CHAPTER XIII
AN IMPORTANT MURDER TRIAL
Amongst the murder trials on the "Calendar of Prisoners" appeared "No 38; Madar Lal Dhingra, 25, Student, wilful murder of Sir William Hutt Curzon Wyllie and Dr. Cowas Lalcaca." This referred to the cowardly assassination of an English gentleman who had devoted his life to Indian administration and to benefiting the native races of that country, and to the murder of an Indian doctor, who lost his life in an effort to save him. The tragedy, the news of which had profoundly shocked the world less than three weeks before, occurred during an evening reception at the Imperial Institute. The prisoner, a fanatical Indian student, was believed to have borne no personal animosity to his victim.
No one knew exactly when the case would be reached, but it had been expected for several days when, one morning, the Old Bailey, in view of a possible disturbance by Indian sympathizers, was found to be carefully guarded by detectives. Except a small audience admitted by cards which were doubtless hard to procure and not transferable, the public, clamoring at the doors, were excluded from the Court, although one American lady, who appeared in one of the back seats, seemed to have had information and influence necessary to gain an entrée.
The barristers' benches, however, were so full that there was an unusual array of bewigged heads on that side of the court. The jury, already in place, and the small audience, waited in quiet but tense expectation. While one was idly noting the usual dried herbs and rose leaves on the desks and carpet of the judges' dais, the Lord Chief Justice seated himself and rolled his chair forward, a shaft of soft sun rays from the skylight accentuating his scarlet robe. The sheriffs bowed and took their seats at the side, and Dhingra's name was called.
Into the dock at the far end of the room popped the prisoner, guarded by two imperturbable policemen. He was a little, yellow youth with a Semitic or Oriental countenance, silky black hair much dishevelled and badly in need of the scissors, and eyes, so far as they were discernible under his gold-rimmed spectacles, of glittering black. He wore an ordinary gray suit and stood with his right hand thrust into the breast of his coat, suggesting that he had concealed there some weapon or, perhaps, poison; but of course he had long since been disarmed and under careful guard. His was a meagre figure, by no means conveying to an observer his own conceited estimate of his personality. When he spoke, though posing as a hero and martyr, he revealed only a sullen, sulky and venomous disposition and the ferocity of his character was attested by the premeditated and treacherous murder which he had committed.
The Clerk of Arraigns having asked whether the prisoner pleaded guilty or not guilty, his reply was at first not understood because of his broken English and his quick, spasmodic utterance. So his answer had to be repeated, as follows: