The Greatest Murder Mysteries of Mary Elizabeth Braddon. Mary Elizabeth Braddon

‘And now,’ she ses, ‘vot you’ve got to do is to go back from vheres you come from, and lose no time about it; and take notice,’ she ses, ‘if ever you speaks or jabbers about this ’ere business, it’ll be the end of your jabberin’ in this world,’ vith vitch she looks at me like a old vitch as she vos, and points vith her skinny arm down the road. So I valks my chalks, but I doesn’t valk ’em very far, and presently I sees the old ’ag a-runnin’ back tovards the town as fast as ever she could tear. ‘Ho!’ I ses, ‘you are a nice lot, you are; but I’ll see who’s dead, in spite of you.’ So I crawls up to vere ve’d left the body, and there it vos sure enuff, but all uncovered now, the face a-starin’ up at the black sky, and it vos dressed, as far as I could make out, quite like a gentleman, all in black, but it vos so jolly dark I couldn’t see the face, vhen all of a sudden, vhile I vos a-kneelin’ down and lookin’ at it, there comes von of the longest flashes of lightnin’ as I ever remember, and in the blue light I sees the face plainer than I could have seen it in the day. I thought I should have fell down all of a-heap. It vos Jim! Jim hisself, as I knowed as well as I ever knowed myself, dead at my feet! My first thought vos as how that young man as vos so like Jim had murdered him; but there vorn’t no marks of wiolence novheres about the body. Now, I hadn’t in my own mind any doubts as how it vos Jim; but still, I ses to myself, I ses, ‘Everythink seems topsy-turvy like this night, so I’ll be sure;’ so I takes up his arm, and turns up his coat-sleeve. Now, vy I does this is this ’ere: there vos a young voman Jim vos uncommon fond ov, vhich her name vos Bess, though he and many more called her, for short, Sillikens: and von day vhen me and Jim vos at a public, ve happened to fall in vith a sailor, vot ve’d both knowed afore he vent to sea. So he vos a-tellin’ of us his adventures and such-like, and then he said promiscus, ‘I’ll show you somethin’ pretty;’ and sure enuff, he slipped up the sleeve ov his Garnsey, and there, all over his arm, vos all manner ov sort ov picters done vith gunpowder, such as ankers, and Rule Britannias, and ships in full sail on the backs of flyin’ alligators. So Jim takes quite a fancy to this ’ere, and he ses, ‘I vish, Joe (the sailor’s name bein’ Joe), I vish, Joe, as how you’d do me my young voman’s name and a wreath of roses on my arm, like that there.’ Joe ses, ‘And so I vill, and velcome.’ And sure enuff, a veek or two artervards, Jim comes to me vith his arm like a picter-book, and Bess as large as life just above the elber-joint. So I turns up his coat-sleeve, and vaits for a flash ov lightnin’. I hasn’t to vait long, and there I reads, ‘B.E.S.S.’ ‘There ain’t no doubt now,’ I ses, ‘this ’ere’s Jim, and there’s some willany or other in it, vot I ain’t up to.’ ”

      “Very good,” said the counsel; “we may want you again by-and-by, I think, Mr. Withers; but for the present you may retire.”

      The next witness called was Dr. Tappenden, who related the circumstances of the admission of Jabez North into his household, the high character he had from the Board of the Slopperton Union, and the confidence reposed in him.

      “You placed great trust, then, in this person?” asked the counsel for the prosecution.

      “The most implicit trust,” replied the schoolmaster; “so much so, that he was frequently employed by me to collect subscriptions for a public charity of which I was the treasurer—the Slopperton Orphan Asylum. I think it only right to mention this, as on one occasion it was the cause of his calling upon the unfortunate gentleman who was murdered.”

      “Indeed! Will you be so good as to relate the circumstance?”

      “I think it was about three days before the murder, when, one morning, at a little before twelve o’clock—that being the time at which my pupils are dismissed from their studies for an hour’s recreation—I said to him, ‘Mr. North, I should like you to call upon this Indian gentleman, who is staying with Mrs. Marwood, and whose wealth is so much talked of——”

      “Pardon me. You said, ‘whose wealth is so much talked of.’ Can you swear to having made that remark?”

      “I can.”

      “Pray continue,” said the counsel.

      “ ‘I should like you,’ I said, ‘to call upon this Mr. Harding, and solicit his aid for the Orphan Asylum; we are sadly in want of funds. I know, North, your heart is in the work, and you will plead the cause of the orphans successfully. You have an hour before dinner; it is some distance to the Black Mill, but you can walk fast there and back.’ He went accordingly, and on his return brought a five-pound note, which Mr. Harding had given him.”

      Dr. Tappenden proceeded to describe the circumstance of the death of the little boy in the usher’s apartment, on the very night of the murder. One of the servants was examined, who slept on the same floor as North, and who said she had heard strange noises in his room that night, but had attributed the noises to the fact of the usher sitting up to attend upon the invalid. She was asked what were the noises she had heard.

      “I heard some one open the window, and shut it a long while after.”

      “How long do you imagine the interval to have been between the opening and shutting of the window?” asked the counsel.

      “About two hours,” she replied, “as far as I could guess.”

      The next witness for the prosecution was the old servant, Martha.

      “Can you remember ever having seen the prisoner at the bar?”

      The old woman put on her spectacles, and steadfastly regarded the elegant Monsieur de Marolles, or Jabez North, as his enemies insisted on calling him. After a very deliberate inspection of that gentleman’s personal advantages, rather trying to the feelings of the spectators, Mrs. Martha Jones said, rather obscurely—

      “He had light hair then.”

      “ ‘He had light hair then.’ You mean, I conclude,” said the counsel, “that at the time of your first seeing the prisoner, his hair was of a different colour from what it is now. Supposing that he had dyed his hair, as is not an uncommon practice, can you swear that you have seen him before to-day?”

      “I can.”

      “On what occasion?” asked the counsel.

      “Three days before the murder of my mistress’s poor brother. I opened the gate for him. He was very civil-spoken, and admired the garden very much, and asked me if he might look about it a little.”

      “He asked you to allow him to look about the garden? Pray was this as he went in, or as he went out?”

      “It was when I let him out.”

      “And how long did he stay with Mr. Harding?”

      “Not more than ten minutes. Mr. Harding was in his bedroom; he had a cabinet in his bedroom in which he kept papers and money, and he used to transact all his business there, and sometimes would be there till dinner-time.”

      “Did the prisoner see him in his bedroom?”

      “He did. I showed him upstairs myself.”

      “Was anybody in the bedroom with Mr. Harding when he saw the prisoner?”

      “Only his coloured servant: he was always with him.”

      “And when you showed the prisoner out, he asked to be allowed to look at the garden? Was he long looking about?”

      “Not more than five minutes. He looked more at the house than the garden. I noticed him looking at Mr. Harding’s window, which is on the first floor; he took particular notice of a very fine creeper that grows under the window.”

      “Was the window, on the night of the murder, fastened, or not?”

      “It never was fastened. Mr. Harding always slept with his window a little way open.”

      After Martha had been dismissed from the witness-box, the old servant of Mr. Harding, the Lascar, who had been found living with a gentleman in London, was duly sworn, prior to being examined.

      He remembered the prisoner at the bar, but made the same remark