Part 66 (2/2)
[Ill.u.s.tration: ”Prisoner at the bar, are you guilty or not guilty?”]
The reading of the indictment has turned all eyes upon the prisoner's face.
He stands erect, his head haughtily poised, his clear dark eyes fixed fully upon the judge.
”I am not guilty, your honor.”
A murmur runs through the court room. The stranger bends to whisper to Constance. The trial proceeds.
Once again all the evidence brought forward at the inquest is repeated--sworn to--dilated upon. Once again it presses the scales down, down, down, and the chances for the prisoner hang light in the balance.
One thing puzzles the prosecuting attorney, and troubles the mind of Jasper Lamotte.
O'Meara, the shrewd, the fox like--O'Meara, who never lets pa.s.s a flaw or a loophole for criticism; who never loses a chance to pick and torture and puzzle a witness, is strangely indifferent.
One by one the witnesses for the prosecution pa.s.s before him; little by little they build a mountain of evidence against his client. He declines to examine them. He listens to their testimony with the air of a bored play-goer at a very poor farce.
After the testimony of the two masons, comes that of the party who last saw John Burrill in life. They testify as they did at the inquest--neither more, nor less.
Then come the dwellers in Mill avenue. They are all there but Brooks and Nance Burrill.
”Your honor,” says the prosecuting attorney, ”two of our witnesses--two very important ones--are absent. Why they are absent, we do not know.
Where they may be found, is a profound mystery.
”One of these witnesses, a man called Brooks, we believe to have been especially intimate with the murdered man. We think that he could have revealed the secret which the prisoner took such deadly measures to cover up. This man can not be found. He disappeared shortly after the murder.
”Our other witness vanished almost simultaneously. This other was the divorced wife of the murdered Burrill. She, too, knew too much. Now I do not insinuate--I do not cast any stones, but there are some, not far distant, who could explain these two mysterious disappearances, 'an they would.'”
”An they _will_!” pops in the hitherto mute O'Meara. ”They'll make several knotty points clear to your understanding, honorable sir.”
A retort rises to his opponent's lips, and a wordy war seems imminent, but the crier commands ”Order in the Court,” and the two antagonists glare at each other mutely, while the trial moves on.
Frank Lamotte comes upon the witness stand. As before, he tells nothing new.
He was aware that his brother-in-law possessed some secret of Doctor Heath's. Did not know the nature of it, but inferred from words Burrill had let drop, that it was of a damaging character.
Upon being questioned as to his acquaintance with the prisoner, and what he knew of his disposition and temper, he replies that he has known the prisoner since he first came to W----; liked him very much; never had any personal misunderstanding, although of late the prisoner had chosen to treat him with marked coldness.
As to his temper--well, he must admit that it was very fiery, very quickly roused, very difficult of control, he believed. Prisoner was by nature intolerant to a fault. He had shown this disposition in presence of witness on many occasions.
Being shown the knife found in the cellar, he examines it carefully, and p.r.o.nounces it to be the one he has often seen in Doctor Heath's instrument case, or its precise counterpart.
This ends his testimony. O'Meara has no questions to ask, and Jasper Lamotte takes his son's place. He is the last witness for the prosecution.
He has less to say than any of the others.
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