The Attic Murder

by S. Fowler Wright

  The magistrate interrupted again: “You say you lay down on the bed. You didn’t open it?”

  She thought a moment, before she replied. “Yes, I did open it. But I mean I didn’t undress. I lay down in my clothes. But it was a cold night, and I drew the bedclothes over me. I think I had got chilly staying so long downstairs.”

  “You will see,” Mr. Dunkover said, “that that supports the evidence we have heard already.”

  Mr. Garrison agreed. “Yes. It was a small point, but I wished it clear.”

  Miss Weston went on: “I think I dozed, though I hadn’t meant to, for the next thing of which I was conscious was a murmur of voices in Mr. Rabone’s room. It was low at first, but after that it became louder, and then low again, rather as though there had been a quarrel which had been made up, and then I heard Mr. Rabone give a terrible cry.

  “I jumped up when I heard that, and ran to his room. As I crossed the landing, I remember seeing a line of light under his door, and hearing something that sounded like a struggle within the room. But as I was opening the door someone pressed against it from the inside, and then the light was switched off.

  “After that, the door opened easily. I couldn’t see anything inside, but I thought I heard something move on the floor, and a man’s steps crossed the room to the window. I remember thinking that, though I could see nothing, I must be conspicuous to anyone in the room while I stood in the doorway, so I stepped in, and somewhat sideways while I felt for the switch. I couldn’t find it for a moment. It isn’t just where you’d expect it to be. And when I did get a light I saw a man’s legs disappearing through the open window.

  “The next moment, I saw Mr. Rabone on the floor. He was still moving, but you could see at a glance that he was beyond help. His head was—well, you could see.

  “I switched off the light again. I don’t quite know why. It may have been to conceal myself from the man who had just gone through the window, or it may have been to shut out the sight of Mr. Rabone on the floor. I just did it, without stopping to think.

  “I slipped back to my own room, and opened the window. The man was evidently getting away as quickly as he could, and making more noise than I had heard the time before. I followed, but could not get near enough to see what he was like. In fact, he got farther away.

  “But I saw him go in at the same window—No. 13—as before, and a minute after I crept quietly up to it, and looked in.

  “It didn’t open into a room, but an unlighted landing, with some stairs going down at the farther end. There was no light on the landing, but a little light came from the stairs. It shone up from the floor below. I looked in for a minute, and it was all quiet, so I tried the window. It didn’t seem to have any fastening except a loose-fitting latch, and I had it open in a moment, without making any noise, and got down on to the landing.

  “I thought that if I could get down to the front door and found it barred, it would almost certainly mean that the man was remaining within the house, and probably someone who lived there, but if the door were open it would mean that he had escaped into the street.

  “I went down as quietly as I could, though it seemed that every stair creaked, but I heard no other sound, and I couldn’t see any lights under the doors. The house might have been empty for anything I could tell. And when I got down to the street door, it was shut, but not bolted. It closed with a Yale lock, and when I pulled this back it opened at once.

  “I looked out into the street, but there was no one there, and I stood for some moments undecided what I should do. I didn’t feel inclined to go back into the house, nor to go to number seventeen, and have to knock Mrs. Benson up, and see Mr. Rabone again with her.

  “I felt that it wasn’t really my matter how he had got killed, and anyway I’d done all that I could, and the best thing I could do was to go back to my own home, and report to the office in the morning.”

  “You appear to have acted, up to that point,” Mr. Garrison said, “with a good deal of courage, and some discretion, but you should have known that it was your duty to have informed the police at once. In such a position your first duty is to the state.”

  Miss Weston was conscious that her feeling had been at the time that her first duty was to her employers, and the doctrine stated with such assurance by Mr. Garrison is probably one to which the majority of women only conform when it coincides with more intimate codes. But if her mind did not accept this precept, she had sufficient sense not to question it. She said: “I’ve seen since that I didn’t act very wisely; but I suppose I’d had about as much as I could stand for the time,” and the magistrate accepted the explanation without further comment.

  Mr. Dunkover said: “It appears that Miss Weston reported her experiences to her employers, who communicated with the London & Northern Bank immediately, and Miss Weston’s statement was at once put at the disposal of the police.”

  Mr. Garrison made no reply. He had glanced at the clock which was on the opposite wall of the court, and observed that it was ten minutes to two. It was a tribute to the dramatic quality of Miss Weston’s narrative that he had not previously observed that it was past his usual time for lunch. He said: “I think this will be a convenient time to adjourn. Till two-thirty prompt.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  When the court reassembled, Mr. Dunkover announced at once that he did not propose to ask Miss Weston any further questions, and in the absence of Mr. Huddleston, who had not returned to the court, Mr. Augustus Pippin rose to cross-examine the witness.

  Mr. Pippin was not an advocate of aggressive manner. He would seldom attempt to browbeat or bully when exerting his forensic skill to expose the mendacities in which those of the other side are supposed to revel.

  He had a friendly ingratiating style of address, such as would have been called fatherly in an older man. He would discuss a witness’s evidence with him in an intimate, confidential manner, as though uniting with him to bring into clearer light the facts distorted by the blundering questions of the previous advocate.

  He was entitled, by the etiquette of the occasion, to undertake the questioning of at least one of the less-important witnesses, but it was a compliment to his reputation that Mr. Huddleston entrusted him with Miss Weston’s cross-examination. He had actually hesitated between doing this and surrendering Francis Hammerton to his junior’s seductive ministrations. But he was undecided as to the expediency of recalling Francis to the box, and he may have thought that Mr. Pippin’s methods would be particularly well adapted to procure Miss Weston’s undoing, if there should have been more or less than truth’s simplicity in her fluent narrative of a night’s adventures.

  “Miss Weston,” Mr. Pippin began, with a friendly glance, approaching admiration, at a young lady on whom it was easy to smile, “I think you told us that you were in Mrs. Benson’s house about two months?”

  “Yes. It was about nine weeks.”

  “And you have explained very clearly the degree of intimacy (if you will permit the word) which had developed between yourself and Mr. Rabone during that time, before which he was, as I understand—in fact, he must have been—an absolute stranger to you?”

  “Yes. So far as I know I had never seen him before.”

  “That was obvious, because, had you been previously acquainted, you would not have entered the house under an assumed name. You did so, as you have told the court, under that of Mary Jones. Would you please explain why?”

  “I think I chose it because it was an easy one to remember.”

  “Yes. I suppose it is. But why change it at all?”

  “I believe it is quite usual to do so when engaged in such enquiries.”

  “Possibly so. It is a matter on which I am not well informed. But what I am anxious to know is why it should have been done on this occasion.”

  “It may have obvious advantages.”

  “Yes. But it must have disadvantages also, which are at least equally obvious. You might be met by someone to whom you wer
e known, who would use your true name in a disconcerting way. Or you might use or sign it yourself by inadvertence, so that the imposture would be disclosed. May I take it that it has been your habit to use an assumed name when engaged in such investigations?”

  “It was the first time that I had had occasion to do so.”

  “You mean that it is the first time that you have been engaged in work of this kind?”

  “Yes.”

  “How long have you been in the employment of the Texall Enquiry Agency?”

  “About three months.”

  “And previously?”

  “I had no previous employment.”

  “You are, perhaps, a young lady of private means?”

  “I have a small income.”

  “And yet you engaged in this somewhat unusual and even, to some ways of thinking, repellent occupation. Do you mind saying why?”

  “Well, it was something to do.”

  As Mr. Pippin asked these questions, his expression had been friendly, his tone casual. He had not appeared to notice that there had been increasing hesitation, if not actual evasion, in the brief replies he received, but it was clear to all who watched and listened that Miss Weston was replying with reluctance, and with a growing impatience hardly controlled.

  Her last answer found Mr. Pippin in pleasant agreement.

  “Yes,” he said. “So it was. But it is not always easy, even for young ladies of, if I may say so, exceptional abilities and attractions, to get such positions without previous experience. How did you first get in touch with the Texall Agency?”

  “I was introduced by Sir Reginald Crowe—by the London & Northern Bank.”

  Mr. Pippin paused for a moment, in an atmosphere which had become tensely silent with the instinctive realization that they were on the edge of one of those dramatic episodes in which a witness, giving evidence which may have been equally unexpected both to prosecution and defence, will sometimes confuse the issue for both alike, or destroy the very foundations on which they have united to build. His examination to this point had illustrated the soundness of Inspector Combridge’s maxim that if you are content to go on a step at a time you may be surprised by the distance which you progress. He had commenced with a convenient opening from which he had intended to pass rapidly to a further and more promising line of attack, but he had perceived at once, with the sense, half instinct, half reason, of the practised advocate, that there was something held in the reserve of the witness’s mind which it might be profitable to probe.

  Now his tone became slightly expostulatory, as though in good-humoured protest at the defects of a woman’s logic: “You were introduced by the London & Northern Bank! Shall we say that you were introduced for the explicit purpose of making William Rabone’s acquaintance? And do you still say that you had no special reason to change your name?”

  In a long moment of silence, and with visible effort, Miss Weston controlled herself to reply: “Whatever reason I may have had, it has not the remotest connection with the murder concerning which I am giving evidence, and I would prefer not to reply.”

  “I am sorry, Miss Weston, but I must still ask you to do so.”

  “I think it should be sufficient when I say that it has nothing to do with the present case.”

  “It is a matter on which you may not be the best judge.”

  Mr. Garrison interposed. “The questions appear to be quite simple, Miss Weston, and I must instruct you that it is your duty to answer them. It is very difficult to see why you should object to do so. I will repeat them for you. Did you enter the employment of the Texall Enquiry Agency with the direct purpose of being appointed to watch William Rabone? And why did you think it necessary for this purpose to change your name?”

  It might be noticed by those who watched closely that Miss Weston’s hands, which had been pressed tightly upon the rail of the witness-box, relaxed their tension, and her voice lost its previous tone of restraint, as she replied.

  “Very well. If you insist, I must tell you. I did it I because I knew that Mr. Rabone was responsible for my father’s death.”

  Mr. Pippin contrived to look several things at the same time. He was surprised, shocked, sympathetic, anxious for more. Inwardly, he was in excellent spirits, finding that he was reaping a fruitful crop from what he had expected to be lean if not barren ground. He began: “Perhaps, Miss Weston, you would—” But Mr. Garrison interrupted him.

  “I will deal with this, if you please. Miss Weston, I am sure you realize the gravity of the allegation you have just made. Will you tell me what ground you have for charging William Rabone with responsibility for your father’s death?”

  “My father was chief accountant at the head office of the London & Northern Bank. He shot himself two years ago, after he had been transferred to a less responsible position.”

  “And how does that support the imputation against the man with whose murder—if such it were—we are now dealing?”

  “The bank was the victim of certain forgeries of a very cunning kind, which required an inside knowledge such as my father had. He said that there was only one other man except himself who could have given the information by which those frauds were successfully carried out. That was Mr. Rabone. My father said to me, time after time, that he was sure Rabone was guilty, but that he had no proof, and that was not a thing which he could say, when there was equal suspicion against himself.

  “He was never the same man after that incident, though he received a letter from the directors assuring him of their continued confidence. His health broke down, and that was, as I have since been assured, the only reason that he was transferred to a position of less responsibility. But he took it the wrong way, and he committed suicide two days later.”

  Mr. Garrison considered this explanation. He addressed Mr. Pippin: “You will see that Miss Weston felt that if it could be shown that Rabone was an unfaithful servant to the bank, it would clear any shadow of suspicion from her father’s name. It is a matter which may or may not be relevant to the present case. At present, it seems to me to be somewhat remote. Perhaps that will be all, Mr. Pippin?”

  It was a plain hint that, in the magistrate’s opinion, the cross-examination should not be continued; but Mr. Pippin had been consulting hurriedly with Mr. Huddleston (who had re-entered the court a few minutes earlier), and he now rose to say that there were a few further questions which he felt it necessary to ask. “I have,” he said, “my client’s interests to consider.”

  “That,” Mr. Garrison agreed, “is the paramount consideration. Go on, Mr. Pippin.”

  Mr. Pippin turned to the witness: “You have told the court, Miss Weston, that you accounted William Rabone responsible for your father’s death, and having that conviction in your mind—whether it were well-founded or not—you were willing to be the instrument of his ruin?”

  “I wanted to get the truth.”

  “Yes.... Whatever it might be?”

  She considered this with a slight frown. “Yes. But I knew what it would be. You see, I had known my father.”

  “Anyway, you would have won William Rabone’s confidence, if you had been able to do so, and betrayed it to his employers, if it would have resulted in his conviction for defrauding the bank?”

  “Oh, yes,” she answered. “He would have betrayed them first, would he not? That was what I intended to do.” Her lips set firmly as she added, in a low voice, as though to herself, and yet so that it could be plainly heard through the silent court: “I would have done more than that.”

  Mr. Garrison looked up from his notes to regard the witness in a keenly questioning way. Mr. Pippin allowed a slight expression of surprise to pass over a face by which his thoughts were not often shown. Mr. Richard Middleton Junior murmured, “Perhaps you did,” loudly enough to be heard by most of those on the legal benches, and by Mr. Garrison, who gave the solicitor a glance of silent but sharp rebuke.

  Mr. Pippin asked: “And will you please tell the court exactly
what you would have been willing to do?”

  “I mean that he couldn’t have got more than he deserved, or than I should have been glad to have been him have.”

  “Even to his death?”

  She did not appear to observe the possible implication of her replies. She said: “I’m not sorry he’s dead, if you mean that.”

  “Would it be correct to say that what you saw of him during the last few weeks did not lessen the hatred which you had felt when he was no more than the name of a man you had never met?”

  “I think it made it worse. I hated him for what he had done, and I disliked him additionally for what I found him to be. I think that was how most people would feel.”

  “Perhaps they would.... And having these feelings, you would not be stirred to any animosity toward anyone who might kill him, nor desire to bring such a one under the penalty of the law?”

  Miss Weston paused on this question. She glanced at the man in the dock, as the one to whom allusion was presumably made. Peter Entwistle did not look particularly repulsive to her. “No,” she said. “Not the least. I think it’s a better world now he’s dead.”

  “Yet, having these feelings, you showed, on your own account, considerable courage, and ran into more possible danger than most young women would care to face, with no other object than to trace the murderer of the man whose death you regard as giving so little cause for regret. Can you explain that?”

  “I didn’t think of it in that way. I just wanted to get at the truth, as I had been doing all along.” She added: “But if I had thought of it like that, I expect I should have done much the same. I should have thought they all belonged to the same gang, though they might have quarrelled among themselves.”

  Mr. Pippin was not sure that he liked this reply, and had sufficient discretion to see that if he continued further he might fare worse. He decided to switch off as rapidly as possible to another line of attack. He asked: “You are quite sure that you have told the court the full truth, neither more nor less, as to why you left your room immediately following William Rabone’s death?”