Part 36 (2/2)

I went with the counsel on both sides to view the scene of the tragedy, and it was agreed that the counsel for the prosecution should indicate as well as he could the case for the Crown by merely stating undisputed facts in connection with the premises.

The flight of steps, as I have said, led from the courtyard to the first landing.

The door opened outwards, and the first visible piece of evidence was that some violence had been exercised in forcing open the door on the occasion of some one making his or her escape from the building, for the staple into which the bolt of the lock had been thrust showed that the door had been locked on the inside, and that the person coming from the premises must have used considerable force in breaking through.

The key was not in the lock, neither had it fallen out, or it would have been found somewhere near. It had evidently been taken out and secreted, because it was found at the bottom of a dustbin a long way off from the staircase and in the room occupied by the prisoner.

There was one additional fact at this part of the view which I must mention. A bullet was picked up near the door. It had struck the opposite wall, and then glanced off and hit the other wall close to the door.

The bullet had been fired from the landing above; this was indicated by the direction as it glanced along the wall, and, further, by the mark it had left of its line of flight from the landing above, for it had struck against the low ceiling of that spot as though the person firing had fired in a hurry and had not taken sufficient aim to avoid it. It might be taken, therefore, that the person firing was not used to firearms, or he would not have hit what might be called the ceiling.

The bullet was produced by the chief constable.

On reaching the second landing, the mark of the bullet in the lintel showed clearly that it had been fired in the direction of some object below--some one, probably, descending the stairs.

On turning into the factory on this floor, which was quite empty, I saw on the wall near the doorway the mark of another bullet which had rested near and was found by the police. It was a bad aim, and showed, therefore, that the person who fired it was unused to firearms.

We went to the next room, into which we ascended by six steps; it was clear that it was from the head of these stairs that the course of the bullet was directed; its elevated position and the angle of incidence showed this. But as neither of these bullets had struck the deceased, for there was no mark of any kind to prove it, there was another bullet to be accounted for, and as the prisoner said that the pistol went off by accident, two or three matters had to be considered. Where was the spot where the accident occurred? and was aim actually taken?

The bullet had entered the hinder part of the neck, had taken a downward direction, and lodged in the spine. It did not, therefore, go off while he was explaining the pistol to her, otherwise it would have struck her at any other place than where it did.

Moreover, she had run in a state of intense fright the moment she was wounded--had commenced to run before, in fact, having escaped from the clutches of her murderer, for the skirt of her dress was torn from the gathers. It was proved that the prisoner had bought the pistol on the Sat.u.r.day night, that he was unused to firearms, for he had to ask the man who sold it to explain the mode of using it. He was heard practising with it on Sunday, and when the accident occurred it was proved that the interval between the first and second shots exactly accounted for the s.p.a.ce which intervened between the respective spots where the firing must have taken place.

Much was made of the fact that the poor girl had said she thought it was an accident, but I had to call the learned counsel's attention to the statement at the end of her examination, which was this: ”I thought at first it was an accident, for I could not believe he could be so cruel, but after the _second shot_ I believed he meant to kill me.”

A somewhat novel incident occurred during the examination for the prosecution.

A wire stand had been dressed with the girl's clothes to show where the lower part of the dress had been torn from the gathers. It was placed on the table, and no doubt exactly resembled the girl herself.

The prisoner was so much affected that he shuddered, and had to be supported.

He was condemned to death.

In the House of Commons and out of it sympathy was, of course, aroused, not for the unhappy girl who had been sent suddenly to her account, but for the l.u.s.tful brute who had murdered her. A question was asked of the Secretary of State for the Home Department as to the prisoner being insane, and whether there was not abundant evidence of insanity at the trial.

The counsel for the prosecution wrote to the Home Secretary and requested him to lay his letter before the prisoner's counsel to ascertain whether he agreed with it. The letter was to this effect: ”Not only was there no evidence of insanity, but the prisoner's counsel based his defence entirely upon the fact that there was no suggestion that the man was or ever had been insane. He must have been insane, argued the counsel, if he had committed a brutal murder of that kind; there was no insanity, and therefore it was an accident.”

The humane questioner of the Home Secretary left the prisoner after that statement to his well-deserved fate.

I recollect at one Gloucester a.s.size a man was tried before me for the murder of a woman near Bristol.

The prisoner had given his account of the tragedy, and said he had made up his mind to kill the first woman he met alone and unprotected; that is to say, he had made up his mind to kill somebody when there was no witness of the deed. Humanitarians for murderers might call this insanity.

He went forth on his mission, and saw a woman coming towards him with a baby.

He instantly resolved to kill both, and probably would have done so but for the fact that some one was seen coming towards him in the distance.

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