‘John Lewis!’

A dark, big man stepped into the box, frowning heavily around him. The oath was administered, and then Mr. Pollard commenced in the approved style.

‘Your name is John Lewis, and you are now living at The Shrubbery, Porthstone?’

‘Yes.’

‘That’s where the murder was committed?’ interrupted the judge.

‘Yes, my lord. The witness inherited it under Miss Lewis’s will.’

The Judge: ‘Have you lived there ever since?’

Witness: ‘Yes, my lord.’

The Judge (after a pause, during which Mr. Pollard waits impatiently): ‘Go on, Mr. Pollard. What are you keeping us for?’

Mr. Pollard: ‘I beg your lordship’s pardon.’ To witness: ‘You are the nephew of the deceased, and have just returned from Australia?’

‘Yes; I came back to my aunt.’

‘After making some money out there, I believe?’

‘I object!’

This interruption, it need not be said, came from Tressamer. He had risen to his feet, and put on that scowl of scornful indignation with which an experienced counsel knows how to daunt a young beginner and make him feel he has committed himself.

‘My lord, my friend cannot prove that, and if he could it cannot possibly be evidence against the prisoner. It is a most improper question.’

The Judge looked a little puzzled.

‘It is irrelevant,’ he said, ‘and I won’t allow it if you object. In a case like this we can’t be too strict, of course.’

Mr. Pollard began to realize that greatness has its snares as well as its triumphs. He tried to get back on to the track.

‘You went to see the deceased on the first of June?’

‘I did.’

‘And you came away——’

Here the barrister’s brother leant over and handed him a slip of paper. He took it and read it, turned red, and, trying to appear as if he had not been prompted, put the question contained in the slip of paper:

‘Was anything said about the jewels?’

The judge stared. Tressamer started to his feet in a transport of fury.

‘My lord, my friend is deliberately leading the witness. In a case of murder it is disgraceful!’

‘I agree with you, Mr. Tressamer. Don’t answer that question, sir.’

Thus the judge. Poor young Pollard turned as red as the judge’s robe, and stammered out some apology. His brother mentally swore at him, and every solicitor in court resolved never to give him another brief.

‘Go on, Mr. Pollard; you mustn’t keep us waiting.’

The wretched young man gave a last look at his brief, and closed the examination.

‘And you left about ten o’clock?’

(‘Leading again!’ ejaculated his opponent.)

‘Yes. My lord, may I say——’

‘No!’ snapped the judge. ‘Say nothing unless you’re asked.’

The witness looked angry, and frowned savagely at his counsel. But the latter had now sat down, and the cross-examination was about to begin.

Tressamer had been studying the witness, with a view of ascertaining his weak point. This was evidently his temper. Accordingly he avoided irritating him till he had obtained as much as he could from him. He began:

‘Had you any other relatives living besides Miss Lewis?’

The witness was thoroughly thrown out. He could not see what was coming. In a sullen voice he responded:

‘Yes, I’ve a sister in the North.’

‘Did you go to see her before your aunt?’

‘No.—My lord, may I explain?’

The Judge: ‘You had better confine yourself to the questions now. You will have an opportunity of explaining afterwards.’

‘You went straight to your aunt. Was she pleased to see you?’

‘Yes, she seemed very pleased.’

‘And yet she let you stay at a hotel?’

‘That was only the first night. It was arranged that I was to occupy a bedroom in her house afterwards.’

‘Oh!’

Type cannot do justice to the peculiar intonation with which the barrister uttered this exclamation. The whole court was aroused to suspect something beneath the surface. Then he turned round to the jury with a mysterious expression, and slowly repeated the answer:

‘It was arranged that you were to occupy a room in her house after that night?’

The jury roused themselves for a grand effort, and succeeded in imparting a distinct air of suspicion to their countenances.

At last Mr. Lewis’s temper came into play. He cried out:

‘Yes; and if I had been there the first night, I might have prevented this murder.’

‘Silence, sir!’ said the Judge.

And now Tressamer brought out the question for which he had been preparing the way all along:

‘When this arrangement was made about your living in the house, did your aunt (remember you are on your oath, sir!)—did she happen—to—furnish—you—with—a—LATCHKEY?’

The effect was electrical. He had brought out the last words of the question slowly one by one, and then he suddenly hurled the final word at the witness like a weapon.

John Lewis instantly realized the situation. The question was tantamount to an accusation. The whole court took it in that sense, and gazed at him in deadly earnestness. He turned livid. For a moment he could hardly bring his lips to frame a syllable. At length he recovered his self-command, and thundered out:

‘No, sir. May God strike me dead if she did!’

The fierce earnestness of his denial produced a revulsion of feeling in the court. The jury felt that the counsel had been guilty of unfairness in making such a charge so suddenly, and, as it seemed, with such absence of grounds. The Judge was annoyed, too. Sir Daniel Buller hated sensationalism. In fact, he did not like anything which threw his own dignity into the shade. He liked to feel that he was in the star part, and that everybody else in court was merely playing up to his grand effects. He therefore refrained from rebuking the witness, and from this stage he showed himself less favourable to the counsel for the defence.

But Tressamer had anticipated something of this sort, and he had a card in reserve. He went on with his cross-examination as if nothing had happened.

‘You gave the prisoner into custody, I think?’

‘I did.’

‘You made up your mind that she was guilty, I suppose, without much thinking?’

‘I thought there was absolute proof of it.’

‘That’s what I mean. You were anxious that she should be convicted, were you not?’

‘I was anxious that she should be tried. I thought it my duty to see that this crime was punished.’

‘By the conviction of the prisoner?’

‘If she was guilty.’

‘But you felt sure she was guilty? You were the one to accuse her, you know.’

Mr. Lewis was getting irritated again. He made no answer to this suggestion, and the barrister forbore to press it, contenting himself with a meaning glance at the jury.

‘You were represented at the inquest, were you not, by Messrs. Pollard?’

‘Yes.’

‘The gentlemen who are now conducting this prosecution—nominally on behalf of the Crown?’ And with this parting shot he resumed his seat.

Young Pollard instantly rose.

‘My lord, the witness was anxious to explain one of his answers to my learned friend. Would your lordship allow him to do so now?’

‘Yes, yes,’ was his lordship’s answer.

The witness instantly took advantage of the permission.

‘I wished to say, my lord, that the reason why I went first to see my aunt, instead of going to my sister’s, was because she had befriended me when I was young. She furnished the money to start me with in Australia, and I felt it only right, in common gratitude, to come straight and thank her on my return.’

Another revulsion of feeling swept over the court. The effect of Tressamer’s last suggestion was obliterated. Lewis was once more in favour.

Pollard had scored. His brother twitched him by the gown from behind as a hint to sit down. But the unfortunate young man must needs try and improve on his lucky shot. He summoned up a very tragic demeanour, and put the fatal question:

‘And is there the smallest ground for suggesting that you were near the house or out of your hotel after ten that night?’

The witness showed confusion. Instead of answering in the prompt, decided style he had hitherto shown, he hesitated for some seconds, and then said with visible embarrassment:

‘No, there is none.’

Pollard hastily sat down. The rules which govern the production of evidence did not permit Tressamer to put a further question to the witness, but he was skilful enough to do what accomplished the same result. He called across the barristers’ table, in a perfectly audible voice:

‘Is anyone from the hotel here, Mr. Pollard?’

‘Not that I know of,’ was the sullen answer.

And now it was the judge’s turn, and he proceeded to put to the witness that question which was in the mind of every person in court, but which neither of the counsel had dared to put, each fearing the answer might be unfavourable to himself.

‘Tell me, Mr. Lewis, had you any special reasons—don’t tell me what your reasons were—but had you any reason apart from what you were told by others for accusing the prisoner of this murder?’

‘I had, my lord.’

‘Did that reason arise in your mind as a consequence of anything which you saw the prisoner do, or which took place in her presence?’

‘Not exactly, my lord. My aunt said to me——’

The judge swiftly raised his hand with a forbidding gesture, and pursed up his lips.

‘That will do. You can go.’

Mr. Lewis retired, and the jury were left to wonder what the mysterious reason could be, the result on most of their minds being far more unfavourable to the prisoner than if the rules of evidence had allowed the witness to speak freely.

The next witness was the butler, John Simons, who deposed to having fastened up the door at half-past ten on the night in question, and to having found the latch stuck on the following day. He further described the finding of the blood-stains on the bedroom door-handle. His cross-examination was listened to with interest.

‘Has it ever occurred to you yourself to accidentally raise the latch too far in the same way?’

‘Oh yes, I’ve often done it, sir.’

‘Were you out on the evening of the first of June?’

The butler, a good-natured-looking man, with a pleasant smile, but whose mind was evidently rather unhinged by the position he found himself in, looked bewildered at this, and rather frightened. The barrister hastened to reassure him.

‘What I mean is this. If you had been out some time during the evening, before half-past ten, would it not have been possible for you to have accidentally left the latch in this position?’

The witness looked relieved, and hastened to answer.

‘Yes, of course, I might have.’

Tressamer turned round to the jury to see if they appreciated his point. Then he resumed.

‘You have known Miss Owen some time, I think. Tell me, have you ever noticed that she was liable to nervous headaches?’

‘I have heard her say she had a headache.’

‘What was the last time you heard her say so?’

The witness looked puzzled, and seemed to be trying to remember.

‘Perhaps I can help you,’ said the barrister. ‘About this very time, now; just before this happened?’

‘Ah, yes, sir, now you remind me, I remember. When she didn’t come down that morning, I said to Rebecca, “Very likely she’s had another bad night.”’

‘Another bad night? Then she was liable to insomnia?’

The witness stared.

‘I beg your pardon. I mean, she sometimes did suffer from want of sleep?’

‘She sometimes had bad nights, sir.’

‘Exactly. And you remembered she had been having them just before this?’

‘Well, no, sir; I can’t say as I do remember that.’

The barrister frowned impatiently.

‘Well, tell me this,’ he said: ‘do you know what she was in the habit of doing on these occasions, when she couldn’t get to sleep?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Did you ever hear of her going out for a walk at night?’

The whole court was eagerly following this cross-examination, as the defence now began to be visible. But the answer of the witness fell like lead:

‘No.’

Tressamer looked deeply disappointed. He had been baffled just where he had evidently built upon success.

He only put one more question.

‘You had a good many opportunities of seeing your mistress and Miss Owen together. Did they always seem to you to be on friendly, affectionate terms?’

‘Yes, sir, always.’

‘Thank you.’

This finished the butler’s evidence, as Mr. Pollard wisely abstained from any re-examination.

He next proceeded to call the parlourmaid, Rebecca Rees.

A pretty, vain, pert-looking girl stepped into the box, and took hold of the Testament.

‘Take off your glove,’ said the clerk.

She did so with some difficulty, as the thing had about half a dozen buttons to unfasten. Then she was sworn and proceeded to tell her story.

In a shrill voice, which visibly irritated the judge, she went on, and described how she had gone to bed, how she awoke at midnight and heard a sound proceeding from below.

‘What was the nature of the sound?’ asked the counsel who was examining her.

‘It was a groan,’ was the reply, ‘like as if somebody was being hurt.’

The prisoner’s counsel here hurriedly turned over the pages of his brief till he came to a certain place, where he made a note in the margin.

‘What did you hear next?’

‘I heard the prisoner going downstairs.’

The Judge: ‘What do you mean? Could you see her?’

Witness: ‘No, sir. I heard her.’

Mr. Pollard: ‘She means she recognised the footsteps, my lord.’

The Judge: ‘Don’t interrupt me, please.’ (To witness) ‘Young woman, be careful. That is not the way to give evidence, as you know perfectly well. You mustn’t tell us that you heard the prisoner. You heard footsteps; that’s all.’ (A pause.) ‘Now, Mr. Pollard, you can go on.’

Mr. Pollard: ‘Did you recognise the footsteps?’

His lordship frowned and shrugged his shoulders.

Witness: ‘I thought it was Miss Owen.’

Mr. Pollard: ‘Well, now tell us what you did.’

The girl proceeded to describe how she had got up and gone down to the front-door.

‘How was it fastened?’ was the next question.

‘It was on the latch. The bolts were drawn back, and it wasn’t locked nor yet chained.’

‘Did you see whether the latch was up or down?’

‘I object!’

Mr. Tressamer had risen in a fresh burst of indignation.

‘My lord, my friend has distinctly suggested the answer to the witness. I object to her being allowed to say anything about the latch after such a question as that.’

‘I didn’t intend to lead her, my lord,’ said Pollard.

The judge hesitated for awhile between his natural desire to hear the answer and his fear that the witness was not wholly impartial. Perhaps a slight prejudice against Tressamer’s hectoring manner had something to do with his decision.

‘You should have asked her whether she noticed anything about the latch,’ he said at length. ‘Did you?’ he added, turning to the witness.

‘It was down, sir,’ she returned, answering Pollard’s question rather than the judge’s.

The importance of the answer was chiefly in its disposing of Tressamer’s suggestion that the butler might have forced the latch up. He turned round to the jury, and assumed the air of one who is being unfairly treated. But of course he could not help their seeing that the prosecution had scored a point.

Rebecca’s evidence was continued till she came to where she heard footsteps ascending the stairs.

‘How long was this afterwards?’ asked Pollard.

‘About ten minutes,’

‘Did you recognise those footsteps?’

‘No, I didn’t notice them; but I think they must have been Miss Owen’s, or else I should have noticed the difference.’

Tressamer ground his teeth. He was afraid to interrupt again, for fear of the effect on the minds of the jury. They are apt to think a man is losing when he interrupts too often.

‘What happened next?’

‘She went into the bedroom below.’

‘What bedroom?’

‘Her own, I suppose, or Miss Lewis’s.’

‘You couldn’t tell which?’

‘No.’

‘Well, and how long was the person, whoever it was, inside?’

‘About a quarter of an hour, I should think. I thought she had come in for good, and gone to bed.’

The Judge (suddenly looking up from his notes): ‘Look here, don’t let me have to stop you again, or I shall do something you won’t like. It’s not for you to tell us what you thought. Confine yourself to answering the questions.’

Mr. Pollard (thinking the judge has finished): ‘And then what did you——’

The Judge (superbly indifferent to Mr. Pollard): ‘Do you realize that you are giving evidence in a court of justice? You must be extremely careful—extremely careful.’ (A long pause; Mr. Pollard afraid to begin again.) ‘Well, do you ask her anything more?’

Mr. Pollard: ‘I beg your lordship’s pardon. If your lordship pleases.’ (To witness) ‘After the quarter of an hour, did you hear anything more?’

Witness (now thoroughly frightened): ‘Yes.’

‘What did you hear?’

‘I heard her come out.’

At this point the judge threw down his pen, and threw himself back in his chair. Mr. Pollard hastened to take off the edge of his lordship’s wrath by reprimanding the witness himself.

‘You mustn’t tell us that. You don’t know it was the prisoner. What was it you actually heard?’

The girl now felt and looked ready to resort to tears. She really did not know what answer was safe, and prudently adopted a strictly non-committal form.

‘I heard a noise below.’

‘What was the noise like?’

‘Like someone going downstairs.’

‘Well, why didn’t you say that? You heard footsteps going down?’

‘Yes.’

The judge took up his pen again and took down the answer.

‘And did you notice the footsteps this time?’

‘Yes; they were——’

‘Stop! Not so fast. Answer my questions.’

Mr. Pollard was by this time little less nervous than the witness. He was really utterly at a loss how to frame his next question without incurring Tressamer’s wrath or the rebuke of the Bench. At last he blurted out:

‘Was there anything different about the footsteps this time?’

Tressamer opened his mouth, but the judge was before him this time:

‘Don’t answer. Really, Mr. Pollard, you are as bad as the witness. You know you ought not to put a question like that.’ Then, seeing that the poor young man was quite unequal to extracting the desired evidence, his lordship quietly took over the examination himself:

‘Did you notice the footsteps this time when they were going downstairs?’

‘Yes, sir—my lord.’

‘Did anything strike you about them?’

‘Yes, my lord.’

‘What?’

‘They were heavier, sir, and thumpy.’

‘Had you ever heard anything like it before? I mean, did they or did they not sound familiar in spite of this heaviness?’

‘No, my lord; I don’t remember.’

‘Did you go downstairs again?’

‘No, sir.’

The judge turned round to the jury with complacency, and smiled as if to say, ‘You see, gentlemen, how it can be done by one who knows how.’ Then he asked the counsel:

‘Now, Mr. Pollard, do you want anything more from this witness?’

‘No, my lord, thank you.’

He sat down, feeling considerably the worse for his experience, and Tressamer got up.

He looked severely at the young woman for some seconds, and then suddenly asked her:

‘Why do you dislike Miss Owen?’

At once the court was all ears. It was one of those strokes of brilliant advocacy which few men care to venture on. It was dangerous, but in the present case it was completely successful. The witness lost countenance, stammered, and with difficulty got out a lame denial.

‘I don’t dislike her particular.’

‘Do you like her?’

‘No.’

‘Did you ever have any complaint against her when you were her servant?’ (He intentionally chose a phrase calculated to irritate.)

‘I wasn’t her servant,’ was the angry reply. ‘I should be very sorry to be.’

‘I thought so. Tell me, you said to my learned friend that the first sound you heard on this night was like somebody being hurt, didn’t you?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘When did you discover that?’

‘When did I discover that?’

‘Yes, woman; don’t echo me like that. You know what I mean.’

‘I thought so at the time.’

‘What!’ The barrister assumed an expression of amaze.

‘I thought so all along.’

‘Then why didn’t you say so all along? When you were before the magistrates, did you say anything about somebody being hurt?’

‘Yes, I think so.’

‘You think so! Remember you are on your oath, please, and that I have a copy before me of what you actually did say before the magistrates. When you were before them, did you say a syllable about a sound as if somebody were being hurt?’

‘I don’t know whether I did or not.’

‘I thought so. Did you tell the magistrate that you thought it was the sound of someone in troubled sleep?’ Here the barrister read from his brief.

‘Yes, sir.’

‘And that you thought’—here he turned over the page at which he was looking and glanced at the top of the next, so as to give the impression that he was still reading her exact words—‘that the sound came from Miss Owen’s room?’

The witness fell into the trap.

‘I dare say I did,’ she answered.

The judge was equally taken in. He had read the depositions, but had not remembered their contents clearly enough to check the barrister. Tressamer went to another point.

Taking out his watch, he said:

‘I want to test your notion of ten minutes. Will you turn round, with your back to the clock, and tell me when one minute has passed, after I have said the word “Now.”’

All the jurymen and most of the other persons in court took out their watches to check this experiment. The girl turned round, and Tressamer gave the word, ‘Now!’

‘Tick—tick—tick—tick—tick——’

‘Now!’ said the witness, turning quickly round.

A general smile passed over the court.

‘Seventeen seconds exactly, my lord,’ observed Tressamer. ‘The witness’s ten minutes may therefore be put down as three. You have told his lordship that the last set of footsteps you heard sounded heavy when they went downstairs. Will you swear that they did not sound equally heavy coming up?’

‘I didn’t notice.’

‘I didn’t ask you if you had noticed. Don’t try and shirk my question, please. Will you pledge your oath that they weren’t equally heavy coming upstairs?’

‘No, I won’t swear it.’

‘Have you any reason, except your dislike of the prisoner, for suggesting that those footsteps were hers?’

The judge interposed.

‘Really, Mr. Tressamer, you mustn’t put it like that. She says that she didn’t dislike the prisoner, and you must take her answer. I allow great latitude to counsel in your situation, but you must treat the witness fairly.’

‘As your lordship pleases.’

Tressamer sat down, rather glad to leave his question unanswered, as the effect thereby produced on the jury’s mind would be better than if the witness had had a chance of offering her grounds for suspicion.

‘Lucy Griffiths.’

This was the housemaid, and her evidence contained nothing of importance. In cross-examination she admitted that she had detected no likeness between the descending footsteps heard by her and Miss Owen’s. In fact, she had at first thought they sounded like a man’s.

The next witness was the fisherman, who stated to Mr. Pollard that he had met a female about midnight on the eventful first of June, whom he at the time believed to be the prisoner. He thought so still.

His cross-examination elicited two facts: First, that he had once met Miss Owen at the same late hour before; secondly, that he had met other persons going in the same direction the same night at or about the same time.

Tressamer chose to emphasize this point.

‘Could you tell those gentlemen,’ he said, indicating the jury, who instantly tried to look as if they had been attending, and had not long ago given up the task in despair, ‘what the other people were like whom you saw?’

‘Well, one of them was a man.’

‘Come, that’s something; but it’s not much. Can’t you tell us what sort of a man? Was he tall?’

The jury instantly looked at Lewis.

‘No; I didn’t notice as how he was particular tall. Middlin’ short, I should say.’

‘About my height?’

‘Yes; about that. Summat about your size.’

Tressamer laughed, and a smile went round the court at the serious way in which the witness gave his answer.

‘Well, who else did you see?’

‘I see another man afore then.’

‘Ah! Was he tall?’

‘Why, yes; I think he was.’

The jury again looked at Lewis. But that gentleman’s face revealed no emotion, except a sort of sullen wrath which had overhung it ever since his appearance in the witness-box.

At last, when all the other witnesses had been disposed of, the policeman was called and gave the usual routine evidence.

Mr. Pollard was rash enough to ask him:

‘Who came to the station to inform the police?’

But his opponent at once objected, and the judge ruled the question out. Mr. Lewis’s indignant declaration, therefore, which Prescott had struck out of his brief with such prompt disdain, fared equally ill in court, and was not allowed to get to the ear of the judge or jury.

At last the evidence was gone through, and then the prosecuting counsel stood up and made the final announcement:

‘That is the case for the Crown, my lord.’

‘I will adjourn for half an hour,’ observed the judge, getting on his feet.

The whole court rose with him, and in a few minutes the entire place was empty.