CHAPTER XVRELEASE
CHIEF JUSTICE PANSARTA sat back in his capacious chair. His stout legs were crossed comfortably. His somewhat benign personality was never more emphasized than as he sat there enjoying his first cigar of the day. His meditative gaze was on the great shaft of sunlight pouring in through the window of the room appointed for his private use at the Supreme Court of Calford.
Superintendent Croisette was interestedly observing him across the polished table intervening between them.
On either hand of the Judge the two leading counsels in the trial which had occupied the court on the previous day, were waiting for the decision which was to result from the lengthy legal discussion upon which they had engaged. John Danson sat facing the prosecuting counsel queerly confident. Eustace Mellor was smoking a cigarette and avoiding the gaze of his friendly opponent.
Croisette had heard all the argument of the learned counsel without very great interest. In truth he felt their little legal skirmish was hardly important. Judge Pansarta, he knew, had long since taken his decision.Probably it had been taken over night. His only concern was as to what that decision might be.
But the learned Judge seemed to be in no great hurry. Snow had fallen in the night. But the morning was soft and the snow melting. It was the first real sign that winter was to reach its termination, however long it might be, however bitter. And the Judge seemed to be enjoying the pleasant augury of the brilliant sun.
At last he reluctantly turned to the men gathered at the table. His smile was cordial as he glanced from the defence to the prosecution. But it was no more. It was the smile of the man who is complete master of the situation and is quite aware of the fact.
Croisette found himself smiling responsively. The counsels had worked very hard to impress their viewpoints.
“Thank you, gentlemen, very much,” Pansarta said, in the genuine fashion of the amiably disposed. “It has all been most enlightening. Now since your discussion has closed I will, with your permission, give you my final interpretation of the position. It is given after due consideration of all the points you have raised, and the evidence, which yesterday’s fiasco set before the Court. Let me say at once, that in all my experience of the law I have never been confronted with a case quite like this murder of Constable Sinclair.”
Croisette sat back in his chair. For a few moments, while the Judge reached out and very precisely dropped the remains of his cigar into an ash tray, his interest relaxed, and his thought drifted back to the closing scene before the adjournment of the court the day before.
It was curious how out of all the stirring moments of the day, one incident, alone, which had no apparent relation to the case, stood out above all others in his mind. It was the momentary vision of one of the spectators leaving the court, when feeling and interest were at their highest pitch.
But so it was. And in that moment his quick mind had been impressed with the significance of the incident. He was glad that Fyles had been present to act. He was thinking of the man, Pideau Estevan, now, as the Judge paused in his statement. For it was he who had so hastily left the court at the moment of the crisis that had caused the adjournment of the trial.
The Judge continued in even, dispassionate tones.
“There is no need for me to go over the evidence for you, gentlemen,” he said. “We had the evidence of a number of people which amounted to little or nothing. It simply gave us an insight into the lives of this man, the Wolf, and the girl, Annette. It is the sort of evidence I dislike in court, as it rarely sheds any real light upon the case under consideration, and often helps to prejudice it. It is the sort of evidence to bewell sorted and sifted by the police before the case comes on for trial.”
The pleasant eyes flashed into the police officer’s and carried their smile with them.
“I am a little at a loss to understand, however,” he went on, “just why the prosecution did not call the prisoner’s partner, the man, Pideau Estevan. He is the half-breed father of the girl Annette. He must have been intimately connected with the case, and his evidence might have proved valuable.”
Croisette sat up.
“The police were of opinion, sir, that Pideau Estevan would have been an unsatisfactory witness for the prosecution. You see he is, as you say, the father of the girl. He is also the prisoner’s partner. The situation in which he would have been placed would have been extremely awkward. And it would probably have made his evidence unreliable.”
Pansarta inclined his head.
“There may be a good deal in what you say. But—— Well, it is of no consequence now, in any case. The charge against the man, the Wolf, must be dismissed. He must be released. The girl, too, must go her way. It is the only possible course for the Court to take.”
It was interesting. Croisette had foreseen the decision. While his knowledge of the law was not comparable with that of the other man at the table, hisinstinct was unerring. He watched the two counsels as the judge gave his decision. A half smile played about the grim lips of John Danson. But the other gave no sign. He sat with his eyes lowered to the sheet of paper on the table before him.
The Judge pursued his subject in the detached fashion of a mind absorbed in his problem.
“It is a case where we have to rule ourselves entirely by the laws of evidence. That which we believe ourselves, that of which any of us may be morally certain, must not be allowed to influence. Constable Sinclair has been undoubtedly murdered. He was murdered by a shot fired from a gun belonging to this Wolf. The bullet has been recovered and proves to be identical with the cartridges found in the sleeping room of the Wolf. We know that these people, both of them, are intimately interested in the death of the murdered man. And the logic of the case points to one of them as the murderer. That is all so. But in dealing with the case we are brought up against a position, which, under the laws of evidence, prevents us pursuing the trial to its logical end.”
Pansarta cleared his throat, and something of his absorption passed. He glanced at the faces about the table.
“What is it?” he went on quickly. “The man refuses to plead. He remains dumb, mute. He will utter no word to help in his defence. The only evidencewhich the prosecution can bring against him is the evidence of the girl, Annette. True, it is direct evidence, and very complete, but its only other support is circumstantial. When our friend Danson gets after this girl and drives her into a corner, and appeals to her womanhood, what is the result? She breaks down. She flings her whole story to the winds of heaven and confesses herself to having committed the crime. Nor is it a bald confession. She gives it in detail and reveals her reasons. When this happens the man breaks his silence. Instantly he denies her confession. And then proceeds to claim for himself the very crime the prosecution has striven to bring home to him. And his story of the murder is no less convincing than the woman’s.”
“Well, gentlemen, we cannot go into a long dissertation on the laws of evidence now. You know them as well as I do. We all know they will not admit of two people, separately and alone, killing the same man, at the same time, with the same gun, and the same shot. That is clear. Furthermore they will not permit of a man being hanged for a crime confessed to by another without that confession is clearly proved untrue, even though he can make his own confession appear true. In short, had these two wild people acted in collusion they could have designed no better way of confounding justice.”
The calmly smiling face was turned again to thebrilliant sunbeam, and the thought behind the Judge’s pleasant eyes was very busy.
“Let us take the girl Annette,” he continued. “If her confession were true, which I am convinced it is not, then her evidence against the man falls to the ground as a mass of perjury. If her evidence is true, then her confession is not. Then consider the man. He is silent. He neither denies guilt nor admits it. Not a word passes his lips. He not only submits to the woman’s accusations, but actually seems to welcome them. He even goes to the length of warning her against his own counsel, the counsel for his defence. In fact, he tacitly welcomes the hanging confronting him. Why?”
“Then we come to the crux of the whole position. It is at the moment when this perverted woman he clearly loves better than his life, incriminates herself by confession. He promptly breaks through his barrier of silence and hurls himself to save her, by confessing, in a clear convincing manner, to his own perpetration of the crime.”
Pansarta drew a deep sigh and the smile left his eyes to be replaced by his slight frown of authority.
“We need to go no further. The details of evidence no longer matter. They can be dismissed. Their value does not arise now. The story lying back of those two opposing confessions is no concern of the Court at this moment. In other circumstances it mayvery deeply concern the Court. This morning I shall direct the jury to find the prisoner ‘not guilty.’ And, Superintendent Croisette,” he added, smiling over at the officer, “it will be for your police to begin again.”
He ceased speaking. And as he did so the counsel for the prosecution inclined his head in reluctant approval. John Danson was frankly pleased. But the police officer found nothing in the learned Judge’s statement of the case to drag him from his preoccupation.
There came a sharp tap at the door communicating with the court. It was a begowned official to announce that all was in readiness for the opening of the court.
The Judge waved him away.
“Now, gentlemen,” he continued, as the door closed on the banished man, “having given you my ruling I want to pass from reality to the realms of conjecture. This case intrigues me deeply. I warned you that it is for Croisette’s police to begin again. I meant that. I meant that literally because I am convinced that neither the prisoner nor the woman, Annette, had anything to do with the killing of Sinclair. I am breaking a long-established rule of my life in saying that. But I will go farther. I am no less convinced that each of them honestly believes that the other committed the crime. And, furthermore, each believes they have irrefutable evidence of the other’s guilt.”
The Judge rose from his chair and passed over to his wig and robes laid across the back of a chair.
“I think,” he proceeded, adjusting his robes on his ample person, “that this man they call the Wolf is an unusual character. He is a disreputable bootlegger. No doubt he is a ruffian. I am quite sure he would readily have claimed the privilege of shooting this man, Sinclair. But he is nevertheless a man who claims my respect for other virtues. As for the girl, Annette,” he went on, arranging his heavy wig before a mirror, “she seems to be a perverted, wayward, half-breed wench, without moral scruple. She’s headlong, wild, and steeped in the savagery of her Indian forbears. But she’s a woman. And she is quite beautiful. Furthermore, I rather think she is a woman who has found in the ashes of the conflagration she set going in Buffalo Coulee all that to which every woman has a right, and which, sooner or later, in her life comes her way. So, gentlemen,” he added, facing the men at the table, an imposing figure in his resplendent robes, and with a smile that seemed to permeate his whole being, “if you will favor me by preceding me into the court, I will do my best to persuade everybody that a scallawag bootlegger and potential killer, can still be a brave and gallant man.”