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The Story of Wild Will Enderby

Chapter IX. The Senior Partner Makes a Statement

page 166

Chapter IX. The Senior Partner Makes a Statement.

The Inquest was held in a long, low-roofed apartment in one of the manifold inns in the township. The walls of this room were of calico. From the contiguous bar, the sounds of drunken revelry penetrated the flimsy partition, and the undesirable odours of bad tobacco and vile liquors pervaded the atmosphere. In the centre of the room stood a greasy and well-worn bagatelle-table, around which the jury were ranged on rude benches of unplaned wood—rendered smooth by contact with unnumbered sitters. At the head of the table was a seat of honour, hastily improvised for the Coroner's use out of half a brandy-cask, and decorated with a flaming scarlet blanket. At the lower end stood the Senior Partner with unflinching eye, firmly compressed lips, and gravely composed features, patiently abiding the issue.

The jurymen answered to their names, and were sworn in. They were what my friend Pratt would have called "a mixed lot." A few of them wore coats, more did not. In those free and easy times, blue or red serge shirts were the fashionable apparel: a white shirt was full dress, and a coat of any sort was court costume. An unfortunate publican was once weak enough to return from a commercial visit to Dunedin with a page 167regular black hat—popularly known as a "bell-topper"—but this was unanimously voted snobbish, and his friends kindly kicked the offending hat into the river.

The jury went forth to view the body with very visible reluctance. Then the proceedings commenced.

And first, Edwards and Trewartha gave evidence of the midnight brawl, with such variations and additions as—all unknown to themselves—had grown up, fungus-like, around their original story.

Next, the African and the miners who had assisted to recover the corpse, came forward to recount the circumstances, and to identify the body, as that of Harry Grey.

Then the surgeon gave his evidence.

"He had seen a body on view. Believed it to be that of a young man whom he had lately treated for aphyxia produced by immersion in the Molyneux. On that occasion had observed a tattoo mark on the left arm of the patient. There was a tattoo mark on the left arm of deceased. Believed it to be the same as he had previously noticed. Had made a professional examination of the body. Over the inner portion of the right parietal bone, and near the coronal suture, there was a large irregularly-shaped wound of the scalp, with jagged edges widely separate, exhibiting a well-marked depressed fracture running from behind forwards and inwards. Such a wound would be sufficient to cause death. From the appearances presented, was of opinion that the wound had been caused by a blow from a blunt implement. It might have been caused by a pointed stone. Thought the back of a tomahawk the more probable weapon. The only other page 168external marks of violence were a contusion of the right knee, attended with great discolouration, and a slight abrasion of the cuticle of the nasal organ," &c., &c.

Of course the jurors thoroughly understood all this learned jargon. Indeed, one of them—a butcher by repute, but a "vet" by profession—assured his brother jurymen that "such wounds as them was enough to kill an 'oss, let alone a man."

Lastly, with an air of much importance, stepped forth the bold Sergeant. He narrated the story of the capture with a pardonable degree of self-elation, yet fairly enough on the whole. And he produced—first the bag of gold, next the pick, then the broken knife, then the hat—Will's hat—and the torn shirt-sleeve; lastly, the blood-stained pebble.

Tho Senior Partner listened to all unmoved. Once only he betrayed a sign of emotion. It was when the hat was produced: Then he made a motion forward, but even in the act he checked himself, and resumed his attitude of attention.

The Coroner had asked him if he desired to question the witnesses, and for all answer to the query he had only shaken his head.

The jurymen viewed him with much the same curiosity as they would have bestowed on a caged moa. They could not understand him. They regarded his composed demeanour as the hardihood of stubborn guilt, and his involuntary movement on the production of the hat was construed as confirmatory evidence of his criminality.

"Do you wish to make any statement, prisoner'—page 169(thus queried the Coroner)—I must caution you—"

The Senior Partner threw up his hand deprecatingly.

"No, Sir, you needn't take the trouble to do it. It ain't wanted. Sir. I reckon it's best to tell all I know about it, and that's mighty little. I ain't got nothing to hide in this matter from any man; and, God knows I wouldn't have hurt a hair of the boy's head for all the gold in the Molyneux. So with your permission, Sir, I'll make a statement; and I'll go slow, so as you can cipher it all up in your papers."

Then he told his story as you already know it. He told, moreover, how he had been accompanied by Will about a mile up the Gorge, when he set forth in pursuit of the Prospectors. There, he said, Will had left him to return to the tent, and from that time he had never seen him.

And as he narrated the subsequent events, a pang thrilled him when he reflected that it would be impossible to prove the accuracy of his statement. The very means which he had taken to avoid observation, would deprive him of corroborative testimony as to his absence from the tent when the fatal scene was being enacted. But he mastered the pain, and went courageously on to the close.

"And now, Sir, I've jest got one favour to ask. It's only that I'd like to see the body."

"Certainly," assented the Coroner. "Sergeant, conduct the prisoner to the shed where the body is lying."

Whereupon one of the jurymen, who owned a grocery store, complained in an undertone that 'the fellow was giving an awful lot of trouble;' for which he was very page 170properly rebuked by a neighbour of high moral principles, who being a storeman, had only his master's business to attend to, and was not in a hurry.

When the Senior Partner returned, he seemed a changed man. His step was elastic, his eye was bright, his countenance beamed with new-born confidence. There was even a playful curl of the lips, indicative of a fine sense of humour.

"Mr. Coroner," he said, "this here thing is jest a bit of foolishness. That ain't the body of my pardner. No, Sir, it ain't. I allow it's pretty much like him in a general way, but it ain't him; that's a fact."

"How do you propose to satisfy the jury of the truth of your assertion?" asked the Coroner.

"Well, I propose to prove it by the dead man himself. I don't see that any other witness is necessary."

"What do you mean, prisoner? Let me tell you that if this is a jest, it is a very sorry one. This is not the time nor the occasion for any unseemly conduct."

The Senior Partner was roused to self-assertion.

"No, Mister Coroner," he said, with a certain native dignity, "it ain't an occasion for unseemly conduct I know; and I ain't the man to make jests about any such things. Guess I know better what rightly belongs both to the living and the dead. But I stand here before you and these other gents, charged with the murder of a man that I loved as a brother, though it ain't long I've known him. And I tell you that, as sure as God is my Maker, the body lying out yonder ain't the body of Harry Grey. Now, Sir, jest you listen to me, if you please. (The Coroner was exhibiting symptoms of impatience.) You see, my pardner page 171had a tattoo mark on his left arm, as the doctor said. That's right, Sir. He told me it was done by some of the station hands when he lived down to Victoria. And that's jest the point. The mark on his arm was a true-love knot, and the letters 'F.M.' Now this here poor fellow has got a tattoo mark on his left arm. That's right again. But it ain't a true-love knot. It's a woman and anchor. That's so. And that's how I know for certain that it ain't the body of Harry Grey."

The Coroner was nonplussed. The manner, no less than the words of the American indicated conscious innocence.

But a statement made by an accused person is not evidence in a British Court of law. "They manage these things better in France." Under ordinary circumstances, the Coroner would have adjourned the Inquest for further investigation; but with a population ever on the move, he knew right well that it would be almost impossible to get the same jury together again. He looked to the Surgeon for a sign, and the Surgeon smiled superior. So he solved the difficulty by leaving the matter to be dealt with by the thirteen "good and lawful men."

They were not long in arriving at their decision. They were hot, and tired, and thirsty; and being, on the whole mercifully inclined, they gave the prisoner the benefit of the doubt.

"What is your verdict, Gentlemen?" asked the Coroner.

"Died from a broken head, but we can't say who broke it."

"Very well, Gentlemen—very well," quoth the Coro-page 172ner somewhat testily. "No doubt you have done your duty, to the best of your ability. Then you say 'upon your oaths,' that the deceased came to his death by a fracture of the skull, but how, or by whom inflicted, no sufficient evidence doth appear to you, the said jurors. Is that your verdict, Gentlemen? Very well! Have the goodness to append your signatures to the inquisition. Sergeant, re-arrest the prisoner, and bring him up before me in the morning."

Justice has many arms—shall I say tentaculæ? The Senior Partner was not yet out of the toils.