AN EPISODE OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE.
Some time ago a robbery was perpetrated in the mansion of Lord H----,which is situated in one of the squares of Belgravia. The thieves made atolerably successful and remunerative haul. They cleared out the wholeof the plate, and also much of the jewelry, which chiefly belonged toLady H----, and was of enormous value.
How the thieves obtained access to the premises did not for a long whileseem at all clear. Appearances on the surface warranted a belief thatone or more of the servants of his lordship or her ladyship had aidedand abetted the robbery. But there was no scintilla of what is calledlegal evidence to justify or warrant that suspicion. Nobody attached tothe household was therefore arrested on the charge; but a reward wasoffered for the discovery of the offenders, and ordinary policevigilance was exhausted in the endeavour to track the delinquents.
Weeks and months (about three months) rolled by, and nobody was broughtto justice.
His lordship was irritated beyond measure by this failure of justice. Heone day went to his solicitors, declaring that he would spend half hisfortune, if necessary, in order to secure the offender and his adequatepunishment.
What share in the production of this decision Lady H---- may have had Ido not know, but I have a notion that she had much to do with it; for itis certain beyond all doubt that the loss of her jewelry preyed upon herspirits, and exasperated her to the last pitch of intensity. Beingrather shrewishly inclined, she would, I verily believe, have inflictedsummary vengeance on the stoutest of the thieves if she could haveclutched him.
Lord H----'s solicitors were somewhat annoyed at the failure of thepolice in the discovery of the criminals. They communicated with me uponthe subject, and I at length was employed.
It was a teasing and difficult job. It gave me ten times more troublethan many a greater and more important business. Yet, having undertakenit, I was determined to go through with it. I would not, I felt, bebaffled.
For a long while I could obtain no clue. At length I did get a scent ofmy prey, and from that moment the result was certain, although it couldonly be overtaken by a circuitous and uneven track.
I at length hunted down the principal delinquent.
The whole robbery had been effected by one man and one woman. The womanfled as soon as the man was arrested. I might have secured her before,but in doing so must have lost the man. Her arrest would have given himnotice of his peril; and, in truth, I was almost careless about thefemale's escape if I could catch her companion.
Lord H---- was more exasperated than ever when he ascertained who thecriminal was; although he assured his solicitors, as they informed me,that he had not the slightest knowledge of the man, nor did he supposethe delinquent had any knowledge of him beyond that which all thieves ofLondon might have in common of a nobleman.
I suspected that some mysterious cause inspired this desire forvengeance in his lordship, besides the natural influence of his lossupon his mind. That was sufficient to account for much revengefulness,but it did not appear to me an adequate motive for the sudden increaseof such an emotion since the disclosure of the identity of the criminal.I do not, however, know that my suspicions were correct. It is possiblethat they were incorrect.
The offender was brought before the magistrate, in the usual course, andremand upon remand was applied for and obtained. The prisoner's attorneyresisted the application with all his argumentative power and force ofadvocacy, but in vain. The prosecution was thought by the bench to beentitled to every opportunity for discovering their property, and soinvolving the prisoner in the evidence of his guilt as to render hisescape through the meshes of the law impossible.
At length the case was brought home with sufficient clearness to theprisoner, not only to warrant his committal for trial, but to secure hisconviction when that trial took place. He was accordingly committed.
Next sessions a true bill was found against the prisoner by the grandjury of the Central Criminal Court, and in due course the prisoner wasplaced in the dock, to go through the great ordeal in connexion withthis case.
The court was somewhat crowded. The incidents of this robbery hadattracted public attention. The value of the plate, the rareness of thegems, the neatness and completeness of the exploit, had all combined toinvest the case with an air of public importance.
In the court, awaiting the trial with greedy anxiousness, were Lord andLady H----.
In the gallery was a female, attired in costly raiment, enriched by hereand there a jewel of considerable value. She was, perhaps, one of thehandsomest women in London; and her beauty was of that order usuallydenominated "sweet." There was an apparent gentleness and amiability ofexpression underlying the traces of deep and painful emotion whichsomething then transpiring, or anticipated, had aroused.
The eyes of this elegantly attired and beautiful female rested entirelyupon Lord and Lady H----, who together occupied seats upon the bench onthe right hand, a short distance from the judge, and who were prominentmarks of observation for other persons beside this interesting female.
The case then before the court was a tedious trial for perjury, in whichthere was a mass of conflicting evidence. The tasks of judge and jurywere rendered peculiarly difficult by the tangled mass of fact andfiction which the skill of the prosecution and the dexterity of thedefence had laid before the court. To the parties interested in the nextcase--that of the plate robbery--no doubt this protracted evidence wasvery irksome, as well as to the man in the dock, whose liberty trembledin the balance of this conflicting testimony, or the discrimination ofhis fellows the jurymen.
Simultaneously with the latter portion of this trial for perjury, thecounsel for the defence, Mr. Sergeant Ponderous and Mr. AnthonyStuffgown, were engaged in a consultation with Mr. Wheedle, theprisoner's attorney.
A communication had been made to the latter "gentleman according to Actof Parliament," the night before. It was a letter written by the fairspectator in the gallery of the court, who had also had an interviewwith Mr. Wheedle that morning.
The position she then occupied in court had been selected for her by theprisoner's legal adviser. He had calculated with tolerable precisionwhere his lordship would sit, and he wished her to be within the rangeof his vision, without being too prominent to the disinterestedspectator.
The prisoner's attorney had, in this consultation, explained to thecounsel his stratagem, or intended _coup de theatre_. The learnedsergeant and his learned junior considered the idea a good one, and maybe said to have approved it; although, as they explained, it was no partof their professional duty to offer an opinion upon it. When theconsultation was ended, the counsel returned into court, one taking hisseat and the other hanging listlessly on the railing of the counsels'boxes.
Mr. Wheedle was on the staircase of the court, watching its two modesof egress, and awaiting the effect of his little stratagem.
An usher received a three-cornered note from the hands of somebody,addressed to Lord H----, with a small gold coin, and a request that hewould put the half-sovereign in his own pocket, and hand the note to hislordship unseen by her ladyship.
The note ran thus:
"_Gallery of the Old Bailey_,
"_July 19th, 185-_.
"MY LORD,--For Heaven's sake, don't prosecute my brother, and kill your faithful CLARA!"