The String of Pearls 135Todd Entertains Some Hopes of an Acquittal
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Literature · Crime, Thrillers & Mystery
The String of Pearls 135
Todd Entertains Some Hopes of an Acquittal
PrestEnglish
The next witness was the sexton of St. Dunstan's.
"Will you state to the jury, when the last entombment took place in the vaults of St. Dunstan's?" was the question asked of him.
"On the 30th. of January, five years ago," he replied, "a gentleman named Shaw, from Chancery Lane, was placed in a vault, but no one since then. The vaults were considered offensive to the living, and was not used."
"Let the medical men be called again," said the Attorney-General.
They were so called; and the question put to them was, as to the age of the bone produced in court. They both swore that it could not have been six months in its present condition. It had all the aspect of a fresh bone, and they entertained no sort of doubt upon the subject, but that the flesh had been roughly taken off it, and then the slight remainder had rapidly dried and decayed.
This, then, was the case for the prosecution, and it will be seen that the evidence or confession of Mrs. Lovett was not at all made use of or attended to, so that even in her dying hope of doing vast injury to Todd, she failed. The case was considered to be good enough without such testimony, and the lawyers, too, were of opinion that it would not be received by the judge, even if tendered, under all the circumstances.
The Attorney-General rose again, and said--
"That is the case, my lord, and gentlemen of the jury, for the prosecution; and we leave it in your hands to deal with as you shall think fit."
Todd's counsel now rose to commence the speech for the defence, and he spoke rather ingeniously, as follows--
"My lord, and gentlemen of the jury--
"I have, upon the part of my client, the prisoner at the bar, most seriously to complain of the vast amount of extraneous matter that has been mixed up with this case. To one grain of wheat, we have had whole bushels of chaff; and gentlemen have been brought here surely to amuse the court with long-winded romances.
"Gentlemen, the prisoner at the bar is clearly and distinctly charged with the murder of one Francis Thornhill, and instead of any evidence, near or remote, fixing that deed upon him, we have nothing but long stories about vaults, and bad odours in churches, and moveable floor-boards, and chairs standing on their heads, and vaults, and secret passages, and pork pies! Really, gentlemen of the jury, I do think that the manner in which this prosecution has been got up against my virtuous and pious client, is an outrage to your common-sense."
Todd rather looked up at this. It was something to hear even an Old Bailey counsel call him virtuous and pious; and a gleam of hope shot across his heart that things might not be quite so hard with him after all.
"This, gentlemen of the jury," continued the counsel, "is an attempt, I must say, to take the life of a man from a variety of circumstances external to the real charge to which he is called upon here to plead. Let us examine the sort of evidence upon which it has been thought proper to put a fellow-creature to this bar upon a charge affecting his life.
"In the first place, we are told that a number of very respectable men went out from their various respectable houses, and never went back again. Pray, what has that to do with the death of one Francis Thornhill? Then we are told that the respectable men went to get shaved; and then that Sir Richard Blunt had a shave no less than eight times at the prisoner's shop, and yet here he is quite alive and well to give his evidence here to-day, and no one will say that Sir Richard Blunt is not a respectable man. Then we have a bad smell in the church of St. Dunstan's. Really, gentlemen of the jury, you might as well say that the prisoner at the bar committed felony, because this court was not well ventilated.
"We are told, to come more particularly to the evidence, such as it is, bearing upon the case, that Francis Thornhill left a certain shop intending to go into the City to a Miss Oakley, and that on the road he went into the prisoner's shop to be shaved, and from that we are asked to infer that he was murdered there, because nobody saw him come out. Really, this is too bad! Hundreds of people may have seen him come out, and no doubt did do so, but they happened not to know him, and so just because no one was passing who could say, 'Ah! Mr. Thornhill, how do you do? I see, you have had a clean shave to-day,' the prisoner at the bar is to be declared guilty of murder.
"Then we are told a long story about a bone, and that is declared to be a bone of the deceased. Gentlemen of the jury, what would you think of a man who should produce a brick, and swear that it belonged to a certain house? But this bone is to be identified on account of having been fractured, when the medical witness swears that such fractures are far from rare.
"Then again, a hat said to be the hat of the deceased is sworn to, as belonging to him, because of some injury it had received. Granted that it did belong to him. No doubt he sold it in Fleet Street and bought a new one, and there is no proof that that hat produced is the same one that is said to have been taken out of the prisoner's shop.
"I do think, gentlemen, that you will see upon what a string of sophistry the evidence against the prisoner at the bar rests. Who shall take upon himself to say that Mr. Thornhill is not now alive and well somewhere? We all know that persons connected with the sea are rather uncertain in their movements. But, gentlemen, the prisoner at the bar has a plain unvarnished tale to tell, which will clear him from any suspicions."
At this point, the learned counsel hitched up his gown upon his shoulders, and settled his wig upon his head, as though preparing for a grand effort, and then he continued--
"Gentlemen of the jury, my client is a religious man, as any one may see by the mild and gentlemanly look of his amiable countenance. He took the premises in Fleet Street in the pursuit of his highly useful calling; and he had no more idea that there was a moveable board in his shop, and that his shaving-chair would go down with any one, than the child unborn. Is it likely that a man who could stoop to such baseness as to make money by murder would occupy himself with such a trivial employment as shaving for a penny? The deceased gentleman, Mr. Francis Thornhill, if he be deceased at all, came into my worthy client's shop to be shaved, and was, at that time, a little the worse for some small drops that he had indulged himself with, no doubt, as he came along. The prisoner at the bar did shave him; and then he said that he had to go and see a young lady, and that he should buy a new hat as he went along. The dog, about which so much has been said, came into the shop along with his master, and while the shaving was going on found out, and actually devoured, half a pound of tripe, off which the prisoner at the bar was going to make his humble dinner.
"Oh! gentlemen of the jury, ask yourselves if a murderer is likely to make half a pound of tripe satisfy him for dinner! Ask your own consciences, and your own common-sense, that question.
"Well, gentlemen of the jury, when he was shaved, and after my client had had to turn this dog twice out of his shop, Mr. Thornhill left and went towards Fleet Market. The prisoner watched him from his door, and actually saw him begin fighting with a porter at the top of the market; and then as another person came in to be shaved, the prisoner at the bar returned into his shop to attend to that customer, and saw no more of Mr. Thornhill. In the course of a quarter of an hour, however, the dog pushed the door of the shop open, and brought in a hat in his mouth, but the prisoner turned him out again, and that is all he knows of the transaction.
"Gentlemen of the jury, the prisoner at the bar is well known for his benevolence and his piety. Even at a time when the bad odour in St. Dunstan's induced many of the parishioners to go elsewhere, he always attended his own church, and in the most pious and exemplary manner made the responses. I ask you as men, gentlemen of the jury, if you could do that with the consciousness that you had committed a murder?
"Gentlemen, it is for my client a most unfortunate thing that a person named Lovett, who kept the pie-shop in Bell Yard, is not now in the land of the living. If she were so, there is no doubt but that she would have told some true tale of how the vaults beneath the old church connected with her shop, and so have cleared the prisoner at the bar of all participation in her crimes.
"That murder has been committed in conjunction with that woman, who committed suicide rather than come forward and clear the prisoner at the bar, against whom she had a spite, there can be no doubt; but, gentlemen, it is the wrong man who now stands at this bar. The real murderer has yet to be discovered; and therefore it is that I call upon you, in the sacred name of justice, to acquit my client."
With this the counsel sat down, and Todd looked positively hopeful. He drew a long breath or two, and ventured a keen glance towards the jury-box.
"Do you call any witnesses," asked the junior counsel, "for the prosecution?"
"No--no--no. Witnesses! Innocence is its own best safeguard."
"I waive my right of reply, my lord," said the Attorney-General.
Upon this, nothing remained for the judge to do but to sum up the evidence; and after arranging his notes, he proceeded to do so, in that clear and lucid style, for which some of our judges are so famous.
"The prisoner at the bar, Sweeney Todd, stands charged with the wilful murder of Francis Thornhill. It appears that Francis Thornhill left a certain ship for the purpose of proceeding to a Miss Oakley in the City of London, with a String of Pearls, which had been confided to him to deliver to that lady by a Mr. Mark Ingestrie.
"We have it in evidence, that Francis Thornhill on his route down or along the northern side of Fleet Street, went into the shaving shop, kept by the prisoner at the bar, and from that instant he is not again seen alive. The prisoner at the bar takes a String of Pearls, similar to those which were in the possession of Francis Thornhill, and raises upon them a considerable sum of money of a man named John Mundell. It appears then, that the hat of Mr. Francis Thornhill is taken from the premises of the prisoner by a dog; and it further appears, upon the clear testimony of respectable persons, that beneath the prisoner's shop is a contrivance by which people might be killed; and there or thereabouts contiguous to that contrivance, a certain bone is found, which is proved to be the thigh-bone of Francis Thornhill.
"Gentlemen of the jury, the sequence of evidence by which it is attempted to bring this crime home to the prisoner at the bar, lies in a very small compass indeed. Firstly, there is the tracing of Francis Thornhill to the prisoner's shop, and his disappearance from thence. Then there is the hat found there or taken from there, and then there is the thigh-bone sworn to be that of Francis Thornhill, and certainly found in such contiguity to his premises, as to warrant a belief that he placed it there.
"Gentlemen of the jury, the case is in your hands."
This was a very short summing up, but the bar quite understood it to mean that the guilt of the prisoner was so clear and transparent, that it was not at all necessary for the judge to go elaborately through the evidence, but merely as a matter of form, leave the facts in evidence to the jury.
And now came that awful moment to Todd, when the question of guilty or not guilty hovered on the lips of those twelve men, who were to decide upon his fate. The jury laid their heads together for a few moments only, and then they turned round and faced the court again.
The clerk of the arraigns rose, and spoke--
"Gentleman of the jury. How say you? Do you find the prisoner at the bar guilty or not guilty of the crime laid to his charge in the indictment?"
"Guilty!" said the foreman.
A cheer burst from the auditors, and the judge raised his hand, saying--
"Officers, repress this unmanly exultation that a fellow-creature is found guilty of a dreadful crime. I beg that any person so offending may be brought before me at once."
The officer could not or would not find anybody so offending, but the judge's words had the effect of calming the tumult at all events, and then all eyes were turned upon Sweeney Todd, who stood in the dock glaring at the foreman of the jury, as though he had only imperfectly heard what he had said, or if he had perfectly heard him, doubting the evidence of his own senses, as regarded the real, full, and true meaning of the dreadful word "guilty!"
