England -- Fiction; Mystery fiction; Trials (Murder) -- Fiction
Lady Meg Brance was called by the prosecution to prove that a certain
mendicant, by name Battersea, had offered her the devil-stick for sale
as a curiosity. Knowing that it was the weapon with which Mr. Alymer
had been killed--according to the reports which were current at the
time--she had brought it to Major Jen, along with the tramp.
Battersea entered the witness-box and deposed that he was of mixed
negro blood, and by reason of his superstition, under the influence of
Dido. At times she hypnotized him, but he did not know when she did
it; he thought it was Obi--African witchcraft. Sometimes he carried
messages between her and the prisoner. Dr. Etwald had told him to say
one single word to Dido--that was "devil-stick." He did not know what
it meant. Afterward the devil-stick--as he was told--had disappeared,
and Mr. Alymer was murdered. He found the devil-stick on the grass,
near the bushes, within the gates of "The Wigwam." Not knowing what it
was, he took it to Lady Meg Brance, who sometimes gave him money. She
took witness and the devil-stick to Major Jen, who now possessed it.
With regard to the stealing of the body, witness said that he saw it
placed in a carriage, and by clinging on behind he had traced the
carriage to the house of Dr. Etwald, in Deanminster. Prisoner drove
the carriage himself. Witness tried to get money out of prisoner by
telling what he had seen; but Dr. Etwald had forced him to hold his
tongue by threatening him with the vengeance of the Voodoo stone.
Being half an African, witness was very much afraid of the charm.
In his turn Jaggard, but lately recovered from his illness, related
how he had been drugged by Dido, and how she had been concealed under
the bed. After his evidence, which did not take long, had been given,
the principal witness for the prosecution was called, and the negress
Dido, whose name had been so often mentioned, entered the witness-box.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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