After maintaining a studied silence for most of the proceedings, Inverarity had sensed that now was the time to go for an attack. He rose from his chair and reminded the court that, in his manifesto, the Nizam had said, ‘it was the duty of everyone, Prince, peer or peasant, to appear in court if his presence was required’. The Nizam had gone to Ootacamund without creating a chaos. ‘He went shooting and did not take his Minister and officials. To do that might be very dignified, but it was not at all necessary.’
Inverarity then argued that the evidence presented at the commission could not be admitted because there were important differences between the Magistrate’s Court trial and the case before the High Court. Jacob now faced two additional charges of criminal misappropriation and one count of breach of trust as a merchant. The prosecution had announced it would be presenting fresh evidence including letters and papers which had not been produced before the lower court. The evidence at the commission therefore constituted only a preliminary inquiry.
Inverarity’s argument won the day. Wilson ruled that, as the Nizam was not dead or in any way incapacitated, there was no reason why he couldn’t give evidence. The only grounds given by him for not going to Calcutta was the expense and the inconvenience. As the case depended a great deal on what was said between the prosector and the accused, it was ‘of the highest importance that his evidence should be heard by a jury’. He also rejected the Nizam’s assertion that he was unable to travel without his entire zenana and a thousand hangers-on: ‘All that may be very proper from the point of view of state and policy, but I have nothing whatever to do with that, and I do not think it has been shown that the Nizam, travel as he might, could not come here and give his evidence, if he desired to do so, within such limits of expense as would be perfectly consistent with what is reasonable.’9
The ruling was a huge boost for Jacob. With the commission’s evidence declared invalid and the Nizam refusing to travel to Calcutta, the prosecution was deprived of its key witness. It would now have to rely on the testimony of Abid, whose involvement in the diamond deal from its very beginnings had tainted him as unreliable.
Over the next few days, the jury listened as Woodroffe cross-examined Abid, his wife Annie, William Cheetham of Kilburn & Co., Shirley Tremearne and, finally, various officials of the Bank of Bengal. A sense of fatigue enveloped the press gallery as telegram after telegram to and from Jacob concerning the Imperial Diamond was read out, dissected and discussed. ‘To one knowing nothing of the case it would … seem to have been occupied by an explanation of the interior economy of the Bank of Bengal,’ the Pioneer complained10 after a day taken up almost entirely with the cross-examination of bank clerks, the identity of various notes, the verification of signatures and the sequence of remittances between various branches and firms. Finally, at ten past one on Wednesday, December 16, Woodroffe announced: ‘That is the case for the prosecution, my Lord.’
As the court reconvened after lunch, there was a palpable change in the atmosphere. Inverarity had a reputation for straight talking. After days of stodgy presentations and turgid questioning, the press and the public were hoping for fireworks. They weren’t disappointed.
Inverarity began the case for the defence by reading out the statement Jacob had made at the end of his committal hearing. The judge then asked Jacob if he had anything to add. In accordance with his defence team’s instructions, he rose to his feet and said he didn’t. Turning to the jury, Inverarity said it was clear from the outset that Jacob never had any dishonest intentions. After labouring for over a week, the prosecution ‘had absolutely failed’ to prove any criminal intent on his part. This case, he continued ‘ought never to have been brought into a criminal court’.
He then asked to jury to consider Jacob’s actions. He had never concealed his whereabouts, he was a man of property and, when he left Calcutta to return to Simla on August 1, he had telegrammed the Nizam’s aide-de-camp to tell Mahboob Ali Khan he had done so. When a warrant for his arrest was issued, he had gone to Calcutta to surrender, and deposited the diamond in the Bank of Bengal. Were these the actions of a man who had something to fear, he asked. Yet, Jacob was arrested and put in jail and would have been kept there for months ‘to break his head and compel him to come to terms with them’. The prosecution’s only aim was to ‘crush a man who had made a claim which it was found inconvenient to meet in a civil court’.
Inverarity then dealt with the huge profit Jacob stood to make from the deal. He dismissed the prosecution’s claim that his client had made a false statement by inducing the Nizam to buy the diamond for 4.6 million rupees. Jacob was acting as a vendor and had made no representations regarding what he going to pay the owners. Nor was he under any obligation to disclose his profit to the Nizam or anyone else. As for making misrepresentations about the losses he would suffer if the deposit were not made in time, there was nothing wrong in not adhering strictly to the truth to get things done quickly.
Having argued that Jacob had acted honestly, Inverarity turned to the role of the Resident, Dennis Fitzpatrick, but for whose interference, he said, the Nizam would have bought the diamond. When Jacob told him that the Maharaja of Patiala would take the diamond for 4 million rupees, he feared he would be the ‘laughing stock’ of all the native Princes because ‘he, the great Nizam, had been prevented by the Resident from buying the diamond and that another rich Prince had got it’. Jacob sincerely believed the rejection was only for show and had told Abid to cut a new deal.
Knowing that Fitzpatrick was leaving in a few months, the Nizam ‘intended, by hook or by crook, to get the diamond without the Resident’s knowing anything about it’. He would then ‘be able to flaunt the diamond, to flourish it in the faces of other native Princes of India. That was what Jacob believed and still believed to be the case. No one but a lunatic could possibly have done what he did unless he believed the Nizam had taken the stone for 40 lakhs.’11
As Inverarity paused before the jury box, Jacob started to relax for the first time in the proceedings. His barrister had put his case perfectly, portraying him as the innocent party caught up in a nexus aimed at destroying him.
Inverarity used the remaining hour before the court rose to describe what he termed the ‘dramatis personae of the affair’. The Nizam was an ostentatious man who thought nothing of spending five million rupees so he could bring his zenana to Calcutta. ‘The finest diamond in the world would captivate the fancy of such a person.’ Then, there was Abid, ‘on whose evidence he would not deprive a dog of its liberty’. His own statements had shown him to be absolutely untrustworthy and a liar. He was little more than ‘the mouthpiece of the Nizam, conveying his wishes to persons like Jacob’ with whom he negotiated every deal including the sale of the Imperial Diamond.
The public gallery was packed on Friday, December 18, day six of the case. Inverarity began by going back to the events of July 21. The Nizam’s rejection of the diamond was but a formality done for the benefit of the Resident and the Minister. Abid had connived with his wife to tell Jacob that the Nizam thought the price too high to clear the way for a subsequent deal to get the stone at a discount using the funds of Bara Begum, the Nizam’s deceased mother. Because the deal had to be kept secret from Asman Jah, Jacob had waited until he was three hours from Hyderabad before sending a telegram to Kilburn & Co., telling them to secure a draft for £150,000 for Pittar, Leverson & Co. He had no way of knowing that the exchange rate was in his favour to the tune of more than 170,000 rupees. That would have given him enough to pay Tremearne his 100,000 rupees commission, but not the 200,000 rupees he had agreed to give Abid unless the Nizam paid the balance.
Referring to the telegram that reached Jacob at his hotel on the morning of July 27, demanding the return of the deposit, Inverarity said it was sent because Asman Jah had found out about the new deal and threatened to tell the Resident. Regardless of the contents of the telegram, if Jacob believed the Nizam had authorized the offer of 4 million rupees, ‘there was no
dishonesty in attending to the telegram and not returning the money’.12
The defendant, Inverarity continued, should not be allowed to fall victim to the intrigues arising out of the actions of the British Government. Had it not been for Fitzpatrick’s refusal to give evidence claiming he would be divulging secrets of state, it would have emerged that he had threatened to sack Asman Jah if the transaction had gone ahead. Given these circumstances, there was no evidence that Jacob was guilty of criminal intent.
Inverarity then called on Walter Davis and Charles Pinniger, employees at Hamilton & Co. Both men recalled Jacob coming into their shop at about 10.30 on the morning of July 27, contradicting Cheetham’s earlier evidence that he was with him the whole time. Davis said he clearly remembered Jacob being there because he had shown him the diamond. Pinniger said Jacob had gone there with his brother Georges Sabunji. Georges lived in Damascus where he had set up one of the city’s best known photography studios and, after a long absence, had recently re-established contact with Jacob. The men had come to clear up the matter of some lots bought at an auction earlier that week and he recalled Jacob abusing his brother over his purchases. Confident that he had proved that Cheetham had got the facts wrong about his meeting with Jacob, Inverarity asked the judge to bring the day’s proceedings to a close.
The presence in the Sessions Court of two armed police from the Bengal constabulary when the court resumed on Saturday, December 19, sent a wave of excitement through the room. After the judge brought the court to order, Inverarity announced in solemn tones that the Imperial Diamond was to be shown to the jury. First, however, he continued to lay out the defence case by returning to the role of the Resident. Fitzpatrick might be a ‘perfectly honest person’, but he was not ‘a friendly witness’. Exerting pressure on Nizams was what Residents did. Inverarity underlined his point by quoting an essay by Thomas Macaulay on Lord Clive: ‘There is still a Nizam, whose capital is overawed by a British cantonment, and to whom a British Resident gives, in the name of advice, commands which are not to be disobeyed.’ Nothing, he said, had changed. Fitzpatrick’s advice not to buy the diamond, ‘though urged with the utmost deference and respect’, could not be disregarded.
Summing up the case for the defence, Inverarity said that the evidence presented ‘had completely proved the bonafides of Mr Jacob in this matter and he would have been the most absolute lunatic to behave as he did otherwise. He got next to nothing by his course of conduct; he entirely destroyed the confidence reposed in him by the Nizam and ruined the whole of his business in India.’ If Jacob had a dishonest mind, he could ‘have taken the first train to Bombay with the diamond and could have got away in one of the British India steamers to the Persian Gulf’. Finally, he stressed that the decision of the jury must be based ‘on the impression the evidence had left on their minds and not on the speeches made to them by counsel on one side or another’.
Inverarity then asked that the diamond be shown to the jury. For a stone known mainly for its size when it had arrived in India five months earlier, the Imperial was now one of the most notorious jewels in the world. It had traversed India hidden in ice-boxes, secret pockets and treasure chests. It was coveted by the richest man in India, and was now the centre of a political storm that enveloped the highest echelons of the British Government. Hundreds of thousands of rupees had been spent on lawyers’ fees and special commissions. It had taken up weeks of court time and police investigation. It had put on the line massive fortunes and carefully crafted reputations built up over decades.
As each member of the jury examined the stone, Inverarity reminded them that what they were holding was the largest brilliant in the world. ‘There were larger diamonds cut in rose form, but this was the largest brilliant, and it was of perfect shape, absolutely without flaw and of perfectly pure water.’13
From where he was sitting, Jacob could see the diamond clearly. What had once been a thing of beauty, a passport to prosperity, was now just a cold, hard stone. It had caused him irreparable harm and humiliation. He did not want to have anything to do with it again. As the last of the jurors finished their examination of the stone, it was handed to a policeman who replaced it in its special box. It was the last time it was seen in public for more than a century.
Woodroffe began the prosecution’s reply by going over the charges against Jacob, his misuse of the funds, his refusal to hand back the deposit and his subsequent actions. Like Inverarity, he focused on the events of July 27 when Abid had sent him the strongly worded telegram demanding the return of the deposit. Woodroffe asked how it was possible that Jacob could ignore the telegram, when, for the previous three days, he had been demanding the 1.7 million rupees he claimed the Nizam owed him. ‘He gets this telegram and throws it upon his bed—a man who was going to make the biggest scoop in the world, who was going to get 17 lakhs—he threw it upon his bed without opening it!’
Referring to Jacob, Woodroffe said that here you had a man who ‘blows hot and cold at the same time. Sometimes, Mr Abid is the mouthpiece of the Nizam and, as that mouthpiece, asks Mr Jacob to return the money. Then, it is suggested that Mr Abid was a mere underling. I am not going to listen to that.’ If Jacob ‘looked upon the Nizam as a sort of second God, the fountain of his life, one to whom he was more obliged than to His creator’ then, why did he not return the money?
His action in remitting the money to the diamond’s owners ‘was an attempt to rush the Nizam … it was an attempt to get the money by hook or by crook, to get the money anyhow, as soon as possible’. He could have returned the diamond to Kilburn & Co. by July 31 and received his deposit back, less insurance and forfeit money, but chose not to.
Because of his refusal to be cross-examined, all the jury had were his statements to the Magistrate’s Court and the High Court. There was no mention in these of the Nizam’s insistence that he could refuse to buy the stone, yet ‘his own statements and letters prove the contrary, they show that the sale from the beginning was a sale of approval’.
Jacob believed that ‘if he could only make (the diamond) glisten before the Nizam’s eyes he would take it as sure as the world goes round’. Whether the Resident had convinced him not to buy the diamond was immaterial, Woodroffe continued. ‘The Nizam was bound both by law and common prudence to let Mr Jacob bring down the diamond for inspection. The accused would have had reasonable ground for complaint if the Nizam had said he did not wish to see the diamond, and would not have allowed himself to be impressed with the beauty and the glamour of the stone.’
Contrary to what the defence had inferred, the Nizam had always acted honestly. To have entered into another contract after assuring the Resident he had no intention of buying the diamond would have ‘branded him forever in infamy’. Not only did he occupy ‘the highest position amongst native Princes,’ he was also, in the words of the Resident, ‘a man of punctilious truth and honour’. Mahboob Ali Khan, Woodroffe insisted, was no fool. ‘Residents may come and residents may go, but the position of the Nizam in relation to the British government remains.’14
Tuesday, December 22, dawned cold and misty. After sixteen days of hearing evidence, the case was wearing everyone down. One newspaper wrote that the only question facing the jury was not whether the prisoner was guilty or not guilty, but when they would be relieved of listening to the prolonged statements from the prosecution and the defence. Woodroffe had spent two and a half days on his summing up and was not finished yet. Fortunately, Woodroffe’s final comments regarding the alleged substitute contract took less than an hour. Thanking the jury for their patience, he concluded by saying that his one legitimate objective was that ‘justice should be done’.15
It was now left to the presiding judge to sum up the case. After acknowledging the inordinate length of time the court had sat, Wilson urged the jurors to concentrate on the essential elements rather than the multitude of details that had little or no bearing on the guilt or innocence of the accused. The main questions they had to consider
were: Was there any arrangement between Jacob and Abid regarding the offer of 4 million rupees by the Nizam? Was the approval of the stone on a passand ya na passand basis? And was the subsequent deal arranged by Abid merely to earn his commission?
‘If the jury was satisfied from the evidence of Mr Abid, from the statement of Mr Jacob and from the letters and telegrams which he had referred to, without a reasonable doubt, that the money was paid to Mr Jacob upon the terms of this trust, the jury would be justified in finding the accused guilty of a breach of trust. If the jury was satisfied that the prisoner was not so trusted, that there was no misapplication of funds on his part, they would be justified in returning a finding of not guilty.’
Wilson then referred to the evidence of Jacob’s standing and position, and told the jury they were the best judges of whether he was a merchant or not. Reminding them that the prisoner was entitled to the benefit of any reasonable doubt they might have, he asked the jury to retire to consider their verdict.16
After sixteen days of hearings and Wilson’s five-hour summing up, the verdict came so swiftly it took everybody off guard. Five minutes after leaving the courtroom, the foreman returned and announced to the judge that he and his fellow jurors had finished their deliberations. Asked if they had found the defendant guilty or not guilty the foreman replied: ‘Not guilty on all charges.’ The courtroom erupted in applause.17 Jacob felt a wave of relief come over him. He touched his coral amulet. Tuesdays were always auspicious and this day was no exception.
On December 29, 1891, a letter to the editor appeared on the pages of the Statesman newspaper, Calcutta’s oldest English daily. It was headed ‘The Diamond Case’ and signed ‘A.M. Jacob, GE Hotel’.
The Mysterious Mr Jacob: Diamond Merchant, Magician and Spy Page 20