THE DEFENCE.
'May it please your lordship. Before I go into the case for the
prisoner, I have to submit that the Crown has not produced sufficient
evidence to warrant a conviction.
'It has been laid down by the authority of Lord Hale, which your
lordship will find quoted on page 276 of _Archbold_ that no man should
ever be convicted of murder or manslaughter on circumstantial evidence
alone, unless the body has been found; and in a comparatively recent
case--_Regina v. Hopkins_----'
'Yes, I know that is the law, Mr. Tressamer,' said the judge,
interrupting him; 'but how do you say the body has not been found? The
prosecution have identified the hand.'
'I submit that is not sufficient, my lord.'
'The coroner's inquest was held upon it,' called out the counsel for
the prosecution, who was decidedly taken by surprise at this unusual
objection. Tressamer treated the interruption with contempt.
'The coroner is hardly an authority to quote to this court. Your
lordship sees my point is this. Of course the finding of the hand is
some evidence of some crime. But it is nowise decisive. The deceased,
or, rather, the person said to be deceased, might have cut off her own
hand. We have no _conclusive_ evidence that she is really dead.'
'But what do you want? Do you mean that in every case the entire body
should be found?'
'Oh no, my lord. If some vital part were discovered, and sufficiently
identified, I should say that was enough to go upon. But what Lord
Hale means, I take it, is this: that where you are going upon
circumstantial evidence--as in this case--where no one saw the crime
committed at all, then you must have conclusive evidence from some
other source, namely, the dead body.'
'But that is not conclusive. That might be the result of suicide.'
'Still, it affords a very strong presumption. In any case, there is
the rule, laid down by Lord Hale, and acted upon ever since.'
'I know, Mr. Tressamer; I am not disputing the law. The only question
in my mind is whether this case is not taken out of it by the
production of what is part of the body. Of course, I will leave it to
the jury to say whether they are satisfied that this is the deceased's
hand, if that is any use to you.'
'No, my lord, I don't know that I can hope to contest that. But this
is a case of life and death, and I certainly would strongly urge your
lordship to consider my point.'
The judge got up.
'I will just go and ask my brother Wiseman what he thinks,' he said.
'Personally, I am afraid I cannot go with you.'
He went out, and Tressamer sat down in a state of intense agitation.
He dared not look round at the dock; but others did, and saw, to their
surprise, that the prisoner seemed indifferent to what had just
passed.
Eleanor did not want to get off on a law point. Without a real, full
acquittal her life, as she had told Tressamer, would be too wretched
to be worth preserving. And even an acquittal would not be enough
while the mystery of her friend's death was left unexplained. Only the
full clearing up of the whole story, only the exposure of the real
criminal, could bring peace back into her life.
She showed no disappointment, therefore, when the judge returned, with
a grave face, and took his seat, saying:
'The trial must proceed. My brother Wiseman inclines to your view, but
I am dead against it. I will, of course, reserve the point for the
Court for Crown Cases, if you desire.'
'If your lordship pleases,' said Tressamer.
This was exactly what he had wanted. He now had the chance of getting
an acquittal from the jury before him, and, if that failed, of
succeeding on the point reserved in the court above.
He rose and said:
'I have one witness to call as to the state of the prisoner's health.
I shall, therefore, say nothing now, but call my witness, and address
the jury after. Alfred Benjamin James.'
A respectably-dressed man stepped into the witness-box.
'You are a chemist, carrying on business at Porthstone. And you have
known the prisoner some time?'
'All her life, sir.'
'Now, have you advised her recently as to the state of her health?'
'I have.'
'Will you just tell us briefly what she has spoken to you about?'
'For some time before the day of the murder she had been unwell. She
came to me and asked me to give her something to make her sleep at
night. I persuaded her to do without anything, and to take a walk
before going to bed instead.'
'Yes, and what else?'
'The last night but one before the murder she came to me complaining
of nervous headache. I gave her something for it and advised her to go
for long walks, two or three miles or more, so as to tire herself out
before going to bed. She said she had mislaid her latchkey lately, but
would ask Miss Lewis to let her have another, as she thought Miss
Lewis had a spare one.'
This statement caused the jury to prick up their ears. Even they had
realized by this time that something in the case turned upon a
latchkey.
No further questions were put to the witness by Tressamer, and Pollard
saw no opening for cross-examination. The former, therefore, at once
began his speech.
'May it please your lordship: Gentlemen of the jury----'
The counsel paused a moment, shook his robe out of his way, clenched
his fists upon the table in front of him, and bent forward towards the
jury with stern and solemn brow.
'I shall not weary you with the platitudes usual on occasions like
this. I shall say nothing to you about banishing from your minds all
you may have heard or read in the newspapers about this case, for I am
sure it is unnecessary.
'Nor shall I say anything about the weight of responsibility which
rests upon my shoulders, because, after all, what is my responsibility
to yours? If I make any mistake, if I fail after doing my best, I
shall have the consolation of knowing that I am in no way to blame, I
have not to answer for the result.
'But you have! In your hands are life and death! The hangman is your
instrument; the judge upon the bench is but your assistant. Seek not
to shirk your liability; do not trust to others to shield you. On
the way in which you discharge your duty to-day depends the most
solemn and awful of all considerations--a human life. If you by any
prejudice, by any weakness, by any deference to superstition or
authority, give an innocent fellow-creature to the tomb, it had been
better for you that you had never been born!'
The twelve men in the box shifted themselves uneasily under this
indignant apostrophe. They had expected to be cajoled. They found
themselves threatened. The rest of those present looked on amazed, and
held their breath to listen. The speaker seemed perfectly indifferent
to the impression he was creating around him. He glanced at neither
the judge nor the prisoner, but fixed his searching eye upon the dozen
men he was addressing.
'You know your duty as well as I do. You know you must not give a
verdict upon suspicion, no, not though that suspicion were as dark
as Erebus, as heavy as lead. You must have proof. You must have
certainty. You must know how this crime was done, and why and
wherefore, or you must acquit the prisoner.'
It is only under great provocation that a judge will interrupt the
counsel for the defence in a case of life and death, but Sir Daniel
Buller frowned and fidgeted as he listened to this extreme view of a
jury's duties. However, he reflected that he would have the last word.
He could afford to wait till the summing-up. Meanwhile he took up his
pen and made a note.
'Now, gentlemen, let me say this to you, and let me enforce it with
all the earnestness I can command--the fact that a murder has been
committed is no evidence whatever against the prisoner at the bar.
'No one denies that the crime has been committed. To do so were
absurd. Elderly ladies do not disappear mysteriously in the night like
this unless somebody has an interest in making them disappear. The
whole question for you is this--had the prisoner any such interest?
'Something has been said in this case about jewels. A question--a
shamefully leading and improper question--was put by the counsel for
the prosecution, the junior counsel--who seems to have brought to his
work a bitterness and an amount of prejudice against the unhappy
prisoner which is fortunately rarely met with in a case of this kind;
a demeanour which presents a contrast, indeed, to the moderate and
judicious tone adopted by my learned friend Mr. Prescott, whom I was
sorry to see summoned elsewhere--a question, as I was saying, was put
to the prosecutor Lewis, who was only too ready to take a sinister
hint, with a view of making him swear that the prisoner knew something
about those jewels, about which so much prejudice had been imported
into this case. Gentlemen, you know nothing about jewels. No evidence
has been put before you to-day as to anything of the sort. So far as
you or I can tell, the prisoner was never aware of the existence of
such things. We are bound to assume--you are bound by your oaths to
assume--that there was no such motive to operate upon the prisoner's
mind. What motive was there, then?
'Gentlemen, from the beginning to the end of this case not one motive
has been suggested, not one syllable has been uttered from first to
last, to account for the theory which you are asked to accept, that a
young, beautiful, well-cared-for, and well-brought-up girl has
suddenly, without the smallest provocation, developed the instincts of
a cannibal, and committed a shocking and ferocious murder under
circumstances which would revolt the most bloodthirsty of savages.'
Every word was emphasized by look and gesture. Every word went home to
those who heard it. The crowded Bar stared in astonishment: they had
not believed their colleague to possess such force. But he went on
with hardly a pause.
'You have been told that this is a prosecution on behalf of the Crown.
I deny it. Technically it is so, of course; but who is the real
prosecutor? Who has been the moving spirit all along--if not the
prosecutor, then the persecutor? Who has lost, or professes to have
lost, his wretched jewels? Who, the moment he heard that the crime was
discovered, turned round and hurled his brutal accusation at this
helpless girl? Who rushed off to lodge his information, so as to be
beforehand in case any information were to be lodged against him? Who
instructed the solicitors at the inquest? Who gave evidence there and
at the police-court? Who has been hand in glove with the prosecuting
solicitors all along? Who is sitting by their side at this moment,
without a particle of decent shame?'
This furious burst of invective seemed to fairly overwhelm the subject
of it. He made a movement to go away, but the solicitor restrained him
by a whisper in his ear.
'Gentlemen, I am here to defend the prisoner. I am not here to attack
anyone else. I do not wish to do so. Would to God that I could shut my
eyes to the fact that a terrible murder has been done! But I cannot,
and you cannot. Someone did that deed. Someone who had a motive for
his act treacherously murdered and brutally mangled that old, feeble,
defenceless woman. I ask you to say it was not the prisoner. I ask no
more.
'In the old days it would have been different. It was once the law
that when a prisoner was accused of murder by a coroner's inquest,
then the jury in this court were not entitled to bring in a verdict of
acquittal unless they at the same time, and by the same verdict,
indicated the person who was really guilty. If that were still the
law--and I am glad it is not--but if it were, I should not hesitate
for one moment in pointing out to you at least one person who is more
likely to have been guilty of this crime than Eleanor Owen.
'I should ask you, in the famous Ciceronian phrase, _Cui bono_? For
whose profit was this murder? You have been told by a spiteful
servant-girl, whom you may believe for aught I care, that Miss Lewis
once promised to remember the prisoner in her will. But did she? In
the will which has been proved--and if there was any other will it has
been destroyed by the same criminal hands that dyed themselves in
blood--in a will dated two years ago, there is not one stiver, not one
half-farthing left to Eleanor Owen. But the whole of the testatrix's
property, amounting, I believe, to between twenty and forty thousand
pounds, is given unconditionally to her beloved nephew, John Lewis!'
What a depth of sarcasm on the word 'beloved' as the barrister brought
it out! The object of this terrible attack fairly writhed in his seat.
'Mind,' resumed the speaker, 'I am not responsible for the suggestion
that this crime was committed for the sake of profiting under this
poor woman's will. That suggestion came from the other side, prompted,
I dare say, by the man Lewis himself. What applies to the prisoner
applies to him. As far as motive is concerned--and I am now dealing
solely with the question of motive--everything is against the
prosecutor, and everything is in favour of his victim.
'And now to examine more closely the evidence, such as it is, of the
way in which this crime was brought about. It must have been done
after ten that night. So far I agree with the prosecution. Now, where
is the evidence as to the prisoner's doings that night?
'We know--we have it from the witnesses for the Crown, and from the
respectable chemist, James--that she had been unwell, and had been in
the habit of taking midnight walks for some time previously. She took
one on this particular night. I do not deny it--I admit it. I demand
of you to believe it. She went out at twelve, or rather before, let us
say, just as the spiteful servant-girl told you. She went out, leaving
the door latched, but not bolted, and she walked in an easterly
direction along the shore, where the fisherman met her.
'And I want you to note here for a moment how the evidence for the
prosecution has been coloured even in small things. As you have heard,
the body, or rather the hand, was found next day at the entrance of
Newton Bay. Now, as most of you know, Newton Bay lies to the east
of Porthstone, some two miles further along the coast. When the
fisherman, Evan Thomas, met the prisoner, she was nowhere near Newton
Bay, and she had not the smallest intention, so far as we know, of
going there. She was simply strolling up and down the Porthstone
Esplanade, and her face happened to be turned towards the east when
she was met by him. Yet, how is his evidence put before you? "I met
her. She was going in the direction of Newton Bay." Gentlemen, I say
that is a poisoned answer. It is a poisonous suggestion to your minds
that the prisoner was actually going to Newton Bay--was making for
it at the time. Why didn't they say that she was going towards the
tennis-ground, or the Grand Hotel, or the bathing-place? All those lay
in the same direction, and there is not a tittle of evidence to show,
there is not the smallest reason to suppose, that she ever went a yard
beyond those places.
'That is how the prosecution has been conducted throughout. That
wicked servant, who practically admitted that she nursed a dislike to
her young mistress, got into that box, I put it to you, for the
deliberate purpose of making the case against her as black as she
could. In reality her evidence was strongly in the prisoner's favour,
as I shall point out to you. But she, too, was instructed, or was
taught by her own evil nature, to so distort the facts as to make them
bear an appearance against the unhappy girl who is on trial for her
life.
'First, we have the incident of the groan. On that subject I ask you
to accept her first story, that it was a mere troubled exclamation
in sleep, if it was really heard at all, which I may be permitted to
doubt. For when a witness exhibits such recklessness and malice and
wilful perversion of the truth in a case of this solemn character, I
cannot willingly believe that any jury of Englishmen will consent to
take away a human life on such testimony.
'Then we come to the incident of prisoner's going out. Good heavens!
what colouring is put into a simple incident like that! The prisoner,
as we now know, and as this wretched woman doubtless knew perfectly
well, often went out at night. She suffered from some nervous attack,
accompanied by insomnia, and the chemist, Mr. James, whom the
counsel on the other side, with all his bitterness, dared not
cross-examine--Mr. James told you that he had himself advised her
to take these walks at night. Do you believe him? Do you think a
respectable tradesman--I may almost call him a professional man--would
come into the box and perjure himself on such a subject? Hardly. It
would be too much to expect. I do not think that even my learned
friend will ask you to say that Mr. James has committed perjury,
though I have no doubt at all that Lewis would like to have it
suggested.'
There was an intense bitterness in the way in which he brought out
Lewis's name. Unconsciously the jury began to be influenced by it,
and to look at Lewis each time he was referred to with undisguised
aversion.
'Yet how this simple incident is magnified and invested with
importance and mystery by the other side--by Lewis and his friends!
They tell you how the servant awoke at midnight--you know it is an
absurd trifle, but the word "midnight" sounds so much more solemn
and dreadful than the words "twelve o'clock p.m."--how she woke at
midnight and heard a door open--as if people didn't always open doors
when they wanted to go out! How she got up quietly--perhaps you may be
inclined to say treacherously--and stole downstairs. How she had
recognised the footsteps as those of Miss Owen. How she heard the
front-door go, and finally found it unfastened, except for the latch.
And all as if something very dreadful had taken place, instead of the
ordinary incident of a young lady going out for an hour to walk off a
headache!
'And, after all, what does it come to? Why, it sounds ridiculous, but
the whole end and result of all this is to prove the very thing which
I am most anxious to have proved on behalf of the prisoner--namely,
that she was out of the house when this murder was committed. They
have tried to incriminate the prisoner, and they have ended in proving
an unimpeachable alibi!'
He stopped to let his words sink into the minds of the jury, and
everyone in court took advantage of the break to change their
positions and breathe more freely. Whispers were exchanged, and the
feeling began to prevail that a good point had been made, and the
prisoner might very likely get off.
'With what happened after that the prisoner has nothing to do. Mr.
Lewis and his friends do not seem to realize, what I hope you will
realize, that the fact of footsteps being heard a few minutes after
is the strongest point in the prisoner's favour. Why, if no one else
had been heard to enter the house on that night, it would have looked
bad for her. But that is just what the prosecution, in their blind
mismanagement, have proved. They have shown out of the mouth of their
own witness that someone did come in; someone who had been waiting
outside ready to come in, and who took advantage of Miss Owen's exit
to slip in by means of a latchkey which he had found, or stolen, or
borrowed from the deceased.
'Now you have the clue. This girl, who stated that ten minutes had
elapsed, when it must have been only three, to judge by her notions
of time in other matters, this same girl wanted to insinuate that the
footsteps she heard the second time were the prisoner's. Gentlemen, I
ask you frankly not to believe it. I ask you to discount her evidence
by the evident ill-feeling she manifested. I ask you to believe that
the last footsteps were those of the murderer, and that they were
heavier because they were a man's.
'What else is there against the prisoner? I ask, what else? She came
down late the next morning, forsooth! That is the reason why you
are asked to send her in her youth and beauty to a felon's doom.
Incredible! Monstrous! As if we all did not constantly get up late,
for some reason or another. As if a person who had been out late the
night before would not naturally oversleep herself. Why, if she had
committed a crime she would have taken particular care to be down
early. She would have tried to throw off suspicion by acting in her
ordinary way. I am ashamed of answering such arguments.
'The latchkey incident is dead in her favour.'
Here the jury, who had shown signs of weariness after their long
sitting, brightened up again. They had made up their minds that this
was the real point in the case, and were honestly anxious for light
upon it.
'Two things are clear--first, that the person who last came into the
house, and did up the fastenings, was the prisoner; second, that the
prisoner had a latchkey, whether her own one found again or one which
she borrowed from Miss Lewis. Now, if the prisoner had committed this
murder, let us see what she would naturally have done in trying to
throw suspicion off herself.
'In the first place, I say she would not have fastened up the
front-door. To do so was practically saying that the crime was not
the work of an outsider. No, she would have left the door wide open,
as if the criminal were some common robber who had carried off his
booty and run away. In the second place, she would have thrown away
her latchkey, so as to make it appear that she had not been outside.
These points are so important that, with your permission, I will
repeat them again.'
Anyone who has had experience of juries knows how difficult it is to
get into their minds a process of logical reasoning. To the trained
lawyer such a thing is not so hard, but even to him it is far easier
to master reasoning from a book than by word of mouth. Oral teaching
has its advantages, doubtless, but few things are harder than to
convey ideas of any subtlety by means of speech to an audience.
Tressamer patiently set to work, and for twenty minutes he repeated
and explained all that he had been saying. When he thought that the
jury really understood him he returned to where he had started from,
and re-directed their suspicions on Lewis.
'Before I sit down I think I ought to suggest to you how this crime
really was done. You have heard the story of the prosecution. Now let
me put to you my story on behalf of the prisoner.
'The deceased woman was wealthy. About her jewels we know nothing, and
I do not refer to them, but she had other property to a large extent.
The whole of this was to go at her death to a nephew. For two years
she lived in this house alone night after night with the prisoner, and
nothing happened. At last the nephew who was to inherit her wealth
suddenly returned from the other end of the world. That night she met
her death.
'At twelve o'clock her companion, who suffered from sleeplessness,
went out for a long walk. Hardly had she closed the door behind her
than the murderer stole up to it and made his way in. Probably he had
a latchkey. We know that Miss Owen had mislaid hers. It may have been
that. We also know that Miss Lewis had a spare one, and that her
nephew was to take up his residence in the house on the very next
morning. So that, mark this, if the murder had been deferred for one
more day he would have fallen under the same suspicion as Miss Owen,
and probably a good deal more.
'The murderer entered, as I said, by means of his latchkey. But it was
the first time he had used it. He did not know the peculiarity of the
latch. He raised it too high, and it stuck.
'Not staying to notice this, in his wickedness, he passed into the
house and upstairs. He tried the door of his aunt's--I mean the
deceased's--room. It was, of course, locked, as it was found the
following morning. He went into the next, Miss Owen's, which he knew
to be empty, having seen her leave the house. Through this he passed
into the adjoining chamber. Beneath the bed, in all probability, lay
a chest of valuables. Charity would fain suggest that his first
intention was merely to steal these, and that the blacker crime was,
in a sense, forced upon him by the awakening of the sleeper. The
secrets of that terrible night will never be known. We cannot say what
passed in that room between that strong, evil man and that weak old
woman. We only know the result. A blow was struck, perhaps blows. A
life was taken, and the robber became a murderer as well.
'The next step was to remove the body. For what reason it matters not.
It is an impulse with all murderers to conceal the traces of their
guilt. They dig holes in the earth and bury it, they carry it into the
wilderness and hide it, they sink it in the depths of the sea. But the
earth will not contain it, the wilderness betrays the ghastly secret,
the waves cast up the horror.'
His voice rang through the crowded court like that of one possessed,
and every man trembled.
'He lowered it through the window, where the traces were found next
day. Then, clutching up his booty, and forgetting, it may be, that all
would be his erelong, or possibly not feeling sufficiently sure of his
heirship, he hurried down, with agitated tread, so that even the
half-sleeping girl in the room above could discern a something strange
about his walk.
'Then he carried off the body, mutilated for some mysterious and
terrible reason which may never be revealed--possibly to lighten his
hideous load; but let me spare you these shocking considerations. (All
this, remember, Lewis asks you to think was done by a young girl not
twenty years of age.)
'You know the rest. You know how the fisherman saw others that night,
one of them a tall man, going in the direction of the bay where the
remains were washed ashore within twenty-four hours. One only point I
have to notice. Whether in carelessness, or whether in hellish malice,
that man left a damning stain upon the door-handle in the prisoner's
room. I say I know not whether he did this in his haste and guilty
dread, or whether he did this with a deliberate and diabolical
intention of throwing suspicion upon a hapless, innocent girl, whom he
has since pursued through every stage of this history, and under every
form of law, with the persistence of a machine, and the passion of a
bloodhound!'
The speaker's voice vibrated with the fury which he threw into
this denunciation. The jury trembled under his eye, as he rolled
it fiercely from face to face. As for the object of these fearful
invectives, he turned red and white by turns, and would have
interrupted over and over again if he had not been almost forcibly
restrained by the solicitor for the prosecution.
Tressamer went on, after a moment's pause to recover from his
exhaustion:
'And Eleanor Owen, what of her? What was she doing meanwhile? Pacing
the shore, and trying to soothe her throbbing head with the medicine
of the sea breezes. At last she returns, tired and abstracted. She
puts her key into the latch, the door yields before her; she notices
nothing, but comes in, closes and fastens the door behind her, and
retires to rest. And there she sleeps the sleep of innocence, knowing
nothing, dreaming nothing, of the dark shadow which hangs over her
head, nothing of the foul deed which has so recently been perpetrated
under that roof, nothing of the frightful stain upon the empty bed
next door, nothing of that yet more appalling stain which will meet
her eyes when she attempts to pass out of her own room into that.
'The next morning she awakes. Just as she is dressed, the servants
rush up; the whole horror bursts upon her. She is stunned. She does
not realise what has happened, or how it concerns her. She finds
herself seized and dragged away by this devoted nephew and his
creatures. And thus, gentlemen, in that state of darkness and
bewilderment, has she rested ever since, and must rest till your just
verdict sends her forth once more into the light of day, and the
verdict of another jury, not less courageous and righteous than
yourselves, sends the real author of this hidden tragedy to the doom
he has now doubly deserved.'
He sat down. But there was no applause in court, as happens so often
at the end of a speech on the prisoner's behalf. All present felt that
they had listened not so much to a plea for Eleanor Owen as to an
accusation against John Lewis. The barrister had put it too plainly
for any man to be deceived. It was not a mere question of guilt or
innocence. The issue now before the jury was--which of these two is
guilty?