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!”