31 Bond Street Part 11

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE.

April 22, 1857 In New York, March turns to April by way of its trees. Apple trees dot Orchard Street, left standing after the Dutch farms fell. St. Mark's Church is known for its gnarled old pears. Was.h.i.+ngton Square is rimmed with cherry trees, the tiny petals cover the pavement like pink snow. In spring, new leaves soften the edges of the limestone edifices, and bricks and paving stones seem a part of the earth itself, with moss, sprouts, and worms wedged between the cobblestones. Magnolias bloom in church gardens, and all around the fringes of the city are stretches of wooded riverbank, with coverings of ground pine, wood violets, oak fern, and partridge vine.

Samuel sat on a log in a clearing by the river, sc.r.a.ping the scales off a mackerel. An Indian sat on the opposite log, carving a piece of wood. Samuel watched Katuma, in his dusty blue work pants, whittling away at the tiny piece of willow oak, smoothed into a hollow curl, not much larger than his thumb. Katuma was as tall and broad as Samuel, with skin the color of darkened b.u.t.ter.

There were footsteps from behind, padding along the earth of a beaten path. It was Katuma's daughter, Quietta, in a gingham skirt with a sleek braid swinging along her back. She carried a pile of vegetables in her ap.r.o.n. When she reached the clearing, she emptied the vegetables into a basket and sat next to her father on the log. "Here, girl," Katuma said, handing his daughter a carved whistle. "It sounds enough like a bird. Blow it if you see any men riding past the market toward these woods."

Quietta worked at a fruiterer's stall at the Greenwich Market on Christopher Street, the westernmost market in Greenwich Village, just blocks from where they sat by the river. She came down to the riverbank in the afternoons, where her father liked to sit and fish. Between the fis.h.i.+ng hut and the city street were two acres of brambles and high brush, and the path down to the water pa.s.sed an old storage shack and a broken-down building, now derelict, which s.h.i.+elded this part of the woods from the street. By day Greenwich Street was busy with horse-drawn lorries and lined with brick fortresses, warehouses that were filled with barrels and crates and burlap sacks-packing houses and manufactories that had swallowed up patches of the old Village. By night, the streets were empty with the workers gone. Down the slope by the river, where Samuel slept each night in the hut, the sky was large and filled with stars.

Quietta took off her shoes, padded in and out of the hut, and got some kindling for the fire. Tall trees enclosed the clearing, and the warm sunlight from the late afternoon filtered down in columns. The aspen leaves shook softly. There was a shuffling sound as soft as the wind in the leaves. A boy appeared at the clearing, coming down the path even more quietly than Quietta.

"Here comes the fancy boy," said Quietta, teasing John about the britches and little jacket he now wore, purchased for him by the lawyer's wife.

"We have a bounty," Katuma told John. "Samuel and I caught these fish without a net." The bucket was filled with glistening fish coiled in the bucket, up to the brim. The river glinted through more trees, not far from where they sat, and a raft was bobbing in the water, tied to a tree branch at the bottom of the sharp bank.

"Will you take me fis.h.i.+ng?" asked John.

"I will take you, Eagle, when the trial is over, and you take off those fancy clothes." Katuma called John Eagle because he always carried a flying eagle penny in his trouser pocket. Quietta called him Bird. "When the summer comes, we'll go to Rockaway. To the Lenape fis.h.i.+ng place."

Quietta placed the basket of vegetables before John. "First the vegetables, Bird. Cut them up." Samuel tossed John a knife he had been using on the fish, a dagger that landed at the boy's feet upright, point first, in the earth. John picked it up and started stabbing at a beet.

"Father, Bird is trying to make a whistle out of the beet."

"You can't cut a beet with a double-sided blade," said Katuma, handing John another knife.

Katuma lived with his wife and daughter in a proper house on Perry Street. He earned money working as a longsh.o.r.eman on the oyster barges. Come spring and summer, Katuma, along with his Indian friends, used these tiny huts for weekend pleasure, fis.h.i.+ng for striped ba.s.s, weakfish, porgies, and bluefish from dugout canoes they kept along the banks of the Hudson. It was on this stretch, one summer day, while Dr. Burdell was still alive, that Samuel had first met Katuma. From him, Samuel gained his knowledge of the waterfowl and sh.e.l.lfish that were so abundant that you could catch them with a stick and a pail. Even though Katuma was a day laborer, living in the city, it was not so long ago that his people reigned over this kingdom. Katuma told Samuel and John stories about his grandfather, the son of a chief who ruled the richest oyster beds and sp.a.w.ning grounds in the harbor, his lands stretching from this spot, spreading fifty miles east into the marshes of New Jersey.

It is always best to hide in plain sight, Katuma had told Samuel, after the murder. He had been right. The northern shantytowns and Negro neighborhoods had been the first places the sheriff 's men had gone looking for him, tearing in and out of the shacks and hideaways, and startling sleeping families. Fleeing Manhattan posed a greater danger. A lone Negro wandering through the countryside would be suspected of being a fugitive from the South. A fugitive was a boon for the bounty hunters, more so if a slaver discovered there was a link to a murder.

After the murder, Samuel had first gone to seek asylum at his church, and being told that it was not safe, he had come down to the river to Katuma's hut. Quietta brought him some food and drink, and during that stormy weekend, he slept, wrapped in furs and blankets. It was February, and when he stepped out of the hut, snowflakes swirled lightly about, falling like a light ash. The ribbon of the broad river was barely visible, s.h.i.+elded by a blanket of white that rolled over from the opposite sh.o.r.e. The bank of New Jersey disappeared under a dense curtain of snow. Looking into the flurry he could see nothing but the snow itself, the infinity of its white flakes thick as the depth of a million stars.

"Did you come from the lawyer's office?" Samuel asked John.

"Yes, they are all busy. The trial is starting soon," said John.

Katuma shook his head solemnly. "Maybe after the trial they will stop hunting for Samuel."

"You are useless with a knife, Bird," said Quietta, taking the knife from his hands. The vegetables were chopped into ragged pieces. "Here, go fetch me some water. Try to keep the minnows out." She handed John a pot that hung from a tripod, and John headed over to the bank of the river.

Samuel finished scaling the last piece of fish and Katuma placed them in a pan he had rubbed with seasoning. As he was crouching over the pan to start the fire, the Indian paused, his back braced, his head c.o.c.ked to one side. All of them heard the faint distant scratch of iron sc.r.a.ping against iron.

"Scatter," whispered Katuma. His limbs pushed him upright. He leapt to his feet, and Quietta was instantly gone, das.h.i.+ng silently through the trees. Samuel worried for a second about the boy, at the waterside, but he knew that John was hidden by the high riverbank, so Samuel started to run north. In the winter months, they had all talked about routes of escape, and John could run south on the sandy stretch along the river's edge. The boy was faster than all of them.

A shot rang out like a crack. Samuel heard a bullet whiz into the trees. There were voices now, back by the hut. Samuel kept on running, the adrenaline carrying his limbs at a faster and faster pace. Down South, a manhunt was accompanied by dogs, but now there were no bloodhounds, and without the use of scent, these city men were blind, cras.h.i.+ng through bushes without a clear direction.

Samuel kept going, pumping his legs and arms faster and faster. He jumped over a fence, cutting his hand, and he landed in a churchyard. He crept along the shelter of tombstones and then dashed down a lane, under pear trees that were in bloom. Breathless, slowing down to a walk and at other times trotting, he zigzagged through the stable alleys that ran behind the houses, past the little Village kitchen gardens, keeping off the main streets. The sun was still high, and the spring evening had not yet changed to twilight. Better that it was still light-a Negro running behind the houses in the shadows would have created alarm. He bent over, catching his breath, then started again at a saunter, walking casually like a stable hand making his way home. Finally, he reached Sixth Avenue and cautiously stepped into the traffic and crossed the street.

His heart was still beating fast. There was a milk cart standing without a driver, idle at the curb, and he moved to the other side of it. He picked up the horse's brush from its bucket and started brus.h.i.+ng the horse, ducking behind the horse's flank, crouched low, to use the vantage to look around. His heart slowed and he regained a steady breath. Across the broad avenue, he spotted a posse of men on horseback, at the corner of Perry Street, seeming to debate which way to turn. The posse turned and headed north on the avenue, and Samuel, hidden behind the milk cart, watched their backsides recede, bouncing in their saddles.

A man hurrying by, wearing spectacles and a black suit, stopped to ask Samuel where to find the apothecary. Samuel pointed him to the apothecary sign, and the man rushed off, tossing Samuel a coin. Samuel saw that not a foot away from him was a poster on a pole: Reward: Wanted in connection to the murder of Dr. Burdell-a Negro, 30 years, tall and strong. The poster had a black face in profile, an etching that could be a caricature of any Negro, with a sloping forehead, tight curly hair, and overly large lips. It so little resembled Samuel that just about any man of color could be a.s.signed the role. There wasn't anyone among the legions of policemen or general population that could point him out as the man who drove Dr. Burdell on the night of the murder. Hide in plain sight, thought Samuel. With the posse fanning out toward the north, he would return to where he had been hiding, close to the riverfront. Katuma and his generations of Lenape, here on this crowding island, understood how to flee. Like fledgling birds, they scattered from a familiar spot, then circled around before coming back again, calmly resettling on their terrain.

Harper's Weekly, May 9, 1857.

Part III.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO.

The Case of the People vs. Emma Augusta Cunningham, otherwise called Burdell Jury List..

Gilbert Oakley: Merchant.

Gilbert Barnes: Iron railing Manufacturer David Doughty: Pickler Chauncey Norton: Bank President Francis Gahagan: Paper business William Lockwood: Produce Dealer.

Luke Coe: Silk merchant.

John Green: Builder George Tugnot: Forge worker.

John Archibald: Fancy Goods Charles Hunter: Merchant Frederick Goetze: Tobacconist.

May 5, 1857.

The May morning was shot through with a blast of chilled air. Henry Clinton had spent the hours before sunrise at home studying his speech, and then at seven had gone to the jail to visit with Emma and then to his office to review his speech again while the officers brought Emma and her daughters over to the courthouse for the first day of the trial.

He was now heading back to the courthouse. At the courthouse plaza, a congestion of wagons and skittish horses were reined to the hitching posts. It was nearing nine, and from around each corner, pedestrians were streaming toward the building, heading toward the steps in a frantic commotion, some breaking into a run, anxious to get inside-it was like pa.s.sing through Rome on the morning of a gladiator game.

The plaza emptied except for the last stragglers, and the courthouse was full. From inside the outer rotunda, Clinton could see into the open doors that the courtroom was packed. At the distant end of a corridor, a mob was pus.h.i.+ng and jockeying, and the prison officers were leading Emma from the room where she had been held. A group of newspapermen, with bulging eyes and thrusting chins, had somehow gotten into the restricted area. From Clinton's vantage, Emma appeared to be moving with perfect posture and purpose amid the preying scribes, inches from her face, hissing her name. Helen twisted against the horde, her skirts thras.h.i.+ng like the feathers of a bird being toyed with by a cat. Augusta's head flowed along pa.s.sively in the slipstream. The officers muscled back the reporters, ushering the women into a rear door nearest the defendant's box.

Clinton rounded the corridor to another discreet entrance that the marshals used, and he paused at the doorway to the courtroom before entering. Two tiers of raised balconies curved in a semicircle. The spectators' seating on the upper level was full, with bodies crushed together and hands and arms dangling forward over the rails. Heads bobbed in the back, where there was standing room only. On the bottom level, seats with paneled railings and small swinging gates, led to the prosecution and defense tables. Legal aides darted back and forth among the lawyers, delivering papers and carrying the doc.u.ments.

Clinton entered and headed to the defense table. No one paid him notice, for all eyes were on Emma and her daughters, now being led in through the opposite entrance. The women were taken to the defendant's box, which was on the right side of the judge, slightly raised, as was the jury box. There was a loud buzz. The spectators whispered and gasped at the sight of her. Clinton's worst fears were confirmed-it was the sound that accompanies a public hanging.

Clinton slipped into his place next to Thayer, who nodded with a glance that said: "Have faith," but there was also a twitch of concern. Clinton kept his facial muscles inscrutably still.

The prosecution's table was across from that of the defense. Hall was seated, scribbling notes, intent on the page. Clinton could tell by his posture that he was deep in the study of his speech. Hall would deliver his opening statement first.

The door behind the judge's dais opened, and the jury stumbled in, as if stunned by the impact of a full courtroom. Clinton made sure not to watch them but kept his eyes on the jury list. By following the sound of their footfalls and placement, he could tell who was moving into which place as they s.h.i.+fted into their arranged seats. The tobacconist wheezed, depositing his body heavily into his chair; he was farthest on the right.

Soon all twelve were seated, and Clinton ventured a glance, not letting his gaze linger for more than a few seconds. He had studied the jury carefully when each man was chosen during the voir dire, and now he burned a picture of them in his mind, lined up in their seats, the way acid burns a quicksilver image on a daguerreotype gla.s.s. They sat in two rows of six. The fancy goods merchant was tall and wiry. The bank president sprouted wild whiskers. The pickler looked a little green. From experience, Clinton knew that no matter how swiftly he glanced at a jury, several always caught his eye, reminding him to keep his study of them short.

Clinton stared at the notes on the table in front of him, yet his attention was focused on every sound. A good trial attorney perceives the courtroom through its sounds and never relies on his eyes-coughs and rustles of fabric are cues and signposts in the course of a trial. The sc.r.a.pe of the large chair on the dais meant that the courtroom guard was adjusting the judge's pulpit. Clinton glanced again at Oakey Hall. He was sitting upright with his long legs still crossed, watching Emma and her daughters with a defiant look, as if by their very presence in the defendant's box, he had won the case. Hall's coat was tapered, and the handkerchief that fanned out of his breast pocket was peac.o.c.k blue. With the gaze of the entire courtroom upon Emma, Clinton studied the jury again. Then he ventured to look at the Cunningham women, seated. Emma was entirely in black, hidden behind an elaborate lace veil that covered her face all the way down to her waist. Augusta wore a modest dress, but her blond hair flowed all around, a little wildly, attracting attention to her like a beacon. She grasped a fan, folded demurely, and fingered it anxiously in her lap. Helen was coiffed with bits of jewelry and bows. Her rosy lips were flushed and defiant. Clinton had told the girls to dress plainly-he had wanted them to look like parish ladies, but Augusta had a strange unearthly glow, and Helen could not help but primp for the crowd.

The clerk issued the sonorous "All rise" as Judge Davies climbed onto the dais, his bony hands grasping for support as he climbed into his pulpit. There was a milling of fabric as the judge adjusted his robes, and the sc.r.a.pe of wood settling against wood. The gavel dropped. All sounds intensified briefly before they began to ripple toward silence.

"Members of the jury, learned counsel, defendant, I bring this court to order." He nodded in each direction. "I hereby commence the Case of the People versus Emma Hempstead Cunningham, otherwise called Burdell. I shall call Mr. Abraham Oakey Hall to make the opening statements for the State."

The shuffling in the room raised to a high pitch, then fell silent almost as quickly, for the faster they were silent, the faster the spectacle would begin. Hall stood and sauntered forward, then positioned himself a little off center, keeping his eyes fixed at a point in front of his feet. He scratched his chin and pulled his tie, waiting for the spectators to turn their full attention upon him. The courtroom rippled and flurried with the last twitches of antic.i.p.ation, and then the last phlegmatic cough came from the far corner of the room. It was a prosecutor's drum roll. Hall began: "May it please the court." He turned and nodded at the jury box. "Gentlemen of the jury. It is my honorable duty to serve you in this most grave, but important matter.

"My duty today is to prepare your minds to receive the evidence that will be presented to you. You already know that one of your fellow citizens, Dr. Harvey Burdell, was murdered in this very city, in his own house, and it is my role to prove to you that the deed was premeditated, and that someone in his own house did the deed. I propose to prove by the evidence that among the inmates of that house there was one, greater than any other, who had a motive to perpetrate that horrible deed. And that person was a woman, and that woman is this defendant."

His voice had risen to a pitch and he pointed theatrically to Emma, who was covered in the black lace veil. Her fingers gripped the rail, her knuckles white.

"She alone," he continued, "committed as bold, as daring and desperate a crime as we in this city, have ever seen.

"Who was the victim? He was an upright member of the medical profession, a dentist and a man of the Episcopal faith. He was said to have enemies-but, so far as the prosecution has been able to discover, he had no enemy as great as this woman," he said, again pointing. "Dr. Burdell is dead, but the woman who was his deadly enemy sits before you, a veiled picture of sorrow. But I ask the jurors to remember one thing: crime has no s.e.x. A crime is not different whether it strikes from the hand of a man or the hand of a woman."

At this pause, Clinton heard a grunt from the jury box, a reflexive noise indicating a.s.sent, like that of a churchgoer responding to a sermon. Clinton did not turn to see who made it, but judging by the direction, it was the forge worker, a stump of a man named George Tugnot.

"You ask," Hall continued, now moving toward Tugnot, "can it be possible that one of the fair s.e.x, upon whom G.o.d has placed his seal of purity, should become a midnight a.s.sa.s.sin and embrace hate, revenge, and jealousy? I answer you, yes-it is possible. When we open the page of history, we perceive that crime knows no s.e.x. In Ancient Rome we read of the daughter of Servius, who drove her chariot over the dead body of her father. And Jezebel and Fulvia, who, when the head of Cicero was brought to her, she spat upon it, and drawing from her bosom a deadly bodkin, thrust it again and again through his tongue. And history recounts to us how Queen Agnes of Hungary bathed her feet in the blood of sixty-three knights, exclaiming, as she did, 'It seems as if I were wading in May dew.'

"This woman, Emma Cunningham, pursued Dr. Burdell with a fiendish hate, jealousy, and revenge until her knife found repose in his heart. And yet should we, the prosecution, or you, the jury, labor under a disability called sympathy?"

Hall paced back and forth in his colorful garb, wound up in a Shakespearean lather.

"The domestics of the house will go upon the stand. We will take the roof off that dwelling at 31 Bond Street and allow you to gaze into the depths of moral degradation. This woman, the mother of daughters, fastened her greedy, l.u.s.tful eyes upon Dr. Burdell. We shall show you that Dr. Burdell had made up his mind that life to him was useless so long as he had this shadow at his side. He had made up his mind to put her out of the house of which he was the landlord. And she would have none of it and plotted her revenge.

"She had the motive to murder him: he had spurned her advances and showed interests in other females, fairer and more genteel than herself. He had money and a beautiful home, and she saw an opportunity to affix those for herself, and to that end, she engaged in murder.

"She had the opportunity to murder him. Why, gentlemen, in the whole annals of crime, wherever you place your finger upon a b.l.o.o.d.y and malicious murder, you will never find an opportunity so carefully provided as that contrived by this woman upon this night. The Doctor was a regular man. She knew his habits. When the cook comes upon the stand she will tell you that the prisoner came down into the kitchen and ordered her to bed, although there was only one servant in the house, with many duties left to perform.

"We shall show to you that the doors and windows of the house were shut tight; the facts utterly exclude the idea of intrusion or interference by any outside person. We shall show that when the errand boy came in the morning to the bas.e.m.e.nt door, it was locked, as well as the back door. We shall prove that the street door had a lock of peculiar construction; that no key was missing. The learned counsel for the defense may argue that when Dr. Burdell came home, some enemy from the outside followed him at his heels upstairs, stabbed him to the heart, and then, bloodstained, rushed from the house. No, gentlemen, Dr. Burdell came in alone. His room was secured and locked up. She had a pa.s.skey to his room and she was waiting there for him.

"She sits before you today, a veiled picture of sorrow, hiding behind a widow's black lace, but it is a role, it is a disguise, for she has no sorrow at the death of this man. Was her revenge against him enough of a motive? What is it that she wanted above all? Why it was his property, the fruits of his labor, and most of all his beautiful home. She knew the house was worth a princely sum. She eyed his possessions with greed and set her sights upon him with a plan, not to serve him, but to enter that dwelling at 31 Bond Street and insinuate herself into it. She put him at her mercy. Instead of the mistress of his house, she became his shadow, his persecutor, and his tormentor.

"Now physicians may testify here to tell you that the mortal injury inflicted on that man happened in the briefest possible s.p.a.ce of time. And wherever he was struck, the facts will prove that the blow was given by a left-handed person. And she, gentlemen, is a left-handed woman.

"The facts will show that even when the man was dead, and the life-tide flowing rapidly from his heart, that again and again the stabs were inflicted into the unconscious corpse, to make doubly sure that this victim was disposed of.

"Whoever did that deed was in all probability covered from head to foot with blood-blood upon the wall, upon the door, and blood upon the different articles of furniture-blood upon the carpet, drops that had fallen from the b.l.o.o.d.y dagger. She had the opportunity to burn the b.l.o.o.d.y clothing in that house that night and she had time before the discovery of the body in the morning to remove all clues. She is alone in the wee hours of the morning, taking her time, feeding her clothes into the stove, while her victim lies dead upon his carpet.

"You will hear from servants, who will testify to the questionable character of the woman before you. We will present a respectable witness, who will testify that she was to take a lease and that Dr. Burdell wanted this 'housemistress' out of his house, and was taking actions to evict her.

"Now gentlemen, I will conclude my brief history of this case. Emma Cunningham was his mistress, with claims to be his wife. If I show you the facts as they relate to this defendant and prove to you that she deserves no sympathy and no respect, then, I have done my duty."

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE.

The spectators remained hushed in antic.i.p.ation as Oakey Hall returned to his seat. Clinton pushed his chair back and stepped forward to address the a.s.sembly. Listen for your cues, he told himself. Avoid all eyes. "May it please the court." He then took a breath, held the air for several seconds, and began: "Gentlemen of the jury. We are here on a most sacred mission. We are here to honor our system of justice, whereby, in a capital case, the accused party, if found guilty, is sentenced to death. Your judicial duty is always sacred, but when the crime and punishment are equally grave, the jury must take steps to rid themselves of all prejudice, they must deliberate on the evidence, and be just and generous. Although I am accustomed to addressing juries in capital cases, I have never before risen to address a jury where the prosecution-the District Attorney-has given such an unjust and ungenerous opening beyond all conscience and tact."

He took a few steps and then stopped before the prosecution table, hovering a foot away from Oakey Hall. Hall shuffled in his seat and settled into a position with his arms crossed that was not unlike a physical sneer. Clinton gazed past him and continued: "The District Attorney-in opening this case to you, gentlemen-supposes that this defendant, Mrs. Cunningham, also known as Mrs. Harvey Burdell, is, in advance of all evidence, already proved to be the worst woman that G.o.d ever created." Again he paced and then stood still again before Oakey Hall, just inches away from the defense table.

"The abuse heaped upon this defendant by the District Attorney is so outrageous that it would render me unworthy not to mention it. Our District Attorney has overstepped all bounds of decency by ransacking the cla.s.sics, both sacred and profane, with a view to selecting demons-female fiends if you will. According to Mr. Hall's account, this woman is the agent of the monarch of h.e.l.l himself, the Devil's special vice-regent upon this earth, and by inference a murderess, none other than Lady Macbeth."

Clinton walked briskly over to the jury box, then half-turned, so that he was still addressing the entire room. "And yet the District Attorney knows that when it comes to the evidence to prove this charge of murder, no such evidence exists. There is no proof that she planned and schemed this murder, or that her motives toward this man were anything but pure. We are barred here from discussing the connections by marriage of this couple, for that is being litigated in another court, but I can attest that her actions were at all times consistent with a woman who was devoted to the needs of her children and to the man of the house. Her actions were consistent with the role of mistress of the house, and she believed her role to be both n.o.ble and fulfilling, a role that enriched and benefited everyone in the household.

"On the evening of Doctor Burdell's death, she was in her own bedroom, having instructed the servants at their tasks. She had ordered the cook to bring his water basin for his nighttime wash, and was sewing in preparation for her daughter's return to boarding school. What woman would perform these acts of housewifery at the very same time that she was plotting a vengeful murder, and would be able to carry out such a mortal deed with her children, unaware, in the room above?

"There is no proof that she was waiting for him in his chamber that night, nor that she emerged covered in blood, or burned any clothes in the stove inside the house. In fact, the scientific evidence proves otherwise, that she did not commit this act.

"The District Attorney told you that Mrs. Burdell is a 'veiled picture of sorrow,' and that all the sufferings which she exhibits are entirely feigned." Clinton gestured directly toward Emma. "She comes before you, gentlemen, a 'picture of sorrow' and she comes before you with the weeds of widowhood. It is not the first time she has grieved the loss of a husband. She has faced affliction before, but, unfortunately, the star of her destiny drew her to an ill-fated union with a man who had many adversaries-Dr. Harvey Burdell." Clinton heard a sharp sigh from the back of the room. Such noises were audible tics that signified disagreement or disbelief.

Turning, he took a step closer and looked directly into the faces in the jury box. As was the habit of juries during opening remarks, they directed their gaze back with the keen intensity of students. "As you are fair, intelligent, thinking men, I say you will put aside these stories of infamous females, and not allow them to prejudice your thinking in this case. The District Attorney stated to you that this defendant haunted Dr. Burdell, that she dogged him-that she was his shadow, his persecutor, and his tormentor." He lowered his head and scratched his chin, then glanced quizzically at Hall. "Gentlemen, will the counsel prove any such facts?"

He now gestured toward Hall whose long legs were stretched out, crossed. "I believe that you will agree with me, that the District Attorney is in error. He neglected to tell you that Harvey Burdell sought Emma Cunningham's favor-which he pursued with all of his attention; that he courted her-he paid her every courtesy that an honorable suitor would pay to an honorable and high-minded woman. Why did he say she hunted him for his fortune?"

Clinton shook his head. "Does he expect to prove anything of the sort? Does he expect that intelligent men would base their judgment in a capital case on gossip from servants? Why would he open this trial with a case that builds upon biblical allusion and innuendo? Is it to distract you from your ability to perceive the truth? And does the District Attorney think that twelve intelligent men will be diverted so shamelessly?"

Clinton paused here to gather his breath and made a quick glance around to gauge the effects of his words. His crinkled lips pursed together like a stern headmaster, Judge Davies was looking at Oakey Hall, who was staring at his notes, his usual c.o.c.ky posture deflated, scornful as a schoolboy. The court stenographers paused when Clinton paused, their pens held in the air midsentence. A sign of a captivated audience was the amount of white he could detect in eyes of the crowd; drooping lids were a sign of suspicion or disengagement. The eyes across the room were wide and alert.

"I will not now outline all of the evidence of this case," he resumed, raising his voice to the back of the balcony, "but I will say that we shall prove by evidence and rules of law that Emma Burdell could not and did not commit this murder. We shall prove with scientific certainty that this is so. We shall prove that someone with ten times the brute strength of this woman entered the chamber on that night and fought the victim. We will show you that the victim fought back with all his strength, up to his last b.l.o.o.d.y and desperate moment."

Clinton raised his voice, now to a pitch. "We shall scientifically prove that no evidence from that b.l.o.o.d.y battle was found upon this defendant, or in any other portion of the house. This woman did not murder Dr. Burdell. Someone entered that room with vicious and malicious intent, and if you have any reasonable doubt of this woman's guilt, or any idea that there were others who may be guilty, you must acquit. For certainly there were many who held this man in deep contempt-for he was a man with many enemies, including several members of the victim's own family."

Clinton walked slowly away from the jury, and then circled back again, as if he remembered another point. "The rule of law which governs you in this case, gentlemen, is simply this: if the circ.u.mstances include any other hypothesis than guilt, it is your bounden duty to acquit. As reasonable men, you must give all your weight to any reasonable doubt that this woman committed this vicious crime. I do not regret putting this case to you, for I wish not only that Mrs. Burdell should be acquitted; I wish that she be vindicated.

"Let me remind you, that an error in judgment, hastily made, on superficial grounds in this verdict brings a penalty of death. It would not rest upon good men's souls to make such a judgment of guilt when there is no evidence of such, no direct witnesses, no motive, and no weapon recovered."

He took a deep breath, and hardened his tone. "I say you will render an acquittal in this case. I know that for certain, because I am convinced that you will act upon the evidence, that you will act upon the law, you will act with your conscience-in other words, gentlemen, you will act as men."

He turned to walk to his chair. He might have elaborated upon the technical details or the virtues of the defendant. He had taken a gamble by keeping it short and chancing a plea to the jury's honor. He sat at his table, pulled in his chair, and waited for the judge to make his next order. A glance at the jury framed them in a tableau: wide eyed, with mouths hung open, still wrapped up in his words. The spectators were just beginning to shuffle in recognition that the speech was finished. By the delayed reaction, he sensed that his gambit had had its desired effect. He had lifted his bow, drawn the arrow, and hit the mark.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR.