Chapter 17: Injured Innocence

Mr Baker had some uncomfortable experiences. When he was brought before the magistrates it was first of all pointed out--as it were, inferentially--that he was not only a dangerous character, but, also, just the sort of person who might be expected to commit a heinous crime, as his monstrous behaviour when resisting arrest clearly showed. Not content with inflicting severe injuries on the police, he had treated other persons, who had assisted them in their laudable attempts to take him into safe custody, even worse. In proof of this it was shown that one such person was in the cottage hospital, and two more under the doctor’s hands; while Granger, the local constable, and Nunn, the detective in charge of the case, appeared in the witness-box, one with his arm in a sling, and the other with plastered face and bandaged head. The fact that the prisoner himself bore unmistakable traces of having lately been engaged in some lively proceedings did not enhance his naturally uncouth appearance. It was felt by more than one who saw him that he looked like the sort of person who was born to be hung.

His own statement in the coroner’s court having been produced in evidence against him, it was supplemented by the statements of independent witnesses in a fashion which began to make the case against him look very ugly indeed. Both Miss Arnott and Mr Morice were called to prove that his own assertion--that he had threatened to shoot the master of Oak Dene--was only too true. While they were in the box the prisoner, who was unrepresented by counsel, preserved what, for him, was an unusual silence. He stared at them, indeed, and particularly at the lady, in a way which was almost more eloquent than speech. Then other witnesses were produced who shed a certain amount of light on his proceedings on that memorable Saturday night.

It was shown, for instance, that he was well within the mark in saying that he had had a glass or two. Jenkins, the landlord of the “Rose and Crown,” declared that he had had so many glasses that he had to eject him from his premises; he was “fighting drunk.” In that condition he had staggered home, provided himself with a gun and gone out with it. A driver of a mail-cart, returning from conveying the mails to be taken by the night express to town, had seen him on a stile leading into Exham Park; had hailed him, but received no answer. A lad, the son of the woman with whom Baker lodged, swore that he had come in between two and three in the morning, seeming “very queer.” He kept muttering to himself while endeavouring to remove his boots--muttering out loud. The lad heard him say, “I shot him--well, I shot him. What if I did shoot him? what if I did?” He kept saying this to himself over and over again. After he had gone to bed, the lad, struck by the singularity of his persistent repetition, looked at his gun. It had been discharged. The lad swore that, to his own knowledge, the gun had been loaded when Baker had taken it out with him earlier in the night.

The prisoner did not improve matters by his continual interruptions. He volunteered corroborations of the witnesses’ most damaging statements; demanding in truculent tones to be told what was the meaning of all the fuss.

“I shot the man--well, I’ve said I shot him. But that didn’t do him no harm to speak of. I swear to God I didn’t do anything else to him. I hadn’t no more to do with killing him than an unborn babe.”

There were those who heard, however, who were inclined to think that he had had a good deal more to do with killing him than he was inclined to admit.

Miss Arnott, also, was having some experiences of a distinctly unpleasant kind. It was, to begin with, a shock to hear that Jim Baker had been arrested on the capital charge. When she was told what he had said, and read it for herself in the newspapers, she began to understand what had been the meaning of the gunshot and of the groans which had ensued. She, for one, had reason to believe that what the tippling old scoundrel had said was literally true, that he had spoken all the truth. Her blood boiled when she read his appeal to Hugh Morice, and that gentleman’s carefully formulated corroboration. The idea that serious consequences might ensue to Baker because of his candour was a frightful one.

It was not pleasant to be called as a witness against him; she felt very keenly the dumb eloquence of the appeal in the blood-shot eyes which were fixed upon her the whole time she was testifying, she observed with something more than amazement. She had a horrible feeling that he was deliberately endeavouring to fit a halter round the neck of the drink-sodden wretch who, he had the best reason for knowing, was innocent of the crime of which he was charged.