Mr. Walters: And you thought it was John Jasper, and John Jasper alone?
Witness: Yes.
Mr. Walters: We will leave that for a moment, and come to your brother. You are very intimate with your brother, and he confides in you. Were he and Drood friendly?
Witness: Yes, but they had a little misunderstanding.
Mr. Walters: Misunderstanding?
Witness: Only a difference of opinion.
Mr. Walters: Did you think it would lead your brother to make an attack on him?
Witness: The idea is preposterous.
Mr. Walters: They had a quarrel at the outset?
Witness: My brother did not like the way in which Edwin Drood spoke of Rosa Bud. He thought he was too patronising. John Jasper came up, made a great deal more of it than it warranted, and then insisted on the young men going back with him to have a glass of wine—stirrup-cup, he called it.
Mr. Walters: What was the effect on your brother?
Witness: Both became flushed and excited.
Mr. Walters: Was it very usual with your brother?
Witness: No.
Mr. Walters: Yet a small quantity had this effect on him. Did you suspect anything of the wine?
Witness: I am morally certain the wine was drugged.
Mr. Walters: I believe after that there was to be a little patching up?
Witness: That was owing to Canon Crisparkle. They were all to meet and shake hands.
Mr. Walters: Was it to be a large party, or confined to themselves?
Witness: Only my brother and Edwin Drood and John Jasper, who had invited them to his house.
Mr. Walters: That was on the Christmas Eve?
Witness: Yes.
Mr. Walters: Did you know anything about your brother’s plans for the next day?
Witness: He had planned to go on a walking tour.
Mr. Walters: You knew all about it?
Witness: Yes.
Mr. Walters: All arranged?
Witness: Yes.
Mr. Walters: No secret?
Witness: No.
Mr. Walters: And to the best of your knowledge, he started on that tour next morning?
Witness: Yes.
Mr. Walters: Now, to get back to the party: you saw your brother just before he went?
Witness: Yes.
Mr. Walters: Was he happy and jolly going to the party?
Witness: No. He was ready to shake hands with Edwin Drood, but he had a strange dread of the gatehouse.
Mr. Walters: He did not object to going?
Witness: No; because he wanted to shake hands with Edwin Drood.
Mr. Walters: Then the main object of his going was, not to enjoy himself, but to shake hands with Edwin Drood?
Witness: Yes.
Mr. Walters: And you think that was practically the only motive?
Witness: Yes.
Mr. Walters: We are told that Neville was fetched back after starting on his journey.
Witness: Yes.
Mr. Walters: Was it a surprise he was fetched back after Drood’s extraordinary disappearance was mentioned?
Witness: It was.
Mr. Walters: But when you heard who had fetched him back, was that a surprise?
Witness: No; because Jasper had always been his enemy from the first.
Mr. Walters: You thought he had cast suspicion on him?
Witness: Jasper had hinted in Cloisterham to many people that if anything ever happened to his nephew my brother would be responsible for it.
Mr. Walters: And so you knew that your brother was under deep suspicion when brought back to Cloisterham?
Witness: Yes.
Mr. Walters: Did you take that very much to heart?
Witness: I did, indeed, seeing it concerned the one I loved best in the world.
Mr. Walters: There were two persons you wanted to protect?
Witness: Yes.
Mr. Walters: Who were they?
Witness: My brother, and Rosa Bud.
Mr. Walters: You had a double motive, and you thought the danger came from one and the same man?
Witness: I certainly did.
Mr. Walters: Who was that?
Witness: John Jasper.
Mr. Walters: What did your brother do after all this?
Witness: He was so sad and unhappy that he left Cloisterham, and took lodgings in London.
Mr. Walters: You went with him?
Witness: No, I stopped there to live it down.
Mr. Walters: That is where your courage came in again?—But you need not reply. I shall leave it to the Jury to draw their own conclusions. And now, all this time you were watching Jasper? Did you discover anything about his actions?
Witness: Nothing definite.
Mr. Walters: Did you hear of his going here and there?
Witness: Yes; there were periodical disappearances.
Mr. Walters: Did you know where he went on those occasions?
Witness: Yes, he went to London.
Mr. Walters: And when in Cloisterham, how did he behave?
Witness: He went about always throwing out hints that he had thought my brother so hot tempered that he was afraid for his nephew to meet him.
Mr. Walters: Did he meet Rosa Bud again?
Witness: He made love to her.
Mr. Walters: Did she receive him kindly?
Witness: Hated him, loathed him, was terrified at him.
Mr. Walters: Did he say anything to her when he discovered what her attitude was?
Witness: He told her that nothing should prevent him from having her himself. No one should stand against him.
Mr. Walters: Did he threaten anyone who did stand against him?
Witness: Yes; he threatened my brother’s life.
Mr. Walters: You mean, he said to Rosa Bud something which amounted to a threat against your brother’s life?
Witness: He said he could place him in the greatest jeopardy and danger.
Mr. Walters: Then you thought his danger would increase?
Witness: Yes.
Mr. Walters: I suppose you went to London occasionally to see your brother?
Witness: Not often.
Mr. Walters: Did you ever see Rosa Bud in London?
Witness: Yes. She fled to London, so terrified was she at Jasper with his desperate love-making. She went to Mr. Grewgious, her guardian.
Mr. Walters: And you determined to shield her as much as possible?
Witness: More than ever.
Mr. Walters: Did you ever recall those words, that you would not, in any circumstances, be afraid of Jasper?
Witness: Yes.
Mr. Walters: Not a mere idle boast?
Witness: No.
Mr. Walters: You meant it?
Witness: I did.
Mr. Walters: Six months went by, and no progress made?
Witness: I found out nothing.
Mr. Walters: Yet the danger remained, and increased?
Witness: I grew more and more anxious.
Mr. Walters: It was the woman against the man, and the woman was making no headway?
Witness: Yes.
Mr. Walters: Did you think it was about time to change your course of action?
Witness: I did.
Mr. Walters: What did you do?
Witness: I remembered how, as a little girl, I dressed myself as a boy, and now I determined to dress myself as a man.
Mr. Walters: That was the result of recalling what you had done as a girl?
Witness: Yes.
Mr. Walters: What you had done in the past you could do again?
Witness: Yes.
Mr. Walters: It was difficult, you realised?
Witness: Yes, it was difficult, but I determined to overcome every difficulty.
Mr. Walters: You did not shrink?
Witness: Naturally I shrank, but the end was worth all the sacrifice.
Mr. Walters: You determined to go through with it?
Witness: I did.
Mr. Walters: Because you had this double motive?
Witness: That is so.
Mr. Walters: The overpowering motive which overcame everything else?
Witness: Yes.
Mr. Walters: Very well, now; if you could have avoided dressing yourself as a man, if some other course had been open to you, would you have taken it?
Witness: If I could have felt sure of success.
Mr. Walters: But you felt this was the last resource, and determined to do it?
Witness: Yes.
Mr. Walters: In order to appear as a man, you had to adopt a very complete disguise indeed. Did you remember what you did when you were a little girl? Did you cut off your hair again?
Witness: No, I thought I could manage.
Mr. Walters: Miss Landless, I don’t want to press you, but was there any particular, personal reason why you didn’t wish to sacrifice your hair?
Witness: Am I obliged to answer that question?
Judge: No.
Mr. Walters: His Lordship says you need not answer that question. I think we may leave it to the Jury, as human beings, to give their own answer. But, at all events, we understand that you did not cut off your hair. Did you whiten your eyebrows?
Witness: No.
Mr. Walters: You thought you could manage?
Witness: I did.
Mr. Walters: How did you disguise yourself effectively?
Witness: I put on a large wig of white hair.
Mr. Walters: To conceal your own luxuriant tresses?
Witness: I bound them well down underneath.
Mr. Walters: What else?
Witness: I thought, in keeping with a large head of white hair, I had better assume the free and easy manners of an elderly man, and I tried to put a little dash of swagger, and I wore a blue coat and buff waistcoat.
Mr. Walters: It was not so difficult, after all, in some respects, for you are a rapid and fluent talker—you need not be shy, you are—and therefore, as Dick Datchery, the affable old gentleman, a bit garrulous, you did not find much difficulty?
Witness: No: I did not find it very difficult.
Mr. Walters: What did you do in Cloisterham?
Witness: I put up at the Crozier Inn.
Mr. Walters: Where is that?
Witness: In the High Street.
Mr. Walters: Far from the Gate House?
Witness: No.
Mr. Walters: Did you try the effect of your disguise on the people in the neighbourhood?
Witness: Yes, at the Crozier I walked in, asked a few questions, and ordered a man’s dinner.
Mr. Walters: You ordered a man’s dinner?
Witness: You would not have had me ask for a glass of milk and a Sally Lunn!
Judge: What is a man’s dinner?
Witness: I called for a fried sole, and a veal cutlet, and a pint of sherry. Something like a man’s dinner!
Mr. Walters: And did you consume this gargantuan feast?
Witness: I think you are an intelligent gentleman, and I will leave it to you.
Mr. Walters: You may. Now let us come to your inquiries. I suppose you wanted lodgings?
Witness: I asked the waiter if he could direct me to any.
Mr. Walters: And did he?
Witness: I asked for something old, architectural, and inconvenient.
Mr. Walters: And he directed you?
Witness: He did.
Mr. Walters: Very far?
Witness: No; not far: Mrs. Tope’s house.
Mr. Walters: Did you find it easily?
Witness: No. That would not have done. I wandered about a bit in the wrong direction, and inquired, and at last found it.
Mr. Walters: The reason for all that?
Witness: I wanted to put everybody off the scent, and tried to act as to the manner born, so that if anybody were watching me they would really take me for the man I wanted to be.
Mr. Walters: You thought it best to take every precaution, in case you were watched?
Witness: Yes.
Mr. Walters: And they would think you had lost your way, and were a stranger?
Witness: Yes.
Mr. Walters: As a matter of fact, you were not a stranger. Did you meet Mr. Jasper?
Witness: I made an excuse, and I went up and asked him if he could tell me anything as to the respectability of the Tope family.
Mr. Walters: So that you bearded the lion in his den. Did he recognise you?
Witness: No; he did not know the mouse.
Mr. Walters: There are other ways of detecting people than by appearance. Jasper is a musician with a very delicate ear. What about your voice?
Witness: Mr. Jasper had only heard it once, and that was months ago, and, besides, I can change it (changing her voice)—change the tone of my voice, and speak like a man.
Mr. Walters: You can disguise it, Miss Landless, so that people would really think it was a man’s voice?
Witness: Yes.
Mr. Walters: Tell us what you discovered as to Mr. Jasper’s movements at this time.
Witness: He absented himself from the Cathedral every now and then, and made periodical disappearances.
Mr. Walters: Where did he go?
Witness: To London.
Mr. Walters: Were you in correspondence with Mr. Grewgious, the family solicitor, in London?
Witness: Yes.
Mr. Walters: Did he tell you he had seen Jasper?
Witness: Yes.
Mr. Walters: So that, between you, you knew all about him?
Witness: Yes.
Mr. Walters: In the character of Datchery, did you meet people?
Witness: Yes.
Mr. Walters: Durdles?
Witness: Yes.
Mr. Walters: The old opium woman?
Witness: Yes.
Mr. Walters: Mr. Sapsea, the Mayor?
Witness: Yes.
Mr. Walters: Did you talk to them familiarly?
Witness: Yes. I really knew their idiosyncrasies—everyone of them—so I fooled them to the top of their bent, and got everything out of them.
Mr. Walters: I have no doubt but that you asked the old opium woman some questions?
Witness: She had been following Jasper to the Gate House, and she asked me, in a whisper, would I mind telling her who he was, his name, and where he lived.
Mr. Walters: And you said it was John Jasper?
Witness: Yes. She asked, would I give her three-and-sixpence to buy some opium. She said that on Christmas Eve a young gentleman gave her three-and-sixpence, and he said that his name was Edwin. And she said where could she see Jasper? And I told her in the Cathedral.
Mr. Walters: Did she go to the Cathedral next morning?
Witness: Yes; I saw her behind a pillar, shaking her fist at him.
Mr. Walters: You think she knew something about him?
Witness: Yes; that she knew more about his character than anybody else suspected.
Mr. Walters: May I take it that the results of your investigations led you to the conclusions about John Jasper—that they increased your suspicions?
Witness: I had my suspicions from the first.
Mr. Walters: Did you keep a record of your successes at the time?
Witness: Yes.
Mr. Walters: How?
Witness: In chalk marks.
Mr. Walters: Why in chalk marks?
Witness: I like the old tavern way of keeping scores. You may make a little mark, and nobody but the scorer knows what it means: a small mark for a small success, and a big mark for a big one.
Mr. Walters: Was another reason that you did not wish your woman’s handwriting to be discovered?
Witness: That would never have done.
Mr. Walters: Did you adopt any device to bring Jasper into your presence, or not?
Witness: Yes; Mr. Grewgious had told me that he had given a ring to Edwin Drood.
Mr. Walters: And did you use that ring in any way?
Witness: Yes; it was this ring that I used to lure him.
Mr. Walters: And then, when you confronted Jasper, you felt that you had sufficient to go upon to accuse him openly of murder?
Witness: I did. His appearance and agitation were sufficient.
Mr. Walters: And so he was accused of murder; and your motives throughout were disinterested motives for the protection of Rosa Bud and your brother?
Witness: That is so.
Mr. Walters: You knew Edwin Drood?
Witness: Yes.
Mr. Walters: Do you think that if he had voluntarily disappeared while all this trouble was going on, he would have communicated with his friends?
Witness: Yes, he was a kind-hearted lad.
Mr. Walters: You cannot understand him being silent while Rosa was in danger?
Witness: I am sure he would not be.
Mr. Walters: You think that, wherever he was, he would have spoken, if alive?
Witness: I do.
Mr. Walters: Thank you, that will do.
[Helena Landless Cross-examined.]
Mr. Chesterton: Miss Landless, you say you knew the prisoner to some extent before the disappearance of Edwin Drood?
Witness: Yes.
Mr. Chesterton: When did you learn that the prisoner was addicted to opium smoking—or have you learned it?
Witness: Mr. Tope told me of a seizure he had in the Cathedral.
Mr. Chesterton: When was that, approximately?
Witness: As far as I can remember, about a few weeks after I came to Cloisterham as Dick Datchery. Rosa told me how frightened she was of him after he had had a dream; that he used to go into a peculiar kind of dream, and a film came over his eyes, and then she was more terrified of him than before.
Mr. Chesterton: But you are putting two very different dates. I want to know when you realised he was addicted to opium smoking.
Witness: It takes a little time to realise anything. We hear this and that, and we put two and two together.
Mr. Chesterton: When Rosa gave you that information, did you suspect opium smoking?
Witness: I had a faint suspicion.
Mr. Chesterton: It occurred to you that it was probably opium. You knew Edwin Drood, Miss Landless?
Witness: Yes.
Mr. Chesterton: Was he a conspicuous person—a person to notice very much?
Witness: Not very much, with the exception of this: that he was rather patronising, and had the air of a lad who was very much at home with himself.
Mr. Chesterton: He dressed like ordinary young men?
Witness: Yes.
Mr. Chesterton: Wore trousers?
Witness: Yes, certainly, I believe so.
Mr. Chesterton: Do you understand that the ring was found in the quicklime?
Witness: I believe so.
Mr. Chesterton: Oh! you believe so!
Witness: It was found there.
Mr. Chesterton: Were any buttons found there?
Witness: No, I believe not.
Mr. Chesterton: I suppose Mr. Drood would presumably have on either a belt or braces. Was a buckle or a belt or braces found in the quicklime?
Witness: No.
Mr. Chesterton: Nothing was found in the lime except this ring?
Witness: No.
Mr. Chesterton: Thank you.
Witness: I could throw some light on that.
Mr. Chesterton: Your Counsel will no doubt re-examine you. Now, I want to know about this disguise of yours. You told us that it was no new thing to disguise yourself, because you dressed up as a boy in Ceylon. Would you kindly tell me how old you were the last time you did it?
Witness: Thirteen.
Mr. Chesterton: Do you really suggest that a little girl of thirteen dressing up as a little boy—dressing up as a boy of thirteen—is any sort of qualification for a young lady of 21 dressing up as an “old buffer living idly on his means”?
Witness: Yes; the girl is mother to the woman, as the boy is father to the man.
Mr. Chesterton: Well, now, you have told us, Miss Landless, that in dressing up as Datchery, you wore a white wig, blue coat, buff waistcoat, and so on. Did you do anything to your face?
Witness: No.
Mr. Chesterton: You did not paint your face at all?
Witness: I always have enough colour in my face without paint.
Mr. Chesterton: You did not make up your face in any way?
Witness: No.
Mr. Chesterton: Do you ask the Jury to believe that you had been going about Cloisterham as Helena Landless for more than six months—ever since you came to Canon Crisparkle’s—that you had been going about as Miss Helena Landless; that you did not alter your face in any way, and went about as Dick Datchery, seeing the same people? Do you ask the Jury to believe that you were not recognised?
Witness: I ask them to believe it, because it is the truth.
Mr. Chesterton: Very well; the Jury will decide that for themselves. You say you went to Cloisterham and put up at the Crozier?
Witness: Yes.
Mr. Chesterton: You also told us that you ordered a certain meal—a fried sole, a veal cutlet, and a pint of sherry. When my learned friend asked you, you said you would leave it to us. I must ask you: did you consume that meal?
Witness: I am a healthy young woman, but I did not eat it all. I had a little of the fish, some of the cutlet, and some of the sherry.
Mr. Chesterton: How much sherry?
Witness: I had a glass.
Judge: It is important to insist whether the glasses were ordinary wine glasses.
A Juryman(Mr.Edwin Pugh): I think it is not a fair question.
Judge: Any question is fair that tends to bring out the truth. We have no reason to suppose that all the people in the Court are not lying—nay, even are not supporting fictitious characters!
The Juryman: But a sherry glass might be a tumbler.
Mr. Chesterton: Miss Landless, I press you. You say you only drank one glass. The remainder of the pint you left in the bottle.
Witness: I did not say that.
Mr. Chesterton: What did you do?
Witness: If I must say, there were receptacles in the room used by smokers. Some went that way, some I left in the bottle, and some I drank.
Mr. Chesterton: Were not people present?
Witness: Not all the time. Only part of the time.
Mr. Chesterton: They retired simultaneously?
Witness: No; there were not many there when I went in. Some left at once; some finished their dinners and went away.
Mr. Chesterton: And the fortunate moment arrived when you could pour out the sherry?
Witness: There are such things as fortunate moments.
Mr. Chesterton: Your taste in food and drink interests me a little. I shall return to the Crozier. But later on, when staying at Tope’s, you used to have an evening meal prepared for you, consisting of bread and cheese and salad and ale?
Witness: Yes.
Mr. Chesterton: Was that the sort of meal you were accustomed to at Miss Twinkleton’s?
Witness: But, you see, I was not at Miss Twinkleton’s.
Mr. Chesterton: But there would not have been anything eccentric about coffee or tea?
Witness: I think it would be a very feminine beverage.
Mr. Chesterton: Very well. You told my learned friend that you did not really lose your way from the Crozier to Tope’s?
Witness: Yes.
Mr. Chesterton: The truth of your story you are prepared to stake on that being so?
Witness: Yes.
Mr. Chesterton: Will the Jury look at page 191 of the book?[2]There it states “he soon became bewildered, and went boggling about and about the Cathedral tower, whenever he could catch a glimpse of it....” (To the witness.) You could catch a glimpse of it when you liked?
Witness: Yes.
Mr. Chesterton: There was no question of catching a glimpse of it. You could go straight to it if you wanted to?
Witness: If you are quoting from the book.
Mr. Chesterton: We are quoting from something that is admitted as evidence. Every statement made here must be taken as being true.
Witness: But that was a blind.
Mr. Chesterton: I want to carry you further, Miss Landless—“with a general impression on his mind that Mrs. Tope’s was somewhere very near it.” Is that the general impression on your mind?
Witness: I knew exactly where to go to Mrs. Tope’s.
Mr. Chesterton: And this “general impression on your mind” goes on—“and that, like the children in the game of hot boiled beans and very good butter, he was warm in his search when he saw the tower, and cold when he didn’t see it.” Is not that a definite statement as to the condition of your mind, and not as to your external actions, and does it not assert that you did not know where Tope’s lodgings were?
Witness: I take it as a blind.
Judge: I draw the attention of the Court to the fact that the conditions of anybody’s frame of mind have been paid perhaps too little attention to, and if Miss Landless chooses to say that the original literary person from whom I believe we procured most of this information was not quite accurate, one can only say she has probably gone outside the rules.
Mr. Chesterton: My Lord, I would direct your attention to the third paragraph of the “Conditions.”
Judge(after perusing the paragraph referred to): Yes, I see: that is, on the face of it, it is quite clear that a statement does appear to be made to that effect. The rest falls into the deplorable abyss of literature.
Mr. Chesterton(to witness): Now, after you had been “boggling about” in search of a place which you knew perfectly well already, you met a small boy, I think?
Witness: I did.
Mr. Chesterton: I need not trouble you with the conversation, but that boy agreed to conduct you to Tope’s?
Witness: Yes.
Mr. Chesterton: Now he brought you to a place from which the arched passage was visible?
Witness: Yes.
Mr. Chesterton: And you said, “That’s Tope’s”?
Witness: Yes.
Mr. Chesterton: And he answered, “Yer lie; it ain’t. That’s Jarsper’s.” Is that so?
Witness: Yes.
Mr. Chesterton: And you said, “Indeed?” And you gave a “second look, of some interest.” What was the meaning of that?
Witness: Well, of course, I knew it was Jasper’s, but when Jasper’s house or anything connected with him, was brought to my mind, I always thought it was interesting, and gave a look for that reason.
Mr. Chesterton: But you knew you were going to Jasper’s house?
Witness: Yes.
Mr. Chesterton: But why did you give it a second look?
Witness: Because I was so interested.
Mr. Chesterton: You knew it was Jasper’s, because the boy said it was Jasper’s, and you gave it “a look of some interest”!
Witness: We know that dinner is ready, but we look with interest at it before we sit down to it.
Mr. Chesterton: You knew it was Jasper’s, and gave “a second look of some interest” when told it was Jasper’s. Now you went to Tope’s, and you met, as you told us, Jasper and Mr. Sapsea, and other people. Now you kept your record, you told us, inchalk, and you told us that one of your reasons for doing that was that you must evade discovery of your handwriting?
Witness: That is so.
Mr. Chesterton: Had it not been for the fact that you were a woman, I take it you ask us to believe that you would have written up in ordinary writing all that you thought and speculated about Jasper on the cupboard door?
Witness: I do not ask you to believe anything of the kind, for I should not have been so foolish. I could have written some words if I had wished to, but I would not write at all.
Mr. Chesterton: You used the old tavern way of keeping scores. Where did you learn that?
Witness: In Ceylon.
Mr. Chesterton: What is the Cingalese tavern way?
Witness: I have not been brought up in a drawing-room, but among a very rough set of people. My step-father was a low, common man, and frequented taverns, and we children could go inside and outside or anywhere.
Mr. Chesterton: Are there taverns in Ceylon?
Witness: I don’t know that they call them taverns.
Mr. Chesterton: Do you suggest that the phrase “old tavern way of keeping scores” refers to Ceylon?
Witness: My chalk marks revert to the time when I was there.
Mr. Chesterton: How did you keep scores in Ceylon?
Witness: I did not keep scores there, but I saw other people.
Mr. Chesterton: How do you know how they were kept?
Witness: I did not say I did know exactly, but I learned that a little mark meant a certain quantity, a bigger mark more, and so on.
Mr. Chesterton: You like the old tavern way of keeping scores, but do not know how it is done?
Witness: I know that a man that had quarts had large strokes, and a man that had pints smaller ones.
Mr. Chesterton: You swear that was done in Ceylon?
Witness: I swear that sort of thing was done there.
Mr. Chesterton: What sort of drinks do they have there?
Witness: I never had their drinks. I saw them drinking, but I did not know what it was. But I saw the scores being kept on the back of the door.
Mr. Chesterton: Do you know what they were drinking at all?
Witness: I took it for spirits, and beer, and so on.
Mr. Chesterton: So you knew little about the drinking, but a great deal about the scoring?
Witness: That interested me as a child. My brother and I used to talk about it.
Mr. Chesterton: What was the purpose of the scores?
Witness: The tavern keepers would do it to know what was due from Tom Scott, or Jim Price.
Mr. Chesterton: You told us that you undertook the Datchery impersonation, so to speak, in collaboration with Mr. Grewgious?
Witness: Yes.
Mr. Chesterton: May I take it you know him well?
Witness: Yes.
Mr. Chesterton: Frequently correspond with him?
Witness: I correspond with him.
Mr. Chesterton: Receive letters from him?
Witness: I have had letters from him.
Mr. Chesterton: You know his profession?
Witness: A lawyer.
Mr. Chesterton: What sort?
Witness: I don’t know.
Judge: He is a lawyer, and I think that covers it. He is, indeed, a particular kind of solicitor, but I think a lady might well be excused for not knowing that.
Mr. Walters: A lawyer covers everything.
Judge: I think that is fair.
Mr. Chesterton: What is he?
Witness: A lawyer.
Mr. Chesterton: What sort of business does he carry on?
Mr. Walters: She doesn’t know.
Mr. Chesterton: I submit she knows nothing about Mr. Grewgious, and that she has not had correspondence with him.
Mr. Walters: The official record says she did know Mr. Grewgious, and saw him in his Chambers.
Mr. Chesterton: She might know Mr. Grewgious, but have no correspondence with him. I am asking what sort of business he carries on.
Witness: I know he is a lawyer.
Mr. Chesterton: And nothing more?
Witness: Women don’t interest themselves very much in these things.
Judge: No, I think that’s fair.
Mr. Chesterton: Now, the next time we hear anything of the official records, Miss Landless, you were back again in London. How was that?—in your own proper person, and ceased to be Datchery.
Witness: I went up in the evening.
Mr. Chesterton: In the evening?
Witness: By the last ’bus and train.
Mr. Chesterton: What time?
Witness: The ’bus that leaves the Crozier.
Mr. Chesterton: What time?
Witness: I forget exactly, but I think about six.
Mr. Chesterton: Had you any reason for going up?
Witness: Yes.
Mr. Chesterton: What was it?
Witness: I wanted to see my brother.
Mr. Chesterton: There was no particular reason why that day more than any other day?
Witness: No, I think not.
Mr. Chesterton: I suppose you will admit you were running a certain risk of discovery?
Witness: Yes, there was some, but I thought I should be able to avoid it.
Mr. Chesterton: Anybody might follow you?
Witness: Might.
Mr. Chesterton: You were a stranger in Cloisterham. Anybody might have followed you to London. You were running that risk for no particular reason at all?
Witness: Oh! but I knew my brother was very, very unhappy, and I knew I could cheer him and comfort him, and he was very, very dear to me.
Mr. Chesterton: Your visit had nothing to do with Rosa’s visit to London?
Witness: I did not know she was there.
Mr. Chesterton: Mr. Grewgious had not written and asked you to go?
Witness: No.
Mr. Chesterton: No reason?
Witness: Yes; the reason I have given you.
Mr. Chesterton: But there was no particular reason?
Witness: Is it not particular to go and cheer one who is closely bound to you?
Judge: I think the witness’s remark is quite clear. She says she had an impulse in an avowedly emotional atmosphere to go and see somebody.
Mr. Chesterton: Very well. (To witness.) You met, you have told us, an opium woman?
Witness: Yes.
Mr. Chesterton: And you had a conversation with her, and afterwards made a mark on your score—your Cingalese score?
Witness: Yes.
Mr. Chesterton: A moderate mark; then you saw her, in the Cathedral, shake her fist at Jasper?
Witness: Yes.
Mr. Chesterton: Then you made a big mark. What was the meaning of that?
Mr. Walters: I am not sure that she is bound to answer that question. It is sufficient that she made the mark.
Mr. Chesterton: I am endeavouring to show that this story is not true, as I shall represent to the Jury, and my motive for asking the question is, that I suggest it was not Miss Landless who made the mark. The witness who did make the mark will be summoned later, and asked why he made it.
Witness: You ask why I made the long mark?
Mr. Chesterton: Yes.
Witness: Because I thought, when she shook her fist at Jasper, and putting with that the fact that she had followed him, I concluded that she knew something against him, and I thought I had scored, and scored heavily.
Mr. Chesterton: Is that all?
Witness: I had learned more than that. I had learned that Edwin Drood had given her money for opium on Christmas Eve.
Mr. Chesterton: What did that prove?
Judge: We must not go into what that could prove. The witness has given a perfectly clear and definite account of her proceedings, and I strongly suggest that unless there is some particular point to be made, she should now be released from the witness-box, because the other point whether she knows anything about the scoring at inns, or whether such practices are common in Ceylon, must be left to later discussion.
Mr. Chesterton: That is not the point I am trying to make; but that there was no reason why she should make the score, and I asked why she made it. I believe she did not.
Judge: But if she replies that she makes long or short chalk marks, in accordance with the ebullitions of her emotional nature——
Mr. Chesterton: She is entitled to do so.
Judge: That would be an answer, and the only answer to which you will be entitled at the moment.
Mr. Chesterton: If she likes, she may.
Judge: She has told you that she made a long stroke because she thought she had made a great score in her own mind against Jasper, and that she made a shorter mark before because she had not made a big score. That is all that could be expected to be got out of her, without a self-contradiction which would amount to perjury.
Mr. Chesterton: I have very little more to ask, and shall get through very quickly. (To witness.) Now, you tell us that your motives were very compelling. You didn’t care much about Edwin Drood, did you?
Witness: No, there was nothing particular about him. I thought he was a nice young fellow.
Mr. Chesterton: You did? You did not call him “base and trivial”?
Witness: When he acted as he did to my brother, I felt angry, and naturally said things I should not have said.
Mr. Chesterton: Your feelings were not very strong?
Witness: No.
Mr. Chesterton: Your motive, you say, was care for your brother and for Miss Rosa Bud?
Witness: That is so.
Mr. Chesterton: Do you consider those motives adequate to induce you to take the course you say you took?
Witness: I do.
Mr. Chesterton: Enough to make you take all risks?
Witness: Yes.
Mr. Chesterton: To go all lengths?
Witness: To the risk of my life.
Mr. Chesterton: Your life?
Witness: He was all I had.
Mr. Chesterton: Enough to compel you to do anything?
Witness: Anything that was right and true. You can’t catch me that way.
Mr. Chesterton: I put it to you that the whole of your story is a romance.
Witness: You put it to me?
Mr. Chesterton: I put it to you, in fairness.
Witness: Will you please consider that I am here on my oath?
Mr. Chesterton(to Judge): Your Lordship knows I am bound to put that.
Witness: I can only answer that every word I have spoken is true.
Mr. Chesterton: Suppose every word you have spoken is true: is there a single word you have spoken that proves that Edwin Drood was murdered?
Witness: I don’t know that you have asked questions to elicit that.
Mr. Chesterton: It is not my business. Is there a word in the whole of the testimony you have given to your own Counsel or to me that proves that Edwin Drood was murdered? Did you, for example, see Edwin Drood murdered?
Witness: No.
Mr. Chesterton: Do you know anyone who saw the murder?
Witness: No.
Mr. Chesterton: Have you seen his body?
Witness: No.
Mr. Chesterton: Do you know anyone who has seen it?
Witness: I don’t think his body could be seen.
Mr. Chesterton: Then you really have no evidence to produce to prove that Edwin Drood is dead?
Witness: I have the ring.
Mr. Chesterton: That is all the evidence—your whole case? I want to press this point very much. On that ring your case rests. Is that so?
Witness: I am not a woman who understands very much about legal proceedings. It is the first time I have been in court. It is a hard thing for a clever man like you to put a question like this to an unsophisticated witness.
Mr. Chesterton: But you are the person who has worked out the whole scheme against Jasper. Does not the whole case for the death, not for the plan or the undertaking, but for the death having taken place, rest on the finding of that ring?
Witness: Well, perhaps the case for incriminating, bringing it home to Jasper, rests on the ring.
Mr. Chesterton: And if that ring—the presence of that ring—could be satisfactorily explained—the presence of the ring in the quicklime could be satisfactorily explained in any other way—you would have nothing to produce to show that it was a murder?
Witness: I might have no evidence, but I should be morally certain.
Mr. Chesterton: You would hold your opinion, we know, but you would have no evidence?
Witness: No.
Judge: I think we must be careful not to get into argument.
Mr. Chesterton: My Lord, I am finishing.
Witness: What you and I think is evidence might be two different questions.
Judge: That is indeed very probable.
Witness: I don’t think it fair to ask questions like that.
Mr. Chesterton: I will take her answer.
Mr. Walters(re-examining): It does not require particular affection for any particular person to wish that he should not be murdered?
Witness: No.
Mr. Walters: Although you might not be violently enamoured of Edwin Drood, you might want to bring his murderer to justice?
Witness: Yes.
Mr. Walters: It has been suggested that your story is entirely romance. If you had been acting a part, would you not naturally have been disgraced for ever in the eyes of all who know you?
Witness: I should indeed.
Mr. Walters: Have you not a particular reason at present for wishing to stand high in the esteem of certain people?
Witness: I have.
Mr. Walters: Don’t you think you would forfeit that esteem if you stood there on your oath, and told a tissue of falsehoods?
Witness: I should.
Mr. Walters: Is there not every reason why you should tell the truth?
Witness: There is.
Mr. Walters: Have you anything to gain by telling lies?
Witness: I have all to lose.
Mr. Walters: Have you not been working entirely for others throughout?
Witness: Yes.
Mr. Walters: You would not have taken this part if you could have helped it?
Witness: No.
Mr. Walters: And when you were making these investigations you did not want to go to everybody and ask his definite business—“What sort of lawyer are you?”?
Witness: No; I never thought about it. He was a lawyer, and that’s all I knew.
Mr. Walters: Have you ever written a tragedy that nobody will bring out?
Witness: No, indeed, I have not.
Mr. Walters: And so you have no particular reason for standing in the limelight and making yourself a heroine. Thank you.
Judge: The Court will now adjourn for about ten or fifteen minutes.
The Court accordingly adjourned. On the resumption of the proceedings, Mr. Walters announced that the evidence of Miss Helena Landless had completed his case.
[The Case for the Defence.]
Mr. Crotch, in opening the case for the defence, said—
My Lord, and Gentlemen of the Jury—
I am not going to follow the example of my learned friend, but I am merely going to outline the defence as briefly as possible. I am going to say at once that we are not out to attempt to dispute in any way that the prisoner desired the death of Edwin Drood or that he intended to murder him, nor that he planned to murder him, nor that he actually attempted to murder him, nor indeed, my Lord, that at one time, and for some time, he did believe that he had actually murdered him. What we do say, however, is that no murder took place. For any murder there must be, not only a murderer, but a murdered man. Now, granted for a moment that in the prisoner at the bar you have a potential murderer, where is the murdered man?
Mr. Walters: This is strictly against all agreements.
Mr. Crotch: I will put my statement in another way, my Lord.
Mr. Walters: I draw your attention to this fact: it is agreed that the legal point that no conviction can take place since no body has been found, shall be raised only after the retirement of the jury. This ought not to have been introduced at all.
Judge: But we may assume, what is apparently the fact, that no murdered body has been found?
Mr. Walters: But he went further, and said, “Where is the body?”
Mr. Crotch: May I placate my friend and say, have we a murdered man? We say John Jasper did not murder Edwin Drood on the Christmas Eve of 1860. We have every reason to believe that Edwin Drood is still alive, and in that case, of course, it follows that you cannot legally convict John Jasper for murder. Now, it will naturally be asked how, if a murder was admittedly attempted, it can have failed, and still more,that if it failed, how the supposed murderer could have believed that it had succeeded. Those questions will be probably solved: we hope they will be solved by the evidence which we shall put before you. All I think it is at the moment necessary to say is, that the key to the story will be found in the opium habits to which the prisoner undoubtedly was addicted. My Lord, there is a story told of an Irish priest, who, warning his congregation against the evils of intemperance, said, “What makes you shoot at your landlord?” And the reply came, “It’s the drink.” “And begad, what makes you fail to shoot him?” The same reply—“It’s the drink.” My Lord and Gentlemen of the Jury, we submit that, in a word, is the story of John Jasper. Now John Jasper is—presumably my friend will admit it—he has tried to prove it—I don’t think he has demonstrated much by it—he has tried to get out of his witnesses that this man was an opium smoker. From our point of view that is excellent. We say that John Jasper had, on the night previous to this murderous attack on Edwin Drood, indulged in a gross opium debauch, and because he did, in the midst of the commission of his crime he had one of those sudden seizures to which he was subjected, and that under the influence of opium he failed to complete the crime, but still believed that he had. Because he was under the influence of opium, he completed it in imagination, and then afterwards imagined that he had completed it in fact; and because his victim—and this is the point that I want to draw your attention to especially—because his victim also was under the influence of opium, having been drugged by Jasper, he failed to give any connected or reasonable and rational account of what had happened in these circumstances. That, I submit, my Lord, and Gentlemen of the Jury, is the outline. The details will be presently filled in by witnesses, who will testify. You will perceive that if it is true—and we shall prove it to be true—then John Jasper, whatever his intention, however great his moral obliquity, cannot be legally convicted of murder.—Eliza Lascar, alias the “Princess Puffer.”