I was chosen Foreman of the Jury. On the second morning of the trial,
after evidence had been taken for two hours (I heard the church clocks
strike), happening to cast my eyes over my brother jurymen, I found an
inexplicable difficulty in counting them. I counted them several times,
yet always with the same difficulty. In short, I made them one too many.
I touched the brother jurymen whose place was next me, and I whispered to
him, “Oblige me by counting us.” He looked surprised by the request, but
turned his head and counted. “Why,” says he, suddenly, “we are Thirt—;
but no, it’s not possible. No. We are twelve.”
According to my counting that day, we were always right in detail, but in
the gross we were always one too many. There was no appearance—no
figure—to account for it; but I had now an inward foreshadowing of the
figure that was surely coming.
The Jury were housed at the London Tavern. We all slept in one large
room on separate tables, and we were constantly in the charge and under
the eye of the officer sworn to hold us in safe-keeping. I see no reason
for suppressing the real name of that officer. He was intelligent,
highly polite, and obliging, and (I was glad to hear) much respected in
the City. He had an agreeable presence, good eyes, enviable black
whiskers, and a fine sonorous voice. His name was Mr. Harker.
When we turned into our twelve beds at night, Mr. Harker’s bed was drawn
across the door. On the night of the second day, not being disposed to
lie down, and seeing Mr. Harker sitting on his bed, I went and sat beside
him, and offered him a pinch of snuff. As Mr. Harker’s hand touched mine
in taking it from my box, a peculiar shiver crossed him, and he said,
“Who is this?”
Following Mr. Harker’s eyes, and looking along the room, I saw again the
figure I expected,—the second of the two men who had gone down
Piccadilly. I rose, and advanced a few steps; then stopped, and looked
round at Mr. Harker. He was quite unconcerned, laughed, and said in a
pleasant way, “I thought for a moment we had a thirteenth juryman,
without a bed. But I see it is the moonlight.”
Making no revelation to Mr. Harker, but inviting him to take a walk with
me to the end of the room, I watched what the figure did. It stood for a
few moments by the bedside of each of my eleven brother jurymen, close to
the pillow. It always went to the right-hand side of the bed, and always
passed out crossing the foot of the next bed. It seemed, from the action
of the head, merely to look down pensively at each recumbent figure. It
took no notice of me, or of my bed, which was that nearest to Mr.
Harker’s. It seemed to go out where the moonlight came in, through a
high window, as by an aërial flight of stairs.
Next morning at breakfast, it appeared that everybody present had dreamed
of the murdered man last night, except myself and Mr. Harker.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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