Chapter XXIX
A magistrate’s court is not a dignified place, and I had longed for its sordid littleness to have an end that I might emerge on to a larger platform.
I did so sooner than I expected. Lord Gascoyne, whose heart had never been strong, succumbed under the strain and anxiety of the whole affair, and I awoke one morning in prison to find the dream of my life realised. I was Earl Gascoyne. My child, whether boy or girl, would be the next heir, and whatever happened, I had achieved my purpose.
It had one unlooked-for result. I immediately claimed my right to be tried by my peers.
Judging from the newspapers, the claim came upon the public as something of a shock. In the Radical press there was an outcry for the abolition of such an antiquated custom. They were, however, brought face to face with a law of the land which so long as it stands is good.
This prospect almost reconciled me to my position. I saw myself, a picturesque figure, seated on a daïs, with my fellow-peers in their robes before me. Yes, I had just the appearance to carry off such a situation.
I was sure of female sympathy. I was barely twenty-six, and looked younger. I should certainly have obtained something for my trouble.
The question as to whether I was likely to get a fairer trial from my peers did not weigh with me. I would not for a certain acquittal have foregone the scene in the House of Lords.
As far as I knew, the last peer to be tried on a charge of murder was the celebrated Earl Ferrers. I read everything to do with this trial with assiduity. I noticed that, instead of being relegated to the common gaol, he had been confined in his own house. I regretted to discover that this was not a right, or if it were I could not find anything bearing on the subject.
It would have been eminently satisfactory to go under escort from Park Lane to the House of Lords every day. As a matter of fact, I supposed I should have to be taken to and fro, or perhaps I should be lodged in some apartment in the precincts of Westminster Palace. The prospect teemed with interest, and was not a little comic. The papers, which had, of course, talked of nothing but my case for weeks, became trebly excited. The probable ceremonial was discussed at length by all of them. Articles by celebrated lawyers, letters from antiquaries, suggestions from all sides, filled up their columns and tided them over the dull weeks in a way which ought to have made them highly grateful to me.
I was myself in doubt for a short period as to whether my never having taken my seat or the oath would prevent my claiming my privilege. I believe everyone was too anxious to see the fun to press any debatable point. Of course, at the end of all this excitement loomed a not improbable and most unpleasant climax, but I was accustoming myself to think less and less of it every day.
I read the State Trials assiduously, for they teemed with interest for me.
The fact that I was not to be tried with the farce of a jury was a great comfort to me. If there is one thing more ridiculous than another in our judicial system, it is the fiction that when a gentleman has been tried before a dozen petty tradesmen he has been tried by his peers. If a peer were tried by a dozen gentlemen of ordinarily good standing and repute, he would be tried by his peers, but to try a gentleman before a dozen men who can have no knowledge of the conditions under which he has lived is simply absurd. Murder trials, the results of which with our system of capital punishment are irrevocable, should be tried by three judges whose verdict should be unanimous, and the trial should always take place in another part of the country from that in which the crime has been committed.
My perceptions became abnormally keen on matters of legal procedure. I sometimes found myself, when reflecting on such matters, starting with the assumption that I was innocent. It was amazing how completely I could follow a line of argument having my innocence for its basis.
It was decided that I should be taken to the House of Lords the night before the trial and lodged in the precincts, under a strict guard, till its conclusion.
I was uncertain until the last moment whether I should have the escort of military, or mounted police. As a matter of fact, I was honoured with neither, but was hemmed in by detectives.
I did not doubt but that I should have a perfectly fair trial. I can imagine no tribunal where a man is likely to receive more impartial treatment.
I read all the papers, and was disturbed to notice that a suspicion gradually manifested itself as to the real truth. It began to be remembered how speedily the members of the family which stood between me and the title had disappeared, and under what tragic circumstances.
I had always made a point of not having my photograph taken. Unfortunately, the police did this for me, and the proprietor of the hotel at which young Gascoyne Gascoyne had stayed when he was supposed to have poisoned himself recognised me at once. It was flattering as a tribute to my individuality, but inconvenient. I was for at once admitting that I had been at the hotel at the time, but my lawyers would not hear of it. Every inch of the ground, they declared, must be fought. They were a most able firm, and, realising that I was an advertisement such as they could never hope for again, they nursed the case—which in the first place was strong and healthy enough to have satisfied any lawyers—with tender solicitude.
I said that I had mentioned the fact to Mr. Gascoyne, as he then was, and that he might have told his wife. I asked if this would be accepted in evidence. They scouted the idea, however, of its being used, so I forbore to press the question further. The chances that Mr. Gascoyne had told his wife were extremely remote.
Having tracked me to the hotel at Lowhaven, the police were somewhat at a loss. They utterly failed to establish the fact that I had any poison in my possession at that time. They then threw themselves with ardour into the details of Ughtred Gascoyne’s death. Here, again, although it was possible to show that I was not infrequently at his flat late at night, their most strenuous efforts could not prove that I was there on the night on which the fire had taken place.
I was sure that suspicion about this began to creep into my wife’s mind. Perhaps she had learned that the Parsons were fictitious individuals. It may also have struck her that I must have passed the road where her brother was found dead, earlier on the same evening. These two facts, taken together with my being in the same hotel with young Gascoyne when he died, and as much evidence as could be raked up against me in connection with Ughtred Gascoyne’s death, must have forged a chain of implication which could not but shake the most serene confidence. Not that I had the least fear of her acting in a hostile manner. She could not have done anything had she wished to; besides, she belonged to that class of woman who, possessing most of the virtues, would never drag her husband’s name in the dust. Her conscience might—had she been questioned—have triumphed, but that she would speak out of her own free will I did not believe.
As the day of the trial drew nearer and nearer without any new charge my confidence rose. I suppose this optimism lies at the back of every prisoner’s mind. The possibility of an acquittal probably never disappears till the foreman of the jury delivers the terrible word guilty, a word which has a leaden sound complementary to the deadliness of its meaning.
My wife came to see me the day before the trial, and though she strove hard against the awful horror that I could see was in her mind, the strain was at last telling on her. She was taken away in a dead faint. I was sorry for her. I knew it was the last thing she would have wished should happen. My own danger had driven all three women out of my mind, and it was a psychological point which interested me extremely. I had loved them so fervently; and I could love fervently, even if not on the highest level. My own position, however, was so enormously important in my eyes that they were quite dwarfed. I could not rouse myself to any degree of emotion over their sufferings. It was not the idea of losing them that predominated in my mind, nor the idea of dwelling in their memory as a thing for pity, the victim of a terrible and gloomy death.
I regret to say that my departure for London, considered as a spectacle, was a failure.
I left the county prison in an ordinary carriage, and was put into a special train which drew up at a crossing in the depths of the country. I remember as I passed from the carriage to the railway-train casting my eye over a mellow, moonlit landscape, and wondering where I should be when they cut the corn. To one of my temperament it was a beautiful world I was perhaps leaving, and it was a dismal reflection that I might not share in the next year’s harvest of pleasant things.
The train reached London at an early hour of the morning, and such perfect arrangements had been made that the few porters about hardly realised who it was who was hurried into a private carriage and driven off.
Passing through the streets as dawn was breaking, I could see on the advertisement boards outside small newspaper shops the soiled posters of the evening papers. They bore large headlines with: “Trial of Lord Gascoyne,” “Latest Arrangements,” etc., etc. There was not a paper which had not displayed it more prominently than any other item of news. This was gratifying. The carriage drew up at the peers’ entrance to the House of Lords, for such was my privilege, and in a few minutes I had full assurance that I was receiving the hospitality of gentlemen. I was ushered into two rooms which had been set apart for me, and in one of which was laid a comfortable and substantial breakfast. To this I did full justice. Arrangements had been so made that I was practically alone in the room, although, of course, I was being very carefully watched. It was exceedingly comforting to feel that if they were going to hang me, they were going to do it with tact and breeding.
Parliament being in session, my trial would not take place before the Court of the Lord High Steward. I was glad, for that would have been comparatively a very small affair.
It may be as well to state that the House of Lords is a Court of Justice, of which all Peers of Parliament are judges, and the Lord High Steward the President. It differs from an ordinary court of law, inasmuch as all the peers taking part in the trial are judges both of the law and of the facts.
At a very early hour I could hear a great deal of bustling and passing to and fro. I lay down on my bed, however, and had a most refreshing sleep. On awaking I was told that my lawyers wished to see me.
I had an interview with them lasting about an hour. They were both mightily important and very excited. The atmosphere of the place had evidently given them the idea that they were historical individuals, and I fancy that they looked upon me as if I had been accused of High Treason, and, in fact, treated me as quite a great personage.
So intense had been the excitement aroused, and so general was the interest displayed, that it had been decided to hold the trial in the roomier accommodation of Westminster Hall. I knew from what my counsel had told me that the peers had begun to assemble at ten o’clock. It was fully eleven, however, before I was summoned.
Although I was guarded to a certain extent by the usual officers of the law, I was nominally in charge of the yeoman usher of the Black Rod, and in his custody I was brought to the Bar.
Just before I entered a note was put into my hands which I was allowed to read. It was from Esther Lane, and ran:
“Love is always difficult to bear, because of its madness, which overthrows, and its vision, which distorts. Pleasant we deem the kisses of men, though they sting, but the stings of suffering are the kisses of God, and they burn like fire.”
Womanlike, though she was thinking of me, she was thinking somewhat more of herself.
It was a brilliant scene which I emerged upon, though perhaps somewhat lacking in the magnificence that would have attended it had it taken place a century earlier.
The Lord High Steward, as President, was seated in front of a throne, and on either side of him were the peers, in their robes, and wearing their orders. In front of the President was a raised daïs, on which was placed an armchair, and by the side of which was a table.
Near this daïs were tables at which were seated my counsel and other legal advisers. There was a gallery at one side, in which were seated the peeresses, and another gallery at the other side, in which were a number of Ambassadors, foreign royalties and noblemen, semi-resident in England. The difference between such a trial conducted amid a feast of colour and variety from what it must have been had it been conducted at the Old Bailey with its gloom and almost squalid lack of breadth was startling to think upon.
I had thoroughly studied the effect of my entrance. I knew that the scarlet of my peer’s robes formed an absolute tone contrast to my Jewish appearance, and I was conscious of making a marked effect on the women present.
As an artist, I had suffered grievously in my own estimation by the blunders I had made in removing Lord Gascoyne, and I was determined that henceforward, whatever happened, I would not do anything which could mar the beauty and interest of the situation.
I waited at the foot of the daïs while Norroy, King-at-Arms, called ‘Oyez, Oyez.’ The letters patent constituting a Lord High Steward were then read.
Norroy, and the Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod, then did their reverences kneeling, and presented the White Staff jointly to the Lord High Steward, who, receiving it, immediately delivered it to the Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod on his right hand. The Purse-Bearer, holding the purse, was on his left.
All these officials in their archaic costumes produced a most picturesque effect. The composition was seen in a sort of half-light, mellowing its garishness and the primary tones of official uniform. Through the windows, which had been veiled to keep out the glare of a brilliant summer sun, a golden light fell here and there, just sufficient to edge the scene with a gilded splendour.
The writ of certiorari for removing the indictment before the King in Parliament was then read. I will not reproduce this legal document, but it is sufficient to say that it charged me with the sole offence of poisoning Lord Gascoyne. I already saw in the faces of those around me that they believed what the press had daily insinuated, viz., that I was a wholesale murderer. Herein lay a great peculiarity and paradox of justice. It would not have been permissible to even hint in a court of law that there was a breath of suspicion attached to me in regard to the deaths of the other Gascoynes; it struck me, however, that it would have been excellent proof as to my innocence had it been argued that so clever a criminal as the alleged murderer of these others had been, would never have blundered so grossly over the murder of Lord Gascoyne.
As I stood and listened to these preliminaries I was being scrutinised by everyone in the Hall. The Lords were freed from the discomfort of trying one who had been born and bred among them. There were no recollections of Eton and Oxford to spoil the abstract drama of the occasion. I was to the great majority a stranger, and to the rest a mere acquaintance. Of course, I was connected with some of those present, but in so distant a degree that it hardly amounted to anything, and for all practical purposes I stood there a stranger. This must undoubtedly have been a relief to them, as curiosity could be given full play.
The clerk of the Parliaments then directed the Sergeant-at-Arms to make proclamation for Black Rod to bring his prisoner within the Bar.
I was led to the chair on the daïs which was technically considered within the Bar. The daïs had been provided so that I might have, as was only fair, a commanding position, and see and hear all that was going on. I remembered to have seen an old print of Charles I. being tried, and the recollection of it came back to me very vividly, except that in place of the motley crew of fanatics and bullies who constituted themselves his judges I had an assembly of gentlemen, reinforced by English judges, and in place of Bawling Bradshaw, I had a Lord Chancellor who was one of the most cultured men of his day.
Having arrived on the daïs, I did due reverence to the court with all the dignity imaginable. I fancy the impression was good, and must at any rate have convinced the peers present, that even if I were unknown to them they had not been summoned to try a vulgarian under the most select form known to English law.
The Clerk of the Parliaments then again read the indictment and asked:
“How say you, my lord, are you guilty of the felony whereof you stand indicted or are you not guilty?”
I pleaded not guilty, and the trial proceeded.
I have come to the conclusion that the case was a curiously simple one, although it entirely depended on circumstantial evidence. The principal witnesses were the chemist, and the two servants. It was a descent from the sublime to the ridiculous when these humble folk stepped into the box, and I shall never forget—by the way, under the circumstances not a prolonged limit of memory—the bewhiskered and perspiring little chemist gazing round on the august assemblage before which he was appearing, evidently not at all certain that he might not be ordered out to instant execution. I almost thought that he would become delirious and be unable to give his evidence, but he pulled himself together, and by the time he left the box was evidently under the impression that he was one of us. Indeed, he replied in quite a chatty way to the Lord High Steward when asked a question by that exalted functionary.
The opening of the prosecution struck me as being vindictive, but it is possible that the prisoner is not a good judge of such a point.
It was lunch-time before the preliminary law questions had been disposed of and the opening speech of the prosecution made. I was led out by a side door before anyone else moved. When I returned the court was already assembled. The remainder of the day was spent in examining the witnesses. There could be no doubt that I had bought arsenic, for I was recognised by both the chemist and his assistant. Not till I heard the story unfolded in court did I realise how very crudely I had acted. The examination of the witnesses was proceeding when the court rose. I spent the evening looking out on the river with some very melancholy reflections on the advantages of liberty. The dark barges, looking like gigantic pachyderms, floated silently past, with their solitary lights shining dimly. The river reflected the city lights in innumerable little splashes of flame, which danced and glimmered with the restless waters. On the far bank I could see figures passing to and fro. In the solitary fastness of a gaol it had been easy to realise the fact of being a prisoner, but in a room which bore no resemblance in any way to a cell, it was exceedingly difficult. Besides, there was the open door, and I almost forgot the watchers in the passage. The windows had been barred temporarily. Otherwise there was an air of comfort, even of luxury, about the room.
I received a long letter from my wife which did extraordinary credit to her sense of justice and her self-control. It was written as if with the utmost belief in my innocence, and evidently she had striven to keep her mind in such an attitude. I answered her at once, not abating any apparent affection, and saying that between us two it was unnecessary to reiterate my innocence, as I knew her trust in me to be absolute.
Towards the end of the letter I worked myself into quite a fervour of sublime confidence that no injustice would be done, and that an unseen Providence was watching over me.
Then I read Lord Beaconsfield’s Vivian Grey till I went to bed. I slept well, all things considered. I hoped to sleep better when the verdict was given, whichever way the case might be decided.
The next morning I awoke early, and as the law took so little account of individual psychology as to imagine that I might cut my throat, I was obliged to send out for a barber.
The youth who performed the operation was a pleasant young man, whose excitement was so painful that I warned him it was High Treason to cut the throat of a peer of the realm when he was being tried for his life.
I asked him what his own opinion was as to my guilt.
The question took him so entirely by surprise that he sprang away from me fully a yard.
“Come,” I said. “What do people say?”
He flushed and was silent.
“So people think I am guilty, do they?”
“Some do, your grace.”
“That means that most do. Now, does anyone believe in my innocence?”
“Oh yes, my lord, of course, some.”
“I see; very few people believe in my innocence. Who are those that do?”
He smiled. “I think the women do, my lord.”
This was satisfactory. I could not have had more practical support.
He told me further that there was a vast crowd outside in Westminster Yard.
I advised him to make his way at once to a newspaper office, and sell them a description of his interview with me. I warned him, however, that he must exaggerate if he wished to be believed, and I gave him full permission to invent any details of the occurrence which he might think useful.
The Hall was perhaps even more crowded than it had been the day before. This showed a proper increase of interest.
The cross-examinations were masterly, especially when it was considered how simple the evidence of the bare half-dozen witnesses was.
My counsel managed to throw doubt on the fact of my having been the man who bought the poison. This doubt, it is true, counsel for the prosecution soon swept aside, but I could not help admiring the dexterity with which my counsel threw a veil of uncertainty over what, when stated by the prosecution, had seemed facts beyond dispute.
The contention of the prosecution was very simple. It was to nobody’s interest but mine and Mr. Gascoyne’s that Lord Gascoyne should die, and whilst Mr. Gascoyne was in London, the prisoner was constantly in Lord Gascoyne’s company. Further, it was pointed out that I was the only person left alone with the bottle of claret, and that the moment I was so left alone was the only one during which the wine could have been poisoned. I was further proved to have been in possession of arsenic for which I could not account. It had been suggested that the poison might have been in the cup of tea which Lord Gascoyne had drunk, but there was nothing to support this view. It was regrettable that this cup had been removed, and washed before it had been examined. Lord Gascoyne, however, was taken ill almost immediately after he had drunk the tea. This made the insinuation that it was poisoned unlikely, as arsenic had, as far as could be proved, never acted instantaneously. My counsel, in the course of his address, made an earnest appeal that everything alien to the case which had been circulated, he could only say in a most scandalous manner, in certain organs of the press, should be put out of mind. He insinuated that in this respect he felt a greater confidence in their lordships than he would have done in an ordinary jury.
He concluded by the usual passionate appeal for the benefit of any doubt which might linger in their minds.
The Lord High Steward summed up the evidence, and a very brief summing-up it was. Then their lordships retired, and after three hours’ deliberation I was brought back into court.
I knew directly I returned what the verdict was, for in all faces there was the same look of intense gravity. Over the entire assembly there lay an almost oppressive silence. I noticed that people avoided looking at me, as if it were an intrusion to witness the emotions of any human being at such a moment.
After the verdict was given there passed across the whole place a sort of sigh, followed by a terrible hush.
I stood up and heard the sentence, and then, with the most profound reverence to the entire court, withdrew, satisfied that I could not be accused of having behaved otherwise than with a calmness and dignity befitting the privilege of belonging to such an assembly.