Kate herself was not very interested in criminal trials and could think of several other productive ways to spend the day in London. But Beryl Bardwell was always fascinated by anything that smacked of the dramatic or presented narrative possibilities.
You never know,
she reminded Kate,
when we’re going to have occasion to include a trial scene in one of our
fictions. So we’d better take advantage of this opportunity.
Thinking it over, Kate had decided that Beryl was right. So that’s why she was waiting in the spectators’ line in the yard of the new Criminal Court Building in Old Bailey when the hearse-like horse-drawn van arrived, bringing the prisoners from Holloway Prison.
“Ooh, look!” crowed a stooped old lady to her companion, both standing in the line in front of Kate. “’Tis the Black Maria. And them Anarchists, ain’t they a sight?”
The companion, wearing an old-fashioned bonnet, snorted wrathfully. “Wantin’ t’ blow up the King, the newspaper sez. I ’opes they gets ’ung fer it.”
Hung? Kate thought, startled, as catcalls and applause rippled through the line of waiting spectators. But surely the men were not accused of being accomplices in the Hyde Park bombing—were they? Had the police found evidence of that connection? She watched as the three men, dressed in ill-fitting dark jackets and trousers, their hands handcuffed in front of them, were roughly hauled out of the van and pushed through a door. They were being taken to holding cells, Kate knew from her reading of the newspapers, where they would be detained until they were to appear in the dock.
Kate was directed up a stair, down a hallway, and down another stair, and found a seat in the front row of the spectators’ section, between a stout man whose breath reeked of garlic and onions and an old woman whose black knitted shawl smelt of a smoky chimney. The rest of the audience was a motley assortment of men and women, some fashionably attired, others (whom Kate took to be Anarchists or sympathizers) in the threadbare garb of the working poor, a few wearing black bands on their arms. Journalists with notebooks and artists from the illustrated periodicals, sketchpads in hand, were seated along one wall. Kate looked carefully, but if Lottie were in the audience, she did not see her, or anyone else she recognized—except for Charles, of course, who was sitting close behind the table reserved for the defense. The room was crowded, it was hot for September, and she felt very much as she imagined a
sardine à l’huile
might feel, jammed cheek-to-jowl with its oily, smelly neighbor.
At five minutes to ten, Edward Savidge and a younger assistant made their way to the defense table, which was arranged at right angles to the bench. Savidge, robed in black and wearing an incongruous-looking white wig, laid out his papers and notes and began to shuffle hastily through them as if he were looking for something he had lost. The prosecutor, a rather youngish man whose robe and wig gave him a dignity beyond his years, strode in confidently, followed by his assistant. The table in front of him was bare.
At five minutes after ten, the pretrial activities began. It happened that not a single juror who had been summoned had failed to respond, and twelve were soon seated in the jury box and sworn in. At half-ten, the prisoners were escorted into the dock, without their handcuffs but with their ankles shackled. The usher called sternly for silence, and everyone stood while one of the London aldermen entered through the door at the back of the court, followed by the High Court judge of the City of London, stooped and scholarly, with chiseled features and penetrating blue eyes. The alderman and the judge were seated, papers were rustled, volumes of law books rearranged, pens and pencils moved about with the flourish of a magician, and the trial began with the hearing of the pleas.
“Adam Gould, how do you plead?” asked the judge.
Kate watched as the first of the prisoners stood. He was blond, well-built, and good-looking, even in the ill-fitting clothing provided for the trial. “Not guilty, Your Honor,” he said in a firm, ringing voice.
Pierre Mouffetard, the next to plead, did not present such a handsome appearance. His dark hair was raggedly cut, his face was set and hard, and his eyes blazed with radical fervor. He replied to the judge in a snarling, heavily-accented voice: “I do not recognize the authority of this court.”
Savidge, getting to his feet, said calmly, “With Your Honor’s permission, I enter a plea of not guilty on Mr. Mouffetard’s behalf.”
“Not guilty,” the judge said, and rapped his gavel. With a glare at Savidge and a dark look at the judge, Pierre stepped back to his place.
“Ivan Kopinski,” said the judge.
Ivan, his brown hair hanging in lank, dirty strings around his face, stood with his mouth closed, his eyes darting around the courtroom as if he were searching for someone. He wore, Kate thought, a look of stoic resignation, as if nothing that happened to him made a great deal of difference. After a moment, Savidge again said, “Not guilty, Your Honor,” and the three pleas were entered. Kate settled back, avoiding the sharp elbow of the woman to her right. The trial was about to begin.
The Crown prosecutor, whose name was Sims, laid out the case for the jury with an elegant if rhetorical simplicity. The three defendents—two of them employees of the Anarchist newspaper, the
Clarion
, and the third a well-known trade-union organizer—were charged under the Explosive Substances Act of 1883 with the possession of explosives with intent to endanger life. He would not trouble the gentlemen of the jury with a lengthy and tedious presentation of the argument that would shortly be developed; he would simply note that he expected the jury—whose careful attention to and thoughtful consideration of the arguments he very earnestly and humbly solicited—would have no difficulty at all finding the defendants guilty of a most heinous crime against the persons of their fellow men, indeed (spoken in a hushed voice and with a wide flourish of his robed arms) against the very persons of the innocent members of the jury and the spectators assembled in this courtroom. For bombs were no respecter of persons, and a bomb would as gladly kill innocent men, women, and children as anyone else. There was a stir in the courtroom as Mr. Sims sat down, and many of the better-dressed spectators were seen to look nervously over their shoulders, as if fearing that a bomb might be tossed into their very midst.
Mr. Savidge then rose and reminded the jury that no man might be found guilty of a crime committed by an associate, except upon the evidence of relevant facts demonstrating his own guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. It was their duty as jurors to carefully sift the meaningful facts from the useless arguments and theories and discard as if it were chaff every meaningless rhetorical flourish. And with a sharp glance at the prosecution, he sat down. The spectators stirred with what seemed to be a restless disappointment, as if they had expected a more eloquent statement.
The counsel for the prosecution began by summoning Inspector Ashcraft, of Special Branch, Scotland Yard, to the witness box—the man, Kate recalled, whom Charlotte Conway accused of having her and the others followed. He was thickset and round-faced, and carried himself with an assertive confidence, standing firmly in the witness box. Having been sworn, he related how the Anarchist group—the Hampstead Road cell, as he called it—had originally come to his notice through the offices of a certain “reliable source” who had identified one of the defendants, Mr. Ivan Kopinski, as potentially dangerous. Thereby alerted, he had taken special pains to read each page of the
Clarion,
to determine whether it was printing seditious material.
The prosecutor then introduced into evidence an article taken from the
Clarion
and asked the inspector to read the marked paragraph. Putting on a pair of gold reading glasses, Ashcraft read a paragraph urging all British Anarchists to support their foreign comrades “by any and all available means” and concluding, “Violence is the only thing the oppressors understand.” He raised his eyes, looked around the packed courtroom, and rendered the final sentence with an excess of gravity. “An ounce of dynamite is worth a ton of paper.”
There was another nervous stir, this one so prolonged that his lordship the judge was required to gavel it into silence. The prosecutor then inquired whether the inspector felt that the statement was seditious. Inspector Ashcraft was about to answer, but Savidge interrupted him, objecting on the grounds that the question called for an opinion.
The prosecutor looked down his nose. “May it please your lordship,” he said to the judge, “this witness is an expert.”
“Perhaps,” Savidge said in a level tone, “learned counsel would care to submit the inspector’s credentials for his lordship’s examination. On what basis does Inspector Ashcraft qualify as an expert in the matter of determining what is seditious and what is not? In what capacity has the inspector previously served as an expert on this question? How—”
Sims threw up his hands with a great show of weariness and spoke to the judge. “I’ll withdraw my question, my lord, rather than prolong these proceedings unnecessarily.” He turned back to the witness and said snappishly, “Having read the article, Inspector, did you take any action?”
It had been his duty to act, the inspector replied with calm assurance. After the article appeared, each of the key members of the
Clarion
staff was placed under police survillance. He himself had kept a close watch over the activities of the paper’s editor, Miss Charlotte Conway, and had assigned experienced detectives to the others. Then one of the employees, a young Anarchist named Yuri Messenko, had died in a violent bomb explosion in Hyde Park on Coronation Day. Fearing that the
Clarion
was the center of a dangerous bomb-making ring, the inspector had ordered a raid on the newspaper and taken the suspects into custody to prevent their flight to the Continent. When one of the suspects, Pierre Mouffetard, was searched, he was discovered to have on his person a letter containing certain bomb-making instructions.
“I show you Exhibit A,” the prosecutor said. “Is this the letter?”
The inspector peered at it. “It is a translation of the letter, yes. And quite detailed, too. Anybody could make a bomb, following these instructions.”
“Very well. Go on.”
It was at that point, the inspector said, that he had perceived that the
Clarion
was an immediate danger to the safety and security of British citizens, and had ordered its type and equipment destroyed and the office closed. All the primary suspects had been placed under arrest, except (unfortunately) for Miss Conway herself, who had managed to escape and was now a fugitive from justice. Search warrants had been obtained for the living quarters of the accused men, each of the premises searched, and certain evidence retrieved, including three bombs that—
Sims held up his hand, his two gold rings flashing. “That will be all, Inspector Ashcraft.” Turning to the jury, he remarked, with a rather paternalistic air, “You see, gentlemen, Inspector Ashcraft was not present when the searches were conducted. Only the officer who actually searched the defendants’ quarters may testify to what he found.”
Mr. Savidge rose to cross-examine the witness. Frowning, he said, “Your informant, Inspector, the one who originally brought Mr. Kopinski to your attention as a ‘dangerous’ man. What is his name?”
“I regret that I cannot say, sir,” the inspector replied, in a tone that did not seem to Kate at all regretful. “This man continues to be useful to the police, and revealing his identity would jeopardize future investigations.”
Savidge appealed to the judge to compel the witness to answer, but before he could rule, the prosecutor stood.
“Claim public-interest privilege,” he said smugly. “Confidentiality in this matter is essential to the functioning of the police.”
There was a momentary flurry in the courtroom. Furrowing his brow and pursing his lips, the judge deliberated for a moment or two, then ruled that the authorities’ need to conceal a valuable source of information took precedence, in his opinion, over the accused’s right to confront an accuser. Kate felt a quick stab of anger. Protecting informants could lead to all kinds of problems, couldn’t it? What if the informant wasn’t trustworthy? What if he were lying? She glanced at Charles and saw that he was frowning and writing something in a notebook. Mr. Savidge, clearly angry and disappointed, turned to the jury.
“It is my obligation to point out that Inspector Ashcraft is testifying only to his
belief
that the informant told him the truth. Since we are unable to question this so-called informant directly, we have no means of discerning whether—”
“I believe the jury quite understand the issue, Mr. Savidge,” the judge interrupted. “Go on with your questions.”
Scowling, Mr. Savidge complied. “Very well, Inspector,” he said. “Tell us what charges have been made against Miss Conway.”
“She is wanted as a material witness,” the inspector replied. “A warrant has been issued for her arrest.”
“But there are no criminal charges against her?” Mr. Savidge persisted. He glanced at the prosecutor. “She has not, for instance, been charged with sedition?”
The inspector colored. “Not at this time.”
“Then it was judged by you or your superiors that the article of seventeen July—the one you read out a few moments ago—was not sufficient grounds on which to pursue a charge of sedition?”
“I did not pursue a charge,” the inspector said stiffly.
“Because the editor of the
Clarion
was merely exercising her right to speak freely?”
“May it please your lordship,” Sims objected, “the witness has already answered.”
“Sustained,” the judge said, frowning at Savidge. “Counsel will refrain from badgering the witness.”
Savidge’s face tightened. “Thank you, Your Honor. Inspector, prior to the raid on the newspaper, you ordered the employees to be followed. You observed Miss Conway, you say?”