Loaded Dice

by Ellery H. Clark

The prisoner sat in his accustomed place, a trifle more weary looking, a trifle more pathetically forlorn, than ever. At the tables in the enclosure sat Wilson Carter, the district attorney, a man keen and sharp as a brier, yet fair withal, and universally liked and respected; to his left, pale and nervous with the strain of waging a gallant but losing fight, sat young Harry Amory, assigned by the court as counsel for the accused; and just behind Carter, next to the prisoner, as the parties most in interest, sat Gordon, Harrison, and Ethel Mason, the girl clothed in somber black, Gordon with a band of crape on his left arm.

The judge cleared his throat. "Counsel for the prosecution?" he said inquiringly, and Carter started to his feet. "Ready, your Honor," he replied, and the judge nodded. "You may proceed," he said.

Tall, erect, dignified, Carter stood waiting for just the moment of time necessary to have fixed upon him every eye in the court room. Then, turning to the judge, he bowed. "May it please your Honor," he said respectfully, and then turned squarely face to face with the twelve jurymen.

"Mr. Foreman and gentlemen of the jury," he began, his tone earnest but agreeably informal and conversational, "before the brief summing up which I wish to make, there are two preliminary matters of which in a word I desire to dispose. First, I wish to compliment the members of the jury on the careful and conscientious manner in which they have listened now for three long days to the evidence in the case before them. I wish to say that I, for one, thoroughly appreciate the way in which they have attended to this branch of their duty, and I wish further to say that I shall leave the decision in this case to them with the greatest possible willingness and confidence, and that the summing up which it now becomes my duty to make will, in justice to them, be as brief as is possibly consistent with the grave importance of the issue involved.

"And secondly, I wish to say a word concerning the unfair prejudice—a prejudice, while in a way perfectly natural, still, as I say, distinctly unfair—which exists in the minds of many persons against the prosecuting officer in a case like the present. One who occupies a position such as mine, in a capital case where public interest is thoroughly aroused and public sentiment runs high, is not infrequently, as he brings forward evidence and argument to show that one of his fellow-beings should properly be condemned to death, regarded with a feeling akin to horror. In the ten years during which I have filled the office of district attorney for the county of Seneca, I have had the real sorrow of hearing myself referred to as a butcher, as a murderer, as a man who has delighted in his opportunities of sending unfortunates to the gallows. Now, Mr. Foreman and gentlemen of the jury, not so much in justice to myself, although that, too, is perhaps a perfectly natural desire, but rather in justice to the high and worthy office which I have the honor to hold, I wish it to be perfectly clear to you gentlemen that neither I nor any other prosecuting officer with a vestige of proper feeling and regard for the rights of mankind ever enters upon the conduct of a case like the present with any feeling other than a most earnest desire to see justice, absolute and final, done. If the accused in this case, after the hearing of the evidence and the arguments on either side, shall, upon the verdict of twelve good men and true, go forth again under God's pure sunlight, a free man, none will rejoice for him more heartily than I; if, on the other hand, you shall be satisfied that the accused is guilty of the crime with which he stands charged, and if upon your verdict he shall be sentenced to death, beyond the feeling of sorrow that I, together with every man in this court room, must share at the thought of a fellow-being paying the extreme penalty of the law, beyond and above that feeling, I say, is the more solemn thought that higher than the rights of any individual in the community, whether he be of high or low degree, stands the immutable law that first and before all else must be safeguarded and protected the rights of the town, the city, the county, the state and the nation; that unless safety of life, of liberty, of possessions, be made possible for our citizens, unless law and order be made to rank above deeds of violence committed in disregard of law, then the whole fabric of our nation must crumble, and the government of which we so proudly boast be reckoned little better than a mockery and a sham."

He paused for an instant, and then, simple, forceful, direct, began his final summing up.

"And now, Mr. Foreman and gentlemen of the jury," he continued, "briefly to review the facts in the case; briefly to summarize the evidence; briefly to outline the theory of the prosecution in regard to it. And first, the facts. On the seventeenth of December last, the bodies of James Mason, long a well-known and universally respected member of the town of Seneca, and of Miss Rose Ashton, the fiancée of Mr. Gordon, who has become well known to all of you since his residence here, and whom you heard yesterday upon the witness stand, were discovered by Mr. Harrison, James Mason's foreman, in the mine in which Mr. Mason had worked for so many years. Death in both cases had apparently been instantaneous, and had been produced by shooting, the medical examiner finding that both deaths had been caused by a bullet from a thirty-two caliber rifle or revolver.

"At the very outset it must be admitted that there is nothing in all the evidence which has been presented to you even savoring of direct proof as to how the deaths took place. It becomes necessary, therefore, to examine the case from the standpoint of what is commonly called circumstantial evidence, in order to see whether a chain can be constructed of sufficient strength properly to hold the man who has been brought before you, charged with the commission of the crime. And I shall not only not deny, but shall be the first to admit, what my learned brother in his closing argument will not fail to emphasize and reemphasize, that it is upon circumstantial evidence only that the case for the county must rest.

"First, then, we are faced with the very obvious fact that the deaths took place; of that there can be no question whatever. Next, going one step further, we come to the question involved in this trial: by whose hand was death inflicted? Could Mason have killed Miss Ashton and then shot himself, or even could Miss Ashton have killed Mason and then shot herself? In both cases the answer must be that such a supposition is not within the bounds of possibility. Not only can no possible motive be found, but on the evidence neither party had a weapon, and such a wild explanation of the case may be dismissed as soon as raised.

"The inquiry, therefore, unavoidably narrows down to the theory of murder. Murder by whom? The most exacting search has brought to light seven persons who were anywhere in the vicinity on the afternoon of December the seventeenth, or who were in any way connected with the events of that afternoon. These persons are Abe Peters, and his two helpers, Marston and Ferguson, Mr. Gordon, Jack Harrison, Ethel Mason, and the prisoner at the bar, William Hinckley. Proceeding on the theory of elimination, we find that in the case of the first six persons mentioned we have a complete alibi. Abe Peters and his helpers have testified that they were at work in their claim during the whole of the seventeenth. There is no shadow of evidence to the contrary; they were in one another's company during the entire day, and, furthermore, the friendly relations between these three men and Mason was matter of common knowledge throughout the county. Mr. Gordon, as he has testified, was obliged to go over the mountain on the day in question to transact some business with the superintendent of the Iroquois mine. Every moment of Mr. Gordon's time is accounted for; his testimony is absolutely straightforward and sincere, and, in addition, the bare idea of a man of Mr. Gordon's standing and character even dreaming of killing his friend and the young lady to whom he was engaged to be married is absolutely unthinkable. Jack Harrison, whose testimony is corroborated in every detail, has testified that he went to town on some errands for Miss Mason; and Miss Mason herself remained quietly at home, busied with her household duties, until, on Harrison's return, no word coming from the mine, they became alarmed, went to investigate, and discovered the tragedy that had been enacted.