The Northern Guardian. — 1898-08-08 (Hartlepool, Cleveland, England)

GORDON STABLES, M.D., R.N., Author of "The Bose of Allands's," "The Cruise of the Snowbird," "Our Friend the Dog," "The Log of a Gentleman Gipsy." "Shadowed for Life, "Stanley Grahame," lo•  That -patticinar nose was big, bulbous and red; Sandie's reply therefore caused a titter to run through the court. The judge frowned, and the prosecution proceeded. "Where did you last see it?" "Stained with blood, sir, it was found beneath the dead man's body." On being questioned, Sandie also repeated his evidence as given at the coroner's inquest, and presently was allowed to stand down. Then the prisoner WWI hissed by the people. The judge lost his temper. He had not quite got over Sandie's allusion to his nose. "If," he cried, "there is the slightest approach to a repetition of that unseemly noise, 1 will instantly clear the court!" The doctor who had examined the body vela examined.  "Might not the farmer have committed suicide ? " he was asked.  "Everything is against that theory," the doctor replied, "for the knife belonged to Grahame; besides, the deed was done on the road, and front the appearance of the deceased's coat, he had evidently been hauled through the gateway on his back, bleeding all the while, and so hidden under the darkling spruce pine." "So that fedo de se is quite out of the question?"' "Utterly so, my lord." "Stand down, doctor."  lam giving the evidence only in the briefed epitome, for it occupied hours. The advocate for the prosecution made a telling speech, to which the prisoner's solicitor replied in one quite as good. Ho spok,c•almost ironically, and laughed as he did so, especially when he mine to the evidence of the knife. His client at the time of the murder was i.ving sound asleep at a heclgefoot. What could hinder a tramp, one of the many who swarm on the Preside road, to have stolen the knife, followed Craig Nicol, stabbed him, robbed and hidden the body, and left the knife there to turn suspicion on the sleeping man? "Is it likely," he added, "that Reginald—had he indeed murdered his quondam friend—would have been so great a fool as to have left the knife there?" Ile ended by saying that there was not a jot of trustworthy evidence 011 which the jury could bring in a verdict of guilty. I But, alas I for Reginald. The judge in his summing up—and a long and eloquent speech it was--destroyed all the good effects of the solicitor's 11 speech. "He could not help," he said, "pointing out to the jury that guilt or suspicion could rest on no one else save Grahame. As testified by a witness, he had quarrelled with Nicol, and had made use of the remarkable expression that the ' quarrel would end in blood.' The night of the murder Grahame was not sober, but lying where he was in the shade of the hedge Nicol must have passed him without seeing him, and then no doubt Grahame had followed and done that awful deed which in cool blood he might not even have thought about. Again, Grahame was poor, and was engaged to be married. The gold and notes would be an incentive undoubtedly to the crime, and when he , sailed away in the Wolverine he was undoubtedly a fugitive from justice, and in his opinion the jury ' had but one course. They might now retire." They were about to rise, and his lordship WWI about to withdraw, when a loud voice exclaimed: "Hold! I desire to give evidence." A tall, bold-looking seafarer stepped up, and WM sworn. _  ...„.... "I have but this moment returned from a cruise around Africa," he said. "I am bo's'n's mate in H.M.S. Hurricane. We halt been out for thr years. But, my lord, I have some of the notes here that the Rank of Scotland an 'prove were paid to Craig Nicol, and on the very day after the murder must have taken place I received ther, notes, for value given, from the hands of Sandia yonder, usually called Shufilin' Sandy. I knew nothin- about the r,irfler then, nor until the ship was paid off but being hurried away, I had no time to cash the paper, and here are three of thettr now, my lord." They were handed to the jury. "They were smeared with blood when I got them. Sandie laughed when I pointed this out to him. He said that ho had cut his finger, but that the blood would bring me luck." (Great sensation in court.) Sandie was at once re-called to the witness-box. Iris knees trembled so that he had to be supported. His voice shook, and his face was pale to ghastliness.  "Where did you obtain those notes ? " said the judge sternly. For a moment emotion choked the wretch's utterance. But he found words at last.  "Oh, my lord, my lord, I alone am the murderer!' I killed one man—Craig Nicol—l cannot let another die for my crime! I wanted money, my lord, to help to pay for my new house, and set me up in life, and I dodged Nicol for miles. I found Mr. Grahame asleep under a hedge, and I stole the stocking knife and left it near the man I had murdered. When I returned to the sleeping man, I bad with me—oh, awful!--some of the blood of my victim that I had caught in a tiny bottle as it flowed from his side "--intirmurs of horror—"and with tbis I smeared Grahaine's bands."  Here Sandie collapsed in a dead faint, and was borne from the court. _ _ _  "Gentlemen of the jury," said the judge, "this evidence and confession puts an entirely new coin— rkxion on this terrible case. The man who has  t just fainted is undoubtedly the murderer." The jury agreed. "The present prisoner is discharged, but must appear to-morrow, wino the wretched dwarf shall take his place in the dock." And so it was. E7e9 the bloodstained clothes  th2TiQie-I.L.worn on the night of the murder had been found. The jury returned a verdict of guilty against him without even leaving the box. The judge assumed the black cap, and amidst a silence that could be felt, condemned him to death.  Reginald Grahame was a free man, and once more happy. The court even apologised to him, and wished him all the `.'uture joys that life could give. But the wretched culprit fortalled justice, and managed- to strangle himself in his cell. And thus the awful trageey ended.  "I knew it, I 1-new it" cried Anni:‘, as a morning or two after h;s Pieulp.ntion Reginald presented himself at MacLeod Cottage. And the welcome he receiied left nothing to be desired.