Lord Verner entered the room opportunely at this moment, with his lawyer from Brazencrook, and followed by reporters from the adjacent towns, where the news of a “Dreadful Murder in the Old Ruin of Montem Castle” had already supplied materials for sundry second editions of sundry newspapers. There is no more startling illustration of the rapid rate at which we live in these times than that afforded by the chronicles of our daily history. The other day, we were grubbing over the files of an old newspaper which was published weekly, coming out on Saturdays at noon with a foolscap sheet of postal news and rumours, a few advertisements, and sundry marriages and deaths; it was the leading journal of a great city—a city divided by a river, upon which vessels came and went on their way to America and the East Indies, and other distant countries. In this Saturday’s paper we came across a paragraph of local news, to the effect that “We hear that a dreadful murder was committed in Bedminster, on Wednesday evening;” then followed two or three lines indicating the manner of the murdered man’s death; and this was all the information considered necessary for the reader. Bedminster was really a portion of the city in which the journal was published, and in the present day that same paper would, between the time of the murder and the Saturday publication, have reported the fullest details of the crime, with a description of the scene of the murder, the antecedents of the dead man, a full report of the inquest and finding of the jury, and, supposing the criminal captured, a full report of the examination before the magistrates, and committal, occupying in the narration of this one case as much type and paper (to say nothing of writers and printers) as would have published the old journal for several weeks.
Thus the local newspapers of Severntown, and Brazencrook, and Avonworth, gave the whole district the speediest and fullest information relating to the tragedy, with an eloquent and graphic sketch of the scene by that smart gentleman who “did” the Verner marriage with the prayer-book service in it.
They told how Lord Verner was the first witness examined, and how his solicitor, Montagu Masters, Esq. (of the firm of Masters & Filmer of Brazencrook), watched the proceedings in the interests of the family. They repeated that story of the deceased’s arrival and his going out to walk, which is already fully known to our readers. Then they gave the evidence of Jones the groom, and finally the somewhat remarkable statement of Lionel Hammerton, which was the most interesting portion of the inquiry, seeing that the coroner cautioned the Captain in unusually solemn terms that what he said would be taken down in writing, and as he was unfortunately with the deceased when Jones came up, that circumstance might possibly prove inconvenient and troublesome to him, to say the least.
Mr. Montagu Masters had quite a battle royal over this point with the coroner; but her Majesty’s representative finally put the lawyer down by intimating that he was only permitted to be present in this court by courtesy, and that he (the coroner) would conduct this inquiry in his own way.
This most effectually prejudiced the minds of the jury against Lionel Hammerton, who certainly gave his evidence in a hesitating and dubious manner, which seemed fully to justify the suspicion of the police that he had murdered the deceased.
In the midst of Lionel’s examination the groom was recalled.
“How long after the Captain gave you his horse was it that you heard the noise which induced you to go to the ruin?”
“About a quarter of an hour,” was the reply.
“Did the Captain go straight in that direction when he left the stable yard?”
“He went the shortest road.”