"Dear Tom,--This is to bid you farewell. It is best for us all. I am
going a long way, dearest. Do not seek to find me, for it will be
useless. Think of me as one swallowed up by the waters, and be assured
that it is only to spare you shame and humiliation in the future that I
tear myself from you and all the sweetness of life. Darling, there is
no other way. I feel you could never marry me now. I have felt it for
months. Dear Tom, you will understand what I mean. We must look facts
in the face. I hope you will always be friends with Mr. Constant.
Good-by, dear. God bless you! May you always be happy, and find a
worthier wife than I. Perhaps when you are great, and rich, and famous,
as you deserve, you will sometimes think not unkindly of one who,
however faulty and unworthy of you, will at least love you till the
end.--Yours, till death,
"JESSIE."
By the time this letter was finished numerous old gentlemen, with wigs
or without, were observed to be polishing their glasses. Mr. Wimp's
examination was resumed.
"After making these discoveries what did you do?"
"I made inquiries about Miss Dymond, and found Mr. Constant had visited
her once or twice in the evening. I imagined there would be some traces
of a pecuniary connection. I was allowed by the family to inspect Mr.
Constant's cheque-book, and found a paid cheque made out for L25 in the
name of Miss Dymond. By inquiry at the Bank, I found it had been cashed
on November l2th of last year. I then applied for a warrant against the
prisoner."
Cross-examined: "Do you suggest that the prisoner opened Mr. Constant's
bedroom with the key you found?"
"Certainly."
BROWN-HARLAND, Q.C. (sarcastically): "And locked the door from within
with it on leaving?"
"Certainly."
"Will you have the goodness to explain how the trick was done?"
"It wasn't done. (Laughter.) The prisoner probably locked the door from
the outside. Those who broke it open naturally imagined it had been
locked from the inside when they found the key inside. The key would, on
this theory, be on the floor as the outside locking could not have been
effected if it had been in the lock. The first persons to enter the room
would naturally believe it had been thrown down in the bursting of the
door. Or it might have been left sticking very loosely inside the lock so
as not to interfere with the turning of the outside key, in which case it
would also probably have been thrown to the ground."
"Indeed. Very ingenious. And can you also explain how the prisoner could
have bolted the door within from the outside?"
"I can. (Renewed sensation.) There is only one way in which it was
possible--and that was, of course, a mere conjurer's illusion. To cause a
locked door to appear bolted in addition, it would only be necessary for
the person on the inside of the door to wrest the staple containing the
bolt from the woodwork. The bolt in Mr. Constant's bedroom worked
perpendicularly. When the staple was torn off, it would simply remain at
rest on the pin of the bolt instead of supporting it or keeping it fixed.
A person bursting open the door and finding the staple resting on the pin
and torn away from the lintel of the door, would, of course, imagine he
had torn it away, never dreaming the wresting off had been done
beforehand." (Applause in court, which was instantly checked by the
ushers.) The counsel for the defence felt he had been entrapped in
attempting to be sarcastic with the redoubtable detective. Grodman seemed
green with envy. It was the one thing he had not thought of.
Mrs. Drabdump, Grodman, Inspector Howlett, and Sergeant Runnymede were
recalled and reexammed by the embarrassed Sir Charles Brown-Harland as
to the exact condition of the lock and the bolt and the position of the
key. It turned out as Wimp had suggested; so prepossessed were the
witnesses with the conviction that the door was locked and bolted from
the inside when it was burst open that they were a little hazy about the
exact details. The damage had been repaired, so that it was all a
question of precise past observation. The inspector and the sergeant
testified that the key was in the lock when they saw it, though both the
mortice and the bolt were broken. They were not prepared to say that
Wimp's theory was impossible; they would even admit it was quite possible
that the staple of the bolt had been torn off beforehand. Mrs. Drabdump
could give no clear account of such petty facts in view of her immediate
engrossing interest in the horrible sight of the corpse. Grodman alone
was positive that the key was in the door when he burst it open. No, he
did not remember picking it up from the floor and putting it in. And
he was certain that the staple of the bolt was _not_ broken, from the
resistance he experienced in trying to shake the upper panels of the
door.
By the Prosecution: "Don't you think, from the comparative ease with
which the door yielded to your onslaught, that it is highly probable that
the pin of the bolt was not in a firmly fixed staple, but in one already
detached from the woodwork of the lintel?"
"The door did not yield so easily."
"But you must be a Hercules."
"Not quite; the bolt was old, and the woodwork crumbling; the lock was
new and shoddy. But I have always been a strong man."
"Very well, Mr. Grodman. I hope you will never appear at the
music-halls." (Laughter.)
Jessie Dymond's landlady was the next witness for the prosecution. She
corroborated Wimp's statements as to Constant's occasional visits, and
narrated how the girl had been enlisted by the dead philanthropist as a
collaborator in some of his enterprises. But the most telling portion of
her evidence was the story of how, late at night, on December 3rd, the
prisoner called upon her and inquired wildly about the whereabouts of his
sweetheart. He said he had just received a mysterious letter from Miss
Dymond saying she was gone. She (the landlady) replied that she could
have told him that weeks ago, as her ungrateful lodger was gone now some
three weeks without leaving a hint behind her. In answer to his most
ungentlemanly raging and raving, she told him it served him right, as he
should have looked after her better, and not kept away for so long. She
reminded him that there were as good fish in the sea as ever came out,
and a girl of Jessie's attractions need not pine away (as she had seemed
to be pining away) for lack of appreciation. He then called her a liar
and left her, and she hoped never to see his face again, though she was
not surprised to see it in the dock.
Mr. FITZJAMES MONTGOMERY, a bank clerk, remembered cashing the cheque
produced. He particularly remembered it, because he paid the money to a
very pretty girl. She took the entire amount in gold. At this point the
case was adjourned.
DENZIL CANTERCOT was the first witness called for the prosecution on the
resumption of the trial. Pressed as to whether he had not told Mr. Wimp
that he had overheard the prisoner denouncing Mr. Constant, he could not
say. He had not actually heard the prisoner's denunciations; he might
have given Mr. Wimp a false impression, but then Mr. Wimp was so
prosaically literal. (Laughter.) Mr. Crowl had told him something of the
kind. Cross-examined, he said Jessie Dymond was a rare spirit and she
always reminded him of Joan of Arc.
Mr. CROWL, being called, was extremely agitated. He refused to take the
oath, and informed the court that the Bible was a Fad. He could not swear
by anything so self-contradictory. He would affirm. He could not
deny--though he looked like wishing to--that the prisoner had at first
been rather mistrustful of Mr. Constant, but he was certain that the
feeling had quickly worn off. Yes, he was a great friend of the prisoner,
but he didn't see why that should invalidate his testimony, especially as
he had not taken an oath. Certainly the prisoner seemed rather depressed
when he saw him on Bank Holiday, but it was overwork on behalf of the
people and for the demolition of the Fads.
Several other familiars of the prisoner gave more or less reluctant
testimony as to his sometime prejudice against the amateur rival labour
leader. His expressions of dislike had been strong and bitter. The
prosecution also produced a poster announcing that the prisoner would
preside at a great meeting of clerks on December 4th. He had not turned
up at this meeting nor sent any explanation. Finally, there was the
evidence of the detectives who originally arrested him at Liverpool Docks
in view of his suspicious demeanour. This completed the case for the
prosecution.
Sir CHARLES BROWN-HARLAND, Q.C., rose with a swagger and a rustle of his
silk gown, and proceeded to set forth the theory of the defence. He said
he did not purpose to call many witnesses. The hypothesis of the
prosecution was so inherently childish and inconsequential, and so
dependent upon a bundle of interdependent probabilities that it crumbled
away at the merest touch. The prisoner's character was of unblemished
integrity, his last public appearance had been made on the same platform
with Mr. Gladstone, and his honesty and highmindedness had been vouched
for by statesmen of the highest standing. His movements could be
accounted for from hour to hour--and those with which the prosecution
credited him rested on no tangible evidence whatever. He was also
credited with superhuman ingenuity and diabolical cunning of which he had
shown no previous symptom. Hypothesis was piled on hypothesis, as in the
old Oriental legend, where the world rested on the elephant and the
elephant on the tortoise. It might be worth while, however, to point out
that it was at least quite likely that the death of Mr. Constant had not
taken place before seven, and as the prisoner left Euston Station at 7.15
A.M. for Liverpool, he could certainly not have got there from Bow in the
time; also that it was hardly possible for the prisoner, who could prove
being at Euston Station at 5.25 A.M., to travel backwards and forwards to
Glover Street and commit the crime all within less than two hours. "The
real facts," said Sir Charles, impressively, "are most simple. The
prisoner, partly from pressure of work, partly (he had no wish to
conceal) from worldly ambition, had begun to neglect Miss Dymond, to whom
he was engaged to be married. The man was but human, and his head was a
little turned by his growing importance. Nevertheless, at heart he was
still deeply attached to Miss Dymond. She, however, appears to have
jumped to the conclusion that he had ceased to love her, that she was
unworthy of him, unfitted by education to take her place side by side
with him in the new spheres to which he was mounting--that, in short, she
was a drag on his career. Being, by all accounts, a girl of remarkable
force of character, she resolved to cut the Gordian knot by leaving
London, and, fearing lest her affianced husband's conscientiousness
should induce him to sacrifice himself to her; dreading also, perhaps,
her own weakness, she made the parting absolute, and the place of her
refuge a mystery. A theory has been suggested which drags an honoured
name in the mire--a theory so superflous that I shall only allude to it.
That Arthur Constant could have seduced, or had any improper relations
with his friend's betrothed is a hypothesis to which the lives of both
give the lie. Before leaving London--or England--Miss Dymond wrote to her
aunt in Devonport--her only living relative in this country--asking her
as a great favour to forward an addressed letter to the prisoner, a
fortnight after receipt. The aunt obeyed implicitly. This was the letter
which fell like a thunderbolt on the prisoner on the night of December
3rd. All his old love returned--he was full of self-reproach and pity for
the poor girl. The letter read ominously. Perhaps she was going to put an
end to herself. His first thought was to rush up to his friend, Constant,
to seek his advice. Perhaps Constant knew something of the affair. The
prisoner knew the two were in not infrequent communication. It is
possible--my lord and gentlemen of the jury, I do not wish to follow the
methods of the prosecution and confuse theory with fact, so I say it is
possible--that Mr. Constant had supplied her with the L25 to leave the
country. He was like a brother to her, perhaps even acted imprudently in
calling upon her, though neither dreamed of evil. It is possible that he
may have encouraged her in her abnegation and in her altruistic
aspirations, perhaps even without knowing their exact drift, for does he
not speak in his very last letter of the fine female characters he was
meeting, and the influence for good he had over individual human souls?
Still, this we can now never know, unless the dead speak or the absent
return. It is also not impossible that Miss Dymond was entrusted with
the L25 for charitable purposes. But to come back to certainties. The
prisoner consulted Mr. Constant about the letter. He then ran to Miss
Dymond's lodgings in Stepney Green, knowing beforehand his trouble would
be futile. The letter bore the postmark of Devonport. He knew the girl
had an aunt there; possibly she might have gone to her. He could not
telegraph, for he was ignorant of the address. He consulted his
'Bradshaw,' and resolved to leave by the 5.30 A.M. from Paddington,
and told his landlady so. He left the letter in the 'Bradshaw,' which
ultimately got thrust among a pile of papers under the sofa, so that he
had to get another. He was careless and disorderly, and the key found by
Mr. Wimp in his sofa, which he was absurdly supposed to have hidden there
after the murder, must have lain there for some years, having been lost
there in the days when he occupied the bedroom afterwards rented by Mr.
Constant. For it was his own sofa, removed from that room, and the
suction of sofas was well known. Afraid to miss his train, he did not
undress on that distressful night. Meantime the thought occurred to him
that Jessie was too clever a girl to leave so easy a trail, and he jumped
to the conclusion that she would be going to her married brother in
America, and had gone to Devonport merely to bid her aunt farewell. He
determined therefore to get to Liverpool, without wasting time at
Devonport, to institute inquiries. Not suspecting the delay in the
transit of the letter, he thought he might yet stop her, even at the
landing-stage or on the tender. Unfortunately his cab went slowly in the
fog, he missed the first train, and wandered about brooding
disconsolately in the mist till the second. At Liverpool his suspicious,
excited demeanour procured his momentary arrest. Since then the thought
of the lost girl has haunted and broken him. That is the whole, the
plain, and the sufficing story."
The effective witnesses for the defence were, indeed, few. It is so hard
to prove a negative. There was Jessie's aunt, who bore out the statement
of the counsel for the defence. There were the porters who saw him leave
Euston by the 7.15 train for Liverpool, and arrive just too late for the
5.15; there was the cabman (2138), who drove him to Euston just in time,
he (witness) thought, to catch the 5.15 A.M. Under cross-examination, the
cabman got a little confused; he was asked whether, if he really picked
up the prisoner at Bow Railway Station at about 4.30, he ought not to
have caught the first train at Euston. He said the fog made him drive
rather slowly, but admitted the mist was transparent enough to warrant
full speed. He also admitted being a strong trade unionist, SPIGOT,
Q.C., artfully extorting the admission as if it were of the utmost
significance. Finally, there were numerous witnesses--of all sorts and
conditions--to the prisoner's high character, as well as to Arthur
Constant's blameless and moral life.
In his closing speech on the third day of the trial, Sir CHARLES pointed
out with great exhaustiveness and cogency the flimsiness of the case for
the prosecution, the number of hypotheses it involved, and their mutual
interdependence. Mrs. Drabdump was a witness whose evidence must be
accepted with extreme caution. The jury must remember that she was unable
to dissociate her observations from her inferences, and thought that the
prisoner and Mr. Constant were quarrelling merely because they were
agitated. He dissected her evidence, and showed that it entirely bore out
the story of the defence. He asked the jury to bear in mind that no
positive evidence (whether of cabmen or others) had been given of the
various and complicated movements attributed to the prisoner on the
morning of December 4th, between the hours of 5.25 and 7.15 A.M., and
that the most important witness on the theory of the prosecution--he
meant, of course, Miss Dymond--had not been produced. Even if she were
dead, and her body were found, no countenance would be given to the
theory of the prosecution, for the mere conviction that her lover had
deserted her would be a sufficient explanation of her suicide. Beyond the
ambiguous letter, no tittle of evidence of her dishonour--on which the
bulk of the case against the prisoner rested--had been adduced. As for
the motive of political jealousy that had been a mere passing cloud. The
two men had become fast friends. As to the circumstances of the alleged
crime, the medical evidence was on the whole in favour of the time of
death being late; and the prisoner had left London at a quarter-past
seven. The drugging theory was absurd, and as for the too clever bolt
and lock theories, Mr. Grodman, a trained scientific observer, had
pooh-poohed them. He would solemnly exhort the jury to remember that if
they condemned the prisoner they would not only send an innocent man to
an ignominious death on the flimsiest circumstantial evidence, but they
would deprive the working men of this country of one of their truest
friends and their ablest leader.
The conclusion of Sir Charles's vigorous speech was greeted with
irrepressible applause.
Mr. SPIGOT, Q.C., in closing the case for the prosecution, asked the
jury to return a verdict against the prisoner for as malicious and
premeditated a crime as ever disgraced the annals of any civilised
country. His cleverness and education had only been utilised for the
devil's ends, while his reputation had been used as a cloak. Everything
pointed strongly to the prisoner's guilt. On receiving Miss Dymond's
letter announcing her shame, and (probably) her intention to commit
suicide, he had hastened upstairs to denounce Constant. He had then
rushed to the girl's lodgings, and, finding his worst fears confirmed,
planned at once his diabolically ingenious scheme of revenge. He told his
landlady he was going to Devonport, so that if he bungled, the police
would be put temporarily off his track. His real destination was
Liverpool, for he intended to leave the country. Lest, however, his plan
should break down here, too, he arranged an ingenious alibi by being
driven to Euston for the 5.15 train to Liverpool. The cabman would not
know he did not intend to go by it, but meant to return to 11 Glover
Street, there to perpetrate this foul crime, interruption to which he had
possibly barred by drugging his landlady. His presence at Liverpool
(whither he really went by the second train) would corroborate the
cabman's story. That night he had not undressed nor gone to bed; he had
plotted out his devilish scheme till it was perfect; the fog came as an
unexpected ally to cover his movements. Jealousy, outraged affection, the
desire for revenge, the lust for political power--these were human. They
might pity the criminal, they could not find him innocent of the crime.
Mr. Justice CROGIE, summing up, began dead against the prisoner.
Reviewing the evidence, he pointed out that plausible hypotheses neatly
dove-tailed did not necessarily weaken one another, the fitting so well
together of the whole rather making for the truth of the parts. Besides,
the case for the prosecution was as far from being all hypothesis as the
case for the defence was from excluding hypotheses. The key, the letter,
the reluctance to produce the letter, the heated interview with Constant,
the misstatement about the prisoner's destination, the flight to
Liverpool, the false tale about searching for a "him," the denunciations
of Constant, all these were facts. On the other hand, there were various
lacunae and hypotheses in the case for the defence. Even conceding the
somewhat dubious alibi afforded by the prisoner's presence at Euston at
5.25 A.M., there was no attempt to account for his movements between that
and 7.15 A.M. It was as possible that he returned to Bow as that he
lingered about Euston. There was nothing in the medical evidence to make
his guilt impossible. Nor was there anything inherently impossible in
Constant's yielding to the sudden temptation of a beautiful girl, nor in
a working girl deeming herself deserted, temporarily succumbing to the
fascinations of a gentleman and regretting it bitterly afterwards. What
had become of the girl was a mystery. Hers might have been one of those
nameless corpses which the tide swirls up on slimy river banks. The jury
must remember, too, that the relation might not have actually passed into
dishonour, it might have been just grave enough to smite the girl's
conscience, and to induce her to behave as she had done. It was enough
that her letter should have excited the jealousy of the prisoner. There
was one other point which he would like to impress on the jury, and which
the counsel for the prosecution had not sufficiently insisted upon. This
was that the prisoner's guiltiness was the only plausible solution that
had ever been advanced of the Bow Mystery. The medical evidence agreed
that Mr. Constant did not die by his own hand. Some one must therefore
have murdered him. The number of people who could have had any possible
reason or opportunity to murder him was extremely small. The prisoner had
both reason and opportunity. By what logicians called the method of
exclusion, suspicion would attach to him on even slight evidence. The
actual evidence was strong and plausible, and now that Mr. Wimp's
ingenious theory had enabled them to understand how the door could have
been apparently locked and bolted from within, the last difficulty and
the last argument for suicide had been removed. The prisoner's guilt was
as clear as circumstantial evidence could make it. If they let him go
free, the Bow Mystery might henceforward be placed among the archives of
unavenged assassinations. Having thus well-nigh hung the prisoner, the
judge wound up by insisting on the high probability of the story for the
defence, though that, too, was dependent in important details upon the
prisoner's mere private statements to his counsel. The jury, being by
this time sufficiently muddled by his impartiality, were dismissed, with
the exhortation to allow due weight to every fact and probability in
determining their righteous verdict.
The minutes ran into hours, but the jury did not return. The shadows of
night fell across the reeking, fevered court before they announced their
verdict--
"Guilty!"
The judge put on his black cap.
The great reception arranged outside was a fiasco; the evening banquet
was indefinitely postponed. Wimp had won; Grodman felt like a whipped
cur.