Chapter Two

MR. GREENE, Q.C.: Mr. Pugh, will you tell the gentlemen of the jury, in your own words, what happened the night of August 4, 1895.

PUGH: Yes, sir. After the ratting match, I went over to the taproom with Mr. Newcombe, who is the publican of the Manchester tavern. I sat chinning with him until about ten o’clock when there was a pounding on the door …

MR. GREENE: One moment, Mr. Pugh. Even though the other witnesses will be giving their statements, it will assist the jurymen if you tell us what you recall about the movements of the other participants in the so-called match.

PUGH: Movements?

GREENE: What time did so and so leave for instance and with whom?

PUGH: Right! The first so and so to leave was the accused …

(laughter)

JUSTICE FALCONBRIDGE: Mr. Pugh, this is a court of law. I will not tolerate such levity. I am inclined to charge you with contempt of court.

PUGH: I beg your pardon, Your Honour, I was being literal. But as I was saying, the accused left first about half past seven or twenty minutes to eight. There was bad blood between him and the victim on account of he felt John Delaney had cheated him. In my opinion this was not the case, but he wouldn’t listen. After he’d gone, we settled up our wagers. Walter Lacey had totted them up so that was soon done. I myself was only paying out, not receiving, but with the exception of me and the accused, the others won something, even Mr. White. Not that he took in much, one dollar I believe …

JUSTICE FALCONBRIDGE: Will you come to the point, Mr. Pugh. We don’t have all day to decide this case. I would like to go home for Christmas.

(laughter)

PUGH: I beg your pardon, Your Honour. Mr. Greene said I should use my own words, and there always seems to be a lot of them.

(laughter)

Sorry, sir. I wasn’t intending to be funny. Where was I? That’s all right, Mr. Greene, I remember. After the accused left, John Delaney followed. No wait, I tell a lie. He sent his son, Philip, off home first, then he collected his winnings, put them in his leather pouch, and left. He had won almost one hundred dollars. Shortly after, the Craigs and Mr. White left together.

GREENE: How soon after Mr. Delaney was that?

PUGH: I can’t say exactly because I wasn’t looking at the clock, not realising it would be important four months later … but my guess is it was no more than ten minutes or so. There was a threat of a storm brewing, and everybody wanted to get home before it broke. We didn’t realise a storm was coming, in more ways than one …

JUSTICE FALCONBRIDGE: Mr. Pugh!

PUGH: My apologies, Your Honour. After they had gone, Mr. Newcombe suggested we move over to the taproom where it was more comfortable, which we did, leaving Walter Lacey to clean the barn. We were together in each other’s sight for the rest of the evening until young Philip Delaney arrived saying his pa had not come home.

GREENE: One moment, Mr. Pugh. You said you and Mr. Newcombe were in each other’s sight the rest of the evening, by my calculation a period of about two hours. Did either of you leave the taproom at any time, however briefly, even to – excuse me, Your Honour – even to make water in the outside privy?

PUGH: I did, in fact, go out once to do just that. About nine o’clock. The clock was chiming. When I went outside I mean, not while I was …

(laughter)

JUSTICE FALCONBRIDGE: Mr. Pugh, this is a last warning. PUGH: Yes, sir. I was truly not trying to be funny. I am a literal man.

GREENE: So you are telling the court that except for a period of approximately ten minutes, you and Mr. Newcombe can vouch for each other?

PUGH: That is correct. He only left my sight just after I returned from the privy because Walter Lacey’s wife and child had come in search of Maria. The babe was ill, and Mrs. Newcombe is well known in the neighbourhood for her nursing abilities. But Vincent was gone for only four or five minutes at the most while he made sure the situation wasn’t serious, which it turned out not to be. The sick child, I mean …

GREENE: Please be so good as to inform the gentlemen of the jury how long it would take to go into the ravine and back.

PUGH: That depends on whether you are a tortoise or a hare sort of person. A normal man or sturdy woman, walking at a normal pace, could go down and back in about twenty minutes at the most. Down to the bridge I mean, which is where I found Delaney. You could run it faster I suppose, but the hill is steep so unless you were an Indian you would be panting pretty hard by the time you returned. What I am saying is that Mr. Newcombe was not at all breathless when he rejoined me in the taproom. We sat and chinned some more. Mostly about dogs, of which he knows a lot. The clock was chiming again, this time striking out a quarter past the hour of ten o’clock. It has a funny sort of wheeze to it so it draws attention to itself, which is why I noticed so particularly. We heard Philip at the door, as I’ve already told you. No offence, but he’s a bit childish in his mind, and he was upset at his pa’s absence. I didn’t think there could be anything amiss. If we laid all the men end to end who’ve avoided going straight home after an afternoon at a betting match, the line would stretch down to the lake I’m sure. However, I said I’d walk back with him and take a look. I borrowed Vincent’s lantern and set off. The rain had stopped, but the leaves and ground were soaked so we got wet just walking down the path. There’s a little wooden bridge at the bottom of the path that spans the creek. Just past it, the path forks. One path runs up the hill to the Delaney house, the other follows the creek all the way through to Yonge Street. Philip said he was sure his father wasn’t anywhere along the path to their house, so I said, “Let’s take a look along here then.” In the back of my mind, I thought maybe Mr. Delaney had laid down for a little kip …

GREENE: Had he been drinking liquor during the match?

PUGH: I wasn’t paying much attention. Mr. Lacey was constantly bringing us refills, which he kept good track of, I might add. To my mind, Mr. Delaney wasn’t inebriated in the same way as the accused obviously was, but he may have had enough to make him want to lie down. I expected to find him fast asleep under a tree. Well, not too far down the path, oh about one hundred yards, I’d say, the light glinted on something pale floating in the creek. It was Mr. Delaney. He had got wedged in the rocks, he was on his back, and his hair and beard were flowing out like weeds all around his head. I say this because it is relevant, Your Honour. I did think at once he was dead. However, I have studied resuscitation of drowned persons, and I could but try to revive him. I put down my lantern and was about to jump down the bank into the water. At this point two things occurred. The grey terrier, Havoc, came rushing at me out of the bushes. He’s small but a fierce little thing, and he grabs hold of my trousers. I’m telling Philip to take hold of the cur, and he’s standing on the edge of the bank wailing that his father is dead. “No, he’s not,” says I. “Come and help me pull him out.” But he was incapable, so I spoke to him real sharp and told him to run as fast as he could to the tavern and fetch Mr. Newcombe. He did that, but the dog was still worrying at me till I had to kick it and he ran off. I slid down the bank and managed to pull on Mr. Delaney’s arm to bring him to the strip of sand that was at the verge. There I rolled him over onto his stomach preparatory to doing resuscitation, but as soon as I did, I could see terrible gashes in the back of his head. Deep, terrible gashes they were, to the point that I could see bone and brain. Turned my stomach. I thought I’d better leave him there until we could get a coroner to come take a look. I made sure he wasn’t going to be pulled back into the water and climbed back up the bank. I could hear the dog yipping away from somewhere down the path and decided to see what he was going on about. To tell you the truth, Your Honour, I was already doubting that Mr. Delaney had met with an accident. There aren’t any sharp rocks on the banks or even in the creek itself. Those wounds looked to me like they’d come from somebody bashing him from behind. I went to investigate the dog. I could see where the grass was flattened down a bit off to the north side of the path, and the terrier was in there. I went in only a matter of a few feet and came across the accused, who was lying on his side against a tree. The dog was barking and pawing at him, and for a minute I wondered if I was going to be encountering another corpse because he wasn’t moving. But I brought the lantern up right close, and he stirred and then opened his eyes. I noticed he had an abrasion on his right cheek just below his eye. “What’s a matter?” he asked, all slurred. “John Delaney’s dead,” I replied. I didn’t say anything about an accident or how he was dead, I just said, “John Delaney’s dead.” That seemed to wake him up. “Well, he got what he deserved, didn’t he?”

GREENE: You are sure those were his exact words?

PUGH: To the letter. “He got what he deserved.”

GREENE: Did you reply?

PUGH: I did. I realise my words were not charitable or Christian, but I was shocked by how callous he was. I said, “Then I hope you, too, get what you deserve, Harry Murdoch.”

END OF WITNESS STATEMENT.