So when I entered the court this time I presented the usher with a sovereign for a seat on the bench. I had a seat on the bench--quite in the shade.
The place was, if anything, more crowded than ever. It was understood that the trial was to conclude in the course of the day. Perhaps that proved an extra attraction. Anyhow, we were uncomfortably crowded on the bench, and the court, everywhere, was as full as it could hold. I wondered how much--in a theatrical sense--the house was worth to a some one--say the usher.
The judge came in. Then Tommy. They let him have a chair. I had a good look at him. He badly wanted shaving; there was a month's growth of hair upon his cheeks and chin. But he looked better than I expected--and braver. His wife sat in front of him, as she had done the day before. She turned as he came in, and greeted him with a smile. Such a brave one! Without a suspicion of a tear! He smiled back at her.
Poor dears! Their smiling days were nearly done.
When he was seated and had recovered from the excitement of his entry, after all, the expression began to creep into his face, which I had expected to see there all along. The expression of stupor, of mental paralysis, of shame, of horror at the position in which he found himself, and at the things which were to come.
Poor, dear Tommy! He looked to me as if there was no fight left in him.
I need not have feared his recognition. He never looked at any one. He just glanced now and then at his wife, and every time he did so there came into his face a something which was a curious commingling of pleasure with pain. But, with the exception of Mrs. Tennant, I doubt if he clearly realised the personality of any other creature there.
The first witness called was a man named Stephen Rodman. He said he was a "tapper," which, I suppose, had something to do with railway work, though I don't know what. Early on the morning of Monday, November 9th, he was walking in the six-foot way of the arrival platform of Victoria Station. He saw a handkerchief lying on the ground. He picked it up. It was soaked with blood, and was still damp. In the corner was a name, "T. Tennant." The 8.40 from Brighton had been drawn up at that platform the night before. Sir Haselton Jardine's colleague, who was examining, handed witness a handkerchief--still unwashed. That was the one he found.
Jane Parsons followed, actually the girl who had been in Mrs. Tennant's service and who had applied for my situation. Certainly the prosecution were fitting the rope round Tommy's neck, as if they did not mean to leave him a loophole of escape. I wondered what she had to say.
Not much. She began by showing an inclination to cry, which inclination she presently gave way to. The tears trickled down her cheeks. She kept dabbling at them with a handkerchief, which she had squeezed into the shape and size of a penny ball.