Richard Runche is as good as his word and requests the opportunity to cross-examine Miss Jessica Bergman.
The judge is astonished. ‘It is highly irregular, Counsel, the prosecution has already completed its summation.’
‘Yes, Your Honour, I am aware that it is against precedent and I ask that the prosecution agrees to it on this occasion. Belated, though important, information has been given to me. My request is made in the furtherance of justice.’
‘I shall call a ten-minute recess and will see both counsel in my chambers,’ the judge now says.
Jessica sits alone trembling, hoping that the prosecution will allow Richard Runche KC to let her onto the stand to help Billy Simple. She stares at her lap, avoiding the hostile gazes of those around her, including George Thomas. They agree that such a request is highly irregular, the prosecution having already made its final address to the jury.
However, both the judge and the senior counsel for the prosecution secretly hold Runche in such low regard that they feel his attempts will come to nothing. The prosecution agrees to the request without much further ado. The judge consents with the single proviso that the counsel for the defence be as brief as possible. The honourable reason for this, which he does not of course state, is that he wishes to catch the evening train to Sydney so that he can attend the Saturday races at Randwick.
Billy Simple’s barrister begins a little haltingly at first, but is soon enough into his stride. In the next hour he shows surprising skill at cross-examination. He is patient and always kind to Jessica without wasting time. Slowly the harsh truth about the Thomas women begins to emerge.
At first Jessica’s knees tremble, but under the barrister’s gentle questioning she soon grows more confident. The jury hears how Billy was once a gun shearer respected as a young man for his common sense. She tells how he’d gone to her protection and how the accident with the horses had occurred during the fight with the tar boys.
Jessica then tells of how, when Jack wasn’t around to protect him, the Thomas women would persecute Billy, making him repeat meaningless tasks, running him ragged. She explains how he was made to move a pile of rocks from one place to another endlessly, until there was no skin left on the palms of his hands and he finally dropped, exhausted, sobbing and helpless, in the dirt. How Mrs Thomas had tried to make Billy use the shotgun on the starving Aborigines, which Billy knew was wrong in the eyes of God and so had run away, to be severely punished later.
At the end of an hour the judge has on three separate occasions been forced to silence the court as the public gallery becomes more and more excited by Billy Simple’s story which Jessica recounts. They soon sense that the truth, hidden from them until now, is being told. Richard Runche also calls the cook at Riverview to testify and, being an honest woman, she answers his questions as best she may. Her answers do nothing but corroborate Jessica’s own story.
After the cross-examination has been completed and amid the obvious fury of the prosecutor and George Thomas beside him, the judge calls for a short recess before allowing Richard Runche to make his final address to the jury.
In his summing-up, Runche concentrates on the prosecution’s insistence that Billy killed the women in cold blood. He points out that there is no question of Billy’s guilt — that he has already confessed to the crime. What is to be questioned is the reason for the crime in the first place, the nature of the killing method and the state of mind of the accused when it took place. Jessica gave him some important facts this morning and now, inspired by his young witness, Runche lays them before the court. ‘Let me begin with a hat,’ he announces to the members of the jury. He reaches out and picks up his hat, holding it up to their view. ‘A hat not too different from this one. Not a very prepossessing item, would you say, eh?’ The jury smiles as they look at the battered and grease-stained hat. ‘Yet I love it. Of all the items I possess, this is the one I am least likely to part with until it finally parts with me, by means of natural disintegration.’ This brings a titter from the gallery. ‘If a man does not possess the comfort of a dog in his life, as Billy Simple did not, then you may be sure his hat will become his best friend. His shelter from the sun and the rain. His decision to leave poor or bad company. His means of polite gesture to the opposite sex, his security in insecure moments.’
All this brings laughter and admiration from the gallery. The judge scowls up at them and tentatively raises his gavel before saying, ‘Will you kindly come to the point, Mr Runche?’
‘Certainly, Your Honour.’ Billy’s counsel bows his head to the bench in a gesture of apology and then returns to addressing the jury.
‘Billy Simple had such a hat, not too different from this one. But he had more reason to wear a hat than any other man. He carries a painfully ugly and jagged scar across the breadth of his head.’ Runche gazes up at the gallery. ‘I dare say that some of you up there in the gallery will have seen this terrible deformity during this trial.’
‘The defence will restrict his remarks to the jury,’ the judge interrupts, increasingly annoyed that his trip to the race meeting is in jeopardy.
Runche turns again to the judge and bows. ‘I apologise, Your Honour, for a moment I lost my head.’ The gallery titters at his pun. Holding up the hat again to the jury, he says, ‘But I did not lose my hat! You see, William Simon, known to you all as Billy Simple, lost his head on two occasions. He lost it when he killed the three Thomas ladies, and, as you have heard tell from my previous witness, lost it four years before that by having his skull crushed under the hooves of a horse!’ The barrister allows the jury to dwell on this for a moment before he continues. ‘When he returned from hospital, Billy had a jagged scar that zigzagged across his head and down to his forehead. He had, in a very real sense, lost his head. Lost his capacity to think. Lost his good sense. Lost his ability to be quick and responsive, like you and me.’ He grins. ‘Well, perhaps not like me, certainly not after luncheon!’ He allows the laughter to die down and bows in anticipation to the judge. ‘He lost the capacity to be rational and judgemental and, as a consequence, he subsequently received the regrettably apt nickname, Billy Simple.’
Runche pauses here, pacing for a few moments. ‘But even in his saddest moments, during his most dimwitted times, he knew that he was ashamed of the scar he wore, he somehow perceived that it was to blame for his misery, his being outcast. So, I ask you to think carefully, what does he do? He does what any simpleton would do, probably what those less simple among us would do, he covers it. He wears a hat, a broken, battered hat, and covers the deeply offensive scar by pulling his hat down almost to his eyes.’ With this the barrister jams his own hat down hard almost over his eyes. At once he looks no longer like the counsel for the defence but like Billy Simple himself. The court gasps. Runche pulls the hat off his head and takes a step towards the jury box and bends slightly forward for emphasis. ‘Billy Simple was never — I repeat, never in the four whole years he spent working at Riverview Station after the accident — seen without his hat on his head. He slept with it on, he prayed with it on, he bathed with it on and he worked with it on. Billy’s hat was his best friend! Billy’s hat was a matter of life and death to him! Billy’s hat was all that was left of his pride and his dignity! You saw him in the witness box, where he is not allowed to wear a hat. Did you see how, even with his hands manacled, he tried to cover the sc
ar on his head? How he stood ashamed — not only for what he’d done, he has confessed to that and is repentant — but for the ugly, terrible scar that runs across his poor, sad, confused head. Look at him now, members of the jury, where he sits clutching his head, his shame, before you.’
Richard Runche is still for a moment. ‘Now I ask you to consider the evidence. You’ve heard the prosecution say that Billy Simple is a cold-blooded killer. That the murders of his three victims were a result of planning and premeditation. That the mattock with its sharp chopping head was a weapon that would arouse no suspicion when in the possession of a gardener. That the cold — I think the word used by my learned colleague was “surgical” — that the surgical precision used was the work of an intransigent and cold-hearted murderer. That the murders were premeditated and executed in cold blood with surgical precision by an unfeeling and callous killer. I think those were the final words used by the prosecution, were they not?’
Runche holds the hat aloft and swings it around. ‘What of the hat, I ask you? The hat, left next to the half-empty watering can on the pathway. The hat, which had come off Billy Simple’s head when he’d been taunted beyond any possible endurance so that he dropped the watering can he was using at his feet. He grabbed the nearest thing he could find, the mattock he had been using in the vegetable patch during the afternoon, losing his hat as he stooped to pick it up. I venture to suggest that the poor soul was so overcome by the tormenting from the three ladies that he did not even pause to retrieve his hat! The hat he always wears! Can you imagine how extreme his state of anxiety must have been for Billy Simple to forget the hat which hides his shame?
‘The killing, we have heard, would have taken place in a matter of a few minutes when Billy had finally lost what few senses he had at his command. If he had been the cold-blooded, callous killer he has been made out to be, would he not have returned to retrieve his hat? The one item in his life he couldn’t bear to be without?
‘Instead he runs panic-stricken away from the scene of the crime. And when his panic had subsided sufficiently, we have heard how he made his way to the Bergman homestead to give himself up to the only friend he knew how to find — Miss Jessica Bergman.
‘Did he not plead with her, whimper, beg, until she gave him her father’s work hat to cover his head? Is this the way a cold-blooded, callous killer would behave? ‘Or is it what we would expect from a simpleminded child in the body of an adult male? Was not the action Billy Simple took, the terrible crime he committed, the result of a nescient mind driven beyond despair by three women who took great amusement from their cruel tormenting?’
The court has by this time grown very still. ‘Members of the jury, in the time-honoured manner of British justice, I place the life of Billy Simple in your hands. I ask that you take into consideration the nature of justice itself, which is to balance the scales, to hear both sides, to understand mitigation of circumstance. I ask for your extreme care in deciding this matter. If you should render a verdict of murder you will not be serving the full purpose of the law, which is to deliver a just response after all of the evidence has been taken. I ask now that you deliver your verdict of manslaughter. I ask that William Simon, and those who care about him, if such people there are, know that you have examined both sides and come to your verdict honestly. I thank you for your patience, and I rest my case.’
After no more than an hour of deliberation the jury renders a verdict of murder. Jessica sits stunned, while George Thomas shakes hands with the prosecution. The judge, in delivering his final summary, compliments the jury on having arrived at a just and fair verdict. He then describes the accused as a vicious killer, whereupon he places the silk square on his head, pulls on the white gloves, and pronounces, ‘William D’arcy Simon of the Parish of Ourendumbee in the CountY of Boyd, I sentence you to be hanged by the neck until dead, the sentence to take place at such time and place as his Excellency the Governor of New South Wales shall determine.’ Much to Joe’s shame, Jessica, upon hearing the verdict, is seen by all within the court to burst into a torrent of tears. ‘No, no, it’s not fair!’ she shrieks at the jury. ‘Billy!’ she cries out to the poor wretch, ‘I tried! Oh Billy — I’ve failed you! Forgive me — forgive us all!’
The case is widely reported and in the process Jessica’s reputation is destroyed. The Narrandera Argus account of the case concludes:
It is one thing for a slip of a girl to bring a madman, a killer, to justice and for this Miss Jessica Bergman deserves the highest praise.
However, it is quite another thing for this young heroine to turn into a hostile witness and to defend the accused in court and, in the process, to sully the reputations of the respectable dead.
In the judge’s own words, William Simon, alias Billy Simple, is a vicious, cold-blooded killer. His victims, the three murdered women, were ever of chaste behaviour, well known to most people in Boyd County and throughout the Riverina as personages of the most genteel character to be held in the highest esteem.