with considerable expedition. The case presented no feature that was
warranted to arrest the progress of the legal mind. The woman’s guilt
was indisputable; it was known that the defence had nothing material to
advance; and even had it been placed more fortunately, it was unlikely
to be marshalled to advantage in its present hands. The judge and the
counsel for the Treasury were at one in their eagerness to press the
opportunity of getting the case through, since every few minutes they
could rest from the course of the public business was inexpressibly
dear to their hearts. They would be able to get off to a week-end in
the country by an earlier train.
Mr. Weekes, K. C., who led for the Treasury, commenced briskly and
volubly without the delay of a moment. He was a small, thin man, with
very straight and attenuated hair, sandy in color, and a pair of
side-whiskers. A pair of gold pince-nez suspended by a cord contrived
by some means to add to the quickness and irascibility of his frequent
gestures. His voice was keen and piercing and somewhat metallic in
sound; his language had great facility but no distinction; his delivery
was rapid; but manner, diction, appearance, were equally destitute of
style.
In opening the case to the jury, this expert occupied less than an
hour. He unfolded the nature of the charge in easy, fluent, almost
deprecating terms. It amounted to this: the accused, whose reticence in
regard to her antecedents was impenetrable, and whose age appeared on
the charge-sheet as thirty-nine, had for several years past cohabited
with the deceased, who had followed the profession of a book-maker.
It was known that previous to this she had lived the life of the
streets. It would be shown by several of her associates, who would
be called in evidence--women like herself of ill-fame--that during
the last year in which she had lived with this man, she had more than
once been heard to express the determination “to do for him.” It would
appear that the man, although said to treat her well enough at first,
had latterly evinced signs of growing tired of her. Further, he was a
man of intemperate habits, and on many occasions she had been heard to
complain with bitterness of his violence and brutality towards her.
The accused had been aware that by the man’s will a sum of money
had been left to her. She had often, when in drink particularly, to
which she also was addicted, mentioned this fact boastfully to her
associates; and a few days prior to the commission of the crime had
asserted in the presence of three of them, “that if she did not mind
what she was about she would lose it, as he was always threatening to
leave her.”
On the afternoon of the tenth of September she purchased a quantity
of vegetable poison of a chemist. On the evening of the eleventh the
man sat up drinking heavily into the small hours of the morning; and
at noon on the twelfth he expired in the presence of a doctor, who had
been fetched by a maid servant, although the woman herself had done
her best to prevent a doctor from being summoned. In the doctor’s
opinion the symptoms pointed to death by poisoning. A post-mortem was
held the same afternoon; as the result of it the woman was taken into
custody, the house was searched, and a quantity of strychnine was
found concealed in her bedroom. Subsequently the contents of the man’s
stomach was submitted to a public analyst; and in his evidence he would
testify to the presence of strychnine in sufficient quantities to cause
death.
This was the case for the Crown. Evidence was called in corroboration;
first the detective who had taken the woman into custody, and another
who had discovered the poison. These were examined briefly by Mr.
Topott, the junior counsel for the Treasury. The doctors then described
the cause of death and the result of the post-mortem; and these were
confirmed in their opinion by the analyst when he came to describe
the result of his researches. All of these were soon disposed of, as
Northcote did not attempt a word in cross-examination.
Two of the members of the junior bar, young men and critical, who were
not disinclined to see a personal affront in Northcote’s preferment,
were not slow to note his passiveness, and to add it to the estimate
they had already formed of his incapacity.
“I never saw a fellow look in such a funk,” said the first of these
gentlemen, one who had been nurtured in an atmosphere of wealth and
influence, and himself a former president of the Oxford Union. “The
case will be over by lunch.”
“They are not wasting much time, certainly,” said his friend, the son
of the Master of the Rolls.
Two maid servants were called in evidence, and examined by Mr. Topott
with the same convincing brevity as the previous witnesses. Here again
Northcote refrained from cross-examination.
“Ought to do something,” whispered the ex-president in the ear of
his friend. “Missing opportunities. Why don’t he ask if she saw it
administered?”
The chemist’s assistant who had supplied the poison, and who had
identified the portion found in the possession of the accused as part
of that which had been sold to her, also escaped without a challenge.
Five of her female associates were then called one after another. Their
evidence was extremely damning. With the skilled aid of the junior
counsel for the Crown, every rag of decency was stripped from the woman
in the dock. She stood forth a veritable harpy and monster, several
shades more infamous than themselves. As one after another of these
witnesses was permitted to stand down without being subjected to the
ordeal of cross-examination, the ex-president of the Oxford Union was
moved to express his personal disappointment.
“Something might have been done with these, at any rate.”
“I think you are right,” said his friend; “but what’s the good, after
all. It is a waste of time to say anything.”
“There is no defence, I am told.”
“He will call evidence to show that she was subject to violent fits of
passion when in drink.”
“Ah, that is where Tobin will be missed. Really, one is surprised at
Whitcomb and Whitcomb.”
“They saw the futility of fighting, and are doing it on the cheap.”
“Poor brute! But I don’t altogether agree with you. Something might
have been done by a man of ability. I should like to have seen Tobin in
it.”
“I don’t think Tobin would have attempted to touch their witnesses. We
must wait till he calls his own to see what he is worth.”
At this moment, however, those who had conducted this secret
conversation had their curiosity gratified by the spectacle of
Northcote rising for the first time. He got up heavily and wearily, as
though age had stricken him in every joint. His face was almost painful
in its pallor. The last “unfortunate” had just made her half-audible
reply to the final question that had been put to her by the amiable Mr.
Topott.
“I believe you said you had been acquainted ten years with the
accused?” said Northcote, in a voice that was curiously low and gentle.
“Yes, sir.”
“During that period you had known her many times to be under the
influence of drink?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Would you say that drink excited her easily?”
“Yes, sir.”
“That a very small quantity was sufficient to excite her?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And that when in this condition she was inclined to be very free in
her speech?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Also she had a tendency to make use of expressions that she was never
known to permit herself when perfectly sober?”
“Yes, sir.”
“The same would apply to her statements when in this excited condition?”
“Yes, sir.”
“They were obvious exaggerations?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And some were pure inventions? You knew they were wholly untrue?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You and her other friends were well acquainted with her habit of
giving way to exaggeration, and even to palpable untruth when under the
influence of drink?”
“Yes, sir.”
“The habit was so well known that it was amusing to you? You have often
laughed about it among yourselves?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You were known to say yourself on one occasion when she was what you
call particularly ‘merry,’ ‘Emma would do for anybody on a quartern of
gin’?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You have a distinct recollection of saying that?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Your meaning was that when your friend had had that quantity of
alcohol the airs of bravado she assumed were quite ridiculously out of
keeping with her character?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And the point of your saying lay in the fact that whether your
friend had had drink or whether she had not, her character was so soft
and gentle that you could not conceive her to be capable of hurting
anybody?”
“Yes, sir.”
“She has been your friend for ten years?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Throughout that period you have found her to be generous, kind,
impulsive, lovable?”
“Yes, sir.”
“No one’s enemy save her own?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Had it ever seemed possible to you that if she was capable of the
commission of this atrocious crime of which she stands accused, she
could never have enjoyed the ten years of your friendship, nor the ten
years of affection you lavished on her?”
“Yes, sir.”
“It was no wish of your own that brought you to this court?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Indeed, you cannot say you came here of your own free will?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You were brought here under compulsion?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Without that compulsion nothing would have induced you to come here,
and stand in this box, and speak words which might be used to hurt your
friend?”
“Yes, sir.”
The witness had been weeping softly for some time. Her emotion, which
in the circumstances was natural, was also felt to be a tribute to the
examining counsel. The gentleness of a voice which touched the chord
of pathos in every phrase it uttered without betraying a consciousness
that it did so, invested a series of tame and unfruitful questions with
an æsthetic quality which even the least educated of those present
could appreciate.
At this point, however, Mr. Weekes rose brusquely and tartly with an
objection. His friend had trespassed beyond the privilege of counsel.
The objection was upheld by the judge, who with a kind of courteous
acerbity informed Northcote in some very harmonious diction that he
would do well to put his question in another form.
“I will do so, my lord,” said the young man, with admirable composure
and raising his voice a little.
“You were forced to come here by the police?”
“Yes, sir.”
“In whom you stand in great fear?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You are compelled to do all that they require of you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And when they take one of your friends to prison, and they come to you
and suggest words that she may have used to you when she was not in
a condition to weigh them, you know very well that whatever your own
feeling is in the matter, you must say nothing, and you must do nothing
that is likely to displease the police?”
A more emphatic protest was entered at this point by the counsel for
the Crown. It was upheld by the judge with an equal access of emphasis.
Northcote accepted the ruling with the nicely poised urbanity with
which he had received the previous one; yet in the act of doing so he
contrived, as if by an accident, to let his gaunt eyes alight on the
jury. It was followed by a smile which crept over his haggard cheeks;
and this was conveyed to each of them personally, as though he were
covering a retreat with a little apology. Yet it was all contrived so
delicately that it required a certain fineness of perception to notice
it.
During the next few minutes these objections were frequent. They
were raised with an ever-increasing vehemence by the counsel for the
Crown, were embodied with an ever-increasing acerbity and sternness
by the judge, and were received by the counsel for the defence with
a deferential patience, the ironical side of which was immediately
exposed by the next question he put to the witness, and also by the
concentrated manner in which he smiled at the jury. After a perfect
rain of objections, which for the purposes of our narrative must
henceforward be taken as granted, the leader for the Crown could stand
the carefully elaborated audacity of this unknown tyro no longer. He
lost his temper.
“Mr.--er--er,” he said, referring to a paper for the name, “Mr.
Thornton, you have no need to keep smiling at the jury in that way.”
Northcote turned to face his adversary with a deliberation that
astonished the bar, and even caused a grim flicker to play about the
mouth of the judge.
“I trust, Mr. Weekes,” he said, “you will withdraw your objection to
these amenities. If you do not, I feel sure his lordship will be bound
to uphold it. And if, Mr. Weekes, I might urge you to be patient, I
can promise that your time to receive them will arrive.”
The measured dryness of the young man’s manner set the bar in a twitter.
“Damn his young eyes,” said a barrister of elephantine proportions on
the back bench to a colleague; “two birds with one stone. I shall stand
him a bottle. I like his mug.”
The opinion of the ex-president of the Oxford Union was less favorable.
“Funny chap, isn’t he?” drawled the product of Eton and Christchurch.
“What can he do for the case by trying to score off the judge and a
silk gown?”
“Theoretically he’s wrong,” said the son of the Master of the Rolls;
“but it was very nicely done. I am sure my guv’nor would have liked it.”
Divested of its endless interruptions, the cross-examination of the
woman was conducted with that persuasiveness he had used from the
first. And to those acquainted with the immensely difficult art
Northcote was essaying, it became a source of surprise that so young
a man should evince this perfect command over the means he employed,
when the high-strung nerves of the natural man were subjected to such
severe trials from an opponent. And the reward of his restraint came to
him as he proceeded, for the wretched woman was melted to tears by such
a sympathetic tenderness; and further, the intercourse he had already
established with the jury seemed to deepen.
“It is due to the courtesy of the police that you are able to follow
your calling?”
“Yes, sir.”
“The police could take away your means of livelihood without giving you
warning; and without giving you a moment’s notice they could put you in
prison?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And whenever the police ask you to serve them, whenever they ask you
to oblige them in any way, you feel obliged to carry out their wishes,
whatever the cost may be to yourself?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Even when they cause you to hurt a friend by stating that which you
know to be not quite true?”
“Yes, sir.”
“On one occasion, Mrs. Walsingham, to help the police, you identified a
man whom they suggested had robbed you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And your own testimony and the testimony of several of your friends
enabled them to send this unfortunate man into penal servitude?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I use the word ‘unfortunate,’ Mrs. Walsingham, because this man,
after languishing many years in prison, was able to prove, to the
satisfaction of his fellow creatures, that he was perfectly innocent
of the scandalous charge that was brought against him. But at the
time of his conviction, when the police had called upon you for your
help, you did not dare to tell the judge and the jury that you had not
been robbed by this man, and that you had never seen him in your life
before?”
“Yes, sir.”
“This was an instance in which you felt the necessity, in spite of
all that it cost you, to help the police in obtaining one of those
‘convictions’ which they consider so necessary to their own well-being?”
“Yes, sir.”
“One of those ‘convictions’ which mean an extra stripe on the arm, and
the addition of a few shillings a week to the pay of one or two of
these natural enemies of yours, of whom you and your friends stand in
constant dread?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And so, Mrs. Walsingham, these enemies of whom you stand in such great
fear having, in the first instance, caused you in your weakness to
affirm that which was untrue, in order that the liberty of an unhappy
man, whom you had never met, might be taken away from him, they cause
you now to come again into this court to swear away, not the liberty,
but the life, of a poor friend, whose only fault, as far as you know,
is that occasionally she drank a glass more than was good for her?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Mrs. Harrison often spoke to you of this Mr. Barron?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Of late Mrs. Harrison had complained to you of Mr. Barron being unkind
to her?”
“Yes, sir.”
“She told you that he had even threatened to leave her altogether?”
“Yes, sir.”
“When you first knew her, Mrs. Harrison seemed attached to him?”
“Yes, sir.”
“That is to say, she never complained about him?”
“Yes, sir.”
“But when latterly he grew unkind to her she became very unhappy?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And was it not at such times that she was inclined to drink that extra
glass to forget her great unhappiness?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Yet it was only under these conditions, when a stimulant had excited
her feelings, that she was heard to complain against him?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And then it seemed to you no more than the legitimate complaint of a
highly emotional and affectionate nature which was suffering deeply?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You remember, Mrs. Walsingham, that on one occasion she made a
reference to her previous history?”
“Yes, sir.”
“It was to the effect that this Mr. Barron and herself came from the
same village in the north of England?”
“Yes, sir.”
“That they had been intimately acquainted in her youth?”
“Yes, sir.”
“That as a young girl she had been in domestic service at the house of
Mr. Barron’s mother?”
“Yes, sir.”
“That Mr. Barron seduced her under a promise of marriage?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And it was the fact that that promise had not been kept which led
directly, in the first instance, to the ruin of this young girl?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And Mr. Barron having accomplished her ruin, fled from the house of
his parents to London, to escape his duty?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And this girl, dismissed from her situation, disgraced in the eyes of
her friends, followed in her despair to this huge city, in the slender
hope of finding the man who had ruined her?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Yet for many years she was unable to find him?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And during those years of inexpressible bitterness, in her ignorance
of life, her helplessness, her friendlessness, in the abasement of her
spirit, she sank deeper and deeper into degradation?”
“Yes, sir.”
“The pure-blooded north country girl became a harlot by the force of
circumstances?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And then after many years of misery one evening at a music hall, in
the pursuit of her calling, she chanced to meet the man who had been
the first cause of her ruin?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And when he renewed a proposal that he had made years before, which as
a young girl she had scornfully repudiated, that she should dwell in
his house, not as his wife, but as his mistress, the pressure of her
circumstances forced her to accept this proposal almost with a sense of
gratitude?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And, Mrs. Walsingham, you do not believe for one moment that any
thought of vengeance ever suggested itself to her mind?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You are prepared to swear that?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Also, that even in these latter days, when Mr. Barron became cruel
and violent in his conduct towards her, she never freed herself from
his yoke, never passed from under the spell of a power which, from the
first, had been so fatal to her?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And that this paltry sum of money which she believed had been left
to her in his will, which has proved not to have been the case, could
never have counted in the scale of his personal attraction for her,
which, sinister, dreadful, tragical as it had proved, had caused her at
his behest to forfeit friends, health, virtue, honor, all those things
which dignify life?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I thank you, Mrs. Walsingham; I have nothing more to ask you.”
The poor drab, tottering, faint, dissolved in tears, had to be assisted
from the witness-box.
This piece of cross-examination had made a strange impression. The
manner in which it had been conducted by the young advocate had exerted
a powerful emotion upon many besides the weak and flaccid creature
who had been so much clay in his hands. It had had great success as a
_coup de théâtre_. The trained perceptions present had an uneasy sense
that they had been listening to a masterpiece. Forensically, the means
had been entirely adequate to the end; a supremely difficult art had
been surmounted by an exquisite skill. Each question had been shaped
so naturally, each word was clothed with such true delicacy, that
wonderful _nuances_ of feeling were shed by the magic of the living
human voice over the sordid and the unclean. Sentence by sentence the
fabric of a story that was as old as the world was unrolled until
it became a piece of drama. Even professional criticism, which was
avowedly hostile, was half-conquered by the infusion of human sympathy
into that which could not bear the light. Irrelevant, destitute of
real authority as was the whole thing, it was yet allowed to be a
performance of rare technical beauty, a pledge of the controlled
will-power of its creator. And like all things which are the fruit of
an incomparable technique--in itself the reason to be of what is called
“art”--it had evoked that subtle emotion which transcends reason and
experience. And the least accessible to this malign influence were fain
to see that the first nail had been hammered already into the coffin of
the prosecution.
The indication of a fight on the part of the defence was extremely
distasteful to Mr. Weekes and his junior. Nothing had been farther
outside the prediction of these expert practitioners. It had been
freely anticipated that by luncheon-time the end would be in view. By
then, according to this prolepsis, the defence was to have called its
witnesses to testify to the woman’s violence when in drink, which would
count for little; this youthful novice was to have floundered through
his few disconnected and incoherent remarks to the jury; the leader
for the Crown was to have answered him in a few perfunctory sentences,
which yet would be in striking contradistinction to the halting and
rather inept performance of his youthful opponent; the whole was to
have been transferred to the judge with a sense of perfect security,
since the case for the prosecution was so clear and so entirely
uncontroverted; and the judge, very excellent in his way, and highly
in favor of the despatch of public business and economization of the
public time, was even to have worked in his summing-up by the hour of
the adjournment.
However, this lengthy and irrelevant cross-examination, which had
had to be contested at every point, had somewhat demoralized this
well-considered programme. A solid hour had been cut out of it, a solid
hour in which both sides could have addressed the jury; in fact, a
solid hour in which, by an effort, a verdict could have been obtained
and the woman hanged. And when this tyro, who was conducting his first
case of importance with a coolness that many of his elders might have
envied, intimated that it was not his intention to call witnesses, and
further claimed in that contingency the privilege of addressing the
jury after the counsel for the Crown had spoken, Mr. Weekes was fain
to inform the court that he would prefer to reserve his own address to
the jury, brief as it would be, until after luncheon. Accordingly the
adjournment was then taken.
XXV
MR. WEEKES, K. C.
It was in no amiable mood that Mr. Weekes went to lunch with his
junior. All his arrangements had been spoiled by “the fellow on the
other side.” Instead of the case being in a stage that would permit him
to leave it to devote his afternoon to business in another court, it
began to seem that it might be prolonged indefinitely.
“So like a beginner,” said the leader to his junior; “must spread
himself on the slightest opportunity. When he’s been at it as long as
we have he’ll be wiser. So stupid to waste an hour of valuable time in
that way. But, after all, it’s a golden rule to expect a beginner to
fight a hopeless case. One ought to have known.”
“Quite sure it is hopeless, Weekes?” said his junior quietly.
“Why ask the question?” said Mr. Weekes, irritably. “The case is as
dead as this mutton.”
“Then I am afraid there is a little life in,” said Mr. Topott, tasting
the mutton ominously. “Waiter, if you don’t mind, I’ll try the beef.”
“That confounded cross-examination--so stupid--so unnecessary--put
everybody out,” said Mr. Weekes, snappishly, at each mouthful. “Waste
of public time--may well want more judges--ought to allow judges more
power--better for everybody--save time and money--save youngsters from
making fools of themselves.”