"IS HE ROBERT DURNFORD?"
When the Court met again next morning there was no abatement in the
attendance of the public; if anything, it was increased, for it was
pretty well known that the verdict would be given to-day.
Mr Windgate was in his place, smiling, cheerful, and cracking small
jokes with the juniors, as if he would convince everybody--judge, jury,
audience, and prisoner--that he considered his case already won and the
remainder of the proceedings a mere formality, unhappily necessary to
ensure his client an honourable acquittal.
As for the case for the Crown, he said, it was fortunate they had come
to an end of it at last--but fortunate in this sense only, that from
beginning to end it had been a sheer wasting of the time of the Court,
and specially of the valuable time of the twelve intelligent gentlemen
before him. That being so, he proposed, himself, to be as brief as
possible. His defence would be very short, so short indeed as at first
blush to appear inadequate. But what could be more inadequate than the
case for the prosecution! He would simply remind the jury of two
things. One was that his unfortunate client, actuated by the most
considerate of motives--the delicacy of character of a true gentleman--
had chosen rather to impair his defence than to drag into this Court
friends or relatives to whom such an attendance must necessarily be most
painful. The other was that the whole case turned simply upon a
question of identity. He would hardly so much as mention such trumpery
points, which were not even circumstantial, though they might seem to
be. What are they? A matchbox, a time-table, and a bit of paper.
However, to put such trivialities out of the account, we have left only
this question of identity, and that I shall have no difficulty in
disposing of, entirely to your satisfaction. I shall call--
"Joseph Grainger."
The public, unaccustomed to the persuasive powers and self-confidence of
forensic eloquence, began to think at the conclusion of Mr Windgate's
speech that the result of the trial was not such a foregone thing after
all, and there was yet more exciting uncertainty in store for it. It,
therefore, prepared itself to listen eagerly.
"You are head waiter at `The Silver Fleece Inn,' at Battisford?"
"Yes, sir."
"How long have you held that position?"
"Nigh upon seven year, sir."
"Look at the prisoner. Do you know him?"
"Yes, sir. It's Squire Dorrien."
"When did you first see him?"
"Well, sir, I can't exactly remember that. It was shortly after the
General's death. Lawyer Barnes, he comes to our place, and he says to
my guv'nor, says he--"
"Tut-tut-tut. Not so fast, my good friend," interrupted Mr Windgate
smilingly, while a ripple of mirth ran through the public. "Never mind
about Lawyer Barnes, but just tell us when you first saw Mr Dorrien?"
"Well, sir, as far as I can remember, it was soon after he was married--
just about Christmas-time."
"Ah!" said, Mr Windgate triumphantly, making a rapid note. "And you
never saw him before he was married?"
"No, sir."
"Will you swear to that?"
"To the best of my belief, sir."
"Very good. And have you seen him often since?"
"Not very often, sir. You see, he don't come much over to Battisford,
and I don't go much over to Cranston--"
"Quite so. Now, do you remember a Mr Robert Durnford coming to stay at
`The Silver Fleece'?"
"Yes, sir--well."
"When did he come?"
"He came--let me see--it was on a Saturday evening. I remember it,
because it was the day before Mr Hubert Dorrien was lost."
"Now what sort of person was this Mr Durnford? Just describe him."
"A very nice, pleasant-spoken gentleman, and quite the gentleman," and
then the loquacious one launched into a voluminous description of the
stranger, which made the audience laugh and the judge knit his brows and
mutter impatiently.
"How long did he stay at `The Silver Fleece'?"
"Rather over a fortnight, sir."
"Have you ever seen him since?"
"No, sir."
"But if you did you would know him again--in a moment?"
"Oh, yes, sir."
"Now look at the accused."
Grainger complied. The eyes of the witness and the prisoner met. In
those of the latter there was indifference--in those of the former there
was no recognition.
"Is he the same man as the man you knew as Robert Durnford?"
The loquacious one's homely features expanded into a broad grin.
"Law bless you, no, sir. He ain't in the least like him."
Mr Windgate could have danced with relief.
"He isn't in the least like him," he repeated emphatically, for the
benefit of the jury. As for Roland himself, the first gleam of light
since his arrest a month ago now darted in upon the rayless gloom of his
soul. "Except--" The witness checked himself suddenly and with an
effort. He could have bitten his tongue out. For Mr Benham had looked
up quickly and was now making a note. Mr Windgate thought it better to
let him go on.
"Except what?" he said playfully.
"I was goin' to say, sir, leastways I was only thinking, sir," answered
the witness, stammering with confusion, "except it might be the way in
which he stands."
Mr Benham went on making his notes. His opponent's feeling of relief
was dashed, and the prisoner could have groaned aloud in the revulsion.
Then the witness in his roundabout way gave a voluble account of how the
stranger had gone over to attend Wandsborough church, and had returned
earlier than he was expected; and how he had come in while he--
Grainger--was dozing.
"What time did he return?"
"It was after half-past nine."
"How much after?"
"Five minutes."
"You are positive as to this?"
"Oh, yes, sir--I said to the gentleman as how he'd come back very quick,
'cos they don't come out o' church till after half-past eight, and it's
over an hour's walk at least. I asked him if he'd come by the way of
the cliffs, and he didn't seem to know there was a way by the cliffs as
was shorter."
Mr Windgate frowned slightly, and internally anathematised the witness'
garrulity.
"Anyhow, you are ready to swear it was five-and-twenty minutes to ten
when this Mr Durnford came in?"
"Yes, sir--quite certain. We both looked at the clock and remarked it."
"But one of the servants, a"--consulting his notes--"a Jane Flinders,
says it was later."
The loquacious one shook his head with a smile of pitying superiority.
"Law bless you, sir! Them gals is always a-fancyin' things. They ought
to have bin a-bed and asleep. No, no, sir. It wasn't any more than
five-and-twenty to ten."
"This gentleman stayed at `The Silver Fleece' a fortnight, you say.
Now, during all that time did you notice anything strange about him?"
"Well, sir, he used to go about with a little hammer, chippin' off bits
o' stone from the cliffs and suchlike, and in the evenin' he'd sit in
his room and write a good deal."
"Did you talk with him at all on the subject of Mr Hubert Dorrien's
disappearance?"
"Yes, sir. I was the first to tell him of it."
"Oh! And how did he seem to take it?"
"Cool as a blessed cucumber, sir. And when I told him that the ghost
had been seen on The Skegs, he laughed in my face outright and said it
was all humbug."
"Ha-ha! Of course. Thank you, Grainger. That'll do. Er--one more
question. Do you know the place called Smugglers' Ladder?"
"Well, sir, I've been there."
"How long does it take to walk there from Battisford?"
"Three-quarters of an hour."
"Ah! Now, you mentioned a cliff path leading from Wandsborough. Would
that lead one past Smugglers' Ladder?"
"Oh, no, sir. Nowhere near it. Why, it turns inland before you come
within half a mile of Smugglers' Ladder."
"Thank you."
"Wait a moment, please," said Mr Benham suavely, as Grainger was about
to leave the box. "You say this Robert Durnford came to stay at `The
Silver Fleece' the day before Hubert Dorrien was lost. That was on a
Saturday evening. Did you at any time between that and Sunday evening
have any conversation with him about the Dorrien family?"
The prisoner's head sank lower and lower. That devil of a counsel!
"Well sir, we did."
"Kindly repeat it."
"Well, sir, as far as I can remember, the gentleman said he'd known the
old Squire, the General's brother. First he asked whose the house was,
an' then we got talkin', and I told him a little about the General--just
quietly and between ourselves, like."
"Quite so. And what else did you tell him?"
"Well, sir, I told him a little about the young Squire being in
difficulties with his father--not meanin' any 'arm to anybody," went on
the man piteously, and with a penitent glance towards the dock.
"No, no. Of course not. People do talk of these things," said Mr
Benham encouragingly--then waxing impressive. "Now, did you mention a
girl named Lizzie Devine?"
"Oh Lord, sir," cried poor Grainger, horror-stricken, staring
open-mouthed at the placid face of the inquisitorial counsel and
wondering how the deuce he had ferreted out all this. "I didn't mean no
harm, but we was just a-talkin' quietly like." Then little by little
Mr Benham inexorably elicited from the unwilling and terrified witness,
the whole of the conversation that had passed between himself and Robert
Durnford on the subject, and how he had told the stranger that Hubert
Dorrien had blackened his brother's name for his own advantage.
"Now, when Mr Durnford returned from Wandsborough that evening, you
were asleep?"
"Yes, sir. I had just dropped off."
"Where?"
"In the coffee-room."
"And where was Durnford standing when you woke up?"
"In the door."
"The door of the coffee-room?"
"Yes."
"You mention a clock in the passage. Where does it stand?"
"It stands--you've seen it, sir."
"No matter, my friend. The jury haven't."
"Well, sir, it stands about half way between the front door and the door
of the coffee-room."
"So that Durnford, to reach the coffee-room door, would have to pass
that clock?"
"Yes, sir."
"And you did not wake till he was standing in the coffee-room door?"
"No, sir."
"How high is the face of that clock from the ground? Can you reach it
without standing on anything?"
"Oh, yes. Quite easily."
"Was Durnford a taller man than yourself?"
"Yes, sir. At least a head taller."
"Does the face of that clock open easily?"
"Quite easily. I open it every few days to wind it."
"Did that clock keep good time after that evening?"
"I don't remember, sir," answered the witness, after a moment of earnest
thought.
"No matter. Jane Flinders swears it was a quarter-past ten by her
watch, when she heard Durnford come in. You swear it was
five-and-twenty minutes to ten. How do you reconcile the difference?"
"I don't know. She must be mistaken."
"But so may you be." The witness was silent.
"Now, has it never occurred to you that that clock may have been
tampered with? The hands put back half an hour or so, while you were
asleep?" asked Mr Benham, bending forward and fixing a piercing glance
on the witness' face.
"Oh Lord! sir. No, it never did."
"But still the thing might have been done--while you were asleep?"
"It's not impossible, sir."
"It's not impossible. And now--look at the prisoner."
The light was full upon Roland's face, and again his eyes met those of
the witness. Grainger started and stared. His face was a study. He
looked like a man upon whom a new and unexpected light had irresistibly
dawned.
"Oh Lord?" he ejaculated dazedly.
"Now," went on Mr Benham, in his most inquisitorial tone, "will you
stand there and swear that the prisoner is not the man who was staying
at `The Silver Fleece,' under the name of Robert Durnford."
"M'lord!" cried Mr Windgate, "I have made a special note of the fact
that the witness has already distinctly sworn to that very thing. I
must protest emphatically against my learned brother trying to
intimidate the witness into making a most unwarrantable contradiction of
his former statement."
"And I must equally protest against these repeated imputations,"
retorted Mr Benham.
"The prosecution is quite in order, Mr Windgate," ruled the judge.
"Let us continue."
"There is--there is a look of Durnford about him," blunderingly admitted
the witness.
"A very similar look? On your oath, mind."
"Well--he stands like him, and--and--his head--is like him," stammered
the unfortunate man.
"Will you swear that he is not the men that you knew as Robert Durnford?
Yes or no?"
"No, sir."
"Thank you. By the bye, when did this Durnford leave `The Silver
Fleece'?"
"It was the day after he and Miss Ingelow were cut off by the tide."
"Did he leave suddenly?"
"Yes, quite suddenly. He just came in--packed up his things and caught
the morning train for London."
"Didn't that strike you as rather strange?"
"Oh, no, sir. We didn't know he had been out all night. It was only
after he'd gone that we heard what happened. Dr Ingelow--that's the
rector o' Wandsborough--he came over to `The Silver Fleece' in the
afternoon, and was in a great state because the gentleman had gone."
"That'll do, Grainger. You may stand down."
Very black for the prisoner were things looking now. The jury wore an
unusually grave expression of countenance, and even among the audience
all levity was hushed in the intense anxiety attendant on the dread
issue.
"Unless Windgate can prove an alibi, he's done," whispered a sporting
junior to another. "Take you two to one on it in sovs if you like,
Rogers."
"Dunno. Think I won't. Isn't it rather queer form to bet on a fellow's
life," was the reply.
Although the remark was unheard by him, it exactly rendered Mr
Windgate's reflections. That damning recognition--or half-recognition--
of Grainger's had simply lost the case, and he would have given much had
it never been made. For he was on his mettle now. The case was a
highly sensational one--just the thing to put a crowning point on his
reputation if he had come out of it successfully, but now `that infernal
Benham' had been too sharp for him. Just one of his ferrety ideas, that
about the clock being tampered with--and in this instance Windgate was
shrewd enough to see that it had told with fatal effect. He wished
again and again he had not been fool enough to undertake the defence of
a man who would give him simply nothing to go upon. And he could not
even prove an alibi.
The next witness was Brown, the verger of Wandsborough church. His
evidence was short and straightforward. He had a recollection of a
stranger coming into church on the evening in question, towards the
middle of the service. He certainly never thought of recognising Mr
Dorrien in him, nor had he since. He knew Mr Dorrien well, too--he
often attended Wandsborough church. It must have been considerably
earlier than half-past eight when the stranger came in, because the
service on ordinary Sunday evenings was nearly always over by that time.
As to distances and times, he, Brown, could not speak. He was an old
man now, and never had been much of a walker. The only thing he could
be positive about was that the stranger had left the church a little
before half-past eight, and he certainly had no suspicion that it was
Mr Dorrien, either at the time, or since.
Him the prosecution declined to cross-examine.
"I shall call the Rev Laurence Turner," said Mr Windgate.
The curate had not been at first subpoenaed. But so urgent had become
the need of more testimony that the defence had decided at the last
moment to put Turner into the box. The latter looked not a little
nervous. Truth to tell, the situation was one of horror to his
immaculate soul. He did not fancy being mixed up in criminal trials, as
he subsequently put it.
"Now, Mr Turner," went on Mr Windgate, after a few preliminary
questions. "I believe you took part in the search for Miss Olive
Ingelow, who was cut off by the tide on this coast some two-and-a-half
years ago?"
"Yes, I did."
"And you found her?"
"We were so fortunate."
"Kindly tell the Court how and where you found her."
Turner complied in as few words as possible.
"Now, did it strike you that this stranger you mention--this person who
rescued the young lady, might have been Mr Roland Dorrien disguised?"
"Never."
"Never? Then or since?"
"Neither then nor since," answered Turner decidedly.
"Did you ever hear that it struck anybody?"
"Never."
"Yet you knew Roland Dorrien well?"
"Fairly well."
"Dr Ingelow, the lady's father, took part in the search, did he not?"
"Yes."
"And he remarked no likeness?"
"Not that I am aware of."
"You saw a great deal of Dr Ingelow at that time?"
"Yes."
"And he never mentioned any such suspicion?"
"Never."
"One moment, Mr Turner," said the Crown counsel, rising to
cross-examine. "This lady is now the prisoner's wife, is she not?"
"She is."
"Didn't it strike you as rather--well, queer--the stranger Durnford
suddenly leaving you all in the way he did?"
"A little perhaps. But we supposed he knew his own business best. And
some people _are_ queer."
"A--quite so--Mr Turner, I quite agree with you--they are," said Mr
Benham waggishly. "That will do, thank you."
"That's my defence, my lord," said Mr Windgate.