The Palliser Novels
Chapter 191 : "Certainly not," said Mr. Bouncer."Did you ever read poetry, Mr. Bounce

"Certainly not," said Mr. Bouncer.

"Did you ever read poetry, Mr. Bouncer?"

"Oh yes; - I read a great deal of poetry."

"Shakespeare, perhaps?" Mr. Bouncer did not condescend to do more than nod his head. "There is a murder described in Hamlet. Was that supposed by the poet to have been devised suddenly?"

"I should say not."

"So should I, Mr. Bouncer. Do you remember the arrangements for the murder in Macbeth? That took a little time in concocting; - didn't it?"

"No doubt it did."

"And when Oth.e.l.lo murdered Desdemona, creeping up to her in her sleep, he had been thinking of it for some time?"

"I suppose he had."

"Do you ever read English novels as well as French, Mr. Bouncer?" The unfortunate author again nodded his head. "When Amy Robsart was lured to her death, there was some time given to the preparation, - eh?"

"Of course there was."

"Of course there was. And Eugene Aram, when he murdered a man in Bulwer's novel, turned the matter over in his mind before he did it?"

"He was thinking a long time about it, I believe."

"Thinking about it a long time! I rather think he was. Those great masters of human nature, those men who knew the human heart, did not venture to describe a secret murder as coming from a man's brain without premeditation?"

"Not that I can remember."

"Such also is my impression. But now, I bethink me of a murder that was almost as sudden as this is supposed to have been. Didn't a Dutch smuggler murder a Scotch lawyer, all in a moment as it were?"

"Dirk Hatteraick did murder Glossop in The Antiquary very suddenly; - but he did it from pa.s.sion."

"Just so, Mr. Bouncer. There was no plot there, was there? No arrangement; no secret creeping up to his victim; no escape even?"

"He was chained."

"So he was; chained like a dog; - and like a dog he flew at his enemy. If I understand you, then, Mr. Bouncer, you would not dare so to violate probability in a novel, as to produce a murderer to the public who should contrive a secret hidden murder, - contrive it and execute it, all within a quarter of an hour?"

Mr. Bouncer, after another minute's consideration, said that he thought he would not do so. "Mr. Bouncer," said Mr. Chaffanbra.s.s, "I am uncommonly obliged to our excellent friend, Sir Gregory, for having given us the advantage of your evidence."

CHAPTER LXII.

Lord Fawn's Evidence A crowd of witnesses were heard on the second day after Mr. Chaffanbra.s.s had done with Mr. Bouncer, but none of them were of much interest to the public. The three doctors were examined as to the state of the dead man's head when he was picked up, and as to the nature of the instrument with which he had probably been killed; and the fact of Phineas Finn's life-preserver was proved, - in the middle of which he begged that the Court would save itself some little trouble, as he was quite ready to acknowledge that he had walked home with the short bludgeon, which was then produced, in his pocket. "We would acknowledge a great deal if they would let us," said Mr. Chaffanbra.s.s. "We acknowledge the quarrel, we acknowledge the walk home at night, we acknowledge the bludgeon, and we acknowledge a grey coat." But that happened towards the close of the second day, and they had not then reached the grey coat. The question of the grey coat was commenced on the third morning, - on the Sat.u.r.day, - which day, as was well known, would be opened with the examination of Lord Fawn. The anxiety to hear Lord Fawn undergo his penance was intense, and had been greatly increased by the conviction that Mr. Chaffanbra.s.s would resent upon him the charge made by the Attorney-General as to tampering with a witness. "I'll tamper with him by-and-bye," Mr. Chaffanbra.s.s had whispered to Mr. Wickerby, and the whispered threat had been spread abroad. On the table before Mr. Chaffanbra.s.s, when he took his place in the Court on the Sat.u.r.day, was laid a heavy grey coat, and on the opposite side of the table, just before the Solicitor-General, was laid another grey coat, of much lighter material. When Lord Fawn saw the two coats as he took his seat on the bench his heart failed him.

He was hardly allowed to seat himself before he was called upon to be sworn. Sir Simon Slope, who was to examine him, took it for granted that his lords.h.i.+p could give his evidence from his place on the bench, but to this Mr. Chaffanbra.s.s objected. He was very well aware, he said, that such a practice was usual. He did not doubt but that in his time he had examined some hundreds of witnesses from the bench. In nineteen cases out of twenty there could be no objection to such a practice. But in this case the n.o.ble lord would have to give evidence not only as to what he had seen, but as to what he then saw. It would be expedient that he should see colours as nearly as possible in the same light as the jury, which he would do if he stood in the witness-box. And there might arise questions of ident.i.ty, in speaking of which it would be well that the n.o.ble lord should be as near as possible to the thing or person to be identified. He was afraid that he must trouble the n.o.ble lord to come down from the Elysium of the bench. Whereupon Lord Fawn descended, and was sworn in at the witness-box.

His treatment from Sir Simon Slope was all that was due from a Solicitor-General to a distinguished peer who was a member of the same Government as himself. Sir Simon put his questions so as almost to rea.s.sure the witness and very quickly, - only too quickly, - obtained from him all the information that was needed on the side of the prosecution. Lord Fawn, when he had left the club, had seen both Mr. Bonteen and Mr. Finn preparing to follow him, but he had gone alone, and had never seen Mr. Bonteen since. He walked very slowly down into Curzon Street and Bolton Row, and when there, as he was about to cross the road at the top of Clarges Street, - as he believed, just as he was crossing the street, - he saw a man come at a very fast pace out of the mews which runs into Bolton Row, opposite to Clarges Street, and from thence hurry very quickly towards the pa.s.sage which separates the gardens of Devons.h.i.+re and Lansdowne Houses. It had already been proved that had Phineas Finn retraced his steps after Erle and Fitzgibbon had turned their backs upon him, his shortest and certainly most private way to the spot on which Lord Fawn had seen the man would have been by the mews in question. Lord Fawn went on to say that the man wore a grey coat, - as far as he could judge it was such a coat as Sir Simon now showed him; he could not at all identify the prisoner; he could not say whether the man he had seen was as tall as the prisoner; he thought that as far as he could judge, there was not much difference in the height. He had not thought of Mr. Finn when he saw the man hurrying along, nor had he troubled his mind about the man. That was the end of Lord Fawn's evidence-in-chief, which he would gladly have prolonged to the close of the day could he thereby have postponed the coming horrors of his cross-examination. But there he was, - in the clutches of the odious, dirty, little man, hating the little man, despising him because he was dirty, and nothing better than an Old Bailey barrister, - and yet fearing him with so intense a fear!

Mr. Chaffanbra.s.s smiled at his victim, and for a moment was quite soft with him, - as a cat is soft with a mouse. The reporters could hardly hear his first question, - "I believe you are an Under-Secretary of State?" Lord Fawn acknowledged the fact. Now it was the case that in the palmy days of our hero's former career he had filled the very office which Lord Fawn now occupied, and that Lord Fawn had at the time filled a similar position in another department. These facts Mr. Chaffanbra.s.s extracted from his witness, - not without an appearance of unwillingness, which was produced, however, altogether by the natural antagonism of the victim to his persecutor; for Mr. Chaffanbra.s.s, even when asking the simplest questions, in the simplest words, even when abstaining from that sarcasm of tone under which witnesses were wont to feel that they were being flayed alive, could so look at a man as to create an antagonism which no witness could conceal. In asking a man his name, and age, and calling, he could produce an impression that the man was unwilling to tell anything, and that, therefore, the jury were ent.i.tled to regard his evidence with suspicion. "Then," continued Mr. Chaffanbra.s.s, "you must have met him frequently in the intercourse of your business?"

"I suppose I did, - sometimes."

"Sometimes? You belonged to the same party?"

"We didn't sit in the same House."

"I know that, my lord. I know very well what House you sat in. But I suppose you would condescend to be acquainted with even a commoner who held the very office which you hold now. You belonged to the same club with him."

"I don't go much to the clubs," said Lord Fawn.

"But the quarrel of which we have heard so much took place at a club in your presence?" Lord Fawn a.s.sented. "In fact you cannot but have been intimately and accurately acquainted with the personal appearance of the gentleman who is now on his trial. Is that so?"

"I never was intimate with him."

Mr. Chaffanbra.s.s looked up at the jury and shook his head sadly. "I am not presuming, Lord Fawn, that you so far derogated as to be intimate with this gentleman, - as to whom, however, I shall be able to show by and by that he was the chosen friend of the very man under whose masters.h.i.+p you now serve. I ask whether his appearance is not familiar to you?" Lord Fawn at last said that it was. "Do you know his height? What should you say was his height?" Lord Fawn altogether refused to give an opinion on such a subject, but acknowledged that he should not be surprised if he were told that Mr. Finn was over six feet high. "In fact you consider him a tall man, my lord? There he is, you can look at him. Is he a tall man?" Lord Fawn did look, but wouldn't give an answer. "I'll undertake to say, my lord, that there isn't a person in the Court at this moment, except yourself, who wouldn't be ready to express an opinion on his oath that Mr. Finn is a tall man. Mr. Chief Constable, just let the prisoner step out from the dock for a moment. He won't run away. I must have his lords.h.i.+p's opinion as to Mr. Finn's height." Poor Phineas, when this was said, clutched hold of the front of the dock, as though determined that nothing but main force should make him exhibit himself to the Court in the manner proposed.

But the need for exhibition pa.s.sed away. "I know that he is a very tall man," said Lord Fawn.

"You know that he is a very tall man. We all know it. There can be no doubt about it. He is, as you say, a very tall man, - with whose personal appearance you have long been familiar? I ask again, my lord, whether you have not been long familiar with his personal appearance?" After some further agonising delay Lord Fawn at last acknowledged that it had been so. "Now we shall get on like a house on fire," said Mr. Chaffanbra.s.s.

But still the house did not burn very quickly. A string of questions was then asked as to the att.i.tude of the man who had been seen coming out of the mews wearing a grey great coat, - as to his att.i.tude, and as to his general likeness to Phineas Finn. In answer to these Lord Fawn would only say that he had not observed the man's att.i.tude, and had certainly not thought of the prisoner when he saw the man. "My lord," said Mr. Chaffanbra.s.s, very solemnly, "look at your late friend and colleague, and remember that his life depends probably on the accuracy of your memory. The man you saw - murdered Mr. Bonteen. With all my experience in such matters, - which is great; and with all my skill, - which is something, I cannot stand against that fact. It is for me to show that that man and my client were not one and the same person, and I must do so by means of your evidence, - by sifting what you say to-day, and by comparing it with what you have already said on other occasions. I understand you now to say that there is nothing in your remembrance of the man you saw, independently of the colour of the coat, to guide you to an opinion whether that man was or was not one and the same with the prisoner?"

In all the crowd then a.s.sembled there was no man more thoroughly under the influence of conscience as to his conduct than was Lord Fawn in reference to the evidence which he was called upon to give. Not only would the idea of endangering the life of a human being have been horrible to him, but the sanct.i.ty of an oath was imperative to him. He was essentially a truth-speaking man, if only he knew how to speak the truth. He would have sacrificed much to establish the innocence of Phineas Finn, - not for the love of Phineas, but for the love of innocence; - but not even to do that would he have lied. But he was a bad witness, and by his slowness, and by a certain unsustained pomposity which was natural to him, had already taught the jury to think that he was anxious to convict the prisoner. Two men in the Court, and two only, thoroughly understood his condition. Mr. Chaffanbra.s.s saw it all, and intended without the slightest scruple to take advantage of it. And the Chief Justice saw it all, and was already resolving how he could set the witness right with the jury.

"I didn't think of Mr. Finn at the time," said Lord Fawn in answer to the last question.

"So I understand. The man didn't strike you as being tall."

"I don't think that he did."

"But yet in the evidence you gave before the magistrate in Bow Street I think you expressed a very strong opinion that the man you saw running out of the mews was Mr. Finn?" Lord Fawn was again silent. "I am asking your lords.h.i.+p a question to which I must request an answer. Here is the Times report of the examination, with which you can refresh your memory, and you are of course aware that it was mainly on your evidence as here reported that my client stands there in jeopardy of his life."

"I am not aware of anything of the kind," said the witness.

"Very well. We will drop that then. But such was your evidence, whether important or not important. Of course your lords.h.i.+p can take what time you please for recollection."

Lord Fawn tried very hard to recollect, but would not look at the newspaper which had been handed to him. "I cannot remember what words I used. It seems to me that I thought it must have been Mr. Finn because I had been told that Mr. Finn could have been there by running round."

"Surely, my lord, that would not have sufficed to induce you to give such evidence as is there reported?"

"And the colour of the coat," said Lord Fawn.

"In fact you went by the colour of the coat, and that only?"

"Then there had been the quarrel."

"My lord, is not that begging the question? Mr. Bonteen quarrelled with Mr. Finn. Mr. Bonteen was murdered by a man, - as we all believe, - whom you saw at a certain spot. Therefore you identified the man whom you saw as Mr. Finn. Was that so?"

"I didn't identify him."

"At any rate you do not do so now? Putting aside the grey coat there is nothing to make you now think that that man and Mr. Finn were one and the same? Come, my lord, on behalf of that man's life, which is in great jeopardy, - is in great jeopardy because of the evidence given by you before the magistrate, - do not be ashamed to speak the truth openly, though it be at variance with what you may have said before with ill-advised haste."

"My lord, is it proper that I should be treated in this way?" said the witness, appealing to the Bench.

"Mr. Chaffanbra.s.s," said the judge, again looking at the barrister over his spectacles, "I think you are stretching the privilege of your position too far."

"I shall have to stretch it further yet, my lord. His lords.h.i.+p in his evidence before the magistrate gave on his oath a decided opinion that the man he saw was Mr. Finn; - and on that evidence Mr. Finn was committed for murder. Let him say openly, now, to the jury, - when Mr. Finn is on his trial for his life before the Court, and for all his hopes in life before the country, - whether he thinks as then he thought, and on what grounds he thinks so."

"I think so because of the quarrel, and because of the grey coat."

"For no other reasons?"

"No; - for no other reasons."

"Your only ground for suggesting ident.i.ty is the grey coat?"

"And the quarrel," said Lord Fawn.

"My lord, in giving evidence as to ident.i.ty, I fear that you do not understand the meaning of the word." Lord Fawn looked up at the judge, but the judge on this occasion said nothing. "At any rate we have it from you at present that there was nothing in the appearance of the man you saw like to that of Mr. Finn except the colour of the coat."

"I don't think there was," said Lord Fawn, slowly.

Then there occurred a scene in the Court which no doubt was gratifying to the spectators, and may in part have repaid them for the weariness of the whole proceeding. Mr. Chaffanbra.s.s, while Lord Fawn was still in the witness-box, requested permission for a certain man to stand forward, and put on the coat which was lying on the table before him, - this coat being in truth the identical garment which Mr. Meager had brought home with him on the morning of the murder. This man was Mr. Wickerby's clerk, Mr. Scruby, and he put on the coat, - which seemed to fit him well. Mr. Chaffanbra.s.s then asked permission to examine Mr. Scruby, explaining that much time might be saved, and declaring that he had but one question to ask him. After some difficulty this permission was given him, and Mr. Scruby was asked his height. Mr. Scruby was five feet eight inches, and had been accurately measured on the previous day with reference to the question. Then the examination of Lord Fawn was resumed, and Mr. Chaffanbra.s.s referred to that very irregular interview to which he had so improperly enticed the witness in Mr. Wickerby's chambers. For a long time Sir Gregory Grogram declared that he would not permit any allusion to what had taken place at a most improper conference, - a conference which he could not stigmatize in sufficiently strong language. But Mr. Chaffanbra.s.s, smiling blandly, - smiling very blandly for him, - suggested that the impropriety of the conference, let it have been ever so abominable, did not prevent the fact of the conference, and that he was manifestly within his right in alluding to it. "Suppose, my lord, that Lord Fawn had confessed in Mr. Wickerby's chambers that he had murdered Mr. Finn himself, and had since repented of that confession, would Mr. Camperdown and Mr. Wickerby, who were present, and would I, be now debarred from stating that confession in evidence, because, in deference to some fanciful rules of etiquette, Lord Fawn should not have been there?" Mr. Chaffanbra.s.s at last prevailed, and the evidence was resumed.

"You saw Mr. Scruby wear that coat in Mr. Wickerby's chambers." Lord Fawn said that he could not identify the coat.

"We'll take care to have it identified. We shall get a great deal out of that coat yet. You saw that man wear a coat like that."

"Yes; I did."

"And you see him now."

"Yes, I do."

"Does he remind you of the figure of the man you saw come out of the mews?" Lord Fawn paused. "We can't make him move about here as we did in Mr. Wickerby's room; but remembering that as you must do, does he look like the man?"

"I don't remember what the man looked like."

"Did you not tell us in Mr. Wickerby's room that Mr. Scruby with the grey coat on was like the figure of the man?"

Questions of this nature were prolonged for near half an hour, during which Sir Gregory made more than one attempt to defend his witness from the weapons of their joint enemies; but Lord Fawn at last admitted that he had acknowledged the resemblance, and did, in some faint ambiguous fas.h.i.+on, acknowledge it in his present evidence.

"My lord," said Mr. Chaffanbra.s.s as he allowed Lord Fawn to go down, "you have no doubt taken a note of Mr. Scruby's height." Whereupon the judge nodded his head.

CHAPTER LXIII.

Mr. Chaffanbra.s.s for the Defence The case for the prosecution was completed on the Sat.u.r.day evening, Mrs. Bunce having been examined as the last witness on that side. She was only called upon to say that her lodger had been in the habit of letting himself in and out of her house at all hours with a latch-key; - but she insisted on saying more, and told the judge and the jury and the barristers that if they thought that Mr. Finn had murdered anybody they didn't know anything about the world in general. Whereupon Mr. Chaffanbra.s.s said that he would like to ask her a question or two, and with consummate flattery extracted from her her opinion of her lodger. She had known him for years, and thought that, of all the gentlemen that ever were born, he was the least likely to do such a b.l.o.o.d.y-minded action. Mr. Chaffanbra.s.s was, perhaps, right in thinking that her evidence might be as serviceable as that of the lords and countesses.

During the Sunday the trial was, as a matter of course, the talk of the town. Poor Lord Fawn shut himself up, and was seen by no one; - but his conduct and evidence were discussed everywhere. At the clubs it was thought that he had escaped as well as could be expected; but he himself felt that he had been disgraced for ever. There was a very common opinion that Mr. Chaffanbra.s.s had admitted too much when he had declared that the man whom Lord Fawn had seen was doubtless the murderer. To the minds of men generally it seemed to be less evident that the man so seen should have done the deed, than that Phineas Finn should have been that man. Was it probable that there should be two men going about in grey coats, in exactly the same vicinity, and at exactly the same hour of the night? And then the evidence which Lord Fawn had given before the magistrates was to the world at large at any rate as convincing as that given in the Court. The jury would, of course, be instructed to regard only the latter; whereas the general public would naturally be guided by the two combined. At the club it was certainly believed that the case was going against the prisoner.

"You have read it all, of course," said the d.u.c.h.ess of Omnium to her husband, as she sat with the Observer in her hand on that Sunday morning. The Sunday papers were full of the report, and were enjoying a very extended circulation.

"I wish you would not think so much about it," said the Duke.

"That's very easily said, but how is one to help thinking about it? Of course I am thinking about it. You know all about the coat. It belonged to the man where Mealyus was lodging."

"I will not talk about the coat, Glencora. If Mr. Finn did commit the murder it is right that he should be convicted."

"But if he didn't?"

"It would be doubly right that he should be acquitted. But the jury will have means of arriving at a conclusion without prejudice, which you and I cannot have; and therefore we should be prepared to take their verdict as correct."

"If they find him guilty, their verdict will be d.a.m.nable and false," said the d.u.c.h.ess. Whereupon the Duke turned away in anger, and resolved that he would say nothing more about the trial, - which resolution, however, he was compelled to break before the trial was over.

"What do you think about it, Mr. Erle?" asked the other Duke.

"I don't know what to think; - I only hope."

"That he may be acquitted?"

"Of course."

"Whether guilty or innocent?"

"Well; - yes. But if he is acquitted I shall believe him to have been innocent. Your Grace thinks - ?"

"I am as unwilling to think as you are, Mr. Erle." It was thus that people spoke of it. With the exception of some very few, all those who had known Phineas were anxious for an acquittal, though they could not bring themselves to believe that an innocent man had been put in peril of his life.

On the Monday morning the trial was recommenced, and the whole day was taken up by the address which Mr. Chaffanbra.s.s made to the jury. He began by telling them the history of the coat which lay before them, promising to prove by evidence all the details which he stated. It was not his intention, he said, to accuse any one of the murder. It was his business to defend the prisoner, not to accuse others. But, as he should prove to them, two persons had been arrested as soon as the murder had been discovered, - two persons totally unknown to each other, and who were never for a moment supposed to have acted together, - and the suspicion of the police had in the first instance pointed, not to his client, but to the other man. That other man had also quarrelled with Mr. Bonteen, and that other man was now in custody on a charge of bigamy chiefly through the instrumentality of Mr. Bonteen, who had been the friend of the victim of the supposed bigamist. With the accusation of bigamy they would have nothing to do, but he must ask them to take cognisance of that quarrel as well as of the quarrel at the club. He then named that formerly popular preacher, the Rev. Mr. Emilius, and explained that he would prove that this man, who had incurred the suspicion of the police in the first instance, had during the night of the murder been so circ.u.mstanced as to have been able to use the coat produced. He would prove also that Mr. Emilius was of precisely the same height as the man whom they had seen wearing the coat. G.o.d forbid that he should bring an accusation of murder against a man on such slight testimony. But if the evidence, as grounded on the coat, was slight against Emilius, how could it prevail at all against his client? The two coats were as different as chalk from cheese, the one being what would be called a gentleman's fas.h.i.+onable walking coat, and the other the wrap-rascal of such a fellow as was Mr. Meager. And yet Lord Fawn, who attempted to identify the prisoner only by his coat, could give them no opinion as to which was the coat he had seen! But Lord Fawn, who had found himself to be debarred by his conscience from repeating the opinion he had given before the magistrate as to the ident.i.ty of Phineas Finn with the man he had seen, did tell them that the figure of that man was similar to the figure of him who had worn the coat on Sat.u.r.day in presence of them all. This man in the street had therefore been like Mr. Emilius, and could not in the least have resembled the prisoner. Mr. Chaffanbra.s.s would not tell the jury that this point bore strongly against Mr. Emilius, but he took upon himself to a.s.sert that it was quite sufficient to snap asunder the thin thread of circ.u.mstantial evidence by which his client was connected with the murder. A great deal more was said about Lord Fawn, which was not complimentary to that n.o.bleman. "His lords.h.i.+p is an honest, slow man, who has doubtless meant to tell you the truth, but who does not understand the meaning of what he himself says. When he swore before the magistrate that he thought he could identify my client with the man in the street, he really meant that he thought that there must be ident.i.ty, because he believed from other reasons that Mr. Finn was the man in the street. Mr. Bonteen had been murdered; - according to Lord Fawn's thinking had probably been murdered by Mr. Finn. And it was also probable to him that Mr. Bonteen had been murdered by the man in the street. He came thus to the conclusion that the prisoner was the man in the street. In fact, as far as the process of identifying is concerned, his lords.h.i.+p's evidence is altogether in favour of the prisoner. The figure seen by him we must suppose was the figure of a short man, and not of one tall and commanding in his presence, as is that of the prisoner."

There were many other points on which Mr. Chaffanbra.s.s insisted at great length; - but, chiefly, perhaps, on the improbability, he might say impossibility, that the plot for a murder so contrived should have entered into a man's head, have been completed and executed, all within a few minutes. "But under no hypothesis compatible with the allegations of the prosecution can it be conceived that the murder should have been contemplated by my client before the quarrel at the club. No, gentlemen; - the murderer had been at his work for days. He had examined the spot and measured the distances. He had dogged the steps of his victim on previous nights. In the shade of some dark doorway he had watched him from his club, and had hurried by his secret path to the spot which he had appointed for the deed. Can any man doubt that the murder has thus been committed, let who will have been the murderer? But, if so, then my client could not have done the deed." Much had been made of the words spoken at the club door. Was it probable, - was it possible, - that a man intending to commit a murder should declare how easily he could do it, and display the weapon he intended to use? The evidence given as to that part of the night's work was, he contended, altogether in the prisoner's favour. Then he spoke of the life-preserver, and gave a rather long account of the manner in which Phineas Finn had once taken two garotters prisoner in the street. All this lasted till the great men on the bench trooped out to lunch. And then Mr. Chaffanbra.s.s, who had been speaking for nearly four hours, retired to a small room and there drank a pint of port wine. While he was doing so, Mr. Serjeant Birdbolt spoke a word to him, but he only shook his head and snarled. He was telling himself at the moment how quick may be the resolves of the eager mind, - for he was convinced that the idea of attacking Mr. Bonteen had occurred to Phineas Finn after he had displayed the life-preserver at the club door; and he was telling himself also how impossible it is for a dull conscientious man to give accurate evidence as to what he had himself seen, - for he was convinced that Lord Fawn had seen Phineas Finn in the street. But to no human being had he expressed this opinion; nor would he express it, - unless his client should be hung.

After lunch he occupied nearly three hours in giving to the jury, and of course to the whole a.s.sembled Court, the details of about two dozen cases, in which apparently strong circ.u.mstantial evidence had been wrong in its tendency. In some of the cases quoted, the persons tried had been acquitted; in some, convicted and afterwards pardoned; in one pardoned after many years of punishment; - and in one the poor victim had been hung. On this he insisted with a pathetic eloquence which certainly would not have been expected from his appearance, and spoke with tears in his eyes, - real unaffected tears, - of the misery of those wretched jurymen who, in the performance of their duty, had been led into so frightful an error. Through the whole of this long recital he seemed to feel no fatigue, and when he had done with his list of judicial mistakes about five o'clock in the afternoon, went on to make what he called the very few remarks necessary as to the evidence which on the next day he proposed to produce as to the prisoner's character. He ventured to think that evidence as to the character of such a nature, - so strong, so convincing, so complete, and so free from all objection, had never yet been given in a criminal court. At six o'clock he completed his speech, and it was computed that the old man had been on his legs very nearly seven hours. It was said of him afterwards that he was taken home speechless by one of his daughters and immediately put to bed, that he roused himself about eight and ate his dinner and drank a bottle of port in his bedroom, that he then slept, - refusing to stir even when he was waked, till half-past nine in the morning, and that then he scrambled into his clothes, breakfasted, and got down to the Court in half an hour. At ten o'clock he was in his place, and n.o.body knew that he was any the worse for the previous day's exertion.

This was on a Tuesday, the fifth day of the trial, and upon the whole perhaps the most interesting. A long array of distinguished persons, - of women as well as men, - was brought up to give to the jury their opinion as to the character of Mr. Finn. Mr. Low was the first, who having been his tutor when he was studying at the bar, knew him longer than any other Londoner. Then came his countryman Laurence Fitzgibbon, and Barrington Erle, and others of his own party who had been intimate with him. And men, too, from the opposite side of the House were brought up, Sir Orlando Drought among the number, all of whom said that they had known the prisoner well, and from their knowledge would have considered it impossible that he should have become a murderer. The two last called were Lord Cantrip and Mr. Monk, one of whom was, and the other had been, a Cabinet Minister. But before them came Lady Cantrip, - and Lady Chiltern, whom we once knew as Violet Effingham, whom this very prisoner had in early days fondly hoped to make his wife, who was still young and beautiful, and who had never before entered a public Court.