Other formats

    Adobe Portable Document Format file (facsimile images)   TEI XML file   ePub eBook file  

Connect

    mail icontwitter iconBlogspot iconrss icon

By Passion Driven: A Story of a Wasted Life

Chapter XIV

page 94

Chapter XIV.

Oh that a man might know
The end of this day's business, ere it come;
But it sufficeth that the day will end,
And then the end is known.

The date of the Criminal Sessions of the Supreme Court at Dunedin crept gradually nearer and nearer. There had been no event of note in connection with the house of Bruce and Co., nor in the history of any of the persons in whom we have taken an interest. With the exception of the formal acknowledgment by Mr. and Mrs. Bruce of the engagement of Harry and Lizzie, things had gone on in a sober, methodical way. Harry's intimacy with the cashier had increased with time, and ripened into a friendship begotten of mutual regard. Of late they had only once reverted to the case of Lane, and that was when the cashier had informed Harry of the expedients that were being used by the friends of the accused to prevent his giving evidence in support of the charge. They had resorted to hints of violence, and one of them had distinctly threatened that the day on which Lane was convicted on his evidence, would see him a dead man. These circumstances could not fail to make some impression on the mind of any man, and Harry was not surprised to find that his companion felt considerably troubled over them. Harry advised him to speak to Mr. Small on the subject, and this he accordingly did, when it was agreed that if any further page 95 molestation of the kind occurred, he would report the matter to Detective Fane, and seek his assistance.

Flora's sullen manner had become intensified after the declaration of her sister's engagement, and Lizzie passed her days in mortal dread of some awful outbreak of her sister's pent-up passion. Flora had steadily refused to speak to Lizzie in any companionable or sisterly way, and had caused her mother great uneasiness because of her conduct. Unfortunately Mrs. Bruce did not speak to her husband on the subject, so that his elder daughter's manner towards her sister escaped the knowledge of Mr. Bruce.

The trial of Lane was only some eight or ten days distant. The sessions were to begin the following week. The calendar for the ensuing sittings was published in the Evening Star, and the same paper which contained the list of persons for trial contained also the following paragraph:—

We regret to record the painfully sudden death of Mr. William Johnston, the cashier at the establishment of Messrs. Bruce and Co., Bond Street. The deceased gentleman had been at work at the office last evening, and walked home in company with a fellow-clerk named Williams, who parted from him at the door of his lodgings about 11 o'clock. Awaiting him at the house were Herman Lane (against whom deceased was one of the chief witnesses on a criminal charge to be investigated next week) and another young man whose name we have not been able to ascertain. These young men remained fully half an hour with Johnston, and a lodger, whose room adjoins his, heard some high words pass between them. Lane's companion left some moments before him, and after Lane's departure, Johnston appears to have gone at once to bed. This morning he was found by the maid-servant, who went to call him to breakfast, lying quite dead and cold in his bed. On his table were found the peel of an orange he appears to have eaten just before retiring, and an empty tumbler which seems to have contained water. Deceased was a trusted and valued servant of the firm of Bruce and Co., in whose employment he had been for upwards of four years. An inquest will be held to-morrow afternoon.

When Johnston failed to appear at the office, Harry proposed to go up to his lodgings to enquire for him, and page 96 was just about to set off with that object when he met a policeman, who asked for him, and informed him of the sad event. The intelligence caused great surprise and consternation in the office, and the sudden death of his companion was a severe shock to Harry.

Later in the day, Harry was informed that he would be required as a witness at the inquest—a piece of news anything but welcome to him.

Next day the inquest was held. Harry gave evidence of having been at the office with the deceased, and walking home with him on the evening of his death. There had been nothing unusual in his appearance, nor did he give any indication of either mental or bodily weakness. The peel found in his bedroom was doubtless that from an orange which Harry had given him while walking home from the office. Harry had received two from his cousin before setting out for the office, and had shared them with his companion. The facts already mentioned regarding Lane's visit to Johnston's lodgings were proved by the landlady. The only other witnesses called were Dr. Wilson and Professor Bust, who had conducted a post mortem examination on the deceased.

Lane was not examined, for reasons which will be made apparent later on. The medical testimony was somewhat startling, and came with the suddenness of a shock. It went to show that Johnston's death was the result of poison. His stomach contained some particles of strychnine, and there were unmistakeable evidences that his death was due to that cause.

After hearing the evidence given by the medical men, and their statement that arrangements had been made for a further analysis of the parts containing poison, the coroner's jury returned a verdict to the effect that “Deceased had died from the effects of poison, how or by whom administered there was no evidence to show.”

page 97

The news of this tragedy cast quite a gloom over the city, and formed the chief topic of conversation for some days. Johnston was a young man widely known amongst the business men; and although he had no relations in Dunedin, he had made a large circle of firm friends, who felt his death very acutely, all the more so that it had been brought about in this tragic and mysterious way.

The suggestion that the cashier had committed suicide did not find much acceptance. Our old friend Detective Fane had formed quite a different theory on the subject, which he at once proceeded to work out. He interviewed Small at the office, and subsequently had a long talk with Harry. From the latter he got particulars of the endeavours made by Lane and his companion to divert the evidence to be given by the cashier in the robbery case, and following up the hints these and the other circumstances gave him, he shortly afterwards arrested Lane on the more serious charge of having caused the death of Johnston.

With such charges as were already made against him, the finger of the law naturally pointed to Lane as the criminal guilty of the cashier's death. Of necessity the disclosure of the murder and the arrest of Herman Lane produced a profound sensation in Dunedin. The other charge against him was quite overshadowed by the graver crime, although the facts of his awaiting trial for the robbery, and the cashier being one of the chief witnesses, tended to convince the public of his guilt.

The preliminary investigation at the Police Court was, of course, only a formal matter. Lane's counsel offered no objections to the committal, but reserved his defence for the higher court. The barrister secured for Lane's defence in the robbery case, and who now appeared for him in the murder charge, was a young man of somewhat dazzling, if not brilliant, attainments in his profession. He page 98 was an intimate acquaintance of Mote and Samson, and it was through their advice and assistance that Lane had obtained his aid. Imbued with a tolerably good opinion of himself, Mr. Lyttelton Coke had never shown any inclination to hide his light under a bushel. That he did not stand very high in the estimation of his professional brethren was not for lack of effort in that direction on his part. He had a strong desire to be “all things to all men,” and it was only amongst those who most intimately knew him that his predilection for “running with the hare and hunting with the hounds” was appreciated at its true worth. Where want of knowledge and ability became a disadvantage with Mr. Lyttelton Coke (and these occasions were not few), he had a plentiful supply of assurance to draw upon to make up the deficiency, and it often happened that he would publicly assert most positively some proposition of law, and as soon as the occasion had passed would ask the first “learned friend” he met what was the law on the point. We have nothing to do with the barrister's moral character, which is fortunate, unless we are of the mind to enjoy an altogether fruitless enquiry; but of his sincerity we can judge from his expressions when Mote asked him to undertake the defence of Lane.

“Who is he? Is he any use to us?”

“He's a young fellow with some money and not much brains. We've found him profitable.”

“Oh!” and Lyttelton Coke indicated by the elevation of his eyebrows that he understood his friend's meaning. “Then you want him to get off, do you?”

“Yes, certainly.”

“Acquittal will pay better than conviction?”

“Most assuredly.”

“Then I'll see what can be done. How much is there in it?”

page 99

“Oh! 50 quid at anyrate [sic]

“You're sure of that?”

“Mote replied in the affirmative, and Lyttelton Coke forthwith considered himself retained for the defence of Lane.

“Have you made much out of him?” enquired the barrister of his friend in a tone indicating that he was not asking from mere idle curiosity, after he had received all the particulars of the case Mote could give him.

“Not a great deal; but there are chances of more. He seems to get money from Melbourne.”

“Do you think he is guilty of this robbery?” continued Coke.

“Yes, I'm sure of it, but I don't think it can be proved, and you've a good hand to play in his defence with the young fool, a nephew of the old man he was with.”

After this Mote entered into a discourse on the opportunities afforded to the counsel for the defence of blackening the character of the prosecuting witnesses, a course of procedure his “learned friend” was not likely to be slow to adopt.

What mattered it to the legal gentleman that he might thus be casting a stigma upon an unspotted reputation? What mattered it that he should be blackening innocent people whose misfortune it was to be placed in the witness box before him? Blacken them he could and would, if the process would lessen or help to obscure the dark stains upon the armour of his client, or prove profitable to himself.