Scarcely had the town been struck by the large placards announcing the
dreadful murder of Davenport Dunn, which paraded the streets in all
directions, when a second edition of the morning papers brought the
first tidings of the ruin that was to follow that event; and now, in
quick succession, came news that the treasurer of the grand Glengariff
Company had gone off with some fifty thousand pounds; that the great
Ossory Bank had stopped payment; companies on every hand smashing';
misfortune and calamity everywhere. Terrible as was the detail which the
inquest revealed, the whole interest of the world was turned to the less
striking but scarcely less astounding news that society had for years
back been the dupe of the most crafty and unprincipled knave of all
Europe, that the great idol of its worship, the venerated and respected
in all enterprises of industry, the man of large philanthropy and wide
benevolence, was a schemer and a swindler, unprincipled and unfeeling.
The fatal machinery of deception and falsehood which his life maintained
crumbled to ruin at the very moment of his death; he was himself the
mainspring of all fraud, and when he ceased to dictate, the game of
roguery was over. While, therefore, many deplored the awful crime which
had just been committed, and sorrowed over the stain cast upon our age
and our civilization, there arose amidst their grief the wilder and more
heartrending cry of thousands brought to destitution and beggary by this
bold, bad man.
Of the vast numbers who had dealings with him, scarcely any escaped:
false title-deeds, counterfeited shares, forged scrip abounded. The
securities intrusted to his keeping in all the trustfulness of an
unlimited confidence had been pledged for loans of money; vast sums
alleged to have been advanced on mortgage were embezzled without a
shadow of security. From the highest in the peerage to the poorest
peasant, all were involved in the same scheme of ruin, and the great
fortunes of the rich and the hardly saved pittance of the poor alike
engulfed. So suddenly did the news break upon the world that it actually
seemed incredible. It was not alone a shock given to mercantile credit
and commercial honesty, but it seemed an outrage against whatever
assumed to be high-principled and honorable. It could not be denied that
this man had been the world's choicest favorite. Upon _him_ had been
lavished all the honors and rewards usually reserved for the greatest
benefactors of their kind. The favors of the Crown, the friendship and
intimacy with the highest in station, immense influence with the members
of the Government, power and patronage to any extent, and, greater
than all these, because more wide-spread and far-reaching, a sort
of acceptance that all he said and did and planned and projected was
certain to be for the best, and that they who opposed his views or
disparaged his conceptions were sure to be mean-minded and envious
men, jealous of the noble ascendancy of his great nature. And all this
because he was rich and could enrich others! Had the insane estimate of
this man been formed by those fighting the hard battle of fortune, and
so crushed by poverty that even a glimpse of affluence was a gleam of
Paradise, it might have been more pardonable; but far from it. Davenport
Dunn's chief adherents and his primest flatterers were themselves great
in station and rolling in wealth; they were many of them the princes of
the land. The richest banker of all Europe--he whose influence has often
decided the fate of contending nations--was Dunn's tried and trusted
friend. The great Minister, whose opening speech of a session was the
_mot d'ordre_ for half the globe, had taken counsel with him, stooping
to ask his advice, and condescending to indorse his opinions. A proud
old noble, as haughty a member of his order as the peerage possessed,
did not disdain to accept him for a son-in-law; and now the great banker
was to find himself defrauded, the great minister disgraced, and
the noble Lord who had stooped to his alliance was to see his estate
dissipated and his fortune lost!
What a moral strain did not the great monitors of our age pour forth;
what noble words of reproof fell from Pulpit and Press upon the lust
of wealth, the base pursuit of gold; what touching contrasts were drawn
between the hard-won competence of the poor man and the ill-gotten
abundance of the gambler! How impressively was the lesson proclaimed,
that patient industry was a nobler characteristic of a people than
successful enterprise, and that it was not to lucky chances and
accidental success, but to the virtues of truthfulness, order, untiring
labor, and economy, that England owed the high place she occupied
amongst the nations of the earth. All this was, perhaps, true; the only
pity was that the pæan over our greatness should be also a funeral wail
over thousands reduced to beggary and want! For weeks the newspapers had
no other themes than the misery of this man's cruel frauds. Magistrates
were besieged by appeals from people reduced to the last destitution;
public offices crowded with applicants, pressing to know if the titles
or securities they held as the sole guarantees of a livelihood, were
true or false. All confidence seemed gone. Men trembled at every letter
they opened; and none knew whether the tidings of each moment might not
be the announcement of utter ruin.
Until the event had actually occurred, it was not easy to conceive how
the dishonesty of one man could so effectually derange the whole complex
machinery of a vast society; but so it really proved. So intensely had
the money-getting passion taken possession of the national mind, so
associated had national prosperity seemed to be with individual wealth,
that nothing appeared great, noble, or desirable but gold, and the
standard of material value was constituted to be the standard of all
moral excellence: intending to honor Industry, the nation had paid its
homage to Money!
Of all the victims to Dunn's perfidy, there was one who never could be
brought to believe in his guilt This was the old Earl of Glengariff. So
stunned was he by the first news of the murder that his faculties never
rightly recovered the shock, and his mind balanced between a nervous
impatience for Dunn's arrival and a dreary despondency as to his coming;
and in this way he lived for years, his daughter watching over him with
every care and devotion, hiding with many an artifice the painful signs
of their reduced fortune, and feeding with many a false hope the old
man's yearnings for wealth and riches. The quiet old town of Bruges was
their resting-place; and there, amidst deserted streets and grass-grown
pavements, they lived, pitied and unknown.
The “Dunn Frauds,” as by journalist phrase they were now recognized,
formed for months long a daily portion of the public reading, and only
at length yielded their interest to a case before the “Lords,”--the
claim preferred by a Crimean hero to the title of Viscount Lackington,
and of which some successful trials at Bar gave speedy promise of good
result. Indeed, had the question been one to be decided by popular
suffrage, the issue would not have been very doubtful. Through the
brilliant records of “our own correspondent” and the illustrated columns
of a distinguished “weekly,” Charles Conway had now become a celebrity,
and meetings were held and councils consulted how best to honor his
arrival on his return to England. As though glad to turn from the
disparaging stories of fraud, baseness, and deception which Dunn's fall
disclosed, to nobler and more spirit-stirring themes, the nation seemed
to hail with a sort of enthusiasm the character of this brave soldier!
His whole military career was narrated at length, and national pride
deeply flattered by a record which proved that in an age stigmatized by
late disclosures, chivalry and heroism had not died out, but survived in
all their most brilliant and ennobling features. While municipal bodies
voted their freedom and swords of honor, and public journals discussed
the probable rewards of the Crown, another turn was given to popular
interest by the announcement that, on a certain day, Christopher Davis
was to be tried at the Old Bailey for the murder of Davenport Dunn. Had
the hand which took away his life been that of some one brought down
to beggary by his machinations, a certain amount of sympathy would
certainly have been wrung from national feeling. Here, however, if any
such plea existed, no token was given. Davis had maintained, at the
coroner's inquest, a dogged, unbroken silence, simply declaring that he
reserved whatever he meant to say for the time of his trial. He did not
scruple, besides, to exhibit an insolent contempt for a verdict which he
felt could exercise little influence on the future, while to his
lawyer he explained that he was not going to give “Conway's people” the
information that he had so totally failed in securing the documents
he sought for, and his presumed possession of which might induce a
compromise with Beecher.
In vain was he assured that his obstinate refusal to answer the
questions of the jury would seriously endanger his safety by arming
the public mind against him; he sternly resisted every argument on this
score, and curtly said, “There are higher interests at stake than mine
here,--it is my daughter, the Viscountess, is to be thought of, not me.”
Nor did his reserve end there. Through the long interval which preceded
his trial, he confided very sparingly in his lawyer, his interviews with
him being mainly occupied in discussing points of law, what was and what
was not evidence, and asking for a history of such cases--if any there
were--as resembled his own. In fact, it soon appeared that, having
mastered certain details, Davis was determined to conduct his own
defence, and address the jury in his own behalf.
The interest the public takes in a criminal trial is often mainly
dependent on the rank of the persons implicated; not only is sympathy
more naturally attracted to those whose condition in life would seem to
have removed them from the casualties of crime, but, in such cases,
the whole circumstances are sure to be surrounded with features of more
dramatic interest. Now, although Davis by no means occupied that station
which could conciliate such sympathy, he was widely known, and to men of
the first rank in England. The habits of the turf and the ring establish
a sort of acquaintanceship, and even intimacy, between men who have no
other neutral territory in life; and, through these, Davis was on the
most familiar terms with noble lords and honorable gentlemen, who took
his bets and pocketed his money as freely as from their equals.
With these, his indomitable resolution, his “pluck” had made him almost
a favorite. They well knew, too, how they could count upon these same
faculties in any hour of need, and “Old Grog” was the resource in many a
difficulty that none but himself could have confronted.
If his present condition excited no very warm anxiety for his fate, it
at least created the liveliest curiosity to see the man, to watch how he
would comport himself in such a terrible exigency, to hear the sort
of defence he would make, and to mark how far his noted courage would
sustain him in an ordeal so novel and so appalling. The newspapers also
contributed to increase this interest, by daily publishing some curious
story or other illustrating Davis's early life, and, as may be
surmised, not always to his advantage on the score of probity and
honor. Photographers were equally active; so that when, on the eventful
morning, the clerk of the arraigns demanded of the prisoner whether he
pleaded guilty or not guilty, the face and features of the respondent
were familiar to every one in the Court. Some expected to see him
downcast and crestfallen, some looked for a manner of insolent swagger
and pretension. He was equally free from either, and in his calm
but resolute bearing, as he surveyed bench and jury-box, there was
unmistakable dignity and power. If he did not seek the recognitions
of his acquaintances throughout the Court, he never avoided them,
returning the salutations of the “swells,” as he called them, with the
easy indifference he would have accorded them at Newmarket.
I have no pretension to delay my reader by any details of the trial
itself. It was a case where all the evidence was purely circumstantial,
but wherein the most deliberate and deep-laid scheme could be distinctly
traced. With all the force of that consummate skill in narrative which a
criminal lawyer possesses, Davis was tracked from his leaving London
to his arrival at Chester. Of his two hours spent there the most exact
account was given, and although some difficulty existed in proving the
identity of the traveller who had taken his place at that station with
the prisoner, there was the strongest presumption to believe they were
one and the same. As to the dreadful events of the crime itself, all
must be inferred from the condition in which the murdered man was found
and the nature of the wounds that caused his death. Of these, none could
entertain a doubt; the medical witnesses agreed in declaring that life
must have been immediately extinguished. Lastly, as to the motive of
the crime,--although not essential in a legal point of view,--the
prosecutor, in suggesting some possible cause, took occasion to dwell
upon the character of the prisoner, and even allude to some early
events in his life. Davis abruptly stopped this train of argument, by
exclaiming, “None of these are in the indictment, sir. I am here on a
charge of murder, and not for having horsewhipped _you_ at Ascot, the
year Comas won the Queen's Cup.”
An interruption so insulting, uttered in a voice that resounded
throughout the Court, now led to a passionate appeal from the counsel
to the bench, and a rebuke from the Judge to Davis, who reminded him
how unbecoming such an outrage was, from one standing in the solemn
situation that he did.
“Solemn enough if guilty, my Lord, but only irksome and unpleasant to a
man with as easy a conscience as mine,” was the quick reply of Grog,
who now eyed the Court in every part with an expression of insolent
defiance.
The evidence for the prosecution having closed, Davis arose, and with a
calm self-possession addressed the Court:--
“I believe,” said he, “that if I followed the approved method in cases
like the present, I'd begin by expressing the great confidence and
satisfaction I feel in being tried by a Judge so just and a jury so
intelligent as that before me; and then, after a slight diversion as
to the blessings of a good conscience, I 'd give you fifteen or twenty
minutes of pathetic lamentation for the good and great man whose
untimely death is the cause of this trial. Now, I'm not about to do any
of these. Judges are generally upright; juries are, for the most part,
painstaking and fair. I conclude, therefore, that I'm as safe with his
Lordship and yourselves as with any others; and as to Mr. Davenport Dunn
and his virtues, why, gentlemen, like the character of him who addresses
you, the least said the better! Not,” added he, sternly, “that I fear
comparison with him,--far from it; we were both adventurers, each of us
traded upon the weakness of his fellows; the only difference was, that
he played a game that could not but win, while I took my risks like a
man, and as often suffered as I succeeded. _My_ victims--if that's
the phrase in vogue for them--were young fellows starting in life with
plenty of cash and small experience: _his_ were widows, with a miserable
pittance, scarcely enough for support; orphan children, with a thousand
or two trust money; or, as you might see in the papers, poor governesses
eagerly seizing the occasion to provide for the last years of a toilsome
life. But my opinion is you have no concern with _his_ character or with
_mine_; you are there to know how he came by his death, and I 'll tell
you that.”
In a narrative told calmly, without stop or impediment, and utterly free
from a word of exaggeration or a sentiment of passion, he narrated how,
by an appointment, the nature of which he refused to enter upon, he
had met Davenport Dunn on the eventful night in question. The business
matter between them, he said,--and of this, too, he declined to give any
particular information,--had led to much and angry recrimination, till
at length, carried beyond the bounds of all temper and reserve, Davis
rashly avowed that he was in the possession of the secret history of all
Dunn's frauds; he showed, by details the most exact, that he knew how
for years and years this man had been a swindler and a cheat, and he
declared that the time for unmasking him had arrived, and that the world
should soon know the stuff he was made of. “There was, I suspected,”
continued he, “in the red box at my feet a document whose production in
a trial would have saved a friend of my own from ruin, and which Dunn
was then carrying up to London to dispose of to the opponent in the
suit. I affected to be certain that it was there, and I quickly saw by
his confusion that I guessed aright. I proposed terms for it as liberal
as he could wish, equal to any he could obtain elsewhere. He refused my
offers. I asked then to see and read it, to assure myself that it was
the paper I suspected. This, too, he refused. The altercation grew warm;
time pressed, for we were not far from the station where I meant to
stop, and, driven to half desperation, I declared that I 'd smash the
box, if he would not consent to unlock it. I stooped as I said this, and
as my head was bent he drew a pistol and shot me. The ball glanced from
my skull and entered my neck. This is the wound,” said he, baring his
throat, “and here is the bullet. I was scarcely stunned, and I sprang to
my legs and killed him!”.
The sensation of horror the last words created was felt throughout
the Court, and manifested by a low murmur of terror and disgust. Davis
looked around him with a cold, resolute stare, as if he did not shrink
in the least from this show of disapprobation.
“I am well aware,” said he, calmly, “there are many here at this moment
would have acted differently. That lady with the lace veil yonder, for
instance, would have fainted; the noble Lord next the Bench, there,
would have dropped on his knees and begged his life. I see one of the
jury, and if I can read a human countenance, his tells me he 'd have
screamed out for the guard. Well, I have nothing to say against any of
these ways of treating the matter. None of them occurred to _me_, and I
killed him! The Crown lawyer has told you the rest; that I surrendered
myself at once to the police, and never attempted an escape. A legal
friend has mentioned to me that witnesses to character are occasionally
called in cases like the present, and that I might derive benefit from
such testimony. Nothing would be easier for me than this. There is
a noble lord, a member of the Cabinet, knows me long and intimately;
there's a venerable bishop now in town could also speak for me. He
taught me chicken hazard thirty years ago, and I have never ceased to
think affectionately of him. There 's a Judge in the adjoining Court who
was my chum and companion for two years--Well, my Lord, I have done. I
shall call none of them; nor have I anything more to observe.”
The Jury, after a short address from the Judge, retired; and Davis's
lawyer, rising, approached the dock and whispered something to the
prisoner.
“What's the betting?” murmured Grog.
“Even as to the first charge. Two to one for a verdict of manslaughter.”
“Take all you can get for me on the first,” said Grog, “and I'll take
the odds on the other in hundreds. It's a sort of a hedge for me. There,
let's lose no time; they 'll be back soon.”
In a few minutes after this brief conversation, the jury returned into
Court. Their finding was Not Guilty of murder, Guilty of manslaughter
only.
Davis listened to the decision calmly, and then, having pencilled down
a few figures in his note-book, he muttered, “Not so bad, neither; seven
hundred on the double event!” So occupied was he in his calculations,
that he had not heard a recommendation to mercy, which the jury had
appended, though somewhat informally, to their verdict.
“What a pot of money one might have had against that!” said Davis. “Is
n't it strange none of us should ever have thought of it!”
The Judge reserved sentence till he had thought over the recommendation,
and the trial was over.