The Colour of Murder

by Julian Symons

  Outside the sun shone fiercely, but it filtered through into Lewes courtroom only as a thin supplement to electricity. Filtered through to get a glimpse of an English attempt to obtain what is called justice: which is achieved by dressing up men in wigs and robes, then setting them talking to persuade eleven sheep (three tough housewife ewes in this lot actually) that the pale-faced sheep in the dock gave way to unnatural instincts and for an hour or two became a wolf. Was it so? Out then, wicked wolf (his apparent sheepishness now, his persistence in saying that he has never thought or acted unsheepishly, do not deceive us), out from the society of sheep for ever. Mr Justice Sheep pronounces sentence upon you, you are to be confined within walls, poor wolf-sheep, dangerous sport of the flock, for ever…

  Such at least might have been the heretical view of anybody present who lacked respect for the solemnity and majesty of English legal processes. Fortunately such a person is purely imaginary, and so far as is known nobody in open court, or even in the public gallery, had such thoughts in mind while Mr Hayley’s opening speech wound on its way and Mr Justice Morland made strange designs in his black-covered notebook and Magnus Newton tapped his mouth to conceal a yawn and Mr Likeness, sitting in front of him, studied some papers at the same time that he picked his nose.

  “On that Tuesday afternoon Detective-Inspector Kenning interviewed Wilkins at his hotel, and he will tell you that Wilkins seemed very upset, even distraught. He had visited the Langland Hotel that morning, and so already knew of Miss Morton’s death. He seemed anxious, Inspector Kenning says, that his wife should know nothing of his acquaintance with Miss Morton – and I think we are sufficiently men and women of the world to agree that such a wish is quite natural – but he was anxious about something else too. This second cause of anxiety became apparent when the inspector asked Wilkins if he could help at all. ‘How can I help?’ Wilkins answered. ‘I don’t know where I was that night.’ There was a sports jacket on the back of a chair in the room where they were talking, and the inspector noticed some dark stains on the sleeve. He pointed these out to Wilkins, who said, ‘I cut my thumb last night. Some of the blood must have got on to the jacket.’ He showed the inspector a small cut on his right thumb. When he was arrested later that day Wilkins made another remark which you may think significant. He said, ‘I loved Sheila, I would never have hurt her if I’d been in my right mind.’”

  And here Hayley stopped and looked at the jury with a look in which mateyness had for a moment been replaced by a man of the world’s lifted, questioning eyebrow. Ten minutes later he was coming to the end of an opening speech in which he had drawn the threads of the case together with inconspicuous skill.

  “Let me recapitulate the circumstances on which the Crown case is based, that we believe justify us in asking you to bring in a verdict that John Wilkins, in a fit of passion, killed Sheila Morton in this beastly and brutal way. There is, first, the evidence bearing on his pursuit of Sheila Morton and her rejection of him – for it was a decisive rejection that took place at the tennis club, as you will hear. But even after this rejection he did not give up hope, and when he learned that Sheila and her father were coming to Brighton he persuaded his wife to come down here for their own very early holiday. On Monday evening came the final twist when he learned that this girl, for whom he nursed such a hopeless passion, was engaged to become the wife of another man. Witnesses will tell you of his evident shock when he learned the news of her engagement. You will hear of the conversation he had afterwards with Mr Lonergan, when he made remarks and suggestions which implied, quite falsely, that he had been intimate with Sheila Morton.

  “Members of the jury, John Wilkins had ample motive for the crime. And he was the only person with such a motive. I do not know whether the defence will suggest that this murder may have been committed by that passing tramp who is so much favoured by fiction writers. If so, I should like you to remember this. Sheila Morton was a friendly girl, but she was a good girl, in the real sense of that phrase. She was a virgin. Is it likely that she would have gone to the beach with a man whom she did not know? I submit to you that it is not only unlikely, it is impossible.

  “Second, there is no doubt that John Wilkins had opportunity. We have not traced all his movements from six-thirty until he returned to the hotel, but we do know that at nine o’clock he was in a public house called the Toll Gate. We know also that a witness saw him on the promenade at twenty minutes to twelve and was impressed by his ghastly appearance. At ten minutes to twelve the hall porter at his hotel saw him come in, and was also impressed by his strange appearance and manner.

  “Third, there is the matter of positive proof. It was to be expected that the murderer should have blood on his hands and person. There were bloodstains on Wilkins’ jacket and on his trousers. This blood is of the same group as Sheila Morton’s, that is, Group O. Since this is also Wilkins’ own blood group, however, no deduction can be made from this. Wilkins claims that the marks came from his cut thumb, although he cannot say where or when he cut it. You will hear expert evidence to the effect that the thumb cannot have bled freely enough to cause all the marks on jacket and trousers. You will hear expert evidence also of the benzidine test carried out on his jacket, trousers and shoes, which revealed the presence of blood in minute quantities on all of them. And you will remember those words he uttered on arrest. ‘I loved Sheila, I’d never have hurt her if I’d been in my right mind.’ I believe that when you have heard all the evidence, you will agree that John Wilkins killed Sheila Morton, killed her in a fit of violent passion when she resisted his sexual assault. Each man, the poet tells us, kills the thing he loves. That is generally a piece of what we call poetic licence, but in this it is the simple truth. We shall try to show that John Wilkins loved Sheila Morton and, in a fit of frustrated passion, killed her.”

  Chapter Eight

  Fairly formal police and medical evidence occupied the rest of the morning. When, at one o’clock, Mr Justice Morland punctually called a halt, Mr Likeness took his friend Robin Pinkney to a pub named the Two Brewers. Pinkney was down on a small fraud case which was being held in the court opposite. “How’s it going?” he asked.

  “Too soon to say yet.” Mr Likeness crunched a roll. “It’s not really a very strong case, you know. Depends a lot on what Newton makes of the medical experts. This chap Ritchie, you know the chap from that new lab they’ve got out at Maidstone, he’s a tough nut. I’ve come across him before. It’s all very circumstantial, though.”

  “Still, a jury can convict on circumstantial evidence.”

  “Course they can.” Mr Likeness shovelled steak pie into his mouth. “Didn’t see you at the club last weekend.” They belonged to the same golf club.

  “Too much to do. Some of us have to work for our living.”

  “Went round in eighty-seven. Funny thing happened to me at the twelfth. You know it’s a dog leg…” Mr Likeness began to arrange fork, spoon and salt cellar in a demonstration.

  Magnus Newton lunched with his junior, Charles Hudnutt, who was a ruggedly handsome former rowing Blue. “Do you think the jury really likes that smarmy tone Hayley puts on?” Hudnutt asked. “You know, that we’re all boys together and it might have been you or me except that we love the little woman, and we all know he had a rough time with his wife but you’ll have to find him guilty just the same…that tone,” he finished, slightly out of breath.

  “I dare say. Never can tell what they will like. Morland didn’t like it much. Very fair, Morland, very reliable.”

  “I suppose it’s because I know Hayley’s really such an old ram,” Hudnutt said. “I used to know a cousin of his rather well once, Jerry Pottingley. Got smashed up in his sports car a couple of years ago. Jerry told me…”

  He lowered his voice.

  “Really,” Magnus Newton said. Hudnutt went on talking and Newton, eyes slightly protruding, red face puffed out, punctuated his discourse with “Really…really…really…”

  Mr Justice Morl
and’s lunch consisted of two pieces of Ryvita without butter, a green salad without dressing, and an apple. While he ate it he read Aristotle’s Ethics. Lacking his robes he looked a rather timid and weaselly little man.

  John Wilkins found it almost impossible to eat, and difficult to think. He felt a kind of sick excitement. He got up and began to walk about the small whitewashed cell. On the door were messages written by former occupants: I swear before God I am innocent and it will be a cruel injustice if they find me guilty. Underneath another hand had scrawled You lying bastard. John Wilkins sighed.

  It was remarkable how old Mr Morton’s health had improved since Sheila’s death. He had come down to Lewes for the trial, he had followed the morning’s proceedings with avidity, and now his knife carved away quite vigorously at his roast chicken. Bill Lonergan ate with much less enthusiasm.

  “Fascinating, these details of court procedure,” Mr Morton said. “No doubt about it, there’s a drama in the English courts you don’t get anywhere else in the world. It’s all the ceremonial, I think.”

  “Yes.” Bill Lonergan pushed away his plate.

  “You take that young man, Geoffrey Wilkins’ son, he doesn’t look like a murderer. And did you see the way the jury stared at him? They liked him. And why not?” Mr Morton attacked his apple pie. “If you met him in the street you wouldn’t worry about letting your daughter go around with him, would you? Eh?”

  “You seem very sure he’s guilty.”

  “I certainly am.” Mr Morton’s false teeth clicked as he removed a pastry obstruction. “That’s not to say he’ll be found guilty, mind you. Many a murderer walking about scot-free. For drama there’s nothing like a murder trial.”

  Bill Lonergan put down his fork and spoon. “Didn’t you feel anything for Sheila at all?”

  The old man looked at him in surprise. “Haven’t I said I want to see her murderer punished?”

  “If you’ll excuse me.” Lonergan got up. “Something to do in my room.”

  Almost alone among the people principally concerned, Uncle Dan and old Mrs Wilkins discussed the trial throughout the whole of lunch. Mrs Wilkins expressed dissatisfaction with the lackadaisical attitude of Mr Likeness and the casual cross-questioning of Magnus Newton. “And that man of yours has done nothing, nothing at all. How is he occupying his time, that is what I should like to know.”

  Uncle Dan’s long head was on one side, his expression was gloomy. “You’ve seen the reports.”

  “The reports. They say nothing.”

  “Lambie’s their best man.”

  “Best man.” She snorted, a strangely masculine sound. “He seems to spend most of his time in pubs. An excuse for a drinking bout, if you ask me.”

  Uncle Dan’s face had taken on new lines in recent weeks, his voice was weary. “Do you want me to call him off?”

  “No.” She looked down at her plate. “No, don’t call him off.”

  Chapter Nine

  John Wilkins was not a particularly imaginative man, but the effect on him of seeing a number of people he had known coming into the witness box, holding up their hands, swearing to tell truth about him, and then telling – what could you call it? Not lies exactly, but equally it was not the truth, unimportant incidents appeared extraordinarily magnified, and those that would have provided the key to a situation seemed to be ignored. As he stood in the dock, gripping occasionally the small spiky brass knobs that surrounded him, watching Hayley drawing on the witnesses to tell their misleading stories, the little judge taking an occasional note, he wanted to call out, “Stop all this nonsensical question and answer game, just listen to me for a few minutes, I can tell you what really happened.” At other times he mentally threw up his hands in a gesture of despair, feeling that he was like a man who had got on to an express train going the wrong way, and that any little protest he might make must be hopelessly feeble.

  He felt like this particularly as the prosecution painstakingly traced his movements on that Monday afternoon, each witness adding an outline, a brush stroke, a few blobs of colour to the picture that was being built up, the picture of John Wilkins as a man driven to violent, atrocious action by his frustrated passion for Sheila Morton. Here was that slick-haired young hotel receptionist telling them of his two calls at the Langland, of his embarrassment on the first occasion and his self-confidence on the second. And here was blond Leslie Jackson, telling first of his behaviour at the tennis club, of the way in which he had pursued Sheila and pestered her. Surely that was not, could not be, true?

  “What was your attitude towards the prisoner’s pursuit of Miss Morton?” asked Hayley’s junior, suavely elegant Maurice Mallin-Fry.

  “I didn’t think much about it,” Jackson said. “Sheila and I weren’t formally engaged then, so I hadn’t much right to say anything.”

  “You did not regard Wilkins as a serious rival?”

  Jackson’s mouth twisted in a laugh gone sour. “I didn’t. He was too silly for that. It was just like having a dog round you all the time. Sheila thought so too. She said–”

  Charlie Hudnutt was on his feet, but the judge had already intervened. “You must not tell us what Miss Morton thought or said to you. Confine yourself to your own observation.”

  “Yes, just answer the questions,” Maurice Mallin-Fry said cheerfully, and went on to ask Jackson about the visit to the hotel. Was that true, John Wilkins wondered, had he been like a pestering dog? He listened with the same sense of unreality to the things Jackson was saying about his behaviour at the hotel.

  “Did anything about him strike you particularly?”

  “Yes. He had obviously had quite a lot to drink.”

  “Would you say he was drunk?”

  “Oh no. But his manner was much more free and easy than usual, and his voice was louder. Generally he was rather – restrained, you might call it.

  “And what was his reaction when Miss Morton told him of your engagement?”

  “He looked like a sheep hit by a pole-axe,” Jackson said contemptuously. Mallin-Fry frowned a little.

  “Was he shocked by the news?”

  “He certainly was. Dazed, as though he couldn’t take it in.”

  “And then he went out to have a drink with Mr Lonergan. Before that, was anything said in the prisoner’s presence?”

  “Yes. Sheila was invited to go out for a drink, and said she couldn’t go until the nurse came. Then she wanted to go for a walk on her own, because she wanted to get away from everybody and everything.”

  “The prisoner was there when this was said?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did anything special happen when they said goodbye?”

  “Yes. Wilkins took hold of her hand and didn’t let go. She almost had to drag it away from him.”

  Hard, breezy Charlie Hudnutt cross-examined. He was a bit caustic about the exact length of time that John Wilkins had held Sheila Morton’s hand, suggested that pole-axed sheep don’t usually commit murder, and established that in spite of his dazed condition the prisoner had offered congratulations to the happy couple.

  Followed Mr Morton, wearing a polka dot tie and looking remarkably spry and jaunty, but really with little to say except to confirm the strangeness of the prisoner’s manner on that visit to the hotel. Followed Bill Lonergan, his crew-cut hair sticking up like pins, his gaze directed every which way, at the judge, at counsel examining him, at the pink silk lampshade, anywhere but at the figure in the dock. And what Bill Lonergan had to say, John Wilkins vaguely realised, was damaging to him. He had said things in that pub which he should not have said, would not have said but for the shock of hearing about Sheila’s engagement.

  When they went to have a drink, had Wilkins seemed upset, Mallin-Fry was asking. Yes, he had. In the pub he had drunk whisky. Was he drunk? No, quite coherent, but excited. Had he said anything specific about Sheila Morton? Bill Lonergan’s tongue came out and touched his lips.

  “Why, yes. He said Jackson was not good enough for he
r. He said – he said it was a shock to Sheila when she found out that he was married. He said she had been pretty keen on him, and he’d had a job to keep her away.”

  “Can you remember the exact words, Mr Lonergan?”

  The sweat stood out on Bill Lonergan’s forehead. “Something like this. He said, ‘I shouldn’t have done it, I suppose’–”

  “That is, shouldn’t have gone about with Miss Morton without telling her he was married.”

  “Yes. ‘Shouldn’t have done it, but my wife’s a bitch. When Sheila found out I was married she was upset, but before that there was no stopping her.’” He hesitated. “He implied that Sheila had been his mistress. I told him to shut up.”

  There was little room for cross-examination, but Charlie Hudnutt did his best. “You were engaged to Sheila Morton yourself at one time, Mr Lonergan?”

  Bill Lonergan looked surprised. “In a way. We were both pretty young, and it wasn’t a formal engagement.”

  “Did you break it off, or did she?”

  “Mutual consent, I should say. It wasn’t that serious.”

  “When the prisoner began to talk about her you were angry because of your feeling for Miss Morton?”

  “I suppose I was. I knew it wasn’t true. Sheila wasn’t that kind of a girl.”

  Charlie Hudnutt switched abruptly. He asked if Wilkins had shown the slightest intention of committing an act of violence, whether he had been violent in his youth, whether he had seemed angry with Sheila. To all these questions Bill Lonergan returned, for what they were worth, negative answers.