"I call it a shame. I should like to know what a judge is for. We might as well try the case ourselves as this."
"So we are trying it, aren"t we?" rebuked the man who had been the first to blurt out the fatal word, and who was a farmer from near the same place.
"You may be, Mr. Rees," returned the boat proprietor, with what was intended for biting sarcasm.
"Come, gentlemen, gentlemen," said the foreman impressively, "let us remember that we are engaged on a case of life and death. We have got to come at the truth somehow, and we must do what we can by ourselves."
"They should have give us more evidence," objected Mr. Jenkins. "What did they want to make so much fuss about those jewels for?"
"Aye, and there was another thing," said the Porthstone farmer; "did you notice that when Mr. Lewis wanted to say why he suspected her, the judge wouldn"t let un?"
"Well, she"s an orphan," said the tailor, "and her father was Rector of Porthstone for thirty years, and I say we ought to let her off."
"For shame, John," said the watchmaker, who happened to be his next-door neighbour; "don"t you know we"ve got to decide according to the evidence?"
The tailor hung his head.
Then the foreman interposed again.
"Really, gentlemen, I think it will save time if we go round the table, and let each man express his opinion in turn. Of course, I don"t say his final opinion, but just any remarks that strike him on the evidence. Will you begin, sir?"
Mr. Jenkins rose from his seat on the foreman"s right and cleared his throat.
"Mr. Foreman and gentlemen, I think this is, as our foreman has told us, a case of very great doubt. At the same time, it is our duty to punish the guilty, and not let the prisoner off simply because she is a woman and good-looking, and that sort of thing." (Subdued applause.
The foreman raises his hand for silence.) "Now, what I look at in this case is the motive, and that is, I take it, the jewels. I don"t believe she would have done it simply on the chance of getting something under the will. I don"t know whether you remember, but the judge said Miss Lewis might have parted with the jewels, because they weren"t found after her death. Now, it seems to me that that points just the other way. I mean, it looks as if she had been murdered for the sake of them. It seems to me the only question is, Who murdered her? Was it Mr. Lewis or was it Miss Owen? That"s my difficulty."
He sat down. The farmer, who sat next him, stood up in turn.
"I say what the judge said; let us decide according to the evidence.
Now, what evidence is there against Mr. Lewis? Why, you say the judge didn"t speak out clearly, but he did say there wasn"t any evidence against him. All the evidence is against her, and we ought to act upon it."
The next speaker was a rather young man, who occupied a position of superintendence in a large millinery establishment, exclusively patronised by ladies. With such a.s.sociations he was naturally disposed to be chivalrous. He said:
"I know a lady when I see her. Miss Owen"s a lady; anyone can see that with half an eye. As for Lewis, I didn"t like the looks of him at all.
You know they"re a wild lot out in Australia. I heard that he came back for good reasons, if the truth was known. Then look how he lost his temper in the witness-box! And then, as Mr. Tressamer said, the very night he got there the murder happened. That looks as if he did it. He said she didn"t give him a latchkey, but I believe she very likely did, else why did the barrister ask him? And then look at the hand being cut off. No young lady would go and do such a thing as that, surely!"
The jury were impressed. The next man was of a shy and gentle disposition. He did not venture to get on his feet, but threw out a suggestion as he sat: "I suppose it must have been one of the two.
There couldn"t have been somebody else, could there?"
A withering look from eleven faces rewarded this disconcerting query.
The foreman expressed the general feeling:
"Really, sir, I can"t think what ground you have for suggesting such a thing. The case is difficult enough as it is, without having fresh doubts raised."
"Ah, there should ought to have been a London detective brought down,"
muttered another juryman, who had taken little part hitherto. "One of them would have puzzled it out, you may depend."
"Well, I don"t see what more you would have," said the other farmer, Rees, rising in his turn. "Here is this young woman, sleeping in the next room, going out at night secretly, under some pretence of headaches--why didn"t she tell other people about them beside that chemist?--and here you have her mistress murdered, and the blood found on the door of her own room the next morning. What more do you want?"
He sat down. It was now the tailor"s turn.
"And how do you know Lewis didn"t put the blood there?" he asked. "I believe it"s Lewis myself. Anyway, one of them must have done it, that"s clear."
But this was felt to be a weak defence, and the next two jurymen shook their heads, and professed themselves unable to throw any light upon the question. Then it was the turn of the boat proprietor.
"Look here," he said, "what"s the good of our trying to come to a verdict when we"re none of us sure which of them did it? Better give it up, and tell the judge we can"t agree."
But the foreman would not hear of this.
"No, sir," he said, "we are here sworn to do justice between man and man and mete out punishment to the guilty, and we must not shrink from our task. We have heard the case through, and if we are not competent to give a verdict on it, who is?"
This was felt to be unanswerable. Not only were the foreman"s words worthy of attention in themselves, but he was a great man, the reputed possessor of twelve thousand a year; he wore a frock coat and a white waistcoat as well, and his word was, therefore, practically equivalent to law.
There remained only the watchmaker. He felt a friendly feeling towards the prisoner, but he was troubled by real misgivings as to her innocence.
"The judge said we oughtn"t to go against Mr. Lewis," he said, "and I stand by what the judge says. Besides, I look at what he said when he gave her in charge."
"What was that?" said the foreman eagerly.
"I"ll tell you, sir. It was in the paper at the time, and I happened to keep it by me, and so when I was summoned as a juror, thinks I to myself, "This may come in useful if I should happen to be on the jury that"s to try her," so I just cuts it out and brings it in my pocket."
The other men looked on keenly, as he slowly drew out his pocket-book and extracted a newspaper cutting, embracing some two and a half columns of the _Southern Daily News_. Everyone hoped that something of a decisive character would now be forthcoming.
The watchmaker ran his finger down the columns.
"Here it is!" he exclaimed, and read it aloud.
""On reaching the police-station, of which Constable Smithies was then in charge, Mr. Lewis said: "I charge Eleanor Owen with the murder of my aunt, Ann Elizabeth Lewis. I have made some money, and, please G.o.d, I"ll spend every penny of it rather than my poor aunt shall remain unavenged."
""Constable Smithies at once summoned Sergeant--" that"s it,"
concluded the watchmaker, looking up from his extract.
A murmur and shaking of heads followed, and the foreman again felicitously voiced the general feeling:
"_That_ doesn"t sound like guilt," he said, with emphasis. "May I see that paper? Perhaps it has some other things which we have forgotten."
"Certainly, sir. But I don"t know whether we ought to be reading this," hazarded its owner, handing the slip across.
"Why not? We"re only doing it to refresh our memory."
This reply was again felt to be worthy of its author. It had a fine flavour of legality about it too, which gave confidence to the other jurymen. They realized that they were fortunate in their foreman.
That gentleman meanwhile proceeded to glance down the doc.u.ment before him. Presently he stopped, frowned, pursed up his lips, and breathed a stern sigh. The others watched with anxiety. He proceeded to enlighten them.
"Gentlemen, listen to this, and tell me what effect it has on your minds. Sergeant Evans said, "I arrested the prisoner on the morning of the second. I told her she was charged with the wilful murder of Ann Elizabeth Lewis. She turned pale and said, "It is impossible." I cautioned her. She said nothing more, and _shed no tears_." Gentlemen, is that like innocence?"
He laid down the paper. The prisoner"s doom was sealed. The waverers among the jury went over at once, and even the friends of the prisoner no longer dared to hold out. The tailor would have resisted if he had dared, but his sense of social inferiority was too much for him. What was he, a humble little tradesman, to set himself against eleven men, headed by a wealthy contractor who wore three spade guineas on his watch-chain?