“Hold! I desire to give evidence.”
A tall, bold-looking seafarer stepped up, and was sworn.
“I have but this moment returned from a cruise around Africa,” he said. “I am bo’s’n’s mate in H.M.S. Hurricane. We have been out for three years. But, my lord, I have some of the notes here that the Bank of Scotland can prove were paid to Craig Nicol, and on the very day after the murder must have taken place I received these notes, for value given, from the hands of Sandie yonder, usually called Shufflin’ Sandie. I knew nothing about the murder then, nor until the ship was paid off; but being hurried away, I had no time to cash the paper, and here are three of them now, my lord.” They were handed to the jury. “They were smeared with blood when I got them. Sandie laughed when I pointed this out to him. He said that he had cut his finger, but that the blood would bring me luck.” (Great sensation in court.)
Sandie was at once recalled to the witness-box. His knees trembled so that he had to be supported. His voice shook, and his face was pale to ghastliness.
“Where did you obtain those notes?” said the judge sternly.
For a moment emotion choked the wretch’s utterance. But he found words at last.
“Oh, my lord my lord, I alone am the murderer! I killed one man—Craig Nicol—I cannot let another die for my crime! I wanted money, my lord, to help to pay for my new house, and set me up in life, and I dodged Nicol for miles. I found Mr Grahame asleep under a hedge, and I stole the stocking knife and left it near the man I had murdered. When I returned to the sleeping man, I had with me—oh, awful!—some of the blood of my victim that I had caught in a tiny bottle as it flowed from his side,”—murmurs of horror—“and with this I smeared Grahame’s hands.”
Here Sandie collapsed in a dead faint, and was borne from the court.
“Gentlemen of the jury,” said the judge, “this evidence and confession puts an entirely new complexion on this terrible case. The man who has just fainted is undoubtedly the murderer.” The jury agreed. “The present prisoner is discharged, but must appear to-morrow, when the wretched dwarf shall take his place in the dock.”
And so it was. Even the bloodstained clothes that Sandie had worn on the night of the murder had been found. The jury returned a verdict of guilty against him without even leaving the box. The judge assumed the black cap, and amidst a silence that could be felt, condemned him to death.