Lizzie at the Police-Court
On the Wednesday and Thursday Lizzie had been triumphant; for she had
certainly come out unscathed from Mr. Camperdown's chambers, and a
lady may surely be said to triumph when a gentleman lays his hand,
his heart, his fortunes, and all that he has got, at her feet. But
when the Friday came, though she was determined to be brave, her
heart did sink within her bosom. She understood well that she would
be called upon to admit in public the falseness of the oaths she had
sworn upon two occasions; and that, though she would not be made
amenable to any absolute punishment for her perjury, she would be
subject to very damaging remarks from the magistrate, and probably
also from some lawyers employed to defend the prisoners. She went
to bed in fairly good spirits, but in the morning she was cowed and
unhappy. She dressed herself from head to foot in black, and prepared
for herself a heavy black veil. She had ordered from the livery
stable a brougham for the occasion, thinking it wise to avoid the
display of her own carriage. She breakfasted early, and then took a
large glass of wine to support her. When Frank called for her at a
quarter to ten, she was quite ready, and grasped his hand almost
without a word. But she looked into his face with her eyes filled
with tears. "It will soon be over," he said. She pressed his hand,
and made him a sign to show that she was ready to follow him to the
door. "The case will come on at once," he said, "so that you will not
be kept waiting."
"Oh, you are so good;--so good to me." She pressed his arm, and did
not speak another word on their way to the police-court.
There was a great crowd about the office, which was in a little
by-street, and so circumstanced that Lizzie's brougham could hardly
make its way up to the door. But way was at once made for her when
Frank handed her out of it, and the policemen about the place were as
courteous to her as though she had been the Lord Chancellor's wife.
Evil-doing will be spoken of with bated breath and soft words even by
policemen, when the evil-doer comes in a carriage, and with a title.
Lizzie was led at once into a private room, and told that she would
be kept there only a very few minutes. Frank made his way into the
court and found that two magistrates had just seated themselves on
the bench. One would have sufficed for the occasion; but this was
a case of great interest, and even police-magistrates are human in
their interests. Greystock was allowed to get round to the bench, and
to whisper a word or two to the gentleman who was to preside. The
magistrate nodded his head, and then the case began.
The unfortunate Mr. Benjamin had been sent back in durance vile
from Vienna, and was present in the court. With him, as joint
malefactor, stood Mr. Smiler, the great housebreaker, a huge, ugly,
resolute-looking scoundrel, possessed of enormous strength, who was
very intimately known to the police, with whom he had had various
dealings since he had been turned out upon the town to earn his bread
some fifteen years before. Indeed, long before that he had known the
police. As far as his memory went back he had always known them. But
the sportive industry of his boyish years was not now counted up
against him. In the last fifteen years his biography had been written
with all the accuracy due to the achievements of a great man; and
during those hundred and eighty months he had spent over one hundred
in prison, and had been convicted twenty-three times. He was now
growing old,--as a thief; and it was thought by his friends that he
would be settled for life in some quiet retreat. Mr. Benjamin was a
very respectable-looking man of about fifty, with slightly grizzled
hair, with excellent black clothes, showing, by a surprised air, his
great astonishment at finding himself in such a position. He spoke
constantly, both to his attorney and to the barrister who was to
show cause why he should not be committed, and throughout the whole
morning was very busy. Smiler, who was quite at home, and who
understood his position, never said a word to any one. He stood,
perfectly straight, looking at the magistrate, and never for a moment
leaning on the rail before him during the four hours that the case
consumed. Once, when his friend, Billy Cann, was brought into court
to give evidence against him, dressed up to the eyes, serene and
sleek as when we saw him once before at the "Rising Sun," in Meek
Street, Smiler turned a glance upon him which, to the eyes of all
present, contained a threat of most bloody revenge. But Billy knew
the advantages of his situation, and nodded at his old comrade, and
smiled. His old comrade was very much stronger than he, and possessed
of many natural advantages; but, perhaps, upon the whole, his old
comrade had been the less intelligent thief of the two. It was thus
that the bystanders read the meaning of Billy's smile.
The case was opened very shortly and very clearly by the gentleman
who was employed for the prosecution. It would all, he said, have
laid in a nutshell, had it not been complicated by a previous robbery
at Carlisle. Were it necessary, he said, there would be no difficulty
in convicting the prisoners for that offence also, but it had been
thought advisable to confine the prosecution to the act of burglary
committed in Hertford Street. He stated the facts of what had
happened at Carlisle, merely for explanation, but would state nothing
that could not be proved. Then he told all that the reader knows
about the iron box. But the diamonds were not then in the box,--and
he told that story also, treating Lizzie with great tenderness as he
did so. Lizzie, all this time, was sitting behind her veil in the
private room, and did not hear a word of what was going on. Then
he came to the robbery in Hertford Street. He would prove by Lady
Eustace that the diamonds were left by her in a locked desk,--were so
deposited, though all her friends believed them to have been taken
at Carlisle; and he would, moreover, prove by accomplices that they
were stolen by two men,--the younger prisoner at the bar being one
of them, and the witness who would be adduced, the other,--that they
were given up by these men to the elder prisoner, and that a certain
sum had been paid by him for the execution of the two robberies.
There was much more of it;--but to the reader, who knows it all,
it would be but a thrice-told tale. He then said that he first
proposed to take the evidence of Lady Eustace, the lady who had been
in possession of the diamonds when they were stolen. Then Frank
Greystock left the court, and returned with poor Lizzie on his arm.
She was handed to a chair, and, after she was sworn, was told that
she might sit down. But she was requested to remove her veil, which
she had replaced as soon as she had kissed the book. The first
question asked her was very easy. Did she remember the night at
Carlisle? Would she tell the history of what occurred on that night?
When the box was stolen, were the diamonds in it? No; she had taken
the diamonds out for security, and had kept them under her pillow.
Then came a bitter moment, in which she had to confess her perjury
before the Carlisle bench;--but even that seemed to pass off
smoothly. The magistrate asked one severe question. "Do you
mean to say, Lady Eustace, that you gave false evidence on that
occasion,--knowing it to be false?" "I was in such a state, sir,
from fear, that I did not know what I was saying," exclaimed Lizzie,
bursting into tears and stretching forth towards the bench her two
clasped hands with the air of a suppliant. From that moment the
magistrate was altogether on her side,--and so were the public. Poor
ignorant, ill-used young creature;--and then so lovely! That was the
general feeling. But she had not as yet come beneath the harrow of
the learned gentleman on the other side, whose best talents were due
to Mr. Benjamin. Then she told all she knew about the other robbery.
She certainly had not said, when examined on that occasion, that the
diamonds had then been taken. She had omitted to name the diamonds
in her catalogue of the things stolen; but she was sure that she had
never said that they were not then taken. She had said nothing about
the diamonds, knowing them to be her own, and preferring to lose them
to the trouble of again referring to the night at Carlisle. Such was
her evidence for the prosecution, and then she was turned over to the
very learned and very acute gentleman whom Mr. Benjamin had hired for
his defence,--or rather, to show cause why he should not be sent for
trial.
It must be owned that poor Lizzie did receive from his hands some of
that punishment which she certainly deserved. This acute and learned
gentleman seemed to possess for the occasion the blandest and most
dulcet voice that ever was bestowed upon an English barrister. He
addressed Lady Eustace with the softest words, as though he hardly
dared to speak to a woman so eminent for wealth, rank, and beauty;
but nevertheless he asked her some very disagreeable questions. "Was
he to understand that she went of her own will before the bench
of magistrates at Carlisle, with the view of enabling the police
to capture certain persons for stealing certain jewels, while she
knew that the jewels were actually in her own possession?" Lizzie,
confounded by the softness of his voice as joined to the harshness of
the question, could hardly understand him, and he repeated it thrice,
becoming every time more and more mellifluous. "Yes," said Lizzie at
last. "Yes?" he asked. "Yes," said Lizzie. "Your ladyship did send
the Cumberland police after men for stealing jewels which were in
your ladyship's own hands when you swore the information?" "Yes,"
said Lizzie. "And your ladyship knew that the information was
untrue?" "Yes," said Lizzie. "And the police were pursuing the men
for many weeks?" "Yes," said Lizzie. "On your information?" "Yes,"
said Lizzie, through her tears. "And your ladyship knew all the time
that the poor men were altogether innocent of taking the jewels?"
"But they took the box," said Lizzie, through her tears. "Yes," said
the acute and learned gentleman, "somebody took your ladyship's
iron box out of the room, and you swore that the diamonds had been
taken. Was it not the fact that legal proceedings were being taken
against you for recovery of the diamonds by persons who claimed the
property?" "Yes," said Lizzie. "And these persons withdrew their
proceedings as soon as they heard that the diamonds had been stolen?"
Soft as he was in his manner, he nearly reduced Lizzie Eustace to
fainting. It seemed to her that the questions would never end. It was
in vain that the magistrate pointed out to the learned gentleman that
Lady Eustace had confessed her own false swearing, both at Carlisle
and in London, a dozen times. He continued his questions over and
over again, harping chiefly on the affair at Carlisle, and saying
very little as to the second robbery in Hertford Street. His idea was
to make it appear that Lizzie had arranged the robbery with the view
of defrauding Mr. Camperdown, and that Lord George Carruthers was
her accomplice. He even asked her, almost in a whisper, and with the
sweetest smile, whether she was not engaged to marry Lord George.
When Lizzie denied this, he still suggested that some such alliance
might be in contemplation. Upon this, Frank Greystock called upon the
magistrate to defend Lady Eustace from such unnecessary vulgarity,
and there was a scene in the court. Lizzie did not like the scene,
but it helped to protect her from the contemplation of the public,
who of course were much gratified by high words between two
barristers.
Lady Eustace was forced to remain in the private room during the
examination of Patience Crabstick and Mr. Cann; and she did not hear
it. Patience was a most obdurate and difficult witness,--extremely
averse to say evil of herself, and on that account unworthy
of the good things which she had received. But Billy Cann was
charming,--graceful, communicative, and absolutely accurate. There
was no shaking him. The learned and acute gentleman who tried to tear
him in pieces could do nothing with him. He was asked whether he had
not been a professional thief for ten years. "Ten or twelve," he
said. Did he expect that any juryman would believe him on his oath?
"Not unless I am fully corroborated." "Can you look that man in the
face,--that man who is at any rate so much honester than yourself?"
asked the learned gentleman with pathos. Billy said that he thought
he could, and the way in which he smiled upon Smiler caused a roar
through the whole court.
The two men were, as a matter of course, committed for trial at the
Central Criminal Court, and Lizzie Eustace was bound by certain
penalties to come forward when called upon, and give her evidence
again. "I am glad that it is over," said Frank, as he left her at
Mrs. Carbuncle's hall-door.
"Oh, Frank, dearest Frank, where should I be if it were not for you?"