In the Balance

by Patricia Wentworth - Miss Silver 04 - In the Balance

  Lady Steyne and Mrs Jerningham sat next to each other. A pretty contrast —one so dark and the other so fair. But Lady Steyne had a lovely colour, and Mrs Jerningham was quite dreadfully pale. Of course it did her credit, poor thing—a most distressing occasion. Mr Jerningham was on his wife’s other side. Very right and proper, and most natural that he should appear concerned at her looks. He put a hand on hers, bent and whispered to her, and even after receiving what was obviously a reassurance continued to manifest a good deal of affection and concern. The young man beyond him was of course the cousin, Mr Rafe Jerningham. Really they were an extraordinarily good-looking family. Such a graceful person, if one could apply that description to a man. Not so tall or so broad in the shoulders as his cousin Dale, but so very well proportioned. A very mobile, expressive countenance, and such beautiful white teeth. In happier circumstances, Miss Silver judged, he would be a lively and amusing companion. His expression at the moment was decorous in the extreme.

  The proceedings began.

  Evidence of identification. Medical evidence. Miss Cole’s evidence.

  The coastguard who had found the body at 7.15. The doctor who had examined it. The time at which death must have taken place, somewhere between 9 p.m. and midnight. Then Miss Cole.

  Dr Creek treated her very gently.

  “You say that your niece was unhappy.”

  Miss Cole pressed a clean handkerchief to her eyes.

  “Oh, yes, sir,” she said with a sob.

  “Would you say that she was desperately unhappy—that is, unhappy enough to do some desperate thing?”

  Miss Cole sobbed again.

  “Oh, no, sir.”

  “And did she ever speak of doing anything desperate, such as taking her own life?”

  “Oh, no, sir. And she never did, and never had any cause to. She was a good girl, Cissie was.”

  “Yes—that is not in question. You must not feel that there is any slur upon this poor girl’s character. She was a good girl, and she was unhappy. We have evidence on both these points. The questions I am asking you are directed to finding out the degree of her unhappiness, and whether she showed any sign of lack of mental balance. Did she show any such sign?”

  “Oh, no, sir.”

  “And you say that she did not at any time threaten to take her life?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Or say that she wished she was dead?”

  “No, sir.”

  William next, uplifted, perspiring, scarlet to the tips of his large ears. He took the oath in a completely inaudible mumble, caught the eye of Ellen Flagg’s father amongst the jury, and became convinced that he had done something wrong and would probably be indicted for perjury. He wondered if Ellen was there, gave his evidence in agonised gasps, and retired thankfully to the back of the hall, having established the facts that Cissie Cole had come to see Mrs Jerningham at about twenty minutes to nine, had left again as near as possible to nine o’clock, and had gone away “quite cheerful like.” Bad evidence for Pell.

  Mrs Dale Jerningham next.

  Miss Silver watched her with interest and attention. She took the oath in a faint but perfectly distinct voice, and gave her evidence with great simplicity—the interview with Cissie—the brief exchange of words—the gift of the coat—Cissie’s undoubted pleasure.

  Everyone was looking at the coat. It lay folded in a brown paper wrapping upon one of the small tables which were used when a whist drive was held in the hall. The paper covered it so that only a small piece showed where the young constable had turned it back. Why was it covered like that? Because of stains too horrible to be seen? The thought was in every mind.

  Miss Silver watched the faces, all turned in one direction except her own—interested, frightened, horrified, gloating. Everyone except herself stared at the handsbreadth of woollen stuff showing between the folds of brown paper—a broad green stripe shading into cream, narrow lines of red and yellow crossing the green. Her own eyes rested upon the face of Mr Rafe Jerningham.

  Like everyone else, he was looking at the coat in which Cissie had fallen to her death—Mrs Dale Jerningham’s coat. He looked at the coat, and then he looked at Mrs Dale Jerningham. In both looks there was a momentary flash of something. Was it horror?

  Miss Silver was not sure. The rest of the face was bleakly inexpressive. She felt as if in passing a curtained window she had caught a glimpse of something strange, not meant to be seen by anyone at all—a chink in the curtain, a single fleeting glimpse of what lay behind, seen and gone again in a flash.

  There was no interval before the Coroner said,

  “Is this the coat, Mrs Jerningham?”

  One would not have said that she could be any paler, but she did turn paler as she bent shrinking eyes upon it and said,

  “Yes.”

  She went back to her seat.

  Dale Jerningham next—very upright, very audible, very straightforward in his plain answers. He and his cousin Lady Steyne had walked up on to Tane Head to see the sunset. They had been for a drive first. He could not be certain of the time, but it would be somewhere about twenty to ten. There was still a good deal of light in the sky—a broad belt of gold where the sun had set.

  The Coroner: “The sun had actually set at 9.2, summer time. You were not on the headland then?”

  “Oh, no—we were driving. But we saw the light in the sky, and my cousin suggested going up to look at it from the cliff.”

  “Did you see anyone else on the headland?”

  Dale Jerningham hesitated, dropped his gaze, and said in a much lower voice,

  “I saw Pell.”

  “Where did you see him?”

  “He was running down the track from the cliff.”

  “Will you tell us just what happened.”

  Dale seemed puzzled and distressed.

  “Nothing happened, sir. He came rushing down the track and got on his motor-bicycle and rode away. I don’t think he saw us.”

  Miss Silver looked at Pell. His hand still gripped the bench. His face showed nothing. Sweat glistened on his forehead. A lock of black hair fell greasy and unkempt across it. His eyes never shifted from a ragged knot--hole in the boarded floor at a distance of about two yards from his own feet and in a direct line with them.

  Dale Jerningham finished his evidence and sat down.

  Lady Steyne gave hers. She had been with her cousin. They had seen Pell. She sat down.

  Whilst she was giving her evidence, Miss Silver was looking at Mr Rafe Jerningham, who was looking at Lady Steyne. His expression interested her very much indeed. It betrayed admiration, with a kind of mocking sparkle on it which reminded her of the sparkle on some kinds of wine—champagne, or moselle. To a less acute observer it would not perhaps have betrayed anything at all. The village was much too used to Mr Rafe not to take him for granted.

  The name of Mary Crisp was called. From the second row of chairs there emerged a thin, lank child with a cropped brown head and a knee-length frock of pink and white cotton. She hung her head and looked shyly at the Coroner as he asked her how old she was.

  “Fourteen, sir.”

  It didn’t seem possible. Miss Silver had taken her for no more than ten.

  There was a pause, a whispered consultation resulting in the production of Mrs Ernest Crisp.

  “Oh, yes, she’s fourteen, sir—that’s right enough.”

  Mary continued to hang her head. Only as her mother sat down she darted a bright elfish look at Pell, who had not moved. When the Coroner spoke to her she looked down again, her little brown face quite without expression.

  “You were in Berry Lane on Wednesday evening, Mary?”

  An only just audible whisper said “Yes.”

  “With your little brother John aged seven?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you see anyone go up the track on to Tane Head?”

  A pair of bright dark eyes looked up, and down again. The little cropped head was nodded vigorously.

>   “Who did you see?”

  A small, thin finger pointed at Pell.

  “Him.”

  “Was there anyone with him?”

  “Yes—Cissie Cole.”

  “Will you tell us what they did?”

  Mary found a shrill, piping voice.

  “Rode his motor-bike up on to the track, he did, with Cissie on behind, an’ they got off an’ walked up on to the cliff.”

  “Did you see anyone else?”

  “Mr Jerningham—an’ Lady Steyne. They went up the same way.”

  “Did you see Pell and Cissie again?”

  She shook her head.

  “We come home. It was time Johnny was in.”

  “Now, Mary—are you sure it was Cissie Cole you saw?”

  A vigorous nod.

  “It was light enough for you to see her quite plainly?”

  “Yes, sir. It wasn’t only twenty past nine, and Mum said to be in by ha’ past, and we was.”

  From her seat Mrs Ernest Crisp said, “That’s right.”

  29

  MARY, RELEASED, DUCKED her head and scuttled back to her mother’s side. Once there, she directed a long unwinking stare at Pell. His turn had come—Alfred Sidney Pell. But it was not till the young constable put his hand on his shoulder that he lifted first an unkempt head, and then a stiff, unwilling body.

  There was a chair for the witnesses, but he did not sit in it. Having got to his feet he kept them, slouching behind the chair, his hands gripping the rail as he had gripped the bench. He took the oath in a deep muttering voice. The words blurred and ran one into the other. They might have been in some foreign language, mechanically repeated without any knowledge of their meaning.

  The Coroner put his preliminary questions. The answers came each with its own long pause.

  He was Alfred Sidney Pell. He was twenty-nine years of age. He was a married man. He had kept company with Cissie Cole. She didn’t know he was married. Not until a fortnight ago. She was a good girl and nobody need say anything different. He had been in Mr Jerningham’s employment as a mechanic. Mr Jerningham had dismissed him on account of his being married.

  The Coroner leaned forward with his air of courteous attention.

  “Do you mean that literally, or do you mean that Mr Jerningham dismissed you because you had been passing yourself off as a single man in order to court Cissie Cole?”

  A rough mumble of something that sounded like “That’s right.”

  “Now, Pell—about Wednesday evening. Had you an appointment to meet Cissie Cole? I believe you admit meeting her.”

  “Yes—I met her. We’d fixed it up.”

  “You picked her up on your motor-bicycle as she came away from Tanfield Court.”

  “That’s right.”

  “But she went there quite unexpectedly, did she not?”

  “We’d fixed to meet round about nine o’clock. She was there all right. I didn’t know where she’d been.”

  “You see this coat? Was she wearing it when she met you?”

  A pause. Then he said,

  “She put it on.”

  “Did she tell you that it had just been given to her by Mrs Jerningham?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did she express pleasure at the gift?”

  Another pause, and a longer one.

  “I didn’t take that much notice.”

  “Did she seem in good spirits?”

  He repeated what he had just said, doggedly.

  “I didn’t take that much notice.”

  Miss Silver thought, “He’s uncouth, but he’s got a brain. He knows he’s in danger. He avoided that cleverly.” She missed the Coroner’s next question, but not Pell’s answer.

  “I tell you I’d something else to think about than coats and such.”

  “Do you mean that you were going to have an important interview with Cissie Cole?”

  “I don’t know about that.”

  Yes, he was clever. She looked at the sallow, unshaven cheek and saw how tense was the line of the jaw.

  “Will you tell us what happened after you picked Cissie up.”

  “We went up on Tane Head like that kid said.”

  “Why did you choose Tane Head?”

  The man was waking up. His speech had cleared. He lifted his head.

  “I wanted a place where we could talk.”

  “You had something special to say to her?”

  A pause.

  “It had got so we had to talk. She was willing.”

  “Will you tell us what passed between you.”

  He put up a hand and pushed the hair out of his eyes, then back to gripping the chair again.

  “We talked. I asked her would she come away with me and I’d get a job somewhere where nobody ’ud know we weren’t man and wife. And she said no.”

  “Did you quarrel about it?”

  “Not to say quarrel.”

  “You have heard Mr Jerningham’s evidence. He says you came rushing down the track alone at about twenty minutes to ten. Is that correct?”

  “Something like that.”

  “You were in an agitated state?”

  He swallowed.

  “I was upset.”

  “Will you tell us why?”

  “She’d said no—that’s why. Wasn’t it enough?”

  “According to the evidence given by Mary Crisp and Mr Jerningham you had been up on the headland with Cissie Cole for about twenty minutes when you took your motor-bicycle and rode away.”

  “Something like that.”

  “And you spent that time trying to persuade her to go away with you?”

  “That’s right.”

  “And she continued to say no?”

  “Yes.”

  “What made you break off in the end and leave her there if it wasn’t a quarrel? Do you say that there was no quarrel?”

  Pell said in a choked voice,

  “She wouldn’t listen. I’d said all I could.”

  Miss Silver’s eye travelled from him to the Jerninghams. Mr Dale Jerningham was sitting forward watching his ex-mechanic with a full, deep look of concern. Mr Rafe Jerningham was looking out of the open window which framed only a rectangle of empty, cloudless blue. His lifted face seemed to have sharpened. The features had it their own way. There was no expression there. Mrs Dale Jerningham looked down at the hands which were folded in her lap. Lady Steyne looked at the jury. Miss Silver looked at them too—farmers; a retired coastguard; a couple of small tradesmen; the landlord of the Green Man. They sat there with their country faces blank and tanned, and their minds in all probability already made up. No one could have told what they were thinking about. There was not a face there but could keep its own counsel.

  “If it lay with them to hang him, he’d be dead.” The thought presented itself to Miss Silver’s mind without any credentials whatever, and was immediately accepted.

  She went back to Pell. The Coroner was asking,

  “Where was Cissie Cole when you left her?”

  “Up on the cliff.” The chair back groaned with the strain he put upon it.

  “You are on oath. Do you say that she was alive when you left her?”

  “Acourse she was!” said Pell in a sudden big voice that filled the hall.

  “You did not throw her over the cliff?”

  “Why should I?”

  “No one knows that but yourself. Did you?”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “Or see her throw herself over?”

  “She hadn’t any call to throw herself over. I never touched her.”

  “What was she doing when you left?”

  Pell’s voice dropped again.

  “She was sitting on the grass. She’d her handkerchief out, crying into it. I spoke angry to her and made her cry. But I never touched her.”

  “How near to the edge of the cliff was she?”

  “Twenty to twenty-five foot.”

  “Do you think she could have fallen by accident?�
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  “I don’t know—seems she must ha’d done. How do I know what she did after I come away?”

  “Did she say anything to you about taking her own life?”

  “No.”

  “And you swear that she was alive when you came away?”

  “She was alive,” said Pell.

  He went back to his seat, walking heavily with creaking boots. When he had slumped down again his left hand went back to its old position gripping the bench.

  The Coroner recalled Dale Jerningham.

  “Just a moment, Mr Jerningham. How long had you been on the headland before you saw Pell running down the track?”

  “Only a very few minutes.”

  “Did you hear any cry?”

  “No, sir.”

  “How far were you from that part of the cliff beneath which the body was found?”

  “I should think a quarter of a mile.”

  “Would you expect to hear a scream at that distance?”

  He hesitated, and then said, “We could hear the sea-gulls.”

  “Do you think it is possible that you heard a scream and thought it was the cry of a gull?”

  “I don’t think so. A gull’s cry is different.”

  “Thank you, Mr Jerningham ...Lady Steyne—”

  He asked her the same questions and received the same answers.

  That was all the evidence. Mr Rafe Jerningham was not called.

  Miss Silver settled herself in her chair and listened attentively to the Coroner’s summing up. Very clear, very fair, very simple. The medical evidence established the fact that the deceased had met with her death by falling from one of the cliffs of Tane Head. The question before them was how that fall had come about, whether by accident, suicide, or murder. There was no evidence as to any intention to commit suicide. There was evidence of unhappiness. Unhappy people did sometimes give way to an impulse to do away with themselves. This possibility could not be excluded. There was no evidence on the score of accident, but this possibility also could not be excluded.

  “You have heard Alfred Pell’s evidence. If you think that he is speaking the truth and that he left Cissie Cole on the headland alive, you should, I think, bring in a verdict of death by misadventure—there being no evidence to enable you to decide as between suicide and accident.”