The case excited great interest in the county, and I esteemed myself professionally fortunate in being selected to hold the brief for the prosecution.  I had satisfied myself, by a perusal of the depositions, that there was no doubt of the prisoners’ guilt, and I determined that no effort on my part should be spared to insure the accomplishment of the ends of justice.  I drew the indictment myself; and in my opening address to the jury dwelt with all the force and eloquence of which I was master upon the heinous nature of the crime, and the conclusiveness of the evidence by which it had been brought home to the prisoners.  I may here, by way of parenthesis, mention that I resorted to a plan in my address to the jury which I have seldom known to fail.  It consisted in fixing my eyes and addressing my language to each juror one after the other.  In this way each considers the address to be an appeal to his individual intelligence, and responds to it by falling into the views of the barrister.  On this occasion the jury easily fell into the trap.  I could see that I had got them into the humor of putting confidence in the evidence I had to produce.

The trial proceeded.  The cause of the death was scientifically stated by two medical men.  Next followed the evidence as to the finding of the knife in the bedroom of the deceased; the discovery of the mortgage deed, and the large sum of money, in the prisoners’ sleeping apartment; the finding the key of the back-door in the male prisoner’s pocket; and his demeanor and expressions on the night of the perpetration of the crime.  In his cross-examination of the constable, several facts perfectly new to me were elicited by the very able counsel for the prisoners.  Their attorney had judiciously maintained the strictest secrecy as to the nature of the defence, so that it now took me completely by surprise.  The constable, in reply to questions by counsel, stated that the pockets of the deceased were empty; that not only his purse, but a gold watch, chain, and seals, which he usually wore, had vanished, and no trace of them had as yet been discovered.  Many other things were also missing.  A young man of the name of Pearce, apparently a sailor, had been seen in the village once or twice in the company of Mary Strugnell; but he did not notice what sort of hat he generally wore; he had not seen Pearce since the night the crime was committed; had not sought for him.

Mary Strugnell was the next witness.  She repeated her previous evidence with precision and apparent sincerity, and then I abandoned her with a mixed feeling of anxiety and curiosity, to the counsel for the defence.  A subtle and able cross-examination of more than two hours’ duration followed; and at its conclusion, I felt that the case for the prosecution was so damaged, that a verdict of condemnation was, or ought to be, out of the question.  The salient points dwelt upon, and varied in every possible way, in this long sifting, were these:—­“What was the reason she did not return in the evening in question to her aunt’s to supper as usual?”