the evidence there can be no doubt that she undressed and got into bed. She was last seen alive a few minutes after ten. The murder was discovered the next morning at nine. Between those hours the crime must have been committed.
‘The female servants followed their mistress. At half-past ten the butler fastened the front-door. He will describe the fastenings to you, and he will also tell you of a peculiarity in thelatch, about which I shall have something to say presently.’
The counsel then went on to detail the events narrated in his brief, only throwing in an observation now and then as he went along. When he had described the evidence of the removal of the body by the window, he said:
‘And now we come to one of the difficulties in the case. If the prisoner lowered the body out of the window in the first instance, why did she afterwards return to the house, and take a second journey, carrying a burden of some kind? I am hardly at liberty, after what has fallen from his lordship, to suggest to you that this second exit was in order to remove something which the murderer wanted to steal, something with the object of stealing which she committed the graver crime. But, gentlemen, there is another explanation, a terrible way of accounting for that second journey, so terrible and horrible that I wish it were not my bounden duty to put it before you. And it is this:
‘Only a portion of the victim’s body has been recovered. That portion is a hand. Now, in theabsence of anything to make us think that the cutting off of the hand was a solitary mutilation, we are forced to the probable conclusion that whoever killed this poor woman mutilated her in a very dreadful manner. It is possible, therefore, that after lowering one portion of her victim’s remains through the bedroom window, she returned upstairs to bring down some other part or parts of the body.’
As the counsel with evident reluctance brought out these horrid points, a shudder ran through the court. The prisoner had borne it all with tolerable firmness up to now, but she was completely overcome by this part of the speech, and cowered down into her chair, again concealing her emotions by putting her hands before her face.
If Mr. Prescott had any idea of making the jury revolt at the thought of associating such shocking brutalities with the prisoner, his speech produced the very opposite effect to what he intended. The jury saw in it nothing but the natural reluctance of a man at making such a charge, overborne by the counsel’s conviction of the prisoner’s guilt. Their faces assumed anaspect of stony horror as they turned their eyes upon the shrinking girl. A slight frown crossed Tressamer’s countenance, followed by a look of contempt.
‘The second difficulty in the case,’ resumed Prescott, ‘is as to the latchkey. As I have explained, there were only three keys in existence so far as the prosecution have been able to discover. These will all be produced before you. One was found in the pocket of the deceased’s dress, the other was never out of the possession of the witness Simons, the third was on the prisoner’s person when she was arrested. One of these keys, therefore, must have been used in the latch that night, and must have been used with such carelessness or ignorance—it is for you to say which’—[again the jury tried to look as if they were prepared to say which, and again they broke down]—‘that the latch was raised too high, and stuck. Now, here I must draw your attention to a very important circumstance. The person who entered the house last, whether the prisoner or anyone else, and who fastened up the front-door as it was found by the witness Lucy Jones the following morning,that person must, for some reason or other, have failed to notice the condition of the latch. She, if we assume it was the prisoner, must be supposed to have been so agitated from some cause that she failed to notice what she was doing when she raised the latch with her key, and failed again to notice how the latch was caught when she proceeded to fasten the door inside.
‘Gentlemen, it is for you to ask yourselves whether a reasonable explanation, an explanation that will justify you in coming to an adverse verdict in this case, is furnished by the suggestion that the prisoner’s mind was excited by the crime she had just committed to such an extent as to deprive her of the power of observing these things.’
At this point Mr. F. J. Pollard began to be aware that his leader was not pressing the case very vigorously. He looked round at his brother in the solicitors’ seat behind. That gentleman looked extremely angry. He had noticed something curious in his counsel’s manner from the first. He now leant over and whispered to his brother:
‘What’s the matter with Prescott? I can’t make him out. He talks as if he were the judge summing up, instead of the counsel for the prosecution.’
Mr. Pollard, the barrister, shrugged his shoulders and bit his lip. He could do nothing. It was not for him to offer advice to his leader. A man of Mr. Prescott’s standing was not likely to tolerate any interference from a young fellow just called.
But the offender proceeded to cap his misdeeds by a new suggestion, which had never occurred to either of the Pollards. It had been noted down long ago by Tressamer, though.
‘The third difficulty in this case, gentlemen, is one which has doubtless been present to your minds all the time I have been speaking.’
This time the jury made a desperate effort to conceal their astonishment, and to look as if they perfectly well knew what was coming. But no one was deceived.
‘I refer to the disposal of the body. On this point we have exactly two pieces of evidence. A young woman like the prisoner was seen walking inthe direction of Newton Bay, about midnight, by the witness Evan Thomas. On the following afternoon the severed hand was discovered on the beach of Newton Bay by a visitor.
‘How did it get there? It is for you to say. On behalf of the Crown, it is my duty to suggest to you that the prisoner in the dock may have carried the result of her crime to that distant spot, in several journeys, one of which happened to be seen. I must put it to you that piece by piece she accomplished her revolting task, and that she sought to hide the traces of her guilt in the sea. If you think that a rational and likely course of circumstances, no doubt you will say so.
‘Gentlemen, I have done. I trust I have not detained you at undue length over this case, which must strike you as one of the most grave and difficult that could well come before a court of justice. I shall now, with the assistance of my learned friend, put the evidence before you. If you are left in any doubt after hearing it, and, after hearing the prisoner’s defence, if you feel that there are mysteries in the case which have not been properly explained, and difficulties whichhave not been fully met, then you will, I feel sure, be only too glad to acquit the prisoner of this dreadful charge. But if, on the other hand, you are fully and entirely satisfied, if you feel no doubt whatever—of course, I mean no reasonable doubt—you will, I am equally sure, do your painful duty by returning a verdict of guilty.’
The barrister sat down, and his junior, who had listened impatiently to the close of the speech, at once started up, and called out:
‘John Lewis!’
And now, for the first time, Charles Prescott ventured to look towards the dock. After the first involuntary glance at Eleanor’s entrance, he had steadily kept his eyes averted. During the whole of his address, which took up nearly an hour, he never once looked round. He was afraid to trust himself. That one brief glance had revived the memories of old with an added force which almost overwhelmed him.
Yet he was not what would be called an emotional man. His was one of those natures which maintain a seeming coldness under all circumstances, but which often conceal in their depthsa strength of passion and devotion compared to which the fiery outbreaks of others are mere ‘sound and fury, signifying nothing.’ And now this hidden force was stirred. It held him in its grasp, and his whole being shook and quivered to its centre.
Not love at first sight, for he had seen her before. Yet love, awakening suddenly as he looked upon her in the full bloom of opening womanhood, surrounded by a halo of suffering, and peril, and mystery, the fated victim of an accusation which he would not believe and could not disprove. This it was that overpowered him; this it was that led to that feeble, halting advocacy which surprised all who heard it. They could not recognise the keen, trenchant Prescott who had made such a name for himself on the circuit. The Pollards were the only ones there who resented it, but they were by no means the only ones to be puzzled at the change.
But Prescott did not easily give way to his feelings. The sense of duty was sufficiently strong in him to keep him from absolute abandonment of his cause. He had gone faithfully throughthe case, and he was now preparing to take his part in examining the witnesses. Pride and professional training asserted themselves, and he stood firm.
At this moment, however, and when he was suffering most acutely, one of those happy accidents which men call good fortune or Providence, according to their dispositions, came to his aid. A solicitor’s clerk hurriedly came into the court and made his way to the barrister’s side. An unforeseen event had occurred. A case in the other court which had been expected to last all day had suddenly come to a settlement by agreement between the parties. The next case on the list was one in which Mr. Prescott was engaged, and engaged by himself, and his immediate presence was called for. Breathing an ejaculation of thankfulness, he got up, and quickly withdrew, leaving young Pollard to manage the witnesses as best he could.
The judge looked annoyed, and the solicitor Pollard somewhat dismayed, at this sudden disappearance of the leader for the Crown. But young Pollard himself was only too pleased. Atlast he was to have his chance. He was left captain of the ship. If all went well he might hope to get through the evidence, and have the concluding speech in Prescott’s absence. And his satisfaction was shared by Tressamer. Tressamer knew his man. For the first time that morning a look of satisfaction crossed his face, and he settled his wig firmly on his head as he prepared to encounter the moving spirit of the prosecution.
And Eleanor? She did not altogether understand what had happened. But she saw that the man who had put the case against her so mildly had now gone out of it altogether, and her heart gave a great beat of joy for the first time since she had parted with George Tressamer two days before the memorable first of June.
‘John Lewis!’
A dark, big man stepped into the box, frowning heavily around him. The oath was administered, and then Mr. Pollard commenced in the approved style.
‘Your name is John Lewis, and you are now living at The Shrubbery, Porthstone?’
‘Yes.’
‘That’s where the murder was committed?’ interrupted the judge.
‘Yes, my lord. The witness inherited it under Miss Lewis’s will.’
The Judge: ‘Have you lived there ever since?’
Witness: ‘Yes, my lord.’
The Judge (after a pause, during which Mr.Pollard waits impatiently): ‘Go on, Mr. Pollard. What are you keeping us for?’
Mr. Pollard: ‘I beg your lordship’s pardon.’ To witness: ‘You are the nephew of the deceased, and have just returned from Australia?’
‘Yes; I came back to my aunt.’
‘After making some money out there, I believe?’
‘I object!’
This interruption, it need not be said, came from Tressamer. He had risen to his feet, and put on that scowl of scornful indignation with which an experienced counsel knows how to daunt a young beginner and make him feel he has committed himself.
‘My lord, my friend cannot prove that, and if he could it cannot possibly be evidence against the prisoner. It is a most improper question.’
The Judge looked a little puzzled.
‘It is irrelevant,’ he said, ‘and I won’t allow it if you object. In a case like this we can’t be too strict, of course.’
Mr. Pollard began to realize that greatness has its snares as well as its triumphs. He tried to get back on to the track.
‘You went to see the deceased on the first of June?’
‘I did.’
‘And you came away——’
Here the barrister’s brother leant over and handed him a slip of paper. He took it and read it, turned red, and, trying to appear as if he had not been prompted, put the question contained in the slip of paper:
‘Was anything said about the jewels?’
The judge stared. Tressamer started to his feet in a transport of fury.
‘My lord, my friend is deliberately leading the witness. In a case of murder it is disgraceful!’
‘I agree with you, Mr. Tressamer. Don’t answer that question, sir.’
Thus the judge. Poor young Pollard turned as red as the judge’s robe, and stammered out some apology. His brother mentally swore at him, and every solicitor in court resolved never to give him another brief.
‘Go on, Mr. Pollard; you mustn’t keep us waiting.’
The wretched young man gave a last look at his brief, and closed the examination.
‘And you left about ten o’clock?’
(‘Leading again!’ ejaculated his opponent.)
‘Yes. My lord, may I say——’
‘No!’ snapped the judge. ‘Say nothing unless you’re asked.’
The witness looked angry, and frowned savagely at his counsel. But the latter had now sat down, and the cross-examination was about to begin.
Tressamer had been studying the witness, with a view of ascertaining his weak point. This was evidently his temper. Accordingly he avoided irritating him till he had obtained as much as he could from him. He began:
‘Had you any other relatives living besides Miss Lewis?’
The witness was thoroughly thrown out. He could not see what was coming. In a sullen voice he responded:
‘Yes, I’ve a sister in the North.’
‘Did you go to see her before your aunt?’
‘No.—My lord, may I explain?’
The Judge: ‘You had better confine yourself to the questions now. You will have an opportunity of explaining afterwards.’
‘You went straight to your aunt. Was she pleased to see you?’
‘Yes, she seemed very pleased.’
‘And yet she let you stay at a hotel?’
‘That was only the first night. It was arranged that I was to occupy a bedroom in her house afterwards.’
‘Oh!’
Type cannot do justice to the peculiar intonation with which the barrister uttered this exclamation. The whole court was aroused to suspect something beneath the surface. Then he turned round to the jury with a mysterious expression, and slowly repeated the answer:
‘It was arranged that you were to occupy a room in her house after that night?’
The jury roused themselves for a grand effort, and succeeded in imparting a distinct air of suspicion to their countenances.
At last Mr. Lewis’s temper came into play. He cried out:
‘Yes; and if I had been there the first night, I might have prevented this murder.’
‘Silence, sir!’ said the Judge.
And now Tressamer brought out the question for which he had been preparing the way all along:
‘When this arrangement was made about your living in the house, did your aunt (remember you are on your oath, sir!)—did she happen—to—furnish—you—with—a—LATCHKEY?’
The effect was electrical. He had brought out the last words of the question slowly one by one, and then he suddenly hurled the final word at the witness like a weapon.
John Lewis instantly realized the situation. The question was tantamount to an accusation. The whole court took it in that sense, and gazed at him in deadly earnestness. He turned livid. For a moment he could hardly bring his lips to frame a syllable. At length he recovered his self-command, and thundered out:
‘No, sir. May God strike me dead if she did!’
The fierce earnestness of his denial produced a revulsion of feeling in the court. The jury felt that the counsel had been guilty of unfairness inmaking such a charge so suddenly, and, as it seemed, with such absence of grounds. The Judge was annoyed, too. Sir Daniel Buller hated sensationalism. In fact, he did not like anything which threw his own dignity into the shade. He liked to feel that he was in the star part, and that everybody else in court was merely playing up to his grand effects. He therefore refrained from rebuking the witness, and from this stage he showed himself less favourable to the counsel for the defence.
But Tressamer had anticipated something of this sort, and he had a card in reserve. He went on with his cross-examination as if nothing had happened.
‘You gave the prisoner into custody, I think?’
‘I did.’
‘You made up your mind that she was guilty, I suppose, without much thinking?’
‘I thought there was absolute proof of it.’
‘That’s what I mean. You were anxious that she should be convicted, were you not?’
‘I was anxious that she should be tried. I thought it my duty to see that this crime was punished.’
‘By the conviction of the prisoner?’
‘If she was guilty.’
‘But you felt sure she was guilty? You were the one to accuse her, you know.’
Mr. Lewis was getting irritated again. He made no answer to this suggestion, and the barrister forbore to press it, contenting himself with a meaning glance at the jury.
‘You were represented at the inquest, were you not, by Messrs. Pollard?’
‘Yes.’
‘The gentlemen who are now conducting this prosecution—nominally on behalf of the Crown?’ And with this parting shot he resumed his seat.
Young Pollard instantly rose.
‘My lord, the witness was anxious to explain one of his answers to my learned friend. Would your lordship allow him to do so now?’
‘Yes, yes,’ was his lordship’s answer.
The witness instantly took advantage of the permission.
‘I wished to say, my lord, that the reason why I went first to see my aunt, instead of going to my sister’s, was because she had befriended me when Iwas young. She furnished the money to start me with in Australia, and I felt it only right, in common gratitude, to come straight and thank her on my return.’
Another revulsion of feeling swept over the court. The effect of Tressamer’s last suggestion was obliterated. Lewis was once more in favour.
Pollard had scored. His brother twitched him by the gown from behind as a hint to sit down. But the unfortunate young man must needs try and improve on his lucky shot. He summoned up a very tragic demeanour, and put the fatal question:
‘And is there the smallest ground for suggesting that you were near the house or out of your hotel after ten that night?’
The witness showed confusion. Instead of answering in the prompt, decided style he had hitherto shown, he hesitated for some seconds, and then said with visible embarrassment:
‘No, there is none.’
Pollard hastily sat down. The rules which govern the production of evidence did not permit Tressamer to put a further question to the witness,but he was skilful enough to do what accomplished the same result. He called across the barristers’ table, in a perfectly audible voice:
‘Is anyone from the hotel here, Mr. Pollard?’
‘Not that I know of,’ was the sullen answer.
And now it was the judge’s turn, and he proceeded to put to the witness that question which was in the mind of every person in court, but which neither of the counsel had dared to put, each fearing the answer might be unfavourable to himself.
‘Tell me, Mr. Lewis, had you any special reasons—don’t tell me what your reasons were—but had you any reason apart from what you were told by others for accusing the prisoner of this murder?’
‘I had, my lord.’
‘Did that reason arise in your mind as a consequence of anything which you saw the prisoner do, or which took place in her presence?’
‘Not exactly, my lord. My aunt said to me——’
The judge swiftly raised his hand with a forbidding gesture, and pursed up his lips.
‘That will do. You can go.’
Mr. Lewis retired, and the jury were left to wonder what the mysterious reason could be, the result on most of their minds being far more unfavourable to the prisoner than if the rules of evidence had allowed the witness to speak freely.
The next witness was the butler, John Simons, who deposed to having fastened up the door at half-past ten on the night in question, and to having found the latch stuck on the following day. He further described the finding of the blood-stains on the bedroom door-handle. His cross-examination was listened to with interest.
‘Has it ever occurred to you yourself to accidentally raise the latch too far in the same way?’
‘Oh yes, I’ve often done it, sir.’
‘Were you out on the evening of the first of June?’
The butler, a good-natured-looking man, with a pleasant smile, but whose mind was evidently rather unhinged by the position he found himself in, looked bewildered at this, and rather frightened. The barrister hastened to reassure him.
‘What I mean is this. If you had been out sometime during the evening, before half-past ten, would it not have been possible for you to have accidentally left the latch in this position?’
The witness looked relieved, and hastened to answer.
‘Yes, of course, I might have.’
Tressamer turned round to the jury to see if they appreciated his point. Then he resumed.
‘You have known Miss Owen some time, I think. Tell me, have you ever noticed that she was liable to nervous headaches?’
‘I have heard her say she had a headache.’
‘What was the last time you heard her say so?’
The witness looked puzzled, and seemed to be trying to remember.
‘Perhaps I can help you,’ said the barrister. ‘About this very time, now; just before this happened?’
‘Ah, yes, sir, now you remind me, I remember. When she didn’t come down that morning, I said to Rebecca, “Very likely she’s had another bad night.”’
‘Anotherbad night? Then she was liable to insomnia?’
The witness stared.
‘I beg your pardon. I mean, she sometimes did suffer from want of sleep?’
‘She sometimes had bad nights, sir.’
‘Exactly. And you remembered she had been having them just before this?’
‘Well, no, sir; I can’t say as I do remember that.’
The barrister frowned impatiently.
‘Well, tell me this,’ he said: ‘do you know what she was in the habit of doing on these occasions, when she couldn’t get to sleep?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Did you ever hear of her going out for a walk at night?’
The whole court was eagerly following this cross-examination, as the defence now began to be visible. But the answer of the witness fell like lead:
‘No.’
Tressamer looked deeply disappointed. He had been baffled just where he had evidently built upon success.
He only put one more question.
‘You had a good many opportunities of seeing your mistress and Miss Owen together. Did they always seem to you to be on friendly, affectionate terms?’
‘Yes, sir, always.’
‘Thank you.’
This finished the butler’s evidence, as Mr. Pollard wisely abstained from any re-examination.
He next proceeded to call the parlourmaid, Rebecca Rees.
A pretty, vain, pert-looking girl stepped into the box, and took hold of the Testament.
‘Take off your glove,’ said the clerk.
She did so with some difficulty, as the thing had about half a dozen buttons to unfasten. Then she was sworn and proceeded to tell her story.
In a shrill voice, which visibly irritated the judge, she went on, and described how she had gone to bed, how she awoke at midnight and heard a sound proceeding from below.
‘What was the nature of the sound?’ asked the counsel who was examining her.
‘It was a groan,’ was the reply, ‘like as if somebody was being hurt.’
The prisoner’s counsel here hurriedly turned over the pages of his brief till he came to a certain place, where he made a note in the margin.
‘What did you hear next?’
‘I heard the prisoner going downstairs.’
The Judge: ‘What do you mean? Could you see her?’
Witness: ‘No, sir. I heard her.’
Mr. Pollard: ‘She means she recognised the footsteps, my lord.’
The Judge: ‘Don’t interrupt me, please.’ (To witness) ‘Young woman, be careful. That is not the way to give evidence, as you know perfectly well. You mustn’t tell us that you heard the prisoner. You heard footsteps; that’s all.’ (A pause.) ‘Now, Mr. Pollard, you can go on.’
Mr. Pollard: ‘Did you recognise the footsteps?’
His lordship frowned and shrugged his shoulders.
Witness: ‘I thought it was Miss Owen.’
Mr. Pollard: ‘Well, now tell us what you did.’
The girl proceeded to describe how she had got up and gone down to the front-door.
‘How was it fastened?’ was the next question.
‘It was on the latch. The bolts were drawn back, and it wasn’t locked nor yet chained.’
‘Did you see whether the latch was up or down?’
‘I object!’
Mr. Tressamer had risen in a fresh burst of indignation.
‘My lord, my friend has distinctly suggested the answer to the witness. I object to her being allowed to say anything about the latch after such a question as that.’
‘I didn’t intend to lead her, my lord,’ said Pollard.
The judge hesitated for awhile between his natural desire to hear the answer and his fear that the witness was not wholly impartial. Perhaps a slight prejudice against Tressamer’s hectoring manner had something to do with his decision.
‘You should have asked her whether she noticed anything about the latch,’ he said at length. ‘Did you?’ he added, turning to the witness.
‘It wasdown, sir,’ she returned, answering Pollard’s question rather than the judge’s.
The importance of the answer was chiefly in its disposing of Tressamer’s suggestion that the butler might have forced the latch up. He turned round to the jury, and assumed the air of one who is being unfairly treated. But of course he could not help their seeing that the prosecution had scored a point.
Rebecca’s evidence was continued till she came to where she heard footsteps ascending the stairs.
‘How long was this afterwards?’ asked Pollard.
‘About ten minutes,’
‘Did you recognise those footsteps?’
‘No, I didn’t notice them; but I think they must have been Miss Owen’s, or else I should have noticed the difference.’
Tressamer ground his teeth. He was afraid to interrupt again, for fear of the effect on the minds of the jury. They are apt to think a man is losing when he interrupts too often.
‘What happened next?’
‘She went into the bedroom below.’
‘What bedroom?’
‘Her own, I suppose, or Miss Lewis’s.’
‘You couldn’t tell which?’
‘No.’
‘Well, and how long was the person, whoever it was, inside?’
‘About a quarter of an hour, I should think. I thought she had come in for good, and gone to bed.’
The Judge (suddenly looking up from his notes): ‘Look here, don’t let me have to stop you again, or I shall do something you won’t like. It’s not for you to tell us what you thought. Confine yourself to answering the questions.’
Mr. Pollard (thinking the judge has finished): ‘And then what did you——’
The Judge (superbly indifferent to Mr. Pollard): ‘Do you realize that you are giving evidence in a court of justice? You must be extremely careful—extremely careful.’ (A long pause; Mr. Pollard afraid to begin again.) ‘Well, do you ask her anything more?’
Mr. Pollard: ‘I beg your lordship’s pardon. If your lordship pleases.’ (To witness) ‘After the quarter of an hour, did you hear anything more?’
Witness (now thoroughly frightened): ‘Yes.’
‘What did you hear?’
‘I heard her come out.’
At this point the judge threw down his pen, and threw himself back in his chair. Mr. Pollard hastened to take off the edge of his lordship’s wrath by reprimanding the witness himself.
‘You mustn’t tell us that. You don’t know it was the prisoner. What was it you actually heard?’
The girl now felt and looked ready to resort to tears. She really did not know what answer was safe, and prudently adopted a strictly non-committal form.
‘I heard a noise below.’
‘What was the noise like?’
‘Like someone going downstairs.’
‘Well, why didn’t you say that? You heard footsteps going down?’
‘Yes.’
The judge took up his pen again and took down the answer.
‘And did you notice the footsteps this time?’
‘Yes; they were——’
‘Stop! Not so fast. Answer my questions.’
Mr. Pollard was by this time little less nervous than the witness. He was really utterly at a loss how to frame his next question without incurring Tressamer’s wrath or the rebuke of the Bench. At last he blurted out:
‘Was there anything different about the footsteps this time?’
Tressamer opened his mouth, but the judge was before him this time:
‘Don’t answer. Really, Mr. Pollard, you are as bad as the witness. You know you ought not to put a question like that.’ Then, seeing that the poor young man was quite unequal to extracting the desired evidence, his lordship quietly took over the examination himself:
‘Did you notice the footsteps this time when they were going downstairs?’
‘Yes, sir—my lord.’
‘Did anything strike you about them?’
‘Yes, my lord.’
‘What?’
‘They were heavier, sir, and thumpy.’
‘Had you ever heard anything like it before?I mean, did they or did they not sound familiar in spite of this heaviness?’
‘No, my lord; I don’t remember.’
‘Did you go downstairs again?’
‘No, sir.’
The judge turned round to the jury with complacency, and smiled as if to say, ‘You see, gentlemen, how it can be done by one who knows how.’ Then he asked the counsel:
‘Now, Mr. Pollard, do you want anything more from this witness?’
‘No, my lord, thank you.’
He sat down, feeling considerably the worse for his experience, and Tressamer got up.
He looked severely at the young woman for some seconds, and then suddenly asked her:
‘Why do you dislike Miss Owen?’
At once the court was all ears. It was one of those strokes of brilliant advocacy which few men care to venture on. It was dangerous, but in the present case it was completely successful. The witness lost countenance, stammered, and with difficulty got out a lame denial.
‘I don’t dislike her particular.’
‘Do you like her?’
‘No.’
‘Did you ever have any complaint against her when you were her servant?’ (He intentionally chose a phrase calculated to irritate.)
‘I wasn’t her servant,’ was the angry reply. ‘I should be very sorry to be.’
‘I thought so. Tell me, you said to my learned friend that the first sound you heard on this night was like somebody being hurt, didn’t you?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘When did you discover that?’
‘When did I discover that?’
‘Yes, woman; don’t echo me like that. You know what I mean.’
‘I thought so at the time.’
‘What!’ The barrister assumed an expression of amaze.
‘I thought so all along.’
‘Then why didn’t you say so all along? When you were before the magistrates, did you say anything about somebody being hurt?’
‘Yes, I think so.’
‘You think so! Remember you are on youroath, please, and that I have a copy before me of what you actually did say before the magistrates. When you were before them, did you say a syllable about a sound as if somebody were being hurt?’
‘I don’t know whether I did or not.’
‘I thought so. Did you tell the magistrate that you thought it was the sound of someone in troubled sleep?’ Here the barrister read from his brief.
‘Yes, sir.’
‘And that you thought’—here he turned over the page at which he was looking and glanced at the top of the next, so as to give the impression that he was still reading her exact words—‘that the sound came from Miss Owen’s room?’
The witness fell into the trap.
‘I dare say I did,’ she answered.
The judge was equally taken in. He had read the depositions, but had not remembered their contents clearly enough to check the barrister. Tressamer went to another point.
Taking out his watch, he said:
‘I want to test your notion of ten minutes. Will you turn round, with your back to the clock,and tell me when one minute has passed, after I have said the word “Now.”’
All the jurymen and most of the other persons in court took out their watches to check this experiment. The girl turned round, and Tressamer gave the word, ‘Now!’
‘Tick—tick—tick—tick—tick——’
‘Now!’ said the witness, turning quickly round.
A general smile passed over the court.
‘Seventeen seconds exactly, my lord,’ observed Tressamer. ‘The witness’s ten minutes may therefore be put down as three. You have told his lordship that the last set of footsteps you heard sounded heavy when they went downstairs. Will you swear that they did not sound equally heavy coming up?’
‘I didn’t notice.’
‘I didn’t ask you if you had noticed. Don’t try and shirk my question, please. Will you pledge your oath that they weren’t equally heavy coming upstairs?’
‘No, I won’t swear it.’
‘Have you any reason, except your dislike ofthe prisoner, for suggesting that those footsteps were hers?’
The judge interposed.
‘Really, Mr. Tressamer, you mustn’t put it like that. She says that she didn’t dislike the prisoner, and you must take her answer. I allow great latitude to counsel in your situation, but you must treat the witness fairly.’
‘As your lordship pleases.’
Tressamer sat down, rather glad to leave his question unanswered, as the effect thereby produced on the jury’s mind would be better than if the witness had had a chance of offering her grounds for suspicion.
‘Lucy Griffiths.’
This was the housemaid, and her evidence contained nothing of importance. In cross-examination she admitted that she had detected no likeness between the descending footsteps heard by her and Miss Owen’s. In fact, she had at first thought they sounded like a man’s.
The next witness was the fisherman, who stated to Mr. Pollard that he had met a female about midnight on the eventful first of June, whom he atthe time believed to be the prisoner. He thought so still.
His cross-examination elicited two facts: First, that he had once met Miss Owen at the same late hour before; secondly, that he had met other persons going in the same direction the same night at or about the same time.
Tressamer chose to emphasize this point.
‘Could you tell those gentlemen,’ he said, indicating the jury, who instantly tried to look as if they had been attending, and had not long ago given up the task in despair, ‘what the other people were like whom you saw?’
‘Well, one of them was a man.’
‘Come, that’s something; but it’s not much. Can’t you tell us what sort of a man? Was he tall?’
The jury instantly looked at Lewis.
‘No; I didn’t notice as how he was particular tall. Middlin’ short, I should say.’
‘About my height?’
‘Yes; about that. Summat about your size.’