A WITNESS FOR THE DEFENCE.
IN THREE CHAPTERS.—CONCLUSION.
To say that there was a ‘sensation’ would feebly describe what followed. Every one in court sprang to his feet. The prisoner looked as if he had seen a ghost. There was a perfect hubbub of voices, as bar and jury talked among themselves, and my brethren at the solicitors’ table poured questions upon me—to none of which I replied. Silence being restored, the voice of the judge—grave and dignified, but with a perceptible tremor—descended like vocal oil on the troubled waves of sound. ‘Who instructs you, Mr Clincher?’
‘Mr Bentley, my lord.’
The judge looked more astonished than ever. My name was familiar enough to him as a judge, and he had known it even better when, as a leading barrister, he had held many a brief from me.
‘I am persuaded,’ said he, ‘that a gentleman of Mr Bentley’s repute and experience has good reason for what he does. But so extraordinary and unheard-of—— I will ask Mr Bentley himself if he really considers that duty requires him to offer himself as a witness, and when and why he came to that conclusion?’
‘My lord,’ I replied, ‘I am certain that, believing what I have had cause to believe within the last five minutes, I should be greatly to blame if I did not testify on oath to certain facts which are within my own knowledge. But if the prisoner chooses to call me as a witness, your lordship will presently understand why it is that, with all submission, I cannot at this moment, or until I am in the box, give my reasons. And I must add that the value of my evidence to the prisoner will greatly depend on his answers to certain questions which I wish, with your lordship’s sanction, to put to him in writing. And if he answers me as I expect, I believe my evidence will put an end to the case against him.’
‘Really, gentlemen of the jury,’ said his lordship, ‘this matter is assuming a more and more remarkable aspect. I hardly know what to say. That a prisoner on trial for his life should answer questions put to him in private by the prosecuting solicitor is the most extraordinary proposal, I am bound to say, which ever came under my notice. It is the more difficult for me to decide because the prisoner has not the advantage of counsel’s assistance.—Prisoner, is it your wish that this gentleman should be called as a witness on your behalf? You have heard what he has said about certain questions which he wishes to put to you beforehand. Of course you are not bound to answer any such questions, and may nevertheless call him. What do you say?’
‘I am in God’s hands, my lord,’ answered the prisoner, who was quite calm again. ‘It may be that He has raised up a deliverer for me—I cannot tell. But I know that if He wills that I should die, no man can save me; if He wills to save me, nought can do me harm. So I am ready to answer any questions the gentleman wishes.’
‘I propose,’ said the judge, ‘before deciding this extraordinary point, to consult with the learned Recorder in the next court.’
All rose as the judge retired; and during his absence I escaped the questions which assailed me from every side by burying myself in a consultation with my counsel. When he heard what the reader knows, he fully upheld me in what I proposed to do; and then threw himself back in his seat with the air of a man whom nothing could ever astonish again.
‘Si-lence!’ cried the usher. The judge was returning.
‘I have decided,’ said he, ‘to allow the questions to be put as Mr Bentley proposes. Let them be written out and submitted to me for my approval.’
I sat down and wrote my questions, and they were passed up to the judge. As he read them, he looked more surprised than ever. But all he said, as he handed them down, was, ‘Put the questions.’
I walked up to the dock and gave them into the prisoner’s hands, together with my pencil. He read them carefully through, and wrote his answers slowly and with consideration. With the paper in my hand, I got into the witness-box and was sworn.
My evidence was to the effect already stated. As I described the man I had seen under the lamp, with my face averted from the prisoner and turned to the jury, I saw that they were making a careful comparison, and that, allowing for the change wrought by twelve years, they found that the description tallied closely with the man’s appearance.
‘I produce this paper, on which I just now wrote certain questions, to which the prisoner wrote the answers under my eyes. These are the questions and answers:
‘Question. Were you smoking when you came up to the corner of Hauraki Street?—Answer. No.
‘Question. Did you afterwards smoke?—Answer. I had no lights.
‘Question. Did you try to get a light?—Answer. Yes, by climbing a lamp at the corner; but I was not steady enough, and I remember I broke my hat against the crossbar.
‘Question. Where did you carry your pipe and tobacco?—Answer. In my hat.
‘Those answers,’ I concluded, ‘are absolutely correct in every particular. The man whom I saw under the lamp, at eight o’clock on the night of the murder, behaved as the answers indicate. That concludes the evidence I have felt bound to tender.’ And I handed the slip of paper to the usher for inspection by the jury.
‘Prisoner,’ inquired the judge, ‘do you call any other witness?’
‘I do not, my lord.’
‘Then, gentlemen,’ said the judge, turning to the jury, ‘the one remark that I shall make to you is this—that if you believe the story of the prisoner’s witness, there can be little doubt but that the prisoner was the man whom the witness saw at the corner of Hauraki Street at eight o’clock on the night in question; and if that was so, it is clear, on the case of the prosecution, that he cannot have committed this murder. I should not be doing my duty if I did not point out to you that the witness in question is likely, to say the least, to be without bias in the prisoner’s favour, and that his evidence is very strongly corroborated indeed by the prisoner’s answers to the written questions put to him. Gentlemen, you will now consider your verdict.’
‘We are agreed, my lord,’ said the foreman.
‘Gentlemen of the jury,’ sung out the clerk of arraigns, ‘are you all agreed upon your verdict?’
‘We are.’
‘And that verdict is?’
‘Not guilty.’
‘And that is the verdict of you all?’
‘It is.’
There followed a burst of cheering which the usher could not silence, but which silenced itself as the judge was seen to be speaking. ‘John Harden—I am thankful, every man in this court is thankful, that your trust in the mercy and power of the All-merciful and All-powerful has not been in vain. You stand acquitted of a foul crime by the unhesitating verdict of the jury, and most wonderful has been your deliverance. You go forth a free man; and I am glad to think that the goodness of God has been bestowed on one who has repented of his past sins, and who is not likely, I hope and believe, to be unmindful of that goodness hereafter.—You are discharged.’
Had he been left to himself, I think the prisoner’s old master would have climbed into the dock, with the view of personally delivering his servant out of the house of bondage. But he was restrained by a sympathetic constable, while John Harden was re-conveyed for a short time to the jail, to undergo certain necessary formalities connected with his release from custody. I volunteered to take charge of Mr Slocum, and took him to the vestibule of the prison, overwhelmed during the short walk by thanks and praises. We were soon joined by Harden, whose meeting with his master brought a lump into the throat even of a tough criminal lawyer like myself. I saw them into a cab, and they drove off to Mr Slocum’s hotel, after promising to call on me next day, and enlighten me on certain points as to which I was still in the dark.
As strange a part of my story as any, has yet to be told. I had hardly got back to my office and settled down to read over the various letters which were awaiting my signature, when my late client (Harden’s prosecutor) was announced. I had lost sight of him in the excitement which followed the acquittal. He did not wait to learn whether I was engaged or not, but rushed after the clerk into my room. He was ashen white, or rather gray, and his knees shook so that he could scarcely stand; but his eyes positively blazed with wrath. Leaning over my table, he proceeded, in the presence of the astonished clerk, to pour upon me a flood of abuse and invective of the foulest kind. I had sold him; I was in league with the prisoner. I was a swindling thief of a lawyer, whom he would have struck off the rolls, &c.; until I really thought he had gone out of his mind.
As soon as I could get in a word, I curtly explained that it was no part of a lawyer’s duty to try and hang a man whom he knew to be innocent. As he only replied with abusive language, I ordered him out of the office. The office quieted itself once more—being far too busy, and also too well accustomed to eccentric people to have time for long wonderment at anything—and in an hour I had finished my work, and was preparing to leave for home, when another visitor was announced—Inspector Forrester.
‘Well, Mr Forrester, what’s the matter now? I’m just going off.’
‘Sorry if I put you out of the way, sir; but I thought you’d like to hear what’s happened. The prosecutor in Harden’s case has given himself up for the murder!’
‘What?’ I shouted.
‘He just has, sir. It’s a queer day, this is. When I heard you get up and give evidence for the man you were prosecuting, I thought curiosities was over for ever; but seems they ain’t, and never will be.’
‘How was it?’
‘Well, he came into the station quite quiet, and seemed a bit cast down, but that was all. Said fate was against him, and had saved the man he thought to hang in his stead, and he knew how it must end, and couldn’t wait any longer. I cautioned him, of course—told him to sleep on it before he said anything; but make a statement he would. The short of it all is, that the idea of murdering the old lady for her money had come into his mind in a flash when he saw that poor drunken fool exhibiting his knife in the tavern. He followed him, and picked his pocket of the knife, and then hung about the house, meaning to get in after dark. Then he saw the girl come out and go off, leaving the door closed but not latched, the careless hussy! Then in slips the gentleman, and does what he’d made up his mind to—for you see the old woman knew him well, so he couldn’t afford to leave her alive—gets the cash, and slips out. All in gold it was, two hundred and fifty pounds. When he heard that Harden couldn’t be found, he got uneasy in his mind, and has been getting worse ever since, though he did well enough in trade with the money. Seems he considered he wasn’t safe until some one had been hanged. So, when he recognised Harden, he was naturally down on him at once, and was intensely eager to get him convicted—which I noticed myself, sir, as of course you did, and thought it queer too, I don’t doubt. He took too much pains, you see—he must employ you to make certain, instead of leaving it to us; whereas if he hadn’t come to you, your evidence would never have been given, and I think you’ll say nothing could have saved the prisoner.’
It was true enough. The wretched man had insured the failure of his own fiendish design by employing me, of all the solicitors to whom he might have gone!
I learned next morning, how Harden, after trying in vain to light his pipe on that memorable evening, had wandered for hours through the hard-hearted streets, until at daybreak he had found himself in the docks, looking at a large ship preparing to drop down the river with the tide. How he had managed to slip aboard unseen and stow himself away in the hold, with some idea of bettering his not over-bright fortunes in foreign parts. How he had supported his life in the hold with stray fragments of biscuit, which he happened to have in his pockets, until, after a day or two of weary beating about against baffling winds, when they were out in mid-channel, the usual search for stowaways had unearthed him. How the captain, after giving him plenty of strong language and rope’s-end, had at length agreed to allow him to work as a sailor on board the vessel. How on landing at Sydney he had gone into the interior, taken service with his present master—under another name than his own, wishing to disconnect himself entirely with his former life—and by honestly doing his duty had attained his present position.
By the light of this narrative, that which had puzzled me became perfectly clear—namely, how it was that he had contrived not only to get so entirely lost in spite of the hue and cry after him, but also to remain in ignorance of his aunt’s fate.
My client was tried, convicted, and executed in due course; his plea of guilty and voluntary surrender having no weight against the cruel and cowardly attempt to put an innocent man in his place.
When I last saw John Harden, he was married to a serious lady, who had been his late master’s housekeeper, and was possessor of a prosperous general shop in a country village, stocked by means of the money which Mr Slocum had generously left him.