The Middle Temple Murder Page 18

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  AN OLD NEWSPAPER

  As soon as Spargo unfolded the paper he saw what he wanted on themiddle page, headed in two lines of big capitals. He lighted a cigarand settled down to read.

  "MARKET MILCASTER QUARTER SESSIONS

  "TRIAL OF JOHN MAITLAND

  "The Quarter Sessions for the Borough of Market Milcaster were held onWednesday last, October 3rd, 1891, in the Town Hall, before theRecorder, Henry John Campernowne, Esq., K.C., who was accompanied onthe bench by the Worshipful the Mayor of Market Milcaster (AldermanPettiford), the Vicar of Market Milcaster (the Rev. P.B. Clabberton,M.A., R.D.), Alderman Banks, J.P., Alderman Peters, J.P., Sir GervaisRacton, J.P., Colonel Fludgate, J.P., Captain Murrill, J.P., and othermagistrates and gentlemen. There was a crowded attendance of thepublic in anticipation of the trial of John Maitland, ex-manager ofthe Market Milcaster Bank, and the reserved portions of the Court werefilled with the _elite_ of the town and neighbourhood, including aconsiderable number of ladies who manifested the greatest interest inthe proceedings.

  "The Recorder, in charging the Grand Jury, said he regretted that thevery pleasant and gratifying experience which had been his upon theoccasion of his last two official visits to Market Milcaster--hereferred to the fact that on both those occasions his friend theWorshipful Mayor had been able to present him with a pair of whitegloves--was not to be repeated on the present occasion. It would betheir sad and regrettable lot to have before them a fellow-townsmanwhose family had for generations occupied a foremost position in thelife of the borough. That fellow-townsman was charged with one of themost serious offences known to a commercial nation like ours: theoffence of embezzling the moneys of the bank of which he had for manyyears been the trusted manager, and with which he had been connectedall his life since his school days. He understood that the prisonerwho would shortly be put before the court on his trial was about toplead guilty, and there would accordingly be no need for him to directthe gentlemen of the Grand Jury on this matter--what he had to sayrespecting the gravity and even enormity of the offence he wouldreserve. The Recorder then addressed himself to the Grand Jury on themerits of two minor cases, which came before the court at a laterperiod of the morning, after which they retired, and having formallyreturned a true bill against the prisoner, and a petty jury, chosenfrom well-known burgesses of the town having been duly sworn.

  "JOHN MAITLAND, aged 42, bank manager, of the Bank House, High Street,Market Milcaster, was formally charged with embezzling, on April 23rd,1891, the sum of L4,875 10_s_. 6_d_., the moneys of his employers,the Market Milcaster Banking Company Ltd., and converting the same tohis own use. The prisoner, who appeared to feel his position mostacutely, and who looked very pale and much worn, was represented byMr. Charles Doolittle, the well-known barrister of Kingshaven; Mr.Stephens, K.C., appeared on behalf of the prosecution.

  "Maitland, upon being charged, pleaded guilty.

  "Mr. Stephens, K.C., addressing the Recorder, said that without anydesire to unduly press upon the prisoner, who, he ventured to think,had taken a very wise course in pleading guilty to that particularcount in the indictment with which he stood charged, he felt bound,in the interests of justice, to set forth to the Court someparticulars of the defalcations which had arisen through theprisoner's much lamented dishonesty. He proposed to offer a clear andsuccinct account of the matter. The prisoner, John Maitland, was thelast of an old Market Milcaster family--he was, in fact, he believed,with the exception of his own infant son, the very last of the race.His father had been manager of the bank before him. Maitland himselfhad entered the service of the bank at the age of eighteen, when heleft the local Grammar School; he succeeded his father as manager atthe age of thirty-two; he had therefore occupied this highest positionof trust for ten years. His directors had the fullest confidence inhim; they relied on his honesty and his honour; they gave himdiscretionary powers such as no bank-manager, probably, ever enjoyedor held before. In fact, he was so trusted that he was, to allintents and purposes, the Market Milcaster Banking Company; in otherwords he was allowed full control over everything, and given fulllicence to do what he liked. Whether the directors were wise inextending such liberty to even the most trusted servant, it was notfor him (Mr. Stephens) to say; it was some consolation, under thecircumstances, to know that the loss would fall upon the directors,inasmuch as they themselves held nearly the whole of the shares. Buthe had to speak of the loss--of the serious defalcations whichMaitland had committed. The prisoner had wisely pleaded guilty to thefirst count of the indictment. But there were no less than seventeencounts in the indictment. He had pleaded guilty to embezzling a sum ofL4,875 odd. But the total amount of the defalcations, comprised in theseventeen counts, was no less--it seemed a most amazing sum!--thanL221,573 8_s_. 6_d_.! There was the fact--the banking company had beenrobbed of over two hundred thousand pounds by the prisoner in the dockbefore a mere accident, the most trifling chance, had revealed to theastounded directors that he was robbing them at all. And the mostserious feature of the whole case was that not one penny of this moneyhad been, or ever could be, recovered. He believed that the prisoner'slearned counsel was about to urge upon the Court that the prisonerhimself had been tricked and deceived by another man, unfortunatelynot before the Court--a man, he understood, also well known in MarketMilcaster, who was now dead, and therefore could not be called, butwhether he was so tricked or deceived was no excuse for his clever andwholesale robbing of his employers. He had thought it necessary to putthese facts--which would not be denied--before the Court, in orderthat it might be known how heavy the defalcations really had been, andthat they should be considered in dealing with the prisoner.

  "The Recorder asked if there was no possibility of recovering any partof the vast sum concerned.

  "Mr. Stephens replied that they were informed that there was not theremotest chance--the money, it was said by prisoner and those actingon his behalf, had utterly vanished with the death of the man to whomhe had just made reference.

  "Mr. Doolittle, on behalf of the prisoner, craved to address a fewwords to the Court in mitigation of sentence. He thanked Mr. Stephensfor the considerate and eminently dispassionate manner in which he hadoutlined the main facts of the case. He had no desire to minimize theprisoner's guilt. But, on prisoner's behalf, he desired to tell thetrue story as to how these things came to be. Until as recently asthree years previously the prisoner had never made the slightestdeviation from the straight path of integrity. Unfortunately for him,and, he believed, for some others in Market Milcaster, there came tothe town three years before the present proceedings, a man namedChamberlayne, who commenced business in the High Street as astock-and-share broker. A man of good address and the most plausiblemanners, Chamberlayne attracted a good many people--amongst them hisunfortunate client. It was matter of common knowledge thatChamberlayne had induced numerous persons in Market Milcaster toenter into financial transactions with him; it was matter of commonrepute that those transactions had not always turned out well forChamberlayne's clients. Unhappily for himself, Maitland had greatfaith in Chamberlayne. He had begun to have transactions with him in alarge way; they had gone on and on in a large way until he wasinvolved to vast amounts. Believing thoroughly in Chamberlayne andhis methods, he had entrusted him with very large sums of money.

  "The Recorder interrupted Mr. Doolittle at this point to ask if he wasto understand that Mr. Doolittle was referring to the prisoner's ownmoney.

  "Mr. Doolittle replied that he was afraid the large sums he referredto were the property of the bank. But the prisoner had such belief inChamberlayne that he firmly anticipated that all would be well, andthat these sums would be repaid, and that a vast profit would resultfrom their use.

  "The Recorder remarked that he supposed the prisoner intended to putthe profit into his own pockets.

  "Mr. Doolittle said at any rate the prisoner assured him that of thetwo hundred and twenty thousand pounds which was in question,Chamberlayne had had the immed
iate handling of at least two hundredthousand, and he, the prisoner, had not the ghost of a notion as towhat Chamberlayne had done with it. Unfortunately for everybody, forthe bank, for some other people, and especially for his unhappyclient, Chamberlayne died, very suddenly, just as these proceedingswere instituted, and so far it had been absolutely impossible to traceanything of the moneys concerned. He had died under mysteriouscircumstances, and there was just as much mystery about his affairs.

  "The Recorder observed that he was still waiting to hear what Mr.Doolittle had to urge in mitigation of any sentence he, the Recorder,might think fit to pass.

  "Mr. Doolittle said that he would trouble the Court with as fewremarks as possible. All that he could urge on behalf of theunfortunate man in the dock was that until three years ago he hadborne a most exemplary character, and had never committed a dishonestaction. It had been his misfortune, his folly, to allow a plausibleman to persuade him to these acts of dishonesty. That man had beencalled to another account, and the prisoner was left to bear theconsequences of his association with him. It seemed as ifChamberlayne had made away with the money for his own purposes, and itmight be that it would yet be recovered. He would only ask the Courtto remember the prisoner's antecedents and his previous good conduct,and to bear in mind that whatever his near future might be he was, ina commercial sense, ruined for life.

  "The Recorder, in passing sentence, said that he had not heard asingle word of valid excuse for Maitland's conduct. Such dishonestymust be punished in the most severe fashion, and the prisoner must goto penal servitude for ten years.

  "Maitland, who heard the sentence unmoved, was removed from the townlater in the day to the county jail at Saxchester."

  Spargo read all this swiftly; then went over it again, noting certainpoints in it. At last he folded up the newspaper and turned to thehouse--to see old Quarterpage beckoning to him from the library window.