CONFUSION IN THE COURT.
On the following morning it was observed that before the judges took
their seats Mr. Chaffanbrass entered the Court with a manner much
more brisk than was expected from him now that his own work was done.
As a matter of course he would be there to hear the charge, but,
almost equally as a matter of course, he would be languid, silent,
cross, and unenergetic. They who knew him were sure, when they saw
his bearing on this morning, that he intended to do something more
before the charge was given. The judges entered the Court nearly half
an hour later than usual, and it was observed with surprise that they
were followed by the Duke of Omnium. Mr. Chaffanbrass was on his feet
before the Chief Justice had taken his seat, but the judge was the
first to speak. It was observed that he held a scrap of paper in his
hand, and that the barrister held a similar scrap. Then every man
in the Court knew that some message had come suddenly by the wires.
"I am informed, Mr. Chaffanbrass, that you wish to address the Court
before I begin my charge."
"Yes, my lud; and I am afraid, my lud, that I shall have to ask
your ludship to delay your charge for some days, and to subject the
jury to the very great inconvenience of prolonged incarceration for
another week;--either to do that or to call upon the jury to acquit
the prisoner. I venture to assert, on my own peril, that no jury can
convict the prisoner after hearing me read that which I hold in my
hand." Then Mr. Chaffanbrass paused, as though expecting that the
judge would speak;--but the judge said not a word, but sat looking
at the old barrister over his spectacles.
Every eye was turned upon Phineas Finn, who up to this moment had
heard nothing of these new tidings,--who did not in the least know
on what was grounded the singularly confident,--almost insolently
confident assertion which Mr. Chaffanbrass had made in his favour. On
him the effect was altogether distressing. He had borne the trying
week with singular fortitude, having stood there in the place of
shame hour after hour, and day after day, expecting his doom. It had
been to him as a lifetime of torture. He had become almost numb from
the weariness of his position and the agonising strain upon his mind.
The gaoler had offered him a seat from day to day, but he had always
refused it, preferring to lean upon the rail and gaze upon the Court.
He had almost ceased to hope for anything except the end of it. He
had lost count of the days, and had begun to feel that the trial was
an eternity of torture in itself. At nights he could not sleep, but
during the Sunday, after Mass, he had slept all day. Then it had
begun again, and when the Tuesday came he hardly knew how long it had
been since that vacant Sunday. And now he heard the advocate declare,
without knowing on what ground the declaration was grounded, that
the trial must be postponed, or that the jury must be instructed to
acquit him.
"This telegram has reached us only this morning," continued Mr.
Chaffanbrass. "'Mealyus had a house door-key made in Prague. We have
the mould in our possession, and will bring the man who made the
key to England.' Now, my lud, the case in the hands of the police,
as against this man Mealyus, or Emilius, as he has chosen to call
himself, broke down altogether on the presumption that he could not
have let himself in and out of the house in which he had put himself
to bed on the night of the murder. We now propose to prove that he
had prepared himself with the means of doing so, and had done so
after a fashion which is conclusive as to his having required the key
for some guilty purpose. We assert that your ludship cannot allow the
case to go to the jury without taking cognisance of this telegram;
and we go further, and say that those twelve men, as twelve human
beings with hearts in their bosoms and ordinary intelligence at their
command, cannot ignore the message, even should your ludship insist
upon their doing so with all the energy at your disposal."
Then there was a scene in Court, and it appeared that no less
than four messages had been received from Prague, all to the same
effect. One had been addressed by Madame Goesler to her friend the
Duchess,--and that message had caused the Duke's appearance on the
scene. He had brought his telegram direct to the Old Bailey, and the
Chief Justice now held it in his hand. The lawyer's clerk who had
accompanied Madame Goesler had telegraphed to the Governor of the
gaol, to Mr. Wickerby, and to the Attorney-General. Sir Gregory,
rising with the telegram in his hand, stated that he had received the
same information. "I do not see," said he, "that it at all alters the
evidence as against the prisoner."
"Let your evidence go to the jury, then," said Mr. Chaffanbrass,
"with such observations as his lordship may choose to make on the
telegram. I shall be contented. You have already got your other man
in prison on a charge of bigamy."
"I could not take notice of the message in charging the jury, Mr.
Chaffanbrass," said the judge. "It has come, as far as we know,
from the energy of a warm friend,--from that hearty friendship with
which it seemed yesterday that this gentleman, the prisoner at the
bar, has inspired so many men and women of high character. But it
proves nothing. It is an assertion. And where should we all be, Mr.
Chaffanbrass, if it should appear hereafter that the assertion is
fictitious,--prepared purposely to aid the escape of a criminal?"
"I defy you to ignore it, my lord."
"I can only suggest, Mr. Chaffanbrass," continued the judge, "that
you should obtain the consent of the gentlemen on the other side to
a postponement of my charge."
Then spoke out the foreman of the jury. Was it proposed that they
should be locked up till somebody should come from Prague, and that
then the trial should be recommenced? The system, said the foreman,
under which Middlesex juries were chosen for service in the City was
known to be most horribly cruel;--but cruelty to jurymen such as this
had never even been heard of. Then a most irregular word was spoken.
One of the jurymen declared that he was quite willing to believe the
telegram. "Every one believes it," said Mr. Chaffanbrass. Then the
Chief Justice scolded the juryman, and Sir Gregory Grogram scolded
Mr. Chaffanbrass. It seemed as though all the rules of the Court
were to be set at defiance. "Will my learned friend say that he
doesn't believe it?" asked Mr. Chaffanbrass. "I neither believe nor
disbelieve it; but it cannot affect the evidence," said Sir Gregory.
"Then send the case to the jury," said Mr. Chaffanbrass. It seemed
that everybody was talking, and Mr. Wickerby, the attorney, tried
to explain it all to the prisoner over the bar of the dock, not in
the lowest possible voice. The Chief Justice became angry, and the
guardian of the silence of the Court bestirred himself energetically.
"My lud," said Mr. Chaffanbrass, "I maintain that it is proper that
the prisoner should be informed of the purport of these telegrams.
Mercy demands it, and justice as well." Phineas Finn, however, did
not understand, as he had known nothing about the latch-key of the
house in Northumberland Street.
Something, however, must be done. The Chief Justice was of opinion
that, although the preparation of a latch-key in Prague could not
really affect the evidence against the prisoner,--although the facts
against the prisoner would not be altered, let the manufacture
of that special key be ever so clearly proved,--nevertheless the
jury were entitled to have before them the facts now tendered in
evidence before they could be called upon to give a verdict, and
that therefore they should submit themselves, in the service of
their country, to the very serious additional inconvenience which
they would be called upon to endure. Sundry of the jury altogether
disagreed with this, and became loud in their anger. They had already
been locked up for a week. "And we are quite prepared to give a
verdict," said one. The judge again scolded him very severely; and
as the Attorney-General did at last assent, and as the unfortunate
jurymen had no power in the matter, so it was at last arranged.
The trial should be postponed till time should be given for Madame
Goesler and the blacksmith to reach London from Prague.
If the matter was interesting to the public before, it became doubly
interesting now. It was of course known to everybody that Madame
Goesler had undertaken a journey to Bohemia,--and, as many supposed,
a roving tour through all the wilder parts of unknown Europe, Poland,
Hungary, and the Principalities for instance,--with the object of
looking for evidence to save the life of Phineas Finn; and grandly
romantic tales were told of her wit, her wealth, and her beauty.
The story was published of the Duke of Omnium's will, only not
exactly the true story. The late Duke had left her everything at his
disposal, and, it was hinted that they had been privately married
just before the Duke's death. Of course Madame Goesler became very
popular, and the blacksmith from Prague who had made the key was
expected with an enthusiasm which almost led to preparation for a
public reception.
And yet, let the blacksmith from Prague be ever so minute in his
evidence as to the key, let it be made as clear as running water that
Mealyus had caused to be constructed for him in Prague a key that
would open the door of the house in Northumberland Street, the facts
as proved at the trial would not be at all changed. The lawyers were
much at variance with their opinions on the matter, some thinking
that the judge had been altogether wrong in delaying his charge.
According to them he should not have allowed Mr. Chaffanbrass to have
read the telegram in Court. The charge should have been given, and
the sentence of the Court should have been pronounced if a verdict
of guilty were given. The Home Secretary should then have granted
a respite till the coming of the blacksmith, and have extended
this respite to a pardon, if advised that the circumstances of the
latch-key rendered doubtful the propriety of the verdict. Others,
however, maintained that in this way a grievous penalty would be
inflicted on a man who, by general consent, was now held to be
innocent. Not only would he, by such an arrangement of circumstances,
have been left for some prolonged period under the agony of a
condemnation, but, by the necessity of the case, he would lose his
seat for Tankerville. It would be imperative upon the House to
declare vacant by its own action a seat held by a man condemned to
death for murder, and no pardon from the Queen or from the Home
Secretary would absolve the House from that duty. The House, as a
House of Parliament, could only recognise the verdict of the jury
as to the man's guilt. The Queen, of course, might pardon whom she
pleased, but no pardon from the Queen would remove the guilt implied
by the sentence. Many went much further than this, and were prepared
to prove that were he once condemned he could not afterwards sit in
the House, even if re-elected.
Now there was unquestionably an intense desire,--since the arrival of
these telegrams,--that Phineas Finn should retain his seat. It may be
a question whether he would not have been the most popular man in the
House could he have sat there on the day after the telegrams arrived.
The Attorney-General had declared,--and many others had declared
with him,--that this information about the latch-key did not in
the least affect the evidence as given against Mr. Finn. Could it
have been possible to convict the other man, merely because he had
surreptitiously caused a door-key of the house in which he lived
to be made for him? And how would this new information have been
received had Lord Fawn sworn unreservedly that the man he had seen
running out of the mews had been Phineas Finn? It was acknowledged
that the latch-key could not be accepted as sufficient evidence
against Mealyus. But nevertheless the information conveyed by the
telegrams altogether changed the opinion of the public as to the
guilt or innocence of Phineas Finn. His life now might have been
insured, as against the gallows, at a very low rate. It was felt
that no jury could convict him, and he was much more pitied in
being subjected to a prolonged incarceration than even those twelve
unfortunate men who had felt sure that the Wednesday would have been
the last day of their unmerited martyrdom.
Phineas in his prison was materially circumstanced precisely as
he had been before the trial. He was supplied with a profusion of
luxuries, could they have comforted him; and was allowed to receive
visitors. But he would see no one but his sisters,--except that he
had one interview with Mr. Low. Even Mr. Low found it difficult to
make him comprehend the exact condition of the affair, and could not
induce him to be comforted when he did understand it. What had he to
do,--how could his innocence or his guilt be concerned,--with the
manufacture of a paltry key by such a one as Mealyus? How would it
have been with him and with his name for ever if this fact had not
been discovered? "I was to be hung or saved from hanging according to
the chances of such a thing as this! I do not care for my life in a
country where such injustice can be done." His friend endeavoured to
assure him that even had nothing been heard of the key the jury would
have acquitted him. But Phineas would not believe him. It had seemed
to him as he had listened to the whole proceeding that the Court had
been against him. The Attorney and Solicitor-General had appeared to
him resolved upon hanging him,--men who had been, at any rate, his
intimate acquaintances, with whom he had sat on the same bench, who
ought to have known him. And the judge had taken the part of Lord
Fawn, who had seemed to Phineas to be bent on swearing away his life.
He had borne himself very gallantly during that week, having in all
his intercourse with his attorney, spoken without a quaver in his
voice, and without a flaw in the perspicuity of his intelligence.
But now, when Mr. Low came to him, explaining to him that it was
impossible that a verdict should be found against him, he was quite
broken down. "There is nothing left of me," he said at the end of the
interview. "I feel that I had better take to my bed and die. Even
when I think of all that friends have done for me, it fails to cheer
me. In this matter I should not have had to depend on friends. Had
not she gone for me to that place every one would have believed me to
be a murderer."
And yet in his solitude he thought very much of the marvellous love
shown to him by his friends. Words had been spoken which had been
very sweet to him in all his misery,--words such as neither men nor
women can say to each other in the ordinary intercourse of life,
much as they may wish that their purport should be understood. Lord
Chiltern, Lord Cantrip, and Mr. Monk had alluded to him as a man
specially singled out by them for their friendship. Lady Cantrip,
than whom no woman in London was more discreet, had been equally
enthusiastic. Then how gracious, how tender, how inexpressibly sweet
had been the words of her who had been Violet Effingham! And now the
news had reached him of Madame Goesler's journey to the continent.
"It was a wonderful thing for her to do," Mr. Low had said. Yes,
indeed! Remembering all that had passed between them he acknowledged
to himself that it was very wonderful. Were it not that his back was
now broken, that he was prostrate and must remain so, a man utterly
crushed by what he had endured, it might have been possible that she
should do more for him even than she yet had done.