The Shadow of the Rope | Page 7

his hand; and it was not a strong one to those who knew the
game. A Queen's Counsel, like the leader for the Crown, this was an
altogether different type of lawyer; a younger man, with a more
engaging manner; a more brilliant man, who sought with doubtful
wisdom to blind the jury with his brilliance. His method was no
innovation at the Old Bailey; it was to hold up every witness in turn to
the derision and contempt of the jury and the court. So both the maids
were reduced to tears, and each policeman cleverly insulted as such.
But the testimony of all four remained unshaken; and the judge himself
soothed the young women's feelings with a fatherly word, while wigs
were shaken in the well of the court. That was no road to the soft side
of a decent, conscientious, hard-headed jury, of much the same class as
these witnesses themselves; even the actors and authors had a sound
opinion on the point, without waiting to hear one from the professional
gentlemen in the well. But the man in front with the very white
hair--the man who was always watching the prisoner at the bar--there
was about as much expression of opinion upon his firm, bare face as
might be seen through the sable thickness of her widow's veil.
It was the same next day, when, for some five hours out of a possible
five and a half, the attention of the court was concentrated upon a point
of obviously secondary significance. It was suggested by the defence
that the watch and chain found up the study chimney were not those
worn by the deceased at the time he met his death. The contention was
supported by photographs of Alexander Minchin wearing a
watch-chain that might or might not be of another pattern altogether;
expert opinions were divided on the point; and experts in chains as well
as in photography were eventually called by both sides. Interesting in
the beginning, the point was raised and raised again, and on subsequent
days, until all were weary of the sight of the huge photographic
enlargements, which were handed about the court upon each occasion.
Even the prisoner would droop in her chair when the "chain

photograph" was demanded for the twentieth time by her own
unflagging counsel; even the judge became all but inattentive on the
point, before it was finally dropped on an intimation from the jury that
they had made up their minds about the chains; but no trace of boredom
had crossed the keen, alert face of the unknown gentleman with the
snowy hair.
So the case was fought for Mrs. Minchin, tooth and nail indeed, yet
perhaps with more asperity than conviction, and certainly at times upon
points which were hardly worth the fighting. Yet, on the Friday
afternoon, when her counsel at last played his masterstroke, and, taking
advantage of the then new Act, put the prisoner herself in the
witness-box, it was done with the air of a man who is throwing up his
case. The truth could be seen at a glance at the clean-cut, handsome,
but too expressive profile of the crushing cross-examiner of female
witnesses and insolent foe to the police. As it had been possible to
predict, from the mere look with which he had risen to his feet, the kind
of cross-examination in store for each witness called by the prosecution,
so it was obvious now that his own witness had come forward from her
own wilful perversity and in direct defiance of his advice.
It was a dismal afternoon, and the witness-box at the Old Bailey is so
situated that evidence is given with the back to the light; thus, though
her heavy veil was raised at last, and it could be seen that she was very
pale, it was not yet that Rachel Minchin afforded a chance to the
lightning artists of the half-penny press, or even to the students of
physiognomy behind the man with the white hair. This listener did not
lean forward an inch; the questions were answered in so clear a voice as
to render it unnecessary. Yet it was one of these questions, put by her
own counsel, which caused the white-headed man to clap a sudden
hand to his ear, and to incline that ear as though the answer could not
come without some momentary hesitation or some change of tone.
Rachel had told sadly but firmly of her final quarrel with her husband,
incidentally, but without embarrassment, revealing its cause. A
neighbor was dangerously ill, whom she had been going to nurse that
night, when her husband met her at the door and forbade her to do so.

"Was this neighbor a young man?"
"Hardly more than a boy," said Rachel,