The Storyteller.

Waikato Argus, Volume IX, Issue 720, 4 August 1900, Page 1 (Supplement)

The Storyteller.

A LAWYER'S STORY

' I abominate detective stories,' said the Q C., lying down his cue alongside the billiard-table and going across to the shelf where the cigar boxes stood. ' You see when a man makes a detective story to write on paper, he begins at the at the butt-end and works backward. He notes his points and manufactures his clues to suit 'em, so it's all bound to work out right. In real life it's very different'—h« chose a Partaga, looking at it though his glasses thoroughly —' and I ought to know; I've bean studying the criminal mind for half my working life.' ' But,' said O'Malley, a defending counsel is a different sort of animal from the common detective. • Oh, is he ?' said the Q.C., • that's all you know about it.' He dragged one of the big chairs ud into the deep chimney corner ana settled himself in it, after many luxurious shruggings ; then he spoke on, between puffs at the Partaga. i ' Now I'll just state you a' case and you'll see for yourself how we sometimes have to ravel out things. The solicitor who put the brief in my hands was, as solicitors go, a smart chap. He had built, up a big business out of nothing, but criminal work was slightly out of his line. He had taken up this case to oblige an old client, and I must say he made an uncommonly poor show of it, I j never had such a thin brief given me in my life. • The prisoner was to be tried on the capital charge ; and if murder had been committed, it was of a coldblooded nature. Hanging would follow conviction as surely as night comes on the heels of day; and a client who gets the noose given him always damages his counsel's reputation, whether that counsel deserves it or not. ' As my brief put it, the case fined down to this. 'Two men got into an empty third class smoking compartment at Addison road. One of them, Guide, was a drain contractor; the other, Walker, was a foreman in Guide's employ. The train took them past the Shepherd's Bush and Grove road Hammersmith stations without anything being reported; but at Shaftesbury Road Walker was on the floor, stone dead, with a wound in the skull, and on the seat of the carriage was a small miner's pickaxe with one of its points smeared with blood. 1 It was proved that Guide had been seen to leave the Shaftesbury road station, He was dishevelled and agitated at the time, and this made the ticket collector noticed him specaially among the crowd of outgoing passengers. After it was found out who he was, inquiries were made at his home. His wife stated that she had not seen him since Monday—the morning of Walker s death. She. also let out that Walker had been causing him some annoyance of late, but she did not know what about. Sub- ; sequently—on the Friday, four days later—Guide was arrested at the West India dock. He was trying To obtain work as a coal trimmer on an Australian steamer, obviously to escape from the country. On being charged he surrendered quietly, remarking that he supposed it was all up with him. • That was the gist of my case, and the solicitor suggested that I should enter a plea of insanity. 1 Now, when I had conned the evidence over—additional evidence to what I've told you, but all tending to the same end—l came to the conclusion that Guide was as sane as any of us are, and that, as a defence, insanity wouldn't have a leg to staud upon. ' The fellow. 1 I said, • had much better enter a plea of guilt/ and let me pile up a long list of extenuating circumstances. A jury will always listen to those, and, feeling grateful for being excused a long and weari-

some trial, recommend to mercy out of sheer gratitude I wrote a not* to this effect. On its receipt the solicitor came to see me—by the way he was Barnes, a man of my own year at Cambridge. ' My dear Grayson,' said ho, 'l'm not altogether a fool. I know as well as you do that Guide would have the best chance if he pleaded guilty ; but the difficult part of it is that he flatly refu es to do any such thing. He says he no more killed this fellow Walker than you or I did. I pointed out to him that the man couldn't very conveniently have- slain himself, as the wound was well over the t:>p of his head, and had obviously beeu the result of a most terrific blow. At the post mortem it was shown that Walker's skull wag of abnormal thickness, and the force required to drive through it even a heavy, sharp pointed instrument like the pickax*; must have been something tremendous. ' I tell yow. Grayson, I impressed upon the fellow that the case was as black as ink against him, and that he'd only irritate the jury by holding out; bub "I couldn't move him. He held doggedly to his tale—he had not killed Andrew Walker.' 1 He's not the first man who's stuck to an unlikely lie like that,' I remarked. ' The curious part of it is,' said Barnes, ' I'm convinced that the man believes himself to be telling the absolute truth.' f Then what explanation has he to offer ?' ' None worth listening to. He owns that he and Walker had a fierce quarrel over money matters, which culminated in a personal struggle. He knows that be had one blow on the head which dazed him, and fancied that he must have had a second which reduced him to unconsciousness. When next he knew what was happening, he saw Walker lying on the floor, stone dead, though he was still warm and supple. On the floor was the pickaxe, with one of the points slimy with blood. How it came to be so ho could not tell. He picked it up and laid it on a seat. Then in an instant the thought flashed across him how terribly black things looked against himself. He saw absolutely no chance of disproving them, and with the usual impulse of crude minds resolved at once to quit the country. With the idea he got out at the Shaftsbury road station, and, being an ignorant man and without money, made his way down to Ratcliff highway—beg its pardon St. George's, High street. Using that as a centre, he smelt about the docks at Limehouse and Millwall trying for a job in the stokehold ; but as that neighborhood is one of the best watched spots on earth, it is not a matter of surprise that he was very soon captured. That's about all I can tell you.' 1 I'm afraid it doesn't lighten matters up very mud).' • I never said it would. The gist of this is down in your brief, Grayson. I only came round to chambers because of your letter., ' Still,' I persisted, ' you threw out a hint that Guide had offered some explanation.' ' Oh. yes; but such a flimsy, improbable theory that no sane man could entertain it for a minute. In fact, he knew it to be absurd him self. After pressing him again and again to suggest how Walker could have been killed (with a view of extorting a confession), he said, in his slow, heavy way. ' Why I suppose, Mr Barnes, some one else must ha' done it. Don'c you ( tbink as a man could ha' got into a carriage while I was lying there stupid, and hit Walkor with the ! pick and got out again before I come jto? Would that do, sir V ' I didn't think,' added Barnes dryly, ' that it was worth following that theory any deeper. What do you say ?' ' I thought for a minute and then spoke up. ' Look here, Barnes, if in tho face of this cockand bull story Guide persists in his innocence, there may be something

in it after all, and if by any 1000 to 1 chance we could bring him clear it would be a red feather in the caps of both of us. Do you object to my seeing the man personally V ' It's a bit irregular,' said Barnes doubtfully. ' I know it is bang in the teeth of etiquette. But suppose we connpromise and you come with me? ' No, I won't do that. My time is too busy just now, and, besides, I don't want to run up the costs in this case higher than necessary. But if you choose to shove your other work anide and waste a couple of hours, just go and inter view him by yourself and we'll waive the ceremony. I'il get the neeessary prison ot'der and send it round to you to-morrow.' Next afternoon I went down to see Guide in the waiting-room at the Old Bailey. He was a middle aged man, heavy-fiiced, aud evidently knocked half stupid by the. situatiou in which he found himself. He was perhaps as great a fool to his own interests as one might often meet with. There was no getting the simplest tale out of him except for regular ques-tion-and-answer cross-examination. What little he did tell seemed rather to confirm !iis guilt than otherwise; though, strange to say, I was beginning to believe him when he kept on assuring me between every other sentence that he did not commit th« murder. Perhaps it was the stolid earnestness of the fellow in denying the crime which convinced me. One gets to read a good deal from facial expression when a man has watched what goes on in the criminal dock as long as I have done, and one usually spots guilt under any mask. ' But tell me,' I said, ' what did you quarrel about in the first instance.' ' Money, ( said Guide moodily. ' That's vague. ' Tell me more. Did he owe you money ?' ' No, sir, it was t'other way on.' ' Wages in arrear!' 1 No, it was money he advanced me for the working of my business. You see Walker had always been a hard man, and he'd saved. He said he wanted his money back, he knowing that I was pinched a* bit just then and couldn't pay. Then he tried to thrust himself into partnership with me in the business which was a thing I didnfc want. I'd good contracts on hand which I expected would bring me in a matter of nine tnousand pounds, and I didn't want to share it with any man, least of all him. I told him so, and that's how the trouble began. But it was him that hit me first.' ' Still you returned the blow?' Guide passed a hand wearily over his forehead. ' I may have struck him back, sir —I was dazed, and I don't rightly remember. But before God I'll swear I never lifted that pick to Andrew Walker—it was his pick.' ' But.' I persisted, 'Walker could not very conveniently have murdered himself.' ' No, sir, no—no, he couldn't. I thought of that myself since I been in here, and I siid to Mr Barr.e3 that perhaps somebody came into the carriage when I was knocked ailly, and killed him ; but Mr Barnes lie said that was absurd. Besides, who could have done it 1 ?' ' Don't you know anybody, then, who would have wished for Walkers death V 1 Thero was them that didn't like him,' said Guide, drearily. ' That was all 1 could get out of him, and I went away from the prison feeling very dissatisfied, I was stronger than ever in the belied that Guide was in no degree guilty and yet for the life of me I did not see how to prove his innocence. He had not been a mau of any strong character to begin with, and that shock of what he had gone through had utterly dazed him. It was hopeless to expect any reasonable explanation from him, ho had

resigned himself to puzzlement. If he had gone melancholy mad before he came up for trial, I should not have been ono whit surprised.

• I brooded over the matter for a couple of days, putting all the rest of my practice out of thought, but I didn't get any forwarder with it. I hate to give anything up as a bad job, and hi this case I felt that there was on my shoulders a huge load of responsibility, Guide, I had thoroughly persuaded myself, had not murdered Andrew Walker ; as sure as the case went into court, on its present grounding, the man would be hanged out of hand ; and then I persuaded mvself that then I, and I alone, should be responsible for an innocent man's death.

' At the end of these two days only one course seemed open to me. It was foreign to the brief I held but the only method left to bring in my client's innocence. ' I must find out who really did murder the man. I must try to implicate some third actor in the tradeuy.

'To begin with, there was a railway carnage ; but a little thought showed me that nothing was to be done there. The carriage had been inspected by the police, and then swept and cleaned and garnished, and coupled on its train once more, and used by unconscious passengers for weeks since the uproar occurred in it. ' All that 1 had got to go upon were the notes and relics alScotland Yard.

1 The police authorities were very good. They were keen enough to bring off the prosecution with professional eclat, band over a poor wretch to the hangman if he was not thoroughly deserving of a dance on nothing. They placed at my disposal every scrap of their evidence, and said that they thought that the reading of it all was plain beyond dispute. I thought so, too, at first. They sent nn inspector to my chambers as their convoy. 1 On one point, though, after a lot of thought, i did not quite agree with them. I held a grisly relic in my hand, gazing at it fixedly. It was a portion of Walker's skull—a disc of dry.bone with a splintered aperture in the middle.

'And so you think the pickaxe made that hole ?' I said to the inspector. ' I don't think there can be any doubt about it, Mr Grayson. Nothing else could have done it, and the point of the pick was smeared with blood.' ' But would there be room to swing such a weapon in a third-class metropolitan railway carriage?' 'We thought of that, and at first it seemed a poser. The roof is low, and both Guide and Walker are tall men ; but if Guide had gripped the shaft by the end so, with his right hand pretty near against the head, so, he'd have had heaps of room to drive it with a sideways swing. I tried the thing for myself ; it acted perfectly. Here's the pickaxe ; you can see for yourself. ; I wasn't satisfied, but I didnt tell the inspector what I thought. It was clearer tome than ever that Guide had not committed the murder. What I asked the inspector was this. Had either of the men got any luggage in the carriage ?' 1 The inspector answed, with a laugh, ' Not quite. Mr Graysou. or you would see it here.' Then I took on paper a rough outline of that fragment of bone, and an accurate sketch of the exact size of the gash in it, and the inspector went away. One thing his visit had shown me, Andrew Walker was not slain by a blow from behind the pickaxe.

' I mot Barnes while I was nibbling lunch, and told him this. He heard ine doubtfully. ' You may be right,' said he, ' but I'm bothered if I see what you've got to go upon.' ' You know what a pickaxe is like? 1 I said. 1 Certainly.'

1 A cross-section of one or" the blades would be what V ' Square—or perhaps oblong.' ' Quite so, Rectangular. What T want to get at is this. It wouldn't evon be diamond shape, with the angles obtuse and acute alternately.' Certainly not. The angles would be clean right-angles.' ' Ver> good. Now look at thie, sketch of the hole in the skull, and' tell me what you see.'

(To be Continued).