The Crime and the Criminal
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It was his duty, as the prisoner's advocate, to lay before the jury the prisoner's story.
Then Mr. Bates told what had really happened, and told it very well indeed. His story was literally accurate. I did not detect a single discrepancy. I think I should have done! He was frank almost to a fault. He nothing extenuated, nothing set down in malice. Nothing was omitted-even the dotting of the i's.
And yet I doubt if a soul in court, with the exception, perhaps, of Tommy's wife, believed a word he said.
To me, listening up there, the thing was inconceivably funny.
The chief difficulty which Mr. Bates had to contend with, as he owned, and as one perceived without his owning it, was the medical evidence. He admitted that it was difficult to reconcile it with the prisoner's story. The prisoner declared that he did not understand it; that it had come upon him with the force of a surprise.
His theory was that the woman had been stunned by her fall from the train. As she was unconscious, or before she had recovered, some straggling vagabond had found her lying on the bank. He had robbed her. To effect his purpose he had had to add murder to robbery. The prosecution had not laid stress upon the point, but she evidently had been robbed. There was not the slightest tittle of evidence to connect the prisoner with the robbery, so counsel for the Crown had been wise not to dwell upon it. On the other hand there was complete absence of motive, and the fact that nothing of any sort could have belonged to the dead woman had been found in the possession of the prisoner.
He admitted that the suggestion that murder had been committed after the fall from the carriage was well worthy the attention of the jury.
The prisoner made a mistake-which however, he submitted, was the mistake which we might naturally have expected from a constitutionally nervous man-in not giving the alarm immediately the accident took place. He ought to have spoken when they reached Victoria. He ought not to have allowed himself to be frightened by the blackmailing Taunton. But, after all, these were all mistakes which a perfectly innocent man, of his constitution, in his position, might have made. We none of us could absolutely rely upon having our wits about us when we most wanted them.
The prisoner had made mistakes. He owned it. But he begged the jury to consider that the law did not permit him to put the prisoner into the witness-box, and that the prisoner was convinced that, if he only might be suffered to tell his tale his innocence would be established. Above all, he entreated them not to send a fellow-creature to an ignominious death because he had yielded to the promptings of a timorous constitution and had not played the man.
When Mr. Bates sat down the judge summed up.
And he did it very briefly.
He pooh-poohed Mr. Bates's story altogether. He told the jury that they were at liberty to believe it, if they could. But it was not supported by a shred of evidence. It was disproved in several essential particulars, and it was his duty to inform them that it was contrary to every principle of English law that an ex parte statement which was without any sort of corroboration should be allowed to weigh, for an instant, against a large and authenticated body of evidence which had been sworn to by credible and impartial witnesses. At the same time, if there was any doubt in their minds, let the prisoner have the benefit of it; though, so far as he was concerned, he had not the least doubt in his own mind that the man was guilty, and, if they did their duty, they would say so.
Of course this was not exactly what he did say, and of course he said a good deal more than this, but this is the gist of what his saying amounted to. Certainly the judge's summing-up was every whit as damning as Sir Haselton's speech had been. Mr. Justice Hunter had evidently himself no doubt upon the matter, and, by inference, he took it for granted that no one else could have any either.
The jury followed the judge's lead. They never left their places. They whispered together for a few moments. Then one of them announced that they were prepared with their verdict.
"Do you find the prisoner guilty or not guilty?"
"Guilty."
Some one told the prisoner to stand up. He stood up.
"Have you anything to say, prisoner, why sentence should not be pronounced against you?"
The prisoner had something to say-just a word or two.
He was very white. He was clinging to the rail in front of him. His throat seemed parched. It seemed all that he could do to speak.
I noticed that his wife was looking at him with upturned face, and that her eyes were streaming with tears.
"I am innocent. I did not do it. I did not kill her. I never touched her. There is something I do not understand."
That was all he had to say-and that was not enough.
As the judge very soon made him comprehend.
He took a black thing out of a tin box which was at his side and perched it on the top of his wig, and he sentenced Tommy to be hanged; and, in sentencing him, he gave it to him hot.
He told him that instead of exhibiting any signs of remorse for the dreadful thing he had done he had just uttered an infamous lie to add to the rest of his crimes. That lie had extinguished any spark of pity which he might have felt. Tommy had been guilty of as wicked, as cruel, and as cowardly a murder as had ever come within the range of the judge's experience. He might not hope for mercy. There was no circumstance of extenuation. He had behaved more like a devil than a man. He was a disgrace to his class and to his station, and he had brought shame upon our common manhood; and the sentence of the court was that he should be taken to the place from whence he came, and there be hanged by the neck till he was dead; and might God have mercy on his soul!
And that was the end of it-or it might have been, if it had not been for me.
I don't know how it was; I don't know whether the devil prompted me or not. But the idea came to me, all at once, with a force which was beyond my powers of resistance.
And I did it!
I dropped my cloak, I removed my veil, and I stood up where I knew that Tommy would see me. And he did see me. He looked my way, and he saw me, and he knew me too!
And I smiled at him.
And with sudden, instant recognition he stretched out his arms towards me in a kind of frenzy; and he tried to speak, or shout, or do something, but he couldn't. And before he could get a word out edgeways the warder bustled him down the stairs below.
BOOK IV-THE CRIMINAL
(The Author tells the Tale.)
CHAPTER XXXIII
MR. TENNANT SPEAKS
"I saw her! I saw her!"
"None of that now. You'd better come quietly."
Mr Tennant looked at the warder who spoke. With the assistance of his colleague the man was hurrying him along in a fashion which, even at that moment of amazement and of horror, in some subtle way reminded him of his school days.
"I saw her!" he repeated.
"So you might have done; nobody says you didn't. Only don't let's have any fuss."
The man spoke as one might speak, not ill-naturedly, but with the superior wisdom of a senior to a fractious child. Mr. Tennant knew that he was not understood; that it was no use to attempt to make himself understood. His mind was in a chaos. What was he to do?
It had come to him in a flash of revelation that he had been made the subject of some hideous mockery, the victim of some malevolent plot; that he had been racked and re-racked for nothing at all; that he had stood his trial for the murder of a woman, who, all the time, was actually alive; that the law had committed some grotesque blunder; that he had been condemned to be hung for another person's crime.
What was he to do?
He did nothing till he was back again in gaol. In the condemned cell this time. Nobody had told him, but he knew what it was. He knew that here a long line of murderers had awaited their fate, that here he would be kept until he was hung.
A natural shudder shook him as he realised that they were about to thrust him into this last abiding-place of the damned. He felt that if he did not speak so as to make himself understood before they had him fast in there he would never have a chance to speak at all: That if that door clanged upon his silence, hope, for him, would have died with its clangour.
He turned to the warder.
"I wish to see the governor."
"You can't see the governor now."
"I must. Listen to me." He tried to restrain his emotion, to hold himself in hand. "Some extraordinary error has taken place. Just as I was leaving the court I saw the woman whom I am charged with having killed."
The warder stared, as if inclined to laugh.
"I am not mad, nor am I dreaming; nor did I see a ghost. I saw this woman. She was as much alive as you or I. She was among a number of other women on the bench near the judge. She stood up and she stared at me. I saw her as plainly as I see you. There has been some astounding mistake. Tell the governor that I must see him at once or it will be too late. If you do not tell him my blood may be upon your head."
"All right."
The warder clanged the door, and went.
Mr. Tennant was left alone in that abode of the haunted.
Would the man tell him? Would the governor come? Would he listen if he came? Would they stir a finger? Would they believe him? Would they pay the slightest attention to anything that he said?
It would have been hard enough to hang believing her dead, although he had not killed her, but now that he had seen her standing up and looking at him, and smiling at his agony-!
This explained the two ghostly visitations. It was not a ghost, it was herself he had seen. All this time he had been suffering the agonies of the damned, and she had been laughing in her sleeve. How she must have enjoyed the play! Oh, what a fool he had been!
What was that? Was that footsteps ringing on the stone pavement along the vaulted corridor? He listened. It was somebody going, not coming.
Suppose the governor would not come?
There was a bell. Should he ring it and make a scene and in that way emphasise the expression of his desire? If he could succeed in no other way, he would try that. It was time that was precious. Every moment that passed made his task the harder. If they had only given him an opportunity to proclaim the woman's identity! If they only had! If he could only get back into the court even now and stop her before again she vanished into air!
Would the governor not come?
Then he would ring the bell and wake the echoes of the prison, and keep on ringing until they either disconnected the bell or put him into irons. He would not hang without a struggle now. He would ring at once.
Ah! There was some one coming.
Two persons. He could hear two separate tramp tramps, one falling a little behind the other as they came along the flagstones.
The door was opened. It was the governor.
"You wish to see me?"
"I do, sir."
Again Mr. Tennant tried to master himself, to hold himself in hand. He realised to the full, and very late in the day, how much might hinge upon his being able to preserve his presence of mind.
"What do you wish to say?"
"I wish to say that the woman whom I am charged with having murdered was actually in the court."
"Nonsense."
"It is not nonsense. It is the simple truth. I saw her as plainly as I see you."
The governor eyed him with what, for him, was a look of ferocity-unofficially, he was one of the softest-hearted creatures breathing.
"Man, don't tell such tales to me."
"I am telling you the absolute, literal truth. I have felt all along that there was something about the medical evidence which I did not understand. The woman they described was not the woman who fell out of the train. Now I understand how it was. That woman is not dead. I saw her, just now, alive, in court."
"Why did you not interrupt the proceedings to say so?"
"I did not see her before sentence was pronounced. When I did see her I was so astonished that, before I had recovered sufficiently from my astonishment to be able to speak the warders removed me from the court. I told the warders who it was that I had seen."
The governor observed the prisoner, as it was, reflectively. Certainly Mr. Tennant had become on a sudden a different man. He had lost his awkwardness. He was no longer ill at ease. He held himself erect. His eyes were clear, his glance unwavering. His bearing was simple-the simplicity of the man was what struck one first of all-yet assured. He spoke with a calmness, and even with a dignity which, considering that sentence of ignominious death had just been pronounced upon him, could scarcely fail to be impressive.
"Tennant, so far as it concerns your fate, whatever you may have to say will be without effect. For you in this world there is no hope. You had better prepare yourself for the world which is to come. Do not buoy yourself up with any hopes that anything you may say will prevent the sentence which has been pronounced upon you being executed. That sentence will certainly be carried out."
The condemned man would have spoken, but the governor went on.
"But the warder has just told me what you told him, and in discharge of what I hold to be my duty I have requested the detective who has been in charge of the case to come and hear what you may have to say. Here he is."
And there he was-Matthew Holman, the man who looked so like a sailor.
"Well, Tennant, what cock-and-bull story have you to tell us now?"
"None. I have to tell you the truth."
"It is time."
Mr. Holman's tone was biting, his glance was keen.
Mr. Tennant re-told the story of his famous journey. The detective seemed not so much to be listening to the words he uttered as searching for what might be behind them.
"So you did know her? What was her name?"
"I knew her as Ellen Howth. But she may have had half a dozen names before I knew her and since."
The detective made a note in his pocket-book.
"Where did she live?"
"I have no notion. As I have told you before that night I had not seen or heard of her for years."
"Describe her."
Mr. Tennant described her.
"You understand that, until I heard the medical evidence, I supposed that she had been killed by the fall from the carriage. When I heard what the doctors had to say I began to wonder. It became clearer and clearer to me that they could not be talking of Ellen Howth. The two descriptions did not tally. I did not believe that she was pregnant. I knew that she was over thirty, and it seemed inconceivable that a medical man could mistake a woman of considerably over thirty for a girl under twenty-one. When I saw Ellen Howth standing up there and smiling at me, in an instant it was all made plain."
"What was all made plain?"
"Many things. For one, it explained what seemed to me to be the discrepancies between the evidence and what I knew to be the facts-the facts, that is, so far as they concerned myself."
"Where was the woman whom you say you saw standing-tell me exactly."
Mr. Tennant paused to think. The detective's eyes were on him, and the governor's and the warder's at the back.
"She was on the bench. She was on the last row of seats. She sat either second or third from the judge, to his right. When he had pronounced sentence I noticed her rising and I noticed her remove her veil, and she looked at me, I have no doubt with the deliberate design of attracting my attention."
"I believe I noticed the woman to whom you refer."
This was the governor. The detective said nothing. He continued to look at the prisoner for a moment or two in silence. Then from a pocket in his coat he took an envelope.
"There is a portrait of Ellen Howth."
He handed a photograph to Mr. Tennant.
"This is not Ellen Howth."
"Then that is."
He passed the prisoner a second photograph.
"Nor is this. Neither of these photographs in the least resembles Ellen Howth. Not in any one particular. I have never seen the woman whose portrait this purports to be. Of that I am sure."
"It beats me, my lad, to think how a man circumstanced as you are, can lie so glibly. You know as well as I do, and indeed better, that you are holding in your hands portraits of the poor young woman whose life you took."
"That is not so. Neither of these portraits at all resembles the woman, Ellen Howth, with whom I travelled from Brighton. If they are photographs of the woman who was found dead, then it is certain that I had no hand whatever in killing her."
"You have seen those portraits before."
"Never!"
"Do you mean to tell me that no one, neither your counsel nor your solicitor, nor any one else showed you them?"
"I do. You appear surprised."
"It is not a question of surprise. I don't believe you."
"You can soon ascertain for yourself that what I tell you is a fact. You must remember that from the first I told my solicitor the actual facts. I took it for granted that the woman who had been found dead was Ellen Howth. Under those circumstances there was no reason why I should be shown or why I should wish to be shown her photograph. I have not seen that portrait before. The woman whose portrait it is is a complete stranger to me. Were she here she would tell you that I am equally a stranger to her. There is some mystery which, at present, I do not profess to understand. But of one thing I am certain, that the woman, Ellen Howth, whom I supposed was dead, is as much alive as you are or as I am."
"Give me those portraits. It strikes me that you are one of those men who will go even to face their God with a lie upon their lips. I don't believe a word that you have said."
"Then you wrong me cruelly. I hope, for your sake, as well as for my own, that you will learn that you do, before it is too late."
The detective made no reply. He went out of the cell without a word. The governor followed him. The door was clanged. The condemned man was left alone to get himself, if he could, into a mood in which he should be able to look the gallows squarely and without flinching in the face.
The governor spoke to the detective as they walked side by side.
"What do you think of it?"
"Queer-street."
"I certainly noticed myself the woman of whom he speaks. I wonder you didn't. Her action was most marked. She certainly did cast at him what seemed to me to be a glance of exultant recognition, while the sight of her seemed to fill him with stupefied amazement. I wondered when I saw it what the scene might mean."
"What was she like?"
"He describes her very fairly."
"If she's still in Lewes I'll leave no stone unturned to find her."
"And if she isn't?"
"You know, sir, that if you give him a chance, a man in his position can always pitch some sort of a tale to save his neck. And the worse they are the more they lie like the truth."
"That's true enough."
The governor sighed.
"If ever a man was found guilty on the evidence this man was. If he's not guilty, then I'll never again put my trust in evidence; and so far I've generally found evidence that will stand sifting quite good enough for me. Still, as I say, I'll leave no stone unturned to find the woman of whom he speaks."
"And of whom I speak."
The governor spoke with a little smile.
"Yes, sir, and of whom you speak too."
CHAPTER XXXIV
MR. HOLMAN AT HOME
But they looked for her in vain. They did not find her. And the following night Mr. Holman was in the bosom of his family.
Mr. Holman's home was in a street off Leicester Square. His family consisted of his wife. Of her he was wont to make a confidant, as he did on the present occasion.
Mr. Holman had come up by an afternoon train from Lewes. Mrs. Holman had prepared a meat tea for him on his arrival. He had commenced his attack upon the viands before she began to question him.
"So they're going to hang him?"
"It would seem as though they were."
Mrs. Holman detected something in her husband's tone.
"What do you mean? Aren't they going to hang him?"
"Did I say they weren't going to hang him? Didn't I say it seems as though they were. Don't you understand Queen's English?"
Mrs. Holman was silent for a second or two.
"Surely they're not getting up a petition to let him off?"
"I've heard nothing at all about it, if they are. But perhaps you've heard more than me. You do sometimes, don't you?"
"You don't mean to say that you don't believe he did it. I thought you were sure that he was guilty."
"I've been sure of a good many things in my time, and been sorry for it afterwards. I'm not the only leather-headed fool there is about, as perhaps you know."
Mrs. Holman was skilled in the inflections of her husband's voice. She perceived that it would be wiser, temporarily, to keep her curiosity in her pocket, and to allow him to finish his meal in peace, which she did and obtained her reward.
When the lady's lord and master had eaten and drunk to his heart's content he wiped his lips and he looked at his wife.
"What do you think he says?"
"I haven't the least idea."
"He says that the woman who was found is not the woman who was with him in the train."
"A man like him would say anything."
"How clever you women are. You know everything. As it happens, it seems to me that he's just the sort of man who would not say anything, and I ought to be a pretty good judge of that kind of thing if any one is." Mr. Holman was regarding the two portraits which he had submitted to Mr. Tennant for inspection. "I don't half like it. I can swear that this is a good likeness of the woman that was found. He says that it's not the least like the woman who was with him in the train.
"Fiddlededee!"
"Of course it's fiddlededee. And if he was hung, and it came out afterwards that what he said was true, it would look like fiddlededee, wouldn't it? I should feel as if I'd murdered him."
"Matthew!"
"Somehow the tale which he tells sounds true, and the queer part of it is that he says that the woman whom he travelled with in the train from Brighton was actually present in the court during the trial."
"It isn't possible."
"Oh, dear no! Of course not. If you say so, it couldn't be. It seems funny though that the governor should be of a different opinion."
"What governor?"
"What governor! The governor of Lewes gaol-stupid! Considering how clever you set yourself up to be, it's queer what a lot of explanation you seem to want. The governor noticed this woman of whom Tennant speaks, and something about her goings-on struck him as being queer. I've been looking for her in Lewes all this blessed day. She's not there. But I'll find her if she's anywhere. I'm not going to have a man hung for a woman that's alive if I can help it. I'm going to make my report in the morning, and if I'm not told off to hunt her up I'll be surprised."
A ring was heard.
"Go and see what idiot that is ringing the bell. If it's any one to see me let me know who it is before you show him in."
Mrs. Holman went to see what idiot it was. She returned and reported.
"It's that American who has lost his daughter, Mr. Haines his name is."
"Confound Mr. Haines! What's he come humbugging about? Show him in. I'll make short work of Mr. Haines."
Mr. Haines was shown in, tall and thin, Yankee writ large all over him. Uninvited, he seated himself. He crossed his legs. He balanced his hat upon his knees. He looked at Mr. Holman without speaking a word. Mr. Holman, without any show of deference, looked back at him, nor was his manner when he spoke marked by a superfluity of courtesy.
For some moments the silence remained unbroken-a fact which seemed to arouse the detective's irascibility.
"Is that all you have to say? If so, perhaps you will excuse me. My time happens to be of value."
Mr. Haines opened his lips.
"That creature has buncoed me again."
"What creature?"
"Private detective Stewart Trevannion."
"When a man calls himself a private detective, nine times out of ten yon may safely write him down a scoundrel. The tenth time, perhaps, he is something worse."
"A scoundrel. That's what he is. And next time we chance to meet I'll write the thing on him in good bold letters in my very plainest hand. He raised another fifty out of me. He undertook to place me in communication with my girl if I let him have it. He has placed me in communication neither with my girl nor with himself since he raised that fifty."