CHAPTER VIII
As the judge rose from his desk he sighed. His face was troubled, his whole manner vaguely dissatisfied. It was the last day of the trial, and from the evidence, from the district attorney's all but completed argument, from the whole manner in which the case had been tried, he felt certain that the jury could come but to one conclusion, and that their verdict would condemn to death the sodden, miserable wretch who now for three days had sat in the prisoner's box, listening, seemingly without comprehension, to what was being said, acting throughout as if he scarcely realized that in all this dramatic spectacle he was the central figure, to watch whose chance for life or death all these people had come day after day to crowd the little court room, sitting enthralled with a terrible fascination as the lawyers for prosecution and defense fought their fight of thrust and parry—with a man's life for the prize. "Guilty" would be the verdict, and doubtless a verdict well justified by the evidence, and yet—and the judge, half unconsciously, sighed again.
The court officer, blue coated, gold buttoned, portly, imposing, threw open the door leading into the court room. "Court!" he cried in resounding tones, and the crowd, rising as the judge entered, with a little flutter of expectancy sank back again into their places as he took his seat on the bench, gazing down through his gold-bowed spectacles at the familiar scene.
The prisoner sat in his accustomed place, a trifle more weary looking, a trifle more pathetically forlorn, than ever. At the tables in the enclosure sat Wilson Carter, the district attorney, a man keen and sharp as a brier, yet fair withal, and universally liked and respected; to his left, pale and nervous with the strain of waging a gallant but losing fight, sat young Harry Amory, assigned by the court as counsel for the accused; and just behind Carter, next to the prisoner, as the parties most in interest, sat Gordon, Harrison, and Ethel Mason, the girl clothed in somber black, Gordon with a band of crape on his left arm.
The judge cleared his throat. "Counsel for the prosecution?" he said inquiringly, and Carter started to his feet. "Ready, your Honor," he replied, and the judge nodded. "You may proceed," he said.
Tall, erect, dignified, Carter stood waiting for just the moment of time necessary to have fixed upon him every eye in the court room. Then, turning to the judge, he bowed. "May it please your Honor," he said respectfully, and then turned squarely face to face with the twelve jurymen.
"Mr. Foreman and gentlemen of the jury," he began, his tone earnest but agreeably informal and conversational, "before the brief summing up which I wish to make, there are two preliminary matters of which in a word I desire to dispose. First, I wish to compliment the members of the jury on the careful and conscientious manner in which they have listened now for three long days to the evidence in the case before them. I wish to say that I, for one, thoroughly appreciate the way in which they have attended to this branch of their duty, and I wish further to say that I shall leave the decision in this case to them with the greatest possible willingness and confidence, and that the summing up which it now becomes my duty to make will, in justice to them, be as brief as is possibly consistent with the grave importance of the issue involved.
"And secondly, I wish to say a word concerning the unfair prejudice—a prejudice, while in a way perfectly natural, still, as I say, distinctly unfair—which exists in the minds of many persons against the prosecuting officer in a case like the present. One who occupies a position such as mine, in a capital case where public interest is thoroughly aroused and public sentiment runs high, is not infrequently, as he brings forward evidence and argument to show that one of his fellow-beings should properly be condemned to death, regarded with a feeling akin to horror. In the ten years during which I have filled the office of district attorney for the county of Seneca, I have had the real sorrow of hearing myself referred to as a butcher, as a murderer, as a man who has delighted in his opportunities of sending unfortunates to the gallows. Now, Mr. Foreman and gentlemen of the jury, not so much in justice to myself, although that, too, is perhaps a perfectly natural desire, but rather in justice to the high and worthy office which I have the honor to hold, I wish it to be perfectly clear to you gentlemen that neither I nor any other prosecuting officer with a vestige of proper feeling and regard for the rights of mankind ever enters upon the conduct of a case like the present with any feeling other than a most earnest desire to see justice, absolute and final, done. If the accused in this case, after the hearing of the evidence and the arguments on either side, shall, upon the verdict of twelve good men and true, go forth again under God's pure sunlight, a free man, none will rejoice for him more heartily than I; if, on the other hand, you shall be satisfied that the accused is guilty of the crime with which he stands charged, and if upon your verdict he shall be sentenced to death, beyond the feeling of sorrow that I, together with every man in this court room, must share at the thought of a fellow-being paying the extreme penalty of the law, beyond and above that feeling, I say, is the more solemn thought that higher than the rights of any individual in the community, whether he be of high or low degree, stands the immutable law that first and before all else must be safeguarded and protected the rights of the town, the city, the county, the state and the nation; that unless safety of life, of liberty, of possessions, be made possible for our citizens, unless law and order be made to rank above deeds of violence committed in disregard of law, then the whole fabric of our nation must crumble, and the government of which we so proudly boast be reckoned little better than a mockery and a sham."
He paused for an instant, and then, simple, forceful, direct, began his final summing up.
"And now, Mr. Foreman and gentlemen of the jury," he continued, "briefly to review the facts in the case; briefly to summarize the evidence; briefly to outline the theory of the prosecution in regard to it. And first, the facts. On the seventeenth of December last, the bodies of James Mason, long a well-known and universally respected member of the town of Seneca, and of Miss Rose Ashton, the fiancée of Mr. Gordon, who has become well known to all of you since his residence here, and whom you heard yesterday upon the witness stand, were discovered by Mr. Harrison, James Mason's foreman, in the mine in which Mr. Mason had worked for so many years. Death in both cases had apparently been instantaneous, and had been produced by shooting, the medical examiner finding that both deaths had been caused by a bullet from a thirty-two caliber rifle or revolver.
"At the very outset it must be admitted that there is nothing in all the evidence which has been presented to you even savoring of direct proof as to how the deaths took place. It becomes necessary, therefore, to examine the case from the standpoint of what is commonly called circumstantial evidence, in order to see whether a chain can be constructed of sufficient strength properly to hold the man who has been brought before you, charged with the commission of the crime. And I shall not only not deny, but shall be the first to admit, what my learned brother in his closing argument will not fail to emphasize and reemphasize, that it is upon circumstantial evidence only that the case for the county must rest.
"First, then, we are faced with the very obvious fact that the deaths took place; of that there can be no question whatever. Next, going one step further, we come to the question involved in this trial: by whose hand was death inflicted? Could Mason have killed Miss Ashton and then shot himself, or even could Miss Ashton have killed Mason and then shot herself? In both cases the answer must be that such a supposition is not within the bounds of possibility. Not only can no possible motive be found, but on the evidence neither party had a weapon, and such a wild explanation of the case may be dismissed as soon as raised.
"The inquiry, therefore, unavoidably narrows down to the theory of murder. Murder by whom? The most exacting search has brought to light seven persons who were anywhere in the vicinity on the afternoon of December the seventeenth, or who were in any way connected with the events of that afternoon. These persons are Abe Peters, and his two helpers, Marston and Ferguson, Mr. Gordon, Jack Harrison, Ethel Mason, and the prisoner at the bar, William Hinckley. Proceeding on the theory of elimination, we find that in the case of the first six persons mentioned we have a complete alibi. Abe Peters and his helpers have testified that they were at work in their claim during the whole of the seventeenth. There is no shadow of evidence to the contrary; they were in one another's company during the entire day, and, furthermore, the friendly relations between these three men and Mason was matter of common knowledge throughout the county. Mr. Gordon, as he has testified, was obliged to go over the mountain on the day in question to transact some business with the superintendent of the Iroquois mine. Every moment of Mr. Gordon's time is accounted for; his testimony is absolutely straightforward and sincere, and, in addition, the bare idea of a man of Mr. Gordon's standing and character even dreaming of killing his friend and the young lady to whom he was engaged to be married is absolutely unthinkable. Jack Harrison, whose testimony is corroborated in every detail, has testified that he went to town on some errands for Miss Mason; and Miss Mason herself remained quietly at home, busied with her household duties, until, on Harrison's return, no word coming from the mine, they became alarmed, went to investigate, and discovered the tragedy that had been enacted.
"And now, Mr. Foreman and gentlemen of the jury, we come at last to the consideration of the case against the prisoner, and here, for the first time, we find a chain of evidence, circumstantial, to be sure, but in every link so firm and true that it can not by any possibility be broken—a chain of evidence which leads indisputably to the conclusion that the murderer of James Mason and Rose Ashton sits here before you now, the perpetrator of as dastardly a crime as has ever marred the records of our county. The prisoner's story is absolutely unbelievable. He claims that he remembers seeing Mason and Miss Ashton enter the mine, that shortly afterwards he ate his lunch, and that he must have then dozed oft; to sleep, remembering nothing more until Harrison, coming to see what had become of the missing victims, shook him back to consciousness. Certainly an improbable story, even on its face, but in the light of other evidence, clearly appearing as a clumsy lie, an excuse for not being willing to lay himself open to the danger involved by permitting a more extended field for cross-examination.
"Mr. Harrison's testimony is clear and concise. He has told us that, on reaching the entrance to the mine, he found Hinckley in a drunken stupor, an empty whisky bottle by his side; that being only partially successful in his efforts to arouse him, he went at once into the mine, descended to the fifth level, where he found Mason's body; then to the sixth, where he found Miss Ashton's; that on his return to the mouth of the mine he found Hinckley still only half aroused; that, upon taking away his revolver and examining it, he found two of the five chambers empty; and that the revolver was a thirty-two caliber. The expert testimony, as you scarcely need to be reminded, has shown that the bullets which killed the two victims fitted with exactness the revolver with which Hinckley was armed. In addition, Miss Mason, who accompanied Mr. Harrison as far as the entrance of the mine, has corroborated his testimony in every detail. Now take, in addition to this evidence, the testimony that Hinckley's work had been far from satisfactory; that since he had gone to work he had persistently got drunk, and several times neglected his duty; that he had on at least two occasions had words with Mason himself, and that on the latter of these occasions he had sworn at Mason, and said that he would 'square up with him some day.' Take all this testimony together, and is not what happened on the afternoon of December seventeenth pretty plainly to be imagined? 'Nothing but theory' perhaps my learned brother may say, and this of necessity is so, for the prisoner will not speak, and from the mute lips of James Mason and Rose Ashton the story of the tragedy we shall never learn. 'Nothing but theory,' and yet how plainly we can see it all. Mason, on coming to the mine, has further words with Hinckley; Hinckley, perhaps even then partly drunk, later, emboldened by a further drink or two, creeps down on to the fifth level, treacherously shoots and kills Mason from behind, and then, in terror at what he has done, kills Miss Ashton also, and returns to the mouth of the mine. In doubt as to what means to take to escape detection, he desperately turns to the flask again, and before he knows it, his sodden brain loses consciousness altogether, and thus Harrison finds him.
"Gentlemen, I have finished. The facts are all before you; all the evidence is in. I have striven, as best I could, fairly and impartially to present to you the case for the county. The learned counsel for the defense, following me, will present the prisoner's side of the case. His Honor will instruct you as to the law; the burden of proof, the sufficiency and weight of the evidence, the different degrees of murder—my last word to you is to remember that in presenting the case for the prosecution I am acting simply in discharge of a duty, that justice is all I ask, and that justice from you—a careful, just, impartial verdict—is all that the county has a right to ask, and all that the county has a right to expect."
Amid a dead silence he resumed his seat. On jury and on spectators alike the effect of his plea could scarcely be mistaken. Young Amory, following, did his best, but facts that no process of reasoning could satisfactorily explain away, at every turn blocked the path of his argument and robbed it of its force. The judge charged clearly, briefly, impartially; the jury remained out but two hours and a half, and in accordance with their verdict of murder in the first degree, Bill Hinckley, some three months later, was duly and properly hanged by the neck until he was dead.
