Hard Cash

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"Hand it up to me," said the judge. He examined it, and said it had been
in the water.

"Captain Dodd was wrecked off the French coast," suggested Mr. Saunders.

"My learned friend had better go into the witness-box, if he means to
give evidence," said Mr. Colt.

"You are very much afraid of a very little truth," retorted Saunders.

The judge stopped this sham rencontre, by asking the witness whether her
father had been wrecked. She said "Yes."

"And that is how the money was lost," persisted Saunders.

"Possibly," said the judge.

"I'm darned if it was," said Joshua Fullalove composedly.

Instantly, all heads were turned in amazement at this audacious
interruption to the soporific decorum of an English court. The
transatlantic citizen received this battery of eyes with complete
imperturbability.

"Si-lence!" roared the crier, awaking from a nap, with an instinct that
something unusual had happened. But the shrewd old judge had caught the
sincerity with which the words were uttered, and put on his spectacles to
examine the speaker.

"Are you for the plaintiff or the defendant?"

"I don't know either of 'em from Adam, my lord. But I know Captain Dodd's
pocket-book by the bullet-hole."

"Indeed! You had better call this witness, Mr. Colt."

Your lordship must excuse me; I am quite content with my evidence," said
the wary advocate.

"Well then, I shall call him as _amicus curiae;_ and the defendant's
counsel can cross-examine him."

Fullalove went into the box, was sworn, identified the pocket-book, and
swore he had seen fourteen thousand pounds in it on two occasions. With
very little prompting, he told the sea-fight, and the Indian darkie's
attempt to steal the money, and pointed out Vespasian as the rival darkie
who had baffled the attempt. Then he told the shipwreck to an audience
now breathless--and imagine the astonished interest with which Julia and
Edward listened to this stranger telling them the new strange story of
their own father!--and lastly, the attempt of the two French wreckers and
assassins, and how it had been baffled. And so the mythical cash was
tracked to Boulogne.

The judge then put this question, "Did Captain Dodd tell you what he
intended to do with it?"

_Fullalove_ (reverently).--I think, my lord, he said he was going to give
it to his wife. (Sharply.) Well, what is it, old hoss? What are you
making mugs at me for? Don't you know it's clean against law to telegraph
a citizen in the witness-box?

_The Judge._--This won't do; this won't do.

_The Crier._--Silence in the court.

"Do you hyar now what his lordship says?" said Fullalove, with ready
tact. "If you know anything more, come up hyar and swear it like an
enlightened citizen; do you think I am going to swear for tew?" With this
Vespasian and Fullalove proceeded to change places amidst roars of
laughter at the cool off-hand way this pair arranged forensicalities; but
Serjeant Saunders requested Fullalove to stay where he was. "Pray sir,"
said he slowly, "who retained you for a witness in this cause?"

Fullalove looked puzzled.

"Of course somebody asked you to drop in here so very accidentally: come
now, who was it?"

"I'm God Almighty's witness dropped from the clouds, I cal'late."

"Come, sir, no prevarication. How came you here just at the nick of
time?"

"Counsellor, when I'm treated polite, I'm ile; but rile me, and I'm
thunder stuffed with pison: don't you raise my dander, and I'll tell you.
I have undertaken to educate this yar darkie,"--here he stretched out a
long arm, and laid his hand on Vespasian's woolly pate--"and I'm bound to
raise him to the Eu-ropean model." (Laughter.) " So I said to him, coming
over Westminster Bridge, 'Now there's a store hyar where they sell a very
extraordinary Fixin; and it's called Justice; they sell it tarnation
dear; _but_ prime. So I make tracks for the very court where I got the
prime article three years ago, against a varmint that was breaking the
seventh and eighth commandments over me, adulterating my patent and then
stealing it. Blast him!" (A roar of laughter.) "And coming along I said
this old country's got some good pints after all, old hoss. One is
they'll sell you justice dear, _but_ prime in these yar courts, if you
were born at Kamschatkee; and the other is, hyar darkies are free as air,
disenthralled by the univarsal genius of British liberty; and then I
pitched Counsellor Curran's bunkum into this darkie, and he sucked it in
like mother's milk, and in we came on tiptoe, and the first thing we
heard was a freeborn Briton treated wus than ever a nigger in Old
Kentuck, decoyed away from his gal, shoved into a darned madhouse--the
darbies clapped on him----"

"We don't want your comments on the case, sir."

"No, nor any other free and enlightened citizen's, I reckon. Wal,
Vespasian and me sat like mice in a snowdrift, and hid our feelings out
of good manners, being strangers, till his lordship got e-tarnally fixed
about the Captain's pocket-book. Vesp., says I, this hurts my feelings
powerful. Says I, this hyar lord did the right thing about my patent: he
summed up just: and now he is in an everlasting fix himself: one good
turn deserves another, I'll get him out of this fix, any way." Here the
witness was interrupted with a roar of laughter that shook the court.
Even the judge leaned back and chuckled, genially though quietly. And
right sorrowful was every Briton there when Saunders closed abruptly the
cross-examination of Joshua Fullalove.

His lordship then said he wished to ask Vespasian a question.

Saunders lost patience. " What, another _amicus curiae,_ my lud! This is
unprecedented."

"Excuse my curiosity, Brother Saunders," said the judge ironically. "I
wish to trace this L. 14,000 as far as possible. Have you any particular
objection to the truth on this head of evidence?"

"No, my lud, I never urge objections when I can't enforce them."

"Then you are a wise man." (To Vespasian, after he had been sworn), "Pray
did Captain Dodd tell you what he intended to do with this money?"

"Is, massa judge, massa captan told dis child he got a branker in some
place in de old country, called Barkinton. And he said dis branker bery
good branker, much sartiner not to break dan the brank of England. (A
howl.) De captan said he take de money to dis yer branker, and den hab no
more trouble wid it. Den it off my stomach, de captan say, and dis child
heerd him. Yah!"

The plaintiff's case being apparently concluded, the judge retired for a
few minutes.

In the buzz that followed, a note was handed to Mr. Compton; _"Skinner!_
On a hot scent. Sure to find him to-day.--_N.B._ He is wanted by another
party. There is something curious a-foot."

Compton wrote on a slip, "For Heaven's sake, bring him directly. In half
an hour it will be too late."

Green hurried out and nearly ran against Mr. Richard Hardie, who was
moodily pacing Westminster Hall at the climax of his own anxiety. To him
all turned on Skinner. Five minutes passed, ten, fifteen, twenty: all the
plaintiff's party had their eyes on the door; but Green did not return;
and the judge did. Then to gain a few minutes more, Mr. Colt, instructed
by Compton, rose and said with great solemnity, "We are about to call our
last witness: the living have testified to my client's sanity, and now we
shall read you the testimony of the dead."

_Saunders._--That I object to, of course.

_Colt._--Does my learned friend mean to say he objects at random?

_Saunders._--Nothing of the kind. I object on the law of evidence--a
matter on which my learned friend seems to be under a hallucination as
complete as his client's about that L. 14,000.

_Colt._--There's none ever feared
That the truth should he heard
But they whom the truth would indict.

_Saunders._--A court of justice is not the place for old songs; and new
law.

_Colt._--Really, my learned friend is the objective case incarnate. (To
Compton.--I can't keep this nonsense up for ever. Is Skinner come?) He
has a Mania for objection, and with your lordship's permission I'll buy a
couple of doctors and lock him up in an asylum as he leaves the court
this afternoon. (Laughter.)

_The judge._--A very good plan: then you'll no longer feel the weight of
his abilities. I conclude, Mr. Colt, you intend to call a witness who
will swear to the deceased person's hand-writing and that it was written
in the knowledge Death was at hand.

_Colt._--Certainly, my lord. I can call Miss Julia Dodd.

_Saunders._--That I need not take the trouble of objecting to.

_The judge_ (with some surprise).--No, Mr. Colt. That will never do. You
have examined her, and re-examined her.

I need hardly say Mr. Colt knew very well he could not call Julia Dodd.
But he was fighting for seconds now, to get in Skinner. "Call Edward
Dodd."

Edward was sworn, and asked if he knew the late Jane Hardie.

"I knew her well," said he.

"Is that her handwriting?"

"It is."

"Where was it written?"

"In my mother's house at Barkington."

"Under what circumstances?"

"She was dying--of a blow given her by a maniac called Maxley."

"Maxley!" said the judge to counsel. "I remember the Queen _v._ Maxley. I
tried him myself at the assizes: it was for striking a young lady with a
bludgeon, of which she died. Maxley was powerfully defended; and it was
proved that his wife had died, and he had been driven mad for a time, by
her father's bank breaking. The jury _would_ bring in a verdict that was
no verdict at all; as I took the liberty to tell them at the time. The
judges dismissed it, and Maxley was eventually discharged."

_Colt._--No doubt that was the case, my lord. To the witness.--Did Jane
Hardie know she was dying?

"Oh yes, sir. She told us all so."

"To whom did she give this letter?"

"To my sister."

"Oh, to your sister? To Miss Julia Dodd?"

"Yes, sir. But not for herself. It was to give to Alfred Hardie."

"Can you read the letter? It is rather faintly written. It is written in
pencil, my lord."

"I _could_ read it, sir; but I hope you will excuse me. She that wrote it
was very, very dear to me."

The young man's full voice faltered as he uttered these words, and he
turned his lion-like eyes soft and imploring on the judge. That venerable
and shrewd old man, learned in human nature as well as in law,
comprehended in a moment, and said kindly, "You misunderstand him.
Witnesses do not read letters _out_ in court. Let the letter be handed up
to me." This was fortunate, for the court cuckoo, who intones most
letters, would have read all the sense and pathos out of this, with his
monotonous sing-song.

The judge read it carefully to himself with his glasses, and told the
jury it seemed a genuine document: then the crier cried "Silence in the
court," and his lordship turned towards the jury and read the letter
slowly and solemnly:

_"DEAR, DEAR BROTHER,--Your poor little Jane lies dying, suddenly but not
painfully, and my last earthly thoughts are for my darling brother. Some
wicked person has said you are insane. I deny this with my dying breath
and my dying hand. You came to me the night before the wedding that was
to be, and talked to me most calmly, rationally and kindly; so that I
could not resist your reasons, and went to your wedding, which, till
then, I did not intend. Show these words to your slanderers when I am no
more. But oh! Alfred, even this is of little moment compared with the
world to come. By all our affection, grant me one request. Battered,
wounded, dying in my prime, what would be my condition but for the
Saviour, whom I have loved, and with whom I hope soon to be. He smoothes
the bed of death for me, He lights the dark valley; I rejoice to die and
be with Him. Oh, turn to Him, dear brother, without one hour's delay, and
then how short will be this parting. This is your dying sister's one
request, who loves you dearly._"

With the exception of Julia's sobs, not a sound was heard as the judge
read it. Many eyes were wet: and the judge himself was visibly affected,
and pressed his handkerchief a moment to his eyes. "These are the words
of a Christian woman, gentlemen," he said. And there was silence. A
girl's hand seemed to have risen from the grave to defend her brother and
rend the veil from falsehood.

Mr. Colt, out of pure tact, subdued his voice to the key of the sentiment
thus awakened, and said impressively, "Gentlemen of the jury, that is our
case:" and so sat down.

CHAPTER LIII

SERGEANT SAUNDERS thought it prudent to let the emotion subside before
opening the defendant's case: so he disarranged his papers, and then
rearranged them as before: and, during this, a person employed by Richard
Hardie went out and told him this last untoward piece of evidence. He
winced: but all was overbalanced by this, that Skinner had not come to
bear witness for the Plaintiff.

Sergeant Saunders rose with perfect dignity and confidence,. and
delivered a masterly address. In less than ten minutes the whole affair
took another colour under that plausible tongue. The tactician began by
declaring that the plaintiff was perfectly sane, and his convalescence
was a matter of such joy to the defendant, that not even the cruel
misinterpretation of facts and motives, to which his amiable client had
been exposed, could rob him of that sacred delight "Our case, gentlemen,
is, that the plaintiff is sane, and that he owes his sanity to those
prompt, wise, and benevolent measures, which we took eighteen months ago,
at an unhappy crisis of his mind, to preserve his understanding and his
property. Yes, his property, gentlemen; that property which in a paroxysm
of mania, he was going to throw away, as I shall show you by an
unanswerable document. He comes here to slander us and mulet us out of
five thousand pounds; but I shall show you he is already ten thousand
pounds the richer for that act of ours, for which he debits us five
thousand pounds instead of crediting us twice the sum. Gentlemen, I
cannot, like my learned friend, call witnesses from the clouds, from the
United States, and from the grave; for it has not occurred to my client
strong in the sense of his kindly and honourable intentions, to engage
gentlemen from foreign parts, with woolly locks and nasal twangs, to drop
in accidentally, and eke out the fatal gaps in evidence. The class of
testimony we stand upon is less romantic; it does not seduce the
imagination nor play upon the passions; but it is of a much higher
character in sober men's eyes, especially in a court of law. I rely, not
on witnesses dropped from the clouds, and the stars, and the stripes--to
order; nor even on the prejudiced statements of friends and sweethearts,
who always swear from the heart rather than from the head and the
conscience; but on the calm testimony of indifferent men, and on written
documents furnished by the plaintiff', and on contemporaneous entries in
the books of the asylum, which entries formally describe the plaintiff's
acts, and were put down at the time--at the time, gentlemen--with no idea
of a trial at law to come, but in compliance with the very proper
provisions of a wise and salutary Act. I shall also lay before you the
evidence of the medical witnesses who signed the certificates, men of
probity and honour, and who have made these subtle maladies of the mind
the special study of their whole life. I shall also call the family
doctor, who has known the plaintiff and his ailments, bodily and mental,
for many years, and communicated his suspicions to one of the first
psychological physicians of the age, declining, with a modesty which we,
who know less of insanity than he does, would do well to
imitate--declining, I say, to pronounce a positive opinion unfavourable
to the plaintiff, till he should have compared notes with this learned
man, and profited by his vast experience.

In this strain he continued for a good hour, until the defendants case
seemed to be a thing of granite. His oration ended, he called a string of
witnesses: every one of whom bore the learned counsel out by his evidence
in chief.

But here came the grand distinction between the defendants case and the
plaintiff's. Cross-examination had hardly shaken the plaintiff's
witnesses: it literally dissolved the defendant's. Osmond was called, and
proved Alfred's headaches and pallor, and his own suspicions. But then
Colt forced him to admit that many young people had headaches without
going mad, and were pale when thwarted in love, without going mad: and
that as to the L. 14,000 and the phantom, he _knew_ nothing; but had
taken all that for granted on Mr. Richard Hardie's word.

Dr. Wycherley deposed to Alfred's being insane and abnormally irritable,
and under a pecuniary illusion, as stated in his certificate: and to his
own vast experience. But the fire of cross-examination melted all his
polysyllables into guesswork and hearsay. It melted out of him that he, a
stranger, had intruded on the young man's privacy, and had burst into a
most delicate topic, his disagreement with his father, and so had himself
created the very irritation he had set down to madness. He also had to
admit that he knew nothing about the L. 14,000 or the phantom, but had
taken for granted the young man's own father, who consulted him, was not
telling him a deliberate and wicked falsehood.

_Colt._--In short, sir, you were retained to make the man out insane,
just as my learned friend there is retained.

_Wycherley._--I think, sir, it would not be consistent with the dignity
of my profession to notice that comparison.

_Colt._--I leave defendant's counsel to thank you for that. Come, never
mind _dignity;_ let us have a little _truth._ Is it consistent with your
dignity to tell us whether the keepers of private asylums pay you a
commission for all the patients you consign to durance vile by your
certificates?

Dr. Wycherley fenced with this question, but the remorseless Colt only
kept him longer under torture, and dragged out of him that he received
fifteen per cent. from the asylum keepers for every patient he wrote
insane; and that he had an income of eight hundred pounds a year from
that source alone. This, of course, was the very thing to prejudice a
jury against the defence: and Colt's art was to keep to their level.

Speers, cross-examined, failed to conceal that he was a mere tool of
Wycherley's, and had signed in manifest collusion, adhering to the letter
of the statute, but violating its spirit for certainly, the Act never
intended by "separate examination," that two doctors should come into the
passage, and walk into the room alternately, then reunite, and do the
signing as agreed before they ever saw the patient. As to the illusion
about the fourteen thousand pounds, Speers owned that the plaintiff had
not uttered a word about the subject, but had peremptorily declined it.
He had to confess, too, that he had taken for granted Dr. Wycherley was
correctly informed about the said illusion.

"In short," said the judge, interposing, "Dr. Wycherley took the very
thing for granted which it was his duty to ascertain; and you, sir, not
to be behind Dr. Wycherley, took the thing for granted at second hand."
And when Speers had left the box, he said to Serjeant Saunders, "If this
case is to be defended seriously, you had better call Mr. Richard Hardie
without further delay."

"It is my wish, my lud; but I am sorry to say he is in the country very
ill; and I have no hope of seeing him here before to-morrow."

"Oh, well; so that you _do_ call him. I shall not lay hearsay before the
jury: hearsay gathered from Mr. Richard Hardie--whom you will call in
person if the reports he has circulated have any basis whatever in
truth."

Mr. Saunders said coolly, "Mr. Richard Hardie is not the defendant," and
flowed on; nor would any but a lawyer have suspected what a terrible stab
the judge had given him so quietly.

The surgeon of Silverton House was then sworn, and produced the case
book; and there stood the entries which had been so fatal to Alfred with
the visiting justices. Suicide, homicide, self-starvation. But the
plaintiff got to Mr. Colt with a piece of paper, on which he had written
his view of all this, and cross-examination dissolved the suicide and
homicide into a spirited attempt to escape and resist a false
imprisonment As for the self-starvation, Colt elicited that Alfred had
eaten at six o'clock though not at two. "And pray, sir," said he,
contemptuously, to the witness, "do you never stir out of a madhouse? Do
you imagine that gentlemen in their senses dine at two o'clock in the
nineteenth century?"

"No. I don't say that."

"What _do_ you say, then? Is forcible imprisonment of a bridegroom in a
madhouse the thing to give a _gentleman_ a _factitious_ appetite at
_your_ barbarous dinner-hour?"

In a word, Colt was rough with this witness, and nearly smashed him.
Saunders fought gallantly on, and put in Lawyer Crawford with his draft
of the insane deed, as he called it, by which the erotic monomaniac
Alfred divested himself of all his money in favour of the Dodds. There
was no dissolving this deed away; and Crawford swore he had entreated the
plaintiff not to insist on his drawing so unheard-of a document; but
opposition or question seemed to irritate his client, so that he had
complied, and the deed was to have been signed on the wedding-day.

All the lawyers present thought this looked really mad. Fancy a man
signing away his property to his wife's relatives!! The court, which had
already sat long beyond the usual time, broke up, leaving the defendant
with this advantage. Alfred Hardie and his friends made a little knot in
the hall outside, and talked excitedly over the incidents of the trial.
Mr. Compton introduced Fullalove and Vespasian. They all shook hands with
them, and thanked them warmly for the timely and most unexpected aid. But
Green and a myrmidon broke in upon their conversation. "I am down on Mr.
Barkington _alias_ Noah Skinner. It isn't very far from here, if you will
follow me." Green was as excited as a foxhound when Pug has begun to
trail his brush: the more so that another client of his wanted Noah
Skinner; and so the detective was doing a double stroke of business. He
led the way; it was dry, and they all went in pairs after him into the
back slums of Westminster; and a pretty part that is.

Now as they went along Alfred hung behind with Julia, and asked her what
on earth she meant by swearing that it was all over between her and him.
"Why your last letter was full of love, dearest; what could you be
thinking of to say that?"

She shook her head sadly, and revealed to him with many prayers for
forgiveness that she had been playing a part of late: that she had
concealed her father's death from him, and the fatal barrier interposed.

"I was afraid you would be disheartened, and lose your first class and
perhaps your trial. But you are safe now, dear Alfred; I am sure the
judge sees through them; for I have studied him for you. I know his face
by heart, and all his looks and what they mean. My Alfred will be cleared
of this wicked slander, and happy with some one----Ah!"

"Yes, I mean to be happy with some one," said Alfred. "I am not one of
your self-sacrificing angels; thank Heaven! Your shall not sacrifice us
to your mother's injustice nor to the caprices of fate. We have one
another; but you would immolate me for the pleasure of immolating
yourself. Don't provoke me too far, or I'll carry you off by force. I
swear it, by Him who made us both."

"Dearest, how wildly you talk." And with this Julia hung her head, and
had a guilty thrill. She could not help thinking that eccentric little
measure would relieve her of the sin of disobedience.

After making known to her his desperate resolution, Alfred was silent,
and they went sadly side by side; so dear, so near, yet always some
infernal thing or other coming between them. They reached a passage in a
miserable street. At the mouth stood two of Green's men, planted there to
follow Skinner should he go out: but they reported all quiet. "Bring the
old gentleman up," said Green. "I appointed him six o'clock, and it's on
the stroke." He then descended the passage, and striking a light led the
way up a high stair. Skinner lived on the fifth story. Green tapped at
his door. "Mr. Barkington."

No reply.

"Mr. Barkington, I've brought you some money."

No reply.

"Perhaps he is not at home," said Mr. Compton.

"Oh, yes, sir, I sent a sharp boy up, and he picked the paper out of the
keyhole and saw him sitting reading."

He then applied his own eye to the keyhole. "I see something black," said
he, "I think he suspects."

While he hesitated, they became conscious of a pungent vapour stealing
through the now open keyhole.

"Hallo!" said Green, "what is this?"

Fullalove observed coolly that Mr. Skinner's lungs must he peculiarly
made if he could breathe in that atmosphere. "If you want to see him
alive, let me open the door."

"There's something amiss here," said Green gravely.