"I HAVE SOMETHING TO SAY."
"Guilty."
The fateful word rang through the room, producing something like a
shuddering gasp among the close-packed audience. It rang in the brain
of the prisoner, "Guilty! Dorrien of Cranston to be hanged--to be
hanged by the neck until dead. Guilty!" Thus the hideous refrain
danced through the wretched man's brain in clanging rhythm. And what he
had gone through during the trial alone--apart from the period which had
elapsed since his arrest--was sufficient expiation for a score of
murders far more cold-blooded and deliberate than this, for it was as a
thousand years of hell.
The most astonished person in the room, perhaps, as this verdict was
given, was the judge himself; and forthwith his opinion of the
intelligence of juries, at no time high, underwent a stride of
improvement. This was an intelligent jury. For his lordship was as
morally certain of the prisoner's guilt as though he had seen him
perpetrate the homicide, yet how any jury could convict on the face of
his summing up was a marvel. His trained mind had recognised that the
evidence legally was not sufficient to hang a dog, and he had summed up
accordingly, yet the jury had convicted. It now remained to pass the
dread and only sentence of the law. Already his lordship was nervously
fumbling with the black cap.
The prisoner felt as though shot through the head, as though a numbing,
sledge-hammer blow had descended upon his faculties. Was this real,
this sea of ghastly faces in the deathlike gloom of the ill-lighted
hall, the grim, red-robed pronouncer of doom, now turning to face him?
Was it real, or some terrible nightmare from which he would awaken
directly with a thrill of horror combined with intense relief and
thankfulness? Then he became dimly aware of an official voice asking if
he had anything to say why sentence of death should not be passed upon
him. So dim did the voice sound to his wrought-up fancy that the
question had to be repeated.
"No. Nothing," he answered, and the judge drew on the black cap.
"But I have. I have everything to say."
The voice rang out upon the dead silence, full, clear and feminine.
From the back of the hall it came. Every head went round in that
direction as though turned with the same wire.
"Let that woman be removed instantly," said the judge, whose experience
was not devoid of similar cases of interruption on the part of some
hysterically disposed female, worked up to exaltation pitch.
"You cannot remove me until you have heard me," went on the voice, calm,
firm, and without a quaver; its owner doubtless strengthened by the
certainty that in the densely-packed crowd it would be impossible for
the Court officers to reach her before she had said her say. "My lord,
you cannot condemn this man for the murder of Hubert Dorrien, since
Hubert Dorrien is alive and well at this moment. I saw him and talked
with him as lately as this very morning. Then I hurried on here, and,
thank God, I am in time."
A thrill of indescribable emotion went up from that wrought-up audience,
a gasp--that took the form of a deeply-breathed--
"Oh-h!"
"Let her come forward," said the judge, his mind by no means free from
suspicion that this was a carefully planned theatrical _coup_.
Way was made for a tall female figure, which, advancing from the back of
the room, was ushered forward, and for the sake of convenience was
marshalled into the witness-box, though not sworn. And the light of the
candles, clearer here in the vicinity of the Bench and Bar, revealed an
exceedingly attractive face, a face, moreover, well known to many there,
but to none better than the prisoner awaiting sentence of death. For it
was the face of Lizzie Devine.
"Hubert Dorrien is alive, my lord," she began, without waiting to be
interrogated, "alive and well. He is at the Duke of Cornwall Hotel, at
Plymouth, with a broken leg."
At this definition of "alive and well" there was a laugh, a strange,
nervous, staccato laugh, with but little merriment in it, however.
Rather did it express the collective tension momentarily relaxed.
Then the girl went on to tell her story, how she and Hubert Dorrien had
been fellow-passengers on board the homeward-bound Australian liner
which had arrived in the small hours of that morning. She was with a
troupe of variety artistes, who had been touring in the Antipodes, and
had not been aware of the missing man's presence on board until they had
been some time at sea. Then they had recognised each other, and had
become acquainted, in fact, friendly. He had told her how he had fallen
over the cliffs near Wandsborough, and been picked up while still
unconscious by a coasting schooner, and pretty badly treated, too, he
said, for they took everything he had away from him. But the ship was
run into by an unknown steamer and sank, only he and another man being
saved, and they, after floating about on some wreckage for hours, were
picked up by a sailing vessel bound for Perth, Western Australia. She
believed that he had done well over there, for he seemed to have plenty
of money, and looked twice the man he was as she remembered him at
Cranston, prior to his disappearance.
The first that either of them had heard of the trial just concluded, was
on landing that morning at Plymouth, where Hubert Dorrien had taken up
his quarters at the "Duke of Cornwall." They first saw it in the
papers, and as she herself was from Cranston, Hubert had begged her to
travel down there with him in order to give evidence as to his identity.
He was in a great state of excitement about it all, and in crossing the
road, close to his hotel, had been knocked down by a post-office van,
and now he was laid up there with a broken leg, but had escaped other
injuries. As he was all alone she had remained to look after him, and
see that he had proper medical and other attendance. Then he had
hurried her off to Battisford to put a stop to the trial, and save all
concerned a moment of further and unnecessary anxiety. This she had
done, and was here, it appeared, only just in the nick of time.
She had told her story well and concisely, and it had been listened to
in breathless silence. The judge, keenly watching her, was convinced of
its truth, so too was the Bar. As she herself had said, there could be
no possible advantage to anybody in her coming forward with such a
statement unless it could be substantiated. Steps had already been
taken to break the news to old Mrs Dorrien, the injured man's mother,
who was probably on her way to Plymouth by that time. All Cranston,
moreover, would recognise him at a glance. There was no difficulty
whatever about that. But his lordship, while believing her statement,
swerved not a hairsbreadth from his original and private opinion. He
was as certain that the prisoner had, in actual fact, pushed his brother
over the cliff, as he now was that the latter had been rescued, in a
most astonishing and well-nigh miraculous manner. But meanwhile the
jury had returned a verdict of "Guilty."
During this narrative, for the first time throughout the trial, the
prisoner had shown sign of outward emotion. His face had gone ghastly
white as he listened, and his hand was clutching the dock rail, as he
leaned forward, drinking in every word. Great Heaven! What did it all
mean? he thought. Were they never going to get it over? Why had Lizzie
come forward with this tale, which nobody would for a single moment
believe! It could only serve to prolong his agony. And yet--! Then he
became conscious of the judge's voice. Sentencing him to death--of
course!
"I cannot reopen the case, and call fresh evidence at this stage, Mr
Windgate," his lordship was saying. "You see, the jury have already
given their verdict. But I can postpone sentence. Meanwhile you had
better have this young lady's statement reduced to writing and duly
sworn as an affidavit, and if you can produce the supposed murdered man
alive, and incontestably establish his identity, why, there is
necessarily an end of the case."