Neil Hanson - The Custom of the Sea

Regina versus Dudley and Stephens opened at the Western Circuit Winter Assize, County Number 15, Exeter at ten thirty on Thursday, 11 November 1884. Tom had caught the mail train, leaving Paddington at four o’clock on a freezing, foggy morning. He stood motionless on the platform at Exeter for a few moments, allowing the crowds of passengers to ebb away around him. Always a solitary, insular character, this morning of all mornings he was anxious to keep his own company.

He glanced up at the monolithic red-brick façade of the building overlooking the platform, and saw the words ‘Devon County Prison’ carved over the entrance. He looked away, only to see the outline of the castle, where the trial was to be held, rising above the city walls on the next hill.

He ate breakfast in one of the taverns clustered around the foot of Castle Hill, choosing a table in a dark corner and keeping his back to the room as he ate. The snatches of conversation he overheard suggested the only topic on everyone’s lips that day was the trial of Dudley and Stephens.

Still not strong enough for the walk up the steep hill to the castle, he hailed a hansom cab. ‘You’re here for the trial?’ the cabbie said. ‘You’ll be lucky to find a seat. All Exeter wants to see this one.’

‘I’m sure they’ll find room for me,’ Tom said.

It was nine twenty, over an hour before the trial was due to begin, but already the road leading to the Castle Gate was thronged with people. Murder trials were a popular form of entertainment, whether experienced in person or vicariously through the pages of the penny dreadfuls. Frock-coated country squires, sober-suited citizens and their wives, even whole families, hurried up the hill, talking and laughing with such animation that they could have been on their way to the fair.

The old city walls towered fifty feet above them, blocking out much of the light from the narrow street, and the dark cobbles glistened with damp from the night’s rain. Next to the Castle Gate was the crumbling, ivy-encrusted masonry of the great tower. Its roof lay open to the sky and it was populated only by crows.

The cab passed under the spiked iron portcullis. It was an uncomfortable reminder to Tom that his freedom might end at this gateway. The courtyard in front of the elegant Georgian building was packed with people. Tom shrank back in his seat as heads turned and people craned to see the occupant of the hansom. The driver inched it towards the triple-arched entrance where a group of policemen were struggling to restrain the crowds.

‘Not here,’ Tom called. ‘The court officials’ entrance.’

The cabbie glanced behind him, then shrugged and flicked his whip. He pulled up at a side door guarded by two more policemen. Tom paid the driver and hurried towards them before the crowd could reach him. ‘Tom Dudley,’ he said. ‘I am to be tried here this morning.’

‘Indeed you are, Captain Dudley,’ one said.

He led Tom through the broad, echoing corridors of the castle and down a steep spiral flight of steps, the treads worn by use, to the holding cell beneath the dock of the court.

As Tom entered, Stephens rose to shake his hand. He seemed to have regained no more weight in the three weeks since Tom had last seen him. His cheeks remained hollow and his eyes were sunken, with deep, purple-black shadows beneath them.

Tom shook his hand then turned to greet the other man in the room. ‘Are you in good heart, Mr Collins?’

Arthur Collins was dressed in a dark suit of fine worsted, and the ruddy complexion beneath his greying hair spoke not of fresh air but of rich food and wine. The hand he offered Tom was soft and plump, and his speech was slow and cautious, as if he measured each word before he uttered it. ‘I am indeed, Captain Dudley, though I could have wished for the case to be heard by a different judge.’

He shuffled the papers in front of him and cleared his throat. ‘Sir William Grove was originally scheduled to preside at the Winter Assizes, but he was replaced by Baron Huddleston after consultations between the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Coleridge, and the home secretary.

‘The Baron Huddleston is a man of mature years, but his age has neither blunted his ambition nor improved his temper. He also has a complaint of a delicate nature. They say Judge Jefferies was suffering cruelly from the same complaint when he conducted the Bloody Assizes at Monmouth. It is to be hoped Mr Baron Huddleston is rather less dyspeptic when he takes his seat on the bench this morning.’ He gave a brief smile, which Tom did not return.

Just before ten thirty Tom and Stephens were led up the staircase into the dock. Local sympathy for the defendants was as strong in Exeter as it had been in Falmouth. The courtroom was packed and the murmurs of conversation swelled into applause as they came into view. Tom stood at the rail of the dock, where he was to remain throughout the trial, since his injuries still prevented him from sitting.

The morning sunlight streamed through the iron latticework covering the windows, forming diamond patterns of light and shade on the floor. Directly in front of and below the dock, in the well of the court, was a large square lawyer’s table, smothered in papers and parchment rolls.

Arthur Collins and the other members of the defence team sat on Tom’s right. Collins’s junior was Henry Clark, the recorder of Tiverton and a member of the Royal Western Yacht Club at Plymouth. The prosecution faced them across the table, led by Arthur Charles, QC, with Charles Matthews as his junior. The stature of the leading counsel for the Crown and the number of other lawyers — no less than fourteen sat around three sides of the table, leaving the other for the clerks of the court — showed the importance the Home Office attached to the case.

The double-banked seats of the jury box stood at the right of the court. The jurors, twelve men dressed in their Sunday-best suits, stared back at Tom, curiosity written on their faces.

Facing the dock was the judge’s bench, an ornately carved mahogany chair upholstered in blood-red velvet. The witness box lay to its left and on the other side was a seat, like a box at the theatre, where a lady — of some refinement, judging from her dress — was sitting.

The rest of the well of the court was crowded with country gentlemen, officers in full military uniform and clerics. Most of the seats were allocated by ticket only, doubtless to people of the best figure of the county, but a few, plus the standing areas, were reserved for the general public. Those spaces had been filled as soon as the doors were open, and the benches behind Tom were jammed. Through the open door he could see policemen still battling to repel those who had gathered in the corridors and were determined to force their way in.

After a few minutes the heavy oak doors banged shut. There was a brief silence, then the door behind the judge’s bench opened. Flanked by his usher, the Baron Huddleston strode in and sat down, resplendent in the crimson robes of a judge at assize. He glanced to his right and smiled at the woman seated in the wings. She raised her hand in acknowledgement. ‘That’s his wife,’ the turnkey whispered to Tom. ‘She always comes to watch his big cases. He passed sentence of death on a poor devil yesterday and she had to put her hand to her mouth to hide a smile.’ He smiled himself, showing a mouthful of rotten teeth.

Tom turned his head away. The man’s breath stank of tobacco and sour ale, but he also did not want to hear any more of his confidences.

The judge banged his gavel to silence the buzz of conversation. Tom studied him as the clerk of the court began to read the indictment. Huddleston’s hair was obscured by his wig, but his long sideburns were grey and he looked to be at least sixty years old. His eyebrows were darker and drawn together in a permanent frown, accentuated by the downturned corners of his mouth.