A CRIMINAL COURT IN THE STATE OF NEW YORK.
That same day the arrest of James Gobson was known all over the city,
and in the evening the principal papers were full of the most absurd
and sensational details of the scene at the morgue.
The pistol-shot fired by William Dow was represented by some of these
papers as a veritable volley of musketry. Some said that Miss Ada’s
assassin did not give himself up until he had fought and overpowered
half a dozen policemen; others, that it was necessary to fire at and
disable him in order to capture him.
Not until the next day were the facts exactly known, owing to the
eagerness with which the police of America inform the public, to give
it every means of control, not only by communicating official reports,
but by authorizing journalists to visit the prisoners.
James Gobson found his cell besieged by a troop of reporters, but the
story he told the first could have served for all the others, for it
did not vary a syllable.
He had fully recovered his coolness; he ate, drank, and smoked like a
man whose conscience is perfectly quiet. When he read anything severe
about himself in the papers, he merely shrugged his shoulders.
When he was confronted with the witnesses, skilfully brought together
by Mr. Mortimer and Davis, Thomson, the livery stable-keeper, and Tom
Katters, his driver, who had recognized him by his features and voice,
then with ten of Miss Ada Ricard’s guests, who declared that his form
and bearing were those of the Indian in whose arms the unfortunate
woman had been carried off, he answered them firmly, but without anger,
that they were mistaken.
As for Mary, she could say nothing since she had seen the kidnapper
only at a distance, beyond the throng of dancers.
But James Gobson had convinced none of his innocence, Mr. Davis less
than anyone, for he refused to give him any liberty whatever, and
notwithstanding the efforts of the lawyer Macready, who called to his
aid all the ruses which the arsenal of the American law provides, the
examination was so quickly ended that a month after his arrest the
prisoner was informed that he was soon to appear before the Criminal
Court.
The grand jury referred the indictment to the common jury.
“Do you plead guilty, or not guilty?” asked his defender on bringing
him this news.
“Not guilty, Mr. Macready, not guilty,” answered the prisoner, warmly.
“Do you doubt my innocence after all the proof I have given you?”
“Heaven forbid. I am certain of it, and I promise you that the lawyer
for the State--the illustrious O’Brien--will have some ugly hours to
pass,” and leaving his client with this kind promise, Mr. Macready went
to once more look over his documents.
As for James Gobson, we must confess, that when he was alone in his
cell, he did not so well conceal the anxiety which he had felt for
several days and which visibly increased as the hour for his trial
approached.
Public opinion, which has such great weight in matters of justice in
the United States, was not favorable to him; and he lacked, what to the
accused is a defensive weapon, often all-powerful--he belonged to no
political party or any religious sect.
Now, James Gobson had not this advantage on his side. Politics were
quiet, and without very great difficulty, in spite of the trickery
of his defender, they had drawn the twelve necessary jurors, a more
difficult operation in the United States than elsewhere.
Mr. Macready, who was an able man, had full confidence in the result of
the trial, and so well convinced his client of this that on the morning
when he was to appear before the criminal court, he breakfasted with
an excellent appetite. Toward eleven o’clock, when the guards came to
take the prisoner before the audience, he quietly put on his gloves,
followed them with firm step, and took his place before the judges more
as a curious spectator than as an accused man.
The crowd was large, and occupied, as it was, by the wax head of Ada
Ricard, which had been placed on a small table, the people turned their
looks away to fasten them on James Gobson, whom, perhaps, not one
present knew by sight. But this movement of curiosity did not for a
moment disturb the accused, who was sitting near his lawyer and talking
to him in a low voice.
James Gobson raised his head only when the chief justice, Mr. Douglas,
announced that the court was open.
It is useless to say that Mr. Mortimer and the coroner, Davis, were
present, as well as our friends, William Dow and Young.
When the usual formalities were gone through with, Mr. O’Brien, the
lawyer for the State, took up the arguments to review the facts on
which the accusation rested.
If, among the auditors, there remained any persons still doubting the
guilt of James Gobson, they were soon convinced of it, for, after
having traced the accused back to the time of his marriage, to review
his conduct toward his wife, his divorce, his habits, his vows of
revenge, and his adventurous life, Mr. O’Brien showed him a few days
before the crime at Jefferson preparing everything for its execution.
Then he traced him to the livery stable-keeper, followed him to the
ball at Miss Ada’s house, accompanied him to Yorkville, and then
taking as a basis the ingenious deductions he had made, he got on
board the boat with James Gobson and his wife, to make those present
who were listening to him, witness the terrible scene that took place
on the river at night. They saw the assassin choke Miss Ada, rob her of
her jewels and clothing, and leave nothing on her by which she could be
recognized in case she should come to the surface of the water later,
fasten to one of her legs the barrel of tar stolen from Wharf 43; that
the body, kept down at the bottom of the river, could not float before
decomposition had made it quite unrecognizable, and finally, to fling
into the deep the unhappy victim of this frightful murder.
“Having accomplished his crime, then,” said his accuser, “James Gobson
had only one anxiety--to prepare an alibi to escape all suspicions.
He then set out for the Rocky Mountains, where he remained not three
months, as he pretended, but only one month; and when he returned and
presented himself at the central police office it was to affirm that
he had heard of the crime only a few hours, and that the drowned woman
was not the one who had borne his name. Fortunately for justice, two
honorable inhabitants of Jefferson saw James Gobson in that city only a
few days before the crime, and ten witnesses found in him the features,
voice and stature of the man who hired a carriage, gave orders to the
coachman, Tom Katters, and so audaciously carried away Miss Ada Ricard
from her guests. As for his accomplices, if they did not betray him,
it was because they received their share of the booty, and because
silence alone could save them.”
After this plain conclusive presentation of Mr. O’Brien, the court
heard the witnesses. All confirmed their preceding testimony, all again
recognized the poor woman in the wax head, excepting Mary, who, without
daring to raise her eyes, murmured--
“I did not recognize my mistress at the morgue; how do you expect me to
recognize her here?”
Only one witness failed to appear, and that was the fat Saunders; but,
after a medical examination, the court and Mr. Macready excused him
from appearing. Since we saw him last his condition had not improved;
when Mr. Davis made a last attempt with him, he threw himself on his
knees crying:
“It is I who am the cause of her death, but I did not mean to drown
her. Oh! that colonel, I will kill him.”
And seeing in these inexplicable exclamations only the despair of a
lover maddened by the loss of his loved one, the coroner said that
Saunders before long would completely lose his reason.
As overpowering as the first part of this testimony might have been to
him, James Gobson lost none of his calmness. He interrupted neither Mr.
O’Brien nor the witnesses; he merely smiled at times.
The honorable chief justice, Mr. Douglas, had not addressed a word to
James Gobson, and was about to let Mr. Macready have his turn, when
Mr. Gobson suddenly arose and said in a firm voice:
“Your honors, and gentlemen of the jury; my lawyer, I am sure, is
going to prove to you, without much trouble, how unfounded are the
accusations which you have just heard. I wish only to tell you this:
That all the witnesses who declare that they recognize me for the
person of whom they speak are misled by a strange resemblance, as well
as those who find in this wax face the features of the former Mrs.
Gobson. I am no more the murderer of the drowned woman of whom that
cast is taken, than the drowned woman is Ada Ricard.”
Having uttered these words, without feeling disturbed at the murmur
with which the spectators had received them, the accused seated himself.
Mr. Macready then took the stand, and although his task seemed
difficult, one would have thought from his very first words that there
was not the shadow of a doubt in his mind as to the acquittal of his
client.
“Whether the victim of this mysterious event,” were his opening words,
“is or is not the woman called Ada Ricard, having first been Mrs.
Gobson, matters little. Some recognize her, others do not, and the man
whose greatest interest it would be to find the features of his wife
in this wax face sees only a resemblance which did not for a moment
deceive him. Yes, gentlemen, the greatest interest, for if Miss Ada
Ricard were dead, her former husband, James Gobson, would receive
twenty thousand dollars from Gresham Insurance Company. I know, and
James Gobson knows as well as I do, that the assassination of one by
the other of the contractors annuls the contract; then you would have
to accuse my client of complicity only, for bold and skilful as you
believe him, he would never have been so simple as to make himself
unworthy of the only benefit he might obtain from the death of her
who had been his wife. The very situation in which you have placed
him makes the crime impossible; he had no object to commit it only
through vengeance. To give himself that cruel satisfaction, he would
have risked his honor, his life, and twenty thousand dollars; that is
a great deal. Oh! I know very well that my opponent would like to make
him out not only an assassin but a thief, who not only killed his wife
but even robbed her of her jewels, and that they were the reward of his
crime, a reward that would compensate, and how greatly indeed, for the
loss of twenty thousand dollars.
“Well, where are these jewels? Has he sold them? To whom? Have you
found them at his house, in his trunks? It is not sufficient to say of
a man that he has stolen; if he has not been caught in the act, it must
be further proven what he has done with the articles stolen or discover
a trace of them. In this case you make the accusation of a theft and
the main proof nowhere exists. I affirm, then, that you cannot condemn
him as a murderer, for, apart from the theft, he would have acted like
a fool if he had made himself the murderer of his wife.
“Let us consider. If he had murdered and robbed Ada Ricard, what would
have been his object in presenting himself to Mr. Kelly? Consider, I
say, that here is a man who, having a certain fortune, has committed
a crime which brings him nearly one hundred thousand dollars. He can
escape pursuit, yet he delivers himself up to the police. Is the
idea admissible for a single instant? No; the truth is this: When,
learning the death of the former Mrs. Gobson, James remembered his
assurance policy; and his sole aim in coming to New York was to obtain
a death certificate to benefit by the clauses of this policy, and it
was he--even when he could not doubt your suspicions, ready to break
forth into an accusation--it was he who cried out, sacrificing his own
interests: ‘You are all mistaken, that is not Ada Ricard.’
“Does not common sense, logic and reason overthrow your romantic
construction? Unless it was committed by some blood-thirsty brute,
is not all crime a speculation? A monstrous speculation, but still a
speculation. Well, is James Gobson a brute? No; then what could his
speculation have been?
“Let us pass now to these facts which the lawyer for the State links
with such skill, or what he thinks he does. They will not bear
examining an instant; he is no wise man who accepts them. You wish to
make out that James Gobson killed his wife because he tells you that
he was in the Rocky Mountains at the moment of the crime, and that two
persons saw him a few days before at Jefferson. In the first place
were not these persons mistaken? But admitting that they tell the
truth, I do not think you have made a point as regards the assertion.
“James Gobson must then be forced, under penalty of being regarded as a
criminal, to recall what he was doing during that night that Miss Ada
was entertaining her friends? I confess to you, for my part, that if I
had to say what I was doing and where I was three months ago at that
hour, I should be very much embarrassed; and I defy any one here to
declare on his honor that he can precisely answer such a question. And
then, is it my mission to prove that my client is innocent? That is a
mistake; it is you, whose mission it is to prove him guilty. Now you do
not do so. You present a man disguised and masked. You do not tear off
the mask. You give him accomplices and do not find them again. You say
that he has stolen, and you do not know what has became of the articles
stolen. All that is very serious, and have I not a right to cry out?
A crime has been committed--a mysterious crime--whose victim even,
is not absolutely recognized; a crime that has deeply stirred public
opinion, which you wish to bring to your side and calm, and you think
it indispensable to offer a guilty man; whoever it may be, were it even
James Gobson, a perfectly innocent man.”
This, it will be understood, is only Mr. Macready’s plea abridged, for
he spoke more than five hours, and often succeeded in winning a portion
of his hearers. But his influence was not so great on the jury, for,
after less than an hour’s deliberation, they brought in a verdict of
guilty.
On hearing the head juryman declare his client guilty of murder, with
extenuating circumstances there could be no question about it--nothing
of the kind being allowed in the American law, Mr. Macready, who had
arisen, sank back overcome on his chair. As for James Gobson, he did
not betray the least surprise, but a smile of scorn was on his lips.
Hon. Mr. Douglas now arose. He read in a loud voice the various
articles of the penal law relating to the case, and pronounced the
accused condemned to death. Then, after consulting an almanac, he added:
“James Gobson, unless you have some serious objection to the day, you
will be hanged on the twenty-fifth of this month. To-day is Tuesday; it
will be a fortnight from to-morrow.”
“I should prefer, your honor,” answered the condemned man, with much
coolness, “to live a little longer, but I have no other remark to make.
Wednesday awakens no repugnance in my mind. On that day you will cause
an innocent man to die.”
After putting on his hat and clasping the hand of his defender, James
Gobson retired as calm as when he had come there.
The crowd, from which there had not been the slightest murmur of
approbation or disapprobation, moved quietly away. It was evident,
nevertheless, that Mr. Macready had gained a certain number of his
hearers. To the minds of some there was a doubt as to the guilt of his
client.
The intrepid Young was one of the latter; for, as he was leaving the
court-room in company with William Dow, the latter asking him if he was
convinced, he answered:
“Not at all. That devil of a man did not betray himself a single
minute; he had the calmness of an innocent man. Besides, what vexes me
is that we cannot put our hands on his accomplices or the jewels of
Miss Ada. Mr. Macready is right, if he stole the jewels why did he come
and give himself up?”
“To believe a thing you have to see it.”
“Well, deuce take it, when I see a thing I know it.”
“Then, when the wind carries away your hat you do not believe it is
the wind because it is not visible. Ah, my dear captain, you are the
bravest soldier I know, but you will never be a wise detective. Well,
now, to please you and quiet your conscience, I promise to find you
James Gobson’s accomplices and his wife’s jewels.”
“Ah, that day my admiration for you will be unbounded.”
William Dow received this flattering assurance with a sad smile, which
said that he had a very different aim than the puerile satisfaction of
vanity; then he pressed the hand the chief of detectives offered him
and left, saying:
“Yes, certainly, I shall find the accomplices, or rather the aids, of
James Gobson, and before long, I hope.”