Maitland did not dally long in the Levant after getting Barton’s letter.
He was soon in a position to receive, in turn, the congratulations which
he offered to Margaret and Barton with unaffected delight.
Mrs. St. John Deloraine and he understood each other!
Maitland, for perhaps the first time in his life, was happy in a
thoroughly human old-fashioned way.
Meanwhile the preparations for Cranley’s trial dragged on. Interest, as
usual, was frittered away in examinations before the magistrates.
But at last the day of judgment shone into a court crowded as courts are
when it is the agony of a gentleman that the public has to view.
When the prisoner, uttering his last and latest falsehood, proclaimed
himself “Not Guilty,” his voice was clear and strong enough, though the
pallor of his face attested, not only the anxiety of his situation, but
the ill-health which, during his confinement, had often made it doubtful
whether he could survive to plead at the bar of any earthly judgment.
The Counsel for the Crown, opening the case, stated the theory of the
prosecution, the case against Cranley. His argument is here offered in a
condensed form:
First, Counsel explained the position of Johnson, or Shields, as the
unconscious heir of great wealth, and set forth his early and late
relations with the prisoner, a dishonored and unscrupulous outcast
of society. The prisoner had been intimately acquainted with the
circumstances of Johnson’s early life, with his history and his
home. His plan, therefore, was to kill him, and then personate him. A
celebrated case, which would be present to the minds of the jury, proved
that a most plausible attempt at the personation of a long-missing
man might be made by an uneducated impostor, who possessed none of the
minute local and personal knowledge of the prisoner. Now, to personate
Johnson, a sailor whose body was known to have been indelibly marked
by the tattooing of various barbarous races, it was necessary that the
prisoner should be similarly tattooed. It would be shown that, with
unusual heartlessness, he had persuaded his victim to reproduce on his
body the distinctive marks of Johnson, and then had destroyed him with
fiendish ingenuity, in the very act of assuming his personality. The
very instrument, it might be said, which stamped Cranley as Johnson,
slew Johnson himself, and the process which hallmarked the prisoner
as the heir of vast wealth stigmatized him with the brand of Cain.
The personal marks which seemed to establish the claimant’s case
demonstrated his guilt He was detected by the medical expert brought in
to prove his identity, and was recognized by that gentleman, Dr. Barton,
who would be called, and who had once already exposed him in a
grave social offence--cheating at cards. The same witness had made a
_post-mortem_ examination of the body of Richard Johnson, and had then
suspected the method by which he had been murdered.
The murder itself, according to the theory of the prosecution, was
committed in the following manner: Cranley, disguised as a sailor
(the disguise in which he was finally taken), had been in the habit of
meeting Johnson, and being tattooed by him, in a private room of the
_Hit or Miss_ tavern, in Chelsea. On the night of February 7th, he met
him there for the last time. He left the tavern late, at nearly twelve
o’clock, telling the landlady that “his friend,” as he called Johnson,
had fallen asleep upstairs. On closing the establishment, the landlady,
Mrs. Gullick, found the room, an upper one, with dormer windows opening
on the roof, empty. She concluded that Johnson--or Shields, as she
called him--had wakened, and left the house by the back staircase, which
led to a side-alley. This way Johnson, who knew the house well, often
took, on leaving. On the following afternoon, however, the dead body of
Johnson, with no obvious marks of violence on it, was found in a cart
belonging to the vestry--a cart which, during the night, had remained
near a shed on the piece of waste ground adjoining the _Hit or Miss_. A
coroner’s jury had taken the view that Johnson, being intoxicated, had
strayed into the piece of waste ground (it would be proved that the door
in the palisade surrounding it was open on that night), had lain down
in the cart, and died in his sleep of cold and exposure. But
evidence derived from a later medical examination would establish
the presumption, which would be confirmed by the testimony of an
eye-witness, that death had been wilfully caused by Cranley, employing a
poison which it would be shown he had in his possession--a poison which
was not swallowed by the victim, but introduced by means of a puncture
into the system. The dead man’s body had then been removed to a place
where his decease would be accounted for as the result of cold and
exhaustion. A witness would be put in the box who, by an extraordinary
circumstance, had been enabled to see the crime committed by the
prisoner, and the body carried away, though, at the moment, he did not
understand the meaning of what he saw. As the circumstances by which
this witness had been enabled to behold what was done at dead of
night, in an attic room, locked and bolted, and not commanded from any
neighboring house nor eminence, were exceedingly peculiar, testimony
would be brought to show that the witness really had enjoyed the
opportunity of observation which he claimed.
On the whole, then, as the prisoner had undeniably personated Johnson,
and claimed Johnson’s property; as he undeniably had induced Johnson,
unconsciously, to aid him in the task of personation; as the motive for
the murder was plain and obvious; as Johnson, according to the medical
evidence, had probably been murdered; and as an eye-witness professed
to have seen, without comprehending, the operation by which death,
according to the medical theory, was caused, the counsel for the
prosecution believed that the jury could find no other verdict than
that the prisoner had wilfully murdered Richard Johnson on the night of
February 7th.
This opened the case for the Crown. It is unnecessary to recapitulate
the evidence of all the witnesses who proved, step by step, the
statements of the prosecution. First was demonstrated the identity of
Shields with Johnson. To do this cost enormous trouble and expense; but
Johnson’s old crony, the man who drew the chart of his tattoo marks, was
at length discovered in Paraguay, and, by his aid and the testimony he
collected, the point was satisfactorily made out. It was, of course,
most important in another respect, as establishing Margaret’s claims on
the Linkheaton estate.
The discovery of the body of Johnson (or Shields) in the snow was proved
by our old friends Bill and Tommy.
The prisoner was recognized by Mrs. Gullick as the sailor gentleman who
had been with Johnson on the last night of his life. In spite of
the difference of dress, and of appearance caused by the absence of
beard--for Cranley was now clean shaved--Mrs. Gullick was positive as
to his voice and as to his eyebrows, which were peculiarly black and
mobile.
Barton, who was called next, and whose evidence excited the keenest
interest, identified the prisoner as the man whom he had caused to be
arrested in the office of Messrs. Martin and Wright, and whom he had
known as Cranley. His medical evidence was given at considerable length,
and need not be produced in full detail On examining the body of Richard
Johnson, his attention had naturally been directed chiefly to the
tattooings. He had for some years been deeply interested, as an
ethnologist, in the tattooed marks of various races. He had found many
curious examples on the body of the dead man. Most of the marks
were obviously old; but in a very unusual place, generally left
blank--namely, behind and under the right shoulder--he had discovered
certain markings of an irregular character, clearly produced by an
inexperienced hand, and perfectly fresh and recent. They had not healed,
and were slightly discolored. They could not, from their position,
possibly have been produced by the man himself. Microscopic examinations
of these marks, in which the coloring matter was brown, not red or blue,
as on the rest of the body, showed that this coloring matter was of
a character familiar to the witness as a physiologist and scientific
traveller. It was the _Woorali_, or arrow poison of the Macoushi Indians
of Guiana.
Asked to explain the nature of this poison to the Court, the witness
said that its “principle” (to use the term of the old medical writers)
had not yet been disengaged by Science, nor had it ever been compounded
by Europeans. He had seen it made by the Macoushi Indians, who combined
the juice of the Woorali vine with that of certain bulbous plants, with
certain insects, and with the poison-fangs of two serpents, boiling the
whole amidst magical ceremonies, and finally straining off a thick brown
paste, which, when perfectly dry, was used to venom the points of their
arrows. The poison might be swallowed by a healthy man without fatal
results. But if introduced into the system through a wound, the poison
would act almost instantaneously, and defy analysis. Its effect was to
sever, as it were, the connection between the nerves and the muscles,
and the muscles used in respiration being thus gradually paralyzed,
death followed within a brief time, proportionate to the size of the
victim, man or animal, and the strength of the dose.
Traces of this poison, then, the witness had found in the fresh tattoo
marks on Johnson’s body.
The witness now produced the sharp wooden needle, the stem of the leaf
of the coucourite palm, which he had found among Johnson’s tattooing
materials, in the upper chamber of the _Hit or Miss_. This needle had
been, he said, the tip of one of the arrows used for their blowpipes, by
the Macoushi of Guiana.
Barton also produced the Oriental silver cigarette-case, the instrument
of his cheating at baccarat, which Cranley had left in the club on the
evening of his detection. He showed that the case had contained a small
crystal receptacle, intended to hold opium. This crystal had been broken
by Cranley when he dashed down the case, in the office of Martin and
Wright. But crumbs of the poison--“Woorali,” or “Ourali”--perfectly dry,
remained in this réceptacle. It was thus clear that Cranley, himself a
great traveller, was possessed of the rare and perilous drug.
The medical evidence having been heard, and confirmed in its general
bearing by various experts, and Barton having stood the test of a severe
cross-examination, William Winter was called.
There was a flutter in the Court, as a pale and partly paralyzed man was
borne in on a kind of litter, and accommodated in the witness-box.
“Where were you,” asked the counsel for the prosecution, when the
officer had sworn the witness, “at eleven o’clock on the night of
February 7th?”
“I was on the roof of the _Hit or Miss_ tavern.”
“On which part of the roof?”
“On the ledge below the dormer window at the back part of the house,
facing the waste ground behind the plank fence.”
“Will you tell the Court what you saw while you were in that position?”
Winter’s face was flushed with excitement; but his voice, though thin,
was clear as he said:
“There was a light streaming through the dormer window beside which I
was lying, and I looked in.”
“What did you see?”
“I saw a small room, with a large fire, a table, on which were bottles
and glasses, and two men, one seated, the other standing.”
“Would you recognize either man if you saw him?”
“I recognize the man who was seated, in the prisoner at the bar; but at
that time he wore a beard.”
“Tell the Court what happened.”
“The men were facing me. One of them--the prisoner--was naked to the
waist. His breast was tattooed. The other--the man who stood up--was
touching him with a needle, which he applied, again and again, to a
saucer on the table.”
“Could you hear what they said?”
“I could; for the catch of the lattice window had not caught, and there
was a slight chink open.”
“You listened?”
“I could not help it; the scene was so strange. I heard the man with
the needle give a sigh of relief, and say, ‘There, it’s finished, and
a pretty job too, though I say it.’ The other said, ‘You have done
it beautifully, Dicky; it’s a most interesting art. Now, just out of
curiosity, let _me_ tattoo _you_ a bit.’ The other man laughed, and took
off his coat and shirt while the other dressed. ‘There’s scarce an inch
of me plain,’ he said, ‘but you can try your hand here,’ pointing to
the lower part of his shoulder.”
“What happened then?”
“They were both standing up now. I saw the prisoner take out something
sharp; his face was deadly pale, but the other could not see that. He
began touching him with the sharp object, and kept chaffing all the
time. This lasted, I should think, about five minutes, when the face of
the man who was being tattooed grew very red. Then he swayed a little,
backward and forward, then he stretched out his hands like a blind man,
and said, in a strange, thick voice, as if he was paralyzed, ‘I’m very
cold; I can’t shiver!’ Then he fell down heavily, and his body made one
or two convulsive movements. That was all.”
“What did the prisoner do?”
“He looked like death. He seized the bottle on the table, poured out
half a tumbler full of the stuff in it, drank it off, and then fell
into a chair, and laid his face between his hands. He appeared ill, or
alarmed, but the color came back into his cheek after a third or
fourth glass. Then I saw him go to the sleeping man and bend over him,
listening apparently to his breathing. Then he shook him several times,
as if trying to arouse him. But the man lay like a log. Finally, about
half-an-hour after what I have described, he opened the door and went
out. He soon returned, took up the sleeping man in his arms--his weight
seemed lighter than you would expect--and carried him out. From the roof
I saw him push the door in the palisade leading into the waste land,
a door which I myself had left open an hour before. It was not light
enough to see what he did there; but he soon returned alone and walked
away.”
Such was the sum of Winter’s evidence, which, if accepted, entirely
corroborated Barton’s theory of the manner of the murder.
In cross-examination, Winter was asked the very natural question:
“How did you come to find yourself on the roof of the _Hit or Miss_ late
at night?”
Winter nearly rose from his litter, his worn faced flushed, his eye
sparkling.
“Sir, I flew!”
There was a murmur and titter through the court, which was, of course,
instantly suppressed.
“You flew! What do you mean by saying that you flew?”
“I am the inventor of a flying machine, which, for thirty years, I have
labored at and striven to bring to perfection. On that one night, as I
was experimenting with it, where I usually did, inside the waste land
bordering on the _Hit or Miss_, the machine actually worked, and I was
projected in the machine, as it were, to some height in the air, coming
down with à fluttering motion, like a falling feather, on the roof of
the _Hit or Miss_.”
Here the learned counsel for the defence smiled with infinite expression
at the jury.
“My lord,” said the counsel for the prosecution, noting the smile, and
the significant grin with which it was reflected on the countenances of
the twelve good men and true, “I may state that we are prepared to bring
forward a large mass of scientific evidence--including a well-known man
of science, the editor of _Wisdom_, a popular journal which takes all
knowledge for its province--to prove that there is nothing physically
impossible in the facts deposed to by this witness. He is at present
suffering, as you see, from a serious accident caused by the very
machine of which he speaks, and which can be exhibited, with a working
model, to the Court.”
“It certainly requires corroboration,” said the judge. “At present,
so far as I am aware, it is contrary to scientific experience. You can
prove, perhaps, that, in the opinion of experts, these machines have
only to take one step further to become practical modes of locomotion.
But _that_ is the very step _qui coûte_. Nothing but direct evidence
that the step has been taken--that a flying machine, on this
occasion, actually _flew_ (they appear to be styled _volantes, a non
volando_)--would really help your case, and establish the credibility of
this witness.”
“With your lordship’s learned remarks,” replied the counsel for the
crown, “I am not the less ready to agree, because I _have_ an actual
eye-witness, who not only saw the flight deposed to by the witness, but
reported it to several persons, who are in court, on the night of its
occurrence, so that her statement, though disbelieved, was the common
talk of the neighborhood.”
“Ah! that is another matter,” said the judge.
“Call Eliza Gullick,” said the counsel.
Eliza was called, and in a moment was curtsying, with eagerness, but
perfect self-possession.
After displaying an almost technical appreciation of the nature of an
oath, Eliza was asked:
“You remember the night of the 7th of February?”
“I remember it very well, sir.”
“Why do you remember it so well, Eliza?”
“Becos such a mort o’ things happened, sir, that night.”
“Will you tell his lordship what happened?”
“Certainly, my lord. Mr. Toopny gave us a supper, us himps, my lord, at
the _Hilarity_; for he said--”
“Never mind what he said, tell us what happened as you were coming
home.”
“Well, sir, it was about eleven o’clock at night, and I was turning the
lane into the _Hit or Miss_, when I heard an awful flapping and hissing
and whirring, like wings working by steam, in the waste ground at the
side of the lane. And, as I was listening--oh, it frightens me now to
think of it--oh, sir--”
“Well, don’t be alarmed, my good child! What occurred?”
“A great thing like a bird, sir, bigger than a man, flew up over my
head, higher than the houses. And then--did you ever see them Japanese
toys, my lord, them things with two feathers and a bit of India-rubber
as you twist round and round and toss them up and they fly--”
“Well, my girl, I have seen them.”
“Well, just as if it had been one of them things settling down, the
bird’s wings turned round and fluttered and shook, and at last it all
lighted, quite soft like, on the roof of our house, the _Hit or Miss_.
And there I saw it crouching when I went to bed, and looked out o’ the
window, but they wouldn’t none o’ them believe me, my lord.”
There was a dead silence in the Court as Eliza finished this
extraordinary confirmation of Winter’s evidence, and wove the net
inextricably round the prisoner.
Then the silence was broken by a soft crashing sound, as if something
heavy had dropped a short distance on some hard object.
All present turned their eyes from staring at Eliza to the place whence
the sound had come.
The prisoner’s head had fallen forward on the railing in front of him.
One of the officers of the Court touched him on the shoulder.
He did not stir. They lifted him. He moved not.
The faint heart of the man had fluttered with its last pulsation. The
evidence had sufficed for him without verdict or sentence. As he had
slain his victim, so Fate slew him, painlessly, in a moment!
EPILOGUE.
And what became of them all?
He who does not tell, on the plea that he is “competing with Life,”
which never knits up a plot, but leaves all the threads loose, acts
unfairly.
Mrs. St. John Deloraine is now Mrs. Maitland, and the happy couple are
visiting the great Colonies, seeking a site for a new settlement of the
unemployed, who should lead happy lives under the peaceful sway of happy
Mrs. Maitland.
Barton and Mrs. Barton have practised the endowment of research, in the
case of Winter, who has quite recovered from his injuries, and still
hopes to fly. But he has never trusted himself again on his machine,
which, moreover, has never flown again. Winter, like the alchemist who
once made a diamond by chance, in Balzac’s novel, has never recovered
the creative moment. But he makes very interesting models, in which Mrs.
Barton’s little boy begins to take a lively interest.
Eliza Gullick, declining all offers of advancement unconnected with
the British drama, clings to the profession for which, as Mrs. Gullick
maintains, she has a hereditary genius.
“We hear,” says the _Athenæum_, “that the long promised edition of
‘Demetrius of Scepsis,’ by Mr. Bielby, of St. Gatien’s, is in the hands
of the delegates of the Clarendon Press.”
But Fiction herself is revolted by the improbability of the statement
that an Oxford Don has finished his _magnum opus!_
EXPLICIT.