University of Virginia Library

55. CHAPTER LV.

HENRY BRIERLY took the stand. Requested by the
District Attorney to tell the jury all he knew about the
killing, he narrated the circumstances substantially as the
reader already knows them.

He accompanied Miss Hawkins to New York at her request,
supposing she was coming in relation to a bill then
pending in Congress, to secure the attendance of absent members.
Her note to him was here shown. She appeared to
be very much excited at the Washington station. After she
had asked the conductor several questions, he heard her say,
“He can't escape.” Witness asked her “Who?” and she replied
“Nobody.” Did not see her during the night. They
traveled in a sleeping car. In the morning she appeared not
to have slept, said she had a headache. In crossing the ferry
she asked him about the shipping in sight; he pointed out
where the Cunarders lay when in port. They took a cup of
coffee that morning at a restaurant. She said she was anxious
to reach the Southern Hotel where Mr. Simons, one of the
absent members, was staying, before he went out. She was

entirely self-possessed, and beyond unusual excitement did
not act unnaturally. After she had fired twice at Col. Selby,
she turned the pistol towards her own breast, and witness
snatched it from her. She had been a great deal with Selby
in Washington, appeared to be infatuated with him.

(Cross-examined by Mr. Braham.) “Mist-er.......er
Brierly!” (Mr. Braham had in perfection this lawyer's trick
of annoying a witness, by drawling out the “Mister,” as if unable
to recall the name, until the witness is sufficiently aggravated,
and then suddenly, with a rising inflection, flinging his
name at him with startling unexpectedness.) “Mist-er....er
Brierly! What is your occupation?”

“Civil Engineer, sir.”

“Ah, civil engineer, (with a glance at the jury). Following
that occupation with Miss Hawkins?” (Smiles by the
jury).

“No, sir,” said Harry, reddening.

“How long have you known the prisoner?”

“Two years, sir. I made her acquaintance in Hawkeye,
Missouri.”

“'M...m..m. Mist-er.....er Brierly! Were you not
a lover of Miss Hawkins?”

Objected to. “I submit, your Honor, that I have the
right to establish the relation of this unwilling witness to the
prisoner.” Admitted.

“Well, sir,” said Harry hesitatingly, “we were friends.”

“You act like a friend!” (sarcastically.) The jury were
beginning to hate this neatly dressed young sprig. “Mister.....er
Brierly! Didn't Miss Hawkins refuse you?”

Harry blushed and stammered and looked at the judge.
“You must answer, sir,” said His Honor.

“She—she—didn't accept me.”

“No. I should think not. Brierly! de you dare tell the
jury that you had not an interest in the removal of your rival,
Col. Selby?” roared Mr. Braham in a voice of thunder.

“Nothing like this, sir, nothing like this,” protested the
witness.

“That's all, sir,” said Mr. Braham severely.

“One word,” said the District Attorney. “Had you the
least suspicion of the prisoner's intention, up to the moment
of the shooting?”

“Not the least,” answered Harry earnestly.

“Of course not, of course not,” nodded Mr. Braham to the
jury.

The prosecution then put upon the stand the other witnesses
of the shooting at the hotel, and the clerk and the
attending physicians. The fact of the homicide was clearly
established. Nothing new was elicited, except from the
clerk, in reply to a question by Mr. Braham, the fact that when
the prisoner enquired for Col. Selby she appeared excited and
there was a wild look in her eyes.

The dying deposition of Col. Selby was then produced. It
set forth Laura's threats, but there was a significant addition
to it, which the newspaper report did not have. It seemed
that after the deposition was taken as reported, the Colonel
was told for the first time by his physicians that his wounds
were mortal. He appeared to be in great mental agony and
fear, and said he had not finished his deposition. He added,
with great difficulty and long pauses these words. “I—
have—not—told—all. I must tell—put—it—down—I—
wronged—her. Years—ago—I—can't—see—O—God—I—
deserved—” That was all. He fainted and did not revive
again.

The Washington railway conductor testified that the prisoner
had asked him if a gentleman and his family went out
on the evening train, describing the persons he had since
learned were Col. Selby and family.

Susan Cullum, colored servant at Senator Dilworthy's, was
sworn. Knew Col. Selby. Had seen him come to the house
often, and be alone in the parlor with Miss Hawkins. He
came the day but one before he was shot. She let him in.
He appeared flustered like. She heard talking in the parlor,
`peared like it was quarrelin.' Was afeared sumfin' was

wrong. Just put her ear to the keyhole of the back parlor
door. Heard a man's voice, “I can't, I can't, Good God,”
quite beggin' like. Heard young Miss' voice, “Take your
choice, then. If you 'bandon me, you knows what to 'spect.”
Then he rushes outen the house. I goes in and I says,
“Missis did you ring?” She was a standin', like a tiger,
her eyes flashin'. I come right out.

This was the substance of Susan's testimony, which was
not shaken in the least by a severe cross-examination. In
reply to Mr. Braham's question, if the prisoner did not
look insane, Susan said, “Lord, no, sir, just mad as a hawnet.”

Washington Hawkins was sworn. The pistol, identified
by the officer as the one used in the homicide, was produced.
Washington admitted that it was his. She had asked him for it
one morning, saying she thought she had heard burglars the
night before. Admitted that he never had heard burglars in
the house. Had anything unusual happened just before that?
Nothing that he remembered. Did he accompany her to a reception
at Mrs. Shoonmaker's a day or two before? Yes.
What occurred? Little by little it was dragged out of the
witness that Laura had behaved strangely there, appeared to
be sick, and he had taken her home. Upon being pushed
he admitted that she had afterwards confessed that she saw
Selby there. And Washington volunteered the statement
that Selby was a black-hearted villain.

The District Attorney said, with some annoyance, “There
—there! That will do.”

The defence declined to examine Mr. Hawkins at present.
The case for the prosecution was closed. Of the murder
there could not be the least doubt, or that the prisoner followed
the deceased to New York with a murderous intent.
On the evidence the jury must convict, and might do so without
leaving their seats. This was the condition of the case
two days after the jury had been selected. A week had
passed since the trial opened, and a Sunday had intervened.

The public who read the reports of the evidence saw no
chance for the prisoner's escape. The crowd of spectators
who had watched the trial were moved with the most profound
sympathy for Laura.

Mr. Braham opened the case for the defence. His manner
was subdued, and he spoke in so low a voice that it was only
by reason of perfect silence in the court room that he could
be heard. He spoke very distinctly, however, and if his
nationality could be discovered in his speech it was only in a
certain richness and breadth of tone.

He began by saying that he trembled at the responsibility
he had undertaken; and he should altogether despair, if he
did not see before him a jury of twelve men of rare intelligence,
whose acute minds would unravel all the sophistries of
the prosecution, men with a sense of honor, which would revolt
at the remorseless persecution of this hunted woman by
the state, men with hearts to feel for the wrongs of which
she was the victim. Far be it from him to cast any suspicion
upon the motives of the able, eloquent and ingenious lawyers
of the state; they act officially; their business is to convict.
It is our business, gentlemen, to see that justice is done.

“It is my duty, gentlemen, to unfold to you one of the most
affecting dramas in all the history of misfortune. I shall
have to show you a life, the sport of fate and circumstances,
hurried along through shifting storm and sun, bright with
trusting innocence and anon black with heartless villainy, a
career which moves on in love and desertion and anguish,
always hovered over by the dark spectre of Insanity,—an
insanity hereditary and induced by mental torture,—until it
ends, if end it must in your verdict, by one of those fearful
accidents which are inserutable to men and of which God
alone knows the secret.

“Gentlemen, I shall ask you to go with me away from this
court room and its minions of the law, away from the scene of
this tragedy, to a distant, I wish I could say a happier day. The
story I have to tell is of a lovely little girl, with sunny hair and

laughing eyes, traveling with her parents, evidently people of
wealth and refinement, upon a Mississippi steamboat. There
is an explosion, one of those terrible catastrophes which leave
the imprint of an unsettled mind upon the survivors. Hundreds
of mangled remains are sent into eternity. When the
wreck is cleared away this sweet little girl is found among
the panic stricken survivors, in the midst of a scene of horror
enough to turn the steadiest brain. Her parents have disappeared.
Search even for their bodies is in vain. The
bewildered, stricken child—who can say what changes
the fearful event wrought in her tender brain?—clings
to the first person who shows her sympathy. It is Mrs.
Hawkins, this good lady who is still her loving friend. Laura
is adopted into the Hawkins family. Perhaps she forgets
in time that she is not their child. She is an orphan. No,
gentlemen, I will not deceive you, she is not an orphan.
Worse than that. There comes another day of agony. She
knows that her father lives. But who is he, where is he?
Alas, I cannot tell you. Through the scenes of this painful
history he flits here and there, a lunatic! If he seeks his
daughter, it is the purposeless search of a lunatic, as one who
wanders bereft of reason, crying, where is my child? Laura
seeks her father. In vain! Just as she is about to find him,
again and again he disappears, he is gone, he vanishes.

“But this is only the prologue to the tragedy. Bear with
with me while I relate it. (Mr. Braham takes out his handkerchief,
unfolds it slowly, crushes it in his nervous hand,
and throws it on the table). Laura grew up in her humble
southern home, a beautiful creature, the joy of the house, the
pride of the neighborhood, the loveliest flower in all the
sunny south. She might yet have been happy; she was
happy. But the destroyer came into this paradise. He
plucked the sweetest bud that grew there, and having enjoyed
its odor, trampled it in the mire beneath his feet. George
Selby, the deceased, a handsome, accomplished Confederate
Colonel, was this human fiend. He deceived her with a

mock marriage; after some months he brutally abandoned
her, and spurned her as if she were a contemptible thing;
all the time he had a wife in New Orleans. Laura was
crushed. For weeks, as I shall show you by the testimony
of her adopted mother and brother, she hovered over death
in delirium. Gentlemen, did she ever emerge from this
delirium? I shall show you that when she recovered her
health, her mind was changed, she was not what she had
been. You can judge yourselves whether the tottering
reason ever recovered its throne.

“Years pass. She is in Washington, apparently the happy
favorite of a brilliant society. Her family have become
enormously rich by one of those sudden turns in fortune that
the inhabitants of America are familiar with—the discovery
of immense mineral wealth in some wild lands owned by
them. She is engaged in a vast philanthropic scheme for the
benefit of the poor, by the use of this wealth. But, alas,
even here and now, the same relentless fate pursued her.
The villain Selby appears again upon the scene, as if on purpose
to complete the ruin of her life. He appeared to taunt
her with her dishonor, he threatened exposure if she did not
become again the mistress of his passion. Gentlemen, do you
wonder if this woman, thus pursued, lost her reason, was beside
herself with fear, and that her wrongs preyed upon her
mind until she was no longer responsible for her acts? I
turn away my head as one who would not willingly look even
upon the just vengeance of Heaven. (Mr. Braham paused
as if overcome by his emotions. Mrs. Hawkins and Washington
were in tears, as were many of the spectators also. The
jury looked scared.)

“Gentlemen, in this condition of affairs it needed but a spark
—I do not say a suggestion, I do not say a hint—from this
butterfly Brierly, this rejected rival, to cause the explosion.
I make no charges, but if this woman was in her right mind
when she fled from Washington and reached this city in company
with Brierly, then I do not know what insanity is.”

When Mr. Braham sat down, he felt that he had the jury
with him. A burst of applause followed, which the officer
promptly suppressed. Laura, with tears in her eyes, turned a
grateful look upon her counsel. All the women among the
spectators saw the tears and wept also. They thought as
they also looked at Mr. Braham, how handsome he is!

Mrs. Hawkins took the stand. She was somewhat confused
to be the target of so many eyes, but her honest and good face
at once told in Laura's favor.

“Mrs. Hawkins,” said Mr. Braham, “will you be kind
enough to state the circumstances of your finding Laura?”

“I object,” said Mr. McFlinn, rising to his feet. “This
has nothing whatever to do with the case, your honor. I am
surprised at it, even after the extraordinary speech of my
learned friend.”

“How do you propose to connect it, Mr. Braham?” asked
the judge.

“If it please the court,” said Mr. Braham, rising impressively,
“your Honor has permitted the prosecution, and I have
submitted without a word, to go into the most extraordinary
testimony to establish a motive. Are we to be shut out from
showing that the motive attributed to us could not by reason
of certain mental conditions exist? I purpose, may it please
your Honor, to show the cause and the origin of an aberration
of mind, to follow it up with other like evidence, connecting it
with the very moment of the homicide, showing a condition
of the intellect of the prisoner that precludes responsibility.”

“The State must insist upon its objections,” said the District
Attorney. “The purpose evidently is to open the door
to a mass of irrelevant testimony, the object of which is to
produce an effect upon the jury your Honor well understands.”

“Perhaps,” suggested the judge, “the court ought to hear
the testimony, and exclude it afterwards, if it is irrelevant.”

“Will your honor hear argument on that?”

“Certainly.”

And argument his honor did hear, or pretend to, for two
whole days, from all the counsel in turn, in the course of
which the lawyers read contradictory decisions enough to
perfectly establish both sides, from volume after volume,
whole libraries in fact, until no mortal man could say what
the rules were. The question of insanity in all its legal aspects
was of course drawn into the discussion, and its application
affirmed and denied. The case was felt to turn upon
the admission or rejection of this evidence. It was a sort of
test trial of strength between the lawyers. At the end the
judge decided to admit the testimony, as the judge usually
does in such cases,after a sufficient waste of time in what
are called arguments.

Mrs. Hawkins was allowed to go on.