The Trial for Murder | A Ghost Story by Charles Dickens | A Bitesized Audiobook

[Music] hello and welcome to bite-sized audio on YouTube I'm Simon stanh hope actor audiobook narrator and curator of this channel on the channel you can hear my narrations more than a 100 to date and more to come of classic short stories mostly from the Victorian and Edwardian eras including vintage ghost stories detective stories and other classic Tales of mystery and suspense to accompany the narrations I've put a short profile of the authors in the video description as well as some general b

ackground notes on the stories for those who'd like to know more if you enjoy this content please hit subscribe like share leave a comment if you'd like to and thank you for [Music] [Music] listening to be taken with a grain of salt the trial for Murder by Charles Dickens I have always noticed a prevalent want of Courage even among persons of superior intelligence and culture as to imparting their own psychological experiences when those have been of a strange sort almost all men are afraid that

what they could relate in such wise would find no parallel or response in a listener's internal life and might be suspected or laughed at a truthful traveler who should have seen some extraordinary creature in the likeness of a sea serpent would have no fear of mentioning it but the same traveler having had some singular presentiment impulse vager of thought Vision soall dream or other remarkable mental impression would hesitate considerably before he would own to it to this reticence I attribu

te much of the obscurity in which such subjects are involved we do not habitually communicate our experiences of these subjective things as we do our experiences of objective creation the consequence is that the General stock of experience in this regard appears exceptional and really is so in respect of being miserably imperfect in what I am going to relate I have no intention of setting up opposing or supporting any Theory whatever I know the history of the book seller of Berlin I have studied

the case of the wife of a late astronomer Royal as related by Sir David Brewster and I have followed the minutest details of a much more remarkable case of spectral illusion occurring within my private cular friends it may be necessary to State as to this last that the sufferer a lady was in no degree however distant related to me a mistaken assumption on that head might suggest an explanation of a part of my own case but only a part which would be holy without Foundation it cannot be referred

to my inheritance of any developed peculiarity nor had I ever before any at all similar experience nor have I ever had any at all similar experience since it does not signify how many years ago or how few a certain murder was committed in England which attracted great attention we hear more than enough of murderers as they rise in succession to their atrocious Eminence and I would bury the memory of this particular brute if I could as his body was buried in nugat jail I purposely abstain from gi

ving any direct clue to the criminals individ uality when the murder was first discovered no suspicion fell or I ought rather to say for I cannot be too precise in my facts it was nowhere publicly hinted that any suspicion fell on the man who was afterwards brought to trial as no reference was at that time made to him in the newspapers it is obviously impossible that any description of him can at that time have been given in the newspapers it is essential that this fact be remembered unfolding a

t breakfast my morning paper containing the account of that first discovery I found it to be deeply interesting and I read it with close attention I read it twice if not three times the discovery had been made in a bedroom and when I laid down the paper I was aware of a flash Rush flow I do not know what to call it no word I can find is satisfactorily descriptive in which I seemed to see that bedroom passing through my room like a picture impossibly painted on a running River though almost insta

ntaneous in its passing it was perfectly clear so clear that I distinctly and with a sense of relief observed the absence of the dead body from the bed it was in no romantic place that I had this curious sensation but in Chambers in Picadilly very near to the corner of St james' Street it was entirely new to me I was in my easy chair at the moment and The Sensation was accompanied with a peculiar shiver which started the chair from its position but it is to be noted that the chair ran easily on

casters I went to one of the windows there are two in the room and the room is on the second floor to refresh my eyes with the moving objects down in Picadilly it was a bright Autumn morning and the street was sparkling and cheerful the wind was high as I looked out it brought down from the park a quantity of fallen leaves which a gust took and welled into a spiral pillar as the pillar fell and the leaves dispersed I saw two men on the opposite side of the way going from west to east they were o

ne behind the other the foremost man often looked back over his shoulder the second man followed him at a distance of some 30 Paces with his right hand menacingly raised first The Singularity and steadiness of this threatening gesture in so public a Thorofare attracted my attention and next the more remarkable circumstance that nobody heeded it both men threaded their way among the other passengers with a smoothness hardly consistent even with the action of walking on a pavement and no single cr

eature that I could see gave them Place touched them or looked after them in passing before my windows they both stared up at me I saw the their two faces very distinctly and I knew that I could recognize them anywhere not that I had consciously noticed anything very remarkable in either face except that the man who went first had an unusually lowering appearance and that the face of the man who followed him was of the color of impure wax I am a bachelor and my valet and his wife constitute my H

est establishment my occupation is in a certain branch bank and I wish that my duties as head of a department were as light as they are popularly supposed to be they kept me in town that Autumn when I stood in need of change I was not ill but I was not well my reader is to make the most that can be reasonably made of my feeling jaded having a depressing sense upon me of a monotonous life and being being slightly dyspeptic I am assured by my renowned doctor that my real state of health at that ti

me justifies no stronger description and I quote his own from his written answer to my request for it as the circumstances of the murder gradually unraveling took stronger and stronger possession of the public mind I kept them away from Mine by knowing as little about them as was possible in the midst of the Universal excitement but I knew that a verdict of willful murder had been found against the suspected murderer and that he had been committed to Newgate for trial I also knew that his trial

had been postponed over one sessions of the central criminal court on the ground of General Prejudice and want of time for the preparation of the defense I may further have known but I believe I did not when or about when the sessions to which his trial stood postponed would come on my sitting room bedroom and dressing room are all on one floor with the last there is no communication but through the bedroom true there is a door in it once communicating with the staircase but a part of the fittin

g of my bath has been and had then been for some years fixed across it at the same period And as a part of the same Arrangement the door had been nailed up and canvased over I was standing in my bedroom late one night giving some directions to my servant before he went to bed my face was towards the only available door of communication with the dressing room and it was closed my servants back was towards that door while I was speaking to him I saw it open and a man look in who very earnestly and

mysteriously beckoned to me that man was the man who had gone second of the two along pickadilly and whose face was of the color of impure wax the figure having beckoned Drew back and closed the door with no longer pause than was made by my crossing the bedroom I opened the dressing room door and looked in I had a lighted candle already in my my hand I felt no inward expectation of seeing the figure in the dressing room and I did not see it there conscious that my servant stood amazed I turned

round to him and said Dereck could you believe that in my cool senses I fancied I saw as I there laid my hand upon his breast with a sudden start he trembled violently and said oh Lord Lord yes sir a dead man beckoning now I do not believe that this John Derek my trusty and attached servant for more than 20 years had any impression whatever of having seen any such figure until I touched him the change in him was so startling when I touched him that I fully believe he derived his impression in so

me occult manner from me at that in Stant I bad John Derek bring me some Brandy and I gave him a dram and was glad to take one myself of what had preceded that night's phenomenon I told him not a single word reflecting on it I was absolutely certain that I had never seen that face before except on the one occasion in Picadilly comparing its expression when beckoning at the door with its expression when it had stared up at me as I stood at my window I came to the conclusion that on the first occa

sion it had sought to fasten itself upon my memory and that on the second occasion it had made sure of being immediately remembered I was not very comfortable that night though I felt a certainty difficult to explain that the figure would not return at daylight I fell into a heavy sleep from which I was awakened by John Derek's coming to my bedside with a paper in his hand this paper it appeared had been the subject of an altercation at the door between its Bearer and my servant it was a summons

to me to serve upon a jury at the forthcoming sessions of the central criminal court at the Old Bailey I had never before been summoned on such a jury as John Derek well knew he believed I am not certain at this hour whether with reason or otherwise that that class of jurors were customarily chosen on a lower qualification than mine and he had at first refused to accept the summons the man who served it had taken the matter very cooly he had said that my attendance or non-attendance was nothing

to him there the summons was and I should deal with it at my own Peril and not at his for a day or two I was undecided whether to respond to this call or take no notice of it I was not conscious of the slightest mysterious bias influence or attraction one way or other of that I am a strictly sure as of every other statement that I make here ultimately I decided as a break in the monotony of my life that I would go the appointed morning was a raw morning in the month of November there was a dens

e Brown fog in Picadilly and it became positively Black and in the last degree oppressive east of Temple Bar I found the passages and staircases of the courthouse flaring lighted with gas and the court itself similarly illuminated I think that until I was conducted by officers into the old court and saw its crowded State I did not know that the murderer was to be tried that day I think that until I was so helped into the old court with considerable difficulty I did not know into which of the two

courts sitting my summons would take me but this must not be received as a positive assertion for I am not completely satisfied in my mind on either point I took my seat in the place appropriated to jores in waiting and I looked about the court as well as I could through the cloud of fog and breath that was Heavy in it I noticed the black vapor hanging like a murky curtain outside the Great Windows and I noticed the stifled sound of wheels on the straw or tan that was lited in the street also t

he hum of the people gathered there which a shrill whistle or a louder song or hail and the rest occasionally pierced soon afterwards the judges too in number entered and took their seats the buzz in the court was awfully hushed the direction was given to put the murderer to the bar he appeared there and in that same instant I recognized in him the first of the two men who had gone down Picadilly if my name had been called then I doubt if I could have answered to it audibly but if it was called

about sixth or eighth in the panel and I was by that time able to say here now observe as I stepped into the box The Prisoner who had been looking on attentively but with no sign of concern became violently agitated and beckoned to his attorney the prisoner's wish to challenge me was so manifest that it occasioned a pause during which the attorney with his hand upon the dock whispered with his client and shook his head I afterwards had it from that gentleman that the prisoners first afed words t

o him were at all hazards challenge that man but that as he would give no reason for it and admitted that he had not even known my name until he heard it called and I appeared it was not done both on the ground already explained that I wish to void Reviving The UNH wholesome memory of that murderer and also because a detailed account of his long trial is by no means indispensable to my narrative I shall confine myself closely to such incidents in the 10 days and nights during which we the jury w

ere kept together as directly bear on my own curious personal experience it is in that and not in the murderer that I seek to interest my reader it is to that and not to a page of the Newgate calendar that I beg attention I was chosen Foreman of the jury on the second morning of the trial after evidence had been taken for 2 hours I heard the church clock strike happening to cast my eyes over my brother jman I found an inexplicable difficulty in counting them I counted them several times yet alwa

ys with the same difficulty in short I made them one too many I touched the brother jman whose place was next me and I whispered to him oblige Me by counting us he looked surprised by the request but turned his head and counted why says he suddenly we are 30 but no it's not possible no we are 12 according to my accounting that day we were always right in detail but in the gross we were always one too many there was no appearance no figure to account for it but I had now an inward foreshadowing o

f the figure that was surely coming the jwelry were housed at the London Tavern we all slept in one large room on Separate Tables and we were constantly in the charge and under the eye of the officer sworn to Hold Us in safekeeping I see no reason for suppressing the real name of that officer he was intelligent highly polite and obliging and I was glad to hear much respected in the city he had an agreeable presence good eyes enviable black whiskers and a fine sonorous voice his name was Mr Harke

r when we turned into our 12 beds at night Mr Harker's bed was drawn across the door on the night of the second day not being disposed to lie down and seeing Mr Harker sitting on his bed I went and sat beside him and offered him a pinch of snuff as Mr Harker's hand touched mine in taking it from my box A peculiar shiver crossed him and he said who is this following Mr Harker's eyes and looking along the RO room I saw again the figure I expected the second of the two men who had gone down Picadil

ly I Rose and advanced a few steps then stopped and looked round at Mr Harker he was quite unconcerned laughed and said in a pleasant way I thought for a moment we had a 13th juryman without a bed but I see it is the Moonlight making no Revelation to Mr Harker but inviting him to take a walk with me to the end of the room I watched what the figure did it stood for a few moments by the bedside of each of my 11 brother jurymen close to the pillow it always went to the right hand side of the bed an

d always passed out crossing the foot of the next bed it seemed from the action of the head merely to look down pensively at each recumbent figure it took no notice of me or of my bed which was that nearest to Mr Harker it seemed to go out where the Moonlight came in through a high window as by an aerial flight of stairs next morning at breakfast it appeared that everybody present had dreamed of the murdered man last night except myself and Mr Harker I now felt as convinced that the second man w

ho had gone down Picadilly was the murdered man so to speak as if it had been born into my comprehension by his immediate testimony but even this took place and in a manner for which I was not at all prepared on the fifth day of the trial when the case for the prosecution was drawing to a close a miniature of the murdered man missing from his bedroom upon the discovery of the deed and afterwards found in a hiding place where the murderer had been seen digging was put in evidence having been iden

tified by the witness under examination it was handed up to the bench and then handed down to be inspected by the jury as an officer in a black gown was making his way with it across to me the figure of the second man who had gone down Picadilly impetuously started from the crowd caught the miniature from the officer and gave it to me with his own hands at the same time saying in a low and Hollow tone before I saw the miniature which was in a locket I was younger then and my face was not then dr

ained of blood it also came between me and the brother jorman to whom I would have given the miniature and between him and the brother jorman to whom he would have given it and so pass it on through the whole of our number and back into my possession not one of them however detected this at table and generally when we were shut up together in Mr Harker's custody we had from the first naturally discussed the day's proceedings a good deal on that fifth day the case for the prosecution being closed

and we having that side of the question in a completed shape before us our discussion was more animated and serious among our number was a vestman the densest idiot I have ever seen at large who met the plainest evidence with the most Preposterous objections and who was sided with by two flabby parochial parasites all the three impanel from a district so delivered over to Fever that they ought to have been upon their own trial for 500 murders when these mischievous BL Blockheads were at their l

oudest which was towards midnight while some of us were already preparing for bed I again saw the murdered man he stood grimly behind them beckoning to me on my going towards them and striking into the conversation he immediately retired this was the beginning of a separate series of appearances confined to that long room in which we were confined when whenever a knot of my brother jurymen laid their heads together I saw the head of the murdered man among theirs whenever their comparison of note

s was going against him he would solemnly and irresistibly beckon to me it will be borne in mind that down to the production of the miniature on the fifth day of the trial I had never seen the appearance in court three changes occurred now that we entered on the cas for the defense two of them I will mention together first the figure was now in court continually and it never there addressed itself to me but always to the person who was speaking at the time for instance the throat of the murdered

man had been cut straight across in the opening speech for the defense it was suggested that the deceased might have cut his own throat at that very moment the figure with its WR in the Dreadful condition referred to this it had concealed before stood at the speaker's elbow motioning across and across its windpipe now with the right hand now with the left vigorously suggesting to the speaker himself the impossibility of such a wound having been self-inflicted by either hand for another instance

a witness to character a woman deposed to the prisoners being the most amiable able of mankind the figur at that instant stood on the floor before her looking her full in the face and pointing out the prisoner's evil countenance with an extended arm and an outstretched finger the Third change now to be added impressed me strongly as the most marked and striking of all I do not theorize upon it I accurately state it and there leave it although the appearance was not itself perceived by Those who

m it addressed its coming close to such persons was invariably attended by some trepidation or disturbance on their part it seemed to me as if it were prevented by laws to which I was not amable from fully revealing itself to others and yet as if it could invisibly dumbly and Darkly overshadow their minds when the leading Council for the defense suggested that hypothesis of suicide and the figure stood at the Learned gentleman's elbow frightfully soaring at its severed throat it is undeniable th

at the council faltered in his speech lost for a few seconds the thread of his ingenious discourse wiped his forehead with his handkerchief and turned extremely pale when the witness to character was confronted by the appearance her eyes most certainly did follow the direction of its pointed finger and rest in great hesitation and trouble upon the prisoner's face two additional illustrations will suffice on the eth day of the trial after the pause which was every day made early in the afternoon

for a few minutes rest and refreshment I came back into court with the rest of the jury some little time before the return of the judges standing up in the box and looking about about me I thought the figure was not there until chancing to raise my eyes to the gallery I saw it bending forward and leaning over a very decent woman as if to assure itself whether the judges had resumed their seats or not immediately afterwards that woman screamed fainted and was carried out so with the venerable sag

acious and patient judge who conducted the trial when the case was over and he settled himself and his papers to sum up the murdered man entering by the judge's door Advanced to his lordship's desk and looked eagerly over his shoulder at the pages of his notes which he was turning a change came over his lordship's face his hand stopped the peculiar shiver that I knew so well passed over him he faltered excuse me gentlemen for a few moments I am somewhat oppressed by the viated air and did not re

cover until he had drunk a glass of water through all the monotony of six of those interminable 10 days the same judges and others on the bench the same murderer in the dock the same lawyers at the table the same tones of question and answer rising to the roof of the cour the same scratching of the judge's pen the same ushers going in and out the same lights kindled at the same hour when there had been any natural light of day the same foggy curtain outside the Great Windows when it was foggy th

e same rain pattering and dripping when it was rainy the same footmarks of turnkeys and prisoner day after day on the same sawdust the same Keys locking and unlocking the same same heavy doors through all the wearisome monotony which made me feel as if I had been Foreman of the jury for a vast period of time and Picadilly had flourished coev with Babylon the murdered man never lost one trace of his distinctness in my eyes nor was he at any moment less distinct than anybody else I must not omit a

s a matter of fact that I never once saw the appearance which I call by the name of the murdered man look at the murderer again and again I wondered why does he not but he never did nor did he look at me after the production of the miniature until the last closing minutes of the trial arrived we retired to consider at 7 minutes before 10: at night the idiotic vestman and his two parochial parasites gave us so much trouble that we twice returned into court to beg to have certain extracts from the

judge's notes reread nine of us had not the smallest doubt about those passages neither I believe had anyone in the court the dunderheaded triumvirate having no idea but obstruction disputed them for that very reason at length we prevailed and finally the jury returned into court at 10 minutes past 12 the murdered man at that time stood directly opposite the jewelry box on the other side of the Court as I took my place his eyes rested on me with great attention he seemed satisfied and slowly sh

ook a great gray Veil which he carried on his arm for the first time over his head and whole form as I gave in our verdict guil y the veil collapsed all was gone and his place was empty the murderer being asked by the judge according to usage whether he had anything to say before sentence of death should be passed upon Him indistinctly muttered something which was described in the leading newspapers of the following day as a few rambling incoherent and half audible words in which he was understo

od to complain that he had not had a fair trial because the foreman of the jury was prepossessed against him the remarkable declaration that he really made was this my Lord I knew I was a doomed man when the foreman of my JY came into the box my Lord I knew he would never let me off because before I was taken he somehow got into my bedside in the night woke me and put a rope round my [Music] [Music] neck you've been listening to a bite-sized audio book read by me Simon stanh hope if you'd like t

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