The trail of the serpent
the distinguishing features of madness. In his horror at the crime he
had in his delirium committed, the prisoner’s endeavour was to escape.
For this escape he required money--hence the plunder of the cabinet.
The manner of his attempting to escape again proclaims the madman.
Instead of flying to Liverpool, which is only thirty miles from this
town--whence he could have sailed for any part of the globe, and thus
defied pursuit--he starts without any attempt at disguise for a small
inland town, whence escape is next to an impossibility, and is captured
a few hours after the crime has been committed, with the blood of his
unhappy victim upon the sleeve of his coat. Would a man in his senses,
gentlemen, not have removed, at any rate, this fatal evidence of his
guilt? Would a man in his senses not have endeavoured to disguise
himself, and to conceal the money he had stolen? Gentlemen of the
jury, I have perfect confidence in your coming to a just decision
respecting this most unhappy affair. Weighing well the antecedents of
the prisoner, and the circumstances of the crime, I can have not one
shadow of a doubt that your verdict will be to the effect that the
wretched man before you is, alas! too certainly his uncle’s murderer,
but that he is as certainly irresponsible for a deed committed during
an aberration of intellect.”
Strange to say, the counsel did not once draw attention to the singular
conduct of the prisoner while in court; but this conduct had not been
the less remarked by the jury, and did not the less weigh with them.
The witnesses for the defence were few in number. The first who
mounted the witness-box was rather peculiar in his appearance. If
you include amongst his personal attractions a red nose (which shone
like the danger-signal on a railway through the dusky air of the
court); a black eye--not that admired darkness of the organ itself
which is the handiwork of liberal nature, but that peculiarly mottled
purple-and-green appearance about the region which bears witness to the
fist of an acquaintance; a bushy moustache of a fine blue-black dye;
a head of thick black hair, not too intimately acquainted with that
modern innovation on manly habits, the comb--you may perhaps have some
notion of his physical qualifications. But nothing could ever give a
full or just idea of the recklessness, the effrontery of his manner,
the twinkle in his eye, the expression in every pimple of that radiant
nose, or the depth of meaning he could convey by one twitch of his
moustache, or one shake of his forest of black ringlets.
His costume inclined towards the fast and furious, consisting of a
pair of loose Scotch plaid unmentionables, a bright blue greatcoat,
no under-coat or waistcoat, a great deal of shirt ornamented with
death’s-heads and pink ballet-dancers--to say nothing of coffee and
tobacco stains, and enough sham gold chain meandering over his burly
breast to make up for every deficiency. While he was being duly sworn,
the eyes of the witness wandered with a friendly and pitying glance
towards the wretched prisoner at the bar.
“You are a member of the medical profession?”
“I am.”
“You were, I believe, in the company of the prisoner the night of his
departure from London for this town?”
“I was.”
“What was the conduct of the prisoner on that night?”
“Rum.”
On being further interrogated, the witness stated that he had known Mr.
Richard Marwood for many years, being himself originally a Slopperton
man.
“Can you tell what led the prisoner to determine on returning to his
mother’s house in the month of November last?”
“Blue devils,” replied the witness, with determined conciseness.
“Blue devils?”
“Yes, he’d been in a low way for three months, or more; he’d had a
sharp attack of delirium tremens, and a touch of his old complaint----”
“His old complaint?”
“Yes, brain-fever. During the fever he talked a great deal of his
mother; said he had killed her by his bad conduct, but that he’d beg
her forgiveness if he walked to Slopperton on his bare feet.”
“Can you tell me at what date he first expressed this desire to come to
Slopperton?”
“Some time during the month of September.”
“Did you during this period consider him to be in a sound mind?”
“Well, several of my friends at Guy’s used to think rather the reverse.
It was customary amongst us to say he had a loose slate somewhere.”
The counsel for the prosecution taking exception to this phrase “loose
slate,” the witness went on to state that he thought the prisoner
very often off his nut; had hidden his razors during his illness, and
piled up a barricade of furniture before the window. The prisoner
was remarkable for reckless generosity, good temper, a truthful
disposition, and a talent for doing everything, and always doing it
better than anybody else. This, and a great deal more, was elicited
from him by the advocate for the defence.
He was cross-examined by the counsel for the prosecution.
“I think you told my learned friend that you were a member of the
medical profession?”
“I did.”
Was first apprenticed to a chemist and druggist at Slopperton, and was
now walking one of the hospitals in London with a view to attaining a
position in the profession; had not yet attained eminence, but hoped to
do so; had operated with some success in a desperate case of whitlow
on the finger of a servant-girl, and should have effected a surprising
cure, if the girl had not grown impatient and allowed her finger to
be amputated by a rival practitioner before the curative process had
time to develop itself; had always entertained a sincere regard for
the prisoner; had at divers times borrowed money of him; couldn’t say
he remembered ever returning any; perhaps he never had returned any,
and that might, account for his not remembering the circumstance; had
been present at the election of, and instrumental in electing the
prisoner a member of a convivial club called the “Cheerful Cherokees.”
No “Cheerful Cherokee” had ever been known to commit a murder, and the
club was convinced of the prisoner’s innocence.
“You told the court and jury a short time ago, that the prisoner’s
state on the last night you saw him in London was ‘rum,’” said the
learned gentleman conducting the prosecution; “will you be good enough
to favour us with the meaning of that adjective--you intend it for an
adjective, I presume?”
“Certainly,” replied the witness. “Rum, an adjective when applied to a
gentleman’s conduct; a substantive when used to denominate his tipple.”
The counsel for the prosecution doesn’t clearly understand the meaning
of the word “tipple.”
The witness thinks the learned gentleman had better buy a dictionary
before he again assists in a criminal prosecution.
“Come, come, sir,” said the judge; “you are extremely impertinent. We
don’t want to be kept here all night. Let us have your evidence in a
straightforward manner.”
The witness squared his elbows, and turned that luminary, his nose,
full on his lordship, as if it had been a bull’s-eye lantern.
“You used another strange expression,” said the counsel, “in answer to
my friend. Will you have the kindness to explain what you mean by the
prisoner having ‘a loose slate’?”
“A tile off. Something wrong about the roof--the garret--the upper
story--the nut.”
The counsel for the prosecution confessed himself to be still in the
dark.
The witness declared himself sorry to hear it--he could undertake to
give his evidence; but he could not undertake to provide the gentleman
with understanding.
“I will trouble you to be respectful in your replies to the counsel for
the crown,” said the judge.
The medical student’s variegated eye looked defiantly at his lordship;
the counsel for the crown had done with him, and he retired from
the witness-box, after bowing to the judge and jury with studious
politeness.
The next witnesses were two medical gentlemen of a different stamp
to the “Cheerful Cherokee,” who had now taken his place amongst the
spectators.
These gentlemen gave evidence of having attended the prisoner some
years before, during brain-fever, and having very much feared the fever
would have resulted in the loss of the patient’s reason.
The trial had by this time lasted so long, that the juryman who had a
ticket for the public dinner began to feel that his card of admission
to the festive board was so much waste pasteboard, and that the green
fat of the turtle and the prime cut from the haunch of venison were not
for him.
The counsel for the prosecution delivered himself of his second address
to the jury, in which he endeavoured to demolish the superstructure
which his “learned friend” had so ingeniously raised for the defence.
Why should the legal defender of a man whose life is in the hands of
the jury not be privileged to address that jury in favour of his client
as often, at least, as the legal representative of the prosecutor?
The judge delivered his charge to the jury.
The jury retired, and in an hour and fifteen minutes returned.
They found that the prisoner, Richard Marwood, had murdered his uncle,
Montague Harding, and had further beaten and injured a half-caste
servant in the employ of his uncle, while suffering from aberration
of intellect--or, in simple phraseology, they found the prisoner “Not
Guilty, on the ground of insanity.”
The prisoner seemed little affected by the verdict. He looked with
a vacant stare round the court, removed the bouquet of rue from his
button-hole and placed it in his bosom; and then said, with a clear
distinct enunciation--
“Gentlemen of the jury, I am extremely obliged to you for the
politeness with which you have treated me. Thanks to your powerful
sense of justice, I have won the battle of Arcola, and I think I have
secured the key of Italy.”
It is common for lunatics to fancy themselves some great and
distinguished person. This unhappy young man believed himself to be
Napoleon the First.
=Book the Second.=
A CLEARANCE OF ALL SCORES.
CHAPTER I.
BLIND PETER.
THE favourite, “Gallows,” having lost in the race with Richard Marwood,
there was very little more interest felt in Slopperton about poor
Daredevil Dick’s fate. It was known that he was in the county lunatic
asylum, a prisoner for life, or, as it is expressed by persons learned
in legal matters, during the pleasure of the sovereign. It was known
that his poor mother had taken up her abode near the asylum, and
that at intervals she was allowed the melancholy pleasure of seeing
the wreck of her once light-hearted boy. Mrs. Marwood was now a very
rich woman, inheritress of the whole of her poor murdered brother’s
wealth--for Mr. Montague Harding’s will had been found to bequeath the
whole of his immense fortune to his only sister. She spent little,
however, and what she did expend was chiefly devoted to works of
charity; but even her benevolence was limited, and she did little
more for the poor than she had done before from her own small income.
The wealth of the East Indian remained accumulating in the hands of
her bankers. Mrs. Marwood was, therefore, very rich, and Slopperton
accordingly set her down as a miser.
So the nine-days’ wonder died out, and the murder of Mr. Harding was
forgotten. The sunshine on the factory chimneys of Slopperton grew
warmer every day. Every day the “hands” appertaining to the factories
felt more and more the necessity of frequent application to the
public-house, as the weather grew brighter and brighter--till the hot
June sun blazed down upon the pavement of every street in Slopperton,
baking and grilling the stones; till the sight of a puddle or an