“That is what the public wants to know.”
“Because the public is ignorant. The public should not wish to know anything of the kind. What we should all wish to get at is the truth of the evidence about the murder. The man is to be hung not because he committed the murder—as to which no positive knowledge is attainable; but because he has been proved to have committed the murder—as to which proof, though it be enough for hanging, there must always be attached some shadow of doubt. We were delighted to hang Palmer—but we don’t know that he killed Cook. A learned man who knew more about it than we can know seemed to think that he didn’t. Now the last man to give us any useful insight into the evidence is the prisoner himself. In nineteen cases out of twenty a man tried for murder in this country committed the murder for which he is tried.”
“There really seems to be a doubt in this case.”
“I dare say. If there be only nineteen guilty out of twenty, there must be one innocent; and why not Mr. Phineas Finn? But, if it be so, he, burning with the sense of injustice, thinks that everybody should see it as he sees it. He is to be tried, because, on investigation, everybody sees it just in a different light. In such case he is unfortunate, but he can’t assist me in liberating him from his misfortune. He sees what is patent and clear to him—that he walked home on that night without meddling with anyone. But I can’t see that, or make others see it, because he sees it.”
“His manner of telling you may do something.”
“If it do, Mr. Wickerby, it is because I am unfit for my business. If he have the gift of protesting well, I am to think him innocent; and, therefore, to think him guilty, if he be unprovided with such eloquence! I will neither believe or disbelieve anything that a client says to me—unless he confess his guilt, in which case my services can be but of little avail. Of course I shall see him, as he asks it. We had better meet there—say at half-past ten.” Whereupon Mr. Wickerby wrote to the governor of the prison begging that Phineas Finn might be informed of the visit.
Phineas had now been in gaol between six and seven weeks, and the very fact of his incarceration had nearly broken his spirits. Two of his sisters, who had come from Ireland to be near him, saw him every day, and his two friends, Mr. Low and Lord Chiltern, were very frequently with him; Lady Laura Kennedy had not come to him again; but he heard from her frequently through Barrington Erle. Lord Chiltern rarely spoke of his sister—alluding to her merely in connection with her father and her late husband. Presents still came to him from various quarters—as to which he hardly knew whence they came. But the Duchess and Lady Chiltern and Lady Laura all catered for him—while Mrs. Bunce looked after his wardrobe, and saw that he was not cut down to prison allowance of clean shirts and socks. But the only friend whom he recognised as such was the friend who would freely declare a conviction of his innocence. They allowed him books and pens and paper, and even cards, if he chose to play at Patience with them or build castles. The paper and pens he could use because he could write about himself. From day to day he composed a diary in which he was never tired of expatiating on the terrible injustice of his position. But he could not read. He found it to be impossible to fix his attention on matters outside himself. He assured himself from hour to hour that it was not death he feared—not even death from the hangman’s hand. It was the condemnation of those who had known him that was so terrible to him—the feeling that they with whom he had aspired to work and live, the leading men and women of his day, Ministers of the Government and their wives, statesmen and their daughters, peers and members of the House in which he himself had sat;—that these should think that, after all, he had been a base adventurer unworthy of their society! That was the sorrow that broke him down, and drew him to confess that his whole life had been a failure.
Mr. Low had advised him not to see Mr. Chaffanbrass;—but he had persisted in declaring that there were instructions which no one but himself could give to the counsellor whose duty it would be to defend him at the trial. Mr. Chaffanbrass came at the hour fixed, and with him came Mr. Wickerby. The old barrister bowed courteously as he entered the prison room, and the attorney introduced the two gentlemen with more than all the courtesy of the outer world. “I am sorry to see you here, Mr. Finn,” said the barrister.
“It’s a bad lodging, Mr. Chaffanbrass, but the term will soon be over. I am thinking a good deal more of my next abode.”
“It has to be thought of, certainly,” said the barrister. “Let us hope that it may be all that you would wish it to be. My services shall not be wanting to make it so.”
“We are doing all we can, Mr. Finn,” said Mr. Wickerby.
“Mr. Chaffanbrass,” said Phineas, “there is one special thing that I want you to do.” The old man, having his own idea as to what was coming, laid one of his hands over the other, bowed his head, and looked meek. “I want you to make men believe that I am innocent of this crime.”
This was better than Mr. Chaffanbrass expected. “I trust that we may succeed in making twelve men believe it,” said he.
“Comparatively I do not care a straw for the
