Part 7 (1/2)
Mr. Moss smiled, declining to be pooh-poohed.
”That's all very well in theory, Mr. Grice, but in practice it won't do. Nichols, with his fish-cart, has done a daily round in this country of some twenty miles or so for the last twelve or fourteen years. I doubt if there is a person in this room who has not some knowledge of him. As for Bailey, his mother lives within a hundred yards of my house; I have known him ever since he was born. I am acquainted, too, with his last two employers, and with the circ.u.mstances under which he left them.”
”I know nothing of either of the parties,” said Captain Rudd.
”You are a new-comer. I doubt, as I say, if any other person present can say the same.”
If any other person could, he didn't. There was a pause--broken by the foreman.
”Let us understand our position. Eight of us say guilty--Mr. Tyler goes with the majority; two of us have not yet made up our minds; and Mr. Longsett is the only one who says not guilty. May I inquire, Mr.
Longsett, on what grounds you favour an acquittal?”
”You've no right to ask me anything of the kind. This is not the first jury I've served on. Although you're foreman, you're only like the rest of us. What you've got to do is to ask me if I say guilty or not guilty. I say not guilty.
”I believe, Mr. Longsett,” insinuated Mr. Moss, ”that Bailey is a relation of yours?”
”That's no business of yours.”
”Then are we to understand, Mr. Longsett”--the foreman spoke with almost ominous suavity--”that you have arrived at a point at which you are impervious to argument?”
”I say not guilty.”
”Even though it may be demonstrated beyond a shadow of a doubt that the prisoner is guilty?”
”It's no good talking to me, Mr. Grice. I say not guilty.”
The foreman, stretching out his hands in front of him, looked round the table with an air which was eloquent with deprecation. Old Parkes banged his fist upon the board.
”And I say guilty, and I hope they'll give him seven years--the thieving varmint!”
”Arrived at a state of sudden conviction--eh, George?”
This was Mr. Timmins, who was middle-aged and jaunty.
”Some people are easily convinced,” growled Mr. Longsett.
”You're not one of that sort, are you, Jacob?”
This again was Mr. Timmins.
”You won't convince me.”
Nor, judging from the expression of Jacob's visage, did there seem to be much probability of their being able to do anything of the kind.
There was another interval of silence--broken this time by Captain Rudd.
”Then because this gentleman chooses to differ from us, without condescending to give us his reason for so doing, are we to stultify ourselves, and is justice to be baulked? Is that the situation, Mr.
Foreman?”
”Excuse me, Captain Rudd, but Mr. Longsett is not alone. I also say not guilty. The observation of Mr. Parkes, expressing a hope that the prisoner will get seven years, shows to me that a spirit of malignancy is in the air, and to that spirit I am unable to subscribe.”