Rensselaer Journal, Volume 10, Number 51, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 May 1901 — THE IVORY QUEEN [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

THE IVORY QUEEN

A Detective Story Of a Chicago Suburb. The ’ Murder at The Grange and How ► Its Mystery Wn Solved by Darrent. the America* Lecoq.

BY NORMAN HURST.

[CONT'N'UED.] “It is for you to say whether Dobson Is a man whose evidence can be relied upon or not But, setting that upon one side, was the action of Astray Marsden that of an innocent man ? He sought refuge in flight. It is urged that he became the prey to a spasm of fear, but an innocent man should have no such cowardly emotion. Why did he not defy the blackmail of Dobson and, knowing his innocence, rest contented on being able to prove an alibi 1 Why V Because, gentlemen, he could not: because he was bound to admit that he was at The Grange on that night He owns he was at The Grange, but pleads that he left before the snowstorm and left Josiah Marsden alive. “If übe defense could prove that fact, could account for the period that elapsed between the prisoner leaving The Grange and being met by Policeman Thompson, there might be some grounds for the plea, but pot one single witness has been called to substantiate it, and we are asked to believe that he walked about for hours in a blinding snowstorm. That has been put before you in contradistinction to the theory of the prosecution that he entered the house i after the snowstorm, leaving his footprints up to the door; that the old standing quarrel which it is admitted on both sides existed was renewed and that he left by the secret passage on to the frozen river, a passage that was known only to those who had lived at The Grange. “Astray Marsden was met by Thompson soon after 2 o’clock in the morning of the 12th in a very excited condition, still chafing, the defense says, under the insults he had had heaped upon him —chafing, gentlemen, after several hours’ walk. “I have reviewed the circumstances that occurred in Nor combe, but it is not upon these events alone that the case stands. Let us turn to Chicago. Herbert Darrent has been before you and given his evidence with exemplary clearness. He has told you the manner in which he succeeded in tracking Astray Marsden to the Royal hotel in Chicago, and he has related the story of

The Arrest. “The first words of the prisoner when Darrent entered the room were, ‘You have come to arrest me, ’ and, though warned not to commit himself, he then launched into a heated attack against the murdered man. an attack which foreshadowed the line of defense which has been adopted—that of revenge. He charged Josiah Marsden with leaving BUch,i K ftessage for the sole purpose of encompassing the death of an innocent man whom he hated. “With that point I have already dealt. The idea in itself is too callous to dilate upon. “In the prisoner’s confession to Herbert Darrent he accounted for the loss of his knife in the same manner that the defense has insisted upon. He took it out to open the cigar box, forgot it, and it was left lying upon the table, a handy weapon for the murderer. To that point of the defense I will but add a word. “If the murderer of Josiah Marsden came to the house with intent to murder. would he have left the finding of the weapon to chance, or would he have come prepared? If he came prepared, would he use a chance weapon or trust to the one he knew ?

“Let me now, before you retire to consider your verdict, put into a few words the whole evidence. Against the prisoner you have the last words of the dying man. the knife, the long stand : ing quarrel, the absence of a reasonable alibi, and for him”— The judge pauses and deliberately turns back the p.iges of his notes, while the whole audience seems to throb with emotion. “It’s a fearful summing up,” one lawyer whispers to another. “Brutal —dead against him, poor devil 1” his companion replies, glancing at the prisoner, who, pale as death, gazes before him with eyes that see nothing. “While for him, ” the judge irnaassively continues, “you have the line of defense that he left The Grange hours before the murder was committed. ” The judge closes his book, and we await his peroration. We feel that we know what it will ba “If you have no doubt, it is your duty to do your duty—an eye for an eye. a life for a life,” and many more rounded phrases with which a judge is usually pleased to torment a man whose life or death is to be settled within the next honr. But we are mistaken. “Gentlemen of the jury,” he says, “the case is in your handa ” And that is all. The summing up is over. “Poor devill” some oufe whispers again, and we shudder. It puts into words what we dared not think. The jury do not move. They only whisper in the box. It seems as if they are going to decide without leaving it But perhaps t|je seriousness of their task comes over them, and they slowly leave, and the prisoner is conducted from the courtroom. “Dead against him!” is the general opinion. “Fair and just, but dead against himl He hasn’t got a line of defense in his whole case. ’ ’ The judge has retired, but no one else leaves the court The audience feels that it is not a case of waiting for hours, but minutes, perhaps only sec-

onds. The last words of the summing up crash through each man’s brain. What do they amount- to ? Against the prisoner you have—everything; for him—nothing I The Yerdlet. The jury re-enter the box; the judge returns; the prisoner, between two deputies, takes his place in the dock. “Gentlemen of the jury, have you agreed upon your verdict?” . “We have.” “Do you find the prisoner. Astray Marsden, guilty or nor guilty of the murder of Josiah Marsden?” “Guilty I” A woman’s scream, half stifled in its birth, breaks the fearful silence of the court—a scream followed by a gasp. The assembled throng breathes hard as what it knew must happen comes. Then the deathlike silence falls like a pall again. “Prisoner at the bar, ” a voice is ing, and it seems to come from somewhere miles away, even to us—what must it seem to him?—“have you anything to say why sentence of death should not be passed upon you ?’ ’ All eyes are turned with one impulse toward the dock, and the spectators •tart with amazement. The prisoner, the man condemned to death, whom ihey had pitied throughout the trial as one so miserable that he could not defend himself, is transformed. He stands erect, with almost a glow upon his cheeks, nearly a smile upon his lips, manhood and courage awakening in his eye. He is condemned to death and stands as though his fetters had been released. We are creatures of impulse. The spectators gaze at one another. The same thought is in every mind, “Suppose he is innocent 1” There is mesmerism in his glance, and they follow it as it rests upon the girl with her head thrown forward on her arms upon the table. The judge shifts uneasily, moves as though to speak. He seems held powerless by that strange force which is upon all.

The girl feels the power of that glance, and as if in obedience to its command throws back her veil and rises and faces Astray Marsden, and as she does so even the heavens add to the intensity of the scene. The sun is setting. The room is shrouded in gloom, save for one glorious beam of light which passes over the shoulder of the prisoner and floods the face of the girl with a halo of light They face one another, and the spectators pause and watch, lost in the mystery of the thoughts that are passing between them “Ethel I” Only the lifting of the face more toward him shows that she has heard. “Do you believe me guilty? Do you believe that I am a murderer?” “No!” It is only a whisper, but it thrills. Where have sophistries gone, where are

deductions, when compared with the love of this woman who stands thus before the world ? “If 1 were a free man, would yon marry me as you promised years ago?” “Yes!” Tho prisoner turns to the judge, the girl resumes her seat, and the spell is broken. “I have nothing to say, my lord, but that I am innocent. ” The Sentence of Death. Astray Marsden was sentenced to death because it was the duty of the judge to do so. but every spectator who filed out of the courtroom after the sentence was pronounced was troubled with doubts as to the result of the trial. As one spectator expressed it : “Marsden was found guilty by the jury because the jury could consider the evidence and come to no other verdict, and the judge sentenced him to because the judge was compelled to. But is Marsden guilty?” ftp m CONTINUED.]

The girl throws back her veil and rises.