Poor Miss Finch

by Wilkie Collins

  CHAPTER THE EIGHTH

  The Perjury of the Clock

  WE looked at one another in silence. Both alike, we were obliged to waita little and recover ourselves.

  I may occupy the interval by answering two questions which will arise inyour minds in this place. How did Dubourg come to be tried for his life?And what was the connection between this serious matter and the falsetestimony of a clock?

  The reply to both these inquiries is to be found in the story which Icall the Perjury of the Clock.

  In briefly relating this curious incidental narrative (which I take froma statement of the circumstances placed in my possession) I shall speakof our new acquaintance at Browndown--and shall continue to speak of himthroughout these pages--by his assumed name. In the first place, it wasthe maiden name of his mother, and he had a right to take it if hepleased. In the second place, the date of our domestic drama at Dimchurchgoes back as far as the years 'fifty-eight and 'fifty-nine; and realnames are (now that it is all over) of no consequence to anybody. With"Dubourg" we have begun. With "Dubourg" let us go on to the end.

  On a summer evening, some years ago, a man was found murdered in a fieldnear a certain town in the West of England. The name of the field was,"Pardon's Piece."

  The man was a small carpenter and builder in the town, who bore anindifferent character. On the evening in question, a distant relative ofhis, employed as farm-bailiff by a gentleman in the neighborhood,happened to be passing a stile which led from the field into a road, andsaw a gentleman leaving the field by way of this stile, rather in ahurry. He recognized the gentleman as Mr. Dubourg.

  The two passed each other on the road in opposite directions. After acertain lapse of time--estimated as being half an hour--the farm-bailiffhad occasion to pass back along the same road. On reaching the stile, heheard an alarm raised, and entered the field to see what was the matter.He found several persons running from the farther side of Pardon's Piecetowards a boy who was standing at the back of a cattle-shed, in a remotepart of the enclosure, screaming with terror. At the boy's feet lay, facedownwards, the dead body of a man, with his head horribly beaten in. Hiswatch was under him, hanging out of his pocket by the chain. It hadstopped--evidently in consequence of the concussion of its owner's fallon it--at half-past eight. The body was still warm. All the othervaluables, like the watch, were left on it. The farm-bailiff instantlyrecognized the man as the carpenter and builder mentioned above.

  At the preliminary inquiry, the stoppage of the watch at half-past eight,was taken as offering good circumstantial evidence that the blow whichhad killed the man had been struck at that time.

  The next question was--if any one had been seen near the body athalf-past eight? The farm-bailiff declared that he had met Mr. Dubourghastily leaving the field by the stile at that very time. Asked if he hadlooked at his watch, he owned that he had not done so. Certain previouscircumstances which he mentioned as having impressed themselves on hismemory, enabled him to feel sure of the truth of his assertion, withouthaving consulted his watch. He was pressed on this important point; buthe held to his declaration. At half-past eight he had seen Mr. Dubourghurriedly leave the field. At half-past eight the watch of the murderedman had stopped.

  Had any other person been observed in or near the field at that time?

  No witness could be discovered who had seen anybody else near the place.Had the weapon turned up, with which the blow had been struck? It had notbeen found. Was anyone known (robbery having plainly not been the motiveof the crime) to have entertained a grudge against the murdered man? Itwas no secret that he associated with doubtful characters, male andfemale; but suspicion failed to point to any one of them in particular.

  In this state of things, there was no alternative but to request Mr.Dubourg--well known in, and out of the town, as a young gentleman ofindependent fortune; bearing an excellent character--to give some accountof himself.

  He immediately admitted that he had passed through the field. But incontradiction to the farm-bailiff, he declared that _he_ had looked athis watch at the moment before he crossed the stile, and that the time byit was exactly a quarter past eight. Five minutes later--that is to sayten minutes before the murder had been committed, on the evidence of thedead man's watch--he had paid a visit to a lady living near Pardon'sPiece; and had remained with her, until his watch, consulted once more onleaving the lady's house, informed him that it was a quarter to nine.

  Here was the defense called an "alibi." It entirely satisfied Mr.Dubourg's friends. To satisfy justice also, it was necessary to call thelady as a witness. In the meantime, another purely formal question wasput to Mr. Dubourg. Did he know anything of the murdered man?

  With some appearance of confusion, Mr. Dubourg admitted that he had beeninduced (by a friend) to employ the man on some work. Furtherinterrogation extracted from him the following statement of facts.

  That the work had been very badly done--that an exorbitant price had beencharged for it--that the man, on being remonstrated with, had behaved ina grossly impertinent manner--that an altercation had taken place betweenthem--that Mr. Dubourg had seized the man by the collar of his coat, andhad turned him out of the house--that he had called the man an infernalscoundrel (being in a passion at the time), and had threatened to "thrashhim within an inch of his life" (or words to that effect) if he everpresumed to come near the house again; that he had sincerely regrettedhis own violence the moment he recovered his self-possession; and,lastly, that, on his oath (the altercation having occurred six weeksago), he had never spoken to the man, or set eyes on the man since.

  As the matter then stood, these circumstances were considered as beingunfortunate circumstances for Mr. Dubourg--nothing more. He had his"alibi" to appeal to, and his character to appeal to; and nobody doubtedthe result.

  The lady appeared as witness.

  Confronted with Mr. Dubourg on the question of time, and forced toanswer, she absolutely contradicted him, on the testimony of the clock onher own mantelpiece. In substance, her evidence was simply this. She hadlooked at her clock, when Mr. Dubourg entered the room; thinking itrather a late hour for a visitor to call on her. The clock (regulated bythe maker, only the day before) pointed to twenty-five minutes to nine.Practical experiment showed that the time required to walk the distance,at a rapid pace, from the stile to the lady's house, was just fiveminutes. Here then was the statement of the farm-bailiff (himself arespectable witness) corroborated by another witness of excellentposition and character. The clock, on being examined next, was found tobe right. The evidence of the clock-maker proved that he kept the key,and that there had been no necessity to set the clock and wind it upagain, since he had performed both those acts on the day preceding Mr.Dubourg's visit. The accuracy of the clock thus vouched for, theconclusion on the evidence was irresistible. Mr. Dubourg stood convictedof having been in the field at the time when the murder was committed; ofhaving, by his own admission, had a quarrel with the murdered man, notlong before, terminating in an assault and a threat on his side; and,lastly, of having attempted to set up an alibi by a false statement ofthe question of time. There was no alternative but to commit him to takehis trial at the Assizes, charged with the murder of the builder inPardon's Piece.

  The trial occupied two days.

  No new facts of importance were discovered in the interval. The evidencefollowed the course which it had taken at the preliminaryexaminations--with this difference only, that it was more carefullysifted. Mr. Dubourg had the double advantage of securing the services ofthe leading barrister on the circuit, and of moving the irrepressiblesympathies of the jury, shocked at his position and eager for proof ofhis innocence. By the end of the first day, the evidence had told againsthim with such irresistible force, that his own counsel despaired of theresult. When the prisoner took his place in the dock on the second day,there was but one conviction in the minds of the people incourt--everybody said, "The clock will hang him."

  It was nearly two in the afternoon; and the proc
eedings were on the pointof being adjourned for half an hour, when the attorney for the prisonerwas seen to hand a paper to the counsel for the defense.

  The counsel rose, showing signs of agitation which roused the curiosityof the audience. He demanded the immediate hearing of a new witness;whose evidence in the prisoner's favor he declared to be too important tobe delayed for a single moment. After a short colloquy between the judgeand the banisters on either side, the court decided to continue thesitting.

  The witness, appearing in the box, proved to be a young woman, indelicate health. On the evening when the prisoner had paid his visit tothe lady, she was in that lady's service as housemaid. The day after, shehad been permitted (by previous arrangement with her mistress) to take aweek's holiday, and to go on a visit to her parents, in the west ofCornwall. While there, she had fallen ill, and had not been strong enoughsince to return to her employment. Having given this preliminary accountof herself, the housemaid then stated the following extraordinaryparticulars in relation to her mistress's clock.

  On the morning of the day when Mr. Dubourg had called at the house, shehad been cleaning the mantelpiece. She had rubbed the part of it whichwas under the clock with her duster, had accidentally struck thependulum, and had stopped it. Having once before done this, she had beenseverely reproved. Fearing that a repetition of the offense, only the dayafter the clock had been regulated by the maker, might lead perhaps tothe withdrawal of her leave of absence, she had determined to put mattersright again, if possible, by herself.

  After poking under the clock in the dark, and failing to set the pendulumgoing again properly in that way, she next attempted to lift the clock,and give it a shake. It was set in a marble case, with a bronze figure onthe top; and it was so heavy that she was obliged to hunt for somethingwhich she could use as a lever. The thing proved to be not easy to findon the spur of the moment. Having at last laid her hand on what shewanted, she contrived so to lift the clock a few inches and drop it againon the mantelpiece, as to set it going once more.

  The next necessity was of course to move the hands on. Here again she wasmet by an obstacle. There was a difficulty in opening the glass-casewhich protected the dial. After uselessly searching for some instrumentto help her, she got from the footman (without telling him what shewanted it for) a small chisel. With this, she opened the case--afteraccidentally scratching the brass frame of it--and set the hands of theclock by guess. She was flurried at the time; fearing that her mistresswould discover her. Later in the day, she found that she hadover-estimated the interval of time that had passed while she was tryingto put the clock right. She had, in fact, set it exactly _a quarter of anhour too fast._

  No safe opportunity of secretly putting the clock right again hadoccurred, until the last thing at night. She had then moved the handsback to the right time. At the hour of the evening when Mr. Dubourg hadcalled on her mistress, she positively swore that the clock was a quarterof an hour too fast. It had pointed, as her mistress had declared, totwenty-five minutes to nine--the right time then being, as Mr. Dubourghad asserted, twenty minutes past eight.

  Questioned why she had refrained from giving this extraordinary evidenceat the inquiry before the magistrate, she declared that in the remoteCornish village to which she had gone the next day, and in which herillness had detained her from that time, nobody had heard of the inquiryor the trial. She would not have been then present to state the vitallyimportant circumstances to which she had just sworn, if the prisoner'stwin-brother had not found her out on the previous day--had notquestioned her if she knew anything about the clock--and had not (hearingwhat she had to tell) insisted on her taking the journey with him to thecourt the next morning.

  This evidence virtually decided the trial. There was a great burst ofrelief in the crowded assembly when the woman's statement had come to anend.

  She was closely cross-examined as a matter of course. Her character wasinquired into; corroborative evidence (relating to the chisel and thescratches on the frame) was sought for and was obtained. The end of itwas that, at a late hour on the second evening, the jury acquitted theprisoner, without leaving their box. It was not too much to say that hislife had been saved by his brother. His brother alone had persisted, fromfirst to last, in obstinately disbelieving the clock--for no betterreason than that the clock was the witness which asserted the prisoner'sguilt! He had worried everybody with incessant inquiries--he haddiscovered the absence of the housemaid, after the trial had begun--andhe had started off to interrogate the girl, knowing nothing, andsuspecting nothing; simply determined to persist in the one everlastingquestion with which he persecuted everybody belonging to the house: "Theclock is going to hang my brother; can you tell me anything about theclock?"

  Four months later, the mystery of the crime was cleared up. One of thedisreputable companions of the murdered man confessed on his death-bedthat he had done the deed. There was nothing interesting or remarkable inthe circumstances. Chance which had put innocence in peril, had offeredimpunity to guilt. An infamous woman; a jealous quarrel; and an absenceat the moment of witnesses on the spot--these were really the commonplacematerials which had composed the tragedy of Pardon's Piece.