The Queen Against Owen Part 15

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.

'First, we have the incident of the groan. On that subject I ask you to accept her first story, that it was a mere troubled exclamation in sleep, if it was really heard at all, which I may be permitted to doubt. For when a witness exhibits such recklessness and malice and wilful perversion of the truth in a case of this solemn character, I cannot willingly believe that any jury of Englishmen will consent to take away a human life on such testimony.

'Then we come to the incident of prisoner's going out. Good heavens!

what colouring is put into a simple incident like that! The prisoner, as we now know, and as this wretched woman doubtless knew perfectly well, often went out at night. She suffered from some nervous attack, accompanied by insomnia, and the chemist, Mr. James, whom the counsel on the other side, with all his bitterness, dared not cross-examine--Mr. James told you that he had himself advised her to take these walks at night. Do you believe him? Do you think a respectable tradesman--I may almost call him a professional man--would come into the box and perjure himself on such a subject? Hardly. It would be too much to expect. I do not think that even my learned friend will ask you to say that Mr. James has committed perjury, though I have no doubt at all that Lewis would like to have it suggested.'

There was an intense bitterness in the way in which he brought out Lewis's name. Unconsciously the jury began to be influenced by it, and to look at Lewis each time he was referred to with undisguised aversion.

'Yet how this simple incident is magnified and invested with importance and mystery by the other side--by Lewis and his friends!

They tell you how the servant awoke at midnight--you know it is an absurd trifle, but the word "midnight" sounds so much more solemn and dreadful than the words "twelve o'clock p.m."--how she woke at midnight and heard a door open--as if people didn't always open doors when they wanted to go out! How she got up quietly--perhaps you may be inclined to say treacherously--and stole downstairs. How she had recognised the footsteps as those of Miss Owen. How she heard the front-door go, and finally found it unfastened, except for the latch.

And all as if something very dreadful had taken place, instead of the ordinary incident of a young lady going out for an hour to walk off a headache!

'And, after all, what does it come to? Why, it sounds ridiculous, but the whole end and result of all this is to prove the very thing which I am most anxious to have proved on behalf of the prisoner--namely, that she was out of the house when this murder was committed. They have tried to incriminate the prisoner, and they have ended in proving an unimpeachable alibi!'

He stopped to let his words sink into the minds of the jury, and everyone in court took advantage of the break to change their positions and breathe more freely. Whispers were exchanged, and the feeling began to prevail that a good point had been made, and the prisoner might very likely get off.

'With what happened after that the prisoner has nothing to do. Mr.

Lewis and his friends do not seem to realize, what I hope you will realize, that the fact of footsteps being heard a few minutes after is the strongest point in the prisoner's favour. Why, if no one else had been heard to enter the house on that night, it would have looked bad for her. But that is just what the prosecution, in their blind mismanagement, have proved. They have shown out of the mouth of their own witness that someone did come in; someone who had been waiting outside ready to come in, and who took advantage of Miss Owen's exit to slip in by means of a latchkey which he had found, or stolen, or borrowed from the deceased.

'Now you have the clue. This girl, who stated that ten minutes had elapsed, when it must have been only three, to judge by her notions of time in other matters, this same girl wanted to insinuate that the footsteps she heard the second time were the prisoner's. Gentlemen, I ask you frankly not to believe it. I ask you to discount her evidence by the evident ill-feeling she manifested. I ask you to believe that the last footsteps were those of the murderer, and that they were heavier because they were a man's.

'What else is there against the prisoner? I ask, what else? She came down late the next morning, forsooth! That is the reason why you are asked to send her in her youth and beauty to a felon's doom.

Incredible! Monstrous! As if we all did not constantly get up late, for some reason or another. As if a person who had been out late the night before would not naturally oversleep herself. Why, if she had committed a crime she would have taken particular care to be down early. She would have tried to throw off suspicion by acting in her ordinary way. I am ashamed of answering such arguments.

'The latchkey incident is dead in her favour.'

Here the jury, who had shown signs of weariness after their long sitting, brightened up again. They had made up their minds that this was the real point in the case, and were honestly anxious for light upon it.

'Two things are clear--first, that the person who last came into the house, and did up the fastenings, was the prisoner; second, that the prisoner had a latchkey, whether her own one found again or one which she borrowed from Miss Lewis. Now, if the prisoner had committed this murder, let us see what she would naturally have done in trying to throw suspicion off herself.

'In the first place, I say she would not have fastened up the front-door. To do so was practically saying that the crime was not the work of an outsider. No, she would have left the door wide open, as if the criminal were some common robber who had carried off his booty and run away. In the second place, she would have thrown away her latchkey, so as to make it appear that she had not been outside.

These points are so important that, with your permission, I will repeat them again.'

Anyone who has had experience of juries knows how difficult it is to get into their minds a process of logical reasoning. To the trained lawyer such a thing is not so hard, but even to him it is far easier to master reasoning from a book than by word of mouth. Oral teaching has its advantages, doubtless, but few things are harder than to convey ideas of any subtlety by means of speech to an audience.

Tressamer patiently set to work, and for twenty minutes he repeated and explained all that he had been saying. When he thought that the jury really understood him he returned to where he had started from, and re-directed their suspicions on Lewis.

'Before I sit down I think I ought to suggest to you how this crime really was done. You have heard the story of the prosecution. Now let me put to you my story on behalf of the prisoner.

'The deceased woman was wealthy. About her jewels we know nothing, and I do not refer to them, but she had other property to a large extent.

The whole of this was to go at her death to a nephew. For two years she lived in this house alone night after night with the prisoner, and nothing happened. At last the nephew who was to inherit her wealth suddenly returned from the other end of the world. That night she met her death.

'At twelve o'clock her companion, who suffered from sleeplessness, went out for a long walk. Hardly had she closed the door behind her than the murderer stole up to it and made his way in. Probably he had a latchkey. We know that Miss Owen had mislaid hers. It may have been that. We also know that Miss Lewis had a spare one, and that her nephew was to take up his residence in the house on the very next morning. So that, mark this, if the murder had been deferred for one more day he would have fallen under the same suspicion as Miss Owen, and probably a good deal more.

'The murderer entered, as I said, by means of his latchkey. But it was the first time he had used it. He did not know the peculiarity of the latch. He raised it too high, and it stuck.

'Not staying to notice this, in his wickedness, he pa.s.sed into the house and upstairs. He tried the door of his aunt's--I mean the deceased's--room. It was, of course, locked, as it was found the following morning. He went into the next, Miss Owen's, which he knew to be empty, having seen her leave the house. Through this he pa.s.sed into the adjoining chamber. Beneath the bed, in all probability, lay a chest of valuables. Charity would fain suggest that his first intention was merely to steal these, and that the blacker crime was, in a sense, forced upon him by the awakening of the sleeper. The secrets of that terrible night will never be known. We cannot say what pa.s.sed in that room between that strong, evil man and that weak old woman. We only know the result. A blow was struck, perhaps blows. A life was taken, and the robber became a murderer as well.