But this was just what he could not—and Mr Windgate knew it himself. He tried his best though, as also with the other damning points. At last his speech came near its close.
The evidence, he continued, consisted of a series of mere coincidences—one or two of them, it might be, a little remarkable, but—coincidences. The time had gone by in this country, he thanked Heaven, when men were convicted on purely circumstantial evidence. As for the motive which the prosecution had evolved, it was, he made bold to say, the veriest mare’s nest. Why, several of the most reliable witnesses had stated on oath that there wae no ill-will between the two brothers, and that on the whole they were on good terms. He wae not there to defend the absent Durnford, since it was abundantly proved that with that mysterious personage his client had nothing whatever to do, but he would just remark that in the conflicting evidence in the matter of the hall clock and the maid-servant’s watch, it was merely oath against oath—and that nothing was more confusing than differences in time. The witness Grainger had utterly failed to identify the accused. Under the prosecution’s very bewildering cross-examination he had, it was true, been afflicted with a temporary misgiving, but that was perfectly natural under the circumstances. So against two rogues, and one honest man, who could not be quite sure as to his statements, they had the positive evidence of Dr Ingelow and Mr Turner against the identity. That was to say, the two witnesses in this case to whom the accused had always been best known. And all the side evidence made for his client.
“Gentlemen,” he concluded, in his most impressive manner, “I now call upon you honourably to acquit my client. Remember, with you rests the most awful responsibility which can be laid upon the shoulders of mortal men—the life or death of a fellow creature. You must either honourably acquit him or doom him to an ignominious death. There is no middle course—absolutely none.”
“Good old phrase that,” muttered the sporting junior, chuckling inwardly over the scared look on the wooden faces of the twelve intelligent Englishmen.
”—Therefore, I call upon you to record your true sentiments, the sentiments of upright and true Englishmen, and to acquit with honour my client, to restore a wronged but high-minded gentleman to his family—to a fond wife, whose affliction during these terrible weeks I dare not imagine—to that neighbourhood which is anxiously waiting to receive him back with acclamation—to a long, benevolent, and useful life, which he has already begun most signally to adorn.
“Gentlemen, I leave my client in your hands with perfect confidence as to the result.”
A few moments of silence, and then the Crown counsel, who had been, to all outward appearance, intently studying his brief, rose.
The prisoner in the dock, he proceeded to say, was of a class whose members, happily, in this country, seldom filled that unfortunate position. He was a gentleman of affluence, more or less known to them all, and holding a high and influential station. They might reason that on that account, if any man was free from all temptation to such a crime as the one under their consideration, that man would be the prisoner before them. But this was precisely what they must not do. He, the learned counsel, could assure them that human nature in this respect was marvellously similar. All his experience—and it had not been inconsiderable—went to confirm him in that opinion.—And so on.
Then he proceeded to draw a graphic and rather harrowing picture of the disappearance of the deceased and the terrible blow to the feelings of his relatives which this re-opening of their grief must prove, going on to dissect the evidence bit by bit.
“The identity of the prisoner with the stranger known as Robert Durnford is as clear as daylight,” proceeded Mr Benham. “You will notice that the persons who saw through this disguise were those to whom he was or had been best known. Andrew Johnston, an old family servant, recognised him at once. Stephen Devine, formerly a labourer on the Cranston estate, and since gamekeeper to Colonel Neville—both these men had had abundant opportunities of being acquainted with the prisoner’s appearance. Their suspicions aroused, they took further occasion to observe the so-called Durnford, with the result that those suspicions were fully confirmed. To this they had sworn—again and again. Then there is James Pollock, a man of the greatest respectability—to him Roland Dorrien was not so well known as to the other witnesses mentioned, yet, being a man of keen perceptions, he had recognised him. Not the first time, indeed—though even then the voice had struck upon his ears as familiar. But on the second occasion of their being brought together, meeting with the so-called Durnford on the occasion of Miss Olive Ingelow’s rescue from drowning, he saw through his disguise at a glance, and in the man he had met coming away from Smugglers’ Ladder, between nine and half-past on the evening of the murder, he recognised the prisoner, Roland Dorrien. Now here are three persons who distinctly swear to the identity between these two. Nor is that all. There is Joseph Grainger, the waiter at ‘The Silver Fleece,’ at the time of Durnford’s stay at that inn. He comes here. He sees the prisoner in his normal costume and wearing his ordinary aspect, and he does not recognise him—at first. Indeed, he even goes so far as to emphasise the statement. But memory will not be cheated. As he stands there, the striking similarity of the accused to the pseudo-Durnford recalls itself to his mind, and he is dumbfounded. Gentlemen, you saw him—his air of utter astonishment, almost of awe, as he looked at the prisoner. You witnessed his refusal to swear to the two men being different. That is enough. Sensible men like yourselves can draw but one inference.