The Love-Story of Aliette Brunton

by Gilbert Frankau

"The constable arrested both the man and the woman. He took them to Brixton police-station. There, Lucy Towers, entirely on her own initiative, made a clean breast of the whole business. Her confession, which you will hear, is--I shall submit--even without the other evidence in possession of the Crown, sufficient to merit the rope."

Now, pausing, Brunton grew aware of his enemy. His enemy was eying him, quietly, dispassionately. For a second his concentration failed. Then, pitiless, the deadly speech flowed on.

"Such, members of the jury, are the actual undeniable facts. The defense has entered a plea of not guilty. After you have heard my evidence--evidence which in my contention proves conclusively not only the commission of this dreadful crime, but its dreadful motive--it will be for you to decide, subject to his lordship's direction, the issue between us.

"And at this point, before I go into the question of motive, I purpose, with his lordship's permission, to give you a brief, a very brief summary of the legal definition of homicide. Our English law divides the crime of homicide into three classes: justifiable or excusable homicide, manslaughter, and murder. It is of this last that I shall ask you, after duly weighing my evidence, to convict Lucy Towers.

"Murder, let me tell you, has been very aptly defined in the few words, 'Murder is unlawful homicide with malice aforethought.' It is the existence of malice which distinguishes this crime from justifiable or excusable homicide and from manslaughter. In order, therefore, to prove to you that this woman murdered her husband, I must demonstrate, as I shall demonstrate, not only that she shot him down with a revolver--a fact which I again remind you is not in dispute--but that she shot him down in cold blood and with malice aforethought. That is to say, that she had actually planned to kill him before--long before--the fifth of July. On this point, quite apart from the point of motive, we have incontrovertible evidence."

Again Brunton paused, conscious of his opponent; again, actor-like, Brunton's part went on.

"Malice aforethought, as his lordship will direct you, entails motive. Now, what was this woman's motive? Why did she kill her husband? Had she, in killing him, some ulterior object? It is my contention," the voice rose, "that she had such an object; that this woman," one gentlemanly finger pointed accusingly at the dock, "when she killed William Towers, her wedded husband, had one object, and one object only in her mind--to free herself from him, to free herself at all and any cost. Why?

"Members of the jury, it will be my duty, my very painful duty, to answer that question by proving that this woman, this Lucy Towers, is not only a murderess but an adulteress; that she had a lover, an illicit lover--none other than Robert Fielding, the very man in whose room this crime, this atrocious crime, was committed. I think"--Brunton's eyes dropped to the brief in front of him, and he began turning over the pages of it--"that after I have read to you the confession, the voluntary confession of the prisoner, you will admit that not only the crime but its motive stands proved, and proved up to the hilt, out of her own mouth."

So far, Ronnie--chin propped on one hand, the other busy with his notes--had listened, unmoved, to his enemy's opening. But now, suddenly, as Brunton read out, emphasizing every word that might tell against her, his client's confession; as he guessed from the very looks of the jury, from the very way in which they craned forward from their box, how deep an impression those words were creating in their minds; his heart misgave him, and he glanced up, as though for confirmation of her innocence, at Lucy.

Lucy Towers was eying Brunton, not as the fascinated bird eyes the snake, but as the slandered eyes the slanderer. In the white of her cheeks, color came and went by fitful flashes. Her mouth kept opening and closing, as though to give Brunton the lie. Once, when the harsh voice mouthed the end of her confession, "I love Bob very much," she would have started to her feet had not the wardress placed a restraining hand on her arm.