Maritime Murder Read Online Free PDF Page A

the two men, the clerk of the peace ordered an adjournment, and the magistrate agreed with the order. The proceedings would continue two days hence, on Wednesday.
    The Bannister family met with both lawyers, and returned to announce that they had signed formal documents. May Bannister had begun the day with one lawyer, but wound up hiring Lambert.

The Hearing Continues
    It turned out that Lambert had actually been retained by an unknown benefactor of the Bannister family. Whoever the benefactor was, their investment proved to be a sound one. Lambert tenaciously fought and disputed every motion and testimony. Legal technicalities and petty quibbling became a commonplace occurrence throughout the entire hearing.
    Was it effective? It was, to an extent. Lambert’s arguments did wear down resistance. People simply became tired of listening to the constant testimony, rebuttal, and repudiation. They tuned out, stopped paying attention to what was being said, and tended toward making hasty assumptions. Some of the courtroom was even swayed by Lambert’s continued argument that this was a clear-cut case of the power structure turned against the unfortunate poor.
    The Bannisters were their own worst enemy in this hearing. May’s insistence on keeping her mouth closed and not offering any information made her look all the more suspicious. Daniel and Arthur continued to giggle and grin. They didn’t seem worried or bothered at all by the notion of either imprisonment or hanging. Frances, on the other hand, continued to argue that she had nothing to do with anything that had happened that night. “I just held the baby,” she said. “I wanted to keep it safe.”
    The youngest Bannister, Marie, followed her mother’s lead and said nothing. The court could not decide if she was old enough to even understand the gravity of the situation her family was in.
    â€œShe is too young to understand what an oath actually is,” Lambert argued. “If you think she is old enough to understand, then the court must give me the time to prepare her for trial. She is a member of the family and therefore she is my obligation.”
    Finally, the defence and the prosecution came to a compromise and agreed to adjourn for five days. It was agreed that they would use the time to reform, deliberate, and otherwise rest their weary ears. They would meet again on the morning of January 20 , 1936 .

Further Evidence Comes Forth
    Everyone knew that Murray Lambert, for all of his windbaggery and talk, was simply buying time for his client. He was very good at stalling the path of legislative procedure. A second appeal and a second adjournment bought him another week’s worth of delay.
    The rcmp decided to put that unexpected gift of time to good use. They ordered the exhumation of the recently interred Philip Lake. The corpse was subjected to further medical investigation. During this investigation, an X-ray revealed the presence of a . 22 calibre rifle bullet imbedded in the wreckage of Philip Lake’s skull.
    This was a critical piece of information. Up until that point, it was thought that Lake had died from a skull fracture resulting from a possibly accidental blow to the head. With the discovery of the bullet, murder seemed a much more likely possible verdict.
    Following that discovery, a search began for the murder weapon. Several hundred citizens and railroad workers were called out. Armed with nothing more than shovels, they proceeded to dig alongside the trail that the Bannisters had made in their flight from the Lake homestead. The searchers were instructed to dig along the path, carving a swath as wide as a grown man might conceivably throw a rifle. One of the searchers was quoted as saying that the search party “must have shovelled half the snow in Westmoreland County while we were out there hunting for that blasted rifle.”
    Frances Bannister was brought out to retrace her flight in the snow. She