“When I was arrested and indicted for the murder of my wife — the wife whom I loved and love more than I do my hopes for present or future salvation — Mrs. Garford was moved by her conscience, she told me, to go to the rector of her church and to him confess what she both had done and refrained from doing.
“Again I will state that, if necessary, I will have both Mrs. Garford and the Reverend Mr. Sweyd come upon this stand and repeat under oath, in their own words, the facts that I now am stating as these two persons told them to me.
“Moved by his advice, Mrs. Garford consented to visit me in the county jail in company with the rector. There Mrs. Garford told me her story and, rightly or wrongly, gave me this letter which I have retained in my possession ever since. Mrs. Garford recognized the handwriting, knew the author, as did the Reverend Mr. Sweyd, because they were intimately acquainted with both. The man who wrote this letter was — is — one of the vestrymen of St. Luke’s church, and in that capacity had written many times to each of them, without failing, those times, to sign his letters.
“I now will read this letter, which, though without signature, as correctly stated by Mr. Raggan, is directed, on this envelope which contained it, to ‘Mrs. Harriet Smith.’ There is no other address given. Simply the name, ‘Mrs. Harriet Smith.’ The woman who was so brutally murdered. My wife.
“It is probable, though that can be only pure supposition, that it was delivered by hand, either that of the one who wrote it or a messenger of his. I have not been able to discover who carried it on its fateful mission. That it was written, sent and received is enough. Enough to prevent the guilty man from escaping the consequences of this and his subsequent acts. A grave lapse from his habitual caution, one of those errors which even the keenest minds make — to their undoing.
“I also will state under oath, Your Honor and gentlemen of the jury, that I have positive knowledge of the fact that this letter, while the last, was by no means the first, written to my wife by the same man. It was, in fact, only one of many that I saw with my own eyes in the possession of my wife.
“Great stress has been laid in this trial upon what has been called my ‘ungovernable temper,’ and my threats to do great bodily harm, to kill men who I conceived to be paying unwelcome attentions to my wife. In so far as that refers to one man, it is true. I did threaten to kill him if he continued his insulting persecution. That man was Randolph Raggan. Had I seen this last letter before I left town on the night of the eleventh of November, it is possible, even probable, that I now would be undergoing trial for his murder instead of for the murder of the woman he so vilely wronged in thought and act.
“It has been alleged that the fishing trip which I took was a subterfuge, a ‘blind.’ In one sense it was. I had brooded over the letters received by my wife from this man until my temper was getting beyond my control. I went away, ostensibly to fish, but really to wrestle with myself — to have a quiet place in which to ‘take stock’ of myself and the situation, to decide upon what I should do.
“Consider, gentlemen, the conflicting emotions that you would have felt had you been in my place. It is a serious matter to deliberately ponder the killing of a man. Sometimes, as in this instance, not because of the man, nor because of yourself or the penalty you may suffer, but because of the effect on innocent others. I will not inflict upon you the wearisome rounds of the conflict I fought with myself, the countless pros and cons of the silent argument there in the woods by the river. A soul in torment is not a sight for the eyes of others. Enough that I won the battle, that I started back home determined to find some other means short of killing to put an end to the persecutions of Randolph Raggan.
“I knew and know that my wife was a good woman, pure-minded almost to the point of innocence, more faithful to me and my interests than I could be myself. She bitterly resented the approaches of this man, his attempts to supplant me in her affections. But even I was not able to appreciate the full worth and strength of Harriet Smith’s nobility and purity — qualities which, gentlemen, cost her life, a price which I am sure she paid willingly rather the one with which she could have bought her safety.
“I might dwell upon this theme for hours, contrasting the whiteness of the woman with the blackness of the man — but I must hasten to my conclusion, trusting to your own sentiments for that understanding which any words of mine would fail to convey.
“I imagine, gentlemen of the jury, that, knowing I was to be out of town for several days — and I have reason for my belief that he did know it — this man went to my house with the hope and intention of accomplishing one of two things — or both: The final accomplishment of his evil desires, and — or — the recovery of the letters which he had written to my wife and which he knew she had kept.
“In the latter purpose he succeeded partially, but not entirely. Not entirely because, by some intervention of providential justice, he overlooked, or was prevented by some means from securing, this one and the most important of all those letters. I say ‘the most important.’ I had read the others before I left home. They contained no threats. This one undoubtedly was delivered the evening of the eleventh, and that delivery closely followed by the writer in person. No one now alive, except the man himself, can know all the circumstances that preceded and took place during that clandestine call. But that he murdered my wife, arranged the ‘evidence’ that he planned would convict me of his own crime, and has done everything in his power since then to sacrifice my life on the same satanic altar upon which he slew her — of this I am as sure as if I had been his shadow.
“This, then, gentlemen of the jury, is the letter in which Randolph Raggan has written his own indictment in advance of his final crime:
“ ‘Most Beautiful of Women’ — it begins, and that is the only worthy statement in it — ‘I have learned that S. is to be away on a fishing trip for several days. When such an opportunity is offered us, why throw it away needlessly for the sake of the idle conventions of a society to which you are superior and which I despise? You cannot doubt my overpowering love for you, my passionate devotion beside which that of S. is cold, pale and perfunctory. To such a woman as you, my Queen, a husband is a drag and a worse than useless incumbrance. You deserve a lover with the fire that I bring to the altar of your worship...’
“There is much more in this same strain, gentlemen, but with your permission, and since you will have the opportunity of reading it for yourselves, it is with relief that I will skip to that portion of the letter where the passion is of a different, though no more lovely kind. The concluding paragraph reads:
“ ‘I have reason to believe that you have not destroyed my previous letters to you, according to my request and instructions. When I call this evening I warn you that unless you return them to me, or allow me to destroy them then and there, I will take whatever measures are necessary. You might as well be a good girl and make up your mind not to cause me any trouble in getting either of the things I want and am coming after. I am in the habit of having my own way and this time I mean to do so at any cost. So be prepared. Tonight I am going to take the best thing in this world — or you are going to get the worst.’
“I now ask, Your Honor, that the previous witness, the only one except myself that I have called to testify in my defense, be recalled—”