Dorrien of Cranston

Chapter Forty Six.

Life or Doom?

The prisoner, re-entering after the adjournment for lunch, found himself idly wondering whether, when next he should pass through the dock gate, it would be as a free man or as one whose days were numbered. Then, amid the intense hush that followed on his appearance, he heard his counsel opening his address to the jury, which, put into a good humour by a few deft if stereotyped compliments, began to think that after all there might be a good deal to be said on the side of the defence.

Before brushing aside the flimsy testimony which seemed to tell against the accused, for the prosecution had relied upon quantity to counterbalance an utter absence of quality, began Mr Windgate, he would show what manner of man it was whom they were asked to convict of the gravest crime known to the law. It was all very well for the prosecution to contend that a gentleman in his client’s position was as liable to commit crime as – say the historic Mr William Sikes. His own experience – perhaps fully equal to that of his learned brother opposite – was wholly against any such theory.

Then Mr Windgate launched forth into a brilliant panegyric of the accused, extolling his virtues in every capacity, public and private. Then he proceeded to deal with the evidence bit by bit, and as this involved a long repetition of all that has gone before, we shall not follow him through it. Suffice it to say that he handled his points with consummate skill.

When he came to Johnston his scorn was beautiful to behold. This fellow, who had eaten the bread of the accused and of his father before him for a number of years, had gone into the box with the most bare-faced and unblushing effrontery, and confessed to having played the part of a crawling serpent, a part whose loathsomeness, he, Mr Windgate, could find no terms adequately to stigmatise. What could the evidence of such a creature be worth? Why, nothing – less than nothing. But it was abundantly shown that the fellow harboured the greatest ill-will towards his master, who had frequently found fault with him for incivility, which, judging from his impudent demeanour in Court, was little to be wondered at. Then when he had grossly insulted his master’s wife, Mr Dorrien, very rightly in the speaker’s opinion, had discharged him summarily. So he swore to be revenged on his master – threatened him, as they had heard. A pretty witness this, to swear away a man’s life! Justice in England must be coming very low if such instruments as this could be capable of swaying her course. But, as a matter of fact, such was not the case. He could tell them that it was intended to institute proceedings against Johnston for wilful perjury, but that was by the way.

As for Devine, here, too, was a tainted witness, a corrupt witness, in fact. He, too, was known to bear a strong grudge against the accused, which, considering that he owed his comfortable place to Mr Dorrien’s influence – which his employer, it was to be hoped, would not suffer him to retain – was quite sufficient to show what sort of person he was. This precious rascal, then, had come into Court with a cock-and-bull story about witnessing a crime at Smugglers’ Ladder. Why, it was the most bare-faced, as well as clumsy, attempt at a diabolical conspiracy ever known – diabolical, because without motive, unless the motive were to shield himself, for if he, Devine, was there at all at that hour, his own presence needed explaining. It sickened him, Mr Windgate, to think that it was even necessary to defend such a case – a case bolstered up mainly by two witnesses of infamous character, whose evidence, even if true, was that of midnight spies. Who saw Devine at Smugglers’ Ladder at all that night, and what is the bare statement of a man of Devine’s record worth? Not the millionth fraction of a farthing.

After heaping up a good deal more denunciatory scorn upon these two and their testimony, he came to Pollock’s evidence. He had no wish to impute mala fides to a man of known honesty. Still, honest men were mistaken sometimes. This matter of identity rested upon evidence very shadowy. As to recognising the accused when he saw Durnford by lamplight on the beach, he, the speaker, prayed them to receive this statement with the greatest possible reserve. Here was the rector of Wandsborough and his curate, Mr Turner, both of whom were far better acquainted with the accused’s appearance than the witness Pollock, yet both these gentlemen had unhesitatingly sworn not only that they utterly failed to identify the prisoner in Robert Durnford, but that the barest suspicion as to such identity had never crossed their minds – and had not done so from that day to this. And further – here he begged the jury to give him all their attention – the lady rescued by Durnford was Dr Ingelow’s daughter. She was at that time, to her credit be it said, something more than interested in his client, whose wife she subsequently became, a fact which precluded her from giving valuable evidence on Mr Dorrien’s behalf. Was it likely then, he asked, that this estimable lady would have kept silence these two years and a half as to who her rescuer really was – that she should never have mentioned the fact to her own father, with whom she had ever been on the most dutiful and affectionate terms? Why, of course it was not. He put it to them as sensible men – fathers themselves, most probably – and so on.

“By Jove! Windgate’s scored a point there, Rogers,” whispered the sporting junior. “If only he can squash the envelope business!”

But this was just what he could not – and Mr Windgate knew it himself. He tried his best though, as also with the other damning points. At last his speech came near its close.

The evidence, he continued, consisted of a series of mere coincidences – one or two of them, it might be, a little remarkable, but – coincidences. The time had gone by in this country, he thanked Heaven, when men were convicted on purely circumstantial evidence. As for the motive which the prosecution had evolved, it was, he made bold to say, the veriest mare’s nest. Why, several of the most reliable witnesses had stated on oath that there wae no ill-will between the two brothers, and that on the whole they were on good terms. He wae not there to defend the absent Durnford, since it was abundantly proved that with that mysterious personage his client had nothing whatever to do, but he would just remark that in the conflicting evidence in the matter of the hall clock and the maid-servant’s watch, it was merely oath against oath – and that nothing was more confusing than differences in time. The witness Grainger had utterly failed to identify the accused. Under the prosecution’s very bewildering cross-examination he had, it was true, been afflicted with a temporary misgiving, but that was perfectly natural under the circumstances. So against two rogues, and one honest man, who could not be quite sure as to his statements, they had the positive evidence of Dr Ingelow and Mr Turner against the identity. That was to say, the two witnesses in this case to whom the accused had always been best known. And all the side evidence made for his client.

“Gentlemen,” he concluded, in his most impressive manner, “I now call upon you honourably to acquit my client. Remember, with you rests the most awful responsibility which can be laid upon the shoulders of mortal men – the life or death of a fellow creature. You must either honourably acquit him or doom him to an ignominious death. There is no middle course – absolutely none.”

“Good old phrase that,” muttered the sporting junior, chuckling inwardly over the scared look on the wooden faces of the twelve intelligent Englishmen.

” – Therefore, I call upon you to record your true sentiments, the sentiments of upright and true Englishmen, and to acquit with honour my client, to restore a wronged but high-minded gentleman to his family – to a fond wife, whose affliction during these terrible weeks I dare not imagine – to that neighbourhood which is anxiously waiting to receive him back with acclamation – to a long, benevolent, and useful life, which he has already begun most signally to adorn.

“Gentlemen, I leave my client in your hands with perfect confidence as to the result.”

A few moments of silence, and then the Crown counsel, who had been, to all outward appearance, intently studying his brief, rose.

The prisoner in the dock, he proceeded to say, was of a class whose members, happily, in this country, seldom filled that unfortunate position. He was a gentleman of affluence, more or less known to them all, and holding a high and influential station. They might reason that on that account, if any man was free from all temptation to such a crime as the one under their consideration, that man would be the prisoner before them. But this was precisely what they must not do. He, the learned counsel, could assure them that human nature in this respect was marvellously similar. All his experience – and it had not been inconsiderable – went to confirm him in that opinion. – And so on.

Then he proceeded to draw a graphic and rather harrowing picture of the disappearance of the deceased and the terrible blow to the feelings of his relatives which this re-opening of their grief must prove, going on to dissect the evidence bit by bit.

“The identity of the prisoner with the stranger known as Robert Durnford is as clear as daylight,” proceeded Mr Benham. “You will notice that the persons who saw through this disguise were those to whom he was or had been best known. Andrew Johnston, an old family servant, recognised him at once. Stephen Devine, formerly a labourer on the Cranston estate, and since gamekeeper to Colonel Neville – both these men had had abundant opportunities of being acquainted with the prisoner’s appearance. Their suspicions aroused, they took further occasion to observe the so-called Durnford, with the result that those suspicions were fully confirmed. To this they had sworn – again and again. Then there is James Pollock, a man of the greatest respectability – to him Roland Dorrien was not so well known as to the other witnesses mentioned, yet, being a man of keen perceptions, he had recognised him. Not the first time, indeed – though even then the voice had struck upon his ears as familiar. But on the second occasion of their being brought together, meeting with the so-called Durnford on the occasion of Miss Olive Ingelow’s rescue from drowning, he saw through his disguise at a glance, and in the man he had met coming away from Smugglers’ Ladder, between nine and half-past on the evening of the murder, he recognised the prisoner, Roland Dorrien. Now here are three persons who distinctly swear to the identity between these two. Nor is that all. There is Joseph Grainger, the waiter at ‘The Silver Fleece,’ at the time of Durnford’s stay at that inn. He comes here. He sees the prisoner in his normal costume and wearing his ordinary aspect, and he does not recognise him – at first. Indeed, he even goes so far as to emphasise the statement. But memory will not be cheated. As he stands there, the striking similarity of the accused to the pseudo-Durnford recalls itself to his mind, and he is dumbfounded. Gentlemen, you saw him – his air of utter astonishment, almost of awe, as he looked at the prisoner. You witnessed his refusal to swear to the two men being different. That is enough. Sensible men like yourselves can draw but one inference.

“Now as to the time at which Durnford returned to ‘The Silver Fleece,’ there is a conflict of testimony, but a perfectly reconcilable one. The waiter swears to the guest’s return at five-and-twenty minutes to ten. The maid-servant, Jane Flinders, swears with equal certitude to hearing Durnford come in at a quarter-past ten, and more than half the issue turns on this point. But, gentlemen, bear this in mind. The waiter Grainger was asleep. When he awoke, Durnford had already passed the hall clock, which then marked the hour of nine thirty-five. Durnford could reach the clock, be it remembered. But he could not reach Jane Flinders’ watch. Gentlemen, you will draw your own conclusions. One more point in connection with this. Pollock’s evidence proves that he met the stranger on the cliff, close to Smugglers’ Ladder, at half-past nine. But the stranger is back in his hotel at Battisford by five-and-twenty minutes to ten. That is to say, he covers in five or ten minutes a distance which it has been proved by the most competent testimony could hardly be covered in five-and-thirty. And then, when Grainger asks him if he returned by way of the cliffs, he appears surprised, and would have the other believe him unaware of there being any way by the cliffs.

“My learned friend here has seen fit to make merry over the articles which infallibly connect the prisoner with this mournful tragedy, but these articles, small, trivial though they may be in themselves, are of the very last importance. First, there is the A.B.C. time-table. Roland Dorrien goes into a tavern in the Strand, looking very strange and excited, and asks for an A.B.C. It is purchased for him. He searches it, marks the Wandsborough train, turns down a corner of the page and – leaves the book behind him when he goes out. This is about a week before the murder – the waiter, Newton, cannot be sure of the date. But – and observe this – the very train marked in that time-table is the one by which Robert Durnford arrives at Battisford. On the 21st January Roland Dorrien gives up his lodgings at Mrs Clack’s. He leaves London early in the morning. Late in the afternoon of that day Robert Durnford arrives at Battisford. From that time until he leaves Wandsborough church on the night of the 22nd, Durnford’s movements are accounted for. Then, passing over for the moment Devine’s evidence, he is met by James Pollock coming away from Smugglers’ Ladder, not many minutes after Hubert Dorrien is – well ‘falls’ into that chasm. And on the very scene of the tragedy James Pollock picks up this envelope which has been handed to you, directed – not to Robert Durnford but undoubtedly to Roland Dorrien. And where? At a London address incontestably. And the address subsequently given to Dr Ingelow by the pseudo-Durnford is a London postal address. Now for the matchbox. The day after the deceased’s disappearance, Eustace Ingelow, the prisoner’s brother-in-law, a young gentleman who by common knowledge is devoted to his relative, and not likely knowingly to injure him in any way, picks up this matchbox, which is of peculiar make, and to which he can swear as being the prisoner’s property. Where does he find this article! Why, at the bottom of this chasm, at the very spot where the deceased met his death.

“And now you will ask what motive could have been strong enough to lead this man to the black and abhorrent crime of fratricide. Well, even here the network of evidence is as complete as elsewhere. That motive, gentlemen, the prosecution has been able to supply. It has been shown that the prisoner had quarrelled with his father, and was in fact disinherited. Herein,” continued the learned counsel, putting on his most sad and sorrowful expression, “came the passion of jealousy. Furthermore, he had found reason to suppose, from some most deplorable and unguarded statements on the part of Grainger, that his brother had dealt him a blow which, if true, amounted to a stab in the dark – in that he had set to work to damage his reputation in Wandsborough and the neighbourhood. This being so, what more likely than that a man of the prisoner’s temper and character should at once seek to be revenged? How he and his brother had come together was just one of those unimportant links in the dark chain which it was beyond their power to connect. The important fact was that they had come together – the evidence of Stephen Devine and others was amply sufficient to establish that.”

Then Mr Benham proceeded to comment on the evidence of Devine, who with his own eyes had seen the deed done. He explained away the witness’ reluctance to divulge it during these years as a perfectly natural thing; laid stress on the straightforwardness and ring of truth which characterised the man’s statement, and how his tale in its plain, unvarnished simplicity had more than triumphantly stood the test of his learned brother’s most skilful cross-examination. In short, he drew the web of damning circumstances closer and closer around the accused, till there was not a flaw in the enthralling network. Then, with some conventional rhetoric about “terrible charge,” “man in prisoner’s position,” “truly painful duty which, painful as it was, he dared not shirk,” the heart-broken Mr Benham resumed his seat, complacently conscious of having earned his not unhandsome fee.

Then the judge began to sum up.

The learned counsel for the prosecution, he said, had very properly impressed upon the jury that they must lose sight of any such side issue as class-distinction, and form their opinion of the case by the light of hard, cold reason and the dry facts of the evidence. That evidence they had had put before them in the most careful and patient manner, and it was his own especial function, said his lordship, to explain the law on the subject of such of it as appeared conflicting.

For upwards of an hour the judge continued, weighing the arguments of both counsel in calm, dispassionate and masterly fashion. But whether his lordship was against the prisoner or not, it puzzled the public to discern. His charge was a pattern of impartiality no less than of lucidity. But the substance of it was now adverse, now favourable.

One of the most regrettable features of the trial, continued his lordship, was that there had been next to no defence whatever. No attempt had been made to prove an alibi. If the prisoner had not been near the neighbourhood at the time of his brother’s disappearance, surely there should be no great difficulty in obtaining evidence to that effect. But no such evidence had been put forward. The question of identity played a very important part indeed in this case. If the jury believed the evidence of Johnston, Devine and Pollock, they would consider the identity proved. But Johnston was a discharged servant, and the evidence of such against a former employer was always to be received with extreme caution, and in his case the greatest animus was shown to have been entertained by him against the prisoner. Devine was a man of notoriously bad character, but he appears to have had no real motive for injuring the accused. But James Pollock was altogether different from both of these witnesses. He was a man of the highest respectability; a man of keen intelligence, resource and courage, in short, a type of that most admirable body of men, the seafaring toilers of our coasts. This man then had seen through the disguise of the pseudo-Durnford, and under it had seen the identity of the prisoner, Roland Dorrien. The piece of envelope put forward, bearing as it did nearly the complete name of the prisoner, and part of a London address, was to his lordship’s mind the completing link in the chain of identity.

Down went the hopes of the prisoner’s friends, down to zero. The judge was summing up dead against him.

“To turn again to Stephen Devine,” went on his lordship. “Here is a man who testifies to witnessing with his own eyes the perpetration of a deliberate act of murder. Alone, and in the dead of night, he stands as a spectator of this terrible deed – then calmly walks away, and for upwards of two years keeps silent on the subject. As the learned counsel for the defence has aptly pointed out, before you can convict a man of a murder you must be quite sure that a murder has been committed. The question is, are you quite sure on this point? That the dead man, Hubert Dorrien, met his end in the place known as Smugglers’ Ladder, has been established beyond a doubt. But how did he get in there? Did he fall in, or was he pushed in? If there is any doubt in your minds upon that head, why then, gentlemen, you are not merely entitled, but are bound to give the accused the benefit of it. You have evidence in plenty that the prisoner was near the spot – that is, to my mind, clear beyond dispute. But that he pushed his brother into this cleft you have the evidence of but a single eye-witness, and that witness, to my mind, a tainted one.”