The Trial for Murder Page #3

"The Trial for Murder" is a short story by Charles Dickens that delves into themes of justice, morality, and the supernatural. The narrative revolves around a trial where a man is accused of murder, but what unfolds reveals deeper issues surrounding the legal system and the nature of guilt. Dickens combines elements of mystery and a critique of Victorian society, showcasing his adeptness at weaving social commentary into engaging storytelling. The tale raises profound questions about the reliability of witnesses and the pursuit of truth within a flawed judicial system, highlighting Dickens's concern for social justice and the human condition.

• Fiction
• Short story

								


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.

I now felt as convinced that the second man who had gone down Piccadilly
was the murdered man (so to speak), as if it had been borne into my
comprehension by his immediate testimony.  But even this took place, and
in a manner for which I was not at all prepared.

On the fifth day of the trial, when the case for the prosecution was
drawing to a close, a miniature of the murdered man, missing from his
bedroom upon the discovery of the deed, and afterwards found in a
hiding-place where the Murderer had been seen digging, was put in
evidence.  Having been identified by the witness under examination, it
was handed up to the Bench, and thence handed down to be inspected by the
Jury.  As an officer in a black gown was making his way with it across to
me, the figure of the second man who had gone down Piccadilly impetuously
started from the crowd, caught the miniature from the officer, and gave
it to me with his own hands, at the same time saying, in a low and hollow
tone,—before I saw the miniature, which was in a locket,—“I was younger
then, and my face was not then drained of blood.”  It also came
between me and the brother juryman to whom I would have given the
miniature, and between him and the brother juryman to whom he would have
given it, and so passed it on through the whole of our number, and back
into my possession.  Not one of them, however, detected this.

At table, and generally when we were shut up together in Mr. Harker’s
custody, we had from the first naturally discussed the day’s proceedings
a good deal.  On that fifth day, the case for the prosecution being
closed, and we having that side of the question in a completed shape
before us, our discussion was more animated and serious.  Among our
number was a vestryman,—the densest idiot I have ever seen at large,—who
met the plainest evidence with the most preposterous objections, and who
was sided with by two flabby parochial parasites; all the three
impanelled from a district so delivered over to Fever that they ought to
have been upon their own trial for five hundred Murders.  When these
mischievous blockheads were at their loudest, which was towards midnight,
while some of us were already preparing for bed, I again saw the murdered
man.  He stood grimly behind them, beckoning to me.  On my going towards
them, and striking into the conversation, he immediately retired.  This
was the beginning of a separate series of appearances, confined to that
long room in which we were confined.  Whenever a knot of my brother
jurymen laid their heads together, I saw the head of the murdered man
among theirs.  Whenever their comparison of notes was going against him,
he would solemnly and irresistibly beckon to me.

It will be borne in mind that down to the production of the miniature, on
the fifth day of the trial, I had never seen the Appearance in Court.
Three changes occurred now that we entered on the case for the defence.
Two of them I will mention together, first.  The figure was now in Court
continually, and it never there addressed itself to me, but always to the
person who was speaking at the time.  For instance: the throat of the
murdered man had been cut straight across.  In the opening speech for the
defence, it was suggested that the deceased might have cut his own
throat.  At that very moment, the figure, with its throat in the dreadful
condition referred to (this it had concealed before), stood at the
speaker’s elbow, motioning across and across its windpipe, now with the
right hand, now with the left, vigorously suggesting to the speaker
himself the impossibility of such a wound having been self-inflicted by
either hand.  For another instance: a witness to character, a woman,
deposed to the prisoner’s being the most amiable of mankind.  The figure
at that instant stood on the floor before her, looking her full in the
face, and pointing out the prisoner’s evil countenance with an extended
arm and an outstretched finger.

The third change now to be added impressed me strongly as the most marked
and striking of all.  I do not theorise upon it; I accurately state it,
and there leave it.  Although the Appearance was not itself perceived by
those whom it addressed, its coming close to such persons was invariably
attended by some trepidation or disturbance on their part.  It seemed to
me as if it were prevented, by laws to which I was not amenable, from

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