“Tall or short?”
“Short,” groaned out the sufferer, and, with that word, the breath of life departed from him.
This event, of course, put an immediate end to the inquiry. The fiscal and magistrate now retired to consult together regarding what was best to be done, and to consider the deposition of the murdered man. There was a certain pair of top boots present to the minds of both, but the wearer of them had hitherto borne an unblemished character, and was personally known to them both as a kindhearted, inoffensive man. Indeed, up to this hour, they would as soon have believed that the minister of the parish would commit a robbery as Mr Aikin—we say Mr Aikin, for we can no longer conceal the fact, that it was Mr Aikin’s boots, however reluctantly admitted, that flashed upon the minds of the two gentlemen of whom we are now speaking.
“The thing is impossible, incredible of such a man as Mr Aikin,” said the magistrate, in reply to the first open insinuation of the fiscal, although, in saying this, he said what was not in strict accordance with certain vague suspicions which had taken possession of his own mind.
“Why, I should say so too,” replied the officer of the law, “were I to judge by the character which he has hitherto borne; but here,” he said, holding up the deposition of the murdered man, “here are circumstances which we cannot be warranted in overlooking, let them implicate whom they may. There is in especial the top boots,” went on the fiscal; “now, there is not another pair within ten miles of us but Aikin’s; for Mr Davidson, the only man whom I know that wears them besides, is now in London. There is the personal description, too, exact. And besides all this, bailie,” continued the law officer, “you will recollect that Mr Aikin is and has been out of employment for the last six months; and there is no saying what a man who has a large family upon his hands will do in these circumstances.”
The bailie acknowledged the force of his colleague’s observations, but remarked, that, as it was a serious charge, it must be gone cautiously and warily about. “For it wad be,” he said, “rather a hard matter to hang a man upon nae ither evidence than a pair o’ tap boots.”
“Doubtless it would,” replied the fiscal; “but here is,” he said, “a concatenation of circumstances—a chain of evidence, so far as it goes, perfectly entire and connected. But,” he continued, as if to reconcile the bailie to the dangerous suspicion, “an alibi on the part o’ Mr Aikin will set a’ to rights, and blaw the hale charge awa, like peelin’s o’ ingans; and if he be an innocent man, bailie, he can hae nae difficulty in establishing an alibi.”
Not so fast, Mr Fiscal, not so fast, if you please; this alibi was not so easily established, or rather it could not be established at all. Most unfortunately for poor Aikin, it turned out, upon an inquiry which the official authorities thought it necessary to set on foot before proceeding to extremities—that is, before taking any decisive steps against the object of their suspicion—that he had been not only absent from his own house until a late hour of the night on which the murder and robbery were committed, but had actually been at that late hour on the very identical road on which it had taken place. The truth is, that Aikin had been dining with a friend who lived about a mile into the country, and, as it unfortunately happened, in the very direction in which the crime had been perpetrated. Still, could it not have been shown that no unnecessary time had elapsed between the moment of his leaving his friend’s house and his arrival at his own? Such a circumstance would surely have weighed something in his favour. So it would, probably; but alas! even this slender exculpatory incident could not be urged in his behalf; for the poor man, little dreaming of what was to happen, had drunk a tumbler or two more than enough, and had fallen asleep on the road. In short, the fiscal, considering all the circumstances of the case as they now stood, did not think it consistent with his duty either to delay proceedings longer against Aikin, or to maintain any further delicacy with regard to him. A report of the whole affair was made to the sheriff of Glasgow, who immediately ordered a warrant to be made out for the apprehension of Aikin. This instrument was given forthwith into the custody of two criminal officers, who set out directly in a post-chaise to execute their commission.
Arriving in the middle of the night, they found poor Aikin, wholly unconscious of the situation in which he stood, in bed and sound asleep. Having roused the unhappy man, and barely allowed him time to draw on his top boots, they hurried him into the chaise, and in little more than an hour thereafter, Aikin was fairly lodged in Glasgow jail, to stand his trial for murder and robbery, and this mainly, if not wholly, on the strength of his top boots.
The day of trial came. The judge summed up the evidence, and, in an eloquent speech, directed the special attention of the jury to Aikin’s top boots: indeed, on these he dwelt so much, and with such effect, that the jury returned a verdict of guilty against the prisoner at the bar, who accordingly received sentence of death, but was strongly recommended to mercy by the jury, as well on the ground of his previous good character, as on that of certain misgivings regarding the top boots, which a number of the jury could not help entertaining, in despite of their prominence in the evidence which was led against their unfortunate owner.