The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney Part 2

"Are you there, Mrs. Strugnell?" shouted Johnson.

There was no reply.

"She is never home till half-past ten o'clock on Sunday evenings,"

remarked Armstrong in a calmer voice.

"The key is in the lock on the inside," cried a young man who had been striving to peep through the key-hole.

Armstrong, it was afterwards sworn, started as if he had been shot; and his wife again clutched his arm with the same nervous, frenzied gripe as before.

"Mrs. Strugnell, are you there?" once more shouted the constable. He was answered by a low moan. In an instant the frail door was burst in, and Mrs. Strugnell was soon pulled out, apparently more dead than alive, from underneath the bedstead, where she, in speechless consternation, lay partially concealed. Placing her in a chair, they soon succeeded--much more easily, indeed, than they antic.i.p.ated--in restoring her to consciousness.

Nervously she glanced round the circle of eager faces that environed her, till her eyes fell upon Armstrong and his wife, when she gave a loud shriek, and muttering, "They, _they_ are the murderers!" swooned, or appeared to do so, again instantly.

The accused persons, in spite of their frenzied protestations of innocence, were instantly seized and taken off to a place of security; Mrs. Strugnell was conveyed to a neighbor's close by; the house was carefully secured; and the agitated and wondering villagers departed to their several homes, but not, I fancy, to sleep any more for that night.

The deposition made by Mrs. Strugnell at the inquest on the body was in substance as follows:--

"On the afternoon in question she had, in accordance with her usual custom, proceeded to town. She called on her aunt, took tea with her, and afterwards went to the Independent Chapel. After service, she called to see Miss Wilson, but was informed that, in consequence of a severe cold, the young lady was gone to bed. She then immediately proceeded homewards, and consequently arrived at Craig Farm more than an hour before her usual time. She let herself in with her latch key, and proceeded to her bedroom. There was no light in Mr. Wilson's chamber, but she could hear him moving about in it. She was just about to go down stairs, having put away her Sunday bonnet and shawl, when she heard a noise, as of persons entering by the back way, and walking gently across the kitchen floor.

Alarmed as to who it could be, Mr. and Mrs. Armstrong not being expected home for several days, she gently closed her door, and locked it. A few minutes after, she heard stealthy steps ascending the creaking stairs, and presently her door was tried, and a voice in a low hurried whisper said, "Mary, are you there?" She was positive it was Mr. Armstrong's voice, but was too terrified to answer. Then Mrs. Armstrong--she was sure it was she--said also in a whisper, and as if addressing her husband, "She is never back at this hour." A minute or so after there was a tap at Mr. Wilson's door. She could not catch what answer was made; but by Armstrong's reply, she gathered that Mr. Wilson had lain down, and did not wish to be disturbed. He was often in the habit of lying down with his clothes on. Armstrong said, "I will not disturb you, sir; I'll only just put this parcel on the table." There is no lock to Mr. Wilson's door. Armstrong stepped into the room, and almost immediately she heard a sound as of a violent blow, followed by a deep groan and then all was still. She was paralyzed with horror and affright. After the lapse of a few seconds, a voice--Mrs. Armstrong's undoubtedly--asked in a tremulous tone if "all was over?" Her husband answered "Yes: but where be the keys of the writing-desk kept?" "In the little table-drawer," was the reply.

Armstrong then came out of the bedroom, and both went into Mr. Wilson's sitting apartment. They soon returned, and crept stealthily along the pa.s.sage to their own bedroom on the same floor. They then went down stairs to the kitchen. One of them--the woman, she had no doubt--went out the back way, and heavy footsteps again ascended the stairs. Almost dead with fright, she then crawled under the bedstead, and remembered no more till she found herself surrounded by the villagers."

In confirmation of this statement, a large clasp-knife belonging to Armstrong, and with which it was evident the murder had been perpetrated, was found in one corner of Wilson's bedroom; and a mortgage deed, for one thousand pounds on Craig Farm, the property of Wilson, and which Strugnell swore was always kept in the writing-desk in the front room, was discovered in a chest in the prisoner's sleeping apartment, together with nearly one hundred and fifty pounds in gold, silver, and county bank-notes, although it was known that Armstrong had but a fortnight before declined a very advantageous offer of some cows he was desirous of purchasing, under the plea of being short of cash. Worse perhaps than all, a key of the back-door was found in his pocket, which not only confirmed Strugnell's evidence, but clearly demonstrated that the knocking at the door for admittance, which had roused and alarmed the hamlet, was a pure subterfuge. The conclusion, therefore, almost universally arrived at throughout the neighborhood was, that Armstrong and his wife were the guilty parties; and that the bundles, the broken locks, the sheet hanging out of the window, the s.h.i.+ny, black hat, were, like the knocking, mere cunning devices to mislead inquiry.

The case excited great interest in the county, and I esteemed myself professionally fortunate in being selected to hold the brief for the prosecution. I had satisfied myself, by a perusal of the depositions, that there was no doubt of the prisoners' guilt, and I determined that no effort on my part should be spared to insure the accomplishment of the ends of justice. I drew the indictment myself; and in my opening address to the jury dwelt with all the force and eloquence of which I was master upon the heinous nature of the crime, and the conclusiveness of the evidence by which it had been brought home to the prisoners. I may here, by way of parenthesis, mention that I resorted to a plan in my address to the jury which I have seldom known to fail. It consisted in fixing my eyes and addressing my language to each juror one after the other. In this way each considers the address to be an appeal to his individual intelligence, and responds to it by falling into the views of the barrister. On this occasion the jury easily fell into the trap. I could see that I had got them into the humor of putting confidence in the evidence I had to produce.

The trial proceeded. The cause of the death was scientifically stated by two medical men. Next followed the evidence as to the finding of the knife in the bedroom of the deceased; the discovery of the mortgage deed, and the large sum of money, in the prisoners' sleeping apartment; the finding the key of the back-door in the male prisoner's pocket; and his demeanor and expressions on the night of the perpetration of the crime.

In his cross-examination of the constable, several facts perfectly new to me were elicited by the very able counsel for the prisoners. Their attorney had judiciously maintained the strictest secrecy as to the nature of the defence, so that it now took me completely by surprise. The constable, in reply to questions by counsel, stated that the pockets of the deceased were empty; that not only his purse, but a gold watch, chain, and seals, which he usually wore, had vanished, and no trace of them had as yet been discovered. Many other things were also missing. A young man of the name of Pearce, apparently a sailor, had been seen in the village once or twice in the company of Mary Strugnell; but he did not notice what sort of hat he generally wore; he had not seen Pearce since the night the crime was committed; had not sought for him.

Mary Strugnell was the next witness. She repeated her previous evidence with precision and apparent sincerity, and then I abandoned her with a mixed feeling of anxiety and curiosity, to the counsel for the defence.

A subtle and able cross-examination of more than two hours' duration followed; and at its conclusion, I felt that the case for the prosecution was so damaged, that a verdict of condemnation was, or ought to be, out of the question. The salient points dwelt upon, and varied in every possible way, in this long sifting, were these:--"What was the reason she did not return in the evening in question to her aunt's to supper as usual?"

"She did not know, except that she wished to get home."

"Did she keep company with a man of the name of Pearce?"

"She had walked out with him once or twice."

"When was the last time?"

"She did not remember."

"Did Pearce walk with her home on the night of the murder?"

"No."

"Not part of the way?"

"Yes; part of the way."

"Did Pearce sometimes wear a black, s.h.i.+ny hat?"

"No--yes: she did not remember."

"Where was Pearce now?"

"She didn't know."

"Had he disappeared since that Sunday evening?"

"She didn't know."

"Had she seen him since?"

"No."

"Had Mr. Wilson ever threatened to discharge her for insolence to Mrs.

Armstrong?"

"Yes; but she knew he was not in earnest."

"Was not the clasp-knife that had been found always left in the kitchen for culinary purposes?"

"No--not always; generally--but not _this _time that Armstrong went away, she was sure."

"Mary Strugnell, you be a false-sworn woman before G.o.d and man!"

interrupted the male prisoner with great violence of manner.

The outbreak of the prisoner was checked and rebuked by the judge, and the cross-examination soon afterwards closed. Had the counsel been allowed to follow up his advantage by an address to the jury, he would, I doubt not, spite of their prejudices against the prisoners, have obtained an acquittal; but as it was, after a neutral sort of charge from the judge, by no means the ablest that then adorned the bench, the jurors, having deliberated for something more than half an hour, returned into court with a verdict of "guilty" against both prisoners, accompanying it, however, with a strong recommendation to mercy!

"Mercy!" said the judge. "What for? On what ground?"

The jurors stared at each other and at the judge: they had no reason to give! The fact was, their conviction of the prisoners' guilt had been very much shaken by the cross-examination of the chief witness for the prosecution, and this recommendation was a compromise which conscience made with doubt. I have known many such instances.

The usual ridiculous formality of asking the wretched convicts what they had to urge why sentence should not be pa.s.sed upon them was gone through; the judge, with unmoved feelings, put on the fatal cap; and then a new and startling light burst upon the mysterious, bewildering affair.

"Stop, my lord!" exclaimed Armstrong with rough vehemence. "Hear me speak! I'll tell ye all about it; I will indeed, my lord. Quiet, Martha, I tell ye. It's I, my lord, that's guilty, not the woman. G.o.d bless ye, my lord; not the wife! Doant hurt the wife, and I'se tell ye all about it. I _alone_ am guilty; not, the Lord be praised, of murder, but of robbery!"

"John!--John!" sobbed the wife, clinging pa.s.sionately to her husband, "let us die together!"

"Quiet, Martha, I tell ye! Yes, my lord, I'se tell ye all about it. I was gone away, wife and I, for more nor a week, to receive money for Mr.

Wilson, on account of smuggled goods--that money, my lord, as was found in the chest. When we came home on that dreadful Sunday night, my lord, we went in the back way; and hearing a noise, I went up stairs, and found poor Wilson stone-dead on the floor. I were dreadful skeared, and let drop the candle. I called to wife, and told her of it. She screamed out, and amaist fainted away. And then, my lord, all at once the devil shot into my head to keep the money I had brought; and knowing as the keys of the desk where the mortgage writing was kept was in the bedroom, I crept back, as that false-hearted woman said, got the keys, and took the deed; and then I persuaded wife, who had been trembling in the kitchen all the while, that we had better go out quiet again, as there was n.o.body in the house but us: I had tried that woman's door--and we might perhaps be taken for the murderers. And so we did; and that's the downright, honest truth, my lord. I'm rightly served; but G.o.d bless you, doant hurt the woman--my wife, my lord, these thirty years. Five-and-twenty years ago come May, which I shall never see, we buried our two children. Had they lived, I might have been a better man; but the place they left empty was soon filled up by love of cursed lucre, and that has brought me here. I deserve it; but oh, mercy, my lord! mercy, good gentlemen!"--turning from the stony features of the judge to the jury, as if they could help him--"not for me, but the wife. She be as innocent of this as a new-born babe. It's I! I! scoundrel that I be, that has brought thee, Martha, to this shameful pa.s.s!" The rugged man s.n.a.t.c.hed his life-companion to his breast with pa.s.sionate emotion, and tears of remorse and agony streamed down his rough cheeks.

I was deeply affected, and felt that the man had uttered the whole truth.

It was evidently one of those cases in which a person liable to suspicion damages his own cause by resorting to a trick. No doubt, by his act of theft, Armstrong had been driven to an expedient which would not have been adopted by a person perfectly innocent. And thus, from one thing to another, the charge of murder had been fixed upon him and his hapless wife. When his confession had been uttered, I felt a species of self-accusation in having contributed to his destruction, and gladly would I have undone the whole day's proceedings. The judge, on the contrary, was quite undisturbed. Viewing the harangue of Armstrong as a mere tissue of falsehood, he cooly p.r.o.nounced sentence of death on the prisoners. They were to be hanged on Monday. This was Friday.

"A bad job!" whispered the counsel for the defence as he pa.s.sed me. "That witness of yours, the woman Strugnell, is the real culprit."