‘About what?’ Andrée’s tone was quiet.
‘We…we have to ask you to come along to the station, sir.’
‘Why?’ The terse question caused the officer to blink before he said pedantically, ‘I have to arrest you, sir, on the charge of occasioning grievous bodily harm to one Mr Bernard Rosier. I must warn you that anything you say will be taken down and used in evidence against you.’
‘Well! Well!’
The exclamation disconcerted the policemen. They watched the big Swede turn his head towards the door through which he had entered the hall before he said, ‘I’ll come with you; just give me a minute.’
‘Very good, sir.’
Back in the parlour, Andrée dismissed Betty; then, taking Katie by the shoulders, he said, ‘Now listen, darling. Listen attentively. Listen as you have never listened before, because it’s very important. Out there are two policemen. I am being charged with causing grievous bodily harm to Rosier…exactly what you still believe. At least you have that in common with the policemen.’
When her quivering lips moved to say something he shook her gently and said softly, ‘Listen. What I told you about Rosier murdering that man, I don’t want you to say a word…not a word about it. Do you hear?’
‘But, Andy!’
Again he shook her. ‘Kaa-tee. I want to do this in my own way. I want this swine of a man to pull the rope so tight around his own neck that he can’t get it loose again. Now if you open your mouth a little bit…just a little bit’—he now demonstrated with his first finger and thumb, shaking his hand before her face—‘you’ll spoil everything. What is more, you could quite likely turn the tables and make him prove that I killed that man.’
‘No! No!’
‘Yes! Yes, Kaa-tee! Now you must do as I say. Not a word until I tell you. Promise me. Swear by God you’ll not say anything.’
She stared at him. In every incident in which she had been involved with Rosier she had kept quiet, and so had suffered. And now she was to do so again. But this would be so much worse than anything that had ever happened before. She found herself nodding her head, for it was impossible to speak, and then she was in his arms and he was kissing her hard. And when he released her he smiled and said, ‘We’ll have tea at the same time; I’ll be back.’
And they had tea at the same time. Andrée had been released on bail in the sum of two hundred pounds. He had also spent the afternoon with Mr Hewitt. He told Mr Hewitt of the two attacks on him, of his visit to Greenwall Manor that morning, of his searching for Rosier, and seeing him ride up the lane to the main road, of his meeting with the woman climber. But he made no mention of what he had seen happen near the quarry, knowing full well that, should he do so, Hewitt, as his representative, would be bound by law to divulge his knowledge to the court, if not before.
All through he stressed that he had never met up or spoken with Rosier, and this was true.
Chapter Nine
The court at Durham was packed, the room so overcrowded that the doors had been closed long before the proceedings had begun. A bill of indictment had brought the case up within a week.
The case of the sea captain who had attacked the owner of Greenwall Manor, and he only recovering from wounds inflicted by his sister four months previously, had aroused not only local interest but had got some people in the county betting on what stretch the captain would get, while others, more discerning, were asking the question why the captain should want to attack Bernard Rosier in the first place. It had never been fully explained in the newspapers what reason his sister had for the attempt she had made on his life.
All eyes were now on the defending counsel. The case seemed to be going against him, for he had as yet come up with nothing in the nature of a defence for his client.
The last two witnesses, one eager to give evidence, one seemingly reluctant, had not helped him. Kennard had muttered his evidence and had been told to speak up by Mr Justice Gordon. He had then repeated that Captain Fraenkel had called at the Manor the morning of the incident and asked to see his master.
What else had he said, the defending counsel had asked.
There was a pause before Kennard answered that Captain Fraenkel had said he would wait for his master, either inside or outside the house.
‘Was his manner ferocious, wild?’ asked counsel, and to this Kennard replied briefly, ‘No, sir.’
But the lady climber had been a different kind of witness; she still seemed incensed at the callousness of the man she had met on the road, who had refused to return with her and give help to the poor creature who had fallen from his horse.
Many eyes in the court had turned towards the poor creature. Bernard Rosier was dressed in a snuff-brown suit with wide lapels. His attire was impeccable. His face was such as to arouse pity. The hole where his ear had been was in evidence, as was his maimed hand, which every now and then would grasp the rail in front of him, only to be quickly withdrawn as if its owner did not wish to expose his infirmities. His appearance and demeanour while on the witness stand had brought him the sympathy of the jury and of most of the court, as he related how he had gone out for his morning ride, a pastime of which he had only recently begun to avail himself, and all he was able to recollect after he had entered the lane, leading from the main road, was of someone jumping from a high bank on to his back. In the struggle that ensued he remembered gripping a beard. He also remembered punching at the man’s face. What followed was rather hazy; he couldn’t really recollect remounting his horse. He did not remember the lady finding him on the road; he knew nothing until he woke up in the hall of his home with his servant attending him.
Now Andrée was looking down into the cold piercing gaze of the prosecuting counsel as he finished his cross-examination with the words, ‘After your evidence it puts a strain on one’s imagination as to how you have come to your present position. As a captain of a ship you are supposedly a responsible person, yet you have faced this court and jury and told them such a cock and bull story that an idiot would have hesitated to use.’
‘I object, m’lud.’
Defending counsel was waved down, and the prosecuting counsel went on, ‘You admit going to the Rosier residence and asking to see Mr Bernard Rosier. The butler has said in evidence that you were determined to wait, either inside or outside the house, until you saw his master. Now you want us to believe that after you left the grounds of Greenwall Manor you took a walk over the fells and the first person you spoke to was Miss Richards, who ran to you on the main road and beseeched you to help the man she and her friend had found unconscious. You admit refusing to come to her aid. You also admit having told her in which direction the unconscious man’s house lay. You weren’t supposed to have met him, yet you knew that he was the man who was lying unconscious on the road and where he lived…Do you seriously expect us to believe that you never met Mr Rosier that morning, that you did not inflict injuries on him from which he might have died? You are being charged before this court with occasioning grievous bodily harm; but for the good ladies who came across the prostrate man on the road the charge could easily have been one of murder.’ His voice, from a high dramatic note, dropped to a tone of bewilderment, even sadness, as he repeated, ‘It is beyond me, sir, how you ever came to be in your present position of responsibility.’
There came a little tittering from some quarter of the court, and as Andrée stared down into the prosecuting counsel’s face he had the urge to thrust his fist into it, but, swallowing deeply, he said, ‘There is something sir, I have kept until last. When you hear it it may alter your opinion with regards to my mentality.’
The words seemed to startle the court, for the tone was like a knife cutting through the proceedings. It was a tone of authority; it was a tone that said, Let us finish with subterfuge, let us have no more shilly-shallying. Let us have the truth.
‘I went,’ said Andrée, his words hard and clipped, ‘to Mr Rosier’s residence to confront him with the evidence of the atta
ck his hired thugs had made on me the previous evening.’ He put a finger to his eye, which was still discoloured and showed a scar above his eyebrow. ‘Four hired men had set about me when I left my ship. They not only kicked me and beat me but they filled my mouth and smeared my clothes with filth. I was able to retain hold of one of these men, and from him I got enough information to realise who was paying them. That was the reason for my visit.’
Andrée paused. The attention of the whole court was riveted on him. Then he went on. ‘As you have heard, Mr Rosier was not at home. His servant told me the direction he had taken and I followed it until I came to a water-filled quarry. As I stood at its edge I heard the sound of an approaching horse and I guessed the rider was the man I was looking for. Not wanting him to see me first, I stood in the shelter of some brushwood. It was from this point that I saw a man leap from the high bank that bordered this lane and bear that man to the ground.’ Now Andrée thrust out his arm and jerked his first finger like the point of a rapier in the direction of Bernard Rosier, and startled eyes in the courtroom followed it. ‘I watched them struggling. His assailant managed to get to his feet and was about to kick him when he grabbed his leg and overthrew him. The man did not move after he hit the ground. That could have been enough, but no, that man’—the finger stabbed twice now—‘that man took a boulder and crashed it on to the head of the insensible fellow, and it was over and done so quickly that I was unable to intervene.’
A gasp went round the court and there was a turning of bodies towards Bernard Rosier, and Andrée went on, ‘But that was not the end. He took this man by the legs and dragged him to the quarry and dropped him in. The man’s name, your honour…’ Now Andrée turned towards Mr Justice Gordon and, addressing him solely, said, ‘…is William Dennison.’
Mr Justice Gordon now called for order, and when it was restored he said quietly, ‘Proceed, Captain Fraenkel.’ And Andrée went on, his voice quieter now, ‘I have learnt, your honour, that William Dennison had worked at the Manor since he was a boy. From being a gardener he had become jack-of-all-trades and bore the brunt of his master’s temper. A few years ago his master went as far as to slash his eye out with a whip, and the very night before he died his face was again marked with a whip. What I saw that morning was William Dennison taking his revenge. But instead of being the avenger he became the victim of this man who had ill-treated him over the years. The police were notified that William Dennison was missing, but nobody bothered very much about this William Dennison except his widow. She is in the court today.’ Again he was pointing, but now with his hand curved, the palm upwards. ‘When the body is retrieved from the shelf of rock on which it lies in the quarry she will no doubt identify her husband.’
Before Mr Justice Gordon, calling loudly for order, could state that the case was adjourned further uproar broke out, but in it three people remained still, as if transfixed in their hate and fear. Bernard Rosier was no longer the maimed gentleman eliciting sympathy. After gazing at Andrée for a space he let out an unintelligible cry, following which his whole attitude became demoniacal; and as he was guided into the anteroom he kept his head turned, with his eyes boring into Andrée, then they flicked to where Katie stood, her hand to her throat, and again he made the sound, only louder now, and she bowed her head against it.
Chapter Ten
When the case was opened against Bernard Rosier he was charged with the murder of William Dennison, and he was defended by a leading London barrister. The hearing went on for two days, and again and again the defence counsel brought to the fore the motive of spite behind the chief witness’ action in withholding his knowledge of the murder until he had, what he imagined, the most damaging moment in which to reveal it.
The barrister was an eloquent speaker. When at last he addressed the jury he made great play of the fact that when the accused left his house that fatal morning he was still in a very weak state, in fact he shouldn’t have been riding at all. The accused’s servant, he said, was a stupid man and the previous evening he had annoyed his master, who on this occasion did not remember raising his whip to him. He had frankly admitted that on another occasion, many years ago, he had beaten this man for his neglect of a valuable horse, which neglect had caused the animal to die. This—the barrister now added expression to his words with his outstretched hands—this was understandable to any man who loved a horse. But to return to this particular morning. The accused had been quite candid. He had told the court that he had drunk heavily the night prior to the day on which the incident occurred. He had been in such pain with his facial wound that he had tried to numb his suffering with alcohol. He had, as he said, only a faint recollection of leaving the house. All he had wanted to do that morning was to get on his horse and ride, and ride, and ride, in the hope that it would ease both his mental and physical torment.
The barrister informed the jury that he wasn’t merely using a figure of speech when he alluded to mental torment, because the accused had had a great deal of family troubles over the last three years—troubles that could not be brought to light on this occasion but nevertheless were very real, and so…The barrister paused long here, and ended, ‘He goes riding to ease his pain and in the hope of finding peace.’ Another telling pause. And now with raised voice he went on, ‘Yes, yes, he admits to saying on a previous occasion that he thought he had gripped a beard, but’—the barrister swept his eyes over the twelve men—‘you find yourself almost battered to death and hear people talking about a bearded sailor who had come to the house demanding to see you, and in an attitude which spoke of vengeance…’
There was a protest at this point from the prosecuting counsel, and a warning from Mr Justice Gordon, and the barrister, after bowing to the latter, turned once more to the jury and asked them to look at the prisoner, at the extent of his facial wounds, at his maimed hand, and to make a big effort to put themselves in his place, remembering that those wounds had been inflicted only a few weeks prior to the date on which he was brought from his horse and beaten almost insensible. If, when in such a low physical state, they themselves had been attacked, would they remember how they had retaliated? Would they remember picking up a stone and throwing it at their assailant? The barrister did not at this point go on to ask if they would remember taking their assailant by the heels and dropping him in the quarry, but he ended by telling them they were all men of high intelligence, and therefore he felt sure that they would bring in a verdict of ‘Not guilty’…
In answer, the prosecuting counsel picked up practically where the counsel for the defence had left off. ‘Gentlemen of the jury,’ he began, ‘the stone was not thrown at the deceased man as the defending counsel would have you believe. As the one and only witness to the incident has stated, a large boulder was dropped directly on to the upturned face of a prostrate man. A conscious man, seeing a stone coming at him, would instinctively have turned his face away; the deceased was not capable of doing that. We are not to know whether he was already dead when the boulder struck him, but it is most unlikely. I suggest he was but temporarily stunned. Bloodstains were found on the road at a certain point where there was no protrusion whatever that could have caused death. It has been verified by the doctor and the coroner that the deceased must have been lying on his back and quite immobile when the boulder was dropped on to his face. He may or may not have died from the callous, cruel action, but the accused did not wait to find out. The defending counsel would have us believe that the accused dragged his servant to the edge of the quarry and toppled him into the water, then mounted his horse and rode away…all unconscious of what he was doing.’
Here the prosecuting counsel paused and the court waited. There was not a murmur, a cough, or rustle. Then he began again, ‘The deceased had been a servant in the accused’s house since he was a young boy. He was brought there from an orphanage, and from what you have learnt it would seem that during the whole course of his life he knew nothing but hard work, low wages, and blows. You have heard the wid
ow of the deceased telling how her husband used to sit trembling after his master had stormed at him; that at times he was afraid to go out in the mornings to get his master’s horse ready…What was he afraid of? The whip. The whip, gentlemen. The whip that had deprived him of an eye fourteen years ago. You might ask, if he was so badly treated, why he didn’t leave this man’s service. I myself put this question to the man’s widow, and her answer was, ‘The master would never give him a reference.’ You might go on to say that if the deceased and his wife had been in service all these years—the deceased’s wife acted as kitchen maid at the Manor—they should have saved money enough to enable them to take a chance and leave this terrifying servitude. I, too, thought this until I learnt, as you have done today, that when William Dennison started as a gardener’s boy his wage was a shilling a week. He was forty when he died, and he had never been paid more than four shillings a week. His wife was receiving three shillings a week. I think, gentlemen, you have your answer why William Dennison remained to serve the man who treated him so violently that he was driven to seek revenge. It must be evident to you that the deceased was aware that there would be grave consequences to his action, likely imprisonment, but a man who had been treated as he had was past caring.’
The prosecuting counsel ended in a sombre tone, ‘Now, gentlemen, I only ask you to consider the last cruel act of the prisoner to his servant. There is no need for you to recall the many cruel acts that the deceased suffered at the hands of his master. It will be enough to concentrate on his last one, and so doing your verdict will be one of “Guilty”.’
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