Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (804 page)

“Mr. Dubourg,” I began, “you will already have guessed that I overheard what Miss Finch said to you at parting?”

He bowed, in silent acknowledgment that it was so — and began to toy nervously with the gold vase which Lucilla had left on the table.

“What do you propose to do?” I went on. “You have spoken of the interest you feel in my young friend. If it is a true interest, it will lead you to merit her good opinion by complying with her request. Tell me plainly, if you please. Will you come and see us, in the character of a gentleman who has satisfied two ladies that they can receive him as a neighbour and a friend? Or will you oblige me to warn the rector of Dimchurch that his daughter is in danger of permitting a doubtful character to force his acquaintance on her?”

He put the vase back on the table, and turned deadly pale.

“If you knew what I have suffered,” he said; “if you had gone through what I have been compelled to endure — ” His voice failed him; his soft brown eyes moistened; his head drooped. He said no more.

In common with all women, I like a man to
be
a man. There was, to my mind, something weak and womanish in the manner in which this Dubourg met the advance which I had made to him. He not only failed to move my pity — he was in danger of stirring up my contempt.

“I too have suffered,” I answered. “I too have been compelled to endure. But there is this difference between us.
My
courage is not worn out. In your place, if I knew myself to be an honourable man, I would not allow the breath of suspicion to rest on me for an instant. Cost what it might, I would vindicate myself. I should be ashamed to cry — I should speak.”

That stung him. He started up on his feet.

“Have
you
been stared at by hundreds of cruel eyes?” he burst out passionately. “Have
you
been pointed at, without mercy, wherever you go? Have you been put in the pillory of the newspapers? Has the photograph proclaimed
your
infamous notoriety in all the shop-windows?” He dropped back into his chair, and wrung his hands in a frenzy. “Oh, the public!” he exclaimed; “the horrible public! I can’t get away from them — I can’t hide myself, even here. You have had your stare at me, like the rest,” he cried, turning on me fiercely. “I knew it when you passed me last night.”

“I never saw you out of this place,” I answered. “As for the portraits of you, whoever you may be, I know nothing about them. I was far too anxious and too wretched, to amuse myself by looking into shop-windows before I came here. You, and your name, are equally strange to me. If you have any respect for yourself, tell me who you are. Out with the truth, sir! You know as well as I do that you have gone too far to stop.”

I seized him by the hand. I was wrought up by the extraordinary outburst that had escaped him to the highest pitch of excitement: I was hardly conscious of what I said or did. At that supreme moment, we enraged, we maddened each other. His hand closed convulsively on my hand. His eyes looked wildly into mine.

“Do you read the newspapers?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Have you seen —
 
— ?”

“I have
not
seen the name of ‘Dubourg’ —
 
— ”

“‘My name is not ‘Dubourg.’“

“What is it?”

He suddenly stooped over me; and whispered his name in my ear.

In my turn I started, thunderstruck, to my feet.

“Good God!” I cried. “You are the man who was tried for murder last month, and who was all but hanged, on the false testimony of a clock!”

CHAPTER THE EIGHTH

The Perjury of the Clock

WE looked at one another in silence. Both alike, we were obliged to wait a little and recover ourselves.

I may occupy the interval by answering two questions which will arise in your minds in this place. How did Dubourg come to be tried for his life? And what was the connection between this serious matter and the false testimony of a clock?

The reply to both these inquiries is to be found in the story which I call the Perjury of the Clock.

In briefly relating this curious incidental narrative (which I take from a statement of the circumstances placed in my possession) I shall speak of our new acquaintance at Browndown — and shall continue to speak of him throughout these pages — by his assumed name. In the first place, it was the maiden name of his mother, and he had a right to take it if he pleased. In the second place, the date of our domestic drama at Dimchurch goes back as far as the years ‘fifty-eight and ‘fifty-nine; and real names are (now that it is all over) of no consequence to anybody. With “Dubourg” we have begun. With “Dubourg” let us go on to the end.

On a summer evening, some years ago, a man was found murdered in a field near a certain town in the West of England. The name of the field was, “Pardon’s Piece.”

The man was a small carpenter and builder in the town, who bore an indifferent character. On the evening in question, a distant relative of his, employed as farm-bailiff by a gentleman in the neighbourhood, happened to be passing a stile which led from the field into a road, and saw a gentleman leaving the field by way of this stile, rather in a hurry. He recognised the gentleman as Mr. Dubourg.

The two passed each other on the road in opposite directions. After a certain lapse of time — estimated as being half an hour — the farm-bailiff had occasion to pass back along the same road. On reaching the stile, he heard an alarm raised, and entered the field to see what was the matter. He found several persons running from the farther side of Pardon’s Piece towards a boy who was standing at the back of a cattle-shed, in a remote part of the enclosure, screaming with terror. At the boy’s feet lay, face downwards, the dead body of a man, with his head horribly beaten in. His watch was under him, hanging out of his pocket by the chain. It had stopped — evidently in consequence of the concussion of its owner’s fall on it — at half-past eight. The body was still warm. All the other valuables, like the watch, were left on it. The farm-bailiff instantly recognised the man as the carpenter and builder mentioned above.

At the preliminary inquiry, the stoppage of the watch at half-past eight, was taken as offering good circumstantial evidence that the blow which had killed the man had been struck at that time.

The next question was — if any one had been seen near the body at half-past eight? The farm-bailiff declared that he had met Mr. Dubourg hastily leaving the field by the stile at that very time. Asked if he had looked at his watch, he owned that he had not done so. Certain previous circumstances which he mentioned as having impressed themselves on his memory, enabled him to feel sure of the truth of his assertion, without having consulted his watch. He was pressed on this important point; but he held to his declaration. At half-past eight he had seen Mr. Dubourg hurriedly leave the field. At half-past eight the watch of the murdered man had stopped.

Had any other person been observed in or near the field at that time?

No witness could be discovered who had seen anybody else near the place. Had the weapon turned up, with which the blow had been struck? It had not been found. Was anyone known (robbery having plainly not been the motive of the crime) to have entertained a grudge against the murdered man? It was no secret that he associated with doubtful characters, male and female; but suspicion failed to point to any one of them in particular.

In this state of things, there was no alternative but to request Mr. Dubourg — well known in, and out of the town, as a young gentleman of independent fortune; bearing an excellent character — to give some account of himself.

He immediately admitted that he had passed through the field. But in contradiction to the farm-bailiff, he declared that
he
had looked at his watch at the moment before he crossed the stile, and that the time by it was exactly a quarter past eight. Five minutes later — that is to say ten minutes before the murder had been committed, on the evidence of the dead man’s watch — he had paid a visit to a lady living near Pardon’s Piece; and had remained with her, until his watch, consulted once more on leaving the lady’s house, informed him that it was a quarter to nine.

Here was the defense called an “alibi.” It entirely satisfied Mr. Dubourg’s friends. To satisfy justice also, it was necessary to call the lady as a witness. In the meantime, another purely formal question was put to Mr. Dubourg. Did he know anything of the murdered man?

With some appearance of confusion, Mr. Dubourg admitted that he had been induced (by a friend) to employ the man on some work. Further interrogation extracted from him the following statement of facts.

That the work had been very badly done — that an exorbitant price had been charged for it — that the man, on being remonstrated with, had behaved in a grossly impertinent manner — that an altercation had taken place between them — that Mr. Dubourg had seized the man by the collar of his coat, and had turned him out of the house — that he had called the man an infernal scoundrel (being in a passion at the time), and had threatened to “thrash him within an inch of his life” (or words to that effect) if he ever presumed to come near the house again; that he had sincerely regretted his own violence the moment he recovered his self-possession; and, lastly, that, on his oath (the altercation having occurred six weeks ago), he had never spoken to the man, or set eyes on the man since.

As the matter then stood, these circumstances were considered as being unfortunate circumstances for Mr. Dubourg — nothing more. He had his “alibi” to appeal to, and his character to appeal to; and nobody doubted the result.

The lady appeared as witness.

Confronted with Mr. Dubourg on the question of time, and forced to answer, she absolutely contradicted him, on the testimony of the clock on her own mantelpiece. In substance, her evidence was simply this. She had looked at her clock, when Mr. Dubourg entered the room; thinking it rather a late hour for a visitor to call on her. The clock (regulated by the maker, only the day before) pointed to twenty-five minutes to nine. Practical experiment showed that the time required to walk the distance, at a rapid pace, from the stile to the lady’s house, was just five minutes. Here then was the statement of the farm-bailiff (himself a respectable witness) corroborated by another witness of excellent position and character. The clock, on being examined next, was found to be right. The evidence of the clock-maker proved that he kept the key, and that there had been no necessity to set the clock and wind it up again, since he had performed both those acts on the day preceding Mr. Dubourg’s visit. The accuracy of the clock thus vouched for, the conclusion on the evidence was irresistible. Mr. Dubourg stood convicted of having been in the field at the time when the murder was committed; of having, by his own admission, had a quarrel with the murdered man, not long before, terminating in an assault and a threat on his side; and, lastly, of having attempted to set up an alibi by a false statement of the question of time. There was no alternative but to commit him to take his trial at the Assizes, charged with the murder of the builder in Pardon’s Piece.

The trial occupied two days.

No new facts of importance were discovered in the interval. The evidence followed the course which it had taken at the preliminary examinations — with this difference only, that it was more carefully sifted. Mr. Dubourg had the double advantage of securing the services of the leading barrister on the circuit, and of moving the irrepressible sympathies of the jury, shocked at his position and eager for proof of his innocence. By the end of the first day, the evidence had told against him with such irresistible force, that his own counsel despaired of the result. When the prisoner took his place in the dock on the second day, there was but one conviction in the minds of the people in court — everybody said, “The clock will hang him.”

It was nearly two in the afternoon; and the proceedings were on the point of being adjourned for half an hour, when the attorney for the prisoner was seen to hand a paper to the counsel for the defense.

The counsel rose, showing signs of agitation which roused the curiosity of the audience. He demanded the immediate hearing of a new witness; whose evidence in the prisoner’s favor he declared to be too important to be delayed for a single moment. After a short colloquy between the judge and the banisters on either side, the court decided to continue the sitting.