Chapter XI

A CRIMINAL COURT IN THE STATE OF NEW YORK.

That same day the arrest of James Gobson was known all over the city, and in the evening the principal papers were full of the most absurd and sensational details of the scene at the morgue.

The pistol-shot fired by William Dow was represented by some of these papers as a veritable volley of musketry. Some said that Miss Ada’s assassin did not give himself up until he had fought and overpowered half a dozen policemen; others, that it was necessary to fire at and disable him in order to capture him.

Not until the next day were the facts exactly known, owing to the eagerness with which the police of America inform the public, to give it every means of control, not only by communicating official reports, but by authorizing journalists to visit the prisoners.

James Gobson found his cell besieged by a troop of reporters, but the story he told the first could have served for all the others, for it did not vary a syllable.

He had fully recovered his coolness; he ate, drank, and smoked like a man whose conscience is perfectly quiet. When he read anything severe about himself in the papers, he merely shrugged his shoulders.

When he was confronted with the witnesses, skilfully brought together by Mr. Mortimer and Davis, Thomson, the livery stable-keeper, and Tom Katters, his driver, who had recognized him by his features and voice, then with ten of Miss Ada Ricard’s guests, who declared that his form and bearing were those of the Indian in whose arms the unfortunate woman had been carried off, he answered them firmly, but without anger, that they were mistaken.

As for Mary, she could say nothing since she had seen the kidnapper only at a distance, beyond the throng of dancers.

But James Gobson had convinced none of his innocence, Mr. Davis less than anyone, for he refused to give him any liberty whatever, and notwithstanding the efforts of the lawyer Macready, who called to his aid all the ruses which the arsenal of the American law provides, the examination was so quickly ended that a month after his arrest the prisoner was informed that he was soon to appear before the Criminal Court.

The grand jury referred the indictment to the common jury.

“Do you plead guilty, or not guilty?” asked his defender on bringing him this news.

“Not guilty, Mr. Macready, not guilty,” answered the prisoner, warmly. “Do you doubt my innocence after all the proof I have given you?”

“Heaven forbid. I am certain of it, and I promise you that the lawyer for the State--the illustrious O’Brien--will have some ugly hours to pass,” and leaving his client with this kind promise, Mr. Macready went to once more look over his documents.

As for James Gobson, we must confess, that when he was alone in his cell, he did not so well conceal the anxiety which he had felt for several days and which visibly increased as the hour for his trial approached.

Public opinion, which has such great weight in matters of justice in the United States, was not favorable to him; and he lacked, what to the accused is a defensive weapon, often all-powerful--he belonged to no political party or any religious sect.

Now, James Gobson had not this advantage on his side. Politics were quiet, and without very great difficulty, in spite of the trickery of his defender, they had drawn the twelve necessary jurors, a more difficult operation in the United States than elsewhere.

Mr. Macready, who was an able man, had full confidence in the result of the trial, and so well convinced his client of this that on the morning when he was to appear before the criminal court, he breakfasted with an excellent appetite. Toward eleven o’clock, when the guards came to take the prisoner before the audience, he quietly put on his gloves, followed them with firm step, and took his place before the judges more as a curious spectator than as an accused man.

The crowd was large, and occupied, as it was, by the wax head of Ada Ricard, which had been placed on a small table, the people turned their looks away to fasten them on James Gobson, whom, perhaps, not one present knew by sight. But this movement of curiosity did not for a moment disturb the accused, who was sitting near his lawyer and talking to him in a low voice.

James Gobson raised his head only when the chief justice, Mr. Douglas, announced that the court was open.

It is useless to say that Mr. Mortimer and the coroner, Davis, were present, as well as our friends, William Dow and Young.

When the usual formalities were gone through with, Mr. O’Brien, the lawyer for the State, took up the arguments to review the facts on which the accusation rested.

If, among the auditors, there remained any persons still doubting the guilt of James Gobson, they were soon convinced of it, for, after having traced the accused back to the time of his marriage, to review his conduct toward his wife, his divorce, his habits, his vows of revenge, and his adventurous life, Mr. O’Brien showed him a few days before the crime at Jefferson preparing everything for its execution. Then he traced him to the livery stable-keeper, followed him to the ball at Miss Ada’s house, accompanied him to Yorkville, and then taking as a basis the ingenious deductions he had made, he got on board the boat with James Gobson and his wife, to make those present who were listening to him, witness the terrible scene that took place on the river at night. They saw the assassin choke Miss Ada, rob her of her jewels and clothing, and leave nothing on her by which she could be recognized in case she should come to the surface of the water later, fasten to one of her legs the barrel of tar stolen from Wharf 43; that the body, kept down at the bottom of the river, could not float before decomposition had made it quite unrecognizable, and finally, to fling into the deep the unhappy victim of this frightful murder.

“Having accomplished his crime, then,” said his accuser, “James Gobson had only one anxiety--to prepare an alibi to escape all suspicions. He then set out for the Rocky Mountains, where he remained not three months, as he pretended, but only one month; and when he returned and presented himself at the central police office it was to affirm that he had heard of the crime only a few hours, and that the drowned woman was not the one who had borne his name. Fortunately for justice, two honorable inhabitants of Jefferson saw James Gobson in that city only a few days before the crime, and ten witnesses found in him the features, voice and stature of the man who hired a carriage, gave orders to the coachman, Tom Katters, and so audaciously carried away Miss Ada Ricard from her guests. As for his accomplices, if they did not betray him, it was because they received their share of the booty, and because silence alone could save them.”

After this plain conclusive presentation of Mr. O’Brien, the court heard the witnesses. All confirmed their preceding testimony, all again recognized the poor woman in the wax head, excepting Mary, who, without daring to raise her eyes, murmured--

“I did not recognize my mistress at the morgue; how do you expect me to recognize her here?”

Only one witness failed to appear, and that was the fat Saunders; but, after a medical examination, the court and Mr. Macready excused him from appearing. Since we saw him last his condition had not improved; when Mr. Davis made a last attempt with him, he threw himself on his knees crying:

“It is I who am the cause of her death, but I did not mean to drown her. Oh! that colonel, I will kill him.”

And seeing in these inexplicable exclamations only the despair of a lover maddened by the loss of his loved one, the coroner said that Saunders before long would completely lose his reason.

As overpowering as the first part of this testimony might have been to him, James Gobson lost none of his calmness. He interrupted neither Mr. O’Brien nor the witnesses; he merely smiled at times.

The honorable chief justice, Mr. Douglas, had not addressed a word to James Gobson, and was about to let Mr. Macready have his turn, when Mr. Gobson suddenly arose and said in a firm voice:

“Your honors, and gentlemen of the jury; my lawyer, I am sure, is going to prove to you, without much trouble, how unfounded are the accusations which you have just heard. I wish only to tell you this: That all the witnesses who declare that they recognize me for the person of whom they speak are misled by a strange resemblance, as well as those who find in this wax face the features of the former Mrs. Gobson. I am no more the murderer of the drowned woman of whom that cast is taken, than the drowned woman is Ada Ricard.”

Having uttered these words, without feeling disturbed at the murmur with which the spectators had received them, the accused seated himself.

Mr. Macready then took the stand, and although his task seemed difficult, one would have thought from his very first words that there was not the shadow of a doubt in his mind as to the acquittal of his client.

“Whether the victim of this mysterious event,” were his opening words, “is or is not the woman called Ada Ricard, having first been Mrs. Gobson, matters little. Some recognize her, others do not, and the man whose greatest interest it would be to find the features of his wife in this wax face sees only a resemblance which did not for a moment deceive him. Yes, gentlemen, the greatest interest, for if Miss Ada Ricard were dead, her former husband, James Gobson, would receive twenty thousand dollars from Gresham Insurance Company. I know, and James Gobson knows as well as I do, that the assassination of one by the other of the contractors annuls the contract; then you would have to accuse my client of complicity only, for bold and skilful as you believe him, he would never have been so simple as to make himself unworthy of the only benefit he might obtain from the death of her who had been his wife. The very situation in which you have placed him makes the crime impossible; he had no object to commit it only through vengeance. To give himself that cruel satisfaction, he would have risked his honor, his life, and twenty thousand dollars; that is a great deal. Oh! I know very well that my opponent would like to make him out not only an assassin but a thief, who not only killed his wife but even robbed her of her jewels, and that they were the reward of his crime, a reward that would compensate, and how greatly indeed, for the loss of twenty thousand dollars.

“Well, where are these jewels? Has he sold them? To whom? Have you found them at his house, in his trunks? It is not sufficient to say of a man that he has stolen; if he has not been caught in the act, it must be further proven what he has done with the articles stolen or discover a trace of them. In this case you make the accusation of a theft and the main proof nowhere exists. I affirm, then, that you cannot condemn him as a murderer, for, apart from the theft, he would have acted like a fool if he had made himself the murderer of his wife.

“Let us consider. If he had murdered and robbed Ada Ricard, what would have been his object in presenting himself to Mr. Kelly? Consider, I say, that here is a man who, having a certain fortune, has committed a crime which brings him nearly one hundred thousand dollars. He can escape pursuit, yet he delivers himself up to the police. Is the idea admissible for a single instant? No; the truth is this: When, learning the death of the former Mrs. Gobson, James remembered his assurance policy; and his sole aim in coming to New York was to obtain a death certificate to benefit by the clauses of this policy, and it was he--even when he could not doubt your suspicions, ready to break forth into an accusation--it was he who cried out, sacrificing his own interests: ‘You are all mistaken, that is not Ada Ricard.’

“Does not common sense, logic and reason overthrow your romantic construction? Unless it was committed by some blood-thirsty brute, is not all crime a speculation? A monstrous speculation, but still a speculation. Well, is James Gobson a brute? No; then what could his speculation have been?

“Let us pass now to these facts which the lawyer for the State links with such skill, or what he thinks he does. They will not bear examining an instant; he is no wise man who accepts them. You wish to make out that James Gobson killed his wife because he tells you that he was in the Rocky Mountains at the moment of the crime, and that two persons saw him a few days before at Jefferson. In the first place were not these persons mistaken? But admitting that they tell the truth, I do not think you have made a point as regards the assertion.

“James Gobson must then be forced, under penalty of being regarded as a criminal, to recall what he was doing during that night that Miss Ada was entertaining her friends? I confess to you, for my part, that if I had to say what I was doing and where I was three months ago at that hour, I should be very much embarrassed; and I defy any one here to declare on his honor that he can precisely answer such a question. And then, is it my mission to prove that my client is innocent? That is a mistake; it is you, whose mission it is to prove him guilty. Now you do not do so. You present a man disguised and masked. You do not tear off the mask. You give him accomplices and do not find them again. You say that he has stolen, and you do not know what has became of the articles stolen. All that is very serious, and have I not a right to cry out? A crime has been committed--a mysterious crime--whose victim even, is not absolutely recognized; a crime that has deeply stirred public opinion, which you wish to bring to your side and calm, and you think it indispensable to offer a guilty man; whoever it may be, were it even James Gobson, a perfectly innocent man.”

This, it will be understood, is only Mr. Macready’s plea abridged, for he spoke more than five hours, and often succeeded in winning a portion of his hearers. But his influence was not so great on the jury, for, after less than an hour’s deliberation, they brought in a verdict of guilty.

On hearing the head juryman declare his client guilty of murder, with extenuating circumstances there could be no question about it--nothing of the kind being allowed in the American law, Mr. Macready, who had arisen, sank back overcome on his chair. As for James Gobson, he did not betray the least surprise, but a smile of scorn was on his lips.

Hon. Mr. Douglas now arose. He read in a loud voice the various articles of the penal law relating to the case, and pronounced the accused condemned to death. Then, after consulting an almanac, he added:

“James Gobson, unless you have some serious objection to the day, you will be hanged on the twenty-fifth of this month. To-day is Tuesday; it will be a fortnight from to-morrow.”

“I should prefer, your honor,” answered the condemned man, with much coolness, “to live a little longer, but I have no other remark to make. Wednesday awakens no repugnance in my mind. On that day you will cause an innocent man to die.”

After putting on his hat and clasping the hand of his defender, James Gobson retired as calm as when he had come there.

The crowd, from which there had not been the slightest murmur of approbation or disapprobation, moved quietly away. It was evident, nevertheless, that Mr. Macready had gained a certain number of his hearers. To the minds of some there was a doubt as to the guilt of his client.

The intrepid Young was one of the latter; for, as he was leaving the court-room in company with William Dow, the latter asking him if he was convinced, he answered:

“Not at all. That devil of a man did not betray himself a single minute; he had the calmness of an innocent man. Besides, what vexes me is that we cannot put our hands on his accomplices or the jewels of Miss Ada. Mr. Macready is right, if he stole the jewels why did he come and give himself up?”

“To believe a thing you have to see it.”

“Well, deuce take it, when I see a thing I know it.”

“Then, when the wind carries away your hat you do not believe it is the wind because it is not visible. Ah, my dear captain, you are the bravest soldier I know, but you will never be a wise detective. Well, now, to please you and quiet your conscience, I promise to find you James Gobson’s accomplices and his wife’s jewels.”

“Ah, that day my admiration for you will be unbounded.”

William Dow received this flattering assurance with a sad smile, which said that he had a very different aim than the puerile satisfaction of vanity; then he pressed the hand the chief of detectives offered him and left, saying:

“Yes, certainly, I shall find the accomplices, or rather the aids, of James Gobson, and before long, I hope.”