International Short Stories: English Part 23

said she. "How do I know what you might put into my wine and my keyholes, and say you found it? You are well known, you Bow Street runners, for your hanky-panky tricks. Have you got a search-warrant, to throw more discredit upon my house? No? Then pack! and learn the law before you teach it me."

Bradbury retired, bitterly indignant, and his indignation strengthened his faint doubt of c.o.x's guilt.

He set a friend to watch the "Swan," and he himself gave his mind to the whole case, and visited c.o.x in Newgate three times before his trial.

The next novelty was that legal a.s.sistance was provided for c.o.x by a person who expressed compa.s.sion for his poverty and inability to defend himself, guilty or not guilty; and that benevolent person was--Captain Cowen.

In due course Daniel c.o.x was arraigned at the bar of the Old Bailey for robbery and murder.

The deposition of the murdered man was put in by the Crown, and the witnesses sworn who heard it, and Captain Cowen was called to support a portion of it. He swore that he supped with the deceased and loaded one pistol for him while Mr. Gardiner loaded the other; lent him the key of his own door for further security, and himself slept in the City.

The judge asked him where, and he said, "13 Farringdon Street."

It was elicited from him that he had provided counsel for the prisoner.

His evidence was very short and to the point. It did not directly touch the accused, and the defendant's counsel--in spite of his client's eager desire--declined to cross-examine Captain Cowen. He thought a hostile examination of so respectable a witness, who brought nothing home to the accused, would only raise more indignation against his client.

The prosecution was strengthened by the reluctant evidence of Barbara Lamb. She deposed that three years ago c.o.x had been detected by her stealing money from a gentleman's table in the "Swan" Inn, and she gave the details.

The judge asked her whether this was at night

"No, my lord; at about four of the clock. He is never in the house at night; the mistress can't abide him."

"Has he any key of the house?"

"Oh, dear, no, my lord."

The rest of the evidence for the Crown is virtually before the reader.

For the defence it was proved that the man was found drunk, with no money nor keys upon him, and that the knife was found under the wall, and the blood was traceable from the wall to the stable. Bradbury, who proved this, tried to get in about the wine; but this was stopped as irrelevant. "There is only one person under suspicion," said the Judge, rather sternly.

As counsel were not allowed in that day to make speeches to the jury, but only to examine and cross-examine and discuss points of law, Daniel c.o.x had to speak in his own defence.

"My lord," said he, "it was my double done it."

"Your what?" asked my lord, a little peevishly.

"My double. There's a rogue prowls about the 'Swan' at nights, which you couldn't tell him from me. (Laughter.) You needn't to laugh me to the gallows. I tell ye he have got a nose like mine." (Laughter.)

Clerk of Arraigns. Keep silence in the court, on pain of imprisonment.

"And he have got a waistcoat the very spit of mine, and a tumble-down hat such as I do wear. I saw him go by and let hisself into the 'Swan'

with a key, and I told Sam Pott next morning."

Judge. Who is Sam Pott?

Culprit. Why, my stable-boy, to be sure.

Judge. Is he in court?

Culprit. I don't know. Ay, there he is,

Judge. Then you'd better call him.

Culprit (shouting). Hy! Sam!

Sam. Here be I. (Loud laughter.)

The judge explained, calmly, that to call a witness meant to put him in the box and swear him, and that although it was irregular, yet he should allow Pott to be sworn, if it would do the prisoner any good.

Prisoner's counsel said he had no wish to swear Mr. Pott.

"Well, Mr. Gurney," said the judge, "I don't think he can do you any harm." Meaning in so desperate a case.

Thereupon Sam Pott was sworn, and deposed that c.o.x had told him about this double.

"When?"

"Often and often."

"Before the murder?"

"Long afore that."

Counsel for the Crown. Did you ever see this double?

"Not I."

Counsel. I thought not.

Daniel c.o.x went on to say that on the night of the murder he was up with a sick horse, and he saw his double let himself out of the inn the back way, and then turn round and close the door softly; so he slipped out to meet him. But the double saw him, and made for the garden wall.

He ran up and caught him with one leg over the wall, and seized a black bag he was carrying off; the figure dropped it, and he heard a lot Of money c.h.i.n.k: that thereupon he cried "Thieves!" and seized the man; but immediately received a blow, and lost his senses for a time. When he came to, the man and the bags were both gone, and he felt so sick that he staggered to the stable and drank a pint of neat brandy, and he remembered no more till they pumped on him, and told him he had robbed and murdered a gentleman inside the "Swan" Inn. "What they can't tell me," said Daniel, beginning to shout, "is how I could know who has got money, and who hasn't, inside the 'Swan' Inn. I keeps the stables, not the inn: and where be my keys to open and shut the 'Swan'? I never had none. And where's the gentleman's money? 'Twas somebody in the inn as done it, for to have the money, and when you find the money, you'll find the man."

The prosecuting counsel ridiculed this defence, and inter alia asked the jury whether they thought it was a double the witness Lamb had caught robbing in the inn three years ago.

The judge summed up very closely, giving the evidence of every witness.

What follows is a mere synopsis of his charge.

He showed it was beyond doubt that Mr. Gardiner returned to the inn with money, having collected his rents in Wiltshire; and this was known in the inn, and proved by several, and might have transpired in the yard or the taproom. The unfortunate gentleman took Captain Cowen, a respectable person, his neighbor in the inn, into his confidence, and revealed his uneasiness. Captain Cowen swore that he supped with him, but could not stay all night, most unfortunately. But he encouraged him, left him his pistols, and helped him load them.

Then his lordship read the dying man's deposition. The person thus solemnly denounced was found in the stable, bleeding from a recent wound, which seems to connect him at once with the deed as described by the dying man.

"But here," said my lord, "the chain is no longer perfect. A knife, taken from the 'Swan,' was found under the garden wall, and the first traces of blood commenced there, and continued to the stable, and were abundant on the straw and on the person of the accused. This was proved by the constable and others. No money was found on him, and no keys that could have opened any outer doors of the 'Swan' Inn. The accused had, however, three years before been guilty of a theft from a gentleman in the inn, which negatives his pretence that he always confined himself to the stables. It did not, however, appear that on the occasion of the theft he had unlocked any doors, or possessed the means. The witness for the Crown, Barbara Lamb, was clear on that.

"The prisoner's own solution of the mystery was not very credible. He said he had a double--or a person wearing his clothes and appearance; and he had seen this person prowling about long before the murder, and had spoken of the double to one Pott. Pott deposed that c.o.x had spoken of this double more than once; but admitted he never saw the double with his own eyes.

"This double, says the accused, on the fatal night let himself out of the 'Swan' Inn and escaped to the garden wall. There he (c.o.x) came up with this mysterious person, and a scuffle ensued in which a bag was dropped and gave the sound of coin; and then c.o.x held the man and cried 'Thieves!' but presently received a wound and fainted, and on recovering himself, staggered to the stables and drank a pint of brandy.

"The story sounds ridiculous, and there is no direct evidence to back it; but there is a circ.u.mstance that lends some color to it. There was one blood-stained instrument, and no more, found on the premises, and that knife answers to the description given by the dying man, and, indeed, may be taken to be the very knife missing from his room; and this knife was found under the garden wall, and there the blood commenced and was traced to the stable.