Deliberate Evil, page 16
Now it may be supposed that this very deficiency in Palmer’s story is proof of its truth. Not so. Palmer’s story was first told and put in writing to convict Richard Crowninshield, and it would well enough stand alone on that. But when Richard was out of the way and Frank became the principal, a connecting link was wanting; and to furnish this is Leighton’s office.
And what is Leighton’s story? Of all the gross improbabilities that ever were laid at the foundation of a cause, this is the most gross. It is just the clumsiest contrivance of a play, where the audience is informed of what has taken place behind the scenes by the actors telling each other what they have been doing together. If it were told with the utmost consistency, could you believe it for a moment?
Why, gentlemen, do but listen to it. He tells you that Frank Knapp came to Wenham about ten o’clock [and] that he and Joseph were together all morning in the fields, and that after dinner he left them together talking at the gate by the house while the witness went down the avenue to his work. There was abundant opportunity, then, for them to talk in private about what most concerned them. But after the witness had passed through the gate at the end of the avenue and taken his place behind the wall, he heard voices in the avenue.
Without rising he peeped through the gate and saw the two Knapps about twenty-five rods off coming towards him; that they ceased talking until they arrived within three feet of the wall and then began this dialogue: Said Joseph, “When did you see Dick?” “This morning.” “When is he going to kill the old man?” “I don’t know.” “If he don’t do it soon I won’t pay him.” And they then turned up the avenue and walked away, and this is all the witness heard.
Now is anything more than a bare statement of this story necessary to show its falsehood? For what purpose, under Heaven, could the Knapps have postponed all conversation on this most interesting subject till that very time? They had been together all morning; they were plotting a murder, and Frank had been that very day to see the perpetrator; and yet neither Joseph had the curiosity to ask, nor Frank the disposition to speak of the matter until just as they reached the place of Leighton’s ambuscade. And there, in an abrupt dialogue of one minute’s duration, they disclose the whole secret and walk back again.
Not a word more is heard by the witness. The conversation evidently began and ended with these words. Really it is too miserable a contrivance to deserve much comment. But there is a remarkable mistake about this story which stamps it with falsehood. Leighton fixes the conversation on Friday, the second of April. And why on that day? Because he knew, as well as every person who had read the newspapers, that on that day Frank did see Richard. But unluckily he fixes him at Wenham at the very hour in which it now appears, from the testimony of Allen and Palmer, that he was at Danvers.
Leighton says that Frank came to Wenham at ten, and said he had seen Dick that morning; but it now appears that Frank did not go to Danvers until two o’clock, and at that very hour Leighton pretends to have heard this conversation at Wenham. Again, Palmer tells you that at that interview at Danvers, the plan was first proposed to the Crowninshields, that George spoke of it to Richard and himself as what he had just heard from Frank; and yet from this dialogue at Wenham it seems that Joseph was impatient at the long delay of Richard.
“When is Dick going to kill the old man?” “If he don’t soon I won’t pay him.” How are these things to be reconciled? Leighton tells you, too, that he never mentioned this conversation until after the murder. And why not? . . . He had heard a plan, [a] palpable plot of murder contrived by his own master, and yet he did not think [to tell it]! He did not tell it to Mr. Davis when he joined him at his work, nor to [his fellow worker on the Beckford farm] Thomas Hart who slept in the same room with him. He is directly contradicted by Hart, both as to time when he told of it and as to the circumstances of Richard’s supposed visit to Wenham. . . .
Hart says he never heard of this conversation until after Leighton’s examination at Salem and that Leighton told him the committee brought out a warrant to commit him to jail if he did not tell what he knew—facts both of which Leighton denied on the stand. Now what account does he give of the manner in which his evidence was brought out? He says he was summoned to attend court, taken out of the field when he was at work and carried to Mr. Waters’ office. He was kept there, forenoon and afternoon, more than four hours, closely questioned and threatened; but he told nothing. Why did he not tell?
On the first trial he swore he remembered well enough, but he did not choose to tell. To be sure he swore both ways about it, but he finally said he did remember and would not tell; and on this statement a most ingenious argument was built by the counsel in his favor: “He would not betray his employer; improper as it was to deny what he knew, he had fidelity enough to refuse.” But on this last trial he takes all that back; he swears positively he did not remember a word about it. Equally regardless of his own oath and the argument of counsel, he denies the whole. He says it all came into his mind about two days after his return to Wenham—the very words. What brought it to his mind he cannot tell. Now what credit can you give to this boy and his story?
But one of the most remarkable improbabilities of it is yet to come. He says he told the gentlemen at Mr. Waters’ office that if they would come to Wenham the next day he would tell them all he could remember. That was on the twenty-second of July. Now do you believe if that were true they would not have gone? . . . And yet he tells you he heard nothing from them until ten days after that time. Then they came to Wenham and he told them about it.
Now, gentlemen, if you had seen as much as we have of the diligence of the committee and sub-committee in looking up testimony in this cause, you would not think this the least improbability in Leighton’s story. Consider how important his testimony is. Without it, Palmer’s and the whole evidence of the conspiracy would be useless. It is the very cornerstone of the prosecution. And yet it was not thought worth looking after for ten days immediately preceding the trial. Again, we shall be asked, what motive has Leighton to swear falsely? And we answer, fear, favor, and hope of reward.
He was told at Waters’ office he should be made to remember; he said he was threatened with a warrant; and he knows of the immense rewards that have been offered. He remembers the pricking with the dagger, and he swears now to you that if Knapp escapes hanging, he expects he will kill him. Under all these circumstances, I put it to your consciences to say if you can take this boy’s word against the life of the prisoner. If you disbelieve it, then you must wholly reject Palmer’s testimony and all evidence of what was said and done by anyone but the prisoner or in his presence. There is absolutely no other evidence to connect the prisoner with Joseph or the Crowninshields in this matter.
But who is this Palmer, this mysterious stranger who has been the object of so much curiosity and speculation? He is a convicted thief. We produce to you the record of his conviction of shop-breaking in Maine. He is an unrepenting thief. . . . Mr. James Webster tells you his character among his neighbors in Belfast is as bad as it can be. He tells you himself that he has passed in his wanderings from tavern to tavern, sometimes by the name of Palmer . . . and sometimes that of George Crowninshield. The latter name he gave at Babb’s house when he was called on to settle his bill; and whether he settled by a note he cannot remember, but Mr. Babb remembers that he did and signed that note George Crowninshield!
And how came Mr. Palmer a witness before you? He was arrested . . . committed to Belfast jail, brought up by land from Belfast in chains, put into a condemned cell in Salem, remained in jail two months, neither committed for trial nor ordered to [be recognized] as a witness, but kept for further examination at his own request until he is brought out and made a free man on the stand. Now what is this man’s credibility? If his conviction had been in Massachusetts he would have been incompetent; he could not have opened his mouth in court. But the crime is the same, the law violated is the same, the infamy and punishment are the same in Maine as in Massachusetts, and his credibility is the same.
Add to that conviction, his subsequent . . . forgery, and you have left in him but a bare possibility that he may speak the truth. As to his temptation to testify against the prisoner, you see how he was brought here, under what liabilities he stands, and what is the price of his discharge. He tells you himself that, though a disinterested love of public justice first moved him to inquire into the matter, he thinks he deserves some little pecuniary reward for his exertions, and doubtless he thinks that reward will depend something in the success of them.
But what is his story? It is that being himself concealed at the house of the Crowninshields in Danvers, he saw Frank Knapp and Allen come there on Friday, April 2, about two o’clock; that Frank and George walked away together, and after their return Frank and Allen rode off; that the Crowninshields then came into the chamber where he was, and George detailed to him and Richard the whole design and motive of the murder as a matter then for the first time communicated.
Now perhaps there is nothing intrinsically very incredible about this story, except its too great particularity. If it be false, it is so artfully engrafted on the truth that Frank Knapp was there at that time and had an interview with George alone, that it would be almost impossible to detect it. Palmer, too, must be allowed the credit of ingenuity, whether his story be true or false. It is impossible for anyone in his situation to have testified with a more artful simplicity. And I admit too that he has had the good sense to tell no unnecessary falsehood. The only instance in which he has tripped is his saying that George Crowninshield told him on the ninth of April that he had melted the daggers the day after the murder for fear of the Committee of Vigilance, whereas the committee was not appointed until late in the evening of the ninth. . . .
But this conversation is too particular. Like Leighton’s, it goes too much into all that the case requires. Why should the Crowninshields tell all this to Palmer without first sounding him? He says he rejected their offer immediately. Would they risk detailing the whole plan to him before securing any indication on his part of assent? Nay, after having communicated it to him and after he had refused to have any part in it, would Richard have gone on to execute it? He is not a man to trust his life to the keeping of such a witness as Palmer, who had refused to become an accomplice. . . .
Is Palmer corroborated? In the immaterial circumstances of his story in which he had the sense to tell the truth and no temptation to lie, he is confirmed by other witnesses. But on the only important point he stands alone and unconfirmed. The conversation between him and the Crowninshields rests, and must of necessity rest, on his single statement. But it has been said that his letter corroborates his story. How can that be? Would he be such a fool as to swear now to anything inconsistent with his letter of which we had a copy? . . .
But does that letter contain anything which he might not well have known, whether his story be true or false, and which is now confirmed by any other witness? Not a word. It states that he knew what J. Knapp’s brother was doing for him on the second of April, that he was extravagant to give a thousand dollars for such a business, and that is all. The rest is but vague and unmeaning menace.
Now it is undoubtedly true that Frank Knapp was at Danvers on the second of April and had a private conversation with George, and that Palmer was at Danvers and saw him. And that single fact is the only one contained in the letter which is corroborated by any other witness. That he was there to engage the Crowninshields in this business and that they were to have a thousand dollars, comes from Palmer himself and from him alone.
Even Leighton’s story, though intended to corroborate it, contradicts it by inconsistency in time and in the age of the plot. [Leighton] says nothing of the thousand dollars. But why should Palmer venture to mention a thousand dollars if that were not the sum offered? And why should he have written the letter at all if he knew nothing about Frank’s business at Danvers?
The solution is easy. It supposes, indeed, some skill in Palmer, but we have seen enough of that. Consider when this letter was written. Not until after the arrest of the Crowninshields. If he had really heard this plot laid, why did he not give information of it immediately on hearing of Captain White’s death, and of the immense rewards offered for the discovery of the murder?
He tells you he wrote that letter to bring the matter to light, from a pure love of public justice. Public justice has been a rather hard mistress to Palmer, but he is not the less faithful to her. Now why did not that love of public justice induce him to inform against the Crowninshields and Knapps before anybody else suspected them, and while public justice had some thousands of dollars to give him to obliterate the remembrance of her castigations?
He had the whole matter in his own breast. He had heard every word of the plot. If they were guilty, he had information enough to lead to their detection. Yet he waits five weeks after the murder and a fortnight after the arrest of the Crowninshields and then writes this letter to Knapp demanding money, but in fact, as he tells you, to get evidence against them. But what led him to suspect the Knapps? What was more easy? He probably knew that J. Knapp’s mother-in-law was an heir of White; he saw Frank Knapp in private conversation with George Crowninshield four days before the murder, and he saw in the papers that the Crowninshields were arrested as the murderers. It required less than Palmer’s shrewdness to put these things together.
As to the thousand dollars it may be his own pure invention; there is no other evidence of it. Or it may be that he heard the Crowninshields say after Frank left them that they expected a thousand dollars without saying from what source. His letter is therefore no corroboration at all. It does not contain a fact proved by anybody but himself except that Frank was at Danvers on the second. Nor is Palmer’s story on the stand corroborated by any other witness in a single fact that had not been published in every newspaper in the State weeks before he testified.
This is the evidence of the conspiracy. I have but two remarks to make on it. If you could believe it on such evidence, the only effect of it would be to show that Frank Knapp was an accessory, and it makes nothing said or done by Joseph Knapp or the Crowninshields evidence against the prisoner. The very proof relied on to establish the fact of the conspiracy proves equally well all that of which such acts and declarations are legal evidence; that is, the design and object of the conspiracy.
The most, then, that can possibly be inferred from this evidence, bad as it is, is that the prisoner was an accessory before the fact; and that if he were in Brown Street at the moment of the murder, and in a situation in which he could give assistance, there would be a presumption that he was there for that purpose.
We are willing to meet the government on that ground. We deny that he was there and we deny that the man who was there could by possibility have given any assistance. Two men were seen in Brown Street at half-past ten, of whom one is alleged to have been the murderer and the prisoner the other. But what proof is there that the murder was committed at that hour?
If that fails, the whole case fails. Was there anything in the conduct of the men to show it? One was seen waiting half an hour in Brown Street. A little before eleven he was joined by another who came up either from the Common or from Newbury Street, and might as well have come from one as from the other as he was first seen in the middle of the street.
The man that came from the eastward did not run; he walked directly up to the other and held a short conference with him; they moved on together a few feet, stopped again, talked a few moments, and then parted—one stepping back out of sight and the other running down Howard Street. Of the two witnesses that saw them, Bray thought they were about to rob the graveyard; Southwick suspected, but what to suspect he did not know, and his wife suspected that he had better go out again to watch them.
A murder was committed that night in the next street, and this is all the proof that these were the murderers. A club, indeed, was afterwards found in Howard Street, but neither of these men had any visible weapons. What say the doctors? Dr. Johnson says he saw the body at six and then thought it had been dead between three and four hours. Dr. Hubbard now thinks longer, but says at the time he agreed with Johnson. There is pretty strong proof that the murder was in fact committed about three o’clock.
[One witness] saw a man, between three and four, come out of Captain White’s yard and walk up Essex Street, but meeting the witness he turned about and ran down as far as Walnut Street. [Another witness] about the same time and near the lower end of Walnut Street, met probably the same man coming towards him. On seeing him, [the man] turned about and walked the other way. Now which was most likely to be the murderer—the man who might have come either from Newbury Street or from the Common at eleven, or the man who was actually seen to leave White’s yard at half-past three, and twice turned back and once ran away to escape observation?
But here we are met with a dilemma on the second trial. What I have stated was the whole of [the first witness’s] testimony on the first trial. He was then asked whether he had ever heard of that man since, and he said no. Now he is asked whether he has seen that man since, and to the utter amazement of everyone, after giggling like an idiot, he says he thinks it was the prisoner! And this is seriously taken up by the counsel for the prosecution. . . .
[The government now suggests, though it made no such suggestion in the first trial, that Frank entered the house after Dick Crowninshield’s departure and delivered more knife blows to Captain White.] But for what possible purpose, if Frank Knapp had met the murderer in Brown Street and heard that the deed was done at eleven, should he have gone into the house again and stabbed the dead body? Like another Falstaff did he envy the perpetrator the glory of the deed and mean to claim it as his own? Or was it for plunder? No, for the money was not taken. . . . This is but one of the many examples of the rapid growth of evidence in a popular cause. . . .
