The Greatest Murder Mysteries of Mary Elizabeth Braddon. Mary Elizabeth Braddon

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СКАЧАТЬ you might sup full of horrors, the denizens of this locality labouring under the fixed conviction that the prisoner then lying in Slopperton gaol was neither more nor less than a distinguished burglar, long the scourge of the united kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland, and guilty of outrages and murders innumerable.

      There were others who confined themselves to animated and detailed descriptions of the attempted escape and capture of the accused. These congregated at street-corners, and disputed and gesticulated in little groups, one man often dropping back from his companions, and taking a wide berth on the pavement, to give his particular story the benefit of illustrative action. Some stories told how the prisoner had got half-way to America concealed in the paddle wheel of a screw steamer; others gave an animated account of his having been found hidden in the corner of the engine-room, where he had lain concealed for fourteen days without either bite or sup. Others told you he had been furled up in the foretopsail of an American man-of-war; others related how he had made the passage in the main-top of the same vessel, only descending in the dead of the night for his meals, and paying the captain of the ship a quarter of a million of money for the accommodation. As to the sums of money he had embezzled in his capacity of banker, they grew with every hour; till at last Slopperton turned up its nose at anything under a billion for the sum total of his plunder.

      The assizes were looked forward to with such eager expectation and interest as never had been felt about any other assizes within the memory of living Slopperton; and the judges and barristers on this circuit were the envy of judges and barristers on other circuits, who said bitterly, that no such case ever came across their way, and that it was like Prius Q.C.’s luck to be counsel for the prosecution in such a trial; and that if Nisi, whom the Count de Marolles had intrusted with his defence, didn’t get him off, he, Nisi, deserved to be hung in lieu of his client.

      It seemed a strange and awful instance of retributive justice that Raymond Marolles, having been taken in his endeavour to escape in the autumn of the year, had to await the spring assizes of the following year for his trial, and had, therefore, to drag out even a longer period in his solitary cell than Richard Marwood, the innocent victim of circumstantial evidence, had done years before.

      Who shall dare to enter this man’s cell? Who shall dare to look into this hardened heart? Who shall follow the dark and terrible speculations of this perverted intellect?

      At last the time, so welcome to the free citizens of Slopperton, and so very unwelcome to some of the denizens in the gaol, who preferred awaiting their trial in that retreat to crossing the briny ocean for an unlimited period as the issue of that trial—at last, the assize time came round once more. Once more the tip-top Slopperton hotels were bewilderingly gay with elegant young barristers and grave grey-headed judges. Once more the criminal court was one vast sea of human heads, rising wave on wave to the very roof; and once more every eager eye was turned towards the dock in which stood the elegant and accomplished Raymond, Count de Marolles, alias Jabez North, sometime pauper of the Slopperton-on-the-Sloshy Union, afterwards usher in the academy of Dr. Tappenden, charged with the wilful murder of Montague Harding, also of Slopperton, eight years before.

      The first point the counsel for the prosecution endeavoured to prove to the minds of the jury was the identity of Raymond de Marolles, the Parisian, with Jabez North, the pauper schoolboy. This hinged chiefly upon his power to disprove the supposed death of Jabez North, in which all Slopperton had hitherto firmly believed. Dr. Tappenden had stood by his usher’s corpse. How, then, could that usher be alive and before the Slopperton jury to-day? But there were plenty to certify that here he was in the flesh—this very Jabez North, whom so many people remembered, and had been in the habit of seeing, eight years ago. They were ready to identify him, in spite of his dark hair and eyebrows. On the other hand, there were some who had seen the body of the suicide, found by Peters the detective, on the heath outside Slopperton; and these were as ready to declare that the afore-mentioned body was the body of Jabez North, the usher to Dr. Tappenden, and none other. But when a rough-looking man, with a mangy fur cap in his hand, and two greasy locks of hair carefully twisted into limp curls on either side of his swarthy face, which curls were known to his poetically and figuratively-disposed friends as Newgate knockers—when this man, who gave his name to the jury as Slithery Bill—or, seeing the jury didn’t approve of this cognomen, Bill Withers, if they liked it better—was called into the witness-box, his evidence, sulkily and rather despondingly given, as from one who says, “It may be my turn next,” threw quite a new light upon the subject.

      Bill Withers was politely asked if he remembered the summer of 18—. Yes; Mr. Withers could remember the summer of 18—; was out of work that summer, and made the marginal remark that “them as couldn’t live might starve or steal, for all Slopperton folks cared.”

      Was again politely asked if he remembered doing one particular job of work that summer.

      Did remember it—made the marginal remark, “and it was a jolly queer dodge as ever a cove had a hand in.”

      Was asked to be good enough to state what the particular job was.

      Assented to the request with a polite nod of the head, and proceeded to smooth his Newgate knockers, and fold his arms on the ledge of the witness-box prior to stating his case; then cleared his throat, and commenced discursively, thus,—

      “Vy, it vas as this ’ere—I vas out of work. I does up small gent’s gardens in the spring, and tidies and veeds and rakes and hoes ’em a bit, back and front, vhen I can get it to do, vich ain’t often; and bein’ out of vork, and old Mother Thingamy, down Blind Peter, she ses to me, vich she vas a vicked old ’ag, she ses to me, ‘I’ve got a job for them as asks no questions, and don’t vant to be told no lies;’ by vich remark, and the vay of her altogether, I knowed she veren’t up to no good; so I ses, ‘You looks here, mother; if it’s a job a respectable young man, vot’s out o’ vork, and ain’t had a bite or sup since the day afore yesterday, can do vith a clear conscience, I’ll do it—if it ain’t, vy I von’t. There!’ ” Having recorded which heroic declaration, Mr. William Withers wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and looked round the court, as much as to say, “Let Slopperton be proud of such a citizen.”

      “ ‘Don’t you go to flurry your tender constitution and do yourself a unrecoverable injury,’ the old cat made reply; ‘it’s a job as the parson of the parish might do, if he’d got a truck.’ ‘A truck?’ I ses; ‘is it movin’ boxes you’re making this ’ere palaver about?’ ‘Never you mind vether it’s boxes or vether it ain’t; vill you do it?’ she ses; ‘vill you do it, and put a sovering in your pocket, and never go for to split, unless you vant that precious throat of yours slit some fine evenin’?’ ”

      “And you consented to do what she required of you?” suggested the counsel.

      “Vell, I don’t know about that,” replied Mr. Withers, “but I undertook the job. ‘So,’ ses she, that’s the old ’un, she ses, ‘you bring a truck down by that there broken buildin’ ground at the back of Blind Peter at ten o’clock to-night, and you keep yourself quiet till you hears a vhistle; ven you hears a vhistle,’ she ses, ‘bring your truck around agin our front door. This here’s all you’ve got to do,’ she ses, ‘besides keepin’ your tongue between your teeth.’ ‘All right,’ I ses, and off I goes to see if there was any cove as would trust me with a truck agen the evenin’. Vell, I finds the cove, vich, seein’ I wanted it bad, he stood out for a bob and a tanner for the loan of it.”

      “Perhaps the jury would wish to be told what sum of money—I conclude it is money—a bob and a tanner represent?” said the counsel.

      “They must be a jolly ignorant lot, then, anyways,” replied Mr. Withers, with more candour than circumlocution. “Any infant knows eighteenpence ven it’s showed him.”

      “Oh, СКАЧАТЬ