A Whim, and Its Consequences / Collection of British Authors Vol. CXIV

by G. P. R. James

CHAPTER XXIX.

It was the morning of Thursday, and generally understood that the trial of Mr. Chandos Winslow, for the murder of his late father's steward, would come on that day. Moreover, it appeared likely that the case would occupy two days, unless it was early called on, as the number of witnesses was considerable. Those who are knowing in such things considered the arrangement as rather ominous: Friday being looked upon as an excellent day for condemnation. The court was crowded to suffocation; but the spectators had a long time to wait ere they had the pleasure of seeing a gentleman placed in the felon's dock. The court was occupied during the greater part of the morning with cases of small interest; and, between two and three in the afternoon, the crowd began in some degree to diminish; many persons growing tired, and a belief becoming prevalent that the cause would not be tried that day.

At length, however, when it was least expected, the cause was called on, and two or three solicitors' clerks ran out of the court to call the counsel in the case. The appearance of the leader for the crown excited some attention; but that of the famous barrister, whom every one knew to have been brought down especially from London, and who was generally reported to be the intimate friend of the prisoner, created a murmur which lasted for some minutes. The two lawyers were in the court, before Chandos Winslow was placed in the dock; for the officers of the prison had been taken somewhat by surprise, from the rapidity with which the preceding case had been brought to a conclusion. After a momentary pause, however, the accused appeared, and there was an instant movement, causing a good deal of confusion, from many persons endeavouring to gain a better sight of the prisoner.

It is probable that every one expected to behold a very different sort of person from that which was now presented to him; but certain it is, that the actual impression produced was highly favourable. The tall, commanding, manly form; the air of calm unembarrassed grace; the grave, but firm, and almost stern look; the lofty brow and speaking eye; the lip that quivered a little with irrepressible emotion, at being made the gazing-stock of thousands: all excited in the multitude those feelings of admiration which predispose to sympathy and confidence. Bearing his head high, with his shoulders thrown back, and his chest open, with his eye fixed tranquilly on the judge, and his step as firm as if he had been treading his father's halls, Chandos Winslow advanced to the front of the dock; and immediately his friend Sir ---- rose from his place, and with a kindly nod of the head, spoke to him for a few moments, as if to show all persons that he was proud of his friendship.

The indictment was read, setting forth in various counts the charge against the prisoner. Sir ----, desired to see the instrument, and then merely remarked, that it was bad in law, and could not be sustained.

"When the case for the defence comes on, I will hear your objection," said the judge.

"I do not know that it will be necessary, my lord;" replied the counsel. "My friend and client has an invincible objection to take advantage of any technicality; and, I think, we can do without a flaw, although I may judge it my duty to show your lordship that there is a fatal one in this indictment."

When called upon to plead, Chandos replied, "Not guilty," in a firm, slow, and distinct voice; and the confident tone of the leader for the defence, as well as the calm self-possession of the prisoner, had its effect both upon the spectators and the jury. It was soon to be driven away, however; for the leader for the crown rose after a few words from a junior; and a very different impression was speedily produced. The lawyer who conducted the prosecution was a tall handsome man, with strongly marked and expressive features, a powerful and flexible voice, and great dignity of manner. He had one quality, however, which was greatly in favour of a prisoner if he were retained as counsel for the defence, but which told sadly against him if he appeared on behalf of the crown. He seemed--it was merely seeming--so fully, so firmly convinced of the justice of the cause he advocated, his manner was so sincere, his apparent candour so great, that the jury, thoroughly believing he had no doubt, and weighing their wits against his, naturally asked themselves, "If so learned and shrewd a man has arrived at this conclusion, why should we venture to differ from him?"

On the present occasion, he paused for an instant and rested his hand upon the table, as if almost overpowered by his feelings--he never was calmer in his life--and then, raising his head, went on, with the clear, distinct, grave tones of his voice penetrating into every part of the court, in which there reigned a dead silence.

"My lord, and gentlemen of the jury," he said, "the most painful task of a life that has not been free from sorrows is imposed upon me this day; and I know--I feel--that I shall acquit myself ill. I beg you, therefore, to bear with me, if my statements are not so clear, if my reasonings are not so forcible as they ought to be; for, in my anxiety not to press anything too heavily against the prisoner at the bar, I fear I may fall into the opposite error, and not give due weight to many minor facts necessary to a full elucidation of the subject. That error, however, is far less important than the grave and serious fault--I might almost call it a crime, in a person in my present position--of suffering either professional vanity, or the spirit of partisanship, to seduce me into urging anything unjustly against a prisoner under trial. Into that fault, at least, I will not fall--of that crime, I will not render myself guilty. I will make no statement that I do not feel sure will be borne out by evidence, I will use no argument which may not be justly applied; and I do assure the court, aye, and the prisoner, that, if I could have avoided the task, I would have done so; that if he can prove himself innocent, I shall rejoice; and if my learned friend can show that my reasonings are not just, my views erroneous, I shall have a triumph in defeat, and sincere satisfaction in a verdict against me. But I have a high and solemn duty to perform to my country, gentlemen of the jury, as you have also; and we must not suffer any personal feeling to interfere with its due execution. We must recollect, that mercy to a criminal is cruelty to society, and that to spare the offender is to encourage the offence. With these views, I will 'nothing extenuate nor set down aught in malice,' but succinctly state to you the facts, as many witnesses will afterwards prove them, omitting all that seems to me doubtful, and urging nothing that is not necessary to the due understanding of the case. On the evening of the fifth of February, gentlemen of the jury, a highly respectable gentleman, of the name of Roberts, called at the house of Mr. Tracy, of Northferry, in this county, and inquired for a person of the name of Acton, under which name, or alias, as it is termed, you will find that the prisoner is also indicted. This Mr. Roberts, it will be shown to you, was the steward and confidential law agent of the late Sir Harry Winslow, a gentleman of large property in this county; and in that capacity he was well acquainted and had had numerous transactions with the younger son of Sir Harry, a young gentleman, I must say, bearing a very high character, but, at the same time, of a disposition to which I can only apply the terms of sharp and vindictive, as I shall be enabled to show. This person, known by the name of Acton, was at the time acting in the capacity of head-gardener, at the house of Mr. Tracy, where he had been for nearly three months, or ever since the death of Sir Harry Winslow. Upon my life, gentlemen of the jury, if the truth of the whole were not too fatally established, I might think I was reciting a romance. Mr. Roberts did not mention his business with the person he inquired for, but being perfectly respectable in his exterior, was directed by the servants to seek the head-gardener in the grounds, where he was usually to be found at this hour. Now those grounds are very extensive, and an authentic plan has been taken of them--I hold it in my hand--of which a copy has been furnished for your guidance. You will there see that the real front of the house is turned towards the gardens, which are remarkable, I am told, for their beauty and high cultivation: an earthly Paradise, into which murder now first entered. Before the house is a very extensive lawn, bordered with thick shrubberies, through which run several gravel walks. This lawn is terminated by a belt of planting irregularly disposed, so as to admit here and there views of the distant country to any eye looking from the windows of the house; but completely concealing a second lawn, somewhat less in extent, surrounded again by other shrubberies and other walks, sloping down with a gradual descent to the open fields, (also the property of Mr. Tracy,) from which the grounds are separated by a hedge, and in some places by that peculiar species of enclosure called a haw-haw, or sunk wall, with a broad ditch on the external side, faced on the side of the grounds with perpendicular masonry, surmounted by a holly hedge; number 5 in the plan, gentlemen of the jury. In the inside of this haw-haw and the hedge which forms its continuation, is a broad walk under beech-trees, called the Lady's Walk; but just opposite to the part of the walk where the figure 5 appears, the beech-trees are interrupted, and a plot of grass occupies the semicircular opening in the wood, in the bite or crescent of which is situated a small building, in imitation of a Greek temple, covering a fish-pond. Between that fish-pond and the haw-haw is a space of about twenty-five yards, which is the scene of the tragedy that is under our consideration: a narrow strip for so terrible an event. You will see that the broad gravel path, called the Lady's Walk, passes close to the little building, the temple, number 7 in the plan. Another walk, winding round the two lawns, and through the thick shrubberies, conducts to the western side of the building, where it enters the Lady's Walk. Down this winding path, it is probable, that poor Mr. Roberts came to meet his death, as it will be proved that he crossed the first lawn (number 2) towards it from the western side of the house. I should have mentioned that the hour at which he asked for Acton, the head-gardener, was five in the evening, when the sun is just down at that period of the year, but when the twilight is still clear. He was never seen alive afterwards, that we know of, but by his murderer; and about ten at night he was found lying on the grass between the little temple and the haw-haw, with two severe blows on the head, one of which had fractured the skull, and so severely injured the brain that death must have been instantaneous. By his side was found an implement used in gardening, and called, I believe, a Dutch hoe, which will be produced for your inspection. It was covered--at least, the iron head was covered--with blood and grey hair, and the surgeon who made a post mortem examination of the body will prove, that the wound which produced death must have been inflicted by an instrument very similar. Such are the bare facts of the murder of Mr. Roberts as they appear beyond all doubt; and I now approach with deep pain, reluctance, and even diffidence, the circumstances which connect the prisoner at the bar with the fatal event. First, gentlemen, it will be my duty to show you that the person who, under the name of Acton, filled the humble situation of head-gardener to Mr. Tracy, of Northferry, is one and the same person as Mr. Chandos Winslow, younger son of the late Sir Harry Winslow, of Elmsly and Winslow Abbey, in this county. It might be irrelevant to inquire what induced a gentleman of such birth and pretensions to condescend to such an office, but if it could be shown that he quitted his brother's mansion and abandoned the society in which he had moved from his birth on some disgust, occasioned by transactions in which this very unfortunate Mr. Roberts had a share, it might, indeed, be important in establishing a motive for the act with which he is charged."

Sir ---- instantly rose, and said aloud, "I hope my learned brother will not make insinuations which he is not able fully to bear out by evidence."

"If my learned friend had not interrupted me," replied the leader for the Crown, "he would have heard me declare that I was unwilling to press against the prisoner anything that could not be proved beyond all doubt; and therefore, that it was not my intention to connect any former disputes between the prisoner and the unhappy Mr. Roberts with the present charge; but to beg the jury to dismiss from their minds everything in their consideration of motives but the actual subject of dispute which I am about to allude to, and which can be proved by evidence unimpeachable."

"I must beg the interference of the court in protection of my client," said the prisoner's counsel, in a firm and stern tone; "it is contrary to all practice, and, I must add, contrary to all justice, to allude to imaginary circumstances as facts when there is no intention of proving them, thereby producing an impression upon the minds of the jury most detrimental to a prisoner, without giving the prisoner's counsel a fair opportunity of removing it. Were it not a most dangerous precedent, I should say that I am very glad such a course has been pursued by my learned friend, as, in this case, I am in a condition to rebut his insinuations as well as to disprove his facts; but, reverencing law and justice, and seeing great inconvenience likely to occur hereafter from such a practice, I must most solemnly claim the protection of the court for my client."

"The jury will rely only upon evidence," said the judge; "the assertions or insinuations of counsel, unsupported by evidence, are mere wind. The course of alluding even to any circumstance not intended to be proved, I must say, is very mischievous; but I dare say it was in the brief."

"I bow to the decision of the court," said the leader for the Crown; "but I can assure my learned friend, that I intended to produce no impression upon the minds of the jury but a just one; and, without at all recurring to the past, I am perfectly prepared to show by evidence that at the time the murder was committed, the prisoner at the bar and the unfortunate Mr. Roberts were engaged in a very sharp dispute about some property left to the former. I have said, gentlemen of the jury," he continued, with perfect tranquillity and satisfaction, "that it would be irrelevant to inquire what could induce a gentleman of the prisoner's rank and pretensions to accept the humble post of gardener in the family of Mr. Tracy. However, the fact that he did so will be established, and in that situation he inhabited a cottage (number 9 in the plan) close to the hedge bordering the Lady's Walk, and was entrusted with a key of the small gate into the grounds (at number 10.) It will be in evidence, gentlemen, that after having been absent for about a month, by Mr. Tracy's permission, during which he had resumed his station, mingled with his own rank of society in London, and fought a duel with Viscount Overton, in which the latter was desperately wounded, the prisoner returned to his cottage at Northferry on the afternoon of the fifth of February, the day of the murder, and almost immediately went out again. It will be shown to you, that the sun was then setting, or had already set, and that he entered the gardens, and took his way towards the very spot where the crime was committed, having in his hand the identical hoe (or one precisely similar) which was afterwards found by the dead body. This will be proved by two witnesses, whose veracity will not, I presume, be impeached. You will soon have it in evidence, that he did not return to his cottage till six, when he was in a state of much agitation; that he then went to his room, and, after washing his hands, threw the water he had used for the purpose out of the window; but that, nevertheless, there was upon the towel a red stain, as of blood diluted with water. You will find, that one arm of the fustian coat which he wore that night was stained with blood; and it will be also shown that footmarks, exactly corresponding with the shoes he wore, even to the most minute particulars, were found coming and going from the spot where the murdered man lay to the haw-haw. Now, gentlemen of the jury, it may seem difficult to prove to you that the murder, which was not discovered till ten, took place between the hours of five and six. There would indeed be a presumption that such was the case, from the fact of Mr. Roberts having gone down in that direction at five in search of the prisoner, who was then in the garden, and never having got further than the Lady's Walk; but still there would be a doubt, and I should be the first to entreat you to give the person accused the benefit of that doubt. But, unfortunately, I regret most deeply to say it, by one of those strange accidents which ever, sooner or later, bring their guilt home to the perpetrators of great crimes, I have the means of showing that the fatal deed must have been done some time between ten minutes or a quarter after five and half-past five." Sir ---- leaned forward and listened eagerly, and the leader for the prosecution continued, with an air of solemn sadness, "I allow from ten minutes to a quarter of an hour for any error that Mr. Tracy's servants may have made in regard to the time of Mr. Roberts' visit to the house, and for the time occupied by him in seeking through the grounds for the prisoner; but at half-past five, it then being almost dark, a little boy, the son of a gipsey woman, saw, in passing along as he returned from the school at Northferry, a dark body lying on the ground, like the figure of a man asleep, close by the little fish-pond or basin near which Mr. Roberts was murdered. The boy's history is not without its interest. He had, it seems, aided in saving the life of General Tracy, Mr. Tracy's elder brother, from the attack of a furious bull. The General, in gratitude, took the boy under his protection, and placed him to board at the cottage of the head-gardener. The hour at which he ought to have returned from school to the cottage was somewhat earlier--about five, I believe; but he met with his mother in the village, and lingered for a time with her. In order to shorten the way, he stole through the gardens, and got over the gate near the head-gardener's cottage, thus passing within twenty or thirty yards of the spot where the body lay. He will prove that he thought it was a man asleep, and that he is quite certain that it was a man."

The learned gentleman paused, and, from under his bushy eyebrows, turned a glance towards the face of the leader for the defence. What he saw there he did not exactly understand; for there was a very slight smile on the great barrister's lip; but that smile had something of triumph in it. He knew not if the smile was sincere, or whether it was not assumed to cover mortification; but yet, it was evidently kept down rather than displayed, and in this state of doubt he might not have called the boy, perhaps, had it been possible to avoid it. The passing of these considerations through his mind did not arrest his eloquence for more than a moment, and he went on as follows:--

"I have now, gentlemen of the jury, given you a brief outline of the case against the prisoner, as I believe it will be fully proved by evidence; and I do not think, if such be the case, and if the respectability of the witnesses is unimpeached and their testimony be not shaken by cross-examination, that you can come to any other conclusion than that which, I grieve to say, I myself have arrived at. You will hear what they have to say, you will judge from their words, and even the manner in which their evidence is given, what credence they deserve. God forbid that you should attach more to their evidence against the prisoner than to any testimony which can be fairly adduced in his favour. What course of defence my learned friend may adopt I cannot divine, but mere testimonials of character, learning, high qualities, and previous integrity cannot avail here. Nor must rank and station be taken for one moment into consideration. A prisoner at the bar of justice stands stripped of all adventitious advantages. He is there as before the throne of Heaven, only in the common character of man. If he be of high rank and good education, it is no reason for pre-supposing innocence or extenuating guilt. Quite on the contrary. Crimes of the most serious magnitude have been proved against persons greatly elevated in station. Peers of England have suffered on the scaffold for deliberate murder; and the advantages of rank and education, in the immunity which they give from ordinary temptation, only serve to aggravate the offence. Nor can a previous upright, honourable, and even peaceful life, if it could here be proved, weigh much to neutralize distinct evidence. We have too many instances, gentlemen, of men, the great bulk of whose life has been high, holy, and innocent, yielding to some strong temptation, and committing acts which on cooler reflection they have often shuddered at. Need I cite the case of the unfortunate Dr. Dodd? You must look upon the prisoner merely as a man; you must weigh well every tittle of the evidence against him. You will find that, as in almost all cases of murder, that evidence is purely circumstantial; no man but a madman commits such a crime when the eyes of any but accomplices are upon him. But you have all too much good sense and experience not to know that a long chain of circumstantial evidence, perfect and unbroken as this seems to me to be, is more strong, more conclusive than even direct evidence. In such cases, to suppose a fraud on the part of the witnesses for the crown, is to imagine that an immense number of persons are all combined in one common league to destroy another, and that they have so well arranged their scheme that cross-examination will not unravel it: whereas, in direct evidence, often afforded by one or two witnesses only, a much greater opportunity is to be found for successful falsehood if any motive for injuring a prisoner exists. I do not ask a verdict at your hands. I am far from desiring one against the prisoner at the bar. I pray Heaven that he may be able to exculpate himself and quit that dock free from all suspicion. Even if there be a reasonable doubt in your minds, you must give him the advantage of it; but you will remember that it must be a reasonable doubt. You must not say to yourselves, 'Perhaps he did not commit the act, after all,' because no one saw him commit it; but if the chain of evidence is clear and convincing, you must remember your oaths, your duty to your country and your God; and, having consulted only conscience, express by your verdict the conviction of your minds, as you will answer for it at the dreadful day of judgment."

The learned gentleman sat down after having produced a terrible effect upon the minds of the jury; but the judge, who was accustomed to such speeches, and moreover hungry, interrupted the further proceedings by inquiring, in the most commonplace tone in the world, if the evidence for the prosecution could be got through that night. There seemed some doubt upon the subject; and as it was now late; for the counsel had spoken very slowly, his lordship suggested that it would be better to take the evidence of one witness, and then adjourn to the following day. The testimony given was of little importance, for it only went to prove the identity of Chandos Winslow with John Acton--a fact which there was no intention of denying; and after it had been heard the court rose.