The Heart of a Mystery

by T. W. Speight

The year of waiting agreed upon between the two young people came to an end while John Brancker was awaiting his trial. Of course, at such a time any talk about love affairs was out of the question. By Frank the delay was hailed gladly, since it put off till a future time the necessity of arriving at a decision as to which he was still as far as ever from having made up his mind one way or the other. Far was he from suspecting that to Hermia the delay was a relief at least equal to that felt by himself.

It was a dark and anxious time for Edward Hazeldine. Knowing what he did, he felt bound to proclaim aloud his belief in John Brancker's innocence. There was no other course open to him, and for this reason it was that, without consulting anyone, he secured the services of Mr. Burgees, the eminent criminal advocate, for the defence.

It was indeed very bitter to him to think that he, who had always prided himself on his rigid sense of justice--one of the chief maxims of whose life had been to do unto others as he would have them do unto him--should allow an innocent man to be cast into prison and be too timid of soul to speak the word that would have set him free. But the day had now gone by for revealing to the world, except at the last extremity, that which his father's letter had told him. He had allowed the man to be brought in guilty by a coroner's jury, he had allowed him to be committed by the magistrates, he had, allowed him to linger through long, weary weeks in prison with an accusation the most terrible of all accusations hanging over his head, and yet he had not opened his lips. To do so now would be moral and social suicide. He had gone so far that to turn back would be worse than to go forward. He must take the risk, happen what might. If John Brancker were acquitted then might all yet be well, but should the verdict go against him, then--and only then--the dread secret must be told. Not for a thousand such secrets should an innocent man go to the gallows. After that, let ruin, hopeless and irremediable, be his portion.

[CHAPTER XIII.]

THE TRIAL.

The winter assizes at Dulminster were held early in December, so that John Brancker had not many weeks to lie in prison before being called upon to stand his trial for the murder of James Hazeldine. The grand jury found a true bill against the prisoner, and one crisp, sunny morning, John found himself in a sort of a pen in the centre of a densely crowded court, the one object on which several hundred pairs of curious eyes, some of them helped by opera-glasses, were focused. He was pale, but quite composed, and when called upon in the usual form to plead to the indictment, his low but emphatic "Not guilty" was clearly audible to everyone there.

His sister and his niece had been permitted to have an interview with him on the eve of the trial, and he had contrived to infuse into them some of the courage which he felt, or professed to feel, as to the morrow's result. They were staying with some friends in Close Street, and Clement Hazeldine, who had given his patients into the charge of a brother practitioner for a couple of days, had arranged to send them frequent messages from the Court during the progress of the trial. The prisoner's defence had been entrusted to the hands of the well-known Mr. Burgees, with whom was Mr. Timperly as junior. Mr. Mulgrave had been specially retained as counsel for the Crown.

It was none other than the murdered man's eldest son who had retained Mr. Burgees to defend the prisoner. This was a point which had been much commented upon by the good people of Ashdown, and one that had told strongly with them in John Brancker's favor. If a clear, hard-headed man of the world like Edward Hazeldine had such faith in his innocence, how would it be possible for any jury to bring him in guilty? Then again, was it not a well-known fact that the younger son, Clement, was a frequent visitor at Mr. Brancker's house, and among such of the wiseacres as made it their business to pry into every little matter in any way connected with the affair, there were not wanting whispers of an engagement between the young doctor and the accused man's niece. No, John Brancker must be an innocent man, they decided among themselves; and yet, on the face of it, the evidence against him seemed terribly conclusive, nor, so far as was known, had anything likely to shake it been brought to light since the date of the prisoner's committal. Strenuous efforts had been made to find the man and woman whom John stated that he had encountered, quarrelling fiercely, while on his way back from Strong's cottage, and one of whom, the woman, had flung a stone at him, which had contused his forehead. But nowhere could any traces of them be found, neither had the offer of a reward, if they would come forward and give evidence, been productive of any result.

On the morning of the trial Edward Hazeldine drove over to Dulminster in his dog-cart, and put up his horse at the "Eagle" Hotel, which is exactly opposite the Court-house. His intention had been to find a seat near the counsel for the defence, but he abandoned the idea at the last moment. Happening to look at himself in the glass he started at the sight of his haggard visage, and this morning his hands trembled so much that not for a hundred pounds could he have signed his own name. He felt that he could not face the ordeal of the Court, that he could not bear the scrutiny of the crowd of coldly-curious eyes which would focus themselves on him as being the eldest son of the murdered man. He hired a private room on the first floor overlooking the entrance to the Court, and arranged for a messenger to bring him half-hourly tidings of the progress of the trial; and there he sat throughout the day, with a decanter of brandy at his elbow, he who, under ordinary circumstances, was one of the most abstemious of men. He had his father's letter buttoned up in the breast-pocket of his coat. It was not expected that the trial would extend over more than one day, and he had arranged that the moment the jury brought in their verdict its purport should be made known to him. Then, if the fatal word "Guilty" were pronounced, he would at once rush across to the Court, and before the Judge would have had time to assume the black cap, he would proclaim to the world the innocence of the man at the bar. His fevered imagination rehearsed the scene again and again, always with some fresh features or added details, but always he seemed to see the horror that would creep into the eyes of that vast crowd as he told his tale word by word, and proclaimed himself for the vile coward that he was.

There was one other person, Ephraim Judd, to wit, who had also made up his mind that, should the prisoner at the bar be adjudged guilty, he must at once crave leave to speak, and to tell all present certain things which were known to himself alone, but which would go far towards proving the innocence of John Brancker. He must relate how he saw the prisoner leave the Bank, when the latter went to fetch his umbrella, within five minutes of the time he entered it. He must explain all about the blood-smears in the prisoner's drawer, and the marks on the floor. He must confess to what he saw when he looked through the fan-light over Mr. Hazeldine's office door. He was fully alive to the fact that to do this would be to effect his own ruin, he was quite aware that he ought to have told all he knew at the first examination before the Coroner; at that time he had been deterred from speaking by a fear of the consequences which would accrue to himself, but should the worst come to the worst, no such fear should hold him back to-day. Be the consequences to himself what they might, John Brancker must not be condemned to die, until he, Ephraim Judd, had told all that which he had till now so carefully hidden. It was in no enviable frame of mind that he walked down to the court on the morning of the trial.