The Crime and the Criminal Part 52

CHAPTER XXVIII.

THE PRISONER COMES INTO COURT.

I got the ticket, and I went to the trial.

I travelled in the same train with the judge. At Victoria, as I was standing at the carriage door, a little old gentleman, of the beer-barrel type of architecture, went toddling by. He wore gold spectacles, he had a very red face, a double chin, and big, pursy lips--the sort of old gentleman one would have liked to have smacked on the back.

Another old gentleman was standing near me. He was tall and thin. When the little old gentleman went toddling by this other old gentleman moved his head in the toddler's direction and his arms in mine.

"Judge Hunter."

I was most benign.

"Indeed! Is that Judge Hunter?"

"Going down to Lewes a.s.sizes; been spending a day in town."

That was a Monday. Of course, the day before had been Sunday. But what the man meant is more than I can say.

The thin old gentleman and I shared a compartment. He fed me with sc.r.a.ps of information by the way.

"Good judge, Hunter. He has one qualification which a good judge ought to have."

"What is that?"

"Been a bit of a rogue himself."

"Is that a qualification which goes to the making of a good judge? Then what a number of good judges there must be."

The thin old gentleman smiled.

"I don't mean in a criminal sense, you understand. He's not been in prison, and that kind of thing. But Hunter has not lived exactly the life of a saint. In the case of a judge a fellow-feeling ought to make one wondrous kind."

"I see."

It was a delightful journey. The sun was shining; the air was warm and sweet; the country through which we pa.s.sed seemed lovely. Perhaps I was in the mood!

As we rattled through Three Bridges Junction the thin old gentleman recommenced his process of feeding me with t.i.tbits of information.

"This is where the murder took place."

"Is that so?"

How different it looked in the sunshine!

"Just about there"--he was pointing through the window of the carriage--"is where they found the body."

I wondered if he was right. I, myself, had the vaguest notion. I had not been in a position to make a mental map of my surroundings. It struck me that it must have been a little farther on; to me, at the time, it had seemed to be a good distance from the station. But then I had to allow for the rate at which we were moving. I had walked along the line.

"It was a dreadful thing--dreadful! It makes one's blood boil when one thinks of it. I do hope that, this time, no false sentimentality will be allowed to interfere, and that they will hang the man."

I had become used to hearing that sort of remark. Everybody seemed to be taking it for granted that Tommy was guilty. I could but acquiesce.

Lewes seemed to me to be a charming town--all up-hill and down--though I must confess that there was a little more up-hill than down. And all so old! I do so like a town to be old. Of course one would never dream of living in it, but it is so nice to visit.

The a.s.sizes were not to open till the Tuesday. Tommy's trial was not expected to begin till the Wednesday. So I had time upon my hands. I was truly rural. I went to Newhaven--a horrid hole!--and across the road to Seaford--which was much of a muchness. And I lived on the Lewes Downs. What a breeze there was up there! And what a view! And I saw the prison--the outside of it, I mean, not the inside. It was built right on the edge of the downs--rather cool in winter, I should think.

I came on a warder. He was smoking a pipe. I suppose he was taking the air. He was a big man, with a huge red beard and one of the best-humoured faces I ever saw. I wondered what he did with his good-humour when he went inside. I should think it must have been against the prison rules to take it in.

We foregathered. He was affability itself. He pointed out the various parts of the prison.

"That is the debtors' wing, that is; that's where we keep the hard-up 'uns. A chap can't earn five-and-twenty shillings to pay his poor rate, perhaps, so we spend ten pound over locking him up. That's a pretty game, that is. I've never been able to make head or tail of it myself.

But, of course, it's no affair of mine. Those are the convicted wards.

We haven't got enough prisoners of our own to keep the place properly going, so they send us a few down from town--some of the worst they've got. Nice ones some of them are. That's the chapel. Oh, yes, we have a regular daily service; we couldn't get on without one, could we?--twice on Sunday--Protestant and Catholic. They're very particular, some of 'em, about their religion. We chaps don't do much in the service. All our time's took up in looking after the boys; and the worse a man is, the more he likes his bit of chapel. That's where we keep the prisoners who are awaiting trial--Tennant's in there."

"Indeed! How very interesting! And what sort of a man is he?--I suppose he's a dreadful man?"

The warder began combing his beard with his fingers.

"Not a bit of it; don't you think it. He's as decent and nice a chap as ever you'd wish to meet."

"Don't you think he's guilty?"

"Oh, I don't know nothing at all about that. Some of the very worst murders ever I have known have been done by some of the very nicest chaps ever you met--when you come to talk to 'em, I mean. I don't know how it is, but so it is. He'll be hung--safe to. That's where they'll hang him. You can't see it from where we are, but there's a little yard in there where they build the gallows. I expect I shall have the charge of him in the condemned cell. I generally do have. I've hung 'em before to-day; but it's not a nice job."

Poor, dear Tommy! It made me go queer all over to hear the man talk of him like that. What a funny world it is? Or is it the people in it who are funny?

When the trial began the court was like a theatre. I got in early--for reasons of my own. I wanted a particular place, and succeeded in obtaining the object of my heart's desire.

I had had a peep in at the court on the opening day of the a.s.sizes.

What I wanted was a position in which I should not face the prisoner. I found that the prisoners were placed in a sort of railed enclosure.

Their feet were about on a level with the lawyers' heads. On one side of this enclosure was a kind of pew. So long as the occupants kept their seats it was impossible for any one in the enclosure to even guess at their ident.i.ty. I soon saw that a seat in this pew was exactly what I wanted. If I wore a thick veil, and made certain changes in my attire, Tommy would never dream that the woman whom he was charged with having murdered was actually sitting within reach of his hand, a spectator of the trial.

When I reached the court the usher--or whoever it was--wanted me to sit on the bench, on a line with the judge and immediately facing the prisoner's dock. He a.s.sured me that that part of the court was specially reserved for ladies who were ticket-holders, and that it was quite impossible that they could be allowed to sit anywhere else. This impossibility I rather doubted, and when I presented him with two beautifully bright, new yellow sovereigns he seemed to doubt it too.

"I don't want to be conspicuous," I explained. "I just want to see everything without being seen."

Nothing could have possibly been truer or more reasonable. Possibly those two sovereigns aided that usher to see both the truth and the reason. Anyhow, he showed me into actually the seat I wanted.

Very soon the place was crowded. No end of ladies graced the bench.

Some of them must--unlike modest little me!--have come to be seen as well as to see. Certainly they were dressed for show. The court wore quite an air of fashion.

Among the crowd, but not on the bench, was Tommy's wife. She came in with an elderly lady and gentleman, whom I took to be her father and mother, or else Tommy's--I could not make my mind up which--and a younger gentleman, who still was pretty well on in years. I had no doubt that he was Tommy's solicitor. As Mrs. Tennant came in two of the barristers, who were sitting among a heap of others at a table, stood up and shook hands with her. I found out afterwards that, as I suspected at the time, they were Tommy's counsel. Somebody must have known who she was, because, directly she appeared, quite a buzz of whispering went round the court. The women on the bench leaned towards each other, and stared and did everything but point at her. They might have been ladies--gentlewomen, as my old mother used to have it, they were not. She removed her veil and looked at them--just once, and that was all. She looked very sweet and pale and troubled, but grit to the finger-ends.