Barnabas Wiggins
All eyes turned towards a small man as he strode confidently forward, dressed in what were no doubt his Sunday clothes. His face had the puffed and ruddy look of a man who enjoyed this ales… the more often he had them, the better he enjoyed them. Porticus noted the man's right hand was in his trouser pocket. Constant ripples in the cloth suggested he was moving his fingers rapidly inside the pocket. He seemed almost reluctant to remove his right hand to lay it on the bible for the few seconds it took to swear to tell the truth. Immediately his hand dove back into the pocket. 'What's he got in his pocket?' Porticus asked himself; then shrugged. Time would tell.
The prosecutor was on his feet. "Barnabas Wiggins," he said in a loud pompous tone. The man sitting in the box flinched. "You live and work on the estate of Rosings Park, correct? " The small man flinched again, then nodded his head.
"Speak up, man!" the prosecutor barked at him.
"I do," the man croaked. "Fifty year, on now." He seemed ready to go on, but the prosecutor cut him off. "That will do, Mr. Wiggins!" he barked again. The man looked confused, then shrugged, and stood up.
"Where the devil are you going?" the prosecutor yelped.
"Ye said 'That'll do', din 'ye? Round here that means 'we're done'!"
"Sit down, man. You are not done until the Judge says you are!" Barnabas shrugged, and sat.
"No' like I do this every day, ye know," he mumbled, but loudly enough that a large part of the crowd laughed. The Judge rapped with his hammer.
"That'll do. Get on with it!" he ordered. The prosecutor gathered his robes around him and stepped closer to his witness.
"Tell the people what you saw on this past 5th of July in the late evening hours in the woods at Rosings Park."
"That th' night the girl was kilt, right?" The prosecutor's eyes rolled in his head in exasperation. "Yes, man. The night you saw the girl killed." Porticus was on his feet, and rasped out, "Objection, your Honor. "The prosecutor is testifying now, not the witness!"
"Sustained!" the judge said. "Just get on with it," he told the prosecutor, who looked daggers at a smug Porticus.
"Well, I left the Inn where I was talkin' with m' friends, and made my way through the lanes towards m' hut, when I felt the need to stop in th' bushes." He hesitated, "Do I gotta say what I was doin'?" he asked, loud enough for the crowd to hear and roar with laughter. The Judge pounded with his gavel. "Order! Order! Or I'll have the bailiffs clear the courtroom!" The crowd subsided.
"No need," the prosecutor said. "We will let the defense pursue that if they wish," he added with a malicious look at Porticus who smiled benignly at him.
"So, I 'eard some ruckus off t'ords th' pig sties and I raised up a bit t' look over the bushes. Saw Jeb's daughter, Jewel. Thought it were 'er anyway. Some big fellah had her from be'ind, hands on 'er neck from what I could see. Then he dropped her."
"Did you get a good look at this man that had strangled the girl?"
"Sure did. When he dropped her I saw him good. His shirt was soaked red with her blood. It was Mr. Darcy… Fitzie… known him since he was a lad… the one sittin there in chains," he said, pointing at Darcy.
The whole courtroom roared in fury, even the jurors were shaking their fists at Fitzwilliam Darcy as he sat placidly on the prisoners' bench. The bailiffs moved closer to him, as though feeling the need to protect him from the crowd's rage. The Judge's pounding gavel could hardly be heard until the roars began to subside."
"Quiet!" the Judge bellowed. "D'ya wanna see the man hung or force me to declare a mistrial?" The roars died away. "Get on with it," he ordered the prosecutor who had a wide grin as he stared at Porticus thru the melee.
"How do you know it was the defendant?" he asked his witness. "Do you know the man? You travel in different circles,surely," he added with a chuckle.
"Him, and the other boys, Ritchie, and Georgie, was always comin' over for 'oliday t' stay at Rosings. The Lady's his aunt, after all," bowing towards the stone-faced Lady de Bourgh.
"No further questions," the prosecutor declared as he sat and cast a smirk towards Porticus, now rising to his feet.
"Mr. Wiggins," Porticus rasped at him. "You say you were at the Inn. What were you doing there?"
"Objection!" cried the prosecutor, leaping to his feet. "Irrelevant to what the witness saw later that evening."
"Nonsense, your Honor," Porticus rasped. "What one does for hours in an Inn may severely affect and impede what he sees in the dark woods after."
"I'll allow it," the Judge ruled. "The witness shall answer."
Porticus rasped, "Thank you, your Honor," and turned again to his witness. "Answer the question, Mr. Wiggins. You were several hours in the Inn, doing what?"
Wiggins shifted uncomfortably. His hand went back into his pocket, fiddling with something that tinkled, audibly. "I guess I was havin' a few pints?" he said with some belligerence. "Tis what we do inna Inn, after all." A chuckle rippled through the crowd.
"And when you left the Inn, after doing what one does in an Inn for several hours, how were you feeling? Do you recall?" Wiggins shifted uncomfortably.
"Shall I refresh your memory from your interview with the prosecutor where you said, and I quote, 'I was fuddled, but not so much I couldn't see my path straight in the woods'? Is not that what you told the prosecutor when he questioned you?"
"S'pose it were," Wiggins, muttered.
"Speak up, man" Porticus rasped. "The jury needs to hear you."
"S'pose it were. " Wilkins repeated, somewhat louder. Porticus nodded and then asked, quickly, before the prosecutor could object. "Is it not a fact you were so fuddled that in the Inn you tried to use the spittoon on the floor as a privy and the Innkeeper ended by throwing you out because you could not find the door by yourself?"
The crowd's roar of laughter drowned out the prosecutor's outraged "Objection!"
When the laughter subsided, the prosecutor's objection was amplified to "Hearsay! Not admissible, your honor." The judge looked at Porticus for a response and the little man rasped, "Like all the prosecutions objections, your honor, this one also is "an infinity of nothing", if I may borrow from the Bard.'
The judge smiled. 'You can always borrow from the Bard in this court, Porticus, but be more specific in your response to the objection."
Porticus bowed his round figure. "I have a list of patrons at the Inn that night and also the Innkeeper who will all testify as to the truth of what was just stated. But in the interest of brevity and the approaching lunch hour," he added, patting his swollen belly with a knowing snicker, "I prefer to move things along."
"I agree about the lunch hour, Porticus, so unless the witness contradicts you, I will allow you to proceed with due haste." The prosecutor scowled at the judge and his opponent, but sat down stiffly.
"So, in your fuddled state, Mr. Wiggins" Porticus rasped at the witness, "you saw a man in a bloody shirt murdering the poor girl. But did you not hear the earlier testimony that the poor girl was strangled and there were no wounds on the body?"
"I heard it," Wiggins admitted, slowly.
"So your assumption that the man's shirt was red with blood might be a result of your 'fuddled' state of mind, might it not." The prosecutor was on his feet. "Objection! He is leading the witness!"
Porticus sighed. "Like most of the prosecution's objections, this one is 'Much Ado about Nothing', your honor," he rasped."
"Overruled! The witness may answer!"
Wiggins frowned and scratched his head. "But it were red," he insisted.
"Ah," Porticus said, in satisfaction. "But are there not red garments a man might wear? A red coat of a member of a regiment could look like a bloodied shirt in a fuddled dark night, could it not?"
Wiggins frowned and bit his lip, as the prosecutor leaped to his feet, crying, "Objection, your honor. He is leading the witness, again!" Again the Judge mildly admonished the barrister, "Save it for the closing arguments, Porticus." Porticus bowed.
"In that case," he said to the visibly nervous Wiggins, "let me ask you a most obvious question which I am sure all here would like to hear the answer to, but which the prosecutor doesn't seem to have ever asked… it not being his community or his neighbors, perhaps. You saw a murder being done, yet you never shouted out or tried in some way to assist poor Jewel whom you tell us you knew from her birth. Why not?"
Wiggins face screwed up like one about to burst into tears. "Sorry 'bout that Jeb," he called to the bereaved father. "Fact is… I passed out. Only came to when the sun was up. There was no one 'round me and I thought I had dreamed the whole thing. Got 'ome and slept a whole day. Only woke in time for th' funeral and then began t' wonder if what I seen happen' what was real. Went to Lady Catherine and told her my tale and she had me talk to that pros'cutor there who told me to keep my mouth shut; both as to talkin' bout it and as to drinkin' any more ale til th' trial was done. Damn hard that one," he muttered. The prosecutor was on his feet again. "All of this is irrelevant as to the case before us, Your Honor."
"No matter," rasped Porticus. "I am done with this witness, for now. But I reserve the right to recall him." He started to turn away, but then stopped, as though struck by a sudden thought.
"Your Honor, I would ask what the witness has in his right pocket that he plays with so it emits a jingling sound." Wilkins snatched his hand from his pocket and a coin fell to the floor. It glinted gold. Porticus picked it up. "A gold guinea," he rasped aloud. "More than a farmer earns in a year of honest work. And he has several, from the jingling sound they make. Where did he get them, I wonder?"
The prosecutor was on his feet bellowing his objections, but the Judge ignored him. "I also find myself curious to learn if a witness in my court has been paid for his testimony, or even bribed for it." He spoke in his loudest voice, "The witness is ordered to empty his pockets." Reluctantly, Wiggins reached into his pocket and pulled out a number of coins. "Five gold guineas," Porticus announced. "A fortune. Enough to empty every barrel of ale in the whole county. Where did he get such a fortune… and for what service, I wonder?" Wiggins looked uncomfortable. "Do I gotta answer that?" he whined.
"Yes", the Judge told him sternly. "You shall tell me where you got a fortune in gold!"
"Well, the Lady give it to me. Couldn't do my work with all the sittin' and answerin' questions and givin' 'nterviews, 'n all. Just had to promise not to get fuddled ag'n till after th' trial is over so I wouldn't lose cred'bilty or such, she said." The Judge glared in the direction of the stately Lady de Bough who did her best to ignore his glare, although a shiny sheen of sweat could be seen on her forehead. Finally, the Judge told the witness, "You may step down," and then looked at the prosecutor, asking "You have more witnesses?" The prosecutor shook his head, then answered aloud, "The prosecution rests."
