Dr. Thorndyke Omnibus Vol 6

by R. Austin Freeman

  "Yes," replied Jervis. "It is always wise to begin by trying it on the dog. And Barton can watch the procedure."

  He took a small rug from the foot of the couch and, folding it, laid it on the black envelopes. Then he lay down on the couch, resting his head on the folded rug. Thorndyke raised the corner of the rug, apparently to ascertain the position of the head on the envelopes, and once more made a slight adjustment of the lamp overhead. "Ready?" said he, with his hand on a switch, and as Jervis responded, he turned the switch with a snap. Instantly the apparatus emitted a growl which rapidly rose up the scale until it settled into a high-pitched droning like the piping of a giant mosquito. At the same moment the lamp began to glow with a green light at the centre of which appeared a bright spot of red. "Keep perfectly still, Barton," said Thorndyke, who stood rigid as a statue with his watch in his hand. "It is most important that there should not be the slightest vibration."

  Andrew stood, resting with one hand on the table, listening to the curious high-pitched hum of the apparatus, wondering what these mysterious rites and ceremonies might have to do with a charge of murder and sensible of a perverse desire to change his position. At length Thorndyke put away his watch and turned the switch; whereupon the light of the lamp faded out, the whine of the apparatus swept down an octave or two until it died away in a low growl, and Jervis rose from the couch. "Quite a harmless proceeding, you see, Barton," said he. "Nothing of the Booley touch about us."

  He took the two envelopes from the couch and, having written his name with a pencil on each, added his signature and the date and handed them to Thorndyke, who counter-signed them and placed them apart on the table, while Jervis took another two of the envelopes and, having placed them in position on the couch laid the folded rug on them. "Now, Barton," said Thorndyke, "you saw what Dr. Jervis did. Go thou and do likewise. And remember that you have to keep perfectly still; to which end, you must settle yourself comfortably in a position which you can maintain without effort."

  Accordingly Andrew laid himself down on the couch in as restful a pose as he could manage; and when Thorndyke had made some slight alteration in the placing of the head, the switch was turned, the apparatus uttered its plaintive whine, the mysterious green light glowed afresh, and the previous proceedings were repeated. "You heard what we were saying to Mr. Marchmont," said Thorndyke, when Andrew had risen from the couch and the envelopes had been signed and put away. "The trial may open quite soon; and in the meanwhile, I would urge you to be very careful to keep your own counsel. Give no information to anybody either as to what we have been doing here or as to anything in any way connected with your case. The special arrangements for presenting the bill of indictment direct to the Grand Jury give us the advantage of going into court without having disclosed the details of the defence. Let us keep that advantage. There may be nothing in it. But it is usually good tactics to let the enemy bring his heavy guns to bear on the place that you don't need to defend. So I say again, don't discuss your case with anybody, no matter how friendly."

  Andrew promised to bear this caution in mind, adding: "I suppose I shall get due notice of the date of the trial."

  "Certainly," replied Thorndyke. "You will be kept informed of everything that you ought to know; and if you should want to confer with me or Dr. Jervis or Mr. Marchmont, you have only to send one of us a line to that effect. Is there anything that you would like to be advised upon now?"

  "Yes," Andrew replied, "there is one rather important question that does not seem to have been raised. It is concerned with the Hudson case. When Andrew Barton disappeared, he had been accused of having committed that murder. If he should reappear, it would seem that that accusation will be revived. Isn't that so?"

  "No," Thorndyke replied promptly. "You can dismiss the Hudson case from your mind, and you need never have taken the charge seriously. At first, the police, naturally enough, took Miss Booth's statement at its face value. But as soon as they began to make inquiries they realized that she had made a mistake—the common mistake of confusing what she had seen with what she had inferred. She saw a face at the window and she saw a revolver; and she inferred that the revolver and the face appertained to the same person. But when the police ascertained that the face was that of Mr. Andrew Barton, and when they had heard his wife's account of the affair, they were satisfied that he was merely a chance spectator of the crime. As a matter of tact, they had some fairly definite information as to who the perpetrators really were. So Andrew Barton's connection with the case will be no more than that of a witness."

  Andrew breathed a sigh of relief. "You have lifted a great weight off my mind," said he. "It may have been unreasonable of me, but I think I was more afraid of that accusation than of the charge that has actually been brought against me. It is an immense relief to know that I am free of it."

  "I can easily understand that," said Jervis. "One doesn't want to step down from the dock after a triumphant acquittal, to fall into the arms of a detective-sergeant with a fresh warrant. And that isn't going to happen, Barton. When you are acquitted, you will be acquitted completely. Both indictments, murder and personation; for the greater includes the less and our evidence covers both. So keep a good heart and don't be discouraged or alarmed by any signs of preparation, such as identification parades or other movements of the enemy."

  "You speak," said Andrew, "as if you were quite confident of an acquittal."

  "I am," said Jervis, "and so, I think, is my learned senior. Aren't you, Thorndyke?"

  "I certainly expect an acquittal," replied Thorndyke. "The case for the prosecution can't be a strong one, in any event. In fact," he added, with a smile, "my principal anxiety is lest the Grand Jury should throw out the bill."

  "That would be rather an anti-climax," said Jervis, "and would crab a most promising defence. But still, it would be, in effect, equivalent to an acquittal."

  "Not altogether," Thorndyke dissented, "for it would not cover the personation charge. But you see, Jervis, that a mere acquittal would not be enough for us. We are concerned with something more than the alleged murder. You remember the old schoolboy verses, Pistor erat quondam, which were, I think, rendered: 'There was a baker heretofore, with labour and great pain, Did break his neck and break his neck and break his neck again.'

  "Now that is what Barton has done. He has gone on piling illusions and false appearances on top of one mother until he has got himself charged with his own murder; and we, like the baker's medical attendant, have got to deal with the whole series. We have got to reduce, not only the final fracture but all the others as well. And the defence to the murder charge will give us the opportunity we want."

  "Then," said Jervis, picking up the signed envelopes and bestowing them tenderly in a suit-case, "let us hope the Grand Jury will not be too critical in respect of the evidence for the prosecution."

  XIII. PRISONER AT THE BAR

  The sands of time, which trickle out grudgingly enough within the prison walls alike for the just and the unjust, had run through the glass to the last grain; and it was Jcrvis's hopes rather than Thorndyke's fears that had been justified by circumstances. For the Grand Jury had returned a true bill, and Andrew Barton stood in the dock at the Central Criminal Court to answer the charge of Wilful Murder.

  His state of mind was very peculiar for that of a prisoner arraigned on such a charge. He realized it, himself, and was faintly surprised at it, particularly when he contrasted the abject panic of the terror-stricken wretch who had staggered away from the police bill at Crompton with the serenity of the prisoner at the bar who stood waiting to watch the throw of the dice in the game which was presently to be played between Thorndyke and his accusers; a game of which his life was the stake. The bare possibility that this thing might happen had then paralysed him with horror; and now that the reality was upon him, he seemed to face the terrible chances almost unmoved.

  He looked about the court with somewhat of the interest of a spectator. He had never before been
in a criminal court and the various objects and persons and the solemn procedure all had the attraction of novelty. He inspected the scarlet-robed judge approvingly, excepting as to his wig, which he found disappointing. Like most uninformed persons, he had supposed that judges wore full-bottomed wigs when they sat in court. He observed the Clerk of the Court sitting in wig and gown behind his desk below the judge's dais; he counted the jury, who were waiting to be sworn, and noted that two of them were women. Then his eye roamed along the counsels' seats, where Dr. Thorndyke sat placidly looking over his brief, and he endeavoured to pick out Sir Oliver Blizzard, who, he had been informed, was to lead for the prosecution; eventually fixing—correctly, as it turned out—upon a clerical-looking gentleman with a monocle firmly jammed in his eye unsecured by any cord or other support.

  But all the time he was imperfectly conscious of his actual position. The old feeling of unreality still possessed him; the sense of being in a dream or under some sort of spell, which had first come on him when he looked into Professor Booley's mirror and saw the face of his cousin Ronald looking out at him. Only at intervals, by some special occurrence—as, for instance, when a woman juror asked to be excused from serving, on the grounds that she objected to capital punishment—was he startled out of his curious mental lethargy into a vivid realization of his actual position.

  At length his wandering thoughts were interrupted by the Clerk of the Court, who had risen and was addressing him, apparently in the words of a document which lay before him on his desk. "Ronald Barton, you are charged with the murder of Andrew Barton on the twenty-eighth of August, nineteen twenty-eight. Are you guilty or not guilty?"

  "Not guilty," Andrew replied.

  The Clerk noted the answer and then once more addressed him. "Prisoner at the Bar, if you wish to object to any of the persons whose names I am about to call to form the jury to try you, you must do so as they severally come to the book to be sworn, and before they are sworn, and you will be heard."

  There being obviously nothing to say to this, Andrew bowed to the Clerk and resumed his reflections, but in a somewhat more disturbed frame of mind. For there was something deadly realistic in the wording of the charge, and the address which had followed brought home to him vividly that the men and women whose names were now being called out would presently hold his life in the hollow of their hands. They were to be his judges who would decide whether he was or was not guilty of the crime with which he was charged. On their intelligence and capacity to understand evidence, even on their individual temperaments, would depend the decision whether he should go forth a free man or should be haled away to the gallows. It was not a very comfortable thought. As each juror "came to the book", Andrew scanned his or her face anxiously for indications of stupidity, or, still worse, of obstinacy. One man or woman who "knew his or her own mind" might turn the scale against him.

  Thus he was reflecting when the process of swearing in came to an end. The jury were then counted and asked by the Clerk of the Court if they were all sworn. When these formalities had been completed, an official of the Court (the Bailiff and Crier) rose and proclaimed in resonant tones and with profound gravity of manner: "If any one can inform my Lords the King's Justices, or the King's Attorney General, ere this Inquest be taken between our Sovereign Lord the King and the Prisoner at the Bar, of any Treasons, Murders, Felonies, or Misdemeanours, done or committed by the Prisoner at the Bar, let him come forth, and he shall be heard, for the Prisoner now stands at the Bar on his deliverance. And all persons who are bound by recognizance to prosecute or give evidence against the Prisoner at the Bar, let them come forth, prosecute and give evidence, or they shall forfeit their recognizances. God save the King!"

  To this proclamation Andrew listened with profound interest tempered with a slightly uncomfortable feeling of awe. For the old world dignity and solemnity of the phrasing served but to emphasize and intensify the tone of menace than ran through it, and to bring home to "the Prisoner at the Bar" the dreadful reality of his position.

  Almost as the tones of the Crier's voice died away, the witnesses filed into the Court and took their places in the seats reserved for them. And at this point he was really startled by the appearance of Molly, who had just entered and was being ushered across to her seat. For some reason, he had assumed that she would avoid being present at his trial, and he had admitted the ownership of the attaché case to the express end that she might not have to be called as a witness; and he now speculated anxiously as to what had brought her there and whether she would have to give evidence against him. Apparently she would, since she had come in with the other witnesses; and, as she walked across the floor of the Court, he followed her wistfully with his eyes. As she sat down, she took one quick glance at him and looked away. But brief as was the moment in which their eyes met, the expression in hers was unmistakable. There was no gleam of pity or compunction. Her pale face was grave and stern and hard as a mask of stone.

  He was pondering on her state of mind and how it would be affected by the evidence which he was presently to give when his thoughts were interrupted by the voice of the Clerk of the Court; who had risen, and, turning towards the jury, proceeded to "give the Prisoner in charge" to them. "Members of the jury, the Prisoner at the Bar is charged with the murder of Andrew Barton on the 28th August, 1928. To this indictment he has pleaded 'Not Guilty' and it is your charge to inquire, having heard the evidence, whether he be guilty or not."

  This was the end of the preliminaries. The Clerk sat down behind his desk and the judge, who had inspected the prisoner narrowly from time to time, now turned towards the counsels' bench, and, with a little formal bow, invited the leader for the Crown to open his case. Thereupon, Sir Oliver Blizzard rose, and, having fixed his monocle securely in position, looked steadily across at the jury and began: "The case, my Lord and members of the jury, which you are about to try has certain unusual features to which I wish to draw your attention before entering into any details. In the majority of cases of murder, the fact of the homicide is obvious and undeniable; and the matter in issue is the connection of the accused person with that homicide. A body is found, or a person is known to have died, and the condition of the body is such that it is obvious that the death was caused by the act of some person; and the question that the jury have to decide is whether the prisoner is, or is not, the person who committed or did that act.

  "But in the case which you are going to try, the conditions are exactly the converse of those which I have described. Here, there is no question as to the connection of the prisoner with the death of the deceased Andrew Barton. If Andrew Barton was murdered, there can be no reasonable doubt that he was murdered by the prisoner. The matter in issue, the question on which you have to form a decision, is whether Andrew Barton did, in fact, meet his death by the homicidal act of some person or whether that death was due to what old-fashioned people call 'the act of God', that is, to some natural accident.

  "To this question, which is the crucial question in the case, the medical witness can give no decisive answer. He can tell us that Andrew Barton died a violent death; but there is nothing in the appearance of the body that enables him to decide whether the violence was due to human or to natural agencies. Either is equally possible; from which it follows that the question of murder, on the one hand, or a natural accident on the other, will have to be decided by you from a most careful consideration of all the attendant conditions. You will have to examine the strange circumstances in which Andrew Barton met his death; and you will have to consider the conduct of the prisoner at the time of that death and subsequently, and ask yourselves whether such conduct is or is not consistent with his innocence.

  "I have put the position before you at the start so that you may realize that your decision is to be formed on all the facts taken together; and I shall now proceed to put you in possession of those facts, first as relating to the deceased Andrew Barton and then as relating to the prisoner. I think it better to take them separatel
y in the first place, as we shall thus get a clearer impression of the sequence of events.

  "We begin, then, by following the movements of Andrew Barton on that fatal day at the end of August. And at the very outset, we are confronted by a mystery which we have no means of solving. For on the morning of that day, this unfortunate man set forth from his home on a definite mission and with a specific purpose which he never attempted to accomplish. The object of his journey, as he informed his wife, was to take some pictures to his dealer in London. But instead of taking the train to London, he took one to Crompton-on-Sea. Why he made this curious change in his plans we shall probably never know. Whether something unforeseen happened after he had left home, or whether he had, for some reason, deliberately misinformed his wife, we can only speculate. But he certainly had the paintings in the attaché case which he carried with him, and his wife will tell you that he was, in general, a most scrupulously truthful man. At any rate, he set out from home carrying an attaché case in which were not only the paintings but, as we now know, a cheque for fifty pounds drawn in favour of his cousin, Ronald Barton, and a bundle of fifty pound-notes. The suggestion certainly is that he expected to meet his cousin, but, as I have said, we shall never know; and the point is, in fact, more curious than important.