Dorn Hackett's preliminary examination by a committing magistrate took
place before Squire Bodley, and was even a more important event, for
all the country around, than the inquest had been. As upon the former
occasion, the Squire's little office was crowded densely, and
apparently by exactly the same persons who filled it then,--with the
exception that the small space within the railing was somewhat more
jammed by the addition of five more persons than were there at the
time of the inquest; the prisoner, Dorn Hackett; his lawyer, Mr. Dunn;
the prosecuting attorney; the officer who brought Dorn from Sag Harbor
jail, and a reporter from New York. Peter Van Deust was seated where
he sat before, looking fearfully worn and old, as was remarked by all
who knew him and viewed with surprise the great change that had been
wrought in him within the few weeks since his brother's murder. He had
more command over himself now, however, than he showed on the first
day of the inquest; and instead of bowing his head and weeping, leaned
upon the end of the table and fixed his eyes with a hungrily keen gaze
upon the witnesses and the prisoner, as if he would fain have
penetrated their hearts to know the truth.
Lem Pawlett was called, but did not respond, and in his absence
another witness formally testified as to the facts of the discovery of
the murder. Peter Van Deust repeated his former testimony. Then the
prosecuting attorney called the name of Mary Wallace.
"Stop a moment," interposed the prisoner's counsel. "I desire to know
the object of the prosecution in calling this witness?"
"It is neither customary nor requisite," responded the prosecutor,
"for the State to give such information. At the same time, I have no
objection, under the existing circumstances, to inform the counsel
that we intend to prove, by this witness, that the prisoner was in the
vicinity of where this murder was perpetrated upon the night of its
perpetration; keeping himself in the woods, evading the sight of
former friends and neighbors, though he had not re-visited them or
made himself known among them for three years or more, and that he
parted from the person we have just called as a witness a little while
before the hour at which the murder, as we have reason to believe, was
committed."
"We are ready to admit," replied Mr. Dunn, "that the prisoner was in
the woods within a half, or possibly a quarter, of a mile of the Van
Deust homestead on the night of the murder; that for what seemed to
him good and sufficient reasons, yet very innocent ones--which the
younger portion of my hearers will possibly imagine and appreciate
more readily than the old ones--he _did_ seek to avoid meeting any
inquisitive and gossiping friends; and that he parted from the person
whom the State has just called before the hour at which the murder was
committed. I believe those admissions cover all the State desires to
show by this witness, and consequently, I do not see that there can be
any necessity, at this time, for placing her on the stand."
"None at all. We are satisfied with the admissions," assented the
prosecutor cheerfully, not at all dissatisfied with expediting
business in the close and heated quarters in which he found himself.
A look of relief, almost of pleasure, passed over Dorn's face. He had
his Mary spared the embarrassment and unhappiness of appearing as a
witness against him, for that time at least.
A man named Schooly, from New Haven, testified that he saw Dorn in his
boarding-house in that city two days after the date of the murder, and
he was then suffering from some cuts, bruises, and sprains which he
claimed to have received while running through the Long Island woods
at night.
Detective Turner bore witness to the finding in the prisoner's room in
New Haven of a pair of pantaloons and a jacket stained with blood, and
a shirt which, though it had been washed, still bore blood stains. He
further narrated that the prisoner had stoutly resisted arrest; had,
indeed, fought hard to effect an escape; and upon being overcome and
searched, had been found to have, in a belt about his body, some three
hundred dollars in gold coins--which the witness here produced for
inspection by the magistrate, and possible identification by Mr. Peter
Van Deust.
The old man looked them over a little, and then pushed them away with
a weary sigh, saying simply:
"Jacob had gold in his bag; I don't know how much. Minted coins are
all alike."
The case looked very weak for the prosecution. There was really
nothing beyond mere suspicion to connect the prisoner with the crime.
The prosecuting attorney, with a discontented look, whispered to the
detective,--who was evidently uneasy,--and shuffled over again the
pages of the testimony taken at the inquest, with a faint hope that he
might find there some previously overlooked clue to be of service now.
But there was nothing.
The prisoner's counsel leaned back to his client and whispered
exultantly: "I defy any jury, or magistrate, to find on that evidence
anything worse than the Scotch verdict of 'Not Proven.'"
"'Not Proven'?" exclaimed Dorn, "I don't want such a verdict as that.
Cast a cloud of suspicion and doubt over my whole life! No, I'd rather
be hanged at once and done with it. What I demand is a verdict of 'Not
Guilty.'"
"Better be satisfied with what you can get. 'Not Proven' would be just
as good."
"Not for me. I want to tell the Squire, and everybody, just what
happened to me that night. I'm sure that they will see I am telling
the truth, and I'll clear away this suspicion."
An older and shrewder practitioner than Mr. Dunn would have positively
refused to permit his client to imperil, by a word, the present
promising condition of his case; but he could not help entering into
the feeling of the brave, handsome and earnest young fellow who
pleaded so hard to be permitted to defend himself with the truth, and
yielded.
"If your honor pleases," he said simply, "my client requests to be
permitted to make his own statement of the events of the night in
question affecting him, or in which he had a part."
"I shall be happy to hear him," answered Squire Bodley, who was
conscious of feeling prepossessed in Dorn's favor, and desirous of
seeing him clear himself from suspicion.
The prosecuting attorney looked up with a new light of hope in his
eyes. Well he knew how even innocent persons sometimes tangle
themselves up in trying to tell a straight story, and how their
unpractised and unguarded utterances can be garbled, warped, and
misconstrued. But Dorn's manner gave him very little encouragement. In
a plain, straight-forward way, that went home with the force of truth
to the hearts of all who heard him, the young man told his brief tale
of mal-adventure on that luckless night.
Why he had come to Long Island that evening and tried to avoid being
seen by anybody but the person he came to see was, he said, his own
business--had no bearing on this affair--and he did not propose to
make any statement about that. He did not need to. Already it had in
some way become matter of public knowledge all over that end of Long
Island that he had come to see Mary Wallace, his sweetheart, who stuck
to him so well in his trouble that she had been to see him in jail.
And nobody thought the worse of him for that, certainly.
Having disposed of that matter so simply, he retold his story, from
the time of his starting to run through the woods to catch Mr.
Hollis's sloop up to his final arrival at his home in New Haven the
next morning. "Deeply I regret," he said, in concluding the narrative,
"that I do not know the two persons who assisted me; the gentleman on
horseback and the old man in the smack; and beyond measure grateful I
would be to them if they, learning of the trouble into which I have
innocently fallen, would come forward to corroborate my statement of
what happened that night."
"And you know of absolutely nothing," said the prosecuting attorney,
after a little whispering with old Peter Van Deust, who was seen to
violently shake his head, "which might lead to the discovery of the
real existence of either of those persons who, according to your very
romantic story, came so opportunely to give you their aid?" He spoke
with an affectation of incredulity, which in his heart he was very far
from feeling.
"Nothing whatever, sir," replied Dorn. "The only trace I have left of
either of them, except the memory of their kindness to me, is the
handkerchief which the little gentleman bound around my head. It has
been washed, with the rest of my clothing over which the blood flowed
from my scalp wounds, and was sent to me yesterday in the valise which
was forwarded to me from my boarding house in New Haven. I have it
with me. Here it is."
So saying he drew from one of his pockets a large white linen
handkerchief, clean and neatly folded, which he handed to the
prosecuting attorney. That official took it in an absent-minded way,
looked at it negligently, and--his mind busy with some trap he was
minded to set for the young man--then tossed the light fabric
carelessly from him upon the table. It fell before old Peter Van
Deust, who snatched it up and, after turning it from one corner to
another for close examination, suddenly startled everybody by a loud
cry and the exclamations:
"It was his! It was Jacob's! I can swear to it!"
The old man was immediately recalled to the witness-stand, and
testified with much demonstration of excitement:
"I felt that it was his as soon as I saw it, and when I examined it I
was sure of it. Jacob had some harmless, womanish ways about him. He
could sew, and knit, and embroider a little. He marked all his
clothing himself--every article of it I believe--in a very modest way;
hardly discernible at a casual glance, but very plain when you come
to look for it, as you can see on that handkerchief. Look in that
corner and you'll see his initials '_J. V. D._' worked with a single
white thread. You can hardly see it without you hold it so that the
light will show the lines of the letters lying across the threads of
the fabric. There! That way it shows plainly."
It was as he said. The letters "_J. V. D._" were unquestionably there.
Dorn sank back in his seat aghast and terrified by this astonishing
discovery. Who now believed his story of the little gentleman and the
old man in the smack? Nobody. Everybody saw that it was an artfully
concocted lie, and was indignant with him for duping them, by his
apparently ingenuous and honest manner, into momentarily believing
him. An audible murmur about the "finger of Providence" ran through
the throng, and Mr. Dunn groaned, half to himself and half to his
client:
"Oh, I was afraid you'd play the devil somehow! Why couldn't you have
let well enough alone?"
Squire Bodley, having carefully examined for himself the marked
handkerchief, said solemnly to the accused:
"Young man, you have, I fear, placed the noose about your own neck.
You will stand committed to await the action of the Grand Jury.
Without bail, of course," he added, seeing that the prisoner's counsel
had risen and seemed about to say something.
Whatever it was that Mr. Dunn had an idea of saying or doing when he
got upon his feet, he changed his mind and sat down again. The fact
was that he was as completely stunned as was his client by the
revelation that had been made. Dorn had sworn to him that he was
innocent, and he had believed it. But now--? He, even, began to have
his doubts.
At this moment a sharp-featured woman, wearing a sun-bonnet and with a
tangled lock of sandy hair hanging down her back, having literally
fought her way to the railing, leaned over it and asked the magistrate
in an acidulous whisper:
"Squire, can't I swear to something against him?"
"It would be useless, now, Mrs. Thatcher," replied the Squire, "as he
has already been committed. But your evidence might be desired by the
Grand Jury. What can you testify to?"
"I can swear," answered the woman, with eager spite, "that he's a
hardened villain, and that I believe he killed Jake Van Deust, and
that he's been keeping that fool niece of mine out in the woods to the
latest and most indecent hours of the night."
"Madam," said the Squire, with mingled dignity and contempt, "you will
excuse my saying that you are simply disgusting! Go away!"