The Law and the Lady

  CHAPTER XIX. THE EVIDENCE FOR THE DEFENSE.

  THE feeling of interest excited by the Trial was prodigiously increasedon the fourth day. The witnesses for the defense were now to be heard,and first and foremost among them appeared the prisoner's mother. Shelooked at her son as she lifted her veil to take the oath. He burst intotears. At that moment the sympathy felt for the mother was generallyextended to the unhappy son.

  Examined by the Dean of Faculty, Mrs. Macallan the elder gave heranswers with remarkable dignity and self-control.

  Questioned as to certain private conversations which had passed betweenher late daughter-in-law and herself, she declared that Mrs. EustaceMacallan was morbidly sensitive on the subject of her personalappearance. She was devotedly attached to her husband; the great anxietyof her life was to make herself as attractive to him as possible.The imperfections in her personal appearance--and especially in hercomplexion--were subjects to her of the bitterest regret. The witnesshad heard her say, over and over again (referring to her complexion),that there was no risk she would not run, and no pain she would notsuffer, to improve it. "Men" (she had said) "are all caught by outwardappearances: my husband might love me better if I had a better color."

  Being asked next if the passages from her son's Diary were to bedepended on as evidence--that is to say, if they fairly representedthe peculiarities in his character, and his true sentiments toward hiswife--Mrs. Macallan denied it in the plainest and strongest terms.

  "The extracts from my son's Diary are a libel on his character," shesaid. "And not the less a libel because they happen to be written byhimself. Speaking from a mother's experience of him, I know that hemust have written the passages produced in moments of uncontrollabledepression and despair. No just person judges hastily of a man by therash words which may escape him in his moody and miserable moments. Ismy son to be so judged because he happens to have written _his_ rashwords, instead of speaking them? His pen has been his most deadly enemy,in this case--it has presented him at his very worst. He was not happyin his marriage--I admit that. But I say at the same time that he wasinvariably considerate toward his wife. I was implicitly trusted by bothof them; I saw them in their most private moments. I declare--inthe face of what she appears to have written to her friends andcorrespondents--that my son never gave his wife any just cause to assertthat he treated her with cruelty or neglect."

  The words, firmly and clearly spoken, produced a strong impression.The Lord Advocate--evidently perceiving that any attempt to weakenthat impression would not be likely to succeed--confined himself, incross-examination, to two significant questions.

  "In speaking to you of the defects in her complexion," he said, "didyour daughter-in-law refer in any way to the use of arsenic as aremedy?"

  The answer to this was, "No."

  The Lord Advocate proceeded:

  "Did you yourself ever recommend arsenic, or mention it casually, in thecourse of the private conversations which you have described?"

  The answer to this was, "Never."

  The Lord Advocate resumed his seat. Mrs. Macallan the elder withdrew.

  An interest of a new kind was excited by the appearance of the nextwitness. This was no less a person than Mrs. Beauly herself. The Reportdescribes her as a remarkably attractive person; modest and lady-likein her manner, and, to all appearance, feeling sensitively the publicposition in which she was placed.

  The first portion of her evidence was almost a recapitulation of theevidence given by the prisoner's mother--with this difference, that Mrs.Beauly had been actually questioned by the deceased lady on the subjectof cosmetic applications to the complexion. Mrs. Eustace Macallan hadcomplimented her on the beauty of her complexion, and had asked whatartificial means she used to keep it in such good order. Using noartificial means, and knowing nothing whatever of cosmetics, Mrs. Beaulyhad resented the question, and a temporary coolness between the twoladies had been the result.

  Interrogated as to her relations with the prisoner, Mrs. Beaulyindignantly denied that she or Mr. Macallan had ever given the deceasedlady the slightest cause for jealousy. It was impossible for Mrs.Beauly to leave Scotland, after visiting at the houses of her cousin'sneighbors, without also visiting at her cousin's house. To take anyother course would have been an act of downright rudeness, and wouldhave excited remark. She did not deny that Mr. Macallan had admired herin the days when they were both single people. But there was no furtherexpression of that feeling when she had married another man, and whenhe had married another woman. From that time their intercourse wasthe innocent intercourse of a brother and sister. Mr. Macallan was agentleman: he knew what was due to his wife and to Mrs. Beauly--shewould not have entered the house if experience had not satisfied her ofthat. As for the evidence of the under-gardener, it was little betterthan pure invention. The greater part of the conversation which he haddescribed himself as overhearing had never taken place. The little thatwas really said (as the man reported it) was said jestingly; and she hadchecked it immediately--as the witness had himself confessed. For therest, Mr. Macallan's behavior toward his wife was invariably kindand considerate. He was constantly devising means to alleviate hersufferings from the rheumatic affection which confined her to her bed;he had spoken of her, not once but many times, in terms of the sincerestsympathy. When she ordered her husband and witness to leave the room, onthe day of her death, Mr. Macallan said to witness afterward, "We mustbear with her jealousy, poor soul: we know that we don't deserve it." Inthat patient manner he submitted to her infirmities of temper from firstto last.

  The main interest in the cross-examination of Mrs. Beauly centered ina question which was put at the end. After reminding her that she hadgiven her name, on being sworn, as "Helena Beauly," the Lord Advocatesaid:

  "A letter addressed to the prisoner, and signed 'Helena,' has been readin Court. Look at it, if you please. Are you the writer of that letter?"

  Before the witness could reply the Dean of Faculty protested againstthe question. The Judges allowed the protest, and refused to permit thequestion to be put. Mrs. Beauly thereupon withdrew. She had betrayeda very perceptible agitation on hearing the letter referred to, and onhaving it placed in her hands. This exhibition of feeling was variouslyinterpreted among the audience. Upon the whole, however, Mrs. Beauly'sevidence was considered to have aided the impression which the mother'sevidence had produced in the prisoner's favor.

  The next witnesses--both ladies, and both school friends of Mrs. EustaceMacallan--created a new feeling of interest in Court. They supplied themissing link in the evidence for the defense.

  The first of the ladies declared that she had mentioned arsenic as ameans of improving the complexion in conversation with Mrs. EustaceMacallan. She had never used it herself, but she had read of thepractice of eating arsenic among the Styrian peasantry for the purposeof clearing the color, and of producing a general appearance ofplumpness and good health. She positively swore that she had relatedthis result of her reading to the deceased lady exactly as she nowrelated it in Court.

  The second witness, present at the conversation already mentioned,corroborated the first witness in every particular; and added that shehad procured the book relating to the arsenic-eating practices of theStyrian peasantry, and their results, at Mrs. Eustace Macallan's ownrequest. This book she had herself dispatched by post to Mrs. EustaceMacallan at Gleninch.

  There was but one assailable point in this otherwise conclusiveevidence. The cross-examination discovered it.

  Both the ladies were asked, in turn, if Mrs. Eustace Macallan hadexpressed to them, directly or indirectly, any intention of obtainingarsenic, with a view to the improvement of her complexion. In each casethe answer to that all-important question was, No. Mrs. Eustace Macallanhad heard of the remedy, and had received the book. But of her ownintentions in the future she had not said one word. She had begged boththe ladies to consider the conversation as strictly private--and thereit had ended.

  It required no lawyer's eye to discer
n the fatal defect which was nowrevealed in the evidence for the defense. Every intelligent personpresent could see that the prisoner's chance of an honorable acquittaldepended on tracing the poison to the possession of his wife--or atleast on proving her expressed intention to obtain it. In either ofthese cases the prisoner's Declaration of his innocence would claim thesupport of testimony, which, however indirect it might be, no honestand intelligent men would be likely to resist. Was that testimonyforthcoming? Was the counsel for the defense not at the end of hisresources yet?

  The crowded audience waited in breathless expectation for the appearanceof the next witness. A whisper went round among certain well-instructedpersons that the Court was now to see and hear the prisoner's oldfriend--already often referred to in the course of the Trial as "Mr.Dexter."

  After a brief interval of delay there was a sudden commotion amongthe audience, accompanied by suppressed exclamations of curiosity andsurprise. At the same moment the crier summoned the new witness by theextraordinary name of

  "MISERRIMUS DEXTER"