Young Mr. Talley leaned toward me. “This trial was not announced,” he whispered. “Do you know anything about it?”
“Rather a lot, actually.”
“He looks quite hale and strong. Who is he?”
“That would take too long to tell.”
He gave me an annoyed look, but I put a finger to my lips in a plea for silence. The trial began.
It went reasonably swiftly. The counsel for the prosecution rose and did no more than state the facts of the case as sworn to by Alfred Simmons, the night porter at the Globe and Anchor. Though the condition of the corpus of “Elijah Bolton” was described, it was done dispassionately. There was room aplenty for the prosecution to improvise upon the lurid details, yet the opportunity went ignored. Quite frankly, I was surprised.
The Lord Chief Justice thanked the counsel for the prosecution for his presentation and turned to Mr. Mobley.
“Do you dispute the facts as offered?” he asked him.
“I have no quarrel with them,” said the prisoner. “I do not dispute the facts as presented.”
“Then what have you to say in your own defense? “
Mr. Mobley looked about to commence, when the Lord Chief Justice silenced him with an upraised hand.
“If I may make a suggestion,” said the judge.
“Why, of course you may,” said the prisoner with a barely suppressed smile. “It is your courtroom.”
“So it is.” He reached beneath his robe and pulled out a sheaf of foolscap. “You gave a signed statement to Sir John Fielding concerning this case before the court. It seemed an extraordinarily succinct account of a matter most complicated when it was given to me to examine it. We might all be well served, the members of the jury in particular, if you were to read it now to the court.”
(I had never known Lord Mansfield to be so considerate, so polite, so kind! as he was at that moment with Mr. Mobley. Did this mark a change in his juridical behavior — or was he simply signaling to the jury that this fellow deserved a degree of respect? The latter, no doubt, though he seemed to be overplaying it a bit.)
Mr. Mobley agreed, of course, and the sheaf of papers was conveyed to him by way of a clerk. He unfolded them and began to read.
The reading took a bit of time. He in no wise rushed through it, but applied his gifts as an actor to the recitation. It was most pleasurable to hear my words given such treatment; and indeed they were my words, though he was their source. His rendition held those in the courtroom quite in thrall for the length of the reading. Though unmoved, the journalists who sat in the row ahead were specially excited by the mention of Sir Patrick Spenser’s name: Looks were exchanged, and their pencils fair flew across pages upon which they took their notes. When Mr. Mobley had done, bringing his audience to a pitch of keen arousal with his telling of the tale of his combat with Eli Bolt, he allowed himself to drop his head in a modest bow, a gesture somewhat out of place in the courtroom, yet one that seemed altogether fitting, considering the quality of his performance. “Does that conclude your defense?” asked the Lord Chief Justice. “No, my lord, I should like to call two witnesses.”
“Call them, then.”
“My first witness,” said Mr. Mobley, “is Gabriel Donnelly, medical examiner for the coroner of the City of Westminster.”
There was a delay of something over a minute as Mr. Donnelly, summoned from the witness room, made his way into the courtroom. Then, led by a bailiff, he took his place at the witness stand.
The prisoner put to him a number of questions which were meant to establish Mr. Donnelly’s expertise on medical questions, how he came to view the body of Eli Bolt, and so on. But then the questioner and his respondent came to the heart of the matter, as the good doctor was asked to describe the condition of the body. Much was said in answer, but the key to it all was provided in this exchange between them:
Mr. Mobley: “You have read my statement to Sir John Fielding?” Mr. Donnelly: “I have, Sir John gave it me to read without comment.”
Mr. Mobley: “Would you say that the condition of the body was consistent with my description of our struggle in the room?”
Mr. Donnelly: “I would say it was completely consistent.”
With that, Mr. Mobley thanked him and said he had no more questions. And the counsel for the prosecution declined the opportunity to cross-examine. However, as Mr. Donnelly was preparing to step down, the Lord Chief Justice asked him to remain, for he had a question or two for him.
“Mr. Donnelly,” said the judge, “in your description of the corpus of Eli Bolt, if that be his name, you described his wounds and bruises, et cetera, quite well, but you did not tell us one thing that may loom as important in the minds of the jurors. Was the deceased a small man or a big man?’’
“He was a very big man, my lord,” said Mr. Donnelly. “It might be no exaggeration to say that he was huge.”
“Larger than Mr. Mobley?”
Mr. Donnelly cast a look at Mobley. “Not quite so tall, but near two stone heavier — and quite muscular in his general physique.”
The Lord Chief Justice then dismissed him with thanks and invited Mr. Mobley to call his second witness. That was done quickly enough, as the prisoner summoned Sir John Fielding. He appeared so quickly that I suspected he had been listening at the door to the courtroom. He was helped by a bailiff, who guided him to the witness stand by holding him at the elbow; Sir John disliked that manner of conveyance, as I well knew, yet he submitted to it with noble forbearance.
“Why, this is indeed a surprise, Sir John,” said Lord Mansfield. “I cannot recall you ever before appearing as a witness. Do you do so willingly? “
“Most willingly, my lord. I believe I have something of some importance to contribute.”
“Quite interesting. You may proceed with your defense, Mr. Mobley.”
Sir John had come for one purpose and one purpose only: to acquaint the jury with the supposed suicide eight years past of Herbert Mudge in the same hotel. He suggested it certainly might have been murder; in fact, he had felt at the time it must have been, yet he could neither prove murder from physical evidence, nor from his repeated interrogations of the man he held most suspect, Mr. Mudge’s traveling companion, Elijah Elison. He invited all to note the similarity of that name to Elijah Bolton and Eli Bolt. “These are, as I have discovered,” said Sir John, “but three names for the same man. I know not which indeed was the correct name. Perhaps none of them was. I have settled upon Eli Bolt because that is how he was identified to me by one who knew him years ago in the colonies. It was also how Mr. Mobley came to know him first in the colony of Maryland. The name Elijah Bolton, which he bore at the time of his death, was simply an invention to carry him safe, perhaps past my notice, in and around England.”
Then, at some length, he compared the “suicide” of Herbert Mudge with what had evidently been planned for Percival Mobley. He noted that in both instances a woven leather rope was used; that on the more recent occasion Eli Bolt had entered the room illegally and secretly, as eight years before he must have done. On and on Sir John did go, drawing parallels, making comparisons, and concluding: “Finally, there is good reason to believe that eight years ago, Sir Patrick Spenser was involved with Eli Bolt in a manner similar to his recent relation. Ah, but there perhaps I go too far, for while I accept the role he played in the false claim for the Laningham title, I can only speculate on the part he may have played eight years earlier.” Mr. Mobley, who had aided Sir John in his testimony by prompting with questions each time the magistrate showed any signs of slowing down, said that he had but one more question to put to him. “Oh? And what is that?” asked Sir John, seeming a bit surprised. “Do you accept as truthful what I put forward in my statement?”