1
ronnie, shaking off spillcroft, spent the luncheon adjournment alone. his bouts with the last witnesses, followed by the shock of bert bishop's proof, had rattled him. as he was leaving the court, the doorkeeper handed him another shock--a telegram. opening it, he read, to his relief: "all love and all success. julia." but the growing crowd in the street, the multiplying posters, the comments which reached his ears as he made his hasty way towards holborn, rattled him still further.
his luck only added to his fears. had it not been for the two anonymous notes, maggie peterson's evidence would have stood unchallenged. now he could smash that evidence. but even now---even if the jury believed his side of the case sufficiently to discount brunton's plea of premeditation--even if bob fielding and lucy came well through the ordeal of brunton's cross-questions--how, how the devil could he hope, unless some miracle gave his halting oratory genius, to secure a complete acquittal?
lunching alone in the crowded grill-room of the south-eastern & chatham hotel, ronnie's thoughts went back to other days. he saw himself soldier again, and remembered the particular type of moral courage, of self-control, necessary for the winning of battles. that moral courage, that self-control must be his again if he would win this fight against brunton. "this is my chance," he thought. "my one chance of downing the brute. i mustn't muff it."
gradually solitude restored his balance. gradually, his mind reconcentrated. weeks of thought crystallized to short sentences. lucy, lucy towers must be saved. nothing but that mattered. the personal issue dwindled to unimportance.
walking back to the court, he found that he could think, even of his enemy, logically.
2
but when, a few minutes later, ronald cavendish, rising to open the defense of lucy towers, saw hector brunton bowed over his brief, nothing of him visible except a patch of gray wig, the hump of a black back, and one gentlemanly hand clutched round the gold pencil-case--then, for a moment, logic failed; and only the fear-stricken eyes of the woman in the dock, only his personal enmity for the man keyed him to the struggle.
"m' lord, members of the jury," he began, and there was no attempt at oratory in his beginning, "it will be no part of my case to prove to you that lucy towers did not shoot her husband. she did shoot him. she shot him exactly as counsel for the crown has proved to you. but when the crown asks you to find my client guilty of wilful murder, when my learned friend brings what he is pleased to call evidence in support of malice and of premeditation; then i join issue with him. my submission to you is that there was, in what my client did, neither malice nor premeditation.
"yet even if my learned friend fails--as it seems to me he must fail--to convince you of premeditation, that failure will not furnish me with sufficient grounds on which to ask you for my client's complete exoneration. only on one ground can i ask you, as i intend to ask you, for your verdict of not guilty; and that ground, members of the jury, is justifiable or excusable homicide.
"excusable homicide!" for a full ten minutes, the voice, grave, low, meditative, calm as the voice of the judge himself, dealt with the legal aspect of excusability; and all the while hector brunton listened, motionless. but suddenly, as ronnie's tone changed to the tone of the pleader, the "hanging prosecutor" shifted on his seat; and savagely he stared at his enemy.
"those, members of the jury, are some of the grounds on which our law excuses the killing of one human being by another. but there are other grounds, grounds which not only excuse but justify. it is such justification, the fullest possible justification, which i purpose to plead. my learned friend, you may have noticed, was very careful to avoid any reference to the character or disposition of my client's husband. i, on the contrary, intend to deal with that point rather fully."
already the very quietness, the very certainty of that opening had impressed the court; and as, still quietly, yet with a hint of mounting passion behind it, the speech went on; as, point by point, counsel for the defense traversed the statements of counsel for the crown, it seemed, even to the obtuse spillcroft, as though the capital charge against lucy towers might fail.
"while as for the minor charge," continued ronnie, "the charge of manslaughter--of which, as his lordship will tell you, even though it is not pleaded on the indictment, it will be open to you to find my client guilty--on that charge, too, i intend to ask you for the completest acquittal."
brunton's stare relaxed. he hunched himself once more over his notes. and abruptly instinct, the instinct of the born advocate, warned ronnie that he had spoken long enough. he glanced at the clock, at the jury. the jury--and especially the three women--were losing interest. those women wanted neither argument nor oratory. they wanted drama. they were waiting, as spectators in a theater, for him to put lucy towers in the witness-box. so, abruptly, he regalvanized their interest.
"members of the jury, my learned friend who leads for the crown has been at great pains to convince you, out of the mouths of his witnesses, that lucy towers is both murderess and adulteress. i propose to afford him yet another opportunity of convincing you--by putting both my client and her cousin in the witness-box."
at that, the whole court stiffened to attention, and even the judge, who seemed to have been dozing throughout the speech, leaned forward. "isn't he even going to deal with the evidence for the prosecution?" thought the judge.
but ronnie purposely played his highest card last.
"nevertheless, before you hear my client's story from her own lips, i must ask you to weigh very carefully certain evidence which the crown has thought fit to call against her. with the testimony of john hodges and of james travers, honest testimony, let us hope, i shall deal at a later stage of these proceedings. but the evidence of maggie peterson calls for different treatment. because maggie peterson has lied--and lied deliberately!
"lied--and lied deliberately." now, as passion mounted and mounted, kindling the quiet voice to rage, brunton's head twitched from his brief, and his eyes, the cold gray eyes under the gray wig, glanced fearfully about the packed court-room.
"because, on the night of july 4, the night when maggie peterson swears that she saw my client making her way to robert fielding's room, maggie peterson was not at 25 laburnum grove at all."
ronnie paused, letting his every word sink home. rain, pattering suddenly on the glass dome above, seemed to emphasize the silence below. then passionately the speech ended. "my lord, members of the jury, i ask for no mercy. i ask only for justice. i ask you to remember, even while you are listening to my client's testimony, that the main evidence against her, the evidence of this woman peterson is, from beginning to end, one tissue of deliberate lies, of the most wilful and corrupt perjury, as i shall prove to you out of the mouth of a competent witness, the landlord of the red lion tavern, who will testify to you beyond the shadow of a doubt that from eight o'clock till after ten on the night of july 4, maggie peterson never left his establishment; who will testify, moreover, that maggie peterson's companion on the night in question was none other than my unfortunate client's husband, william towers himself."
and on that, satisfied with the utter hush which followed, ronald cavendish put his client in the box.
3
there are seconds in every man's life when the conviction of his own wrong-doing shatters the edifice of conceit and flings illusion headlong.
such a second came to hector brunton, k.c., as he watched lucy towers step down from the side of the dock and make her way past the packed benches to the witness-box. with her--he could feel--went a wave, a great wave of human sympathy, the wave against which he, hector brunton, had been swimming for more than a year.
paralyzed he watched her--watched her take the oath, kiss the book. his mind was a torment, a torment of conscience. conscience howled: "you knew! you knew all the time that your principal witness was lying. you knew! you knew all the time that this woman was no adulteress. she's innocent, innocent, hector brunton; as innocent in intention as that other woman you've been hounding."
cavendish's voice, the voice of his enemy, broke the spell.
"mrs. towers, while the oath you have just sworn is still fresh in your mind, i want you to answer this question. have you ever, at any time in your life, been guilty of immorality with your cousin, robert fielding?"
"never." the answer, so diffident yet so definite, might have been aliette's; and to ronnie, his brain still throbbing from its own unaccustomed eloquence, it seemed, just for a fraction of a second, as though the woman he defended were indeed his own.
"various witnesses for the crown have stated that you were on bad terms with your husband. are those statements true?"
"i did my best to get on with him." the brown eyes never flinched. "but he was a cruel man, especially when he was in drink."
"nevertheless, you were faithful to him?"
"yes. always."
"you heard mrs. peterson's evidence? she said," ronnie referred to his notes, "that at half-past nine o'clock on the night of july 4, she saw you go into robert fielding's room. have you any comment to make on that evidence?"
"it's a lie. i never visited him at night. only by day."
"at half-past nine on the night of july 4, where were you?"
"i was in my own room, washing up the supper things."
"was your husband with you?"
"no."
"where was he?"
"i don't know."
"one other point about mrs. peterson's evidence. she told us, if you remember, that you made a statement: that you said to her that you would never be happy till your husband was dead. what have you to say about that statement?"
"it's another lie." the lips pursed, stubbornly--it seemed to brunton--as his wife's own. "an absolute lie."
"one moment, please!" mr. justice heber--every syllable of his question audible as the tinkle of glass--intervened. "i should like to be clear on this point, mrs. towers. the witness to whom your counsel refers made the following statements: that at half-past nine o'clock on the night of july 4 she saw you enter robert fielding's room; that you were in the habit of making such visits, and that she was standing in the passage between your room and hers when she saw you. do i understand you positively to deny all three of those statements?"
"yes, m'lord."
"and the witness in question further stated that you said to her: 'bill isn't fit to be any woman's husband. i wish to god he was dead.' what have you to say to that?"
the woman in the witness-box did not hesitate. deliberately her eyes met the judge's. deliberately she answered his question: "my lord, i may have said that bill wasn't fit to be any woman's husband. but i never said," the shy voice rose, "either to maggie peterson or to any one else, that i wished he was dead."
"she never said"--word for word mr. justice heber wrote down his answer--"that she wished her husband was dead."
but hector brunton--bent over his brief--could not write. for now, not only conscience, but all his years spent in separating truth from falsehood, all the experience of a legal lifetime, told him of lucy's innocence.
again his enemy's voice broke the spell: "you heard the evidence of john hodges. he said that you told him somewhere about the end of last june that you wished you had never married your husband. have you anything you would like to say in answer to that?"
"bill was there at the time. i only meant it for a joke."
"and now, before i ask you to tell his lordship and the jury, in your own words, what happened on the afternoon of july 5, i want you, if you can, to give me some idea of the feelings you entertained, before that date, for your husband."
it was a daring, an unpremeditated, though not a leading question; and, even as he put it, ronnie perceived its danger. suppose the woman in the witness-box, the little dignified woman whose hands rested so quietly on the rail, whose whole attitude indicated nothing but the intensest desire to speak truth, should speak too much truth, should destroy--with one fatal word--the house of protection he was building about her? but neither the heart nor the truth in lucy towers failed.
"it wouldn't be right"--the hands on the rail did not move--"for me to pretend that i cared for bill. he made my life an absolute hell. he drank and he used to knock me about. many's the time i've wished he was dead. but i never thought of killing him."
"ah." ronnie paused in his examination--one of those long, indefinable pauses which have more value than speech. now--feeling the jury with him--he was no longer haunted by thought of his own inefficiency, no longer afraid of brunton. not brunton's self could shake such a witness. already, the first faint foretaste of victory quickened his pulse. his questions grew more and more daring.
"you said, in your statement at the police-station: 'my husband didn't like me going to bob's room. he was jealous of bob.' can you give us any further details about that?"
"details!" lucy, her eyes downcast, appeared to be considering the question. she shot a glance at brunton. then, quietly, she said, "bill was always being jealous of some man or other--the same as mr. hodges said. but he hadn't got any reason to be jealous. i told him so, when he said i wasn't to go to bob's room that afternoon. me and bob has always been pals--since we were kiddies. but if it hadn't been for bob having no arms, i wouldn't have disobeyed bill and gone to him.''
"i see. and can you tell me, coming to the afternoon of july 5, what your husband said when you threatened to disobey him--when you told him," ronnie referred to his brief, "'i must go and help bob because he can't feed himself'?"
"bill said," the words were tremulous: "'if you don't stop here i'll come over and do in the pair of you.'"
"and what happened after that!"
"i just went to bob's room."
"and did you say anything to your cousin about your husband's threats?"
"no."
"can you tell me why you didn't?"
"because"--unconsciously, the woman scored yet another point--"because i didn't want bob to see i was frightened."
"and now"--ronnie craned forward in his mounting excitement--"and now, mrs. towers, i want you to describe to his lordship and the jury, in your own words, exactly what happened in robert fielding's room on the afternoon of july 5."
"i made bob his tea, and i was helping him eat it when bill came in," began the woman.
no sounds save the scratch of reporters' pencils, the occasional tap of a boot-sole on the bare floor-boards, and the suppressed breathing of her tense audience interrupted the story lucy towers told her counsel and the court--a story so utterly resembling, yet so utterly differing from the toneless confession which the "hanging prosecutor" had read out the day before, a story so redolent of life and truth and certainty that, listening to it, it seemed as if one could actually see the dead man standing at the doorway of that bare tenement room, see the lifted stick in his hand, and hear his harsh, grim voice.
"bill said, 'i'll do you in. i'll do you both in, damn you.' he had his stick in ms hand. he lifted his stick. i was frightened. i thought he meant to kill bob. i thought he meant to kill both of us. i remembered the pistol. i ran to the cupboard. i pulled out the pistol. i pointed it at him. bob said, 'look out, bill. the gun's loaded.' bill said, 'you can't frighten me.' i thought he was going to kill bob, so i fired.
"so i fired." the little story ended to the indescribable, unbearable silence of men and women whose emotions are near to breaking-point. through that unbearable silence, ronnie's next question cut like a razor through taut string.
"you say that your husband carried a stick. can you describe that stick?"
"it was a heavy stick."
"can't you tell me any more about it?"
"yes; it had a bit of lead in the handle."
"was he holding the stick by the handle?"
"no. by the other end."
"and you thought he meant to kill your cousin with that loaded stick?"
"yes. i felt sure of it. that was why i shot him."
ronnie paused again, making sure that his point should sink home in the minds of the jury. then, picking up his copy of the confession, he put his last questions: "i have here the statement which you made at the time of your arrest. you say, 'i'm not sorry i killed my husband.' why did you say that?"
"because i wasn't sorry--then."
"but you are sorry now?"
"yes. i didn't mean to kill him. i don't know why i said that. i didn't quite know what i was saying."
"and there was one other thing you said. you said, 'i love bob very much.' is that true?"
"yes." lucy towers answered fearlessly. "i do love him, but not in the way"--her eyes, which had scarcely left ronnie's since the examination began, turned for a moment to hector brunton, huddled in his seat--"not in the way that he tried to make out."
"thank you, mrs. towers. that's all i have to ask," finished ronald cavendish; and, seating himself, waited for hector brunton's onslaught.
but the onslaught tarried. almost it seemed as if hector brunton were going to leave that cross-examination, on which the whole case hung, to his junior. for now hector brunton heard, louder than the whisper of conscience, the very whisper of god. "thou art the man," whispered god; "thou art the murderer."
the "hanging prosecutor" looked at the woman in the dock, and his courage failed before the accusing glance of her. the "hanging prosecutor" looked at the judge, at the massed spectators; and his heart quailed before the doubting glances of them. then the "hanging prosecutor" looked at his enemy; and rage, the rage of the lusting male, took him by the throat. god's whisper forgotten, man's duty forgotten, all save this one last chance of vengeance forgotten; he rose, heavy as the wounded bull, to his ungainly feet. his brain, the cold sure-functioning legal brain, had not yet failed. he still knew his strength. but a red mist blinded his eyes, and through that red mist he saw, not lucy towers but aliette; aliette, whom every cheated fiber of his body yearned to torture--and, torturing, possess.
"you admit that you shot your husband?" the words--grim, bitter, devil-prompted--grated in brunton's throat.
"yes."
"you admit that you said, just after you had shot him, that you were not sorry for the deed?"
"that's written down."
"answer my question, please. do you admit that you said, just after your husband's death at your hands, that you were not sorry you had killed him?"
"that's written down," repeated lucy towers stubbornly. and the stubbornness sent a chill through the red mist; a chill that pierced to hector brunton's very marrow. thus--thus stubborn and unwrithing--thus clear-eyed and contemptuous, had this same woman outfaced him, long and long ago in the bright, miserable drawing-room at lancaster gate.
"you have admitted"--there was a singing in the k.c.'s ears; he could hardly hear his own voice--"that you love your cousin, robert fielding. i put it to you that you are robert fielding's mistress."
"no."
"i put it to you that you went to robert fielding's room nightly."
"it's a lie."
"i put it to you that ever since robert fielding came to live at 25 laburnum grove you have been in the habit of misconducting yourself with him."
"it's a lie."
"i put it to you"--god! if only he could make her writhe; if only he could see one stab of pain twitch those cheeks--"that you love robert fielding."
"not in the way you're trying to make out."
"i put it to you that it was because of your love for robert fielding that you shot your husband."
"no."
"then why did you shoot him?"
"my lord,"--cavendish's voice--"i protest. this is outrageous."
"i'm afraid, mr. cavendish,"--heber's voice--"i must allow the question."
"why did you shoot your husband?" brunton heard his own voice, very faint through the buzz at his ears.
"i have already told you"--he heard aliette's voice--"i killed him because i thought he was going to kill bob."
"you meant to kill him, then?"
again his enemy's protest. again the judge's doubtful, "i feel i must allow the question." again aliette's stubborn reply:
"no. i never meant to kill him. i didn't think about that. i only wanted to save bob."
momentarily the red mist cleared from brunton's sight. he knew this woman for lucy towers--lucy towers against whom, despite the flaws in the evidence, he had advised prosecution for wilful murder; knew himself doomed to failure with her--as he had always been doomed to failure with aliette; knew that, against the sheer rock of truth in the one, as against the rock of sheer truth in the other, the spray of his lawless hate must beat in vain.
then the red mist thickened, thickened and thickened, again before brunton's smarting eyes. rage kindled in his bowels, kindled from bowels to brain, burning away self-control. he was aware only of cavendish--of cavendish, utterly cold, utterly legal--of cavendish protesting for his witness, protecting his witness--of cavendish's will, thrusting bar after cold steel bar between himself and the woman.
the singing was still in brunton's ears; and now it grew dark in court, so that the face of the woman faded from his sight; and now it grew light in court, so that the face of the woman showed itself to him as a white contemptuous sneer under the electrics; but still, blindly, he tortured her with his questions.
at last he heard his own voice clearly once again, "you deny, then, that you are an adulteress?"; heard her answer, "yes. i deny that absolutely"; heard, as a murderer hearing his own sentence, mr. justice heber's, "if that finishes your cross-examination, mr. brunton, i shall adjourn until ten o'clock tomorrow"; heard, as a murderer hears the tramp of feet outside his cell, cavendish's quiet, "with your lordship's permission, there is one witness, one most important witness, whom i should like to call before the court adjourns"; listened, powerless to cross-examine, while the witness of cartwright's finding tore maggie peterson's testimony in pieces.
4
as ronnie, striding solitary home, saw on the posters "towers case sensation; witness arrested for perjury." it seemed to him as though victory had been already in his grasp.