"THE WEB."

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXX, Issue 8547, 3 October 1907, Page 2

"THE WEB."

CHAPTER ll.—Continued. c _ ) "It will be shown," said Mr Frank 1 Richardson, "that the relations between father and son were of a most unfortunate kind. It was the com- ( mon knowledge of his friends in - Cambridge and in London that the . prisoner had been leading a Me , which had caused his father pam. He . had gambled and drunk, and despite , the exhortations of his father, he had persisted in this course of conduct , Again and again his father had paid , his debts; again and again he had told him to what his conduct must , lead. Inspired by the natural love of a father for his son, the murdered man had shown the utmost restraint. Again and again the prisoner had sought and obtained his forgiveness; but in the end his father realised that there was only one means by which he could hope to win him from the path of destruction, and bitter as it must have been for him to adopt this course, his sense of duty was strong enough to determine him to put its efficacy to the test. Accordingly, he wrote to his son—the letter should be read to the jury-informing him that he was coming up to town to have a serious conversation with him on the night of March 17th, that •he would meet him in his flat at 10 o'clock and that unless he obtained some satisfactory assurance that his son intended to lead a new life, he must refuse to make him any further allowance; and that he must learn, alone and unaided, from the bitterness of experience, the folly of his' conduct. It would be shown that so little did this impress his son that the very night of his father's arrival he had spent in a boisterous dinner party with his frienos followed by an equally boisterous visit to the Imperial Mtisiu Hall." j Mr Frank Richardson then proceeded to relate how, on the night of the murder, a gentleman, who ] had the flat immediately below that | occupied by the prisoner, had heard above him a sudden shriek, half moan, half cry, and then the sound of a body falling heavily on the ground. For some seconds he had listened intently, then alarmed by what he had heard, he mounted the staircase to the prisoner's flat. The door of the flat was open, and all lights, even that on the landing, were turned out. For some seconds he listened at the open door, and then, after a natural hesitation, he felt it his duty to enter. On the floor of the sitcing-room he discovered the body of the murdered man. Horrified by the discovery he had rushed for the police. On the arrival o± the authorities the body was placed on the sofa, and a careful search was made of the room. This search led to an important discovery, the discovery of an opera-hat, which had evidently fallen off the murderer's head and was lying underneath the table in the centre of the room. The murdered man's own bowler hat was on the table itself, with his stick and gloves. A communication was immediately made to Scotland Yard, and by 10.30 Detective Inspector Brown and Detective Medhurst arrived. After again carefully searching the room, Detective Medhurst left the premises for the purpose of making preliminary inquiries in the neighbourhood. It was than about 11.15. As he passed into the street he saw the prisoner approaching, dressed in eveningclothes and without a hat. Concealing himself in the doorway, he watched him ascend the steps of the building. Acting with commendable foresight Medhurst came to the conclusion that the prisoner .vas returning to regain his hat, the one piece of damning evidence he had left behind him. He thereupon hurried up to the flat before the prisoner has ascended -the steps leading to the building, and warned his comrades. To conceal themselves they turned off the electric light in the sitting-room. Presently they heard the prisoner softly enter .the fiat. For some thirty seconds they heard him listening outside the open door of the sittingroom. Then, believing the room to be empty, he had stepped in and switched on the electric light. Counsel went on to narrate the circumstances of Strangways' arrest, making his conduct appear in the worst light possible. He then elaborated what had come to be known as the "hat" theory. He declared that the man who owned the opera hat was the murderer of John Strangways, and he concluded by saying that it would be his duty to demonstrate to the jury that the owner of that hat was none other than the prisoner. Evidence was then called for the prosecution. But the chief point on which the prosecution depended was

the hat. It fitted the prisoner like a glove, and having impressed this fact ■on the jury, Mr Frank Richardson left the field to his learned brother. When Mr Walterßiddall rose, Jack Ssrangways had given up all hopes that his innocence could ever be proved. Eul before his counsel had been long on j.ii legs hope revived. He took the au..ude of the man of the world. He c.3sumed that the

judge and the jury wore men of the world. Having carefully rubbed this point in, counsel went on to declare that the iury and everybody knew, what young men wore, especially young men from the universities.

The witnesses that he called included Lord Kildwir.k and the commissionaire at the doorway to whom Strangways had given half-a-crown. Both declared that the prisoner left the Imperial at ten. The cabman who drove the p-isoner to the Embankment t also corroborated this evidence. Strangways then elected himself to go into the witness box, and in a half-dazed tone narrated the events

By . PAUL, TOQUHART*

[Published By Special Arrangement.] [All Eights Beserved.]

of the night, creating some sensation by saying that his hat had fallen off his head while he was leaning over the parapet of the Embankment. Then the trial closed for that day. The following morning was devoted to the final speeches of counsel. Then the judge summed up. He weighed the probabilities for and against the innocence of the prisoner with absolute impartiality. He showed the jury that the prisoner had made an appointment with his father on the night of the murder at 10 o'clock. At a quarter to ten he was found dead. By his side was an opera hat. The owner of that hat was undoubtedly his murderer. It was for the jury to decide whether that hat was the property of the prisoner or not. If it was he was guilty of the most awful crime in the world, the murder of his father. The learned counsel had told them the motives which might have prompted him to such an act. An estrangement had sprung up between father and son, due to the folly of the. accused. The jury must say whether those motives were sufficient to induce the pri&oner to commit such a crime. If the accused was the murderer, it appeared to him the construction placed upon his conduct by the counsel for the prosecution was justified. In the excitement and horror which would naturally awake in his mind after committing such a deed, it was conceivable that he might have fled from the flat with no other thought bat to get away. After some reflection in the streets his mind would naturally turn to ways and means of escaping the penalty of his crime. Realising that he was without his hat and that the discovery of this article would lead to his identification, he might have determined to risk all by returning to regain possession of this damning piece of evidence. He was seen to enter the building without a hat, to go cautiously into the room as if fearing arrest, and to have conducted himself in the face of his father's corpse in an excited manner which might or might not be the result of a guilty conscience. On the other side evidence had been to show ' that the prisoner did not finally leave he music hall until ten o'clock, a tuarter of an hour after the deed ' qadbeen committed, though a calculating murderer iright have pur- ' posejy gone out and come back be- • fore finally departing. They must ' decide whether they were prepared to ! accept the evidence of his compan- » ions, but they must not forget the ' evidence of the commissionaire and ' the driver, who were both positive ! that it was a few seconds after ten ■ when the prisoner left the Imperial. He concluded by warning the jury '■ that if they had any doubt in their • minds as to the guilt of the prisoner i having been absolutely proved, they 1 , must give him the benefit of that { doubt. With this parting admonition ■ he dismissed them to decide upon 1 their verdict.

They were absent half-an-hour, and when they filed again into the box, dead silence feel upon the court. Few people present thought that, af car the judge's summing-up there could be any doubt a to the verdict. But the sense of uncertainty'which the working of the human mind," even the human minds of twelve good men and true, kept everybody in a breathless, tense excitement. Strangways seemed the least concerned of them all. He did not hear the judge's question. All that struck upon his ear were the words of the foreman: — "Not guilty." v

CHAPTER 111. A free man once more Jack Strangways pulled himself up on the pavement, as he stepped forth from the crowded court. City men were hurrying by, clerks bustled each other and passed the time of day with a perfunctory nod. The whole world seemed to have business of its own, and here, in the heart of the greatest city in the universe, nobody either knew or cared anything about the hunted youth who had literally slipped out of the hangman's noose.

It was almost an open question with him whether the state of confinement he had just left was better than this freedom. He was a man who has been suddenly cast by a friendly wave out of a hissing, suffocating sea on to a solitary rock, with no apparent path to anywhere. It was true he had life, but what a life! "Not guilry!" The cold scepticism with which the judge had repeated these words, pronounced amid breathless silence by the foreman of the jury, cut into his aching brain. The ill-concealed contempt of everybody in court, as he gazed around in an aimless way, was too obvious to be missed even «y a man who was more or less in a trance. The young barristers waiting about for briefs, had gazed with a sort of professional admiration and congratulation at his counsel It was a victory for the skill of, a rising advocate, but that wa3 all. Jack Strangways, the man was an item, an unconsidered item. Strangways, the prisoner in the dock, was a necessary adjunct to an exciting duel Df forensic ability in which one side had gained an unexpected victory. (To be continued.)