"NON PROVEN"
"There is no doubt," continued the man in the corner, "that what little
sympathy the young girl's terrible position had aroused in the public
mind had died out the moment that David Graham left the witness-box on
the second day of the trial. Whether Edith Crawford was guilty of murder
or not, the callous way in which she had accepted a deformed lover, and
then thrown him over, had set every one's mind against her.
"It was Mr. Graham himself who had been the first to put the Procurator
Fiscal in possession of the fact that the accused had written to David
from London, breaking off her engagement. This information had, no
doubt, directed the attention of the Fiscal to Miss Crawford, and the
police soon brought forward the evidence which had led to her arrest.
"We had a final sensation on the third day, when Mr. Campbell, jeweller,
of High Street, gave his evidence. He said that on October 25th a lady
came to his shop and offered to sell him a pair of diamond earrings.
Trade had been very bad, and he had refused the bargain, although the
lady seemed ready to part with the earrings for an extraordinarily low
sum, considering the beauty of the stones.
"In fact it was because of this evident desire on the lady's part to
sell at _any_ cost that he had looked at her more keenly than he
otherwise would have done. He was now ready to swear that the lady that
offered him the diamond earrings was the prisoner in the dock.
"I can assure you that as we all listened to this apparently damnatory
evidence, you might have heard a pin drop amongst the audience in that
crowded court. The girl alone, there in the dock, remained calm and
unmoved. Remember that for two days we had heard evidence to prove that
old Dr. Crawford had died leaving his daughter penniless, that having no
mother she had been brought up by a maiden aunt, who had trained her to
be a governess, which occupation she had followed for years, and that
certainly she had never been known by any of her friends to be in
possession of solitaire diamond earrings.
"The prosecution had certainly secured an ace of trumps, but Sir James
Fenwick, who during the whole of that day had seemed to take little
interest in the proceedings, here rose from his seat, and I knew at once
that he had got a tit-bit in the way of a 'point' up his sleeve. Gaunt,
and unusually tall, and with his beak-like nose, he always looks
strangely impressive when he seriously tackles a witness. He did it this
time with a vengeance, I can tell you. He was all over the pompous
little jeweller in a moment.
"'Had Mr. Campbell made a special entry in his book, as to the visit of
the lady in question?'
"'No.'
"'Had he any special means of ascertaining when that visit did actually
take place?'
"'No--but--'
"'What record had he of the visit?'
"Mr. Campbell had none. In fact, after about twenty minutes of
cross-examination, he had to admit that he had given but little thought
to the interview with the lady at the time, and certainly not in
connection with the murder of Lady Donaldson, until he had read in the
papers that a young lady had been arrested.
"Then he and his clerk talked the matter over, it appears, and together
they had certainly recollected that a lady had brought some beautiful
earrings for sale on a day which _must have been_ the very morning after
the murder. If Sir James Fenwick's object was to discredit this special
witness, he certainly gained his point.
"All the pomposity went out of Mr. Campbell, he became flurried, then
excited, then he lost his temper. After that he was allowed to leave the
court, and Sir James Fenwick resumed his seat, and waited like a
vulture for its prey.
"It presented itself in the person of Mr. Campbell's clerk, who, before
the Procurator Fiscal, had corroborated his employer's evidence in every
respect. In Scotland no witness in any one case is present in court
during the examination of another, and Mr. Macfarlane, the clerk, was,
therefore, quite unprepared for the pitfalls which Sir James Fenwick had
prepared for him. He tumbled into them, head foremost, and the eminent
advocate turned him inside out like a glove.
"Mr. Macfarlane did not lose his temper; he was of too humble a frame of
mind to do that, but he got into a hopeless quagmire of mixed
recollections, and he too left the witness-box quite unprepared to swear
as to the day of the interview with the lady with the diamond earrings.
"I dare say, mind you," continued the man in the corner with a chuckle,
"that to most people present, Sir James Fenwick's cross-questioning
seemed completely irrelevant. Both Mr. Campbell and his clerk were quite
ready to swear that they had had an interview concerning some diamond
earrings with a lady, of whose identity with the accused they were
perfectly convinced, and to the casual observer the question as to the
time or even the day when that interview took place could make but
little difference in the ultimate issue.
"Now I took in, in a moment, the entire drift of Sir James Fenwick's
defence of Edith Crawford. When Mr. Macfarlane left the witness-box, the
second victim of the eminent advocate's caustic tongue, I could read as
in a book the whole history of that crime, its investigation, and the
mistakes made by the police first and the Public Prosecutor afterwards.
"Sir James Fenwick knew them, too, of course, and he placed a finger
upon each one, demolishing--like a child who blows upon a house of
cards--the entire scaffolding erected by the prosecution.
"Mr. Campbell's and Mr. Macfarlane's identification of the accused with
the lady who, on some date--admitted to be uncertain--had tried to sell
a pair of diamond earrings, was the first point. Sir James had plenty of
witnesses to prove that on the 25th, the day after the murder, the
accused was in London, whilst, the day before, Mr. Campbell's shop had
been closed long before the family circle had seen the last of Lady
Donaldson. Clearly the jeweller and his clerk must have seen some other
lady, whom their vivid imagination had pictured as being identical with
the accused.
"Then came the great question of time. Mr. David Graham had been
evidently the last to see Lady Donaldson alive. He had spoken to her as
late as 8.30 p.m. Sir James Fenwick had called two porters at the
Caledonian Railway Station who testified to Miss Crawford having taken
her seat in a first-class carriage of the 9.10 train, some minutes
before it started.
"'Was it conceivable, therefore,' argued Sir James, 'that in the space
of half an hour the accused--a young girl--could have found her way
surreptitiously into the house, at a time when the entire household was
still astir, that she should have strangled Lady Donaldson, forced open
the safe, and made away with the jewels? A man--an experienced burglar
might have done it, but I contend that the accused is physically
incapable of accomplishing such a feat.
"'With regard to the broken engagement,' continued the eminent counsel
with a smile, 'it may have seemed a little heartless, certainly, but
heartlessness is no crime in the eyes of the law. The accused has stated
in her declaration that at the time she wrote to Mr. David Graham,
breaking off her engagement, she had heard nothing of the Edinburgh
tragedy.
"'The London papers had reported the crime very briefly. The accused was
busy shopping; she knew nothing of Mr. David Graham's altered position.
In no case was the breaking off of the engagement a proof that the
accused had obtained possession of the jewels by so foul a deed.'
"It is, of course, impossible for me," continued the man in the corner
apologetically, "to give you any idea of the eminent advocate's
eloquence and masterful logic. It struck every one, I think, just as it
did me, that he chiefly directed his attention to the fact that there
was absolutely no _proof_ against the accused.
"Be that as it may, the result of that remarkable trial was a verdict of
'Non Proven.' The jury was absent forty minutes, and it appears that in
the mind of every one of them there remained, in spite of Sir James'
arguments, a firmly rooted conviction--call it instinct, if you
like--that Edith Crawford had done away with Lady Donaldson in order to
become possessed of those jewels, and that in spite of the pompous
jeweller's many contradictions, she had offered him some of those
diamonds for sale. But there was not enough proof to convict, and she
was given the benefit of the doubt.
"I have heard English people argue that in England she would have been
hanged. Personally I doubt that. I think that an English jury, not
having the judicial loophole of 'Non Proven,' would have been bound to
acquit her. What do you think?"