Verdict of Twelve

by Raymond Postgate

  Sir Isambard meditated again.

  “Anything against either Ada or snooper-tutor?” he asked.

  “No. Nothing that I know of. Mrs. van Beer says they were both hateful and malicious and acted suspiciously, but so far as I can see she means nothing at all by that. She talks like that of everybody. They had no financial interest in the boy’s death, either.”

  “Well, that leaves the Rodds and the child himself. For though the pointers the police have towards Mrs. van Beer aren’t conclusive, they’re pretty serious combined with the overwhelming motive. Unless we can show that other people could have done it and had reasons for doing it, we shall be in a tough spot.

  “The Rodds get £4,000 as a result of the death. Mrs. Rodd could very easily have doctored the salad—more easily than any one else. Didn’t you say there was some suspicion of Rodd stealing his employer’s wine? It makes the pair look shady characters. Rodd might have ordered the Essex paper in his employer’s name.

  “A line there, I think.

  “The child himself, too. From what you say of him, I’m inclined to think there’s more hope there. The Rodds were well spoken of. You say yourself that you wouldn’t believe they would have done the child any harm. But the boy was a very unhappy creature by your account, and you say he hated his aunt. I think it might be possible to persuade the jury that he intended to poison both himself and her, and died because of his weak constitution. We’ll see what we can get out of the woman on those lines.”

  Sir Isambard became silent and soon afterwards fell asleep.

  ***

  When they were introduced into the prison room where Mrs. van Beer was, Sir Isambard looked at her keenly. He saw a bedraggled woman of about fifty, with a lined and sagging face, and red eyes. She had dyed hair—golden—and a bad-tempered mouth. Her hands were quivering and she was obviously in a bad state of nerves.

  As soon as the introduction was over, she went off like a firework.

  “Well, I must say. It’s time you came. I’m glad you’ve condescended to pay me some attention. You’re costing me enough in money; I think I’ve paid for better service than this. You don’t care how long I stay in gaol. You don’t think for one minute of anything but your fees. I know you, Mr. Henderson; I’ve always known you. You think I’m a disgrace to the family and you’d have liked to do me out of my rights long ago. It’s only because you couldn’t that you’re here now. The Arkwrights! That’s all you care for.”

  Mr. Henderson was shocked, but he had obviously had this sort of thing before. “My dear lady,” he said, “please be calm. Of course, you are overstrained, and we make every allowance for that. Believe me, we are doing all that we can do. Now, Sir Isambard Burns has very kindly come down all the way from London to go over the case with you. We need to ask you a few further questions.”

  “Very kindly come down all the way from London!” Mrs. van Beer sneered, and her voice became shrill. “Oh, thanks so very much,” she minced. “I pay, don’t I? You know everything already. I’ve answered and answered your questions till I’m sick. I’m not going to be messed about any more. You’ve got all the facts and you let me stay here, locked up on a trumped-up, nonsensical charge. You don’t do anything. All you want to do is to hang things out as long as possible so as to increase your fees. You ought to be ashamed of yourselves.”

  Her voice was now a scream, and her sentences were punctuated with sobbing.

  Mr. Henderson began a fresh soothing sentence, but Sir Isambard motioned him to silence.

  “Mrs. van Beer,” he said in the deep booming voice that had impressed so many courts. “I have certain questions to ask you. Will you or will you not answer them?”

  “You get me out of here,” she snuffled in answer. “That’s your job. You know everything you need to know. Stop mucking me around. I’ll show you gentlemen”—she snapped the word—”I won’t be treated like this.”

  “Very well, then, Henderson,” said Sir Isambard, “that settles that. There is no point in staying here. Mrs. van Beer, Mr. Henderson and I can have nothing more to do with your case. You must find some other advisers more to your liking. We shall not handle any case on such terms. I wish you goodmorning. Come along, Henderson.”

  Sir Isambard gathered up his hat and coat, and proceeded dignifiedly to the door. Mr. Henderson, after a momentary hesitation and in obvious distress, did the same.

  Mrs. van Beer watched them in silence. As they neared the door she said in a less truculent tone:

  “You won’t leave me like this. I’m sorry if I spoke as I shouldn’t have.”

  “Will you go first, Mr. Henderson?” said Sir Isambard with unusual punctiliousness, and ignoring Mrs. van Beer. Mr. Henderson walked through the door, unwillingly.

  Rosalie van Beer put her hand out and half-rose. “Oh,” she said in quite a different tone, “please don’t go.”

  With that, her overtired nerves gave way and she began to cry in earnest. She laid her head on her hands on the table and wept quietly. Sir Isambard allowed her to cry: he realized the hysteria was working itself out. After a minute she lifted her head, and her ravaged face had acquired some dignity and a little calm.

  “I’ll do my best to answer,” she said in a quiet tone. “I’ve no friends, and I’ve not had any for a long time. Sitting here alone, I get that frightened; and I’ve no one to turn to. It comes over me, and I don’t know what I’m saying or doing. I’ll be all right now; I will, I promise you.”

  Sir Isambard spoke more kindly but still formally. He wished the interview to be as formal as might be; it would be less of a strain on her unreliable nerves. (How would she do in the witness box? He put that thought aside for later consideration.)

  “This is a very trying time for you, Mrs. van Beer. No woman can go through what you are going through and not feel the strain. Believe me, we realize that. But we must all keep our heads. That is the only thing that will help us. Now, do you feel you can talk this over with me calmly now. Or shall Mr. Henderson get you a glass of water?”

  “No. Thank you. I’m quite ready now.”

  “Excellent. Now first I should like to speak to you about the Rodds.”

  It was an unfortunate choice. Mrs. van Beer flushed and said, “They’re thieves. Smooth-faced and—”

  “Mrs. van Beer!” Sir Isambard’s voice was gentle, but he looked at her very firmly.

  She bobbed her head forward at him deprecatingly. “I’m sorry. What did you want to know?”

  “I have heard that Rodd is suspected of having stolen wine from your cellar. Do you know if that is the case? Did you suspect him of it?”

  “I didn’t suspect him of anything. I was always confiding with them. He told me all that wine was sour, and it was nasty stuff what I tasted, too. So I told him to throw it away and sell the bottles. I didn’t know he’d been drinking it until the inspector caught him, and Mr. Henderson looked into it and found what he’d been up to.” She looked at Mr. Henderson gratefully, trying to offer amends.

  “You told him to throw it away, and he drank it instead? H’m. How long had this been going on?”

  “Years, I suppose. Since soon after Sir Henry died, anyway. Of course, I don’t know how fast and how often he drank it.”

  Sir Isambard drummed with two fingers on his own chin, a trick of his when puzzled. He decided to change the subject.

  “Now I want to know about your relations with Philip. Did he dislike you?”

  “I know that we ought never to speak evil of the dead; but he was a most difficult child. He was always—”

  Sir Isambard looked at her sharply again. She stopped suddenly, and said, “What especially did you want to know?”

  “I want to know of any concrete instances—actual instances, not general talk, mind—showing that he was either queer in his behaviour, or particularly evilly disposed to you.”

>   Mrs. van Beer looked perplexed, as well she might. It would have been hard to find, among Philip’s misdemeanours, anything that looked very serious now. Annoying the child had been, but she realized Sir Isambard needed something more than childish petulance. He tried again:

  “Can you think of instances that other people saw? Something that either the Rodds, or the tutor, or Ada, or the doctor, saw. Something that shows him to have been rather unbalanced. I am wondering, you see, whether the poor boy may not have been so obsessed by a dislike of you that he tried to poison both himself and you. If he had been nursing such a desire, others may have seen something that pointed to a lack of balance. Try and think.”

  Mrs. van Beer made an effort. At last something presented itself to her mind.

  “Well, there was a thing that happened just before the accident. The servants saw it, though them lying like they do I don’t know what they’d say.”

  “Never mind: tell me.”

  “He made an attack on me with a knife in the kitchen and cut open my face. It was because the doctor had ordered me to destroy an unhealthy and diseased rabbit he had; and, of course, I had to do what the doctor said.”

  Mrs. van Beer proceeded to give her own account of the death of Philip’s pet. Sir Isambard smiled and seemed highly pleased. Here was evidence of murderous intention enough, and it seemed that there might be corroboration.

  “Tell me anything more you can about this rabbit,” he said.

  “A big savage thing it was. And you were asking was he ever queer in his behaviour; now, this is just what you want. Funny me not thinking of it before. It shows what a trained mind will do, you seeing how important it is and me knowing it all along and not having sense enough to understand.” Mrs. van Beer had now brightened up and was almost her old self. “He used to pray to that rabbit, like. He used to recite things to it, and I found him one day kneeling in front of it and chanting like you do in church. That was the time he gave it that funny name.”

  “Devotion to a rabbit is common among children,” said Sir Isambard disappointedly. “What sort of funny name was it, by the way?”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” said Rosalie, deflated. “Something like Shreddy Vassar.”

  “Like what?” said Sir Isambard.

  “I’ll get it in a moment. I noticed it because it was so very queer.” Mrs. van Beer hesitated. “Sredni Vashtar. That was it.”

  Sir Isambard looked deep in thought, but said nothing. After a minute, he rose.

  “Thank you, dear lady,” he said. “You’ve given us a great deal of most valuable aid. And we shall be back to see you soon.” He extended his hand.

  Part III

  Trial and Verdict

  The Court

  The Judge: Mr. Justice Stringfellow (Sir Alan Herbert Lemesurier Stringfellow).

  The Accused: Rosalie van Beer, widow.

  Leading Counsel for the Crown: Harold John Proudie, Esq., K.C.

  Leading Counsel for the Defence: Sir Isambard Alexander Burns, Bt., K.C.

  Foreman of the Jury: A. G. Popesgrove, Esq.

  Remaining Jurors: Miss V. M. Atkins, Mrs. Morris, Dr. P. Holmes, Messrs. J. A. Stannard, E. Bryan, E. D. George, F. A. H. Allen, D. Elliston Smith, I. W. Drake, G. Parham Groves, and H. Wilson.

  Clerk of Assize: Mr. P. J. Noble.

  1

  Mr. Proudie did not, naturally, give to the jury all the details of Rosalie’s life which we have just read. Some he did not know, anyhow: others he thought were superfluous. Her early background he sketched in very faintly, and indeed mercifully. He said scarcely anything of her unfortunate marriage to Mr. van Beer, and left the jury with no worse impression than that she had been a determined climber. Miss Atkins, ex-general servant, and Mr. Popesgrove, once a Thessalian waif, who had both risen from low beginnings to comfort, were prejudiced rather for than against her by the information; Mr. Bryan, shop assistant and fanatic, was indeed confirmed in a suspicion that Rosalie was a worldly woman, but he was uncomfortably realizing that he was surrounded by worldliness and that no person in the whole case, or in the court at all, was better than another. He was alone, a solitary Christian, and the hosts of Midian prowled and prowled around; yet his duty was not to defend himself against them—that he knew well enough how to do—but the grotesque task of separating one wolf from another and saying which was more wolfish, more blackly and thoroughly evil. The heart of mankind was in any case abominably wicked, unless it was redeemed, and to distinguish between grades of darkness was an almost impossible task. His dull grey eyes grew more perplexed as Mr. Proudie droned on; surely there would soon be a sign? But no sign came. He tried, imitating Mr. Popesgrove, the foreman, who was scribbling industriously, to take notes, but he had nothing to write down. He found himself drawing faces, an idle and frivolous occupation, and cast down his pencil angrily.

  Mr. Proudie made very little of the manner of the discovery of the cutting from the East Essex Monitor. He did not even mention the tutor’s name. It would come out in the evidence; meanwhile he was content to ascribe the discovery to the police “on information received”. The description of the find was the first event in his speech, nevertheless, which made the jury alert. Each juror looked grave; Mr. Popesgrove stopped making notes and stared at Mr. Proudie with a fixed gaze of appraisal. Dr. Holmes felt a distinct sensation of relief. Here now was something that he could deal with. Up till that moment the course of events had displeased him. As a university don, he had expected to be selected foreman, or if not that, at least to dominate the jury. There appeared to be no person of mature age who had anything like his educational qualifications. Some of his colleagues were probably not even gentlemen. There were actually two women, and Dr. Holmes, from his experience of Somerville and St. Hugh’s students, was satisfied that their intelligence would be insufficient for them to grasp the essentials of the case at all. They would naturally require instruction and guidance, and it would be unlikely that any one but he could provide them. For after all he, and quite probably he alone, was skilled in dispassionately weighing of evidence. He considered himself a man of trained judgment. He was a scholar and had edited several Latin texts. To establish the correct readings in a corrupted author he had to go through a process which, he considered, was in all its essentials, judicial. Whenever he sat down to his work, he would have various editions by earlier scholars, commenting on the difficulties and offering their own solutions. All he had to do was to sit back and reflect. He would consider what authority should be attributed to each manuscript: he could by long experience trace back certain MSS. to one given archetype. If a group of MSS. continually presented the same errors, then they were all clearly copied from a single original. Therefore, their combined evidence added up to no more than one. Editors’ conjectures, on the other hand, had to be judged by their innate plausibility alone. Thus, he felt he had been for years trained in estimating the value of witnesses; the case would be child’s play to him and he would be able swiftly to make up his mind and direct the rest of the jury.

  But as Mr. Proudie told his story, and as he watched this rather common, uninteresting woman in the dock, Dr. Holmes had begun to realize that he was as much at sea as any other juror. You can interrogate classical manuscripts, in the proper sense of the word. You can ask them the same question again and again, and spend months considering their answer. And they will never change; their answer will always be the same. You can have as long as the publisher will allow you to consider your verdict (which is a lifetime, in the case of classical texts nowadays). But he realized that he could not treat spoken evidence in that way. He could not have it repeated at his pleasure. He could not even require Mr. Proudie to recapitulate his points whenever he needed to be reminded of them. Moreover, he had a very different question from his usual problems to answer. It was not: “What would a rather dirty-minded poet probably have written in the reign of Domitian?” but �
�How do ordinary human beings behave in times of stress? What did that unpleasant-looking woman over there probably do to a boy I have never seen?” And Dr. Holmes wondered if he really did know at all how ordinary people behave. His confidence began to fail him.

  Now at last he was to be presented with a document. A piece of paper, which he could interrogate. Almost a manuscript. And very certainly a raft in a troubled sea. Relieved, he looked with renewed indulgence at his neighbour, that deplorable little man with the indigestion, whose eyes apologized to every one who would condescend to look his way.

  The jury listened with equanimity to the opening evidence, which was medical. Dr. Lammas and Dr. Herrington described the cause and manner of death. It appeared that it was not going to be disputed that the boy Philip died from ivy poisoning. Only Mr. Popesgrove troubled to make notes; and this he did merely from a sense of duty. Some juror might ask him a question later, in the juryroom, and it would be his duty not only to be absolutely fair but fully equipped with all the information. Sir Isambard Burns, for the defence, asked no questions at all, though the woman in the dock repeatedly looked at him in an imploring manner.

  Then Dr. Parkes was called. He looked very tired, old and nervous. The little white-haired man on the jury, Mr. Stannard, the public-house keeper, looked sympathetically upon this other little white-haired man. He didn’t half look frightened. Would have bolted like a horse if he could, thought Mr. Stannard. And when Sir Isambard uncoiled his length and stood up to cross-examine, Dr. Parkes actually trembled; Mr. Stannard frowned in sympathy. If Dr. Parkes had been on trial he would have voted right away to acquit him; it wasn’t fair to torment an old fellow. Anyway, he disliked that lawyer; the first beginning of an opinion formed in his mind.

  Sir Ikey took a long time straightening himself out, and inserting his monocle into his eye. Ultimately, he was ready.