Tragedy at Law

by Cyril Hare

  “And now her ladyship’s coming to Wimblingham!” he exclaimed. “Well, I wish her joy of it, Marshal, that is all—I wish her joy of it. Do you know, sir, that no judge’s lady has stayed at Wimblingham since nineteen nought twelve? Except Lady Fosbery, and she, of course, doesn’t count.”

  Derek was torn between a desire to find out why Mr. Justice Fosbery’s wife did not count and a feeling that it was time that he attempted the difficult task of putting Beamish in his place. Pride won by a short head.

  “Really, Beamish,” he said, “you can hardly expect me to discuss Lady Barber’s decision with you.”

  “I am not discussing her ladyship,” Beamish answered with some hauteur. “I am discussing the Lodgings at Wimblingham. And that’s a matter that concerns us all, as you will discover to your cost. What I say is, it’s not fair to the Marshal or the Judge’s Clerk, let alone the domestic staff, for a judge’s lady to foist herself on those Lodgings.”

  “I understand that they are very uncomfortable,” said Derek, “but I still don’t see why——”

  “You heard her ladyship say that they were lousy,” Beamish interrupted, “and we will let that word pass for want of a better. That’s not the point—at least not the whole of the point, if you follow me. What you don’t realize, Mr. Marshall, is this: there are only two decent bedrooms in those Lodgings, and one just passable.”

  And then the whole mystery was made plain, and with it Beamish’s grievance, Savage’s gloom, and Greene’s mute despair. In a bachelor establishment, which had become the normal rule at Wimblingham, the larger of the two decent bedrooms was naturally appropriated to the use of the Judge. His Marshal occupied the other. The Clerk, next in the hierarchy, took the one which Beamish described as passable. The butler and marshal’s man made shift in the least unattractive of the remaining rooms. Now, with the advent of a lady who would have to be accommodated in one of the two best rooms, the rest of the household would be compelled to take a step down. Derek would oust Beamish from the second-class room, Beamish in turn would have to put up with what had been barely good enough for Savage, and finally Greene would be expelled by Savage to seek some nameless dog-kennel beneath the rafters, untenanted since nineteen nought twelve. Such are the penalties involved in departing from precedent in any matter affecting the administration of justice.

  The Fosbery case, Derek also learned, did not in any way impair the chain of authority which was now to be so rashly broken. The simple reason was that this affectionate couple, though well-stricken in years, had never abandoned the habit of sharing the same bed. Lady Fosbery’s presence, therefore, made no difference to the billeting arrangements.

  “Of course, they’re old-fashioned,” Beamish commented. “He doesn’t even ask for a dressing-room of his own. Why, they tell me….”

  He launched into details of a surprisingly intimate character. Derek, somewhat against his will, was so enthralled by these that he quite forgot for the time a question that had been puzzling him ever since Beamish began his exposition.

  He remembered it again just as he was getting into bed. How did Beamish know that Lady Barber had called the Lodgings “lousy”?

  Nothing could be higher testimony to the power of local government in England than the accommodation provided for His Majesty’s Judges in the county town of Wimbleshire. In the Lodgings there, as in all similar establishments on the circuit, a book was provided in which each visiting judge inscribed his name and was invited to add such comments as to him seemed fit upon the hospitality afforded. For upwards of thirty years judges had availed themselves of the invitation, and without exception their comments had been to the same effect. Ranging from querulous protest through bitter sarcasm to straightforward abuse, the entries made an interesting contribution to the literature of ill temper. Yet, throughout thirty years the county authorities of Wimbleshire, through sheer British determination, had succeeded in resisting the clamant demands of their exalted guests. In the spirit which had inspired the Wimbleshire Fencibles to stand fast against the Old Guard in their squares at Waterloo, they had withstood the massed assault of almost the entire strength of the King’s Bench Division of the Supreme Court of Judicature. In 1938, however, their resistance seemed at an end. Authority launched its ultimate irresistible attack, and the fiat went forth that unless new accommodation for His Majesty’s Judges was made available, Wimblingham should cease to be an assize town. Its ancient rank and dignity should be taken away and transferred to its hated rival, the upstart borough of Podchester. Sullenly, the County Councillors prepared to surrender. After one long last glorious debate in the Council Chamber they accepted the enemy’s terms. At enormous cost a site was bought and cleared, plans were prepared by the most expensive architect who could be found, and already the foundations of the new building had been laid when, for the second time in history, the Prussians arrived upon the stricken field and the tide of battle turned once more. For the duration of the war, at least, the Lodging’s book of Wimblingham was saved for a few more pages of vituperation.

  That the authorities of Wimbleshire had been able to carry out their successful defence so long was largely due to the fact that the Lodgings did not constitute a separate building but formed part of a large block which held also the Council Chamber itself and the Court in which the Assizes were held. It was a picturesque pile. Resting on foundations reputed to be Roman, and with stonework in its walls that was unquestionably Norman, it had been remodelled and patched by different hands to suit the tastes and needs of succeeding generations until, in the late seventeenth century, somebody, whom local tradition firmly but incorrectly declared to be Wren, masked the congeries of buildings with the charming façade which now fronts the central square of the town. After that beyond the provision of a little early Victorian plumbing, no further structural alterations were ever made, and behind the orderly Renaissance screen a labyrinth of passages and staircases gave access to offices, chambers, and halls, amongst them the suite of rooms which had been the subject of so many indignant memoranda.

  Derek prided himself on being able to rough it when necessary, but he gave a gasp of dismay when Greene opened the door of his room and with mute eloquence displayed what lay beyond. It was a gaunt, cold apartment, far too high for its size. It was illuminated by a dormer window out of which Derek, by standing on his toes, was just able to verify the fact that the metallic clamour which filled the room proceeded from the municipal tram terminus immediately beneath. The ceiling showed ominous stains of damp and the sagging wire mattress of the bed uttered a tired protesting creak when Derek incautiously tried it with his hand. Remembering that this was the room that Beamish had described as “passable”, he shivered as he thought of the descending degrees of discomfort to which the staff would be subjected.

  Leaving the room, Derek duly fell down the two steps outside the door into the dark corridor beyond. He recovered himself and picked his way down three or four further steps into a broader passage, out of which the main rooms of the lodgings opened. This passage apparently served other uses as well. The first door that he tried led him straight into the public gallery of the Court, the second into what had once been the Grand Jury room and was now apparently a depository for babies’ respirators. Finally, guided by the sound of voices, he reached the drawing-room. Here, in a decor that had changed little since it was originally ordered in the year of the Great Exhibition, he found Lady Barber, in surprisingly high spirits.

  “Isn’t this too exquisitely foul?” she said. “William and I have been trying to concoct something really stinging to put in the book. I’m sure there are rats in my room. I feel that I’m the bravest woman in England, venturing where no judge’s wife has ever dared before.”

  “Except Lady Fosbery,” said Derek. He repeated the gist of what Beamish had told him and was rewarded with a burst of laughter in which the Judge, who looked depressed and out of sorts, joined rather grudgingly.

  “Divine!” said Hilda. “I shall
dine out on that story for months—I mean, I should if there were any dinner-parties left to go to. Talking of dinners, I don’t know what sort of food we shall get here. Mrs. Square says that the kitchen range is completely beyond control. Thank Heaven, the calendar here is very short, with no civil work, so a couple of nights will see us through. I expect you’ll be glad of a day or two’s rest from your duties before the next assize, won’t you, Mr. Marshall? It’s a mercy that next to nobody seems to commit any crimes in Wimbleshire.”

  “It is a singular thing,” observed Barber, “but I have often observed that this county is comparatively free from serious crime.”

  The event was to prove that there were exceptions to this rule.

  Chapter 9

  A BLOW IN THE DARK

  Derek turned over in bed for the twentieth time, and for the twentieth time his bed registered a tinny protest. The movement had no effect on his comfort, as owing to the deep trough in which he lay his body returned always to exactly the same spot. The knobs and protuberances which variegated the surface of the mattress went into his right side instead of his left, and that was all. Dismally comparing himself to St. Lawrence on his gridiron, Derek prepared to await the dawn.

  Like most healthy people, who do not know what insomnia really is, Derek viewed the prospect of a sleepless night with horror. He would have found a book to occupy the time, but he shrank from the labour involved in replacing the cumbrous black-out curtains which he had incautiously removed before retiring. Besides, he reflected, the light was so placed as to make it impossible to read in bed without straining his eyes. There was nothing for it but to endure his fate with hardihood. It was his second night at Wimblingham, and, he was thankful to think, his last. The assize, no less grandiose and expensive than its predecessors at Markhampton and Southington, had barely filled a short working day. Three prisoners only had appeared and two of these had obligingly pleaded guilty. In the remaining case, Pettigrew, holding a brief for someone much junior to himself who was serving in the army, had skilfully jollied the jury into an acquittal in the face of determined opposition from the Bench. There had, Derek remembered, been more than a hint of personal antagonism towards Pettigrew in the summing up, and undisguised malice in the smile with which counsel had bowed to the Judge when, at the conclusion of the case, he formally asked for his client to be discharged. Why, he wondered, did the two men dislike each other so much? Had it anything to do with Hilda? (He had already reached the stage of thinking of her by her Christian name, and he vaguely wondered whether he would ever have the courage to call her by it openly.) Certainly she appeared to manage to remain on the friendliest possible terms with them both. Was there, his rambling thoughts continued, anything at all in Hilda’s idea that any danger threatened the Judge? And who was this person Heppenstall whose name kept on cropping up whenever the subject was discussed? Heppenstall, in a way, had been responsible for the accident at Markhampton. At least, it was after his name had been mentioned that the Judge had started drinking all that brandy. Perhaps Beamish could explain. He seemed to have all sorts of private knowledge at his fingers’ ends. But one didn’t like to encourage Beamish too much. He was quite familiar enough already. Queer fish, Beamish. Can’t say I like him much. Hilda can’t bear the sight of him. Should like to know exactly what she has against him. Don’t expect she would ever say outright, though. She’s marvellous at just indicating her feelings without any direct words. Like the quotation: “Just hint a fault and indicate dislike.” That’s wrong—not “indicate”, some other three syllable word … “Intimate”? No…. I forget…. Odd, what Pettigrew said to Beamish this morning, just before the Court sat. “Been playing darts much, lately?” Seemed to annoy Beamish, too…. Darts…. Beamish…. “Institute dislike?” Silly idea, of course not. … You institute proceedings, not dislike…. Proceedings for darts in the King’s Bench Division….

  Derek slept.

  Some time later he awoke with a start. His sleep had been a light one, and troubled with fantastic dreams, and he seemed to jump into full consciousness all at once in a manner quite different from his usual slow, reluctant morning wakening. He sat up in bed. Apart from the inevitable noise occasioned by the movement, he could hear nothing. The last Wimblingham tram had long since clanked its way to rest and the street outside was completely quiet. None the less, Derek felt certain that it was a noise that had roused him, and further, something told him that the disturbance, whatever it had been, had come, not from outside, but a good deal nearer at hand. He continued to listen for a moment or two, and had just decided to try to go to sleep again when the silence was broken quite unmistakably by a whole series of different sounds. Afterwards, Derek was annoyed to find a good deal of uncertainty in his recollection of the precise order in which these sounds occurred, but of their nature there was no doubt. Somewhere a door slammed sharply, footsteps moved hastily along the corridor—the main corridor, Derek thought, and not the little passage outside his room—there was a bump that quite certainly indicated that somebody had stumbled over one of the concealed flights of steps, and, at some point or other in the jumble of untoward noises, there was a loud, high-pitched scream. It was this last that brought Derek in a bound from his bed.

  He fumbled in the dark for his dressing-gown and slippers, groped for, but failed to find, his torch, and opened the door of his room. He listened for a moment, and heard the confused hum of a household suddenly roused from sleep. Taking a step forward into the darkness he once again missed his footing on the steps so ingeniously provided immediately outside the door. This time he almost fell prone in his haste, and as he tried to right himself he was knocked into by a heavy unseen form coming from further up the side passage. Derek went down to the floor and the newcomer tripped over him, in so doing kicking him firmly in the ribs. It was, Derek felt, rather like falling on the ball in front of an advancing pack of rugger forwards.

  Derek, badly winded, prepared to grapple with his unknown assailant, but at that moment an electric torch was flashed in his face and Beamish’s voice said, “Oh, it’s you, Mr. Marshall! You nearly gave me a nasty fall.”

  Derek made no reply to what he felt to be a gross understatement. “What is the matter?” he asked.

  “That’s what I came to find out,” said Beamish. “It’s a fair disgrace there being no lights in this passage. It’s all skylights above, see? And the Council won’t go to the expense of doing the black-out properly.”

  Waving his torch, Beamish preceded him down the passage into the main corridor, which was dimly lighted enough, but seemed by contrast a blaze of illumination. In it Derek recognized the other members of the household—figures familiar enough, but strangely transmogrified in their night attire. The Judge looked gaunter and gawkier than ever in an unexpectedly gaily patterned dressing-gown. Mrs. Square, was positively Dickensian in curl-papers. Savage, dishevelled but infinitely respectful, contrived still to look unmistakably a butler. Beamish, Derek now perceived, was closely buttoned into a huge check ulster which reached almost to the ground and gave him a singularly rakish appearance. A surly looking individual, whom he presumed to be a night watchman, stood rather helplessly by. All this he observed with the unreal clarity of things seen in a nightmare, before he became aware of the cause and centre of the whole uproar. When he had once seen this, however, he no longer had eyes for anything else. On the floor, her head supported by her husband’s arms, lay Hilda Barber. She was very pale. One eye was half-closed and blood was trickling from a cut just beneath it. She held her hand to her throat and appeared to be breathing with difficulty. She was not unconscious, for from time to time she muttered words which Derek could not catch.

  For a time that could not have been longer than a few minutes but seemed endless, everyone seemed stricken with the paralysis that sudden emergency sometimes produces. It was a paralysis, however, that did not affect their tongues. Everybody was talking at once. Mrs. Square was repeating over and over again, “Poor lady!” a
nd “Did you ever!” The Judge said several times, “Hilda! Can you hear me?” as if he was talking on an unsatisfactory telephone. Then he added, “Fetch a doctor, someone!” and “Where are the police?” The night watchman rejoined in an aggrieved tone, “I’ve rung down for the police. They’ll be ’ere in a minute.”

  Derek broke into this dialogue by boldly coming forward and seizing Lady Barber round the ankles.

  “We ought to put her to bed, sir!” he fairly shouted at the bemused old man who still had hold of the other end of the patient.

  “Yes, yes, of course!” said the Judge, coming suddenly to life.

  Together they lifted her and carried her into her bedroom, a little further along the corridor. The spot where she lay, Derek noticed, was outside the Judge’s room, next to it. As they laid her on the bed, Hilda lifted her head and said, quite distinctly, “Are you all right, William?”

  “Yes, yes!” answered Barber. “Can you hear me, Hilda?”

  “He hit me,” she said, and then appeared to lose consciousness.

  Through the open bedroom door, Derek could see that the passage had suddenly become crowded with policemen.

  *

  Ages later, as it seemed to Derek, he was sitting at breakfast with the Judge. After the turmoil of the night, which had seemed positively endless, the breakfast table, with its coffee and bacon, appeared refreshingly normal. The Judge was already seated when he came in, reading The Times as usual, and apparently with his appetite unimpaired. His eyes were somewhat bloodshot, but otherwise he showed no traces of what must have been a sleepless night.

  Derek inquired after Lady Barber.

  “As well as could be expected,” was the reply. “Of course she must be kept very quiet.” His eyes returned to his paper. “I don’t like the look of things in Finland,” he announced. “Another cup of coffee, please, Marshal. It seems to taste very peculiar, I don’t know what’s wrong with it. The water can’t have been properly boiling when it was made.” He took the cup and went on, “How did that man get in here last night, I want to know? I shall have a word or two to say to the Chief Constable when he appears.” He drank a mouthful of the coffee, made a grimace into the cup, looked back at his paper and concluded, “It’s a shocking business altogether.”