Once a Week (magazine)/Series 1/Volume 5/The alibi

THE ALIBI.

A REAL EXPERIENCE.

 

I wholly disbelieve in spirit-rapping, table-turning, and all supernatural eccentricities of that nature. I refuse credence to the best authenticated ghost story (mind you, ghost story pur et simple).

I can sleep in the gloomiest haunted room in the gloomiest haunted house, without the slightest fear of a nocturnal visit from the other world.

But, although I scoff at white ladies, bleeding nuns, et hoc genus omne, there is a species of supernatural occurrence in which I am, I confess, an unwilling and hesitating believer.

The circumstances I am about to relate are of this nature, and were told me by an intimate friend of mine, as having lately occurred to a relation of his own.

I give the story as he gave it to me, namely, in the words as nearly as possible of the principal actor in it.

 

Two years ago, towards the end of the London season, weary of the noise and bustle that for the last three months had been ceaselessly going on around me, I determined upon seeking a few days’ rest and quiet in the country. The next evening saw me comfortably installed in a pretty farm-house about two miles from the cathedral town of X——. The little cottage in which I had taken up my quarters belonged to an old servant of my father’s, and had long been a favourite resort of mine when wishing for quiet and fresh air.

The evening of the second day after my arrival was unusually close and sultry, even for the time of year. Weary with the heat, and somewhat sated with the two days’ experience I had enjoyed of a quiet country life, I went up to my bed-room about half-past ten, with the intention of taking refuge from the ennui which was growing on me, in a good long night’s sleep. Finding, however, the heat an insuperable obstacle to closing my eyes, I got up, put on my dressing-gown, and lighting a cigar, sat down at the open window, and dreamily gazed out on the garden in front of the cottage. Before me several low flat meadows stretched down to the river, which separated us from the town. In the distance the massive towers of the cathedral appeared in strong and bright relief against the sky. The whole landscape indeed was bathed in a flood of light from the clear summer moon.

I was gradually getting sleepy, and beginning to think of turning in, when I heard a soft, clear voice, proceeding apparently from some one just beneath my window, saying,

“George, George, be quick! You are wanted in the town.”

I immediately looked from the window, and although the moon still shone most brilliantly, somewhat to my surprise I could see no one. Thinking, however, that it was some friend of my landlord’s, who was begging him to come into the town upon business, I turned from the window, and getting into bed, in a few minutes was fast asleep.

I must have slept about three hours, when I awoke with a sudden start, and with a shivering “gooseskin” feeling all over me. Fancying that this was caused by the morning air from the open window, I was getting out of bed to close it, when I heard the same voice proceeding from the very window itself.

“George, be quick! You are wanted in the town.”

These words produced an indescribable effect upon me. I trembled from head to foot, and, with a curious creeping about the roots of the hair, stood and listened. Hearing nothing more, I walked quickly to the window, and looked out. As before, nothing was to be seen. I stood in the shade of the curtain for some minutes, watching for the speaker to show himself, and then laughing at my own nervousness, closed the window and returned to bed.

The grey morning light was now gradually overspreading the heavens, and daylight is antagonistic to all those fears which under cover of the darkness will steal at times over the boldest. In spite of this, I could not shake off the uncomfortable feeling produced by that voice. Vainly I tried to close my eyes. Eyes remained obstinately open; ears sensitively alive to the smallest sound.

Some half-hour had elapsed, when again I felt the same chill stealing over me. With the perspiration standing on my forehead, I started up in bed, and listened with all my might. An instant of dead silence, and the mysterious voice followed:

“George, be quick! You must go into the town.”

The voice was in the room—nay, more, by my very bed side. The miserable fear that came over me, I cannot attempt to describe. I felt that the words were addressed to me, and that by no human mouth.

Hearing nothing more, I slowly got out of bed and by every means in my power convinced myself that I was wide awake, and not dreaming. Looking at myself in the glass on the dressing-table, I was at first shocked, and then, in spite of myself, somewhat amused, by the pallid hue and scared expression of my countenance.

I grinned a ghastly grin at myself, whistled a bit of a polka, and got into bed again.

I had a horrible sort of notion that some one was looking at me, and that it would never do to let them see that I was the least uneasy.

I soon found out, however, that bed, under the circumstances, was a mistake, and I determined to get up, and calm my nerves in the fresh morning air.

I dressed hurriedly, with many a look over my shoulder, keeping as much as possible to one corner of the room, where nobody could get behind me. The grass in front of my window was glistening with the heavy morning dew, on which no foot could press without leaving a visible trace.

I searched the whole garden thoroughly, but no sign could I see of any person having been there.

Pondering over the events of the night, which in spite of broad daylight and common sense, persisted in assuming a somewhat supernatural aspect, I wandered across the meadows towards the river, by a footpath which led to the ferry. As I drew near to the boatman’s cottage I saw him standing at his door, looking up the path by which I was approaching. As soon as he saw me, he turned and walked down to his boat, where he waited my arrival. “You are early on foot my friend, this morning,” said I, as I joined him.

“Early, sir,” answered he, in a somewhat grumbling tone; “yes, it is early, sir, and I have been waiting here for you this two hours or more.”

“Waiting for me, my friend—how so?”

“Yes, sir, I have; for they seemed so very anxious that you should not be kept waiting; they have been down from the farm twice this blessed night, telling me that you would want to cross the ferry very early this morning.”

I answered the man not a word, and getting into his boat, was quickly put across the water. As I walked rapidly up towards the town, I endeavoured to persuade myself that somebody was endeavouring to play a silly hoax upon me. At last, stopping at a gate through which I had to pass, I determined upon proceeding no further. As I turned to retrace my steps, suddenly the same shivering sensation passed over me—I can only describe it as a cold damp blast of air meeting me in the face, and then, stealing round and behind me, enveloping me in its icy folds.

I distinctly heard the words “George, George,” uttered in my very ear, in a somewhat plaintive and entreating tone.

I shuddered with a craven fear, and turning hastily round hurried on towards the town.

A few minutes’ walking brought me into the market-place. It was evidently market-day, for in spite of the early hour there was already a considerable bustle going on. Shops were being opened, and the country people were exposing their butter, poultry, and eggs, for sale, and for about two hours I wandered amongst the busy and constantly increasing crowd, listening to every scrap of conversation that reached my ear, and vainly endeavouring to connect them with the strange summons that had roused me from my bed, and led me nolens volens to the town.

I could hear nothing that interested me in any way, and feeling tired and hungry, I decided on breakfasting at the hotel, which overlooked the market-place, and then taking myself back to the cottage, in spite of the mysterious voice.

The cheerful and noisy bustle of the market had indeed partly dissipated the morbid turn which my fancies had taken.

After I had breakfasted I lit my cigar, and strolled into the bar, where I talked for ten minutes with the landlord without elucidating anything of greater moment than that it was his (the landlord’s) opinion that things were bad—very; that Squire Thornbury was going to give a great ball on the occasion of his daughter’s approaching marriage; and that Mr. Weston’s ox was certain to carry off the prize at the next Agricultural Meeting.

I bade him good morning, and turned my steps homeward. I was checked on my way down the High Street by a considerable crowd, and upon inquiring what was the matter, was informed that the Assizes were being held, and that an “interesting murder case” was going on. My curiosity was roused, I turned into the court-house, and, meeting an acquaintance who fortunately happened to be a man in authority, was introduced into the court, and accommodated with a seat.

The prisoner at the bar, who was accused of robbing and murdering a poor country girl, was a man of low slight stature, with a coarse brutal cast of features, rendered peculiarly striking by their strangely sinister expression.

As his small bright eyes wandered furtively round the court they met mine, and for an instant rested upon me. I shrank involuntarily from his gaze, as I would from that of some loathsome reptile, and kept my eyes steadily averted from him till the end of the trial, which had been nearly concluded the previous evening. The evidence, as summed up by the judge, was principally circumstantial, though apparently overwhelming in its nature. In spite of his counsel’s really excellent defence, the jury, unhesitatingly, found him “guilty.”

The judge, before passing sentence, asked the prisoner, as usual, if he had anything further to urge why sentence of death should not be passed upon him.

The unfortunate man, in an eager excited manner, emphatically denied his guilt,—declared that he was an honest, hard working, travelling glazier—that he was at Bristol, many miles from the scene of the murder on the day of its commission,—and that he knew no more about it than a babe unborn. When asked why he had not brought forward this line of defence during the trial, he declared that he had wished it, but that the gentleman who had conducted his defence had refused to do so.

His counsel, in a few words of explanation, stated that, although he had every reason to believe the story told by the prisoner, he had been forced to confine his endeavours in his behalf to breaking down the circumstantial evidence for the prosecution—that most minute and searching inquiries had been made at Bristol, but that from the short time the prisoner had passed in that town (some three or four hours), and from the lengthened period which had elapsed since the murder, he had been unable to find witnesses who could satisfactorily have proved an alibi, and had therefore been forced to rely upon the weakness of the evidence produced by the prosecution. Sentence of death was passed upon the prisoner, who was removed from the bar loudly and persistently declaring his innocence.

I left the court painfully impressed with the conviction that he was innocent. The passionate earnestness with which he had pleaded his own cause, the fearless, haughty expression that crossed his ill-omened features, when, finding his assertions entirely valueless, he exclaimed with an imprecation, “Well, then, do your worst, but I am innocent. I never saw the poor girl in my life, much less murdered her,” caused the whole court, at least the unprofessional part of it, to feel that there was some doubt about the case, and that circumstantial evidence, however strong, should rarely be permitted to carry a verdict of “guilty.” I am sure that the fervent, though unsupported assertions made by the prisoner, affected the jury far more than the florid defence made for him by his counsel.

The painful scene that I had just witnessed entirely put the events of the morning out of my head, and I walked home with my thoughts fully occupied with the trial.

The earnest protestations of the unfortunate man rang in my ears, and his face, distorted with anxiety and passion, rose ever before me.

I passed the afternoon writing answers to several business letters, which had found me out in my retreat, and soon after dinner retired to my room, weary with want of sleep the previous night and with the excitement of the day.

It had been my habit for many years to make every night short notes of the events of the day, and this evening, as usual, I sat down to write my journal. I had hardly opened the book when, to my horror, the deadly chill that I had experienced in the morning again crept round me.

I listened eagerly for the voice that had hitherto followed, but this time in vain; not a sound could I hear but the ticking of my watch upon the table, and, I fear I must add, the beating of my own coward heart.

I got up and walked about, endeavouring to shake off my fears. The cold shadow, however, followed me about, impeding, as it seemed, my very respiration. I hesitated for a moment at the door, longing to call up the servant upon some pretext, but, checking myself, I turned to the table, and resolutely sitting down, again opened my journal.

As I turned over the leaves of the book, the word Bristol caught my eye. One glance at the page, and in an instant the following circumstances flashed across my memory. I had been in Bristol on that very day—the day on which this dreadful murder had been committed!

On my way to a friend’s house, I had missed at Bristol the train I had expected to catch, and having a couple of hours to spare, wandered into the town, and, entering the first hotel I came to, called for some luncheon. The annoyance I felt at having some hours to wait was aggravated by the noise a workman was making in replacing a pane of glass in one of the coffee-room windows. I spoke to him once or twice, and finding my remonstrances of no avail walked to the window, and, with the assistance of the waiter, forced the man to discontinue his work.

In an instant I recalled the features of the workman. It was the very man I had seen in the felons’ dock that morning. There was no doubt about it. That hideous face as it peered through the broken pane had fixed itself indelibly in my memory, and now identified itself beyond the possibility of doubt with the sinister countenance that had impressed me so painfully in the morning.

I have little more to add. I immediately hurried back to the town and laid these facts before the judge. On communicating with the landlady of the hotel at Bristol, she was able to prove the payment of a small sum on that day to a travelling glazier. She came down to X——, and from among a crowd of felons unhesitatingly picked out the convicted man as the person to whom she had paid the money.

The poor fellow being a stranger at Bristol, and having only passed two or three hours there, was utterly unable to remember at what houses he had been employed. I myself had forgotten the fact of my having ever been in that town.

A week later the man was at liberty. Some matter-of-fact people may endeavour to divest these circumstances of their, to me, mysterious nature, by ascribing them to a disordered imagination and the fortuitous recognition of a prisoner condemned to die.

Nothing will ever efface from my mind the conviction that Providence in this case chose to work out its ends by extraordinary and supernatural means.

 

Here ended his story. I give it you without addition or embellishment, as he told it to me. It is second-hand, I confess, but hitherto I have never been fortunate enough to hear a story with aught of supernatural in it that was not open to the same objection.