by Howard Engel
When the doors had been shut by me at a cue from Bell, he began to speak. He chose his words carefully and after a nervous minute or two sank into his usual lecture theatre manner that I knew so well. In spite of themselves, those assembled in the panelled room, and even, it seemed, the white plaster-cast heads of executed felons on the mantel, turned to hear what Dr Bell had to say.
“Gentlemen, I will try to be brief. I came here this morning to demonstrate the innocence of Mr Veitch’s client, Mr Alan Lambert, before the question of his innocence or guilt becomes an academic question. Here, in the very shadow of the gallows, I have invited you to examine evidence that a miscarriage of justice is scheduled to take place this morning. I hope to be able to save, not only the life of an innocent man, but the good name of British justice from disrepute.
“To begin with, Alan Lambert’s name first came into this case because of a pawn-ticket he owned on a diamond brooch. That brooch, according to the ticket and the pawnbroker, had been in continuous pawn for some weeks prior to the crime. It could not have been the brooch that was taken from Coates Crescent on the night of the murders.”
“It was my mother’s brooch!” offered Graeme Lambert. “An heirloom given to Alan by my mother when my father would no longer assist him.” The man sitting next to him said nothing, acquiescing with a bowed head.
“This false identification of the brooch led the police to Alan Lambert. There is nothing else to connect Lambert to either of the murder victims.”
“There were several eye witnesses who gave testimony,” suggested Keir M’Sween, the deputy chief.
“Good! Let us look at these eye witnesses. They came in response to the offer of a reward for information leading to the arrest of the criminal. Two hundred pounds, gentlemen, which has long since been paid out. When you look at these eye-witness descriptions, they bear no relation at all to the accused. They contradict one another about his size, his features and every aspect of his clothing. It recalls the Wilkhaven Ferry murder case of 1875 all over again. In that case, you will remember, Detective-Lieutenant Bryce demonstrated conclusively the danger of giving too much weight to paid witnesses.
“And let us look closer at these same witnesses. Without going into detail this morning, let me remind you that many of them had either seen a photograph of the accused before they confirmed their identification, or they had seen him in the flesh in a New York jail under guard and in manacles. Those who know anything of police procedure will see the folly of this sort of identification. It is not strong enough to hang a man.
“At the trial, the Lord Advocate told the jury that he would show that the accused knew of the jewellery in the possession of Mlle Hermione Clery. In the four-day record of the trial, he demonstrated no such connection. Yet, in his summation, he mentioned it again as though it had in fact been given in the evidence. Even the learned judge spoke of it as though it was part of the record. The Lord Advocate did his best to impute to the accused all sorts of wrongdoing, most of it without foundation. I have counted at least five and twenty errors in fact in his summation.”
“All of this was gone into at the commissioners’ hearing. You are beating a dead horse, Doctor.” This from the Lord Advocate himself.
“Interesting point. More interesting is the fact that the commissioners were forbidden under their terms of reference to go into the conduct of the trial. Imagine, if you will, a commission that was so bracketed in absurdity that it was prevented from re-examining all of the evidence. One might as well set up a commission to examine an allegedly serious matter without giving it the power to name the wrongdoers when their identity becomes known.”
“The man is plainly a lunatic. Major, I can stop here no longer!”
“I think you may be able to assist the interests of justice, sir, if you will be kind enough to tarry a few minutes longer.” This from Wilson, who spoke in a level, calm voice that had the desired effect, for Sir George retained his seat. Perhaps it was Wilson’s use of the somewhat literary word “tarry.”
“None of what has been mentioned here this morning was re-examined! To make matters worse, the commissioners had the assistance of the Procurator-Fiscal and the chief constable, acting through his deputy. The defendant was neither heard from nor allowed to attend either in person or through representation. Surely the dice of justice have never been so unfairly loaded. The opportunity to set matters to rights, which was prompted by Detective-Lieutenant Bryce’s letter to the Home Secretary, was scuttled. Bryce was destroyed for rocking the boat.”
“Is this so?” asked Sir Alexander Scobbie, the ailing chief constable. “I don’t recall any part of it.”
“There was no need to set matters aright,” explained his assistant. “We had our man and he knew we had him.”
“What you mean is, you had spent so much in your absurd chase after this man that you were too embarrassed to admit that you had been on a wild-goose chase. Once you had the pawn-ticket and heard that Lambert had left the city, you thought that you had found your criminal in full flight: the murderer is fled to Liverpool, fled to New York! Oh, it was all highly dramatic, sending your officers and the eye witnesses across the Atlantic. But, any examination of the evidence explodes the idea that Lambert fled the city because of the crime. He had sold his larger possessions, concluded business arrangements, disposed of his lease, said farewell to a number of friends beginning weeks before the crime. The Lord Advocate spoke of flight, of haste when there was neither. What the Crown was trying to hide, and this to protect the law enforcement branch, was the fact that a great deal of money had been spent in pursuing the wrong man.
“How is he the wrong man? You, sir,” Bell said, addressing the Lord Advocate, “told the court that Lambert could produce not a single witness who could place him anywhere but at the flat of Mlle Clery at the time of the murders. In fact, there were two witnesses who stated that he was at home eating his supper at that hour. You chose to suggest that they were prostitutes in league with the defendant. But there were independent witnesses who saw Lambert in his usual haunts in his own part of town before and after he had that supper, but they were not called.
“It is a serious matter in the administration of justice when the police fail to provide the Crown with the full list of their witnesses and their written precognitions. It is equally serious when the Crown fails to disclose this material to the defending advocates. The state has greater power than an individual, it must not use it to turn justice into a travesty.”
“M’Sween, tell me he is mad, sir!” demanded the chief constable.
“Yes, I am mad. Mad as they use the word in the Grass-market. Maddened to learn of public servants who treat the public to short weights. Maddened to hear that Keir M’Sween knew that Inspector Webb was taking active steps to ensure that none of this would come out. The pawnbroker and his wife were intimidated, so was the hotel clerk from telling anyone that Lambert signed his own name to the register in the Liverpool hotel on his ‘flight’ from justice. Aye, and when Detective-Lieutenant Bryce brought this to the attention of the authorities, he was not broken to the ranks, he was drummed out of the service of which he was the chief ornament for so many years.”
“This is outrageous! I will not hear another word! Who is this upstart? I am Sir William Burnham. I am nobody’s fool, certainly not yours!” For a brief moment, I thought that the Procurator-Fiscal was rallying to our side, but I was mistaken. It was an attempt to overturn the proceedings, but a lame one, for by now even Major Ross would have hushed him where he stood, red in the face and blustering.
“Gentlemen…” It was Mr Wilson. “I have heard enough of this case to reach the conclusion that if an injustice has not been committed, it is giving all the appearances of one. Consequently, I am about to telegraph the Home Secretary to order a stay of execution in this case. I will at the same time inform the Lord Provost of my action.”
“You mean Alan will not be hanged?”
“Not this morning, yo
ung man. That much is certain.” At these words, Graeme Lambert took his father in his arms. For some time father and son held one another in a tight embrace, Graeme’s shoulders heaving with emotion. In spite of the older man’s gravity and reserve, he did not try to prevent this show of emotion in public. In fact, he, himself, was seen to have tears running from his cheeks to his collar.
TWENTY-EIGHT
An hour later, the condemned man had been informed of the respite which the Home Office had telegraphed. He had been moved out of the condemned cell where he had spent the days since the trial.
The gathering in Major Ross’s office had now been augmented by two. Marwood and his assistant had slipped in unrecognized by most of those assembled. Ross had been prepared to offer a stimulant—presumably purchased to stiffen the sinews of faint-hearted witnesses to Lambert’s hanging. When some of those assembled resisted the idea of spirits at such a matutinal hour, tea was sent for and arrived in stoneware mugs on a tray. It proved to be strong and hot.
“And has the senior Queen’s messenger now discharged his responsibilities?” asked Sir George Currie, the Lord Advocate, with the suggestion of a sneer. “Are we free to take up again the scattered traces of our lives and go from this place?”
“My official business is concluded. Nevertheless, I am bound to remain by curiosity, which I think might hold you for another quarter of an hour, sir.”
“Of what should I be curious? You perhaps overestimate my interest in this matter.”
“That’s as may be, but I for one am waiting for Dr Bell to conclude his story.”
“Conclude it, he has only confused it. Now we must begin again to look for a new guilty party.”
“The guilty party is in this room!” asserted Bell, overhearing this exchange. “It will not take long to unmask him. Does that awaken your dormouse curiosity, sir?”
“Hrumph! I’ll stay ten minutes, for want of other idleness.” Bell cocked an eye and exchanged a glance with the Lord Advocate, as though they had suddenly something to share.
Bell began speaking again, with more assurance now, for the condemned man was at last safe from Mr Marwood’s contrivances. Still, the thought of the murderer being among us excited the room unnaturally and was the cause of sly looks and suspicious glances among the company.
“When I was first approached by Graeme Lambert to save his brother from the gallows, I took the position that Lambert was innocent. The guilty party then was someone else, a Mr Guilty Party. I ruled out the possibility of it being a Miss Guilty Party or a Mrs Guilty Party because of the nature of the crime: two violent murders with a slashing blade done quickly one after the other. Still, even with women eliminated as a possibility, I was left with a notable puzzle. I had to ask myself, was Lambert also the intended victim of the murderer? Was his being brought into the crime part of a diabolical plot to murder three people? In the end, I discarded this theory. I commend it to some follower in the footsteps of the American writer, Mr Edgar Poe.
“The police have always assumed, and in this they were echoed by the newspapers, that Mlle Clery was the intended victim of the murderer. It is a natural assumption: she was a celebrated artiste, rich, famous and beautiful. Next to her, poor Eward was a little brown mouse: neither rich nor well known. His death has always been seen as an accident; had he not been in the Coates Crescent flat, he would not have shared Mlle Clery’s fate. Or, had she another visitor that night, he, rather than Eward, would have had his throat cut. I was aware of the trap of this assumption, but for the moment I knew not what to do with it.
“The police have also said from the beginning that the motive for the crime was robbery. Now, gentlemen, this motive is absurd. Not that there weren’t riches in jewels to be taken, but that in fact only one brooch was taken away. And whether that was taken by the murderer or by someone else who had access to the flat both before and after the crime has never been sufficiently looked into. If it was a robbery, what a remarkable robbery it was! There was no sign of a forced entry. All those locks and bolts up and down the door were each opened one after the other by one of the victims. And remember, there were two doors: a street door and the upstairs door to the flat. Both of them kept locked. So, the murderer was known to one of the victims.
“In a case of this kind, the murder of a woman and her lover, the police often find the spouse responsible. It is both tidy and it fits with what we know about human nature. In this case, Mario Cabezon, Hermione Clery’s estranged husband, lived close to Coates Crescent. He had a motive: jealousy. In fact, he had been bound over to keep the peace. Had the authorities not been so invested in the pursuit of Lambert to Liverpool and New York, they would have seen this omission. Only the now-discredited Detective-Lieutenant Bryce saved the reputation of the force here: he alone questioned Mlle Clery’s husband. As far as I know, no other policeman even knew that Mlle Clery had a living husband. I mention this, not to further add to the mounting list of police errors, but to demonstrate again the rash chase after the one ‘fleeing’ suspect.
“Is Sr Cabezon our murderer? I think not. If he were a taller man, more generously built around the shoulders, he might have done much, but he is shorter than both Eward and Mlle Clery and with his leg brace in no way resembles Webb’s murderer, whom I saw outside Inspector Webb’s stairwell.
“Another thing that Bryce learned came from Mlle Clery’s agent, Tom Prentice, whom I have cabled in New York. Prentice, Bryce learned, told Inspector Webb that the maid, Hélène André, had visited him on the night of the murders to tell him the news. She spoke of a man, known to her by sight, whom she saw coming from the bedroom and leaving the flat before the bodies were discovered. The downstairs neighbour overheard peculiar noises above and came to the door of the flat as the maid returned from a trip to buy a newspaper. (A singular mission at that hour!) He too stated that he saw a man coming out of the flat. None of this is new. When Bryce learned of this he returned to the station to see Prentice’s precognition and that of the maid. In both cases, the statements were full of omissions signified by asterisks. The name of the man identified by Hélène André was given as Mr XYZ. Surely, here we have the murderer leaving the scene of the crime. Is this clue followed up? It is not. Why was the name of the suspect not given in full? Many names come up in a criminal investigation. Such documents are seen only by the police officers involved. Any need for anonymity surely arises at the moment a case goes to trial: information is not normally screened from the officers investigating the case. In this instance, only the name of Mr XYZ was protected. When I say protected, I choose the word with care. Both Inspector Robbie Webb and Detective-Lieutenant Bryce were ordered to warn the witnesses involved not to repeat this information.
“What, gentlemen, I ask you, might lead to such a happening? How often is a particular name lifted out of an investigation and buried in secrecy—”
“Surely you are making too much of this, sir,” interrupted the chief constable in a querulous voice. “You are imputing a serious irregularity if you continue along this road.”
“Here, sir, are the facts. Judge of them yourself: Detective-Lieutenant Bryce has said that the senior officers investigating the case were told by their superior that the movements of XYZ were strictly enquired into after the murder. By whom, you might ask. Not by those closest to the investigation. The witness André later denied saying that she recognized XYZ at the commissioner’s enquiry. Like the other witnesses at the enquiry, she was not under oath.”
“Not under oath! I don’t believe it!” This was the chief constable again. “I never heard of such a thing.”
“Sir, your name appears as one of those involved in the daily proceedings of the enquiry. Are you saying that you don’t remember this?”
“Doctor, there are so many of these enquiries. I canna get to all of them. And this one was held in such haste; a few days! M’Sween attended in my place. He was there as well as Sir William.”
“Then perhaps you can explain, Chief M�
�Sween, how it was that after the witness André denied ever seeing XYZ and further denied that she ever said that she saw him, she was warned not to mention XYZ’s name to anyone?”
“You have no business meddling in this thing, Doctor. You don’t know what you are about. You wouldn’t like me blundering into your operating theatre, I warrant you!” M’Sween was visibly turning red. Eyes that had been rooted on Bell moved to M’Sween’s face.
“Answer the man’s question, M’Sween. Clear this up for God’s sake!” said the chief.
“And, while you are about it, tell us the name of Mr XYZ. It was important enough to keep out of the murder investigation, and it most assuredly must have been a contributing cause to the murder of Robbie Webb.”
“You meddling busybody!” shouted Keir M’Sween, getting to his feet and coming towards Bell. “You are undermining the fabric of the justice system! You are destroying in a moment what it has taken centuries to build! Will nothing satisfy you other than rendering the state helpless, returning it to chaos and anarchy?” Major Ross put a hand on M’Sween’s arm, for otherwise he would have been at Bell’s throat.
“Steady on, M’Sween,” said Ross firmly, trying to push the officer into a chair. “We’ll soon hear his answer. Well, sir,” said Ross to Dr Bell, “the chief has levelled a serious charge at you. Do you intend anarchy? With what do you plan to replace the established institutions of law and order?”
“Major, a justice system, like a chain, is as strong as its weakest link. It works to no purpose if it does not work for all. Admittedly, the display of wigs and gowns in the High Court of Justiciary gives the appearance of dignity and solemnity and power to the system, but it is the day-to-day working of the system that is the substance behind the theatrical show. What we are facing, gentlemen, is an effort on the part of one man to manipulate that system, to let an innocent man go to his death rather than allow police and judicial errors to be made known. In addition to this, the system has been subverted to protect a multiple murderer. That, gentlemen, must not be allowed to happen.”