The Shadow of the Rope | Page 9

as
we may choose to consider them--if they never made those mistakes,
they would never stand in that dock."
It was late on the Saturday afternoon when the judge summed up; but a
pleasant surprise was in store for those who felt that his lordship must
speak at greater length than either of the counsel between whom he was
to hold the scales. The address from the bench was much the shortest of
the three. Less exhaustive than the conventional review of a
complicated case, it was a disquisition of conspicuous clearness and
impartiality. Only the salient points were laid before the jury, for the
last time, and in a nutshell, but with hardly a hint of the judge's own
opinion upon any one of them. The expression of that opinion was
reserved for a point of even greater import than the value of any
separate piece of evidence. If, said the judge, the inferences and theory
of the prosecution were correct; if this unhappy woman, driven to
desperation by her husband, and knowing where he kept his pistols, had
taken his life with one of them, and afterwards manufactured the traces
of a supposititious burglary; then there was no circumstance connected
with the crime which could by any possibility reduce it from murder to

manslaughter. The solemnity of this pronouncement was felt in the
farthest corner of the crowded court. So they were to find her guilty of
wilful murder, or not guilty at all! Every eye sped involuntarily to the
slim black figure in the dock; and, under the gaze of all, the figure
made the least little bow--a movement so slight and so spontaneous as
to suggest unconsciousness, but all the more eloquent on that account.
Yet to many in court, more especially to the theatrical folk behind the
man with the white hair, the gesture was but one more subtle touch in
an exhibition of consummate art and nerve.
"If they do acquit her," whispered one of these wiseacres to another,
"she will make her fortune on the stage!"
Meanwhile the judge was dealing at the last with the prisoner's
evidence in her own behalf, and that mercifully enough, though with
less reticence than had characterized the earlier portions of his address.
He did not think it possible or even desirable to forget that this was the
evidence of a woman upon trial for her life. It must not be discredited
on that account. But it was for the jury to bear in mind that the story
was one which admitted of no corroboration, save in unimportant
details. More than that he would not say. It was for them to judge of
that story as they had heard it for themselves, on its own merits, but
also in relation to the other evidence. If the jury believed it, there was
an end of the case. If they had any reasonable doubt at all, the prisoner
was entitled to the full benefit of that doubt, and they must acquit her.
If, on the other hand, the facts taken together before and after the
murder brought the jury to the conclusion that it was none other than
the prisoner who had committed the murder--though, of course, no one
was present to see the act committed--they must, in duty to their oaths,
find her guilty.
During the judge's address the short November day had turned from
afternoon to night, and a great change had come over the aspect of the
dim and dingy court. Opaque globes turned into flaring suns;
incandescent burners revealed unsuspected brackets; the place was
warmed and lighted for the first time during the week. And the effect of
the light and warmth was on all the faces that rose as one while the

judge sidled from the bench, and the jury filed out of their box, and the
prisoner disappeared down the dock stairs for the last time in ignorance
of her fate. Next moment there was the buzz of talk that you expect in a
theatre between the acts, rather than in a court of justice at the solemn
crisis of a solemn trial. It was like a class-room with the master called
away. Hats were put on again in the bulging galleries; hardly a tongue
was still. On the bench a red-robed magnate and another in
knee-breeches exchanged views upon the enlarged photographs which
had played so prominent a part in the case; in the well the barristers'
wigs nodded or shook over their pink blotters and their quill pens;
gentlemen of the Press sharpened their pencils and indulged in
prophecy; and on their right, between the reporters and the bench, the
privileged few, the literary and theatrical elect, discussed the situation
with abnormal callousness, masking emotion with a childlike cynicism
of sentiment and phrase.