This was the climax of one of the most unpleasant features of the trial, in the course of which several of the witnesses had complained to the judge of the attempts that had been made to intimidate them from giving their evidence.
Another memorable feature in the trial was the behaviour of the accused.
Throughout his ordeal Wood seemed to be more concerned about the impression he was making upon the spectators in court than about the necessity of accounting satisfactorily for many suspicious circumstances that told against him.
So well did he appear to be able to control his emotions that, as he himself wrote afterwards, he could notice whether one of the actresses who attended the trial day by day, smiled upon him.
Never for one moment did he lose this self-control or appear otherwise than an unconcerned witness of the events upon which his life depended.
This absence of nerves in the accused is what struck most people as one of the strangest features in a strange trial, and caused Mr. Hall Caine, who was present in the court throughout the whole time, to write of him: “That he felt nothing I will not dare to say, that his mental processes were not frequently stirred to such pain as comes of baffling difficulties, but that the ordeal of his trial was a terrible one to him I absolutely refuse to believe. Robert Wood, innocent of the murder of Emily Dimmock, is yet the most remarkable man alive.”
In what trial upon a charge of murder has there ever been witnessed the sight of the prisoner, whose life was hanging in the balance, laughing and chatting with his friends, and making sketches of the judge, the counsel, and the witnesses? Even at the most crucial moment of the trial, when the jury had withdrawn to consider their verdict he exhibited no trace of anxiety, but until called below sat calmly sketching, while he waited for their return.
And thus Mr. Hall Caine wondered, as he got the prisoner to sign his name upon the back of a copy of the charred fragments of the letter, whether “with all his mental alertness, his intellectual activity, his temperamental composure, this was not one of those men, the rare and mysterious men, who lack some necessary quality on the moral side of their nature.”