Thereupon a solemn hush fell upon the court,
broken only by the whispers of the jurymen, as they consulted together;
and the spectators gazed in awed expectancy from the accused to the
whispering jury. I glanced at Draper, sitting huddled in his chair, his
clammy face as pale as that of the corpse in the mortuary hard by, his
hands tremulous and restless; and, scoundrel as I believed him to be, I
could not but pity the abject misery that was written large all over
him, from his damp hair to his incessantly shifting feet.
The jury took but a short time to consider their verdict. At the end of
five minutes the foreman announced that they were agreed, and, in answer
to the coroner's formal inquiry, stood up and replied:
"We find that the deceased met his death by being stabbed in the chest
by the accused man, Alfred Draper."
"That is a verdict of wilful murder," said the coroner, and he entered
it accordingly in his notes. The Court now rose. The spectators
reluctantly trooped out, the jurymen stood up and stretched themselves,
and the two constables, under the guidance of the sergeant, carried the
wretched Draper in a fainting condition to a closed fly that was waiting
outside.
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