Already the very quietness, the very certainty of that opening had impressed the court; and as, still quietly, yet with a hint of mounting passion behind it, the speech went on; as, point by point, counsel for the defense traversed the statements of counsel for the Crown, it seemed, even to the obtuse Spillcroft, as though the capital charge against Lucy Towers might fail.
"While as for the minor charge," continued Ronnie, "the charge of manslaughter--of which, as his lordship will tell you, even though it is not pleaded on the indictment, it will be open to you to find my client guilty--on that charge, too, I intend to ask you for the completest acquittal."
Brunton's stare relaxed. He hunched himself once more over his notes. And abruptly instinct, the instinct of the born advocate, warned Ronnie that he had spoken long enough. He glanced at the clock, at the jury. The jury--and especially the three women--were losing interest. Those women wanted neither argument nor oratory. They wanted drama. They were waiting, as spectators in a theater, for him to put Lucy Towers in the witness-box. So, abruptly, he regalvanized their interest.
"Members of the jury, my learned friend who leads for the Crown has been at great pains to convince you, out of the mouths of his witnesses, that Lucy Towers is both murderess and adulteress. I propose to afford him yet another opportunity of convincing you--by putting both my client and her cousin in the witness-box."
At that, the whole court stiffened to attention, and even the judge, who seemed to have been dozing throughout the speech, leaned forward. "Isn't he even going to deal with the evidence for the prosecution?" thought the judge.
But Ronnie purposely played his highest card last.
"Nevertheless, before you hear my client's story from her own lips, I must ask you to weigh very carefully certain evidence which the Crown has thought fit to call against her. With the testimony of John Hodges and of James Travers, honest testimony, let us hope, I shall deal at a later stage of these proceedings. But the evidence of Maggie Peterson calls for different treatment. Because Maggie Peterson has lied--and lied deliberately!
"Lied--and lied deliberately." Now, as passion mounted and mounted, kindling the quiet voice to rage, Brunton's head twitched from his brief, and his eyes, the cold gray eyes under the gray wig, glanced fearfully about the packed court-room.
"Because, on the night of July 4, the night when Maggie Peterson swears that she saw my client making her way to Robert Fielding's room, Maggie Peterson was not at 25 Laburnum Grove at all."
Ronnie paused, letting his every word sink home. Rain, pattering suddenly on the glass dome above, seemed to emphasize the silence below. Then passionately the speech ended. "My lord, members of the jury, I ask for no mercy. I ask only for justice. I ask you to remember, even while you are listening to my client's testimony, that the main evidence against her, the evidence of this woman Peterson is, from beginning to end, one tissue of deliberate lies, of the most wilful and corrupt perjury, as I shall prove to you out of the mouth of a competent witness, the landlord of the Red Lion Tavern, who will testify to you beyond the shadow of a doubt that from eight o'clock till after ten on the night of July 4, Maggie Peterson never left his establishment; who will testify, moreover, that Maggie Peterson's companion on the night in question was none other than my unfortunate client's husband, William Towers himself."