The trail of the serpent
romantic than probable, you had only to turn the corner into Little
Market Street--(rather a low neighbourhood, and chiefly inhabited by
butchers and the tripe and cow-heel trade)--and you might sup full
of horrors, the denizens of this locality labouring under the fixed
conviction that the prisoner then lying in Slopperton gaol was neither
more nor less than a distinguished burglar, long the scourge of the
united kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland, and guilty of outrages
and murders innumerable.
There were others who confined themselves to animated and detailed
descriptions of the attempted escape and capture of the accused. These
congregated at street-corners, and disputed and gesticulated in little
groups, one man often dropping back from his companions, and taking a
wide berth on the pavement, to give his particular story the benefit
of illustrative action. Some stories told how the prisoner had got
half-way to America concealed in the paddle wheel of a screw steamer;
others gave an animated account of his having been found hidden in the
corner of the engine-room, where he had lain concealed for fourteen
days without either bite or sup. Others told you he had been furled up
in the foretopsail of an American man-of-war; others related how he had
made the passage in the maintop of the same vessel, only descending
in the dead of the night for his meals, and paying the captain of the
ship a quarter of a million of money for the accommodation. As to the
sums of money he had embezzled in his capacity of banker, they grew
with every hour; till at last Slopperton turned up its nose at anything
under a billion for the sum total of his plunder.
The assizes were looked forward to with such eager expectation and
interest as never had been felt about any other assizes within the
memory of living Slopperton; and the judges and barristers on this
circuit were the envy of judges and barristers on other circuits, who
said bitterly, that no such case ever came across their way, and that
it was like Prius Q.C.’s luck to be counsel for the prosecution in such
a trial; and that if Nisi, whom the Count de Marolles had intrusted
with his defence, didn’t get him off, he, Nisi, deserved to be hung in
lieu of his client.
It seemed a strange and awful instance of retributive justice that
Raymond Marolles, having been taken in his endeavour to escape in the
autumn of the year, had to await the spring assizes of the following
year for his trial, and had, therefore, to drag out even a longer
period in his solitary cell than Richard Marwood, the innocent victim
of circumstantial evidence, had done years before.
Who shall dare to enter this man’s cell? Who shall dare to look
into this hardened heart? Who shall follow the dark and terrible
speculations of this perverted intellect?
At last the time, so welcome to the free citizens of Slopperton, and
so very unwelcome to some of the denizens in the gaol, who preferred
awaiting their trial in that retreat to crossing the briny ocean for
an unlimited period as the issue of that trial--at last, the assize
time came round once more. Once more the tip-top Slopperton hotels were
bewilderingly gay with elegant young barristers and grave grey-headed
judges. Once more the criminal court was one vast sea of human heads,
rising wave on wave to the very roof; and once more every eager eye was
turned towards the dock in which stood the elegant and accomplished
Raymond, Count de Marolles, _alias_ Jabez North, sometime pauper
of the Slopperton-on-the-Sloshy Union, afterwards usher in the academy
of Dr. Tappenden, charged with the wilful murder of Montague Harding,
also of Slopperton, eight years before.
The first point the counsel for the prosecution endeavoured to prove
to the minds of the jury was the identity of Raymond de Marolles, the
Parisian, with Jabez North, the pauper schoolboy. This hinged chiefly
upon his power to disprove the supposed death of Jabez North, in which
all Slopperton had hitherto firmly believed. Dr. Tappenden had stood
by his usher’s corpse. How, then, could that usher be alive and before
the Slopperton jury to-day? But there were plenty to certify that
here he was in the flesh--this very Jabez North, whom so many people
remembered, and had been in the habit of seeing, eight years ago. They
were ready to identify him, in spite of his dark hair and eyebrows. On
the other hand, there were some who had seen the body of the suicide,
found by Peters the detective, on the heath outside Slopperton; and
these were as ready to declare that the afore-mentioned body was the
body of Jabez North, the usher to Dr. Tappenden, and none other. But
when a rough-looking man, with a mangy fur cap in his hand, and two
greasy locks of hair carefully twisted into limp curls on either side
of his swarthy face, which curls were known to his poetically and
figuratively-disposed friends as Newgate knockers--when this man, who
gave his name to the jury as Slithery Bill--or, seeing the jury didn’t
approve of this cognomen, Bill Withers, if they liked it better--was
called into the witness-box, his evidence, sulkily and rather
despondingly given, as from one who says, “It may be my turn next,”
threw quite a new light upon the subject.
Bill Withers was politely asked if he remembered the summer of 18--.
Yes; Mr. Withers could remember the summer of 18--; was out of work
that summer, and made the marginal remark that “them as couldn’t live
might starve or steal, for all Slopperton folks cared.”
Was again politely asked if he remembered doing one particular job of
work that summer.
Did remember it--made the marginal remark, “and it was a jolly queer
dodge as ever a cove had a hand in.”
Was asked to be good enough to state what the particular job was.
Assented to the request with a polite nod of the head, and proceeded
to smooth his Newgate knockers, and fold his arms on the ledge of the
witness-box prior to stating his case; then cleared his throat, and
commenced discursively, thus,--
“Vy, it vas as this ’ere--I vas out of work. I does up small gent’s
gardens in the spring, and tidies and veeds and rakes and hoes ’em a
bit, back and front, vhen I can get it to do, vich ain’t often; and
bein’ out of vork, and old Mother Thingamy, down Blind Peter, she ses
to me, vich she vas a vicked old ’ag, she ses to me, ‘I’ve got a job
for them as asks no questions, and don’t vant to be told no lies;’ by
vich remark, and the vay of her altogether, I knowed she veren’t up to
no good; so I ses, ‘You looks here, mother; if it’s a job a respectable
young man, vot’s out o’ vork, and ain’t had a bite or sup since the
day afore yesterday, can do vith a clear conscience, I’ll do it--if it
ain’t, vy I von’t. There!’” Having recorded which heroic declaration,
Mr. William Withers wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and
looked round the court, as much as to say, “Let Slopperton be proud of
such a citizen.”
“‘Don’t you go to flurry your tender constitution and do yourself a
unrecoverable injury,’ the old cat made reply; ‘it’s a job as the
parson of the parish might do, if he’d got a truck.’ ‘A truck?’ I ses;
‘is it movin’ boxes you’re making this ’ere palaver about?’ ‘Never you
mind vether it’s boxes or vether it ain’t; vill you do it?’ she ses;
‘vill you do it, and put a sovering in your pocket, and never go for
to split, unless you vant that precious throat of yours slit some fine
evenin’?’”
“And you consented to do what she required of you?” suggested the
counsel.
“Vell, I don’t know about that,” replied Mr. Withers, “but I undertook
the job. ‘So,’ ses she, that’s the old ’un, she ses, ‘you bring a truck
down by that there broken buildin’ ground at the back of Blind Peter
at ten o’clock to-night, and you keep yourself quiet till you hears a
vhistle; ven you hears a vhistle,’ she ses, ‘bring your truck around
agin our front door. This here’s all _you’ve_ got to do,’ she ses,
‘besides keepin’ your tongue between your teeth.’ ‘All right,’ I ses,
and off I goes to see if there was any cove as would trust me with a
truck agen the evenin’. Vell, I finds the cove, vich, seein’ I wanted
it bad, he stood out for a bob and a tanner for the loan of it.”
“Perhaps the jury would wish to be told what sum of money--I conclude
it is money--a bob and a tanner represent?” said the counsel.
“They must be a jolly ignorant lot, then, anyways,” replied Mr.
Withers, with more candour than circumlocution. “Any infant knows
eighteenpence ven it’s showed him.”
“Oh, a bob and a tanner are eighteenpence? Very good,” said the
counsel, encouragingly; “pray go on, Mr. Withers.”
“Vell, ten o’clock come, and veren’t it a precious stormy night, that’s
all; and there I was a-vaitin’ a-sittin’ on this blessed truck at the
back of Blind Peter, vich vos my directions. At last the vhistle come,
and a precious cautious vhistle it vas too, as soft as a niteingel
vot’s payin’ its addresses to another niteingel; and round I goes to
the front, as vos my directions. There, agen’ her door, stands the old
’ag, and agen her stands a young man in an old ragged pair of trousis
an’ a shirt. Lookin’ him hard in the face, who does I see but Jim, the
old un’s grandson; so I ses, ‘Jim!’ friendly like, but he makes no
reply; and then the old un ses, ‘Lend this young gent a ‘and ’ere, vill
yer?’ So in I goes, and there on the bed I sees something rolled up
very careful in a old counterpane. It giv’ me a turn like, and I didn’t
much like the looks of it; but I ses nothink; and then the young man,
Jim, as I thinks, ses, ‘Lend us a hand with this ’ere, vill yer?’ and
it giv’d me another turn like, for though it’s Jim’s face, somehow it
ain’t quite Jim’s voice--more genteel and fine like; but I goes up to
the bed, and I takes hold of von end of vot lays there; and then I gets
turn number three--for I find my suspicions was correct--it was a dead
body!”
“A dead body?”
“Yes; but who’s it vos there vos no knowin’, it vos wrapped up in that
manner. But I feels myself turn dreadful vhite, and I ses, ‘If this
ere’s anythink wrong, I vashes my hands ov it, and you may do your
dirty vork yourself.’ I hadn’t got the vords out afore this ’ere young
man, as I thought at first vos Jim, caught me by the throat sudden,
and threw me down on my knee. I ain’t a baby; but, lor’, I vos nothink
in his grasp, though his hand vos as vite and as deliket as a young
lady’s. ‘Now, you just look ’ere,’ he says; and I looked, as vell as I
could, vith my eyes a-startin’ out ov of my head in cosekence of bein’
just upon the choke, ‘you see vot this is,’ and vith his left hand he
takes a pistol out ov his pocket; ‘you refuse to do vot ve vant done,
or you go for to be noisy or in any vay ill-conwenient, and it’s the
last time as ever you’ll have the chance ov so doing. Get up,’ he says,
as if I vos a dog; and I gets up, and I agrees to do vot he vants, for
there vas that there devil in that young man’s hye, that I began to
think it vos best not to go agen him.”
Here Mr. Withers paused for refreshment after his exertions, and
blew his nose very deliberately on a handkerchief which, from its
dilapidated condition, resembled a red cotton cabbagenet. Silence
reigned throughout the crowded court, broken only by the scratching
of the pen with which the counsel for the defence was taking notes
of the evidence, and the fluttering of the leaves of the reporters’
pocket-books, as they threw off page after page of flimsy paper.
The prisoner at the bar looked straight before him; the
firmly-compressed lips had never once quivered, the golden fringed
eyelashes had never drooped.
“Can you tell me,” said the counsel for the prosecution, “whether
you have ever, since that night, seen this young man, who so closely
resembled your old friend, Jim?”