Chapter XVIII: Dorn's Terrible Mistake

Dorn Hackett's preliminary examination by a committing magistrate took place before Squire Bodley, and was even a more important event, for all the country around, than the inquest had been. As upon the former occasion, the Squire's little office was crowded densely, and apparently by exactly the same persons who filled it then,--with the exception that the small space within the railing was somewhat more jammed by the addition of five more persons than were there at the time of the inquest; the prisoner, Dorn Hackett; his lawyer, Mr. Dunn; the prosecuting attorney; the officer who brought Dorn from Sag Harbor jail, and a reporter from New York. Peter Van Deust was seated where he sat before, looking fearfully worn and old, as was remarked by all who knew him and viewed with surprise the great change that had been wrought in him within the few weeks since his brother's murder. He had more command over himself now, however, than he showed on the first day of the inquest; and instead of bowing his head and weeping, leaned upon the end of the table and fixed his eyes with a hungrily keen gaze upon the witnesses and the prisoner, as if he would fain have penetrated their hearts to know the truth.

Lem Pawlett was called, but did not respond, and in his absence another witness formally testified as to the facts of the discovery of the murder. Peter Van Deust repeated his former testimony. Then the prosecuting attorney called the name of Mary Wallace.

"Stop a moment," interposed the prisoner's counsel. "I desire to know the object of the prosecution in calling this witness?"

"It is neither customary nor requisite," responded the prosecutor, "for the State to give such information. At the same time, I have no objection, under the existing circumstances, to inform the counsel that we intend to prove, by this witness, that the prisoner was in the vicinity of where this murder was perpetrated upon the night of its perpetration; keeping himself in the woods, evading the sight of former friends and neighbors, though he had not re-visited them or made himself known among them for three years or more, and that he parted from the person we have just called as a witness a little while before the hour at which the murder, as we have reason to believe, was committed."

"We are ready to admit," replied Mr. Dunn, "that the prisoner was in the woods within a half, or possibly a quarter, of a mile of the Van Deust homestead on the night of the murder; that for what seemed to him good and sufficient reasons, yet very innocent ones--which the younger portion of my hearers will possibly imagine and appreciate more readily than the old ones--he _did_ seek to avoid meeting any inquisitive and gossiping friends; and that he parted from the person whom the State has just called before the hour at which the murder was committed. I believe those admissions cover all the State desires to show by this witness, and consequently, I do not see that there can be any necessity, at this time, for placing her on the stand."

"None at all. We are satisfied with the admissions," assented the prosecutor cheerfully, not at all dissatisfied with expediting business in the close and heated quarters in which he found himself.

A look of relief, almost of pleasure, passed over Dorn's face. He had his Mary spared the embarrassment and unhappiness of appearing as a witness against him, for that time at least.

A man named Schooly, from New Haven, testified that he saw Dorn in his boarding-house in that city two days after the date of the murder, and he was then suffering from some cuts, bruises, and sprains which he claimed to have received while running through the Long Island woods at night.

Detective Turner bore witness to the finding in the prisoner's room in New Haven of a pair of pantaloons and a jacket stained with blood, and a shirt which, though it had been washed, still bore blood stains. He further narrated that the prisoner had stoutly resisted arrest; had, indeed, fought hard to effect an escape; and upon being overcome and searched, had been found to have, in a belt about his body, some three hundred dollars in gold coins--which the witness here produced for inspection by the magistrate, and possible identification by Mr. Peter Van Deust.

The old man looked them over a little, and then pushed them away with a weary sigh, saying simply:

"Jacob had gold in his bag; I don't know how much. Minted coins are all alike."

The case looked very weak for the prosecution. There was really nothing beyond mere suspicion to connect the prisoner with the crime. The prosecuting attorney, with a discontented look, whispered to the detective,--who was evidently uneasy,--and shuffled over again the pages of the testimony taken at the inquest, with a faint hope that he might find there some previously overlooked clue to be of service now. But there was nothing.

The prisoner's counsel leaned back to his client and whispered exultantly: "I defy any jury, or magistrate, to find on that evidence anything worse than the Scotch verdict of 'Not Proven.'"

"'Not Proven'?" exclaimed Dorn, "I don't want such a verdict as that. Cast a cloud of suspicion and doubt over my whole life! No, I'd rather be hanged at once and done with it. What I demand is a verdict of 'Not Guilty.'"

"Better be satisfied with what you can get. 'Not Proven' would be just as good."

"Not for me. I want to tell the Squire, and everybody, just what happened to me that night. I'm sure that they will see I am telling the truth, and I'll clear away this suspicion."

An older and shrewder practitioner than Mr. Dunn would have positively refused to permit his client to imperil, by a word, the present promising condition of his case; but he could not help entering into the feeling of the brave, handsome and earnest young fellow who pleaded so hard to be permitted to defend himself with the truth, and yielded.

"If your honor pleases," he said simply, "my client requests to be permitted to make his own statement of the events of the night in question affecting him, or in which he had a part."

"I shall be happy to hear him," answered Squire Bodley, who was conscious of feeling prepossessed in Dorn's favor, and desirous of seeing him clear himself from suspicion.

The prosecuting attorney looked up with a new light of hope in his eyes. Well he knew how even innocent persons sometimes tangle themselves up in trying to tell a straight story, and how their unpractised and unguarded utterances can be garbled, warped, and misconstrued. But Dorn's manner gave him very little encouragement. In a plain, straight-forward way, that went home with the force of truth to the hearts of all who heard him, the young man told his brief tale of mal-adventure on that luckless night.

Why he had come to Long Island that evening and tried to avoid being seen by anybody but the person he came to see was, he said, his own business--had no bearing on this affair--and he did not propose to make any statement about that. He did not need to. Already it had in some way become matter of public knowledge all over that end of Long Island that he had come to see Mary Wallace, his sweetheart, who stuck to him so well in his trouble that she had been to see him in jail. And nobody thought the worse of him for that, certainly.

Having disposed of that matter so simply, he retold his story, from the time of his starting to run through the woods to catch Mr. Hollis's sloop up to his final arrival at his home in New Haven the next morning. "Deeply I regret," he said, in concluding the narrative, "that I do not know the two persons who assisted me; the gentleman on horseback and the old man in the smack; and beyond measure grateful I would be to them if they, learning of the trouble into which I have innocently fallen, would come forward to corroborate my statement of what happened that night."

"And you know of absolutely nothing," said the prosecuting attorney, after a little whispering with old Peter Van Deust, who was seen to violently shake his head, "which might lead to the discovery of the real existence of either of those persons who, according to your very romantic story, came so opportunely to give you their aid?" He spoke with an affectation of incredulity, which in his heart he was very far from feeling.

"Nothing whatever, sir," replied Dorn. "The only trace I have left of either of them, except the memory of their kindness to me, is the handkerchief which the little gentleman bound around my head. It has been washed, with the rest of my clothing over which the blood flowed from my scalp wounds, and was sent to me yesterday in the valise which was forwarded to me from my boarding house in New Haven. I have it with me. Here it is."

So saying he drew from one of his pockets a large white linen handkerchief, clean and neatly folded, which he handed to the prosecuting attorney. That official took it in an absent-minded way, looked at it negligently, and--his mind busy with some trap he was minded to set for the young man--then tossed the light fabric carelessly from him upon the table. It fell before old Peter Van Deust, who snatched it up and, after turning it from one corner to another for close examination, suddenly startled everybody by a loud cry and the exclamations:

"It was his! It was Jacob's! I can swear to it!"

The old man was immediately recalled to the witness-stand, and testified with much demonstration of excitement:

"I felt that it was his as soon as I saw it, and when I examined it I was sure of it. Jacob had some harmless, womanish ways about him. He could sew, and knit, and embroider a little. He marked all his clothing himself--every article of it I believe--in a very modest way; hardly discernible at a casual glance, but very plain when you come to look for it, as you can see on that handkerchief. Look in that corner and you'll see his initials '_J. V. D._' worked with a single white thread. You can hardly see it without you hold it so that the light will show the lines of the letters lying across the threads of the fabric. There! That way it shows plainly."

It was as he said. The letters "_J. V. D._" were unquestionably there.

Dorn sank back in his seat aghast and terrified by this astonishing discovery. Who now believed his story of the little gentleman and the old man in the smack? Nobody. Everybody saw that it was an artfully concocted lie, and was indignant with him for duping them, by his apparently ingenuous and honest manner, into momentarily believing him. An audible murmur about the "finger of Providence" ran through the throng, and Mr. Dunn groaned, half to himself and half to his client:

"Oh, I was afraid you'd play the devil somehow! Why couldn't you have let well enough alone?"

Squire Bodley, having carefully examined for himself the marked handkerchief, said solemnly to the accused:

"Young man, you have, I fear, placed the noose about your own neck. You will stand committed to await the action of the Grand Jury. Without bail, of course," he added, seeing that the prisoner's counsel had risen and seemed about to say something.

Whatever it was that Mr. Dunn had an idea of saying or doing when he got upon his feet, he changed his mind and sat down again. The fact was that he was as completely stunned as was his client by the revelation that had been made. Dorn had sworn to him that he was innocent, and he had believed it. But now--? He, even, began to have his doubts.

At this moment a sharp-featured woman, wearing a sun-bonnet and with a tangled lock of sandy hair hanging down her back, having literally fought her way to the railing, leaned over it and asked the magistrate in an acidulous whisper:

"Squire, can't I swear to something against him?"

"It would be useless, now, Mrs. Thatcher," replied the Squire, "as he has already been committed. But your evidence might be desired by the Grand Jury. What can you testify to?"

"I can swear," answered the woman, with eager spite, "that he's a hardened villain, and that I believe he killed Jake Van Deust, and that he's been keeping that fool niece of mine out in the woods to the latest and most indecent hours of the night."

"Madam," said the Squire, with mingled dignity and contempt, "you will excuse my saying that you are simply disgusting! Go away!"