It was short, perhaps, but one of the most sensational ever held in the Granite City, as the next chapter will prove.
CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN.
A SENSATIONAL MURDER TRIAL.
The good people of Aberdeen--yclept the Granite City--are as fond of display and show as even the Londoners, and the coming of the lords, who are the judges that try the princ.i.p.al cases, is quite an event of the year, and looked forward to with longing, especially by the young people.
Ah! little they think of or care for the poor wretches that, in charge of warders or policemen, or both, are brought up from their cells, to stand pale and trembling before the judge.
The three weeks that intervened between the departure of poor, unhappy Annie from his cell and the coming of the lords were the longest that Reginald ever spent in life--or appeared to be, for every hour was like a day, every day seemed like a month.
The gaoler was still kind to him. He had children of his own, and in his heart he pitied the poor young fellow, around whose neck the halter would apparently soon be placed. He had even--although I believe this was against the rules--given Reginald some idea as to the day his trial would commence.
"G.o.d grant," said Reginald, "they may not keep me long. Death itself is preferable to the anxiety and awful suspense of a trial."
But the three weeks pa.s.sed away at last, and some days to that, and still the lords came not. The prisoner"s barred window was so positioned that he could see down Union Street with some craning of the neck.
One morning, shortly after he had sent away his untouched breakfast, he was startled by hearing a great commotion in the street, and the hum of many voices. The pavements were lined with a sea of human beings.
Shortly after this he heard martial music, and saw men on the march with nodding plumes and fixed bayonets. Among them, guarded on each side, walked lords in their wigs and gowns. Reginald was brave, but his heart sank to zero now with terror and dread. He felt that his hour had come.
Shortly the gaoler entered.
"Your case is to be the first," he said. "Prepare yourself. It will come off almost immediately."
He went away, and the prisoner sank on his knees and prayed as surely he never prayed before. The perspiration stood in great drops on his forehead.
Another weary hour pa.s.sed by, and this time the door was opened to his advocate. His last words were these:
"All you have got to do is to plead "Not guilty"; then keep silent. If a question is put to you, glance at me before you answer. I will nod if you must answer, and shake my head if you need not."
"A thousand thanks for all your kindness, sir. I"m sure you will do your best."
"I will."
Once more the gaoler entered.
"The doctor sends you this," he said. "And drink it you must, or you may faint in the dock, and the case be delayed."
At last the move was made. Dazed and dizzy, Reginald hardly knew whither he was being led, until he found himself in the dock confronting the solemn and sorrowful-looking judge. He looked just once around the court, which was crowded to excess. He half-expected, I think, to see Annie there, and was relieved to find she was not in court. But yonder was Captain d.i.c.kson and the four sailors who had remained behind to prosecute the gold digging. d.i.c.kson smiled cheerfully and nodded. Then one of the policemen whispered attention, and the unhappy prisoner at once confronted the judge.
"Reginald Grahame," said the latter after some legal formalities were gone through, "you are accused of the wilful murder of Craig Nicol, farmer on Deeside, by stabbing him to the heart with a dirk or _skean dhu_. Are you guilty or not guilty?"
"Not guilty, my lord." This in a firm voice, without shake or tremolo.
"Call the witnesses."
The first to be examined was Craig"s old housekeeper. She shed tears profusely, and in a faint tone testified to the departure of her master for Aberdeen with the avowed intention of drawing money to purchase stock withal. She was speedily allowed to stand down.
The little boys who had found the body beneath the dark spruce-fir in the lonely plantation were next interrogated, and answered plainly enough in their shrill treble.
Then came the police who had been called, and the detective, who all gave their evidence in succinct but straightforward sentences.
All this time there was not a sound in the court, only that sea of faces was bent eagerly forward, so that not a word might escape them. The excitement was intense.
Now came the chief witness against Reginald; and the bloodstained dirk was handed to Shufflin" Sandie.
"Look at that, and say if you have seen it before?" said the judge.
"As plain as the nose on your lordship"s face!" said Sandie, smiling.
That particular nose was big, bulbous, and red. Sandie"s reply, therefore, caused a t.i.tter to run through the court. The judge frowned, and the prosecution proceeded.
"Where did you last see it?"
"Stained with blood, sir; it was found beneath the dead man"s body."
On being questioned, Sandie also repeated his evidence as given at the coroner"s inquest, and presently was allowed to stand down.
Then the prisoner was hissed by the people. The judge lost his temper.
He had not quite got over Sandie"s allusion to his nose.
"If," he cried, "there is the slightest approach to a repet.i.tion of that unseemly noise, I will instantly clear the court?"
The doctor who had examined the body was examined.
"Might not the farmer have committed suicide?" he was asked.
"Everything is against that theory," the doctor replied, "for the knife belonged to Grahame; besides, the deed was done on the road, and from the appearance of the deceased"s coat, he had evidently been hauled through the gateway on his back, bleeding all the while, and so hidden under the darkling spruce pine."
"So that _felo de se_ is quite out of the question?"
"Utterly so, my lord."
"Stand down, doctor."
I am giving the evidence only in the briefest epitome, for it occupied hours. The advocate for the prosecution made a telling speech, to which the prisoner"s solicitor replied in one quite as good. He spoke almost ironically, and laughed as he did so, especially when he came to the evidence of the knife. His client at the time of the murder was lying sound asleep at a hedge-foot. What could hinder a tramp, one of the many who swarm on the Deeside road, to have stolen the knife, followed Craig Nicol, stabbed him, robbed and hidden the body, and left the knife there to turn suspicion on the sleeping man? "Is it likely," he added, "that Reginald--had he indeed murdered his quondam friend--would have been so great a fool as to have left the knife there?" He ended by saying that there was not a jot of trustworthy evidence on which the jury could bring in a verdict of guilty.
But, alas! for Reginald. The judge in his summing up--and a long and eloquent speech it was--destroyed all the good effects of the solicitor"s speech. "He could not help," he said, "pointing out to the jury that guilt or suspicion could rest on no one else save Grahame. As testified by a witness, he had quarrelled with Nicol, and had made use of the remarkable expression that "the quarrel would end in blood." The night of the murder Grahame was not sober, but lying where he was, in the shade of the hedge, Nicol must have pa.s.sed him without seeing him, and then no doubt Grahame had followed and done that awful deed which in cool blood he might not even have thought about Again, Grahame was poor, and was engaged to be married. The gold and notes would be an incentive undoubtedly to the crime, and when he sailed away in the _Wolverine_ he was undoubtedly a fugitive from justice, and in his opinion the jury had but one course. They might now retire."
They were about to rise, and his lordship was about to withdraw, when a loud voice exclaimed:
"Hold! I desire to give evidence."
A tall, bold-looking seafarer stepped up, and was sworn.
"I have but this moment returned from a cruise around Africa," he said.
"I am bo"s"n"s mate in H.M.S. _Hurricane_. We have been out for three years. But, my lord, I have some of the notes here that the Bank of Scotland can prove were paid to Craig Nicol, and on the very day after the murder must have taken place I received these notes, for value given, from the hands of Sandie yonder, usually called Shufflin" Sandie.
I knew nothing about the murder then, nor until the ship was paid off; but being hurried away, I had no time to cash the paper, and here are three of them now, my lord." They were handed to the jury. "They were smeared with blood when I got them. Sandie laughed when I pointed this out to him. He said that he had cut his finger, but that the blood would bring me luck." (Great sensation in court.)
Sandie was at once recalled to the witness-box. His knees trembled so that he had to be supported. His voice shook, and his face was pale to ghastliness.