“By and large, I do, yes. Certainly, I accept your account of the death of the man we shall call Eli Bolt — and it is for that you have come to be tried in this court.”
“Dare I ask what it is you reject?”
“I reject none of it, though I am less eager to accept your picture of yourself as a completely unwilling participant in the Laningham conspiracy. But as I say, it is not for that you are here today. No law was broken.”
Percival Mobley stood awkwardly before the court, clearly wishing to justify himself, yet knowing he had not the opportunity to do so. For near a minute he seemed on the verge of saying something pertinent. But, at last, all that came out was this: “That is all, Sir John. You may step down. And, my lord, that concludes my testimony.”
The final argument of the prosecution, indifferently stated as it was, is not worth noting here; nor, for that matter, is the last word from Mr. Mobley. Nevertheless, in his summing-up, Lord Mansfield took an approach which was for him eccentric — indeed, one might even say, unique — for he was, as every Londoner with criminal propensities knew, a “hanging judge”; he seemed almost to take pleasure in assigning the death penalty. On this occasion, however, the Lord Chief Justice put forth what amounted to a plea for mercy, yet it was framed in terms perfectly logical and perfectly legal.
He called the jury’s attention to the last words of the statement presented in court by the prisoner. (I quoted them near verbatim from Mr. Mobley.) “It was not my intention to kill Mr. Bolt. I wished only to end his attempt to kill me” Thus he read it out to the jurors. Then did he comment upon it as follows:
“Such an assertion as this would ordinarily constitute a plea for a finding of manslaughter — that is, death unintended. Yet it strikes me, having read and now heard the prisoner’s statement and heard the testimony of his distinguished witnesses, that we have the opportunity here to go even further. First of all, it cannot be murder, for Mr. Mobley was not the aggressor. Bolt, the deceased, lay in wait for him. He had no other reason to be in the room but to do harm to Mobley. When his first attempt failed, he did persist in his attempt not merely to do grievous bodily harm to the prisoner but to kill him. Yet he failed in that, too, because, though Mr. Mobley did not intend it so, he killed his adversary.
“It is very seldom that a true finding of ‘killing, no murder, by reason of self-defense’ can be justified. Alas, all too often the aggressor will press his advantage and kill his victim before the victim has a chance to defend himself. In this instance, that did not happen. Though the two, aggressor and victim, were fairly well matched in size, the victim fought back and saved himself. Perhaps it was that a man fights harder when he realizes, as Mr. Mobley did, that he was fighting for his life. And so he saved his life, though not without sustaining injuries of his own. You saw him limp to the dock. You see the bandage wrapped Mussulman-style about his head, the plaster on his ear and jaw. Eli Bolt, if that be his name, was a powerful adversary-yet he, and not the prisoner, died in the struggle. And what did Mr. Mobley do when he saw that he had killed the man who attacked him? He went straightaway to the Bow Street Court, seeking the magistrate, to surrender himself and make a statement, because in his mind and in his heart he knew that he had not committed murder but only defended himself. I tend to believe that this is one of those rare occasions when a finding of self-defense is justified. Yet I respect you, the members of the jury, far too much to direct you to find according to my belief. I send you off to your deliberations confident that you will find your way there on your own.”
And so the jury went off to deliberate, and I turned to young Archibald Talley to discuss this singular case. I found him in the process of taking his leave of the court.
“What then?” said I to him. “Going so soon?” (Lord Mansfield had barely cleared the door.)
“I must,” said he. “My uncle has to hear of this. My God! The Solicitor-General! There will be a terrible scandal!”
And with that, he rushed off. Nor was he the only one to make a swift departure. When I looked around me, I saw that the journalists who had sat in the row ahead of me were now all gone, unwilling to wait for the finding of the jury. For them, as with Mr. Talley, the true significance of these proceedings was not Mr. Mobley’s fate, but, rather, the shadow of scandal that now fell upon one of power at court.
I thought to walk about a bit and loosen up, having sat in an attitude of strict attention for some time. But I had done no more than get to my feet, when all were bidden to rise the return of judge, prisoner, and jury. I had never known a jury to take so short a time to return with a verdict. One of them stood, and Lord Mansfield asked him how they had found.
“We find Percival Mobley, defendant, not guilty of ‘no murder by reason of self-defense’ And no manslaughter, neither. And we hope we got the words right.”
“The words are right enough. The jury is dismissed with our thanks.” He turned to the dock. “Percival Mobley, you are free to go. My advice to you is to return to the North American colonies. There are those in England who would want to take revenge upon you for certain revelations made in your statement.”
“1 shall do that, my lord.”
Then did the Lord Chief Justice slam down his gavel and end that day’s session of the court. As soon as he himself had disappeared, a whole section of those seated in the rows nearest the front went quite mad with joy. They ran up to the dock and pulled him to them. They, I later learned, were friends and family from Southwark, Sir John had got word to them of the trial, and a goodly number had come across the river to give support. The courtroom, in fact, was in a fair transport of joy — except for one man whom I saw slipping out one of the back doors of the courtroom. He was none other than Sir Patrick Spenser. His face was set so dark, his expression so angry, that I believe that if he had been armed, he would have walked up to Mr. Mobley and shot him down on the spot, consequences be damned.
“Well, Jeremy, are you ready to return to Bow Street? I feel that a walk is in order, don’t you?”
It was Sir John, of course. He was cheered by the outcome of the trial, of course. Yet, most of all, he seemed relieved that this matter of the Laningham claimant was now over and done. All this I gathered in the course of our amble back to Number 4 Bow Street. I told him as we set out that I had many questions for him. He replied that he feared they would have to wait.
“Give me a day or two,” said he, “that I may cleanse myself of this ugly business.”
As it happened, it was near a week before he was ready to speak freely of the matter. After dinner one night, I managed to entice him into such a discussion with news I had just heard from Mr. Baker below. I found Sir John where I expected to find him — in that small room between the bedrooms which he called his study. He was settled there behind his desk, sitting in the dark, when I knocked upon the open door. He invited me in.
“I thought you would be interested to know,” I said to him, “that I had just heard that Sir Patrick Spenser has been forcibly retired from his post as Solicitor-General.”
“And who replaces him?”
“A Sir Thomas Dexter.”
“Another courtier — no better, no worse.”
“Sir John,” said I, “you indicated after the trial that you might answer a question or two about the matter once you had had a few days’ rest from it.”
“Yes, I did.”
“Well, a few days have passed.”
“So they have. You may ask me what you like. I shall try to answer.”
There was one question I had been saving for this occasion. I hoped that I might phrase it in such a way as to make it interesting to him. If he were interested, he gave interesting answers in return.