Peter Ackroyd - The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein

He was asked if he wished to enter any plea, and he replied with an earnest “Not guilty!” The officers of the watch were then called to a witness box, directly opposite that in which Daniel stood. The first of them, Stephen Martin, explained the circumstances of finding “the accused” sleeping beneath a tree by the Serpentine. “That is a lake,” the judge told the jurors, “to be found in the Hyde Park.” The jurors, who must have known this very well already, received the information with great seriousness. Martin then went on to explain how the hands and cheeks of the accused were bloodied. When the accused was thereupon taken into custody, at the watch-house on the corner of Queen’s Gate, a necklace was found in the pocket of his breeches. Martin spoke rapidly, much to the dismay of the penny-a-liners, and in a high voice that caused amusement among the more vulgar spectators.

It seems that in English law the accused is able to question and to challenge witnesses, in a way that would seem unfitting on the Continent, and Daniel at once asked Martin if he, Daniel, had seemed surprised by the discovery of the necklace.

“Yes. Oh, yes,” he replied in his rapid way. “You seemed to be much taken aback. But that was because you was play-acting. Lawks.”

“You found me sleeping beneath a tree?”

“Of course I did.”

“Why should a murderer and a thief fall asleep at the scene of his own crime?”

“For why? For the reason that the person accused, being yourself, is touched.” Martin tapped his forehead, much to the delight of the spectators.

“Well, Mr. Martin, am I a lunatic or an actor? I really do not think I can be both.”

“Whatever you wish, Mr. Westbrook. I am not particular.” Martin laughed quite gaily.

The second and third members of the watch described, in identical terms, the discovery of Harriet’s body. She had been found by two children, in the shadow of a bridge that crossed over the middle point of the Serpentine. Daniel listened to the testimony of the witnesses with great attention, his manacled hands stretched out before him, and at the end he merely bowed his head. He did not wish to question them. The account of the discovery of his sister seemed to have left him momentarily without the power of speech.

But then, when asked by the judge if he wished to make any final statement, he raised his head and looked steadily at the jurors. “I do not expect justice in this place,” he said. “I have long since concluded that the judicial system of our country is a tissue of corruption.”

At which point the judge interrupted him. “You are here to defend yourself, sir. You are not here to deliver your opinion of English law.”

“But that is the point, is it not? That justice is not to be found in the well of an English court?”

“That is not the point. You have no point.” The judge was growing angry. “The point is worthless. I throw it out.”

“I defend myself then with a simple phrase. I am innocent. I had no part in my sister’s death. I abhor the notion of violence. But to direct it against a member of my own family-it is unthinkable to me. Surely you cannot accuse a brother of such a crime? A loving brother who helped to raise her from her infant days? No, no. Never can it be.” He paused, to regain control of his feelings. “I have no conception of how she met her end. I do not know how my face and hands were bloody. I do not know how her necklace was found in my pocket. I can only guess at some malign conspiracy. At some infernal evil. Yet I know this. I am not the man.” His words of evident sincerity received the murmured approval of many spectators, who were then quickly silenced by the judge. Daniel was led away, and the jurors retired to another room.

I stayed in the court, not trusting myself to be alone. I knew Daniel to be entirely blameless, and yet here he was obliged to defend his life while I sat idly watching him. I knew, too, what the verdict would be. The law is a net, a snare, which binds its victims even as they struggle to be free. After no more than an hour the jurors returned, and Daniel was again led out in manacles. His face was flushed red, and he stumbled as he mounted the stairs of the witness box. Someone shouted out, “Not guilty,” and there was scattered applause in the courtroom. Daniel shook his head, frowning slightly, and strained forward to listen to the jurors’ verdict. It came without ceremony. Guilty of unlawful killing. There was silence after that, a silence in which the darkness of his fate was absorbed.

Then with a barely perceptible expression of disquiet Daniel turned towards the judge, who made a great ceremony out of placing the black cloth upon his wig. He recited the circumstances of Daniel’s supposed murder of his sister, dwelling with evident relish on the details of the discovery of the body, before pronouncing sentence on what he called “the heinous slaughter” and the “barely conceivable evil” of the crime. I agreed with him upon that point, although I knew that the perpetrator was elsewhere. Daniel no doubt received the sentence of death with remarkable calm; I could not see him, since his back was turned to the court while he faced the judge. He carried himself erect, as he left the courtroom, and did not look in my direction.

ON THE MORNING OF THE EXECUTION, I rose before dawn. How could I sleep? Mr. Garnett had informed me that Daniel would be taken to Newgate, where the ceremony was performed outside the wall, and I had spent the night imagining all the tortures of the condemned man. I dressed and went out into the street, in order to clear my head, but then some involuntary and peremptory impulse sent me walking towards Newgate itself. I was like some man of the crowd, hastening towards a spectacle. If it were possible to be two people, then this was my condition: I wished to be hidden away, lamenting the fate of Daniel in the secrecy of some locked chamber, but at the same time I walked with fiery eyes towards the prison to see him despatched. I seemed to be possessed by some spirit that broods over London on a hanging day, some craving for blood and punishment that is beyond rational calculation. A further consideration occurred to me later. I had given life to the creature, but could the presence of the creature be changing me?

I arrived at Newgate very early, but such was the press of people that I could only reach as far as the churchyard of St. Sepulchre. A mob of children were already assembled in the most prominent places, setting up a cacophony of cries and howls that would have shamed a tribe of monkeys in the jungles of the Niger. Their catcalls were taken up by others in the crowd, some of whom began dancing and singing obscenities. Such grotesque merriment in the face of death was for me unexampled. The English mob, screeching and laughing and yelling, is a thing of horror in what we deign to call the civilised world. The open space in front of the prison was taken up by men and women who had all the appearance of thieves and prostitutes, as well as other rogues and ruffians of every description. Their smell was insupportable. They whistled and imitated Mr. Punch; they drank from bottles, and fought among themselves. Some of them urinated freely against the walls of the prison itself calling out, according to the London tradition, “In pain!”

There was a lull when Daniel was brought out from a little door that opened onto Newgate Street; then, after the instant of recognition, there was a great roar of execration and triumph. It was as if the whole foul ceremony represented some ritual of human sacrifice by which the community would be healed. The sun had come out from behind clouds as Daniel mounted the steps to the scaffold, greeted with such a chorus of abuse and obscenity that I am surprised he could endure it. But he seemed to hear none of the execration. In the face of the general disorder he was quite calm; if anything, his bearing expressed resolution and, even, resignation. Yet that did not stop the baying of the mob. I looked at the upturned faces of the crowd, so delighted and excited by the coming scene that they seemed to be images of evil itself. Who can believe that humankind is created in God’s image, when observing that desperate and dissolute assembly? The human form is not divine.