Phineas Redux

by Anthony Trollope

  CHAPTER LXIV.

  CONFUSION IN THE COURT.

  On the following morning it was observed that before the judges tooktheir seats Mr. Chaffanbrass entered the Court with a manner muchmore brisk than was expected from him now that his own work was done.As a matter of course he would be there to hear the charge, but,almost equally as a matter of course, he would be languid, silent,cross, and unenergetic. They who knew him were sure, when they sawhis bearing on this morning, that he intended to do something morebefore the charge was given. The judges entered the Court nearly halfan hour later than usual, and it was observed with surprise that theywere followed by the Duke of Omnium. Mr. Chaffanbrass was on his feetbefore the Chief Justice had taken his seat, but the judge was thefirst to speak. It was observed that he held a scrap of paper in hishand, and that the barrister held a similar scrap. Then every manin the Court knew that some message had come suddenly by the wires."I am informed, Mr. Chaffanbrass, that you wish to address the Courtbefore I begin my charge."

  "Yes, my lud; and I am afraid, my lud, that I shall have to askyour ludship to delay your charge for some days, and to subject thejury to the very great inconvenience of prolonged incarceration foranother week;--either to do that or to call upon the jury to acquitthe prisoner. I venture to assert, on my own peril, that no jury canconvict the prisoner after hearing me read that which I hold in myhand." Then Mr. Chaffanbrass paused, as though expecting that thejudge would speak;--but the judge said not a word, but sat lookingat the old barrister over his spectacles.

  Every eye was turned upon Phineas Finn, who up to this moment hadheard nothing of these new tidings,--who did not in the least knowon what was grounded the singularly confident,--almost insolentlyconfident assertion which Mr. Chaffanbrass had made in his favour. Onhim the effect was altogether distressing. He had borne the tryingweek with singular fortitude, having stood there in the place ofshame hour after hour, and day after day, expecting his doom. It hadbeen to him as a lifetime of torture. He had become almost numb fromthe weariness of his position and the agonising strain upon his mind.The gaoler had offered him a seat from day to day, but he had alwaysrefused it, preferring to lean upon the rail and gaze upon the Court.He had almost ceased to hope for anything except the end of it. Hehad lost count of the days, and had begun to feel that the trial wasan eternity of torture in itself. At nights he could not sleep, butduring the Sunday, after Mass, he had slept all day. Then it hadbegun again, and when the Tuesday came he hardly knew how long it hadbeen since that vacant Sunday. And now he heard the advocate declare,without knowing on what ground the declaration was grounded, thatthe trial must be postponed, or that the jury must be instructed toacquit him.

  "This telegram has reached us only this morning," continued Mr.Chaffanbrass. "'Mealyus had a house door-key made in Prague. We havethe mould in our possession, and will bring the man who made thekey to England.' Now, my lud, the case in the hands of the police,as against this man Mealyus, or Emilius, as he has chosen to callhimself, broke down altogether on the presumption that he could nothave let himself in and out of the house in which he had put himselfto bed on the night of the murder. We now propose to prove that hehad prepared himself with the means of doing so, and had done soafter a fashion which is conclusive as to his having required the keyfor some guilty purpose. We assert that your ludship cannot allow thecase to go to the jury without taking cognisance of this telegram;and we go further, and say that those twelve men, as twelve humanbeings with hearts in their bosoms and ordinary intelligence at theircommand, cannot ignore the message, even should your ludship insistupon their doing so with all the energy at your disposal."

  Then there was a scene in Court, and it appeared that no lessthan four messages had been received from Prague, all to the sameeffect. One had been addressed by Madame Goesler to her friend theDuchess,--and that message had caused the Duke's appearance on thescene. He had brought his telegram direct to the Old Bailey, and theChief Justice now held it in his hand. The lawyer's clerk who hadaccompanied Madame Goesler had telegraphed to the Governor of thegaol, to Mr. Wickerby, and to the Attorney-General. Sir Gregory,rising with the telegram in his hand, stated that he had received thesame information. "I do not see," said he, "that it at all alters theevidence as against the prisoner."

  "Let your evidence go to the jury, then," said Mr. Chaffanbrass,"with such observations as his lordship may choose to make on thetelegram. I shall be contented. You have already got your other manin prison on a charge of bigamy."

  "I could not take notice of the message in charging the jury, Mr.Chaffanbrass," said the judge. "It has come, as far as we know,from the energy of a warm friend,--from that hearty friendship withwhich it seemed yesterday that this gentleman, the prisoner at thebar, has inspired so many men and women of high character. But itproves nothing. It is an assertion. And where should we all be, Mr.Chaffanbrass, if it should appear hereafter that the assertion isfictitious,--prepared purposely to aid the escape of a criminal?"

  "I defy you to ignore it, my lord."

  "I can only suggest, Mr. Chaffanbrass," continued the judge, "thatyou should obtain the consent of the gentlemen on the other side toa postponement of my charge."

  Then spoke out the foreman of the jury. Was it proposed that theyshould be locked up till somebody should come from Prague, and thatthen the trial should be recommenced? The system, said the foreman,under which Middlesex juries were chosen for service in the City wasknown to be most horribly cruel;--but cruelty to jurymen such as thishad never even been heard of. Then a most irregular word was spoken.One of the jurymen declared that he was quite willing to believe thetelegram. "Every one believes it," said Mr. Chaffanbrass. Then theChief Justice scolded the juryman, and Sir Gregory Grogram scoldedMr. Chaffanbrass. It seemed as though all the rules of the Courtwere to be set at defiance. "Will my learned friend say that hedoesn't believe it?" asked Mr. Chaffanbrass. "I neither believe nordisbelieve it; but it cannot affect the evidence," said Sir Gregory."Then send the case to the jury," said Mr. Chaffanbrass. It seemedthat everybody was talking, and Mr. Wickerby, the attorney, triedto explain it all to the prisoner over the bar of the dock, not inthe lowest possible voice. The Chief Justice became angry, and theguardian of the silence of the Court bestirred himself energetically."My lud," said Mr. Chaffanbrass, "I maintain that it is proper thatthe prisoner should be informed of the purport of these telegrams.Mercy demands it, and justice as well." Phineas Finn, however, didnot understand, as he had known nothing about the latch-key of thehouse in Northumberland Street.

  Something, however, must be done. The Chief Justice was of opinionthat, although the preparation of a latch-key in Prague could notreally affect the evidence against the prisoner,--although the factsagainst the prisoner would not be altered, let the manufactureof that special key be ever so clearly proved,--nevertheless thejury were entitled to have before them the facts now tendered inevidence before they could be called upon to give a verdict, andthat therefore they should submit themselves, in the service oftheir country, to the very serious additional inconvenience whichthey would be called upon to endure. Sundry of the jury altogetherdisagreed with this, and became loud in their anger. They had alreadybeen locked up for a week. "And we are quite prepared to give averdict," said one. The judge again scolded him very severely; andas the Attorney-General did at last assent, and as the unfortunatejurymen had no power in the matter, so it was at last arranged.The trial should be postponed till time should be given for MadameGoesler and the blacksmith to reach London from Prague.

  If the matter was interesting to the public before, it became doublyinteresting now. It was of course known to everybody that MadameGoesler had undertaken a journey to Bohemia,--and, as many supposed,a roving tour through all the wilder parts of unknown Europe, Poland,Hungary, and the Principalities for instance,--with the object oflooking for evidence to save the life of Phineas Finn; and grandlyromantic tales were told of her wit, her wealth, and her beauty.The story was published of the Duke of Omnium's will
, only notexactly the true story. The late Duke had left her everything at hisdisposal, and, it was hinted that they had been privately marriedjust before the Duke's death. Of course Madame Goesler became verypopular, and the blacksmith from Prague who had made the key wasexpected with an enthusiasm which almost led to preparation for apublic reception.

  And yet, let the blacksmith from Prague be ever so minute in hisevidence as to the key, let it be made as clear as running water thatMealyus had caused to be constructed for him in Prague a key thatwould open the door of the house in Northumberland Street, the factsas proved at the trial would not be at all changed. The lawyers weremuch at variance with their opinions on the matter, some thinkingthat the judge had been altogether wrong in delaying his charge.According to them he should not have allowed Mr. Chaffanbrass to haveread the telegram in Court. The charge should have been given, andthe sentence of the Court should have been pronounced if a verdictof guilty were given. The Home Secretary should then have granteda respite till the coming of the blacksmith, and have extendedthis respite to a pardon, if advised that the circumstances of thelatch-key rendered doubtful the propriety of the verdict. Others,however, maintained that in this way a grievous penalty would beinflicted on a man who, by general consent, was now held to beinnocent. Not only would he, by such an arrangement of circumstances,have been left for some prolonged period under the agony of acondemnation, but, by the necessity of the case, he would lose hisseat for Tankerville. It would be imperative upon the House todeclare vacant by its own action a seat held by a man condemned todeath for murder, and no pardon from the Queen or from the HomeSecretary would absolve the House from that duty. The House, as aHouse of Parliament, could only recognise the verdict of the juryas to the man's guilt. The Queen, of course, might pardon whom shepleased, but no pardon from the Queen would remove the guilt impliedby the sentence. Many went much further than this, and were preparedto prove that were he once condemned he could not afterwards sit inthe House, even if re-elected.

  Now there was unquestionably an intense desire,--since the arrival ofthese telegrams,--that Phineas Finn should retain his seat. It may bea question whether he would not have been the most popular man in theHouse could he have sat there on the day after the telegrams arrived.The Attorney-General had declared,--and many others had declaredwith him,--that this information about the latch-key did not inthe least affect the evidence as given against Mr. Finn. Could ithave been possible to convict the other man, merely because he hadsurreptitiously caused a door-key of the house in which he livedto be made for him? And how would this new information have beenreceived had Lord Fawn sworn unreservedly that the man he had seenrunning out of the mews had been Phineas Finn? It was acknowledgedthat the latch-key could not be accepted as sufficient evidenceagainst Mealyus. But nevertheless the information conveyed by thetelegrams altogether changed the opinion of the public as to theguilt or innocence of Phineas Finn. His life now might have beeninsured, as against the gallows, at a very low rate. It was feltthat no jury could convict him, and he was much more pitied inbeing subjected to a prolonged incarceration than even those twelveunfortunate men who had felt sure that the Wednesday would have beenthe last day of their unmerited martyrdom.

  Phineas in his prison was materially circumstanced precisely ashe had been before the trial. He was supplied with a profusion ofluxuries, could they have comforted him; and was allowed to receivevisitors. But he would see no one but his sisters,--except that hehad one interview with Mr. Low. Even Mr. Low found it difficult tomake him comprehend the exact condition of the affair, and could notinduce him to be comforted when he did understand it. What had he todo,--how could his innocence or his guilt be concerned,--with themanufacture of a paltry key by such a one as Mealyus? How would ithave been with him and with his name for ever if this fact had notbeen discovered? "I was to be hung or saved from hanging according tothe chances of such a thing as this! I do not care for my life in acountry where such injustice can be done." His friend endeavoured toassure him that even had nothing been heard of the key the jury wouldhave acquitted him. But Phineas would not believe him. It had seemedto him as he had listened to the whole proceeding that the Court hadbeen against him. The Attorney and Solicitor-General had appeared tohim resolved upon hanging him,--men who had been, at any rate, hisintimate acquaintances, with whom he had sat on the same bench, whoought to have known him. And the judge had taken the part of LordFawn, who had seemed to Phineas to be bent on swearing away his life.He had borne himself very gallantly during that week, having in allhis intercourse with his attorney, spoken without a quaver in hisvoice, and without a flaw in the perspicuity of his intelligence.But now, when Mr. Low came to him, explaining to him that it wasimpossible that a verdict should be found against him, he was quitebroken down. "There is nothing left of me," he said at the end of theinterview. "I feel that I had better take to my bed and die. Evenwhen I think of all that friends have done for me, it fails to cheerme. In this matter I should not have had to depend on friends. Hadnot she gone for me to that place every one would have believed me tobe a murderer."

  And yet in his solitude he thought very much of the marvellous loveshown to him by his friends. Words had been spoken which had beenvery sweet to him in all his misery,--words such as neither men norwomen can say to each other in the ordinary intercourse of life,much as they may wish that their purport should be understood. LordChiltern, Lord Cantrip, and Mr. Monk had alluded to him as a manspecially singled out by them for their friendship. Lady Cantrip,than whom no woman in London was more discreet, had been equallyenthusiastic. Then how gracious, how tender, how inexpressibly sweethad been the words of her who had been Violet Effingham! And now thenews had reached him of Madame Goesler's journey to the continent."It was a wonderful thing for her to do," Mr. Low had said. Yes,indeed! Remembering all that had passed between them he acknowledgedto himself that it was very wonderful. Were it not that his back wasnow broken, that he was prostrate and must remain so, a man utterlycrushed by what he had endured, it might have been possible that sheshould do more for him even than she yet had done.