A Whim, and Its Consequences: Collection of British Authors Vol. CXIVJames, G. P. R. (George Payne Rainsford)
General
A Whim, and Its Consequences: Collection of British Authors Vol. CXIV
James, G. P. R. (George Payne Rainsford)
Fiction
On the following morning, at the usual hour, the judge took his seat,
and the jury their places; the court was even more crowded than on the
day before, and the prisoner was once more placed in the dock. No
change had taken place in his appearance, except, perhaps, that he was
even a shade graver. He asked, however, to be permitted the use of a
chair, and to be furnished with pen, ink, and paper, which was granted
to him. The name of James Wilson was then called, and one of Mr.
Tracy's footmen got into the box. I shall give his testimony in his
own words:--"I am a servant in the employment of Mr. Tracy, of
Northferry House. I was so on the fifth of February last. I
remember on that day, about five in the evening, a gentleman coming to
the door and asking me if I could tell him where to find Acton, the
head-gardener. I answered that I could not, for that he had been
absent for some time, by Mr. Tracy's leave. The gentleman seemed very
much vexed, and I think said, 'How unfortunate!' But Mr. Jones, my
master's valet, who was crossing the hall at the time, came up, and
said, 'No, no, Wilson; he came back this afternoon.' And then turning
to the gentleman, he said, 'If you go through that glass-door, Sir,
and across the lawn, you will most likely find him somewhere in the
grounds. If not, he must be at his cottage in the lane just beyond;
any of the gardener's men will show you the way.' The gentleman then
crossed over, as he had been directed, and went out into the grounds.
I had never seen him before, but I remarked his face well. I never saw
him afterwards alive; but the same night, about ten o'clock, I was
called upon, with several more, to go down to a tool-house not far
from the fish-pond, and I then first heard that the body of a dead man
had been found and conveyed thither. The moment I saw the corpse, I
knew it was that of the gentleman who had been inquiring for Acton.
The body did not seem to have been rifled; and some money, a
pocket-book, a watch, and a pair of spectacles, were taken from it by
Mr. Tracy, as well as several loose papers; all of which he gave to
Taylor, the butler, to keep, telling him to mark them, and, as I
understood him, to give them to the constable. After looking at the
body, we all went down to the place where the under-gardener had found
it; we looked, as well as we could by the light of a lantern, for
steps, but we could not find much then. As we were looking for the
marks of steps, I found what they call a Dutch hoe, the iron part of
which was covered with blood, and there was some gray hair sticking
about it. When we went back to the tool-house where the body lay, Mr.
Tracy sent for Acton, the head-gardener, who came up directly; he
walked straight up to the body, when he was told a man had been found
murdered in the grounds; and, in answer to a question from Mr. Tracy,
said, he knew the dead man quite well, that his name was Mr. Roberts,
and that he was agent to the late Sir Harry Winslow. He seemed very
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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