The House of the Whispering Pines (27 page)

4.—That her outcry had alarmed the prisoner in his turn, causing him to
leave most of the bottles below, and hasten up to the room, where he
completed the deed with which he had previously threatened her.

5.—That poison having failed, he resorted to strangulation; after
which—or before—came the robbery of her ring, the piling up of the
cushions over the body in a vain endeavour to hide the deed, or to
prolong the search for the victim. Then the departure—the locking of the
front door behind the perpetrator; the flight of the grey horse and
cutter through the blinding storm; the blowing off of the driver's hat;
the identification of the same by means of the flour-mark left on its
brim by the mechanic's wife; the presence of a portion of one of the two
abstracted bottles in the stable where the horse was put up; and the
appearance of Arthur with the other bottle at the door of the inn in
Cuthbert Road, just as the clock was striking half-past eleven.

This latter fact might have been regarded as proving an alibi, owing to
the length of road between the Cumberland house and the place just
mentioned, if there had not been a short cut to town open to him by means
of a door in the wall separating the Cumberland and Fulton grounds—a
door which was found unlocked, and with the key in it, by Zadok Brown,
the coachman, when he came home about three next morning.

All this stood; not an item of this testimony could be shaken. Most of it
was true; some of it false; but what was false, so unassailable by any
ordinary means, that, as I have already said, the clouds seemed settling
heavily over Arthur Cumberland when, at the end of the sixth day, the
proceedings closed.

The night that followed was a heavy one for me. Then came the fateful
morrow, and, after that, the day of days destined to make a life-long
impression on all who attended this trial.

All is oblique,
There's nothing level in our cursed natures,
But direct villainy. Therefore, be abhorred
All feasts, societies, and throngs of men!
His semblable, yea, himself, Timon disdains.

Timon of Athens
.

I was early in my seat. Feeling the momentousness of the occasion—for
this day must decide my action for or against the prisoner—I searched
the faces of the jury, of the several counsel, and of the judge. I was
anxious to know what I had to expect from them, in case my conscience got
the better of my devotion to Carmel's interests and led me into that
declaration of the real facts which was forever faltering on my tongue,
without having, as yet, received the final impetus which could only end
in speech.

To give him his rightful precedence, the judge showed an impenetrable
countenance but little changed from that with which he had faced us all
from the start. He, like most of the men involved in these proceedings,
had been a close friend of the prisoner's father, and, in his capacity of
judge in this momentous trial, had had to contend with his personal
predilections, possibly with concealed sympathies, if not with equally
well-concealed prejudices. This had lent to his aspect a sternness never
observable in it before; but no man, even the captious Mr. Moffat, had
seriously questioned his rulings; and, whatever the cost to himself, he
had, up to this time, held the scales of justice so evenly that it would
have taken an audacious mind to have ventured on an interpretation of his
real attitude or mental leaning in this case.

From this imposing presence, nobly sustained by a well-proportioned
figure and a head and face indicative of intellect and every kindly
attribute, I turned to gaze upon Mr. Fox and his colleagues. One spirit
seemed to animate them—confidence in their case, and unqualified
satisfaction at its present status.

I was conscious of a certain ironic impulse to smile, as I noted the
eager whisper and the bustle of preparation with which they settled upon
their next witness and prepared to open their batteries upon him. How
easily I could call down that high look, and into what a turmoil I could
throw them all by an ingenuous demand to be recalled to the stand!

But the psychological moment had not yet come, and I subdued the
momentary impulse and proceeded with my scrutiny of the people about me.
The jury looked tired, with the exception of one especially alert little
man who drank in even the most uninteresting details with avidity. But
they all had good faces, and none could doubt their interest, or that
they were fully alive to the significance of the occasion.

Mr. Moffat, leading counsel for the defendant, was a spare man of unusual
height, modified a little, and only a little, by the forward droop of his
shoulders. Nervous in manner, quick, short, sometimes rasping in speech,
he had the changeful eye and mobile expression of a very sensitive
nature; and from him, if from any one, I might hope to learn how much or
how little Arthur had to fear from the day's proceedings. But Mr.
Moffat's countenance was not as readable as usual. He looked
preoccupied—a strange thing for him; and, instead of keeping his eye on
the witness, as was his habitual practice, he allowed it to wander over
the sea of heads before him, with a curious expectant interest which
aroused my own curiosity, and led me to hunt about for its cause.

My first glance was unproductive. I saw only the usual public, such as
had confronted us the whole week, with curious and increasing interest.
But as I searched further, I discerned in an inconspicuous corner, the
bowed head, veiled almost beyond recognition, of Ella Fulton. It was her
first appearance in court. Each day I had anticipated her presence, and
each day I had failed to see my anticipations realised. But she was here
now, and so were her father and her cold and dominating mother; and,
beholding her thus accompanied, I fancied I understood Mr. Moffat's
poorly concealed excitement. But another glance at Mrs. Fulton assured me
that I was mistaken in this hasty surmise. No such serious purpose, as I
feared, lay back of their presence here to-day. Curiosity alone explained
it; and as I realised what this meant, and how little understanding it
betokened of the fierce struggle then going on in the timid breast of
their distracted child, a sickening sense of my own responsibility drove
Carmel's beauty, and Carmel's claims temporarily from my mind, and
following the direction of Ella's thoughts, if not her glances, I sought
in the face of the prisoner a recognition of her presence, if not of the
promise this presence brought him.

His eye had just fallen on her. I was assured of this by the sudden
softening of his expression—the first real softening I had ever seen
in it. It was but a momentary flash, but it was unmistakable in its
character, as was his speedy return to his former stolidity. Whatever
his thoughts were at sight of his little sweetheart, he meant to hide
them even from his counsel—most of all from his counsel, I decided
after further contemplation of them both. If Mr. Moffat still showed
nervousness, it was for some other reason than anxiety about this
little body hiding from sight behind the proudly held figures of father
and mother.

The opening testimony of the day, while not vital, was favourable to the
prosecution in that it showed Arthur's conduct since the murder to have
been inconsistent with perfect innocence. His belated return at noon the
next day, raging against the man who had been found in an incriminating
position on the scene of crime, while at the same time failing to betray
his own presence there till driven to it by accumulating circumstances
and the persistent inquiries of the police; the care he took to avoid
drink, though constant tippling was habitual to him and formed the great
cause of quarrel between himself and the murdered Adelaide; his haunting
of Carmel's door and anxious listening for any words she might let fall
in her delirium; the suspicion which he constantly betrayed of the nurse
when for any reason he was led to conclude that she had heard something
which he had not; his behaviour at the funeral and finally his action in
demanding to have the casket-lid removed that he might look again at the
face he had made no effort to gaze upon when opportunity offered and time
and place were seemly: these facts and many more were brought forward in
grim array against the prisoner, with but little opposition from his
counsel and small betrayal of feeling on the part of Arthur himself. His
stolid face had remained stolid even when the ring which had fallen out
of his sister's casket was shown to the jury and the connection made
between its presence there and the intrusion of his hand into the same,
on the occasion above mentioned. This once thoughtless, pleasure-loving,
and hopelessly dissipated boy had not miscalculated his nerve. It was
sufficient for an ordeal which might have tried the courage and
self-possession of the most hardened criminal.

Then came the great event of the day, in anticipation of which the
court-room had been packed, and every heart within it awakened by slow
degrees to a state of great nervous expectancy. The prosecution rested
and the junior counsel for the defence opened his case to the jury.

If I had hoped for any startling disclosure, calculated to establish his
client's alleged alibi, or otherwise to free the same from the definite
charge of murder, I had reason to be greatly disappointed by this maiden
effort of a young and inexperienced lawyer. If not exactly weak, there
was an unexpected vagueness in its statements which seemed quite out of
keeping with the emphatic declaration which he made of the prisoner's
innocence.

Even Arthur was sensible of the bad effect made by this preliminary
address. More than once during its delivery and notably at its
conclusion, he turned to Mr. Moffat, with a bitter remark, which was not
without effect on that gentleman's cheek, and at once called forth a
retort stinging enough to cause Arthur to sink back into his place, with
the first sign of restlessness I had observed in him.

"Moffat is sly. Moffat has something up his sleeve. I will wait till he
sees fit to show it," was my thought; then, as I caught a wild and
pleading look from Ella, I added in positive assertion to myself, "And so
must she."

Answering her unspoken appeal with an admonitory shake of the
head, I carelessly let my fingers rest upon my mouth until I saw
that she understood me and was prepared to follow my lead for a
little while longer.

My satisfaction at this was curtailed by the calling of Arthur Cumberland
to the stand to witness in his own defence.

I had dreaded this contingency. I saw that for some reason, both his
counsel and associate counsel, were not without their own misgivings as
to the result of their somewhat doubtful experiment.

A change was observable in this degenerate son of the Cumberlands since
many there had confronted him face to face. Physically he was improved.
Enough time had elapsed since his sudden dropping of old habits, for him
to have risen above its first effects and to have acquired that tone of
personal dignity which follows a successful issue to any moral conflict.
But otherwise the difference was such as to arouse doubt as to the real
man lurking behind his dogged, uncommunicative manner.

Even with the knowledge of his motives which I believed myself to
possess, I was at a loss to understand his indifference to self and the
immobility of manner he maintained under all circumstances and during
every fluctuation which took place in the presentation of his case, or in
the temper of the people surrounding him. I felt that beyond the one fact
that he could be relied upon to protect Carmel's name and Carmel's
character, even to the jeopardising of his case, he was not to be counted
on, and might yet startle many of us, and most notably of all, the little
woman waiting to hear what he had to say in his own defence before she
threw herself into the breach and made that devoted attempt to save him,
in his own despite, which had been my terror from the first and was my
terror now.

Perjury! but not in his own defence—rather in opposition to it—that is
what his counsel had to fear; and I wondered if they knew it. My
attention became absorbed in the puzzle. Carmel's fate, if not
Ella's—and certainly my own—hung upon the issue. This I knew, and this
I faced, calmly, but very surely, as, the preliminary questions having
been answered, Mr. Moffat proceeded.

The witness's name having been demanded and given and some other
preliminary formalities gone through, he was asked:

"Mr. Cumberland, did you have any quarrel with your sister during the
afternoon or evening of December the second?"

"I did." Then, as if not satisfied with this simple statement, he
blurted forth: "And it wasn't the first. I hated the discipline she
imposed upon me, and the disapproval she showed of my ways and the manner
in which I chose to spend my money."

A straightforward expression of feeling, but hardly a judicious one.

Judge Edwards glanced, in some surprise, from Mr. Moffat to the daring
man who could choose thus to usher in his defence; and then, forgetting
his own emotions, in his instinctive desire for order, rapped sharply
with his gavel in correction of the audible expression of a like feeling
on the part of the expectant audience.

Mr. Moffat, apparently unaffected by this result of his daring move,
pursued his course, with the quiet determination of one who sees his goal
and is working deliberately towards it.

"Do you mind particularising? Of what did she especially disapprove in
your conduct or way of spending money?"

"She disapproved of my fondness for drink. She didn't like my late hours,
or the condition in which I frequently came home. I did not like her
expressions of displeasure, or the way she frequently cut me short when I
wanted to have a good time with my friends. We never agreed. I made her
suffer often and unnecessarily. I regret it now; she was a better sister
to me than I could then understand."