SUDDENLY it became known that the venue of the sensational Vaux House case was to be changed from a civil to a criminal court. The reasons for this were obvious. The one meant a summary trial, the other involved vexatious delays which, considering the very odious position in which Countess Alexia was placed by the scandal, were not to be endured. Then the alleged libel was, if unjustified, of a particularly cruel and damning character; and so it was not a question of damages but of punishment. Perhaps the writers who had been so quick to jump at conclusions, and, when seized upon, to elaborate doubtful facts into flamingly sensational “copy,” began to share with the editors who accepted them, certain misgivings that they had asserted more than they could prove. They had been unfortunately precipitate; still they must make a stiff fight in justification, and at the worst there was always a grand advertisement to be sure of.
So it came to pass that the responsible editors of the Daily Comet and the Mayfair Gazette were cited to appear at the Police Court to answer charges of criminal libel at the instance of Countess Alexia von Rohnburg.
All the quidnuncs were there; all, that is, who could squeeze into the Court. And a society tatler, a professional diner-out, will take as much pains “to be there,” and show himself as resourceful in expedients for getting a good view as will the most enterprising of journalists. And as the magisterial examination dragged on, the sensation hunters had a series of highly enjoyable field days.
The publication of the libels having been admitted and justification pleaded, Countess Alexia was called to give a direct denial to the charges insinuated against her. Then came what was expected to be the feature of the case, her cross-examination. The somewhat aggressive methods of that celebrated legal bully, Ambrose Macvee, K.C., failed to elicit any more damaging admission than that she had lost her hair ornament at the ball, and that to the best of her belief the one produced in Court with which it was practically certain Captain Martindale had been stabbed to death was that which had belonged to her. This looked ugly enough, especially when coupled with the admitted fact that she had been alone with Captain Martindale in the little room where he was subsequently found dead. Proof, it is true, was forthcoming that the Countess had left the room a considerable time before the tragedy was discovered: she had danced with more than one partner, and had betrayed no sign of confusion or excitement.
“What nerve the woman must have!” was the comment of those who were loth to let go the sustaining belief in her guilt to which they were clinging. It was quite thrilling, and gave a new fillip to the sensation. A Countess stabs her inconvenient lover to death in a secluded corner, then returns to the ball-room and resumes her waltzing as though nothing had happened. What a pity that it was, so far, no more than conjecture. However, merely in the way of suggestion, it furnished stimulating head-lines, somewhat carefully worded, it is true; the penalty of libel and contempt of court being very much in the air just then.
There was still, as there always had been, an important link wanting in the chain of evidence which could justify the charges against Countess Alexia, the mystery of that half-hour during which the deceased man had been left alone in that room, for anything to the contrary that mortal eye had seen. Alexia swore that when she left him he was alive, she had had a disagreement with him on a rather painful subject, the reputation of a friend of hers, and had parted with him on bad terms, but she had never raised her hand against him. There had been no reason why she should have done so: when she quitted the room Captain Martindale was as much alive as any one in that Court.
Of course she would swear that, the quidnuncs declared, unless she wished to brand herself a murderess; she had come into Court to swear to her innocence; nothing less was to be expected. But it all looked very queer, very ugly: at any moment, it was thought, she might break down in her evidence, and the case be brought to a sudden and dramatic close.
But Alexia never faltered, and then the disappointed folk attributed this to her tremendous nerve-power. The woman who could kill one lover and then go and dance with another was not the sort of person to break down in the witness-box. It was not to be expected, even under Macvee’s searching and tricky cross-examination; it simply emphasized her character, and consequently her guilt. So much for the fashionable Ghouls; the smart thirsters for blood.
But there was another party, smaller and less noisily insistent, who believed in Alexia; who looked upon her as a high-spirited woman shamefully maligned and accused, the victim as much of a terrible chain of coincidence as of a hateful lust for scandal.
In his defence of the Countess, Herriard had, as both he and Gastineau anticipated, a trying task. It required the greatest delicacy and tact during the somewhat drastic cross-examination of his client, to know just when to interfere and how far to protest. In this Gastineau’s advice was golden; he seemed to have the faculty of anticipating everything that would happen; not merely the line the cross-examination would take, but even the very wording of the questions which the rough-tongued Macvee would ask. So Herriard’s championship of his client was, at least on the human side of the case, successful to admiration, notwithstanding that sympathy was largely against him. The craving for scandal and for the downfall of a fair woman is a morbid growth which will eat away the innate sense of chivalry. Fair play is, paradoxically, often a sad spoil-sport: we do not always want the best man to win, and right is usually terribly uninteresting compared with wrong. So there is much satisfaction in seeing wrong established that the spectators may gloat over its punishment. Still, Geoffrey Herriard’s advocacy, plucky yet tactful, was bound to extort approval even from those who were longing to see him trip; it had the unbounded praise of the Countess’s sympathizers and, what he felt he valued still more, the ardent gratitude of Alexia herself. Alexia was, almost literally, fighting for her life; this hideous chance threatened her with, at least, social annihilation, and the very desperation of the fight accentuated her dependence on her defender. Those were terrible days to her, when she was a marked woman, the gazing-stock for every vulgar quidnunc; branded already by the prejudice of the sensation-mongers as, at least, a venial murderess. The words and messages of sympathy she constantly received scarcely sustained her through the ordeal.
The Duke of Lancashire also was having a very uncomfortable time of it. The suppression of the result of Dr. Blaydon’s post-mortem examination was an awkward point for him to meet. He was closely questioned on the incident, and it is to be feared that the ducal conscience went to bed that night with the weight of a certain ugly sin called perjury upon it. For though his Grace was fain to admit that he had given the obsequious medico a substantial cheque to write a certificate of natural death so that the fuss of an inquest might be avoided, he yet stoutly denied all knowledge of the wound, the pin-prick which had just reached that false heart, and stopped its mechanism. Denial here was safe, since the only other person who had absolute knowledge of the transaction, namely the doctor himself, had been summoned to another Bar where perjury is futile.
Still, although he stuck to his repudiation of the suggestion—since its admission would have had serious consequences, even for a Duke—his dignity was badly battered about during that searching hour. He rather attempted to take the line that he was too big a personage to be expected to trouble himself about such unpleasant trifles as the mysterious death of a guest under his roof: he was accustomed to leave all these dismal, disagreeable details to his people who would naturally understand better than he how to deal with them. This is the line for an aristocratic witness to take when he is to be the joy of the opposing counsel and the despair of his own. The work of cutting away the fringe of pomp and artificial grandeur, and holding up the poor man inside them as a wretched specimen of weak-minded humanity, is easy and paying.
The harried Duke, stripped for the hour, of his fine feathers, made to stand out in a dingy, uncompromising court, and show what manner of man he really was, cut a sorry figure. Counsel poked fun at his pomposity, his affectation of high and mighty indifference; there was much laughter in court, and the whole deplorable business was given verbatim (parentheses and all) in the papers.
The case, when it at last reached the committal stage, was left hanging in an evenly balanced position, and public opinion was divided, although not quite so evenly, as to the merits of the issue.