The Hampstead Mystery

by John R. Watson and Arthur J. Rees

  CHAPTER XIX

  Mr. Walters began his address to the jury on orthodox lines. He referredto the fact that his learned friend had warned them that the life of afellow creature rested on their verdict. It was right that they shouldkeep that in mind; it was right that they should fully realise theresponsible nature of the duty they were called upon to perform, but itwould be wrong for them to over-estimate their responsibility, or to feelweighed down by it. It would be wrong for them to be influenced bysentimental considerations of the fact that a fellow creature's life wasat stake. Strictly speaking, that had nothing whatever to do with them.Their responsibility ended with their verdict. If their verdict was"guilty" the responsibility of taking the prisoner's life would rest uponthe law--not on the jury, not on His Honour who passed the sentence ofdeath, not on the prison officials who carried out the execution. Thejury would do well to keep in mind the fact that their responsibility inthis trial, impressive and important as every one must acknowledge it tobe, was nevertheless strictly limited as far as the taking of the life ofthe prisoner was concerned.

  He then went over the evidence in detail, building up again the case forthe prosecution where Mr. Holymead had made breaches in it, andattempting to demolish the case for the defence. Hill, he declared, wasan honest witness. The man had made one false step but he had done hisbest to retrieve it, and with the help he had received from his latemaster, Sir Horace Fewbanks, he would have buried the past effectively ifit had not been for the fact that the prisoner, who was a confirmedcriminal, had determined to drag him down. There was no doubt thatHill's association with Birchill had been unfortunate for him. It haddragged his past into the light of day, and he stood before them a ruinedman. He had tried to live down the past, and but for Birchill he wouldhave succeeded in doing so. But now no one would employ him as a houseservant after the revelations that had been made in this court. They hadseen Hill in the witness-box, and he would ask the jury whether he lookedlike the masterful cunning scoundrel which the defence had described, ora weak creature who would be easily led by a man of strong will, such asthe prisoner was.

  As to what took place at the flat, they had a choice between theevidence of Hill and the evidence of the girl Fanning. Hill had toldthem that he had tried to dissuade the prisoner from going toRiversbrook to burgle the premises, because his master had returnedunexpectedly; Fanning had told them that the prisoner was in favour ofpostponing the crime, but that Hill had urged him to carry it out. Whichstory was the more probable? What reliance could they place on theevidence of Fanning? He did not wish to say that the witness was utterlyvicious and incapable of telling the truth--a description that thedefence had applied to Hill--but they must take into consideration thefact that Fanning was the prisoner's mistress. Was it likely that awoman, knowing her lover's life was at stake, would come here and speakthe truth, if she knew the truth would hang him? He was sure that thejury, as men who knew the world thoroughly, would not hesitate betweenthe evidence of Hill and that of Fanning.

  The case for the defence depended to a great extent on the plan ofRiversbrook which Hill candidly admitted he had drawn. His learnedfriend had called evidence to show that the paper on which the plan wasdrawn was of a quality which was not procurable by the general public.That might be so, but what his learned friend had not succeeded indoing, and could not possibly have hoped to succeed in doing, was toshow that Birchill could not have obtained possession in any other wayof paper of that kind. Yet it was necessary for the defence to provethat, in order to prove that the plan was not drawn at Fanning's flat byHill under threats from Birchill, but that Hill had drawn it atRiversbrook, and that he gave it to Birchill in order to induce him toconsent to the proposal to break into the house. There were dozens ofways in which paper of this particular quality might have got to theflat. Might not Birchill have a friend in His Majesty's StationeryOffice? Was it impossible that the witness Fanning had a friend in thatOffice, or in one of the Government Departments to which the paper wassupplied? Was it impossible in view of her relations with the victim ofthis crime for Fanning to have obtained some of the paper at Riversbrookand to have taken it home to her flat? She had sworn in the witness-boxthat she had not had paper of that kind in her possession, but with herlover's life at stake was she likely to stick at a lie if it would helpto get him off?

  Counsel for the defence had endeavoured to make much of the fact that thedead body of Sir Horace Fewbanks was fully dressed when the policediscovered it. He endeavoured to persuade them that such a factestablished the complete innocence of the prisoner and that because of itthey must bring in a verdict of "not guilty." He asked them to accept itas evidence not only that Sir Horace Fewbanks was dead when the prisonerbroke into the house, but that he was dead when Hill left Riversbrook at7.30 p. m. to meet Birchill at Fanning's flat. With an ingenuity whichdid credit to his imagination, he put before them as his theory of thecrime that a quarrel took place between Sir Horace Fewbanks and Hill atRiversbrook, that Hill shot his master and then went to Fanning's flat soas to see that Birchill carried out the burglary as arranged, and at thesame time found Sir Horace's dead body, and thus directed suspicion tohimself. The only support for this, far-fetched theory was that the bodywhen discovered by the police was fully dressed, and that none of theelectric lights were burning. Counsel for the defence contended thatthese two facts established his theory that the murder was committedbefore dusk. They established nothing of the kind. There were half adozen more credible explanations of these things than the one he askedthe jury to accept. What mystery was there in a man being fully dressedin his own house at midnight? The defence had been at great pains to showthat Sir Horace Fewbanks was a man of somewhat irregular habits in hisprivate life. Did not that suggest that he might have turned off thelights and gone to sleep in an arm-chair in the library with theintention of going out in an hour or two to keep an appointment? If hehad an appointment--and his sudden and unexpected return from Scotlandwould suggest that he had a secret and important appointment--he would bemore likely to take a short nap in his chair than to undress and go tobed. Might not the prisoner, who was a bold and reckless man, have brokeninto the house when the lights were burning and his victim was awake andfully dressed? In that case what was to prevent his turning off thelights before leaving the house instead of leaving them burning toattract attention? What was to prevent the prisoner turning off thelights in order to convey the impression that the crime had beencommitted in daylight?

  "I want you to keep in mind, when arriving at your verdict, that thereare certain material facts which have been admitted by the defence," saidMr. Walters in concluding his address to the jury. "It has been admittedthat the prisoner was a party to a proposal to break into Riversbrook. Asfar as that goes, there is no suggestion that he walked into a trap.Whether he arranged the burglary and compelled Hill to help him, orwhether Hill arranged it and sought out the prisoner's assistance is,after all, not very material. What is admitted is that the prisoner wentto Riversbrook with the intention of committing a crime. It is admittedthat he knew Sir Horace Fewbanks had returned home. In that case is itnot reasonable to suppose that the prisoner would arm himself, I do notsay with the definite intention of committing murder, but for the purposeof threatening Sir Horace if necessary in order to make good his escape?What is more likely than that Sir Horace heard the burglar in the house,crept upon him, and then tried to capture him? There was a struggle, andthe prisoner, determined to free himself, drew his revolver and shot SirHorace. Is not such a theory of the crime--that Sir Horace was shot whiletrying to capture the prisoner--more probable than the theory of thedefence that Hill, the weak-willed, frightened-looking man you saw in thewitness-box, was a masterful, cunning criminal who for some inexplicablereason had turned ferociously on the master who had befriended him andgiven him a fresh start in life, had killed him and left the body in thehouse, and had then managed to direct suspicion to the prisoner? Thetheory of the defence does great credit to my learned friend'simagination
, but it is one which I am sure the jury will reject as toohighly coloured. Looking at the plain facts of the case and dismissingfrom your minds the attempt to make them fit into a purely imaginativetheory, I am sure that you will come to the conclusion that Sir HoraceFewbanks met his death at the hands of the prisoner."

  The junior bar agreed that the case was one which might go either way. Ifthey had possessed any money the betting market would have shown scarcelya shade of odds. Everything depended on the way the jury looked at thecase, on the particular bits of evidence to which they attached mostweight, on the view the most argumentative positive-minded members of thejury adopted, for they would be able to carry the others with them. Inthe opinion of the junior bar the summing up of Mr. Justice Hodson wouldnot help the jury very much in arriving at a verdict. There were somejudges who summed up for or against a prisoner according to the view theyhad formed as to the prisoner's guilt or innocence. There were otherjudges who summed up so impartially and gave such even-balanced weight tothe points against the prisoner and to the points in his favour, as tomake on the minds of the jurymen the impression that the only way toarrive at a well-considered verdict was to toss a coin. Another type ofjudge conveyed to the jury that the prosecution had established anunanswerable case, but the defence had shown equal skill in shatteringit, and therefore he did not know on which side to make up his mind, andfortunately English legal procedure did not render it necessary for himto do so. The prisoner might be guilty and he might be innocent. Some ofthe jury might think one thing and the rest of the jury might thinkanother. But it was the duty of the jury to come to an unanimous verdict.It did not matter if they looked at some things in different ways, buttheir final decision must be the same.

  Mr. Justice Hodson belonged to the impartial, impersonal type of judge.He had no personal feelings or conviction as to the guilt or innocence ofthe prisoner. It was for the jury to settle that point and it was hisduty to assist them to the best of his ability. He went over his notescarefully and dealt with the evidence of each of the witnesses. It wasfor the jury to say what evidence they believed and what theydisbelieved. There was a pronounced conflict of evidence between Hill andFanning. They were the chief witnesses in the case, but the guilt orinnocence of the prisoner did not rest entirely upon the evidence ofeither of these witnesses. Hill might be speaking the truth and theprisoner might be innocent though the presumption would be, if Hill'sevidence were truthful in every detail, that the prisoner was guilty.Fanning's evidence might be true as far as it went, but it would not initself prove that the prisoner was innocent. Hill had admitted that hehad drawn the plan of Riversbrook to assist Birchill to commit burglary.It was for the jury to determine for themselves whether he had beenterrorised into drawing the plan for Birchill or whether he was theinstigator of the burglary.

  The defence had contended that Hill had drawn the plan at his leisureat a time when he had access to a special quality of paper supplied tohis master. If that were so, Hill's version of how he came to draw theplan was deliberately false and had been concocted for the purpose ofexculpating himself. But they would not be justified in dismissingHill's evidence entirely from their minds because they were satisfiedhe had perjured himself with regard to the plan. They would bejustified, however, in viewing the rest of his evidence with somedegree of distrust. Counsel for the defence had made an ingenious useof the facts that the body of the victim was fully dressed whendiscovered and that none of the electric lights in the house wereburning. These facts lent support to the idea that the murder wascommitted in daylight, but they by no means established the theory asunassailable. They did not establish the innocence of the prisoner,although to some extent they told in his favour. Counsel for theprosecution had put before them several theories to account for thesetwo facts consistent with his contention that the murder had beencommitted by the prisoner. The jury must give full consideration tothese theories as well as to the theory of the defence. They were notcalled upon to say which theory was true except in so far as theiropinions might be implied in the verdict they gave.

  The defence, continued His Honour, was that Hill had committed the murderand had then decided to direct suspicion to the prisoner. If the juryacquitted the prisoner, their verdict would not necessarily mean thatthey endorsed the theory of the defence. It might mean that, but it mightmean only that they were not satisfied that the prisoner had committedthe murder. If the jury were convinced beyond all reasonable doubt thatthe prisoner had committed the murder, they must bring in a verdict of"guilty," and if they were not satisfied they must bring in a verdict ofacquittal.

  The jury filed out of their apartment, and as they retired to considertheir verdict the judge retired to his own room. The prisoner was removedfrom the dock and taken down the stairs out of sight. There was animmediate hum of voices in the court. Inspector Chippenfield approachedthe table and whispered to Mr. Walters. The latter nodded affirmativelyand left the court room in company with Mr. Holymead. The sibilant soundof whispering voices died down after a few minutes and then began thelong tedious wait for the return of the jury.

  The occupants of the gallery, who had no difficulty in coming to animmediate decision on the guilt or innocence of the prisoner, could notunderstand what was keeping the jury away so long. They failed tounderstand the jury's point of view. These gentlemen had sat in court forthree days listening intently to proceedings concerning a matter in whichtheir degree of personal interest was only a form of curiosity. And nowthe end of the case had been reached, except for the climax, which was intheir control. To arrive at an immediate decision in a case that hadoccupied the court for three days would indicate they had no properrealisation of the responsibilities of their position. A verdict was athing that had to be nicely balanced in relation to the evidence. Wherethe case against the prisoner was weak or overwhelmingly strong, the jurymight arrive at a verdict with great speed as an indication that too muchof their valuable time had already been wasted on the case. But where theevidence for and against the prisoner was fairly equal it behoved thejury to indicate by the time they took in arriving at their verdict thatthey had given the case the most careful consideration.

  Two hours and twenty minutes after the jury had retired, the prisoner wasbrought back into the dock. This was an indication that the jury hadarrived at their verdict and were ready to deliver it. The prisonerlooked worn and anxious, but he received encouraging smiles from hisfriends in the gallery. A minute later the judge entered the court andresumed his seat. The jury filed into court and entered the jury-box.Amid the noise of barristers resuming their seats and court officialsgliding about, the judge's Associate called over the names of thejurymen. The suspense reached its climax as the Associate put the formalquestions to the foreman whether the jury had agreed on their verdict.

  "What say you: guilty or not guilty?" asked the Associate in a hardmetallic voice in which there was no trace of interest in the answer.

  "Not guilty," replied the foreman.

  There was a muffled cheer from the gallery, which was suppressed by thestentorian cry of the ushers, "Silence in the court!"

  "A pack of damned fools," said the exasperated Inspector Chippenfield.

  Rolfe understood that his chief referred to the jury, and he nodded theassent of a subordinate.