“Now as to the time at which Durnford returned to ‘The Silver Fleece,’ there is a conflict of testimony, but a perfectly reconcilable one. The waiter swears to the guest’s return at five-and-twenty minutes to ten. The maid-servant, Jane Flinders, swears with equal certitude to hearing Durnford come in at a quarter-past ten, and more than half the issue turns on this point. But, gentlemen, bear this in mind. The waiter Grainger was asleep. When he awoke, Durnford had already passed the hall clock, which then marked the hour of nine thirty-five. Durnford could reach the clock, be it remembered. But he could not reach Jane Flinders’ watch. Gentlemen, you will draw your own conclusions. One more point in connection with this. Pollock’s evidence proves that he met the stranger on the cliff, close to Smugglers’ Ladder, at half-past nine. But the stranger is back in his hotel at Battisford by five-and-twenty minutes to ten. That is to say, he covers in five or ten minutes a distance which it has been proved by the most competent testimony could hardly be covered in five-and-thirty. And then, when Grainger asks him if he returned by way of the cliffs, he appears surprised, and would have the other believe him unaware of there being any way by the cliffs.
“My learned friend here has seen fit to make merry over the articles which infallibly connect the prisoner with this mournful tragedy, but these articles, small, trivial though they may be in themselves, are of the very last importance. First, there is the A.B.C. time-table. Roland Dorrien goes into a tavern in the Strand, looking very strange and excited, and asks for an A.B.C. It is purchased for him. He searches it, marks the Wandsborough train, turns down a corner of the page and—leaves the book behind him when he goes out. This is about a week before the murder—the waiter, Newton, cannot be sure of the date. But—and observe this—the very train marked in that time-table is the one by which Robert Durnford arrives at Battisford. On the 21st January Roland Dorrien gives up his lodgings at Mrs Clack’s. He leaves London early in the morning. Late in the afternoon of that day Robert Durnford arrives at Battisford. From that time until he leaves Wandsborough church on the night of the 22nd, Durnford’s movements are accounted for. Then, passing over for the moment Devine’s evidence, he is met by James Pollock coming away from Smugglers’ Ladder, not many minutes after Hubert Dorrien is—well ‘falls’ into that chasm. And on the very scene of the tragedy James Pollock picks up this envelope which has been handed to you, directed—not to Robert Durnford but undoubtedly to Roland Dorrien. And where? At a London address incontestably. And the address subsequently given to Dr Ingelow by the pseudo-Durnford is a London postal address. Now for the matchbox. The day after the deceased’s disappearance, Eustace Ingelow, the prisoner’s brother-in-law, a young gentleman who by common knowledge is devoted to his relative, and not likely knowingly to injure him in any way, picks up this matchbox, which is of peculiar make, and to which he can swear as being the prisoner’s property. Where does he find this article! Why, at the bottom of this chasm, at the very spot where the deceased met his death.
“And now you will ask what motive could have been strong enough to lead this man to the black and abhorrent crime of fratricide. Well, even here the network of evidence is as complete as elsewhere. That motive, gentlemen, the prosecution has been able to supply. It has been shown that the prisoner had quarrelled with his father, and was in fact disinherited. Herein,” continued the learned counsel, putting on his most sad and sorrowful expression, “came the passion of jealousy. Furthermore, he had found reason to suppose, from some most deplorable and unguarded statements on the part of Grainger, that his brother had dealt him a blow which, if true, amounted to a stab in the dark—in that he had set to work to damage his reputation in Wandsborough and the neighbourhood. This being so, what more likely than that a man of the prisoner’s temper and character should at once seek to be revenged? How he and his brother had come together was just one of those unimportant links in the dark chain which it was beyond their power to connect. The important fact was that they had come together—the evidence of Stephen Devine and others was amply sufficient to establish that.”
Then Mr Benham proceeded to comment on the evidence of Devine, who with his own eyes had seen the deed done. He explained away the witness’ reluctance to divulge it during these years as a perfectly natural thing; laid stress on the straightforwardness and ring of truth which characterised the man’s statement, and how his tale in its plain, unvarnished simplicity had more than triumphantly stood the test of his learned brother’s most skilful cross-examination. In short, he drew the web of damning circumstances closer and closer around the accused, till there was not a flaw in the enthralling network. Then, with some conventional rhetoric about “terrible charge,” “man in prisoner’s position,” “truly painful duty which, painful as it was, he dared not shirk,” the heart-broken Mr Benham resumed his seat, complacently conscious of having earned his not unhandsome fee.
Then the judge began to sum up.
The learned counsel for the prosecution, he said, had very properly impressed upon the jury that they must lose sight of any such side issue as class-distinction, and form their opinion of the case by the light of hard, cold reason and the dry facts of the evidence. That evidence they had had put before them in the most careful and patient manner, and it was his own especial function, said his lordship, to explain the law on the subject of such of it as appeared conflicting.
For upwards of an hour the judge continued, weighing the arguments of both counsel in calm, dispassionate and masterly fashion. But whether his lordship was against the prisoner or not, it puzzled the public to discern. His charge was a pattern of impartiality no less than of lucidity. But the substance of it was now adverse, now favourable.
One of the most regrettable features of the trial, continued his lordship, was that there had been next to no defence whatever. No attempt had been made to prove an alibi. If the prisoner had not been near the neighbourhood at the time of his brother’s disappearance, surely there should be no great difficulty in obtaining evidence to that effect. But no such evidence had been put forward. The question of identity played a very important part indeed in this case. If the jury believed the evidence of Johnston, Devine and Pollock, they would consider the identity proved. But Johnston was a discharged servant, and the evidence of such against a former employer was always to be received with extreme caution, and in his case the greatest animus was shown to have been entertained by him against the prisoner. Devine was a man of notoriously bad character, but he appears to have had no real motive for injuring the accused. But James Pollock was altogether different from both of these witnesses. He was a man of the highest respectability; a man of keen intelligence, resource and courage, in short, a type of that most admirable body of men, the seafaring toilers of our coasts. This man then had seen through the disguise of the pseudo-Durnford, and under it had seen the identity of the prisoner, Roland Dorrien. The piece of envelope put forward, bearing as it did nearly the complete name of the prisoner, and part of a London address, was to his lordship’s mind the completing link in the chain of identity.
Down went the hopes of the prisoner’s friends, down to zero. The judge was summing up dead against him.
“To turn again to Stephen Devine,” went on his lordship. “Here is a man who testifies to witnessing with his own eyes the perpetration of a deliberate act of murder. Alone, and in the dead of night, he stands as a spectator of this terrible deed—then calmly walks away, and for upwards of two years keeps silent on the subject. As the learned counsel for the defence has aptly pointed out, before you can convict a man of a murder you must be quite sure that a murder has been committed. The question is, are you quite sure on this point? That the dead man, Hubert Dorrien, met his end in the place known as Smugglers’ Ladder, has been established beyond a doubt. But how did he get in there? Did he fall in, or was he pushed in? If there is any doubt in your minds upon that head, why then, gentlemen, you are not merely entitled, but are bound to give the accused the benefit of it. You have evidence in plenty that the prisoner was near the spot—that is, to my mind, clear beyond dispute. But that he pushed his brother into this cleft you have the evidence of but a single eye-witness, and that witness, to my mind, a tainted one.”