Year: 1871

got from the footman (without telling him
what she wanted it for) small chisel. -
With this she opened the case-after acci-
dentally scratching the brass frame of it
and set the hands of the clock by guess.
She was frrried at the time, fearing that
her mistress would discover her. Later
in the day she found that she had over
estimated the interval of time that had
passed while she was attempting to put the
clock right. She had, in fact, set it ex-
actly quarter of an hour too fast.


No safe opportunity of secretly putting
the clock right again had occurred until
the last thing at night. She had then
moved the hands back to the right time.
At the hour of the evening when Mr.. Du-
bourg had called on her mistress she posi-
lively swore that the clock was quarter
of an hour too fast. 1t had pointed. as
her mistress had declared, to twenty five
minutes to nine-the right time then be-
ing. as Mr.. Dubourg had asserted, twenty
minutes past eight


Questioned as to why she had refrained
from giving this extraordinary evidence at
the inquiry before the magistrate, she de-
clared that in the distant Cornish village
to which she had gone the next day. and
in which her illness had detained her from
that time, nobody had heard of the inqui-
ry or the trial. She would not have been
then present to state the vitally important
circumstances to which she had just sworn
If the prisoners twin brother had not
found her out on the previous day, had
not questioned her if she knew anything
about the clock, and had not Clearing
what she had to telD insisted on her TAX
ing the journey with him to the court the
next morning.


This evidence virtually decided the trial.
There was great burst of relief in the
crowded assembly when the woman's state
ment had come to an end.


She was closely cross-examined, as a
matter of course. Her character was in
quired into; corroborative evidence (rela-
ting to the chisel and the scratches on the
frame) was sought for. and was obtained.
The end of it was, that, at late hour on
the second evening. the jury acquitted the
prisoner without leaving their box. 1t
was not too much to say that his life had
been saved by his brother. His brother
alone had persisted. from first to last, in
obstiuately disbelieving the .clock--for no
better reason than that sshssioek was the
witness which asserted the prisoners guilt!
He had worried everybody with incessant
inquiries; he had discovered the absence
Iofthe house-maid after the trial had begun;
an1 he had started off to interrogate the
girl, knowing nothing and suspecting moth
ing-simply determined to persist in the
one everlasting question with which he
prosecuted everybody: 1.-The clock is going
to hang my brother; can you tell me any,
thing about the clock ?"


-Four months later the mystery of the
crime was cleared up. One of the disre-
putable companions of the murdered man
confessed on his death 'bed that he had
done the deed. There was nothing inter-
esting or remarkable in the circumstances
Chance, which had put innocence in peril.
had offered impunity to guilt. An infa-
nous woman, jealous quarrel. and an
absence at the moment of witnesses on the
spot-these were really the commonplace
materials which had composed the tragedy
of Pardon's Piece.