Heaven Knows Who (31 page)

It is a most wicked, unjust and false conclusion, based on no evidence whatsoever—suggesting as it does, deliberately premeditated murder, premeditated from the time of going out and buying the rum. Poor Jessie with her seven penn'orth of rum and her few poor little biscuits—shared first with her friend Mrs Fraser and the rest to be taken round to be shared with Jess. The very fact of the purchase was in fact entirely in her favour. It was bought openly with the declared intention of taking some to Sandyford Place; and this free admission of her intention of visiting her friend that night, was frankly acknowledged by the prosecution to negative any suspicion of premeditation. Yet the judge puts it forward as just that—evidence of premeditation; builds up from this false premise a story that the Crown never dreamed of suggesting—were far too scrupulous to suggest, had they even dared. The purchase of the rum, with this intention: the stupefying of the victim (there is no evidence whatsoever that Jess was unaccustomed to spirits); and then … ‘It was a deed of darkness.' An excuse would be made, suggested his lordship, to stay the night, the unsuspecting friend of course easily acquiescing
. Whether or not the murderess actually shared the bed with her, need not matter. She would wait till the victim was asleep and then, while she lay there trusting and defenceless, the first blow would be struck—the great cleaver raised and brought down with sickening ferocity across the sleeping, upturned face. One great blow across the forehead, two across the eyes, smashing into the bridge of the nose. But the injured woman rallies, drags herself somehow from the bed and escapes from the room and into the kitchen. There she is pursued, struggles, falls to the floor and, lying on the floor, is literally hacked to death. For a handful of silver, friend has savagely slaughtered friend.

Of course, conceded Lord Deas, it
might
not have happened like that; but it didn't really matter very much how it was done.

There follows more comment on Jessie's movements, Jessie's finances; the dresses. Then back he comes to Mr Fleming. At one time it seemed to his lordship that an attempt was about to be made to prove that this old man was a man of bad character. But they had in fact heard nothing against him (Lord Deas himself had seen to that) except that he ‘looked too much after the servants', in his own house and next door. Naturally they resented it. That was all it amounted to.

Mr Clark: ‘Then there was Mrs Smith's evidence.…' (The confidence Jess could not impart because of Mr Smith's presence.)

But the judge would have none of it. What the dead woman had intended to confide to her friend was probably that she was thinking of emigrating. (Why this should have been not fit for male ears, his lordship did not make apparent.) She may perhaps have added, he conceded, that the old man was so inquisitive that she couldn't live with him. The fact was that some of the maids had admirers coming about them, and the old gentleman might look a little too sharply after them; and it all boiled down to that.

And so on, through more and more of the evidence—invariably with the bias against the accused. As for counsel's warning about circumstantial evidence, as to his remainder of that case of rape where the man condemned was found to be innocent after all—well, if the judge knew anything about that case (and he evidently did) it had been not a very good one to quote in this instance. If the Crown decided there was a doubt about the evidence and remitted his sentence, it didn't follow necessarily that the man was innocent. And he turned the whole thing neatly round to
pour a little more discredit upon P.C. Campbell and the low-set, stout woman with the red, fat face whom he claimed to have seen on the night after the murder. ‘A man might state that he saw people come to a house at night when it was not that house at all; and say that he saw people come out of one house when he saw them come out of another.'

Back to Jessie again, and once more through the ‘declarations', balancing fact against the poor, desperate fictions—coldly and clearly and always to the prisoner's disadvantage. Always with some measure of exaggeration of the facts against her, always with a toning down of what might be in her favour. The keys to the Broomielaw apartment, the dresses, the trunk, the visit to Hamilton.… ‘As to the question whether the prisoner was a person of improvident habits, it is not one with which we have to deal, nor the question of what it was that the prisoner did with her husband's wages.' What the prisoner did with her husband's wages, as had been amply shown, was to spend them—all eighteen shillings per week of them—on rent, heat, lighting, and food, on clothes for herself and her husband and her child; on help with the work she couldn't possibly do herself and on doctors' bills. ‘Whether the prisoner was a person of improvident habits.…' One might have thought he could have spared her this final little jab; here at least have given her the benefit of the doubt.

And so it was over. If as reasonable men they felt no doubt that she was guilty, it was their duty to themselves, to their consciences, to God and to their country to say so. But if,
notwithstanding all that evidence
, they thought there were reasonable grounds, etcetera, etcetera—then they also knew the course that they must follow. And he handed over his bouquet. The case ‘has received from you as great attention as ever I saw paid by any jury.…' and packed them off to consider their verdict. It was twenty-five minutes past two.

Nineteen minutes later, they were back again.

Verdict unanimous.

GUILTY.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

‘The deathly pallor of her countenance seemed to increase,' says the contemporary record, ‘but the same strength of will she had heretofore displayed was again shown. Nervous sweat covered her face; and she now and again lifted up her hands from under the black shawl beneath which during the day she kept them folded together, and pressed them over her face, wiping away the sweat. She for an instant leaned forward and covered her face with a handkerchief as if crying, but sitting upright again, she folded her arms together under her shawl, drawing it close around her.'

The Clerk of the Court had written out the sentence and now handed it to the judge for signature. The Advocate Depute rose to his feet. ‘My lord, I move for sentence.'

A rumour had run round the court while the jury were absent: an extraordinary statement was to be made, either by the prisoner or for her. And now Mr Dixon was seen to go over to the dock and speak earnestly to her, and Mr Rutherfurd Clark joined them. After a brief discussion she took a paper from his hand, stood up in the dock and put back her veil. Mr Rutherfurd Clark turned to the judge. ‘My lord, I understand that the prisoner desires to make a statement before sentence is passed, whether by her own lips or to be read by someone for her.'

Lord Deas: ‘She is at liberty to do so in any way she prefers.' And much good may it do her, he doubtless added to himself. He had heard prisoners' statements before.

Every eye in court was fixed upon her: the ‘poor pale prisoner' standing there so slender and graceful in her straw bonnet and the lilac gown. She raised the paper as though to start reading. But her courage failed her. She gave it back to Mr Clark and raised her white face to the judge. ‘My lord, I desire to have it read.' And she cried out, distinct and clear: ‘I am as innocent as my child who is only three years of age at this date.'

Mr Rutherfurd Clark took the paper from her and, still standing
there, one arm propped on the high ledge of the dock, into ‘a thrilling silence', clearly and coolly, every word articulate, read out Mrs M'Lachlan's story of that night.…
*

It had been just ten—the clock in the Broomielaw was striking—as, with Mrs Fraser and Tommy and the little girl, she set off down the stairs; carrying the basket with the biscuits and the rum. ‘I meant to give Mrs Fraser a dram, and have a dram for Jessie, and enough to taste with them.'

At ten minutes past ten she parted from her friends at the Gushet house, and went on alone. She went to the front door and rang. Jess answered the bell. She said to come away down to the kitchen; but the old man was still up.

He was sitting in a big chair by the kitchen table. There were two plates and two glasses on the table, and bread and cheese. ‘Oh, is that you, Jessie?' he said. ‘How are you?' She gave him a greeting and sat down opposite him. After a little while he rose and went off upstairs.

She gave Jess her little offering and Jess poured out a glass of rum for each of them and put the empty bottle away in the cupboard. They were settling down comfortably when the old man reappeared, carrying a bottle with some whisky in it and a glass. He poured a little whisky into the glass and handed it to Jessie. She took a sip. ‘Come on,' he said, ‘drink it up!' But she couldn't ‘drink it up' on top of the rum, and he picked up the glass and poured the whisky back into the bottle. ‘What sort of way is that to treat a person?' said Jess, disgustedly. ‘Why don't you offer it round?'

He looked doubtful. ‘Well, ye ken, Jess, we've had twa three since the afternoon.' He wouldn't mind, he said, but his son had complained of the amount of drink they got through when he left them alone in the house together. Of course it was really young John who took it, said Grandpa, but Mr Fleming was accusing
him
. ‘However, haud your ill tongue, and I'll gie ye half a mutchkin if ye'll go and fetch it.'

‘Aye,' said Jess, ‘I've a tongue that would frighten somebody if it were breaking loose on them.' The old man muttered something to himself, tipped the remaining whisky into a tumbler on
the table and handed the empty bottle to Jessie—a bottle with a long neck, it was, and a flat, round base. ‘Go and get half a mutchkin.' He gave her a shilling and twopence. (A mutchkin was half a pint—Jessie herself had bought half that much rum for her sevenpence ha'penny.)

Jess gave her the key of the back garden door and she went off, her grey cloak hung round her shoulders, into the lane behind the house. A woman was standing at the corner of Elderslie Street and another woman joined her as Jessie turned out of the lane and crossed Elderslie Street going towards North Street, and the two stood gossiping. She was making for a spirit shop in North Street on the right-hand side as you come up from St Vincent Street, and not far from M'Gaw, the fleshers (there is a spirit shop still in much the position she indicates. There is no M'Gaw's, but it was something of a shock to the author to observe just opposite, a ‘flesher's' under the name James Lachlin). But by the time she got there it was two or three minutes past eleven and the shop was shut. There was a light in an upper window and she knocked a couple of times; nobody came, so she gave it up and started back, going on up North Street, left along Sauchiehall Street and this time down Elderslie Street to the mouth of the lane, completing the square. The two women were still standing talking and she saw now that one was Mrs Walker, the grocer's wife. But they were on the other side of the road and she passed on without any greeting and turned into the lane. She had locked the garden door behind her and now she unlocked it again and went in, relocking it once more.

She had left the back door open—but now it was shut. She knocked at it but nobody came. She went round to the kitchen window—the gas was burning but there was no one in the kitchen. She went back to the door again and rapped at it sharply, using the key of the garden gate which she still held in her hand. At last the old man came. ‘I shut it against them brutes of cats,' he said, and let her in, locking the door again behind her. She went into the kitchen and put the empty bottle on the table, and the unspent money. ‘I couldn't get it,' she said. ‘The place was shut.' And she asked: ‘Where's Jess?' There was no use staying if the old man was going to be hanging about all the time. It was after eleven and she'd left her child alone. She might just as well go home.

He said nothing but turned and went out of the kitchen. She followed him and, standing there in the passage outside the bedroom door, she heard somebody moaning. He tried to stop her; but she pushed past him and, in the bedroom doorway, stood incredulously staring.

In the corner of the room opposite the door, Jess lay on the floor, supported on one elbow, her head drooping, her hair, hanging down over her face, saturated with blood. All round her, the bare boards of the floor were splotched with blood.

Jessie flew across the room and, tearing off her bonnet and shawl, knelt down by her friend. She was lying there, clad only in her petticoat and a dressing-gown, and she seemed in a stupor. When Jessie lifted her head she saw that there were three great wounds across her face, one across the forehead, two across the eyes and nose. She cried to the old man, sick with horror: ‘What have you done to her?'

‘I didn't mean to,' he mumbled. ‘It was an accident.'

She knelt by the injured woman, supporting the head and shoulders. ‘Bring some water. Lukewarm water.' Holding poor Jess in her arms she implored, ‘Jessie, Jessie—what happened?'

Jess moaned and muttered but it was all unintelligible. Perhaps, she thought, he's been trying to force himself on her and in the struggle she fell and cut herself. The old man came back with the water but it was too hot. ‘Get some cold,' she said. ‘And bring a handkerchief.' He went off again and got them and stood by while she tenderly bathed away the blood. ‘How could you do such a thing to her?' she cried, seeing now for the first time the extent of the terrible wounds. ‘I don't know,' he said. ‘I don't know.' He seemed anxious and distressed.

‘We must have a doctor,' said Jessie, at last. ‘I'll stay with her; you go and get one.' But he demurred. He didn't think Jess was as bad as all that. She'd be better soon, let them get her fixed up a bit and then he would go. He went out of the room and left her kneeling, holding Jess in her arms, and in a little while Jess opened her eyes. ‘Jess, what happened, what happened?' But Jess only looked back at her, dazed and uncomprehending and though after a little while she seemed to begin to understand what was said to her, could give no coherent answer. They stayed so for a long time, Jessie just holding her friend in her arms, trying to staunch the bleeding, not troubling her with any more questions.
But the old man did not return and after a while Jess seemed more rational and she said: ‘You ought to have a doctor. I must go and get a doctor.'