Part 15 (1/2)

This statement caused the jury to p.r.i.c.k up their ears. Even they had realized by this time that something in the case turned upon a latchkey.

No further questions were put to the witness by Tressamer, and Pollard saw no opening for cross-examination. The former, therefore, at once began his speech.

'May it please your lords.h.i.+p: Gentlemen of the jury----'

The counsel paused a moment, shook his robe out of his way, clenched his fists upon the table in front of him, and bent forward towards the jury with stern and solemn brow.

'I shall not weary you with the plat.i.tudes usual on occasions like this. I shall say nothing to you about banis.h.i.+ng from your minds all you may have heard or read in the newspapers about this case, for I am sure it is unnecessary.

'Nor shall I say anything about the weight of responsibility which rests upon my shoulders, because, after all, what is my responsibility to yours? If I make any mistake, if I fail after doing my best, I shall have the consolation of knowing that I am in no way to blame, I have not to answer for the result.

'But you have! In your hands are life and death! The hangman is your instrument; the judge upon the bench is but your a.s.sistant. Seek not to s.h.i.+rk your liability; do not trust to others to s.h.i.+eld you. On the way in which you discharge your duty to-day depends the most solemn and awful of all considerations--a human life. If you by any prejudice, by any weakness, by any deference to superst.i.tion or authority, give an innocent fellow-creature to the tomb, it had been better for you that you had never been born!'

The twelve men in the box s.h.i.+fted themselves uneasily under this indignant apostrophe. They had expected to be cajoled. They found themselves threatened. The rest of those present looked on amazed, and held their breath to listen. The speaker seemed perfectly indifferent to the impression he was creating around him. He glanced at neither the judge nor the prisoner, but fixed his searching eye upon the dozen men he was addressing.

'You know your duty as well as I do. You know you must not give a verdict upon suspicion, no, not though that suspicion were as dark as Erebus, as heavy as lead. You must have proof. You must have certainty. You must know how this crime was done, and why and wherefore, or you must acquit the prisoner.'

It is only under great provocation that a judge will interrupt the counsel for the defence in a case of life and death, but Sir Daniel Buller frowned and fidgeted as he listened to this extreme view of a jury's duties. However, he reflected that he would have the last word.

He could afford to wait till the summing-up. Meanwhile he took up his pen and made a note.

'Now, gentlemen, let me say this to you, and let me enforce it with all the earnestness I can command--the fact that a murder has been committed is no evidence whatever against the prisoner at the bar.

'No one denies that the crime has been committed. To do so were absurd. Elderly ladies do not disappear mysteriously in the night like this unless somebody has an interest in making them disappear. The whole question for you is this--had the prisoner any such interest?

'Something has been said in this case about jewels. A question--a shamefully leading and improper question--was put by the counsel for the prosecution, the junior counsel--who seems to have brought to his work a bitterness and an amount of prejudice against the unhappy prisoner which is fortunately rarely met with in a case of this kind; a demeanour which presents a contrast, indeed, to the moderate and judicious tone adopted by my learned friend Mr. Prescott, whom I was sorry to see summoned elsewhere--a question, as I was saying, was put to the prosecutor Lewis, who was only too ready to take a sinister hint, with a view of making him swear that the prisoner knew something about those jewels, about which so much prejudice had been imported into this case. Gentlemen, you know nothing about jewels. No evidence has been put before you to-day as to anything of the sort. So far as you or I can tell, the prisoner was never aware of the existence of such things. We are bound to a.s.sume--you are bound by your oaths to a.s.sume--that there was no such motive to operate upon the prisoner's mind. What motive was there, then?

'Gentlemen, from the beginning to the end of this case not one motive has been suggested, not one syllable has been uttered from first to last, to account for the theory which you are asked to accept, that a young, beautiful, well-cared-for, and well-brought-up girl has suddenly, without the smallest provocation, developed the instincts of a cannibal, and committed a shocking and ferocious murder under circ.u.mstances which would revolt the most bloodthirsty of savages.'

Every word was emphasized by look and gesture. Every word went home to those who heard it. The crowded Bar stared in astonishment: they had not believed their colleague to possess such force. But he went on with hardly a pause.

'You have been told that this is a prosecution on behalf of the Crown.

I deny it. Technically it is so, of course; but who is the real prosecutor? Who has been the moving spirit all along--if not the prosecutor, then the persecutor? Who has lost, or professes to have lost, his wretched jewels? Who, the moment he heard that the crime was discovered, turned round and hurled his brutal accusation at this helpless girl? Who rushed off to lodge his information, so as to be beforehand in case any information were to be lodged against him? Who instructed the solicitors at the inquest? Who gave evidence there and at the police-court? Who has been hand in glove with the prosecuting solicitors all along? Who is sitting by their side at this moment, without a particle of decent shame?'

This furious burst of invective seemed to fairly overwhelm the subject of it. He made a movement to go away, but the solicitor restrained him by a whisper in his ear.

'Gentlemen, I am here to defend the prisoner. I am not here to attack anyone else. I do not wish to do so. Would to G.o.d that I could shut my eyes to the fact that a terrible murder has been done! But I cannot, and you cannot. Someone did that deed. Someone who had a motive for his act treacherously murdered and brutally mangled that old, feeble, defenceless woman. I ask you to say it was not the prisoner. I ask no more.

'In the old days it would have been different. It was once the law that when a prisoner was accused of murder by a coroner's inquest, then the jury in this court were not ent.i.tled to bring in a verdict of acquittal unless they at the same time, and by the same verdict, indicated the person who was really guilty. If that were still the law--and I am glad it is not--but if it were, I should not hesitate for one moment in pointing out to you at least one person who is more likely to have been guilty of this crime than Eleanor Owen.

'I should ask you, in the famous Ciceronian phrase, _Cui bono_? For whose profit was this murder? You have been told by a spiteful servant-girl, whom you may believe for aught I care, that Miss Lewis once promised to remember the prisoner in her will. But did she? In the will which has been proved--and if there was any other will it has been destroyed by the same criminal hands that dyed themselves in blood--in a will dated two years ago, there is not one stiver, not one half-farthing left to Eleanor Owen. But the whole of the testatrix's property, amounting, I believe, to between twenty and forty thousand pounds, is given unconditionally to her beloved nephew, John Lewis!'

What a depth of sarcasm on the word 'beloved' as the barrister brought it out! The object of this terrible attack fairly writhed in his seat.

'Mind,' resumed the speaker, 'I am not responsible for the suggestion that this crime was committed for the sake of profiting under this poor woman's will. That suggestion came from the other side, prompted, I dare say, by the man Lewis himself. What applies to the prisoner applies to him. As far as motive is concerned--and I am now dealing solely with the question of motive--everything is against the prosecutor, and everything is in favour of his victim.

'And now to examine more closely the evidence, such as it is, of the way in which this crime was brought about. It must have been done after ten that night. So far I agree with the prosecution. Now, where is the evidence as to the prisoner's doings that night?

'We know--we have it from the witnesses for the Crown, and from the respectable chemist, James--that she had been unwell, and had been in the habit of taking midnight walks for some time previously. She took one on this particular night. I do not deny it--I admit it. I demand of you to believe it. She went out at twelve, or rather before, let us say, just as the spiteful servant-girl told you. She went out, leaving the door latched, but not bolted, and she walked in an easterly direction along the sh.o.r.e, where the fisherman met her.

'And I want you to note here for a moment how the evidence for the prosecution has been coloured even in small things. As you have heard, the body, or rather the hand, was found next day at the entrance of Newton Bay. Now, as most of you know, Newton Bay lies to the east of Porthstone, some two miles further along the coast. When the fisherman, Evan Thomas, met the prisoner, she was nowhere near Newton Bay, and she had not the smallest intention, so far as we know, of going there. She was simply strolling up and down the Porthstone Esplanade, and her face happened to be turned towards the east when she was met by him. Yet, how is his evidence put before you? ”I met her. She was going in the direction of Newton Bay.” Gentlemen, I say that is a poisoned answer. It is a poisonous suggestion to your minds that the prisoner was actually going to Newton Bay--was making for it at the time. Why didn't they say that she was going towards the tennis-ground, or the Grand Hotel, or the bathing-place? All those lay in the same direction, and there is not a t.i.ttle of evidence to show, there is not the smallest reason to suppose, that she ever went a yard beyond those places.

'That is how the prosecution has been conducted throughout. That wicked servant, who practically admitted that she nursed a dislike to her young mistress, got into that box, I put it to you, for the deliberate purpose of making the case against her as black as she could. In reality her evidence was strongly in the prisoner's favour, as I shall point out to you. But she, too, was instructed, or was taught by her own evil nature, to so distort the facts as to make them bear an appearance against the unhappy girl who is on trial for her life.