The trail of the serpent
“Never seen him since, to my knowledge”--there was a flutter in the
crowded court, as if every spectator had simultaneously drawn a long
breath--“till to-day.”
“Till to-day?” said the counsel. This time it was more than a flutter,
it was a subdued murmur that ran through the listening crowd.
“Be good enough to say if you can see him at this present moment.”
“I can,” replied Mr. Withers. “That’s him! or my name ain’t vot I’ve
been led to believe it is.” And he pointed with a dirty but decided
finger at the prisoner at the bar.
The prisoner slightly elevated his arched eyebrows superciliously, as
if he would say, “This is a pretty sort of witness to hang a man of my
standing.”
“Be so good as to continue your story,” said the counsel.
“Vell, I does vot he tells me, and I lays the body, vith his ’elp, on
the truck. ‘Now,’ he ses, ‘follow this ’ere old voman and do everythink
vot she tells you, or you’ll find it considerably vorse for your future
’appiness;’ vith vich he slams the door upon me, the old un, and the
truck, and I sees no more of ’im. Vell, I follows the old un through a
lot o’ lanes and back slums, till ve leaves the town behind, and gets
right out upon the ’eath; and ve crosses over the ’eath, till ve comes
to vere it’s precious lonely, yet the hedge of the pathway like; and
’ere she tells me as ve’re to leave the body, and ’ere ve shifts it
off the truck and lays it down upon the grass, vich it vas a-rainin’
’eavens ’ard, and a-thunderin’ and a-lightnin’ like von o’clock. ‘And
now,’ she ses, ’vot you’ve got to do is to go back from vheres you come
from, and lose no time about it; and take notice,’ she ses, ‘if ever
you speaks or jabbers about this ’ere business, it’ll be the end of
your jabberin’ in this world,’ vith vitch she looks at me like a old
vitch as she vos, and points vith her skinny arm down the road. So I
valks my chalks, but I doesn’t valk ’em very far, and presently I sees
the old ’ag a-runnin’ back tovards the town as fast as ever she could
tear. ‘Ho!’ I ses, ‘you are a nice lot, you are; but I’ll see who’s
dead, in spite of you.’ So I crawls up to vere ve’d left the body, and
there it vos sure enuff, but all uncovered now, the face a-starin’ up
at the black sky, and it vos dressed, as far as I could make out, quite
like a gentleman, all in black, but it vos so jolly dark I couldn’t
see the face, vhen all of a sudden, vhile I vos a-kneelin’ down and
lookin’ at it, there comes von of the longest flashes of lightnin’ as
I ever remember, and in the blue light I sees the face plainer than I
could have seen it in the day. I thought I should have fell down all of
a heap. It vos Jim! Jim hisself, as I knowed as well as I ever knowed
myself, dead at my feet! My first thought vos as how that young man as
vos so like Jim had murdered him; but there vorn’t no marks of wiolence
novheres about the body. Now, I hadn’t in my own mind any doubts as
how it vos Jim; but still, I ses to myself, I ses, ‘Everythink seems
topsy-turvy like this night, so I’ll be sure;’ so I takes up his arm,
and turns up his coat-sleeve. Now, vy I does this is this ’ere: there
vos a young voman Jim vos uncommon fond ov, vhich her name vos Bess,
though he and many more called her, for short, Sillikens: and von day
vhen me and Jim vos at a public, ve happened to fall in vith a sailor,
vot ve’d both knowed afore he vent to sea. So he vos a-tellin’ of us
his adventures and such-like, and then he said promiscus, ‘I’ll show
you somethin’ pretty;’ and sure enuff, he slipped up the sleeve ov his
Garnsey, and there, all over his arm, vos all manner ov sort ov picters
done vith gunpowder, such as ankers, and Rule Britannias, and ships
in full sail on the backs of flyin’ alligators. So Jim takes quite a
fancy to this ’ere, and he ses, ‘I vish, Joe (the sailor’s name bein’
Joe), I vish, Joe, as how you’d do me my young voman’s name and a
wreath of roses on my arm, like that there.’ Joe ses, ‘And so I vill,
and velcome.’ And sure enuff, a veek or two artervards, Jim comes to me
vith his arm like a picter-book, and Bess as large as life just above
the elber-joint. So I turns up his coat-sleeve, and vaits for a flash
ov lightnin’. I hasn’t to vait long, and there I reads, ‘B.E.S.S.’
‘There ain’t no doubt now,’ I ses, ‘this ’ere’s Jim, and there’s some
willany or other in it, vot I ain’t up to.’”
“Very good,” said the counsel; “we may want you again by-and-by, I
think, Mr. Withers; but for the present you may retire.”
The next witness called was Dr. Tappenden, who related the
circumstances of the admission of Jabez North into his household, the
high character he had from the Board of the Slopperton Union, and the
confidence reposed in him.
“You placed great trust, then, in this person?” asked the counsel for
the prosecution.
“The most implicit trust,” replied the schoolmaster, “so much so, that
he was frequently employed by me to collect subscriptions for a public
charity of which I was the treasurer--the Slopperton Orphan Asylum.
I think it only right to mention this, as on one occasion it was the
cause of his calling upon the unfortunate gentleman who was murdered.”
“Indeed! Will you be so good as to relate the circumstance?”
“I think it was about three days before the murder, when, one morning,
at a little before twelve o’clock--that being the time at which my
pupils are dismissed from their studies for an hour’s recreation--I
said to him, ‘Mr. North, I should like you to call upon this Indian
gentleman, who is staying with Mrs. Marwood, and whose wealth is so
much talked of----’”
“Pardon me. You said, ‘whose wealth is so much talked of.’ Can you
swear to having made that remark?”
“I can.”
“Pray continue,” said the counsel.
“‘I should like you,’ I said, ‘to call upon this Mr. Harding, and
solicit his aid for the Orphan Asylum; we are sadly in want of funds.
I know, North, your heart is in the work, and you will plead the cause
of the orphans successfully. You have an hour before dinner; it is some
distance to the Black Mill, but you can walk fast there and back.’ He
went accordingly, and on his return brought a five-pound note, which
Mr. Harding had given him.”
Dr. Tappenden proceeded to describe the circumstance of the death of
the little boy in the usher’s apartment, on the very night of the
murder. One of the servants was examined, who slept on the same floor
as North, and who said she had heard strange noises in his room that
night, but had attributed the noises to the fact of the usher sitting
up to attend upon the invalid. She was asked what were the noises she
had heard.
“I heard some one open the window, and shut it a long while after.”
“How long do you imagine the interval to have been between the opening
and shutting of the window?” asked the counsel.
“About two hours,” she replied, “as far as I could guess.”
The next witness for the prosecution was the old servant, Martha.
“Can you remember ever having seen the prisoner at the bar?”
The old woman put on her spectacles, and steadfastly regarded the
elegant Monsieur de Marolles, or Jabez North, as his enemies insisted
on calling him. After a very deliberate inspection of that gentleman’s
personal advantages, rather trying to the feelings of the spectators,
Mrs. Martha Jones said, rather obscurely--
“He had light hair then.”
“‘He had light hair then,’ You mean, I conclude,” said the counsel,
“that at the time of your first seeing the prisoner, his hair was of a
different colour from what it is now. Supposing that he had dyed his
hair, as is not an uncommon practice, can you swear that you have seen
him before to-day?”
“I can.”
“On what occasion?” asked the counsel.
“Three days before the murder of my mistress’s poor brother. I opened
the gate for him. He was very civil-spoken, and admired the garden very
much, and asked me if he might look about it a little.”
“He asked you to allow him to look about the garden? Pray was this as
he went in, or as he went out?”
“It was when I let him out.”
“And how long did he stay with Mr. Harding?”
“Not more than ten minutes. Mr. Harding was in his bedroom; he had a
cabinet in his bedroom in which he kept papers and money, and he used
to transact all his business there, and sometimes would be there till
dinner-time.”
“Did the prisoner see him in his bedroom?”
“He did. I showed him upstairs myself.”
“Was anybody in the bedroom with Mr. Harding when he saw the prisoner?”
“Only his coloured servant: he was always with him.”
“And when you showed the prisoner out, he asked to be allowed to look
at the garden? Was he long looking about?”
“Not more than five minutes. He looked more at the house than the
garden. I noticed him looking at Mr. Harding’s window, which is on the
first floor; he took particular notice of a very fine creeper that
grows under the window.”
“Was the window, on the night of the murder, fastened, or not?”
“It never was fastened. Mr. Harding always slept with his window a
little way open.”
After Martha had been dismissed from the witness-box, the old servant
of Mr. Harding, the Lascar, who had been found living with a gentleman
in London, was duly sworn, prior to being examined.
He remembered the prisoner at the bar, but made the same remark as
Martha had done, about the change in colour of his hair.
“You were in the room with your late master when the prisoner called
upon him?” asked the counsel.
“I was.”
“Will you state what passed between the prisoner and your master?”
“It is scarcely in my power to do so. At that time I understood no
English. My master was seated at his cabinet, looking over papers
and accounts. I fancy the prisoner asked him for money. He showed
him papers both printed and written. My master opened a pocket-book
filled with notes, the pocket-book afterwards found on his nephew,
and gave the prisoner a bank note. The prisoner appeared to make a
good impression on my late master, who talked to him in a very cordial
manner. As he was leaving the room, the prisoner made some remark about
me, and I thought from the tone of his voice, he was asking a question.”
“You thought he was asking a question?”
“Yes. In the Hindostanee language we have no interrogative form of
speech, we depend entirely on the inflexion of the voice; our ears are
therefore more acute than an Englishman’s. I am certain he asked my
master some questions about me.”
“And your master----?”
“After replying to him, turned to me, and said, ‘I am telling this
gentleman what a faithful fellow you are, Mujeebez, and how you always
sleep in my dressing-room.’”
“You remember nothing more?”
“Nothing more.”
The Indian’s deposition, taken in the hospital at the time of the trial
of Richard Marwood, was then read over to him. He certified to the
truth of this deposition, and left the witness-box.
The landlord of the Bargeman’s Delight, Mr. Darley, and Mr. Peters (the
latter by an interpreter), were examined, and the story of the quarrel
and the lost Indian coin was elicited, making considerable impression
on the jury.
There was only one more witness for the crown, and this was a young
man, a chemist, who had been an apprentice at the time of the supposed
death of Jabez North, and who had sold to him a few days before that
supposed suicide the materials for a hair-dye.
The counsel for the prosecution then summed up.
It is not for us to follow him through the twistings and windings of
a very complicated mass of evidence; he had to prove the identity of
Jabez North with the prisoner at the bar, and he had to prove that
Jabez North was the murderer of Mr. Montague Harding. To the mind of
every spectator in that crowded court he succeeded in proving both.
In vain the prisoner’s counsel examined and cross-examined the