TWO DAYS BEFORE THE TRIAL.
There was a scene in the private room of Mr. Wickerby, the attorney
in Hatton Garden, which was very distressing indeed to the feelings
of Lord Fawn, and which induced his lordship to think that he was
being treated without that respect which was due to him as a peer
and a member of the Government. There were present at this scene Mr.
Chaffanbrass, the old barrister, Mr. Wickerby himself, Mr. Wickerby's
confidential clerk, Lord Fawn, Lord Fawn's solicitor,--that same
Mr. Camperdown whom we saw in the last chapter calling upon Lady
Eustace,--and a policeman. Lord Fawn had been invited to attend, with
many protestations of regret as to the trouble thus imposed upon him,
because the very important nature of the evidence about to be given
by him at the forthcoming trial seemed to render it expedient that
some questions should be asked. This was on Tuesday, the 22nd June,
and the trial was to be commenced on the following Thursday. And
there was present in the room, very conspicuously, an old heavy grey
great coat, as to which Mr. Wickerby had instructed Mr. Chaffanbrass
that evidence was forthcoming, if needed, to prove that that coat was
lying on the night of the murder in a downstairs room in the house
in which Yosef Mealyus was then lodging. The reader will remember
the history of the coat. Instigated by Madame Goesler, who was
still absent from England, Mr. Wickerby had traced the coat, and
had purchased the coat, and was in a position to prove that this
very coat was the coat which Mr. Meager had brought home with him to
Northumberland Street on that day. But Mr. Wickerby was of opinion
that the coat had better not be used. "It does not go far enough,"
said Mr. Wickerby. "It don't go very far, certainly," said Mr.
Chaffanbrass. "And if you try to show that another man has done it,
and he hasn't," said Mr. Wickerby, "it always tells against you
with a jury." To this Mr. Chaffanbrass made no reply, preferring to
form his own opinion, and to keep it to himself when formed. But in
obedience to his instructions, Lord Fawn was asked to attend at Mr.
Wickerby's chambers, in the cause of truth, and the coat was brought
out on the occasion. "Was that the sort of coat the man wore, my
lord?" said Mr. Chaffanbrass as Mr. Wickerby held up the coat to
view. Lord Fawn walked round and round the coat, and looked at it
very carefully before he would vouchsafe a reply. "You see it is a
grey coat," said Mr. Chaffanbrass, not speaking at all in the tone
which Mr. Wickerby's note had induced Lord Fawn to expect.
"It is grey," said Lord Fawn.
"Perhaps it's not the same shade of grey, Lord Fawn. You see, my
lord, we are most anxious not to impute guilt where guilt doesn't
lie. You are a witness for the Crown, and, of course, you will tell
the Crown lawyers all that passes here. Were it possible, we would
make this little preliminary inquiry in their presence;--but we can
hardly do that. Mr. Finn's coat was a very much smaller coat."
"I should think it was," said his lordship, who did not like being
questioned about coats.
"You don't think the coat the man wore when you saw him was a big
coat like that? You think he wore a little coat?"
"He wore a grey coat," said Lord Fawn.
"This is grey;--a coat shouldn't be greyer than that."
"I don't think Lord Fawn should be asked any more questions on the
matter till he gives his evidence in court," said Mr. Camperdown.
"A man's life depends on it, Mr. Camperdown," said the barrister. "It
isn't a matter of cross-examination. If I bring that coat into court
I must make a charge against another man by the very act of doing so.
And I will not do so unless I believe that other man to be guilty.
It's an inquiry I can't postpone till we are before the jury. It
isn't that I want to trump up a case against another man for the sake
of extricating my client on a false issue. Lord Fawn doesn't want to
hang Mr. Finn if Mr. Finn be not guilty."
"God forbid!" said his lordship.
"Mr. Finn couldn't have worn that coat, or a coat at all like it."
"What is it you do want to learn, Mr. Chaffanbrass?" asked Mr.
Camperdown.
"Just put on the coat, Mr. Scruby." Then at the order of the
barrister, Mr. Scruby, the attorney's clerk, did put on Mr. Meager's
old great coat, and walked about the room in it. "Walk quick," said
Mr. Chaffanbrass;--and the clerk did "walk quick." He was a stout,
thick-set little man, nearly half a foot shorter than Phineas Finn.
"Is that at all like the figure?" asked Mr. Chaffanbrass.
"I think it is like the figure," said Lord Fawn.
"And like the coat?"
"It's the same colour as the coat."
"You wouldn't swear it was not the coat?"
"I am not on my oath at all, Mr. Chaffanbrass."
"No, my lord;--but to me your word is as good as your oath. If you
think it possible that was the coat--"
"I don't think anything about it at all. When Mr. Scruby hurries down
the room in that way he looks as the man looked when he was hurrying
under the lamp-post. I am not disposed to say any more at present."
"It's a matter of regret to me that Lord Fawn should have come here
at all," said Mr. Camperdown, who had been summoned to meet his
client at the chambers, but had come with him.
"I suppose his lordship wishes us to know all that he knew, seeing
that it's a question of hanging the right man or the wrong one. I
never heard such trash in my life. Take it off, Mr. Scruby, and let
the policeman keep it. I understand Lord Fawn to say that the man's
figure was about the same as yours. My client, I believe, stands
about twelve inches taller. Thank you, my lord;--we shall get at
the truth at last, I don't doubt." It was afterwards said that Mr.
Chaffanbrass's conduct had been very improper in enticing Lord Fawn
to Mr. Wickerby's chambers; but Mr. Chaffanbrass never cared what
any one said. "I don't know that we can make much of it," he said,
when he and Mr. Wickerby were alone, "but it may be as well to bring
it into court. It would prove nothing against the Jew even if that
fellow,"--he meant Lord Fawn,--"could be made to swear that the
coat worn was exactly similar to this. I am thinking now about the
height."
"I don't doubt but you'll get him off."
"Well;--I may do so. They ought not to hang any man on such evidence
as there is against him, even though there were no moral doubt of his
guilt. There is nothing really to connect Mr. Phineas Finn with the
murder,--nothing tangible. But there is no saying nowadays what a
jury will do. Juries depend a great deal more on the judge than they
used to do. If I were on trial for my life, I don't think I'd have
counsel at all."
"No one could defend you as well as yourself, Mr. Chaffanbrass."
"I didn't mean that. No;--I shouldn't defend myself. I should say
to the judge, 'My lord, I don't doubt the jury will do just as you
tell them, and you'll form your own opinion quite independent of the
arguments.'"
"You'd be hung, Mr. Chaffanbrass."
"No; I don't know that I should," said Mr. Chaffanbrass, slowly. "I
don't think I could affront a judge of the present day into hanging
me. They've too much of what I call thick-skinned honesty for that.
It's the temper of the time to resent nothing,--to be mealy-mouthed
and mealy-hearted. Jurymen are afraid of having their own opinion,
and almost always shirk a verdict when they can."
"But we do get verdicts."
"Yes; the judges give them. And they are mealy-mouthed verdicts,
tending to equalise crime and innocence, and to make men think that
after all it may be a question whether fraud is violence, which,
after all, is manly, and to feel that we cannot afford to hate
dishonesty. It was a bad day for the commercial world, Mr. Wickerby,
when forgery ceased to be capital."
"It was a horrid thing to hang a man for writing another man's name
to a receipt for thirty shillings."
"We didn't do it, but the fact that the law held certain frauds to be
hanging matters operated on the minds of men in regard to all fraud.
What with the joint-stock working of companies, and the confusion
between directors who know nothing and managers who know everything,
and the dislike of juries to tread upon people's corns, you can't
punish dishonest trading. Caveat emptor is the only motto going,
and the worst proverb that ever came from dishonest stony-hearted
Rome. With such a motto as that to guide us no man dare trust his
brother. Caveat lex,--and let the man who cheats cheat at his
peril."
"You'd give the law a great deal to do."
"Much less than at present. What does your Caveat emptor come to?
That every seller tries to pick the eyes out of the head of the
purchaser. Sooner or later the law must interfere, and Caveat
emptor falls to the ground. I bought a horse the other day; my
daughter wanted something to look pretty, and like an old ass as I am
I gave a hundred and fifty pounds for the brute. When he came home he
wasn't worth a feed of corn."
"You had a warranty, I suppose?"
"No, indeed! Did you ever hear of such an old fool?"
"I should have thought any dealer would have taken him back for the
sake of his character."
"Any dealer would; but--I bought him of a gentleman."
"Mr. Chaffanbrass!"
"I ought to have known better, oughtn't I? Caveat emptor."
"It was just giving away your money, you know."
"A great deal worse than that. I could have given the--gentleman--a
hundred and fifty pounds, and not have minded it much. I ought to
have had the horse killed, and gone to a dealer for another. Instead
of that,--I went to an attorney."
"Oh, Mr. Chaffanbrass;--the idea of your going to an attorney."
"I did then. I never had so much honest truth told me in my life."
"By an attorney!"
"He said that he did think I'd been born long enough to have known
better than that! I pleaded on my own behalf that the gentleman said
the horse was all right. 'Gentleman!' exclaimed my friend. 'You go
to a gentleman for a horse; you buy a horse from a gentleman without
a warranty; and then you come to me! Didn't you ever hear of Caveat
emptor, Mr. Chaffanbrass? What can I do for you?' That's what my
friend, the attorney, said to me."
"And what came of it, Mr. Chaffanbrass? Arbitration, I should say?"
"Just that;--with the horse eating his head off every meal at ever
so much per week,--till at last I fairly gave in from sheer vexation.
So the--gentleman--got my money, and I added something to my stock
of experience. Of course, that's only my story, and it may be that
the gentleman could tell it another way. But I say that if my story
be right the doctrine of Caveat emptor does not encourage trade.
I don't know how we got to all this from Mr. Finn. I'm to see him
to-morrow."
"Yes;--he is very anxious to speak to you."
"What's the use of it, Wickerby? I hate seeing a client.--What comes
of it?"
"Of course he wants to tell his own story."
"But I don't want to hear his own story. What good will his own story
do me? He'll tell me either one of two things. He'll swear he didn't
murder the man--"
"That's what he'll say."
"Which can have no effect upon me one way or the other; or else he'll
say that he did,--which would cripple me altogether."
"He won't say that, Mr. Chaffanbrass."
"There's no knowing what they'll say. A man will go on swearing by
his God that he is innocent, till at last, in a moment of emotion, he
breaks down, and out comes the truth. In such a case as this I do not
in the least want to know the truth about the murder."
"That is what the public wants to know."
"Because the public is ignorant. The public should not wish to know
anything of the kind. What we should all wish to get at is the truth
of the evidence about the murder. The man is to be hung not because
he committed the murder,--as to which no positive knowledge is
attainable; but because he has been proved to have committed the
murder,--as to which proof, though it be enough for hanging, there
must always be attached some shadow of doubt. We were delighted to
hang Palmer,--but we don't know that he killed Cook. A learned man
who knew more about it than we can know seemed to think that he
didn't. Now the last man to give us any useful insight into the
evidence is the prisoner himself. In nineteen cases out of twenty a
man tried for murder in this country committed the murder for which
he is tried."
"There really seems to be a doubt in this case."
"I dare say. If there be only nineteen guilty out of twenty, there
must be one innocent; and why not Mr. Phineas Finn? But, if it be so,
he, burning with the sense of injustice, thinks that everybody should
see it as he sees it. He is to be tried, because, on investigation,
everybody sees it just in a different light. In such case he is
unfortunate, but he can't assist me in liberating him from his
misfortune. He sees what is patent and clear to him,--that he walked
home on that night without meddling with any one. But I can't see
that, or make others see it, because he sees it."
"His manner of telling you may do something."
"If it do, Mr. Wickerby, it is because I am unfit for my business.
If he have the gift of protesting well, I am to think him innocent;
and, therefore, to think him guilty, if he be unprovided with such
eloquence! I will neither believe or disbelieve anything that a
client says to me,--unless he confess his guilt, in which case my
services can be but of little avail. Of course I shall see him, as he
asks it. We had better meet there,--say at half-past ten." Whereupon
Mr. Wickerby wrote to the governor of the prison begging that Phineas
Finn might be informed of the visit.
Phineas had now been in gaol between six and seven weeks, and the
very fact of his incarceration had nearly broken his spirits. Two
of his sisters, who had come from Ireland to be near him, saw him
every day, and his two friends, Mr. Low and Lord Chiltern, were very
frequently with him; Lady Laura Kennedy had not come to him again;
but he heard from her frequently through Barrington Erle. Lord
Chiltern rarely spoke of his sister,--alluding to her merely in
connection with her father and her late husband. Presents still came
to him from various quarters,--as to which he hardly knew whence they
came. But the Duchess and Lady Chiltern and Lady Laura all catered
for him,--while Mrs. Bunce looked after his wardrobe, and saw that he
was not cut down to prison allowance of clean shirts and socks. But
the only friend whom he recognised as such was the friend who would
freely declare a conviction of his innocence. They allowed him books
and pens and paper, and even cards, if he chose to play at Patience
with them or build castles. The paper and pens he could use because
he could write about himself. From day to day he composed a diary in
which he was never tired of expatiating on the terrible injustice of
his position. But he could not read. He found it to be impossible to
fix his attention on matters outside himself. He assured himself from
hour to hour that it was not death he feared,--not even death from
the hangman's hand. It was the condemnation of those who had known
him that was so terrible to him--the feeling that they with whom he
had aspired to work and live, the leading men and women of his day,
Ministers of the Government and their wives, statesmen and their
daughters, peers and members of the House in which he himself had
sat;--that these should think that, after all, he had been a base
adventurer unworthy of their society! That was the sorrow that broke
him down, and drew him to confess that his whole life had been a
failure.
Mr. Low had advised him not to see Mr. Chaffanbrass;--but he had
persisted in declaring that there were instructions which no one
but himself could give to the counsellor whose duty it would be to
defend him at the trial. Mr. Chaffanbrass came at the hour fixed,
and with him came Mr. Wickerby. The old barrister bowed courteously
as he entered the prison room, and the attorney introduced the two
gentlemen with more than all the courtesy of the outer world. "I am
sorry to see you here, Mr. Finn," said the barrister.
"It's a bad lodging, Mr. Chaffanbrass, but the term will soon be
over. I am thinking a good deal more of my next abode."
"It has to be thought of, certainly," said the barrister. "Let us
hope that it may be all that you would wish it to be. My services
shall not be wanting to make it so."
"We are doing all we can, Mr. Finn," said Mr. Wickerby.
"Mr. Chaffanbrass," said Phineas, "there is one special thing that
I want you to do." The old man, having his own idea as to what was
coming, laid one of his hands over the other, bowed his head, and
looked meek. "I want you to make men believe that I am innocent of
this crime."
This was better than Mr. Chaffanbrass expected. "I trust that we may
succeed in making twelve men believe it," said he.
"Comparatively I do not care a straw for the twelve men. It is not to
them especially that I am anxious that you should address yourself--"
"But that will be my bounden duty, Mr. Finn."
"I can well believe, sir, that though I have myself been bred a
lawyer, I may not altogether understand the nature of an advocate's
duty to his client. But I would wish something more to be done than
what you intimate."
"The duty of an advocate defending a prisoner is to get a verdict
of acquittal if he can, and to use his own discretion in making the
attempt."
"But I want something more to be attempted, even if in the struggle
something less be achieved. I have known men to be so acquitted that
every man in court believed them to be guilty."
"No doubt;--and such men have probably owed much to their advocates."
"It is not such a debt that I wish to owe. I know my own innocence."
"Mr. Chaffanbrass takes that for granted," said Mr. Wickerby.
"To me it is a matter of astonishment that any human being should
believe me to have committed this murder. I am lost in surprise when
I remember that I am here simply because I walked home from my club
with a loaded stick in my pocket. The magistrate, I suppose, thought
me guilty."
"He did not think about it, Mr. Finn. He went by the evidence;--the
quarrel, your position in the streets at the time, the colour of the
coat you wore and that of the coat worn by the man whom Lord Fawn saw
in the street; the doctor's evidence as to the blows by which the man
was killed; and the nature of the weapon which you carried. He put
these things together, and they were enough to entitle the public to
demand that a jury should decide. He didn't say you were guilty. He
only said that the circumstances were sufficient to justify a trial."
"If he thought me innocent he would not have sent me here."
"Yes, he would;--if the evidence required that he should do so."
"We will not argue about that, Mr. Chaffanbrass."
"Certainly not, Mr. Finn."
"Here I am, and to-morrow I shall be tried for my life. My life will
be nothing to me unless it can be made clear to all the world that
I am innocent. I would be sooner hung for this,--with the certainty
at my heart that all England on the next day would ring with the
assurance of my innocence, than be acquitted and afterwards be looked
upon as a murderer." Phineas, when he was thus speaking, had stepped
out into the middle of the room, and stood with his head thrown
back, and his right hand forward. Mr. Chaffanbrass, who was himself
an ugly, dirty old man, who had always piqued himself on being
indifferent to appearance, found himself struck by the beauty and
grace of the man whom he now saw for the first time. And he was
struck, too, by his client's eloquence, though he had expressly
declared to the attorney that it was his duty to be superior to any
such influence. "Oh, Mr. Chaffanbrass, for the love of Heaven, let
there be no quibbling."
"We never quibble, I hope, Mr. Finn."
"No subterfuges, no escaping by a side wind, no advantage taken of
little forms, no objection taken to this and that as though delay
would avail us anything."
"Character will go a great way, we hope."
"It should go for nothing. Though no one would speak a word for me,
still am I innocent. Of course the truth will be known some day."
"I'm not so sure of that, Mr. Finn."
"It will certainly be known some day. That it should not be known
as yet is my misfortune. But in defending me I would have you hurl
defiance at my accusers. I had the stick in my pocket,--having
heretofore been concerned with ruffians in the street. I did quarrel
with the man, having been insulted by him at the club. The coat which
I wore was such as they say. But does that make a murderer of me?"
"Somebody did the deed, and that somebody could probably say all that
you say."
"No, sir;--he, when he is known, will be found to have been skulking
in the streets; he will have thrown away his weapon; he will have
been secret in his movements; he will have hidden his face, and have
been a murderer in more than the deed. When they came to me in the
morning did it seem to them that I was a murderer? Has my life been
like that? They who have really known me cannot believe that I have
been guilty. They who have not known me, and do believe, will live to
learn their error."
He then sat down and listened patiently while the old lawyer
described to him the nature of the case,--wherein lay his danger, and
wherein what hope there was of safety. There was no evidence against
him other than circumstantial evidence, and both judges and jury
were wont to be unwilling to accept such, when uncorroborated, as
sufficient in cases of life and death. Unfortunately, in this case
the circumstantial evidence was very strong against him. But, on the
other hand, his character, as to which men of great mark would speak
with enthusiasm, would be made to stand very high. "I would not have
it made to stand higher than it is," said Phineas. As to the opinion
of the world afterwards, Mr. Chaffanbrass went on to say, of that he
must take his chance. But surely he himself might fight better for it
living than any friend could do for him after his death. "You must
believe me in this, Mr. Finn, that a verdict of acquittal from the
jury is the one object that we must have before us."
"The one object that I shall have before me is the verdict of the
public," said Phineas. "I am treated with so much injustice in being
thought a murderer that they can hardly add anything to it by hanging
me."
When Mr. Chaffanbrass left the prison he walked back with Mr.
Wickerby to the attorney's chambers in Hatton Garden, and he lingered
for awhile on the Viaduct expressing his opinion of his client. "He's
not a bad fellow, Wickerby."
"A very good sort of fellow, Mr. Chaffanbrass."
"I never did,--and I never will,--express an opinion of my own as
to the guilt or innocence of a client till after the trial is over.
But I have sometimes felt as though I would give the blood out of my
veins to save a man. I never felt in that way more strongly than I do
now."
"It'll make me very unhappy, I know, if it goes against him," said
Mr. Wickerby.
"People think that the special branch of the profession into which I
have chanced to fall is a very low one,--and I do not know whether,
if the world were before me again, I would allow myself to drift into
an exclusive practice in criminal courts."
"Yours has been a very useful life, Mr. Chaffanbrass."
"But I often feel," continued the barrister, paying no attention to
the attorney's last remark, "that my work touches the heart more
nearly than does that of gentlemen who have to deal with matters of
property and of high social claims. People think I am savage,--savage
to witnesses."
"You can frighten a witness, Mr. Chaffanbrass."
"It's just the trick of the trade that you learn, as a girl learns
the notes of her piano. There's nothing in it. You forget it all the
next hour. But when a man has been hung whom you have striven to
save, you do remember that. Good-morning, Mr. Wickerby. I'll be there
a little before ten. Perhaps you may have to speak to me."