Together with many other items, the knife which Joanna had been observed sharpening was later found in one of her trunks, the cord of which had been cut, and which still remained untied. The assumption was that at some point the men had opened Joanna's belongings after the murder, and had replaced the knife in one of the trunks. It must certainly be considered a strong possibility that the men intended to steal some of her possessions, for as we have seen a charge of theft was included, in the most strongly worded terms, in the original indictment of the crew at the first trial in August 1859. It seems, however, that Prosecuting Counsel at the second trial were sufficiently confident to forgo such a charge and to concentrate their accusations on murder, since the lesser charge (difficult, in any case, as it would have been to substantiate) was subsequently excluded. We have seen a similar procedure operating, in first trial, concerning the charges of rape; and perhaps it is of some strange and macabre interest to note that in the original trial the charges of both rape and theft (as well as murder) were made against each individual member of the crew – including the youth Wootton.
Out of all the evidence given at that memorable second trial at Oxford in April 1860, fairly certainly that of Charles Franks himself evoked the greatest feeling and the widest sympathy. The poor man was weeping aloud as he entered the witness-box, and it seemed as if it were almost beyond his physical powers to raise his eyes in order to bear the sight of the prisoners and to look upon their faces. He had obviously been deeply in love with Joanna, and, turning his back on the vile men arraigned before the Court he explained how in consequence of some information he had come into Oxfordshire and seen his wife's dead body at the time of the inquest. For although it was dreadfully disfigured (here the poor fellow could not at all restrain his feelings) yet he knew it by a small mark behind his wife's left ear, a mark of which only a parent or an intimate lover could have known. Corroboration of identification (if, in fact, corroboration was needed) was afforded by the shoes, later found in the fore-cabin of the Barbara Bray, which matched in the minutest degrees the contours of the dead woman's feet.
At the conclusion of the hearing, and after a lengthy summing-up by Mr Augustus Benham, the Jury, under their duly appointed chairman, begged permission of his Lordship to retire to consider their verdict.
Chapter Sixteen
At a hotel facing the sea at Brighton, he ate a good breakfast of bacon and eggs, toast and marmalade; then took a stroll round the town before returning to the station and boarding a train for Worthing
(Court Record of evidence given in the trial of Neville George Clevely Heath, on the morning after
the murder of Margery Gardner)
Perhaps it was the dream.
Whatever it was, Morse knew that something had at prodded him into a slightly more intelligent appraisal the Colonel's story, because he was now beginning to take account of two or three major considerations which had been staring at him all the while.
The first of these was the character of Joanna Franks herself. How had it come about – whatever the fortuitous, voluntary, or deliberate circumstances in which Joanna met her death – that the crew of the Barbara Bray had insisted time and time again that the wretched woman , had been nothing but one long, sorry trial to them all ever since she'd first jumped on board at Preston Brook? How was it that they were still damning and blasting the poor woman's soul to eternity way, way after they had pushed her into the Canal and, for all Morse or anyone else knew, held her head under the black waters until she writhed in agony against their murderous hands no longer? Had a satisfactory explanation been forthcoming for such events? All right, there was still Part Four of the story to come. But so far, the answer was 'no'.
There was, though (as it now occurred to Morse), one possible dimension to the case that the good Colonel had never even hinted at – either through an excessive sense of propriety, or from a lack of imagination – namely that Joanna Franks had been a seductive tease: a woman who over those long hours of that long journey had begun drive the crew towards varied degrees of insanity with her provocative overtures, and to foster the inevitable jealousies arising therefrom.
Come off it, Morse!
Yes, come off it! There was no evidence to support such a view. None! Yet the thought stayed with him, reluctant to leave. An attractive woman… boredom… drink. a tunnel… continued boredom… more drink another tunnel… darkness… desire… opportunity… still more drink… and more Priapic promptings in the loins… Yes, all that, perhaps, the Colonel himself: may have understood. But what if she, Joanna herself, had been the active catalyst in the matter? What if she had craved for the men just as much as they had craved for her? What (put it simply, Morse!) what if she'd wanted sex just as badly as they did? What if she were the precursor of Sue Bridehead in Jude the Obscure, driving poor old Phillotson potty, as well as poor old Jude?
'Men's questions!' he heard a voice say. 'Just the sort of thoughts that would occur to an ageing MCP like you!'
There was a second general consideration which, from the point of view of criminal justice, struck Morse as considerably more cogent and a good deal less contentious. In the court-room itself, the odds did seem, surely, to have been stacked pretty heavily against the crew of the Barbara Bray – with 'presumption of innocence' playing decidedly second fiddle to 'assumption of guilt'. Even the fair-minded Colonel had let his prejudgements run away with him a little: already he'd decided that any ostensible concern on the part of the boatmen for the missing passenger (believed drowned?) was only shown great presence of mind' in order to establish a semi-convincing alibi for themselves; already he'd decided that these same boatmen, 'still obviously very drunk' (and by implication still knocking it back at top-tipplers' rates) had manoeuvred their 'infamous' craft down the Thames to Reading without having the common decency to mention to anyone the little matter of the murder they'd committed on the way. Did (Morse asked himself) wicked men tend to get more drunk – or more sober – after committing such callous crimes? Interesting thought…
Yes, and there was a third general point – one that seemed to Morse most curious: the charges both of theft and of Rape had, for some reason, been dropped against the boatmen. Was this because the Prosecution had been wholly confident, and decided to go for the graver charge of Murder – with the expectation (fully justified) that they had sufficient evidence to convict 'Rory' Oldfield and Co. on the capital indictment? Or was it, perhaps, because they had too little confidence in their ability to secure conviction on the lesser charges? Obviously, as Morse seemed vaguely to remember from his schooldays, neither rape nor theft would have been considered too venial an offence in the middle of the last century, but… Or was it just possible that these charges were dropped because there was no convincing evidence to support them? And if so, was the indictment for murder entered upon by the Prosecution for one simple reason – that it presented the only hope of bringing those miserable men to justice? Certainly, as far as multiple rape was concerned, the evidence must have been decidedly dodgy – as the Judge in the first trial had pronounced. But what about theft? The prerequisite of theft was that the aggrieved party possessed something worth the stealing. So what was it that poor Joanna had about her person, or had in either of her two travelling-boxes, that was worth the crime? The evidence, after all, pointed to the fact that she hadn't got a couple of pennies to rub together. Her fare for the canal-trip had been sent up from her husband in London; and even facing the terrible risks of travelling with a drunken, lecherous crew – certainly after Banbury had been reached – she had not taken, or not been able to take, any alternative means of transport to get to the husband who was awaiting her in the Edgware Road. So? So what had she got, if anything, that was worth stealing?