"STAR" TALES.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 10104, 16 March 1911, Page 4

"STAR" TALES.

A DOCK DEFENCE. '-' < (By A. C.~FOX-DxIVIES.) Author of "The Mauleverer Murders, \ :.,." The Average Man," etc. ■ --*-' [All Rights Reserved.] ' '"What's your real name|" the man 'tad asked. "Maud." f • „ ' ■" Oh. but your other name? . "What's yours?" :"Nbw do tell, Maudie?" "I'll tell you mine when you tell me yours." ,i had been the only time the platter had ever heen directly alluded to. "Maud Carvalho" was the name phe used on her theatrical posters and picture postcards, hut she had admitted Jfc was only an assumed name, and )udley Fewtrell, a hriefless barrister, in the years that followed that chance 'acquaintance, dturing which they had been intimate friends, and then had drifted apart and: ended by being jtrangers to each other, never knew What the girl's real name was. There was no earthly reason why he should not have known —the name was common knowledge to many others —hut be. had cleverly withheld his own name when, after they had laughingly been introduced in the wings of a theatre by a' mutual acquaintance who forgot to even pretend that either of them had got a name, he had asked for hers •nd heen met with and had evaded her request for t his. Thereafter she had „ been at pains that he should not acquire the knowledge he desired.

Dudley Fetvtrell had followed his •' father to the Bar, but he. would never follow him on to the Bench. As chance . ■ after chance had been thrown away or allowed to slide by the younger man, gecuYS" in-his knowledge that his father had'ample means for both of them, the , old i Judge began to realise that his son could boast of little more ; than his attractive personality. The disillusionment had been so gradual » that'' it had brought but little disappointment, though-the realisation of jbis fears was finally complete. I One day Fewtrell lounged into chambers about midday, opened, read and destroyed such correspondence as was Raiting for him'.— wasted a certain amount of the time of busy men In the same chambers, to their annoyance and [to no purpose, and then left. From ,that morning he had never again appeared 'there, although his name remained painted upon the door until his father's death. His coming and going had always been erratic, and at first bis absence passed without remark, but 'as month after month slipped bv and letters' accumulated and creditors he-

jcame importunate the old clerk took ;it upon himself, to make personal in!uiries at the Judge's house, and learnt hat Fewtrell.had gone abroad and - ."-would probably be absent some years."

'?' ; The body of a young and beautiful w;oman had .been, found dead in one. of the sitting-rooms, of a private hotel in proven Street,. Strand. The husband, ». roue a gambler, had not been «een since the discovery of the body. Death had been caused by a shot from it, revolver; The revolver, still loaded, but with two .. chambers discharged, had been replaced upon the mantelpiece. Death had -been instantaneous; so: the medical evidence had established at the inquest. Obviously it \rUs not a case of suicide. There was one little detail that puzzled the police—two chambers of the revolver had been discharged—there was but the one fatal wound on the dead body, and the most minute scrutiny of the room had failed to provide the smallest trace of any other bullet mark, and the police do not like these little unexplained details. : The purchasing of the revolver and

of'a supply of cartridges was traced to the husband. Of the identity and previous history of the pair the police could learn but little. They were staying in the hotel in the name of Winstanley, the husband's manner and pearance markedly American, and the police learnt that, as far as was known, he had no means of livelihood except cards and racing. There had been complaints from several parents to Scotland Yard about the heavy gambling which went on in his rooms. Of the wife nothing was known beyond the fact of her marriage some years previously in America. The disappearance of the husband, of course, threw suspicion in his direction. The coroner's jury brought in a verdict of "Wilful murder" against him, ana the dead body was huried in the nameless grave of a pauper. The patience of the law in long as a summer's day, its grasp is as certain as the length of a winter's night, and some six or eight months afterwards Inspector Parkyns, of Scotland Yard, acting on a hint from New York, boarded the Lusitania on her arrival at Queenstown, and. travelled on to Liverpool with Winstanley in his cus tody, changed with the wilful murder of his wife Maud Winstanley. The proceedings hefore the magistrates followed their monotonous course, and tho man was duly committed to take his trial. The ensuing session at the Old Bailey had been opened with the accustomed civic pomp. The Recorder had charged the Grand Jury and dismissed them to their duty, and a general air of listless expectancy hung over the Court as one by one a long list of prisoners were called and entered the box whilst their applications for legal aid in accordance with the Poor Prisoners' Defence Act were considered and refused. Some, on a hurried perusal or the depositions were advised to plead guilty and throw themselves on the mercy of the Court. That Generally means nine months' hard laour. Others were recommended to apply to foreign Consuls, who, by the way, always reply that they have no funds available for such purposes. The majority were curtly told their cases did not come within the Act. as they had raised no defence before the magistrates.

Tho monthly farce was nearly over when the name of Henry "Winstanley was called, and the Clerk of the Court picked out and handed to the Recorder the depositions in the case. "No defence was raised, so I can make no order, but this will be in the Judge's list, and I have no doubt he will ask counsel to defend you. His attention shall be called to it."

As the prisoner turned to leave the dock he said a few hurried words to the warder.

" One, tlirce, six," was the reply. " There, standing up in front of you—he's speaking to his Lordship now." Ashley fempe'St, a well-known junior, was making an application for a case to stand over until the next sessions, and the warder allowed the prisoner to remain in the dock.-

" As your Lordship pleases," answered the barrister, sitting down as his application was granted. " Mr Tempest, I want you to defend me," said the prisoner, leaning over the dock and holding out one pound three shillings and sixpence with a few papers. Tempest nodded, and took the money and the papers. It was a " dock defence," and he had no power to refuse it. Twenty-five to fifty guineas was his usual fee at the Old Bailey, and his briefs at the High Court frequently carried even heavier fees. To plead the case of Winstanley at the Old Bailey might involve him in the loss of hundreds, but ho knew he had no alternative.

On three successive days the name of Winstanley was in the Judge's list, and Tempest hung about the Court waiting for the case to be called on. On the third day, when Mr Justice Fowtrell took his seat on the Bench after the adjournment for lunch, Henry "Winstanley was arraigned and pleaded not guil-

ty to the indictment charging him with the murder of his wife. The evidence against him seemed conclusive. His young wife, Maud Winstanley, had been absent from thenrooms for several days, and had returned, so the landlady of the hote! deposed, on the morning of the crime, ner return about eleven o'clock in the forenoon had. been followed by a violent quaa-rel between the husband and wife. Neither had been subsequently seen to go out or return, but, as all residents in the hotel had latchkeys, and there was no hall porter, the evidence as to this amounted to nothing. At eight o'clock in the evening the dead body of Mrs Winstanley had been found, shot with a revolver known to have been the property of the husband, and no trace of the husband, had thereafter been seen until his arrest. " That is the case for the prosecution, my Lord," said Bodmuir, one of the Treasury Counsel, as he resumed his seat.

"The prisoner will give evidence." said Ashley Tempest, and the man left the dock, entered the witness-box, and was sworn. Briefly, in answer to the questions of his counsel, Winstanley admitted the ownership of the revolver, admitted the quarrel, but said tbat in the middle of the quarrel he told his wife he had done with her' for ever, had left the hotel there and then, intending never again to speak to her. He had not heard of her death until some days later, when it had already become apparent that suspicion was fastening upon himself. Mo had naturally therefore kept out of the way, and had promptly returned to America, He vehemently denied any knowledge of the circumstances of her death. A scathing cross-examination followed, as to the cause of the quarrel—admitted to be his wife's acquaintance with another man, as to other quarrels, nnd as to his movements alter leaving the hotel. The man was a bad. and nervous witness; he contradicted himselfj and finally in an unguarded moment spoke of having seen the revolver last " on the floor by the side of the dead woman." Tempest in re-examination asked who " the other man was?" "1 don't know.. He was tall, fairhaired, and clean-shaven, wore a single eyeglass, but I don't know his name. My wife told mo he was a lawyer." "Did she know his name?" "She said she didn't, but she may have done. He was very rich, and she said he was a very old friend." When the prisoner had returned to the dock, Tempest said he had no witnesses to call, so Bodmuir briefly summed up, and Tempest rose to begin his speech for the defence. "May it please your lordship—gentlemen of the jury—you have heard the evidence in one of the most remarkable cases I have been aware of in the course of a long experience of this Court. It is remarkable because i every word given m evidence for tho prosecution is admitted by the defence ■ to be perfectly true. We do not challenge a single one of the facts which have been sworn to. From those facts, which we admit, gentlemen, the prosecution ask you to come to a certain conclusion as proved beyond all reasonable doubt, and that conclusion which is pressed upon you, gentlemen, is that the prisoner, Henry Winstanley, murdered his wife by shooting her, ard then callously left her dead oody to be found by others, left it to be burKl in a pauper's grave. The prosecution urged* this as a certain and foregone conclusion, a logical consequence of the evidence they have put before you. But by admitting their evidence to be true, gentlemen, I nevertheless submit to you that they have not, for they cannot, refute the defence which has been put forward, and they must refute it expressly or by inference, or they cannot claim that they have proved the guilt of my client beyond all reasonable doubt. The story of the

prisoner is just the simple continuation of the narrative of the prosecution. I can call no evidence in corroboration of the story, but by its very nature there can be no evidence which it is possible for me to call. The prosecution toll you of the unhappy married life, of the absence of the wife, and of her return; they tell you of the quarrel between the two, and they leavd tho story thore—and there the prisoner takes it up. He tells you* of the quarrel, he tells you how it finished, he tells you how he left the house. You have to judge, gentlemen, and that man's life hangs on your judgment, whether or not his story is true. If you believe him, he goes free; if you are in doubt, if you even go no further than the opinion that his story may be true, then you must give him—as my lord will tell you—must give him the benefit of that doubt, and acquit him. He has told you he parted with the woman in the middle of the quarrel, and ended it by so doing." " And he admitted he had seen her after she was dead," interjected Bodnvuir.

" Very -well, then," said Tempest, as he tu.vn«d savagely on his opponent, " I'll take it as you say—l'll take that version. I'll admit for the purposes of this case that the prisoner is a liar, and that the real version is as you say—• that he saw her after she was dead. Will that satisfy you?" "Mr Tempest," interrupted the Judge, " I think I had better tell you that with regard to that admission oy the prisoner I shall feel it my duty to tell the jury that they must not attach any undue weight to it. When one puzzles over any unexplained matter, as the prisoner no doubt has done in the six months or more which have elapsed since the death of his wife, one s gets confused and unconsciously confuses things one has imagined with the facts one knows, and I think the jury will recognise that under such a severe crossexamination as the prisoner %vas subjected to a certain amount of confusion was inevitable. Of course, the admission Mr Bodmuir has alluded to was of some consequence, but to my mind it was not decisive."

"1 thank your lordship," answered Tempest. He was utterly puzzled. Mr Justice Fewtrell had a reputation of being by no means a lenient judge, rather otherwise, and one who was usually prejudiced against a prisoner. "Perhaps, my lord, it will be better if I first take the case at its worst, and assume as correct the most unfavourable aspect against my client, taking it 1 that he did see his wife after she was dead. That is perfectly consistent with the story of the quarrel which the prisoner has told—perfectly consistent with his having left in the middle of it —and having returned later for some reason and found the dead body of nis wife. He would, guess at once the suspicions which would attach to himself, and, knowing his wife was beyond human aid, knowing he could do nothing for her, small wonder if h© loses his head and leaves her dead, body to be found by others. Having done so, the lie he told in the witness-box, assuming it was a lie, would be just the inevitable consequence of his former action. I put the case to you, gentlemen, at its worst, so that I may show you that even in its most damning'form it is impossible that you should convict ray client. Two shots had been recently fired from the revolver. There was expert evidence to that effect given at the inquest. Where are the bullets? One is found in the body of the dead woman. Where is the other? It is nowhere in the room. and. there is no mark of its impact in the room, or on any article in the room. It was fired, and the inevitable conclusion is that the bullet struck something or somebody. It was not the dead woman, and you can think it out till Doomsday, gentlemen, and you cannot get away from the one certain and logical conclusion, which I put to you as an incontestible inference, that that bullet struck somebody, and was carried away in the wound it made, by that somebody. Now, was that wounded person the prisoner? As you will remember, gentlemen, Dr English, the police surgeon at Brixton Prison, by a coincidence, was the doctor who made the first examination of the dead womanlV He happened to be recognised in the Strand by the policeman who went for medical assistance when the dead body was found.

" It is part of his duty to examine prisoners detained at the prison, and on a hint from us he' made a very thorough examination, and lie told you, in answer to rny questions, two things—first, that there was not the slightest ocar on the prisoner's body; and, second, that the bullet could not be imbedded in the flesh without leaving a scar. There is tiie thousand to one chance, of course, that the bullet did not penetrate the clothes, but the revolver is not a toy, and the cartridges are powerful. We don't convict a man on thousand to one chances. Therefore, I submit to you that the prisoner was not the other man, for I have shown you there .must have been another man.

' ; It is m part of my duty to prove to you what did take place, but rather than leave the defence an unfinished story, I will suggest to yoii the probable solution. The prisoner went out, as he says; the other man came; knowing the history of the woman, I suggest to you that she demanded money, and on its refusal fired at her visitor and hit him in seme unimportant place, and that losing control over himself, he wrested the revolver from her and shot her. That story explains everything; the story submitted by the prosecution does not." "Mr Tempest," interposed the

Judge, ""here is also another possibility, and 1 think an even more probable one. Suppose Maud Carvalho attempted to commit tsuicide, and her visitoi, struggling-with her to prevent it, received the first bullet in the arm, for example, and was incapacitated,

and that then she fired a second time

and accomplished her purpose, and that afterwards her visitor picked tip the revolver and replaced it on the mantelshelf?" Tempest stood, gripping the seat behind him against which he- was leaning, staring with set face at the Judge, and the Court gradually hushed 'into silence, waiting tor him to go on. "Yes, Mr Tempest?" said the Judge, and the man sitting next the barrister, noticing his dazed pre-occu-pation, nudged his arm. " One moment, my Lord, one moment"—and then the man's brain began again to work with lightning speed. He knew the name of Carvalho

had never been mentioned in the case

from beginning to end, and he knew it did not appear on the depositions. Why had the Judge used it? Like a flash Tempest remembered the association of Dudley Fewtrell and Maud Carvalho, the actress. The husband had spoken of his wife's lawyer friend; the description given would have fitted Fewtrell, who had disappeared. Had Fewtrell confided in his father, and had the Judge put as a possibility what ho knew to be the fact? And as Tempest looked at the Judge, the latter's face went a ghastly grey as, recalling his words, he recognised his own slip of the tongue, and realised that Tempest was in possession of his secret.

Pulling himself together, Tempest

promptly brought his speech to a formal conclusion, and the Judge summed up, pointing out that the prosecution must prove their case beyond all reasonable doubt. "To my mmd, gentlemen," he concluded, the story put forward by the prosecution does not satisfactorily explain the firing of the two shots. The theory of the defence as a whole is not improbable and may bo perfectly correct, and it does not conflict with the evidence before you. Of course, the verdict must be yours, gentlemen, but I feel bound to say that in my opinion there is sufficient doubt for it to be unsafe for you to return a verdict against the prisoner." . . After such an intimation the jury found a verdict of "Not guilty" without leaving the box. The following day an announcement appeared in the Pre,ss that owing to the indisposition of Mr Justice Fewtrell he would be unable to take his seat on the bench, and a week later his resignation had been tendered and accepted.

A' fortnight afterwards Tempest was sitting in an easy chair in the library at the Judge's house. The old man looked strangely aged and altered. " I sent for you, Mr Tempest—l hope not at an inconvenient time—for several reasons. I think it is due to you that you should have certain explanations, and I feel very much indebted to you for the tact and discretion you exercised the other day. I thank you for it. I had no idea when the trial of Henry Winstanley began that his wife was Maud Carvalho. I confess I had only gone hurriedly through the depositions the previous night. But as the case progressed I could not help noticing the similarity of the circumstances to the unfortunate happening in which my son had been concerned with Miss Carvalho, the details of which he had confided to me. I became" uneasy about the matter, but in the course of your speech I. felt there could be, from the date and place, very little doubt. I felt, of course, that the man must not be convicted, and when you put forward your suggested explanation it seemed to me that on the basis of your own reasoning the real facts (which, of course, I knew) might quite as reasonably have been suggested to tho jury, and they seemed to me so much' more probable a solution that I interrupted you. In so doing by a slio of the tongue I used the name Carvalho. You noticed that and hesitated. Then I realised the mistake I had made, and I saw you had jumped to the right conclusion. I suppose you guessed all this."

"I confess I did, sir; I knew your son had been about a good deal with Miss Carvalho."

" Quite so—l saw you had. guessed, and I should, not have been surprised if you had brought it all out. Whether anyone else in court noticed my mistake I don't know, but knowing the man was innocent, of course, I felt bound to prevent a conviction." "I felt I could leave it with you, sir." y

"Of course, if they had found him guilty,, I should have had to confide in the Home Secretary, but they didn't, so I just resigned quietly." "Was that necessary, sir?'' " Oh, yes, I had no alternative. I ought never to have let my son hush it up to begin with. I ought never to .have tried a case I had a personal interest in. I ought never to have influenced a verdict by reason of my private knowledge; but, more than all, TemKest, my nerve was broken. Knowing ow near an innocent man had been to conviction through the fault of my own and my son's silence, I daren't have ever tried a man again, and I felt I was in your power. You knew my secret."

" Would that have mattered, sir?" "It ought not to have done, but I doubted my own abilitv ever to have tried a case fairly in which you appeared. It was better I should resign. _ " I don't think anyone else noticed or has guessed as I did." " Very likely you are right. There has been nothing so far in the papers, but I've got a conscience. Tempest. A Judge should be above emotion ajid must be above suspicion. There are traditions of the Bench." "I agree, sir, but are you sure the woman was Maud Carvalho?"

"Oh, yes, there's no doubt about that. I've made inquiry since."

At the annual meeting of the St John Ambulance Association it was stated that a method by which an ordinary stretcher could be vised in the large ambulance, to obviate the necessity which had existed of sometimes having to move a patient from an ordinary stretcher to the ambulance stretcher, had been evolved and would shortly be in use. The necessary fittings would be sent with the ambulance when it was ordered to meet the train, but it would bo necessary to state in applying when the fittings were required elsewhere.