the extreme deliberation of the whole tribunal was another revelation to a lay mind thus mercifully distracted from the vital issues at stake. It must be remembered, however, that this was not a guilty man; he had the open mind of innocence, the outside point of view; there were whole moments when he almost forgot who it was that was being tried. And, perhaps, in the ceaseless self-consciousness of guilt, Tom Erichsen was spared a keener heart-ache than any that even he had yet endured.
When the finding of the body and its exact position when found had been duly demonstrated to the satisfaction of the court, and counsel for the defence had put a couple of questions, counsel for the Crown informed his lordship that he proposed to take the medical evidence later; he would now trace the prisoner’s connection with the crime, adducing in the first place what he conceived to be an adequate motive for its commission. Mr. Richard Vale was thereupon called, but added little to the evidence which he had given at Marylebone as already described. The only difference was a cross-examination more rough than telling, in which disgraceful admissions were accompanied with a dissipated smirk, but which elicited no essential point in the prisoner’s favour.
On the other hand, this witness was again the peg upon which were hung the threatening letters; the letters were once more undisputed; and a passage in one of them caused the first “sensation” of the trial. “I warn you,” ran the text, “that I would rather hang than starve. Unless you pay me I shall do one or the other; and don’t you rely on dodging me much longer, for I am hunting you day and night, and will do till I drop.” The dead man’s landlady and a club porter gave supplementary
