Kitabı oku: «Dorrien of Cranston», sayfa 24
“My learned friend here has seen fit to make merry over the articles which infallibly connect the prisoner with this mournful tragedy, but these articles, small, trivial though they may be in themselves, are of the very last importance. First, there is the A.B.C. time-table. Roland Dorrien goes into a tavern in the Strand, looking very strange and excited, and asks for an A.B.C. It is purchased for him. He searches it, marks the Wandsborough train, turns down a corner of the page and – leaves the book behind him when he goes out. This is about a week before the murder – the waiter, Newton, cannot be sure of the date. But – and observe this – the very train marked in that time-table is the one by which Robert Durnford arrives at Battisford. On the 21st January Roland Dorrien gives up his lodgings at Mrs Clack’s. He leaves London early in the morning. Late in the afternoon of that day Robert Durnford arrives at Battisford. From that time until he leaves Wandsborough church on the night of the 22nd, Durnford’s movements are accounted for. Then, passing over for the moment Devine’s evidence, he is met by James Pollock coming away from Smugglers’ Ladder, not many minutes after Hubert Dorrien is – well ‘falls’ into that chasm. And on the very scene of the tragedy James Pollock picks up this envelope which has been handed to you, directed – not to Robert Durnford but undoubtedly to Roland Dorrien. And where? At a London address incontestably. And the address subsequently given to Dr Ingelow by the pseudo-Durnford is a London postal address. Now for the matchbox. The day after the deceased’s disappearance, Eustace Ingelow, the prisoner’s brother-in-law, a young gentleman who by common knowledge is devoted to his relative, and not likely knowingly to injure him in any way, picks up this matchbox, which is of peculiar make, and to which he can swear as being the prisoner’s property. Where does he find this article! Why, at the bottom of this chasm, at the very spot where the deceased met his death.
“And now you will ask what motive could have been strong enough to lead this man to the black and abhorrent crime of fratricide. Well, even here the network of evidence is as complete as elsewhere. That motive, gentlemen, the prosecution has been able to supply. It has been shown that the prisoner had quarrelled with his father, and was in fact disinherited. Herein,” continued the learned counsel, putting on his most sad and sorrowful expression, “came the passion of jealousy. Furthermore, he had found reason to suppose, from some most deplorable and unguarded statements on the part of Grainger, that his brother had dealt him a blow which, if true, amounted to a stab in the dark – in that he had set to work to damage his reputation in Wandsborough and the neighbourhood. This being so, what more likely than that a man of the prisoner’s temper and character should at once seek to be revenged? How he and his brother had come together was just one of those unimportant links in the dark chain which it was beyond their power to connect. The important fact was that they had come together – the evidence of Stephen Devine and others was amply sufficient to establish that.”
Then Mr Benham proceeded to comment on the evidence of Devine, who with his own eyes had seen the deed done. He explained away the witness’ reluctance to divulge it during these years as a perfectly natural thing; laid stress on the straightforwardness and ring of truth which characterised the man’s statement, and how his tale in its plain, unvarnished simplicity had more than triumphantly stood the test of his learned brother’s most skilful cross-examination. In short, he drew the web of damning circumstances closer and closer around the accused, till there was not a flaw in the enthralling network. Then, with some conventional rhetoric about “terrible charge,” “man in prisoner’s position,” “truly painful duty which, painful as it was, he dared not shirk,” the heart-broken Mr Benham resumed his seat, complacently conscious of having earned his not unhandsome fee.
Then the judge began to sum up.
The learned counsel for the prosecution, he said, had very properly impressed upon the jury that they must lose sight of any such side issue as class-distinction, and form their opinion of the case by the light of hard, cold reason and the dry facts of the evidence. That evidence they had had put before them in the most careful and patient manner, and it was his own especial function, said his lordship, to explain the law on the subject of such of it as appeared conflicting.
For upwards of an hour the judge continued, weighing the arguments of both counsel in calm, dispassionate and masterly fashion. But whether his lordship was against the prisoner or not, it puzzled the public to discern. His charge was a pattern of impartiality no less than of lucidity. But the substance of it was now adverse, now favourable.
One of the most regrettable features of the trial, continued his lordship, was that there had been next to no defence whatever. No attempt had been made to prove an alibi. If the prisoner had not been near the neighbourhood at the time of his brother’s disappearance, surely there should be no great difficulty in obtaining evidence to that effect. But no such evidence had been put forward. The question of identity played a very important part indeed in this case. If the jury believed the evidence of Johnston, Devine and Pollock, they would consider the identity proved. But Johnston was a discharged servant, and the evidence of such against a former employer was always to be received with extreme caution, and in his case the greatest animus was shown to have been entertained by him against the prisoner. Devine was a man of notoriously bad character, but he appears to have had no real motive for injuring the accused. But James Pollock was altogether different from both of these witnesses. He was a man of the highest respectability; a man of keen intelligence, resource and courage, in short, a type of that most admirable body of men, the seafaring toilers of our coasts. This man then had seen through the disguise of the pseudo-Durnford, and under it had seen the identity of the prisoner, Roland Dorrien. The piece of envelope put forward, bearing as it did nearly the complete name of the prisoner, and part of a London address, was to his lordship’s mind the completing link in the chain of identity.
Down went the hopes of the prisoner’s friends, down to zero. The judge was summing up dead against him.
“To turn again to Stephen Devine,” went on his lordship. “Here is a man who testifies to witnessing with his own eyes the perpetration of a deliberate act of murder. Alone, and in the dead of night, he stands as a spectator of this terrible deed – then calmly walks away, and for upwards of two years keeps silent on the subject. As the learned counsel for the defence has aptly pointed out, before you can convict a man of a murder you must be quite sure that a murder has been committed. The question is, are you quite sure on this point? That the dead man, Hubert Dorrien, met his end in the place known as Smugglers’ Ladder, has been established beyond a doubt. But how did he get in there? Did he fall in, or was he pushed in? If there is any doubt in your minds upon that head, why then, gentlemen, you are not merely entitled, but are bound to give the accused the benefit of it. You have evidence in plenty that the prisoner was near the spot – that is, to my mind, clear beyond dispute. But that he pushed his brother into this cleft you have the evidence of but a single eye-witness, and that witness, to my mind, a tainted one.”
Now the hope of an acquittal ran high. The judge was again favourable to the accused all along the line, it seemed. As for the prisoner himself, for the second time a ray of hope dawned within his soul, only to be dashed as before.
If then, continued his lordship, they believed the evidence of Devine, they would convict the prisoner; if they disbelieved that evidence they would acquit him. There was no middle course. What had been a long and elaborate trial had, after all, winnowed itself down to a very simple issue, and that was the trustworthiness, or the reverse, of one witness, because upon that, and that alone, depended whether any murder had been committed at all.
So now, being in possession of all the facts of the case, his lordship trusted that they would most carefully confer among themselves and return their verdict according to the solemn oath they had taken – without fear, favour or affection.
The jury retired to their private room to deliberate, and once more the murmur of voices arose among the audience, but it was a very subdued one. The expectation – the awe of the moment – was upon that densely-packed throng, and for a while light and careless talk was hushed. Such conversation as there was bore upon the probable verdict, and it was the opinion of the audience that it would be an adverse one. Meanwhile the prisoner had been removed, pending the return of those who should decide his fate.
Half an hour went by, and at length the door opened. Ah – now for it! But no. One of the intelligent jurymen wished to ask his lordship whether in the event of them not being satisfied as to the identity, they could convict Durnford and acquit the prisoner. He was answered with exemplary patience, and the door closed again. The Bar lifted its eyebrows – such of it as was able to keep from sniggering, that is.
The light of the setting sun streamed in at the windows, throwing its soft gleam upon the serried rows of anxious faces. And the accused – of what was he thinking? Was it of his beautiful home, which it was only too probable he would never enter again? Or was it of her whose first vows just such a golden sunbeam as this had fallen on and hallowed and witnessed?
At length the door opened a second time, and the jury came forth. It was noticeable that the prisoner, who had been hurriedly put back into the dock, did not even glance in their direction, but continued to look straight in front of him.
“Gentlemen, are you all agreed upon your verdict?”
“We are.”
The official’s voice had a vague, far-away ring in Roland’s ears as it continued:
“How find you the prisoner? Guilty or Not Guilty?”
“We find him – Guilty.”
Chapter Forty Seven.
“I have Something to Say.”
“Guilty.”
The fateful word rang through the room, producing something like a shuddering gasp among the close-packed audience. It rang in the brain of the prisoner, “Guilty! Dorrien of Cranston to be hanged – to be hanged by the neck until dead. Guilty!” Thus the hideous refrain danced through the wretched man’s brain in clanging rhythm. And what he had gone through during the trial alone – apart from the period which had elapsed since his arrest – was sufficient expiation for a score of murders far more cold-blooded and deliberate than this, for it was as a thousand years of hell.
The most astonished person in the room, perhaps, as this verdict was given, was the judge himself; and forthwith his opinion of the intelligence of juries, at no time high, underwent a stride of improvement. This was an intelligent jury. For his lordship was as morally certain of the prisoner’s guilt as though he had seen him perpetrate the homicide, yet how any jury could convict on the face of his summing up was a marvel. His trained mind had recognised that the evidence legally was not sufficient to hang a dog, and he had summed up accordingly, yet the jury had convicted. It now remained to pass the dread and only sentence of the law. Already his lordship was nervously fumbling with the black cap.
The prisoner felt as though shot through the head, as though a numbing, sledge-hammer blow had descended upon his faculties. Was this real, this sea of ghastly faces in the deathlike gloom of the ill-lighted hall, the grim, red-robed pronouncer of doom, now turning to face him? Was it real, or some terrible nightmare from which he would awaken directly with a thrill of horror combined with intense relief and thankfulness? Then he became dimly aware of an official voice asking if he had anything to say why sentence of death should not be passed upon him. So dim did the voice sound to his wrought-up fancy that the question had to be repeated.
“No. Nothing,” he answered, and the judge drew on the black cap.
“But I have. I have everything to say.”
The voice rang out upon the dead silence, full, clear and feminine. From the back of the hall it came. Every head went round in that direction as though turned with the same wire.
“Let that woman be removed instantly,” said the judge, whose experience was not devoid of similar cases of interruption on the part of some hysterically disposed female, worked up to exaltation pitch.
“You cannot remove me until you have heard me,” went on the voice, calm, firm, and without a quaver; its owner doubtless strengthened by the certainty that in the densely-packed crowd it would be impossible for the Court officers to reach her before she had said her say. “My lord, you cannot condemn this man for the murder of Hubert Dorrien, since Hubert Dorrien is alive and well at this moment. I saw him and talked with him as lately as this very morning. Then I hurried on here, and, thank God, I am in time.”
A thrill of indescribable emotion went up from that wrought-up audience, a gasp – that took the form of a deeply-breathed —
“Oh-h!”
“Let her come forward,” said the judge, his mind by no means free from suspicion that this was a carefully planned theatrical coup.
Way was made for a tall female figure, which, advancing from the back of the room, was ushered forward, and for the sake of convenience was marshalled into the witness-box, though not sworn. And the light of the candles, clearer here in the vicinity of the Bench and Bar, revealed an exceedingly attractive face, a face, moreover, well known to many there, but to none better than the prisoner awaiting sentence of death. For it was the face of Lizzie Devine.
“Hubert Dorrien is alive, my lord,” she began, without waiting to be interrogated, “alive and well. He is at the Duke of Cornwall Hotel, at Plymouth, with a broken leg.”
At this definition of “alive and well” there was a laugh, a strange, nervous, staccato laugh, with but little merriment in it, however. Rather did it express the collective tension momentarily relaxed.
Then the girl went on to tell her story, how she and Hubert Dorrien had been fellow-passengers on board the homeward-bound Australian liner which had arrived in the small hours of that morning. She was with a troupe of variety artistes, who had been touring in the Antipodes, and had not been aware of the missing man’s presence on board until they had been some time at sea. Then they had recognised each other, and had become acquainted, in fact, friendly. He had told her how he had fallen over the cliffs near Wandsborough, and been picked up while still unconscious by a coasting schooner, and pretty badly treated, too, he said, for they took everything he had away from him. But the ship was run into by an unknown steamer and sank, only he and another man being saved, and they, after floating about on some wreckage for hours, were picked up by a sailing vessel bound for Perth, Western Australia. She believed that he had done well over there, for he seemed to have plenty of money, and looked twice the man he was as she remembered him at Cranston, prior to his disappearance.
The first that either of them had heard of the trial just concluded, was on landing that morning at Plymouth, where Hubert Dorrien had taken up his quarters at the “Duke of Cornwall.” They first saw it in the papers, and as she herself was from Cranston, Hubert had begged her to travel down there with him in order to give evidence as to his identity. He was in a great state of excitement about it all, and in crossing the road, close to his hotel, had been knocked down by a post-office van, and now he was laid up there with a broken leg, but had escaped other injuries. As he was all alone she had remained to look after him, and see that he had proper medical and other attendance. Then he had hurried her off to Battisford to put a stop to the trial, and save all concerned a moment of further and unnecessary anxiety. This she had done, and was here, it appeared, only just in the nick of time.
She had told her story well and concisely, and it had been listened to in breathless silence. The judge, keenly watching her, was convinced of its truth, so too was the Bar. As she herself had said, there could be no possible advantage to anybody in her coming forward with such a statement unless it could be substantiated. Steps had already been taken to break the news to old Mrs Dorrien, the injured man’s mother, who was probably on her way to Plymouth by that time. All Cranston, moreover, would recognise him at a glance. There was no difficulty whatever about that. But his lordship, while believing her statement, swerved not a hairsbreadth from his original and private opinion. He was as certain that the prisoner had, in actual fact, pushed his brother over the cliff, as he now was that the latter had been rescued, in a most astonishing and well-nigh miraculous manner. But meanwhile the jury had returned a verdict of “Guilty.”
During this narrative, for the first time throughout the trial, the prisoner had shown sign of outward emotion. His face had gone ghastly white as he listened, and his hand was clutching the dock rail, as he leaned forward, drinking in every word. Great Heaven! What did it all mean? he thought. Were they never going to get it over? Why had Lizzie come forward with this tale, which nobody would for a single moment believe! It could only serve to prolong his agony. And yet – ! Then he became conscious of the judge’s voice. Sentencing him to death – of course!
“I cannot reopen the case, and call fresh evidence at this stage, Mr Windgate,” his lordship was saying. “You see, the jury have already given their verdict. But I can postpone sentence. Meanwhile you had better have this young lady’s statement reduced to writing and duly sworn as an affidavit, and if you can produce the supposed murdered man alive, and incontestably establish his identity, why, there is necessarily an end of the case.”
Chapter Forty Eight.
“A Health! Dorrien of Cranston?”
“What an awful young brute I must have been in those days, Roland! By Jove! any kicks that may have travelled my way I jolly well deserved.” And Hubert Dorrien puffed out a great cloud of smoke upon the sweet evening air.
“I think we all wanted a good shaking up,” answered his brother meditatively. “We are a rum lot, you know. At any rate we seem to have got it – all round.”
At the further end of the beautiful avenue of feathery elms rose the tall chimney stacks and long windows of Cranston Hall. The air was fragrant with the multifold scents of evening, distilled dewy from flower and herb, and the dappled deer moved like antlered ghosts in the gathering twilight. From the lake, embowered in overhanging leafage, came the craking cry of a waterhen or the plash of a rising fish, and in the boskiness of the home coverts a very chorus of song, as innumerable thrushes and blackbirds poured forth a final evening warble.
“Well, if I got some kicks, at any rate I captured plenty of halfpence,” went on Hubert. “Tell you what it is, old chap: that was the best day’s work that ever happened when you launched me out into the world to fish for myself.”
“It’s rum how things do come about,” said the other queerly.
“Rather. If I hadn’t got on board the Atlanta, or if she had transhipped me on to some homeward-bound craft, I shouldn’t have got to Australia, and if I hadn’t got to Australia I shouldn’t have struck that reef, and made my pile. Not but what I didn’t have some real rough ups and downs in between.”
“To continue the ‘ifs,’” said Roland, “what if you hadn’t turned up when you did, this time last year? What if your boat had been wrecked, and you had taken another outward-bound trip on some rescuing craft? What then?”
“Don’t speak of it, old chap. It’s enough to give one the cold shivers even to think of. But that sweep who had boned my clothes and things had something to answer for, or rather those who were ‘thick’ enough not to know the difference between him and me, when they held the inquest on him.”
“At any rate he sneaked certain elaborate obsequies under false pretences,” said Roland drily, whereat the other exploded.
The change which had taken place in Hubert Dorrien had been thorough and complete. Outwardly, there was hardly a trace of the weedy, loose-hung, shifty-mannered youth in the sun-browned, well-set-up man walking here now. Mentally, too, was he no less improved, and the process by which that desirable state of things had come about was, in his own words, that his ups and downs had knocked all the nonsense out of him, and prepared him to appreciate and turn to good account his luck when it came. And this he himself heartily recognised. Roland, on the other hand, had changed but little, save that the awful tension of those terrible weeks had turned his hair nearly grey. At the conclusion of the affair he had suffered no fuss to be made, but had driven quietly back to Cranston, and resumed life there as if nothing had happened. And that had been a year ago.
“Fancy Lizzie Devine being fool enough to marry that long-legged cad she was touring with, after all,” said Hubert presently.
“Yes. Not good enough for her. By Jove! but that girl is sterling and plucky. That was one of the finest things I ever saw, the way she came forward. Well, if they don’t hit it off, I’ll back her to come out best.”
Incidentally, both brothers had marked the event alluded to with a substantiality that bordered on the munificent. To one, the recollection of her would always be as that of the life-saver to the drowning man.
“And our rascally friend, Gipsy Steve? Does he still keep straight?” went on Hubert.
“Yes. A savage is capable of gratitude, and this one is so grateful to me for prevailing on Neville not to sack him by reason of his giving that evidence, that I believe he’d cut anyone’s throat if I told him to. But I only told him to keep straight, and I believe he’ll do it.
“Do you know, Roland, you’re no end of a popular chap round here now – among the sovereign people, I mean. Why, only the other day, when I was biking, I turned into a pub out beyond Clatton to get a whisky and soda, and the place was full of yokels and a small farmer or two, and they were booming you no end.”
“That was for your benefit.”
“Not a bit of it. They didn’t know me from Adam.”
“Then it was on Olive’s account. They recognise her as the good genius here.”
“That’s all right,” assented the other heartily. “But I don’t think it was altogether on Olive’s account, all the same. Besides, I’ve come across other instances of it. I say, though. Fancy a Dorrien popular! Eh?”
“Yes. Seems odd, doesn’t it?”
“I’ve got some good news to break to you, Roland, so prepare for the shock. I’m going back to Australia, now at once, the day after to-morrow.”
“The deuce you are! Tired of us already?”
“Tired of you! My dear old chap, how long have I been over here? Just a year. And about ten months out of the twelve has been spent here. Tired of you! Why, the shoe’s on the other hoof, I think.”
“That’s bosh, Hubert. We’ve had very jolly times here together. But why are you off? Business?”
“That’s it. As part proprietor and director of the Kulgurra and Dawkins Reef Company I’ve made my pile, and can go on making it. But, the fact is, this sort of life is turning me too soft again. Besides, I have a hankering after a certain amount of Bush life from time to time. They say every fellow gets it once he has known it. I must get back there and hustle around again.”
“I daresay you’re right after all. Olive will be sorry. But, Hubert, when you are back in the old country again, you know where your home is?”
“Rather, old chap. How things come round, eh? The last place I should ever have thought of in that connection would have been this jolly old place. But now.”
“There’s an unwelcome sort of song to you, Hubert,” said Roland drily, as an unmistakable infantile squall sounded from an upper room, for they had regained the house now. “One more between you and this. And he’s sound in wind and limb; extra so, in fact.”
“Oh, skittles, old man,” laughed the other. “And as to that, I’ll be more of a millionaire than you are, if things go on as they’ve begun. No, no. You’re the man for this place, and I hope you’ll live another hundred years – you and Olive – to run it, and my six-month-old godson, now equalling up there, after you.”
“What’s that? What are you finding fault with your godson about, Hubert?” laughed Olive, who was crossing the hall as they entered, and caught the last words.
“I’m not abusing him. I’m giving him my benediction. Ask Roland.”
“Fact, Olive,” supported the latter. “But Hubert is leaving us to-morrow. He’s off to Australia the day after.”
“No. But where’s the hurry. Short notice, isn’t it?”
And then she tried to prevail upon him to put off his departure.
“Can’t do it, dear,” he answered, greatly pleased. “As I said just now, I’m getting soft here. And I’ve been accustomed of late to make all my moves at short notice.”
“Where’s Roy?” said Roland suddenly. “The rascal seems to have deserted me in these days.”
“Roy, indeed? You haven’t asked after your son and heir, I notice,” said Olive, in feigned indignation.
“H’m! Seniores priores. Roy is a much older friend,” returned Roland. “Moreover, he is an intelligent animal, whereas the other is not – as yet.”
“You hard-hearted, unnatural parent. But – here he is.”
“Who? Roy, I hope.”
“I scorn to reply.”
“Ha-ha! You’re spared the trouble. Come here, Roy, you scamp. What do you mean by deserting me in this fashion? Eh, sir?”
The woolly rascal rushed at his master, squirming and whining with delight, as he made playful snaps at the hand wherewith his said master was pulling his ears, and only flailing a couple of knick-knacks off a low table with his wagging brush.
“Go now and dress, you people, or you’ll be late, as usual,” laughed Olive.
It was essentially a family party, that which gathered round the dinner-table at Cranston that evening, and it was the anniversary of the sudden rolling away of that last and terrible cloud, which had lain so heavily on all concerned since last we saw them together. Dr Ingelow was there, genial, sunny-hearted, as of yore, and Margaret. Sophie, too, tyrannising over and teasing her fiancé– none other than Frank Marsland, there at her side. Nellie Dorrien, however, is missing, and, in fact, is far enough away, for she is making her début in an Indian station as a bride of a month, Eustace Ingelow being there quartered. But they are all uncommonly lively, except that every now and then the recollection of Hubert’s impending departure creates a momentary silence, for he has long been one of this circle, and they will miss him.
From the repartee and laughter of the general conversation, Olive, sitting there, bright and winning as of old, at times drops out. The anniversary of this night rests in her memory still; so, too, does that other terrible night, when they went down into the Valley of the Shadow together – when they stood beneath the iron cliffs in the dim gloaming, and Death stared them in the face, and his grisly hand was over them, reached forth from the on-rushing thunder of raving surges. Both these ordeals had left their mark upon her, moulding her character, and bringing out the best of her nature, shining and durable. No cloud remained now.
But – the Ban! More than a year had passed and gone since its last and grisly manifestation, but none had fallen victim. It was as though cheated. But further literary research on the legendary terror overshadowing his house had carried a reassuring conviction to the mind of Roland Dorrien, strange in the light of his utter and scoffing scepticism on the subject in former times. This was nothing less than a prophecy appended to the prophecy, and done out of the quaintly-spelt and worded phraseology of its period, this is how it ran:
“All events befall in cycles. One woman consigned these two to the bloodless Death. Generations seven shall pass, and he of that time two women shall save from it. Then the Ban shall be removed and the bloodless Death shall depart from Craunston.”
The cryptic utterance revealed itself to Roland’s mind as clear as daylight. He, himself, was of the seventh generation from the original event, and sure, indeed, was it that two women had saved him – one upon the lone sea coast, and one, indeed, from a still more hideous form of the bloodless Death. And so deciding, he was conscious of a relief that was hardly in keeping with his former scepticism.
Such thoughts, not for the first time, are underlying his mind as he sits at the head of his bright and sparkling dinner-table here this evening. Then Marsland’s voice breaks in upon his meditations.
“Before we separate, I want to propose a health, one specially appropriate this evening. Are you all charged? Well then – A health! Dorrien of Cranston?”
Hearty, spontaneous, and sharp is the response.
“A health! Dorrien of Cranston!”
