by Greg Pyers
Rose remained unmoved. They gazed at each other, both men seeming to understand that what would give comfort right now was Geake’s departure.
The solicitor rapped his knuckles on the door.
‘So, Mr Rose, do think about what I’ve said, and I wish you very well for this afternoon.’
DAYLESFORD COURT HOUSE
DAVID ROSE COMMITTAL HEARING
AT THE CONCLUSION OF the previous case — a dispute over wandering goats — spare gallery seats were promptly filled for David Rose’s committal hearing. The prisoner was brought to the dock, and superintendents Reid and Nicolson took their places on the prosecution side. Coroner William Drummond, now acting in the office of Magistrate, resumed the chair, alongside Mayor George Patterson.
‘You’re not represented, Mr Rose?’
The prisoner shrugged.
‘Then, Mr Rose, I advise you to listen attentively to the evidence; it will be of great importance to you that you do so.’
Rose was suddenly anxious. He felt the glare of the gallery, and saw the whispering among the rows.
‘You understand, Mr Rose?’
‘I am a little nervous, Your Worship. I’m a man of weak understanding, you see. I only wish that my innocence be proved to the utmost.’
‘You may wish to take notes of the evidence. You can write?’
‘No, Your Worship. Please, may I be seated? I feel faint.’
Drummond indicated for Constable Dawson to procure a chair, and called for Reid to begin.
‘The prisoner, David Rose, is charged with murdering Margaret Stuart on December 28th last. It is germane to state that Mr Rose was transported from England in 1849 to Port Arthur in Van Diemen’s Land for seven years, having been convicted of burglary, stealing £8. Since arriving in this colony in 1858 on a conditional pardon, he has been twice convicted of larceny — once at Kilmore, and once at Portland.’
Drummond addressed the prisoner.
‘You admit to this account?’
Rose nodded.
Reid continued, reading from prepared notes. ‘Ever since the murder of the unfortunate Mrs Stuart, the police have been unremitting in our exertions to bring the murderer to justice. And now, we, the police, are ready to proceed with this case; we submit that the evidence presented today be grounds for committing the prisoner to trial.’
‘Thank you, Mr Superintendent. Please continue.’
George Stuart was called and sworn. Reid offered the witness a limp smile, and put his questions. When asked about the man in the dock, Stuart answered with measured certainty.
‘Yes, the man my wife complained of being too familiar with her is the prisoner.’
Drummond turned to Rose. ‘Do you wish to ask a question?’
Rose got to his feet. ‘I only spoke as I passed him one evening, a Friday. I said, “Good evening.”’
He fidgeted nervously and sat down.
Reid was handed a clay pipe by Sergeant Telford.
‘I want you to tell me if you have seen this pipe before, Mr Stuart.’ Reid held it out for him.
‘No, Sir, I never saw that pipe before.’
‘Not in your house?’
‘No. I’m sure it was never in my house.’
Telford showed the pipe to Rose.
‘I have never had this pipe in my possession,’ Rose said. He shrugged, and grimaced, as if to convey that he had no understanding of why he was there.
Detective Walker was called. He seemed to have come in some haste, for his brow was sweaty and face florid. He, too, was questioned about the pipe that had been found.
Walker blew out his cheeks, coughed, and began, reading from notes. ‘I was at the house at about ten minutes before two o’clock, on the morning of December the 29th. I found the pipe …’ Reid picked up the pipe and handed it to the magistrate and mayor, who gave it cursory inspection. ‘It was on the top of the meat safe in the first room.’
The hearing proceeded, with Reid calling, in turn, Louisa Goulding, Joseph Mounsey, and the Cheesbroughs, who all attested to the prisoner being the man of whom they had spoken.
Then Sarah Spinks was called, and the first hiccup appeared in the prosecution’s case.
‘Is the man you saw outside Maggie Stuart’s house on the night of the murder the prisoner?’ Reid asked.
She looked to the dock. She had taken her seat with an air of equanimity, and answered Reid’s question with certainty of mind.
‘The prisoner appears too stout. It might have been him. I only know him by report.’
‘You have seen the prisoner before?’
‘Yes. Once playing with my children, twice passing my place. On the evening of the 28th. At the time, and since, I fancied the prisoner was the man outside the Stuarts’ house, but, as I said, he seems now too stout.’
The witness was thanked and asked to stand down. Glances were exchanged between Reid and other police, perhaps to acknowledge Mrs Spinks’ confident delivery, or more likely to share their irritation at her doubts.
Reid called Thomas Hathaway, a slight man of ruddy complexion whose bandy legs predisposed him to clamber, rather than step, into the box. He stood now, Bible in hand, with an air of nervous impatience about him.
‘I’m a livery stable keeper, and the prisoner was in my employ last September and October, for about two weeks.’
‘Did you see the prisoner smoke a pipe?’
‘Yes, often. He seemed always to be smoking.’
‘Was it any of these pipes?’ The clerk held out the tray. Hathaway selected one of the two curved ones.
‘This one. The bowl is broken inside. I remember well because he had left it alight one day in the stable. A wind got up, and I saw sparks being blown across the hay. I picked up the pipe and told him I would break it.’
‘What did the prisoner say?’
‘He said, “For God’s sake, don’t break it. I would rather give a sovereign than it should be broken.”’
The chair in the dock squealed as Rose was to his feet and glaring at the witness. Looks of delighted alarm registered on the faces in the gallery, in anticipation of confrontation.
‘Are you not afraid that the devil will come and take you away out of that box?’ Rose said, his hands gripping the railing such that it flexed and creaked.
Drummond was measured. ‘Mr Rose, please remain calm. You will have your opportunity to address the witness.’ Rose sat down and looked to the ceiling. His lips were moving, as if in prayer.
Hathaway had kept his gaze to the bench and not once returned the prisoner’s stare.
Reid spoke. ‘I have no further questions, Your Worship.’
‘Thank you, Mr Reid. Now, Mr Rose, the floor is yours. Do you have any questions for the witness?’
Rose sat forward, forearms on thighs, and exhaled. He dropped his head a moment and lifted it.
‘No, he has told too many lies already.’
Murmurs issued from the gallery, and died away under a glare from the bench. Drummond glanced up at the clock, and then turned to Patterson to indicate that, with the time at four-twenty, proceedings would now be brought to a close.
‘Mr Rose, you have heard the evidence presented. Is there anything you wish to say before the bench hands down its decision?’
Rose looked as if he might have very much to say, yet had no idea where to begin. He threw his hands up and shook his head in the frustration of the moment. And then he was still.
Drummond exchanged a brief glance with Mayor Patterson, as if to ask, Have I not given him every opportunity?
He then addressed the court. ‘Very well, as much as this case is a tragic one, it is indeed a very peculiar and mysterious one. The evidence, as presented against you, Mr Rose, though it be purely circumstantial, is nonetheless sufficient for this court to commit you to st
and trial for the murder of Mrs Margaret Stuart. This will take place at Castlemaine Circuit Court on the 21st of February. Constable Dawson, return the prisoner to his cell.’
SATURDAY 11th FEBRUARY, MELBOURNE
OTTO BERLINER DELIGHTED IN his monthly forty minutes in the chair at Linden’s Gentlemen’s Salon of Collins Street. The rake of the comb across his scalp he counted among the great pleasures in life, and privately attributed much of his capacity for clear-headedness to its stimulation of cranial blood flow. The trim and shave were for presentation, but the combing was positively therapeutic. Otto preferred a clean-shaven face; elaborate sideburns and broom-head moustaches he didn’t care for, and, for the purposes of disguise, a whisker-free face was as a blank canvas onto which any of the widest range of false pieces could be affixed.
Newly tended, Otto liked to find a seat in the coffee house next door, and there he would open his newspaper to round out the hour over a brew. And as he read, he would make annotations, as prompts for later reference or simply to record his comments. Today, he read that David Rose had been transferred to Castlemaine gaol to await trial. In anticipation, he had his sharpened pencil at the ready:
Rose, under a mask of stolidity and nervousness, really conceals great self-possession and cunning. Though he appeared agitated and anxious during portions of the police court examination, there is reason to believe he was perfectly cool. While in the dock, his face wore the expression becoming one whose life was at stake; but during an interval in the proceedings, when removed from the court, his assumed decorum gave way to laughter. It is well known here that Rose is an old hand, and quite capable of committing violence. That he is also a man of strong passions can likewise be proved. It is understood that the police have other evidence than that made public. However, there is only too much reason to fear that the testimony will fail to insure a conviction. The pipe identified by the witness Hathaway as Rose’s, and which Detective Walker found on a meat safe in the murdered woman’s house, will be sworn to by others. Still their evidence may well be doubted. It is all but incredible that the murderer should have descended the chimney with such an article in his mouth, or have used it in the house either before or after killing his victim.
Otto folded his paper and sat in quiet contemplation. Such opinionated reportage really was to be deplored. Only the final sentence could be said to have made a reasonable inference; though it was a wonder that the author hadn’t construed an explanation commensurate with the judgemental tenor of the rest of his piece, now decorated in pencil by lines, circles, and exclamation marks.
Otto sighed. He felt the bristly grain of the nape of his neck, and the smoothness of his jowl. In the window he saw his wraith-like reflection, stationary amid the flow of pedestrians seemingly passing right on through it. He had a very bad feeling about this Rose case: the unprepossessing illiterate with a criminal past and a slight overbite already had a noose around his neck.
PART II
19
WEDNESDAY 15th MARCH 1865
DAYLESFORD COURT HOUSE
JOSEPH LATHAM STOOD IN the dock, resentment swelling his collar. He had been in the lock-up since Friday, and it was George Stuart who’d put him there, on a charge of stealing. In the witness box stood his wife, Alice. Their eyes met, and quickly she turned away as she heard Magistrate Drummond put his question.
‘Yes, Your Worship,’ she said. ‘The dresses and jewellery do belong to my late daughter, and these items are at my house.’
‘The charge brought by Mr George Stuart against your husband is that some time on New Year’s Day, three days after the murder of your daughter, he unlawfully removed these items — to the value of £10 — from Mr Stuart’s house.’
‘They weren’t stolen. They were my daughter’s, and, yes, they are in my possession. I admit it.’
Drummond considered a moment. ‘The charge is not sustained. Case dismissed. You’re free to leave, Mr Latham.’
TUESDAY 25th APRIL, CASTLEMAINE COURT HOUSE
THE PROSECUTION APPLIES FOR A POSTPONEMENT
AT SEVENTY, PEARSON THOMPSON wasn’t in the best of health, with a gouty foot and an unreliable bladder being particularly bothersome ailments in his general state of decrepitude. Eliza’s tracking him down to his new address in Castlemaine hadn’t made his situation any less onerous; but as long as he had income enough, he could keep her at bay. That Mary Foley was expecting his child was not of immediate concern, and he wasn’t expecting that it would be; she was a woman with some capacity for self-restraint. Besides, he was fond of her; he liked to come home to her. Her willingness to please he took as reward for speaking up all day for those of her ilk: the ill-educated, coarse-mannered of the world.
At ten in the morning, he hobbled into the court and saw his client already in the dock, clad in prison garb, and no less unfavourably presented for it. The barrister signalled that the accused might like to sweep the hair off his face, if only so the court might see that there was a human being before it, albeit an uncommonly hirsute one. Rose complied, to a degree, and Thompson proceeded to his place. He nodded a good morning to Smyth, the crown prosecutor, whose growing reputation Thompson would acknowledge were it not the case that the man was half his age. Smyth smiled back, but Thompson discerned no respect in it. But when was a young Irishman respectful to an ageing Englishman anyway? Judge Williams was presiding, and opened proceedings by taking a submission from Smyth, for a postponement.
‘Your Honour, in support of this application, I have here an affidavit from Detective Constable Thomas Walker of Daylesford, to the effect that since the last postponement, he and Detective Williams have discovered a certain article of clothing, which they believe would be important evidence against the prisoner. But yet their case is not ready for trial, and that, if postponed till the next Circuit Court he — that is, Detective Walker — believes that additional and important evidence would be forthcoming against the prisoner.’
Thompson was having none of this. He rose abruptly, to signal the import of what he was about to say. ‘Your Honour, on behalf of the prisoner, I must strenuously oppose the application. Mr Rose was committed on February 7th to stand trial on February 21st. That date lapsed, and since then there has been yet another postponement, because there was not a tittle of evidence against him, although fourteen detectives had been getting up the case. It would be a denial of justice to keep the prisoner in custody any longer.’ He sat down as emphatically as he had jumped up.
Judge Williams suggested a possible concession. ‘He may, perhaps, be admitted to bail.’
Thompson was shaking his head in the manner of a man confident he had moral right on his side. He stood again, slowly this time, and spoke with commensurate measure.
‘Your Honour, with respect, how can a man like the prisoner get bail? His character and reputation have been so maligned that at Daylesford the police were obliged to bring him by a circuitous route to the court, or he would have been torn to pieces by the crowd. And how certain are the police of the prisoner’s guilt, when two other men were taken into custody for the same offence? And, I might add, one of them, Bonetti, shared a lock-up with the prisoner for a period of weeks! No, the fact is there is not a particle of evidence against the prisoner. The husband of the murdered woman says he is not the man who committed the murder; the police know he is not the man; and there is not the slightest evidence against him.’
Judge Williams watched Thompson’s performance impassively. The repetition was not helpful to the barrister’s argument. When it was done, he looked to Smyth, unhurriedly rising in his place and conveying in his unruffled manner that reason was on his side.
‘I would point out to my learned colleague, Your Honour, that there is, in fact, a great deal of evidence; and it is believed that other evidence will be obtained.’
Smyth eased back into his chair as Thompson stood to counter: ‘If my learned colleague
is referring to an item of clothing found in a log near Cheesbrough’s farm, I say that it is not known that this item belongs to the prisoner.’
Smyth let this go by with a grimace, as if to say he really had no idea what Thompson was talking about.
‘Your Honour, defence counsel may be suggesting that the prisoner has been unreasonably detained. Well, I don’t need to remind him that murder is a very serious charge, and I point out that the prisoner was only committed on the 7th of February. So, the prisoner has not been in gaol more than two months and a half.’
Thompson was quick to rebut. ‘But he was in the Daylesford lock-up for four weeks before that!’
Williams waggled both hands for the two gentlemen to be silent while he considered his decision.
With a glance to Rose, he gave it. ‘I will remand the prisoner; but the trial must be proceeded with at the next Circuit Court.’
Smyth gestured that this was a decision he was happy to comply with. Not so Thompson, however. He stood, and with an arm extended towards the dock, said, ‘Does Your Honour think the prisoner ought to be remanded? Two other men were brought up for this murder, and the prosecutor himself doesn’t really believe that the prisoner is the man!’ Smyth rolled his eyes, and shrugged to the bench in bewilderment. Thompson went on. ‘There have been fourteen detectives, fourteen, getting up evidence against the prisoner, and they have done everything they can do.’
Thompson seemed to have stepped across the line that separates argument from complaint, and Williams was having none of that. ‘Fourteen, you say, Mr Thompson? Perhaps they want sixteen.’
The judge suppressed a smile, though Smyth did little to conceal his amusement at the quip.
Thompson would not be discouraged. ‘The police don’t know what they want. The prisoner is made a victim to appease the popular clamour —’
Smyth was indicating that Rose was wanting a word. Thompson took a moment to consult, and returned to say, ‘The prisoner informs me that they won’t allow him to shave his beard.’
