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CHAPTER LV
Henry Brierly took the stand. Requested by the District Attorney to tell
the jury all he knew about the killing, he narrated the circumstances
substantially as the reader already knows them.
He accompanied Miss Hawkins to New York at her request, supposing she was
coming in relation to a bill then pending in Congress, to secure the
attendance of absent members. Her note to him was here shown. She
appeared to be very much excited at the Washington station. After she
had asked the conductor several questions, he heard her say, "He can't
escape." Witness asked her "Who?" and she replied "Nobody." Did not see
her during the night. They traveled in a sleeping car. In the morning
she appeared not to have slept, said she had a headache. In crossing the
ferry she asked him about the shipping in sight; he pointed out where the
Cunarders lay when in port. They took a cup of coffee that morning at a
restaurant. She said she was anxious to reach the Southern Hotel where
Mr. Simons, one of the absent members, was staying, before he went out.
She was entirely self-possessed, and beyond unusual excitement did not
act unnaturally. After she had fired twice at Col. Selby, she turned the
pistol towards her own breast, and witness snatched it from her. She had
seen a great deal with Selby in Washington, appeared to be infatuated
with him.
(Cross-examined by Mr. Braham.) "Mist-er.....er Brierly!" (Mr. Braham had
in perfection this lawyer's trick of annoying a witness, by drawling out
the "Mister," as if unable to recall the name, until the witness is
sufficiently aggravated, and then suddenly, with a rising inflection,
flinging his name at him with startling unexpectedness.) "Mist-er.....er
Brierly! What is your occupation?"
"Civil Engineer, sir."
"Ah, civil engineer, (with a glance at the jury). Following that
occupation with Miss Hawkins?" (Smiles by the jury).
"No, sir," said Harry, reddening.
"How long have you known the prisoner?"
"Two years, sir. I made her acquaintance in Hawkeye, Missouri."
"M.....m...m. Mist-er.....er Brierly! Were you not a lover of Miss
Hawkins?"
Objected to. "I submit, your Honor, that I have the right to establish
the relation of this unwilling witness to the prisoner." Admitted.
"Well, sir," said Harry hesitatingly, "we were friends."
"You act like a friend!" (sarcastically.) The jury were beginning to hate
this neatly dressed young sprig. "Mister......er....Brierly! Didn't
Miss Hawkins refuse you?"
Harry blushed and stammered and looked at the judge. "You must answer,
sir," said His Honor.
"She--she--didn't accept me."
"No. I should think not. Brierly do you dare tell the jury that you had
not an interest in the removal of your rival, Col. Selby?" roared Mr.
Braham in a voice of thunder.
"Nothing like this, sir, nothing like this," protested the witness.
"That's all, sir," said Mr. Braham severely.
"One word," said the District Attorney. "Had you the least suspicion of
the prisoner's intention, up to the moment of the shooting?"
"Not the least," answered Harry earnestly.
"Of course not, of course-not," nodded Mr. Braham to the jury.
The prosecution then put upon the stand the other witnesses of the
shooting at the hotel, and the clerk and the attending physicians. The
fact of the homicide was clearly established. Nothing new was elicited,
except from the clerk, in reply to a question by Mr. Braham, the fact
that when the prisoner enquired for Col. Selby she appeared excited and
there was a wild look in her eyes.
The dying deposition of Col. Selby was then produced. It set forth
Laura's threats, but there was a significant addition to it, which the
newspaper report did not have. It seemed that after the deposition was
taken as reported, the Colonel was told for the first time by his
physicians that his wounds were mortal. He appeared to be in great
mental agony and fear; and said he had not finished his deposition.
He added, with great difficulty and long pauses these words. "I--have--
not--told--all. I must tell--put--it--down--I--wronged--her. Years--
ago--I--can't see--O--God--I--deserved----" That was all. He fainted
and did not revive again.
The Washington railway conductor testified that the prisoner had asked
him if a gentleman and his family went out on the evening train,
describing the persons he had since learned were Col. Selby and family.
Susan Cullum, colored servant at Senator Dilworthy's, was sworn. Knew
Col. Selby. Had seen him come to the house often, and be alone in the
parlor with Miss Hawkins. He came the day but one before he was shot.
She let him in. He appeared flustered like. She heard talking in the
parlor, I peared like it was quarrelin'. Was afeared sumfin' was wrong:
Just put her ear to--the--keyhole of the back parlor-door. Heard a man's
voice, "I--can't--I can't, Good God, quite beggin' like. Heard--young
Miss' voice, "Take your choice, then. If you 'bandon me, you knows what
to 'spect." Then he rushes outen the house, I goes in--and I says,
"Missis did you ring?" She was a standin' like a tiger, her eyes
flashin'. I come right out.
This was the substance of Susan's testimony, which was not shaken in the
least by severe cross-examination. In reply to Mr. Braham's question, if
the prisoner did not look insane, Susan said, "Lord; no, sir, just mad as
a hawnet."
Washington Hawkins was sworn. The pistol, identified by the officer as
the one used in the homicide, was produced Washington admitted that it
was his. She had asked him for it one morning, saying she thought she
had heard burglars the night before. Admitted that he never had heard
burglars in the house. Had anything unusual happened just before that.
Nothing that he remembered. Did he accompany her to a reception at Mrs.
Shoonmaker's a day or two before? Yes. What occurred? Little by little
it was dragged out of the witness that Laura had behaved strangely there,
appeared to be sick, and he had taken her home. Upon being pushed he
admitted that she had afterwards confessed that she saw Selby there.
And Washington volunteered the statement that Selby, was a black-hearted
villain.
The District Attorney said, with some annoyance; "There--there! That will
do."
The defence declined to examine Mr. Hawkins at present. The case for the
prosecution was closed. Of the murder there could not be the least
doubt, or that the prisoner followed the deceased to New York with a
murderous intent: On the evidence the jury must convict, and might do so
without leaving their seats. This was the condition of the case
two days after the jury had been selected. A week had passed since the
trial opened; and a Sunday had intervened.
The public who read the reports of the evidence saw no chance for the
prisoner's escape. The crowd of spectators who had watched the trial
were moved with the most profound sympathy for Laura.
Mr. Braham opened the case for the defence. His manner was subdued, and
he spoke in so low a voice that it was only by reason of perfect silence
in the court room that he could be heard. He spoke very distinctly,
however, and if his nationality could be discovered in his speech it was
only in a certain richness and breadth of tone.
He began by saying that he trembled at the responsibility he had
undertaken; and he should, altogether despair, if he did not see before
him a jury of twelve men of rare intelligence, whose acute minds would
unravel all the sophistries of the prosecution, men with a sense, of
honor, which would revolt at the remorseless persecution of this hunted
woman by the state, men with hearts to feel for the wrongs of which she
was the victim. Far be it from him to cast any suspicion upon the
motives of the able, eloquent and ingenious lawyers of the state; they
act officially; their business is to convict. It is our business,
gentlemen, to see that justice is done.
"It is my duty, gentlemen, to untold to you one of the most affecting
dramas in all, the history of misfortune. I shall have to show you a
life, the sport of fate and circumstances, hurried along through shifting
storm and sun, bright with trusting innocence and anon black with
heartless villainy, a career which moves on in love and desertion and
anguish, always hovered over by the dark spectre of INSANITY--an insanity
hereditary and induced by mental torture,--until it ends, if end it must
in your verdict, by one of those fearful accidents, which are inscrutable
to men and of which God alone knows the secret.
"Gentlemen, I, shall ask you to go with me away from this court room and
its minions of the law, away from the scene of this tragedy, to a
distant, I wish I could say a happier day. The story I have to tell is
of a lovely little girl, with sunny hair and laughing eyes, traveling
with her parents, evidently people of wealth and refinement, upon a
Mississippi steamboat. There is an explosion, one of those terrible
catastrophes which leave the imprint of an unsettled mind upon the
survivors. Hundreds of mangled remains are sent into eternity. When the
wreck is cleared away this sweet little girl is found among the panic
stricken survivors in the midst of a scene of horror enough to turn the
steadiest brain. Her parents have disappeared. Search even for their
bodies is in vain. The bewildered, stricken child--who can say what
changes the fearful event wrought in her tender brain--clings to the
first person who shows her sympathy. It is Mrs. Hawkins, this good lady
who is still her loving friend. Laura is adopted into the Hawkins
family. Perhaps she forgets in time that she is not their child. She is
an orphan. No, gentlemen, I will not deceive you, she is not an orphan.
Worse than that. There comes another day of agony. She knows that her
father lives. Who is he, where is he? Alas, I cannot tell you. Through
the scenes of this painful history he flits here and there a lunatic!
If he, seeks his daughter, it is the purposeless search of a lunatic, as
one who wanders bereft of reason, crying where is my child? Laura seeks
her father. In vain just as she is about to find him, again and again-he
disappears, he is gone, he vanishes.
"But this is only the prologue to the tragedy. Bear with me while I
relate it. (Mr. Braham takes out a handkerchief, unfolds it slowly;
crashes it in his nervous hand, and throws it on the table). Laura grew
up in her humble southern home, a beautiful creature, the joy, of the
house, the pride of the neighborhood, the loveliest flower in all the
sunny south. She might yet have been happy; she was happy. But the
destroyer came into this paradise. He plucked the sweetest bud that grew
there, and having enjoyed its odor, trampled it in the mire beneath his
feet. George Selby, the deceased, a handsome, accomplished Confederate
Colonel, was this human fiend. He deceived her with a mock marriage;
after some months he brutally, abandoned her, and spurned her as if she
were a contemptible thing; all the time he had a wife in New Orleans.
Laura was crushed. For weeks, as I shall show you by the testimony of
her adopted mother and brother, she hovered over death in delirium.
Gentlemen, did she ever emerge from this delirium? I shall show you that
when she recovered her health, her mind was changed, she was not what she
had been. You can judge yourselves whether the tottering reason ever
recovered its throne.
"Years pass. She is in Washington, apparently the happy favorite of a
brilliant society. Her family have become enormously rich by one of
those sudden turns, in fortune that the inhabitants of America are
familiar with--the discovery of immense mineral wealth in some wild lands
owned by them. She is engaged in a vast philanthropic scheme for the
benefit of the poor, by, the use of this wealth. But, alas, even here
and now, the same, relentless fate pursued her. The villain Selby
appears again upon the scene, as if on purpose to complete the ruin of
her life. He appeared to taunt her with her dishonor, he threatened
exposure if she did not become again the mistress of his passion.
Gentlemen, do you wonder if this woman, thus pursued, lost her reason,
was beside herself with fear, and that her wrongs preyed upon her mind
until she was no longer responsible for her acts? I turn away my head as
one who would not willingly look even upon the just vengeance of Heaven.
(Mr.Braham paused as if overcome by his emotions. Mrs. Hawkins and
Washington were in tears, as were many of the spectators also. The jury
looked scared.)
"Gentlemen, in this condition of affairs it needed but a spark--I do not
say a suggestion, I do not say a hint--from this butterfly Brierly; this
rejected rival, to cause the explosion. I make no charges, but if this
woman was in her right mind when she fled from Washington and reached
this city in company--with Brierly, then I do not know what insanity is."
When Mr. Braham sat down, he felt that he had the jury with him. A burst
of applause followed, which the officer promptly, suppressed. Laura,
with tears in her eyes, turned a grateful look upon her counsel. All the
women among the spectators saw the tears and wept also. They thought as
they also looked at Mr. Braham; how handsome he is!
Mrs. Hawkins took the stand. She was somewhat confused to be the target
of so many, eyes, but her honest and good face at once told in Laura's
favor.
"Mrs. Hawkins," said Mr. Braham, "will you' be kind enough to state the
circumstances of your finding Laura?"
"I object," said Mr. McFlinn; rising to his feet. "This has nothing
whatever to do with the case, your honor. I am surprised at it, even
after the extraordinary speech of my learned friend."
"How do you propose to connect it, Mr. Braham?" asked the judge.
"If it please the court," said Mr. Braham, rising impressively, "your
Honor has permitted the prosecution, and I have submitted without a word;
to go into the most extraordinary testimony to establish a motive. Are
we to be shut out from showing that the motive attributed to us could not
by reason of certain mental conditions exist? I purpose, may, it please
your Honor, to show the cause and the origin of an aberration of mind,
to follow it up, with other like evidence, connecting it with the very
moment of the homicide, showing a condition of the intellect, of the
prisoner that precludes responsibility."
"The State must insist upon its objections," said the District Attorney.
"The purpose evidently is to open the door to a mass of irrelevant
testimony, the object of which is to produce an effect upon the jury your
Honor well understands."
"Perhaps," suggested the judge, "the court ought to hear the testimony,
and exclude it afterwards, if it is irrelevant."
"Will your honor hear argument on that!"
"Certainly."
And argument his honor did hear, or pretend to, for two whole days,
from all the counsel in turn, in the course of which the lawyers read
contradictory decisions enough to perfectly establish both sides, from
volume after volume, whole libraries in fact, until no mortal man could
say what the rules were. The question of insanity in all its legal
aspects was of course drawn into the discussion, and its application
affirmed and denied. The case was felt to turn upon the admission or
rejection of this evidence. It was a sort of test trial of strength
between the lawyers. At the end the judge decided to admit the
testimony, as the judge usually does in such cases, after a sufficient
waste of time in what are called arguments.
Mrs. Hawkins was allowed to go on.
Content of CHAPTER LV [Mark Twain/C. D. Warner's novel: The Gilded Age]
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