The trail of the serpent
There lay before the prisoner a few sprigs of rue; he took them up one
by one, and gathering them together into a little bouquet, placed them
in his button-hole--the eyes of the multitude staring at him all the
time.
Strange to say, this trifling action appeared to be so pleasing to Mr.
Joseph Peters, that he danced, as involuntarily, the first steps of an
extempore hornpipe, and being sharply called to order by the officials,
relapsed into insignificance for the remainder of the trial.
CHAPTER IX.
“MAD, GENTLEMEN OF THE JURY.”
THE first witness called was Richard’s mother. From one to another
amidst the immense number of persons in that well-packed court-room
there ran a murmur of compassion for that helpless woman with the
white, anguish-worn face, and the quivering lip which tried so vainly
to be still. All in Slopperton who knew anything of Mrs. Marwood, knew
her to be a proud woman; they knew how silently she had borne the wild
conduct of her son; how deeply she had loved that son; and they could
guess now the depth of the bitterness of her soul when called upon to
utter words which must help to condemn him.
After the witness had been duly sworn, the counsel for the prosecution
addressed her thus:
“We have every wish, madam, to spare your feelings; I know there is not
one individual present who does not sympathize with you in the position
in which you now stand. But the course of Justice is as inevitable
as it is sometimes painful, and we must all of us yield to its stern
necessities. You will be pleased to state how long it is since your son
left his home?”
“Seven years--seven years last August.”
“Can you also state his reasons for leaving his home?”
“He had embarrassments in Slopperton--debts, which I have since his
departure liquidated.”
“Can you tell me what species of debts?”
“They were--” she hesitated a little, “chiefly debts of honour.”
“Then am I to understand your son was a gambler?”
“He was unfortunately much addicted to cards.”
“To any other description of gambling?”
“Yes, to betting on the events of the turf.”
“He had fallen, I imagine, into bad companionship?”
She bowed her head, and in a faltering voice replied, “He had.”
“And he had acquired in Slopperton the reputation of being a scamp--a
ne’er-do-well?”
“I am afraid he had.”
“We will not press you further on this very painful subject; we will
proceed to his departure from home. Your son gave you no intimation of
his intention of leaving Slopperton?”
“None whatever. The last words he said to me were, that he was sorry
for the past, but that he had started on a bad road, and must go on to
the end.”
In this manner the examination proceeded, the account of the discovery
of the murder being elicited from the witness, whose horror at having
to give the details was exceedingly painful to behold.
The prisoner’s counsel rose and addressed Mrs. Marwood.
“In examining you, madam, my learned friend has not asked you whether
you had looked upon your son, the prisoner at the bar, as a good or
a bad son. Will you be kind enough to state your impression on this
subject?”
“Apart from his wild conduct, he was a good son. He was kind and
affectionate, and I believe it was his regret for the grief his
dissipation had caused me that drove him away from his home.”
“He was kind and affectionate. I am to understand, then, that his
disposition was naturally good?”
“Naturally he had a most excellent disposition. He was universally
beloved as a boy; the servants were excessively attached to him; he had
a great love of animals--dogs followed him instinctively, as I believe
they always do follow people who like them.”
“A very interesting trait, no doubt, in the prisoner’s disposition; but
if we are to have so much charmingly minute description, I’m afraid
we shall never conclude this trial,” said the opposite counsel. And a
juryman, who had a ticket for a public dinner at four o’clock in his
pocket, forgot himself so far that he applauded with the heels of his
boots.
The prisoner’s counsel, regardless of the observation of his “learned
friend,” proceeded.
“Madam,” he said, “had your son, before his departure from home, any
serious illness?”
“The question is irrelevant,” said the judge.
“Pardon me, my lord. I shall not detain you long. I believe the
question to be of importance. Permit me to proceed.”
Mrs. Marwood looked surprised by the question, but it came from her
son’s advocate, and she did her best to answer it.
“My son had, shortly before his leaving home, a violent attack of
brain-fever.”
“During which he was delirious?”
“Everybody is delirious in brain-fever,” said the judge. “This is
trifling with the court, sir.”
The judge was rather inclined to snub the prisoner’s counsel; first,
because he was a young and struggling man, and therefore ought to be
snubbed; and secondly, because he had in a manner inferred that his
lordship was deaf.
“Pardon me, my lord; you will see the drift of my question by-and-by.”
“I hope so, sir,” said his lordship, very testily.
“Was your son, madam, delirious during this fever?”
“Throughout it, sir.”
“And you attributed the fever----”
“To his bad conduct having preyed upon his mind.”
“Were you alarmed for his life during his illness?”
“Much alarmed. But our greatest fear was for his reason.”
“Did the faculty apprehend the loss of his reason?”
“They did.”
“The doctors who attended him were resident in Slopperton?”
“They were, and are so still. He was attended by Dr. Morton and Mr.
Lamb.”
The prisoner’s counsel here beckoned to some officials near
him--whispered some directions to them, and they immediately left the
court.
Resuming the examination of this witness, the counsel said:
“You repeated just now the words your son made use of on the night
of his departure from home. They were rather singular words--‘he had
started on a dark road, and he must go on to the end of it.’”
“Those were his exact words, sir.”
“Was there any wildness in his manner in saying these words?” he asked.
“His manner was always wild at this time--perhaps wilder that night
than usual.”
“His manner, you say, was always wild. He had acquired a reputation for
a wild recklessness of disposition from an early age, had he not?”
“He had, unfortunately--from the time of his going to school.”
“And his companions, I believe, had given him some name expressive of
this?”
“They had.”
“And that name was----”
“Daredevil Dick.”
Martha, the old servant, was next sworn. She described the finding of
the body of Mr. Harding.
The examination by the prisoner’s counsel of this witness elicited
nothing but that--
Master Dick had always been a wild boy, but a good boy at heart; that
he had been never known to hurt so much as a worm; and that she,
Martha, was sure he’d never done the murder. When asked if she had
any suspicion as to who had done the deed, she became nebulous in her
manner, and made some allusions to “the French”--having lived in the
days of Waterloo, and being inclined to ascribe any deed of darkness,
from the stealing of a leg of mutton to the exploding of an infernal
machine, to the emissaries of Napoleon.
Mr. Jinks, who was then examined, gave a minute and rather discursive
account of the arrest of Richard, paying several artful compliments to
his own dexterity as a detective officer.
The man who met Richard on the platform at the railway station deposed
to the prisoner’s evident wish to avoid a recognition; to his even
crossing the line for that purpose.
“There is one witness,” said the counsel for the crown, “I am sorry
to say I shall be unable to produce. That witness is the half-caste
servant of the murdered gentleman, who still lies in a precarious
state at the county hospital, and whose recovery from the injuries
inflicted on him by the murderer of his master is pronounced next to an
impossibility.”
The case for the prosecution closed; still a very clear case against
Richard Marwood, and still the backers of the “Gallows” thought they
had made a very good book.
The deposition of the Lascar, the servant of the murdered man, had been
taken through an interpreter, at the hospital. It threw little light
on the case. The man said, that on the night of the murder he had been
awoke by a sound in Mr. Harding’s room, and had spoken in Hindostanee,
asking if his master required his assistance, when he received in the
darkness a blow on the head, which immediately deprived him of his
senses. He could tell nothing of the person who struck the blow, except
that at the moment of striking it a hand passed across his face--a hand
which was peculiarly soft and delicate, and the fingers of which were
long and slender.
As this passage in the deposition was read, every eye in court was
turned to the prisoner, who at that moment happened to be leaning
forward with his elbow on the ledge of the dock before him, and his
hand shading his forehead--a very white hand, with long slender
fingers. Poor Richard! In the good days gone by he had been rather
proud of his delicate and somewhat feminine hand.
The prisoner’s counsel rose and delivered his speech for the defence.
A very elaborate defence. A defence which went to prove that the
prisoner at the bar, though positively guilty, was not morally
guilty, or legally guilty--“because, gentlemen of the jury, he is,
and for some time has been, _insane_. Yes, _mad_, gentlemen
of the jury. What has been every action of his life but the action
of a madman? His wild boyhood; his reckless extravagant youth; his
dissipated and wasted manhood, spent among drunken and dangerous
companions. What was his return? Premeditated during the sufferings
of delirium tremens, and premeditated long before the arrival of his
rich uncle at Slopperton, as I shall presently prove to you. What was
this, but the sudden repentance of a madman? Scarcely recovered from
this frightful disease--a disease during which men have been known
frequently to injure themselves, and those very dear to them, in the
most terrible manner--scarcely recovered from this disease, he starts
on foot, penniless, for a journey of upwards of two hundred miles. He
accomplishes that journey--how, gentlemen, in that dreary November
weather, I tremble even to think--he accomplishes that long and painful
journey; and on the evening of the eighth day from that on which he
left London he falls fainting at his mother’s feet. I shall prove
to you, gentlemen, that the prisoner left London on the very day on
which his uncle arrived in Slopperton; it is therefore impossible he
could have had any knowledge of that arrival when he started. Well,
gentlemen, the prisoner, after the fatigue, the extreme privation,
he has suffered, has yet another trial to undergo--the terrible
agitation caused by a reconciliation with his beloved mother. He has
eaten scarcely anything for two days, and is injudiciously allowed to
drink nearly a bottle of old madeira. That night, gentlemen of the
jury, a cruel murder is perpetrated; a murder as certain of immediate
discovery, as clumsy in execution, as it is frightful in detail. Can
there be any doubt that if it was committed by my unhappy client,
the prisoner at the bar, it was perpetrated by him while labouring
under an access of delirium, or insanity--temporary, if you will, but
unmitigated insanity--aggravated by excessive fatigue, unprecedented
mental excitement, and the bad effects of the wine he had been
drinking? It has been proved that the cabinet was rifled, and that the
pocket-book stolen therefrom was found in the prisoner’s possession.
This may have been one of those strange flashes of method which are