Alfred appeared. He was aware that a great portion of those present must be persons well known to him. He had no reason to shrink from the scrutinizing gaze of any one. With quiet dignity, therefore, on his first entrance, he looked all round the court, and few were found who had callousness to resist his mild, calm, clear eye, the expression of which was rather an appeal to the better feelings of humanity than that angry defiance of his accusers, which his circumstances might have almost justified; and which, perhaps, even he would have experienced, had not solemn and tender regret for the fact itself of his brother's untimely death, softened and subdued his feelings. Such was the immediate effect, both of his countenance and his noble bearing in every respect, as far removed from guilty hardness as from guilty fear, that many who had on hearsay condemned now in their hearts acquitted him.
We speak chiefly of the impression made on persons in Sir Alfred's own sphere in life; that, however, which was produced upon a much larger body, the respectable yeomanry of the county, and tradesmen of the town, was in general very different. Among these a doctrine had been artfully promulgated, which though in itself perfectly just, was in this instance, well calculated to prejudice the judgment, namely, that if gentlemen will commit crimes worthy of ignominious punishment it is the duty of those in whose hands the administration of justice is entrusted, to show them that there is not one law for the rich and another for the poor. It is not because a gentleman can get ninety thousand a-year by murdering his brother that he is to be allowed to do so with impunity, when a poor man, who sees his wife and children starving and steals a sheep to feed them, must be hanged!
This popular proposition, in the abstract so perfectly just, Fips had at the very first given out, as a sort of text to preach from, to one or two vulgar, vehement, levelling friends of his own; and from that moment affected himself, as became the attorney who was to conduct the prosecution, the most prudent taciturnity possible.
Possessed, then, with these abstract ideas, and doggedly determined to apply them in the present case, the class of persons alluded to saw in the beautiful serenity of our hero's aspect no better feeling than a confidence, which they were determined to show him was ill-founded, that his rank in life was almost a guarantee against his suffering the extremity of the law.
The indictment was now read aloud, and poor Alfred heard himself accused, with awful solemnity, of the wilful murder of his brother, Sir Willoughby Arden, by maliciously and feloniously administering to him a certain portion of arsenic, in some wine and water. The prisoner, of course, pleaded not guilty; and the counsel for the prosecution, abstaining from opening the case by a speech to the jury, proceeded to call and examine witnesses. The first of these were the servants who had been hastily called into the room by Alfred when Sir Willoughby was dying. They swore to the deceased being insensible, and in convulsions when they entered the room, to his having been apparently in perfect health at and after dinner; to Alfred's having, in his first alarm, called aloud for antidotes against poison, naming arsenic in particular. Dr. Harman was next examined. He proved, that at the time he arrived Sir Willoughby was quite dead; that he believed his death to have been occasioned by poison—that poison arsenic. He then under-went a tedious cross-examination, as to the tests of arsenic. He had made poisons much his study. He had attended the opening of the body. The state of the stomach denoted the presence of some corrosive stimulant. Arsenic is a corrosive stimulant. He had applied to the contents of the stomach several tests, such as sulphate of copper, ammoniacal sulphate of copper, nitrate of silver; ammoniacal nitrate of silver; and sulphuretted hydrogen gas; the results of all denoted the presence of arsenic; there was an immense precipitate of arsenic, quite enough to kill a man. Being asked, had not every test which had been tried for the last century and half been said to be fallacious, he replied, that if this were true of the tests separately, yet, when the results of three were uniform, no chemist could have a doubt, but that he had also had recourse to the infallible test of reduction, by which he had obtained crystals of white arsenic. Had he not said that a fit might have been attended by similar symptoms? He had. What, then, had confirmed him in his belief, that the deceased had died by the effects of poison? Inward appearances, on the body being opened, and an examination of the contents of the stomach.
Parts of this gentleman's evidence were supported by that of several other medical men.
Some judiciously put questions then drew from the reluctant Doctor the fact of Alfred's attempt to rinse the glass, in which a sediment of arsenic was subsequently found, and his having, when the Doctor interfered, made no attempt to explain conduct so extraordinary. On this, a kind of murmur passed round the court; almost every face looked shocked, and many shook their heads, as though they had whispered their next neighbour, "He must, I fear, be guilty!"
The conviction was still stronger, and the horror still greater, when Dr. Harman, so evidently an unwilling witness, literally compelled by stern justice to dole out that portion of the sad truth each question extracted from him; when he, with a solemn voice, a cheek pale with emotion, and a moistened eye, described the time and manner, when, as the prisoner was in the act of bending forward, he had distinctly seen glide from within the breast of his waistcoat and fall to the ground, a piece of paper marked poison, and which was found, on being lifted up, to contain among its folds a few remaining grains of arsenic. He here produced, being called on so to do, the piece of paper described. The packet of arsenic being missed on the morning after Sir Willoughby's death, from where it had lain on the previous day, was next proved by several servants. That the prisoner knew where it lay was also proved. The groom then swore to having seen the prisoner coming alone from the saddle-room (a place he was not in the habit of frequenting) with a similar packet in his hand. Next was proved the subsequent finding of a packet of arsenic by the Coroner, in a locked escritoire of the prisoner's, and of which the prisoner kept the keys about his person. The packet of arsenic was now produced in court, and identified on oath by several servants. The piece of paper which Dr. Harman had seen fall from within the waistcoat of the prisoner, was here shown to the Judge, and handed from one to another of the Jury, together with the packet, from the outer covering of which, it was evident to all eyes, that the smaller piece had been torn, apparently as the readiest vehicle which offered, for carrying away a portion of the poison. The reluctance of the prisoner to permit the body of the deceased to be opened, was proved by several medical gentlemen, as well as by other persons his not, in short, yielding this point till compelled so to do by the authority of the Coroner.
The servants of the house, and such persons as had seen Sir Willoughby since his return to Arden were next strictly examined, and cross-examined, respecting his health, spirits, and sanity. All swore without hesitation, that up to the last moment on which each had held communication with him he had been in good health, in excellent spirits, and perfectly sane. The elderly squire, who, it may be remembered, had met the brothers out riding, on the day of the evening on which the death of Sir Willoughby took place, having chanced, when the sudden demise became known, to mention the meeting, together with the nature of the conversation which had passed, Mr. Fips in his diligence and zeal had made him out and sent him a subpœna.
This gentleman was next examined, and his evidence proved that Sir Willoughby, a few hours before his death had been in high health and spirits, and had spoken freely of his intended marriage and projected tour. This seemed conclusive. After hearing such evidence from a respectable and disinterested witness, it appeared quite impossible to believe that Sir Willoughby, a few hours subsequent to this conversation, should have sought to put a period to his own existence. Many persons were questioned as to whether the prisoner had expressed any doubt of the sanity of his brother, or any suspicion of his having taken poison, previous to the time of the accusation of his having administered the poison to his brother, having been brought home to himself on the coroner's inquest; no one had heard him express an opinion of the kind before the time alluded to, except indeed any inference might be drawn of a secret knowledge that poison had been taken or administered, from his having, in the first moments of confusion, called anxiously for antidotes against the effects of arsenic. The counsel for the prosecution argued, that this told against the prisoner. It proved a guilty knowledge of the fact, that arsenic had been swallowed. A feeling of remorse seemed to have induced the effort to save his brother's life, even at the risk of exposure; but no sooner was Sir Willoughby dead, than the prisoner makes every effort to conceal that poison had been taken. For the acuteness of this remark, the counsel was indebted to a marginal note annexed to his brief by Mr. Fips. As a matter of form, persons were next examined as to the amount of the property to which the prisoner, by the death of his brother became sole heir.