Chapter Three
Trial, First Day
THE TRIAL
WITHIN THE
CENTRAL CRIMINAL COURT
OLD BAILEY, LONDON
Judge
MR JUSTICE CRUMBLE
Counsel for the Crown
MR EUSTACE HARDY
MR L. P. STEVENAGE
Counsel for the Acused
MR MAGNUS NEWTON, QC
MR TOBY BANDER
Trial Transcript – 1
THE CLERK OF COURT “Solomon Grundy, you are charged on indictment that on the 23rd of September, within the jurisdiction of the Central Criminal Court, you murdered one Sylvia Gresham. Well, Solomon Grundy, are you guilty or not guilty?”
THE ACCUSED “Not guilty.”
Opening Speech for the Crown
MR HARDY “My lord, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, the accused man who stands before you is charged with the most serious crime known to our law. He is charged with having, on the evening of September 23rd, strangled the woman whose name was Sylvia Gresham but who passed under the name of Estelle Simpson, in her flat at Cridge Mews, Mayfair. It is suggested that the motive for the crime was frustrated sexual passion, that the woman Gresham was or had been Grundy’s mistress, and that when he met her quite unexpectedly in the company of a coloured African named Anthony Kabanga, and realised that she contemplated marriage with Kabanga, a marriage which must undoubtedly have meant the severance of her relationship with the accused, he went to see her in her flat, to which he was a frequent visitor, and there strangled her. I have to tell you that it is for the prosecution to establish the guilt of the accused beyond reasonable doubt, and not for the accused to establish his innocence, and that if you think the prosecution has not so established his guilt you will acquit him. It is my duty to make clear to you the facts of the case as we know them, and this I shall do without any flourish of rhetoric, so that on hearing these facts you may do justice according to the evidence.
Now, members of the jury, I will try to deal first of all with one of the features of the case of which I do not doubt you will hear more from the defence: they will say that all the evidence is circumstantial. They will be quite right, but, members of the jury, what is circumstantial evidence? I will not bother you with the whole column afforded the word in the Oxford Dictionary, but give you the kernel of it that concerns us. It is “indirect evidence inferred from circumstances which afford a certain presumption, or appear explainable only on one hypothesis”. And I must say to you that much of the evidence in a murder case is always circumstantial, in the sense that there are rarely any witnesses who see the act itself at the moment of commission. You should feel no prejudice against circumstantial evidence providing always that, to quote the definition again, it is “explainable only on one hypothesis”. I shall show you that the accused is by nature a coarse, brutal and quarrelsome man; that three days before the murder he met the deceased woman unexpectedly at a party, and quarrelled with her so violently that he tore her dress and she scratched his cheek; that he was seen talking to and embracing her the following evening, and then entering a house with her; that on the day of the murder he quarrelled with his partner in the firm which they owned together, and that during the whole of this day he appeared to be under great mental strain; that he had sent a postcard to Miss Gresham, arranging to call on her on Monday evening, that his car was seen near her flat at a time when the accused says he was in his office, and that he was seen actually entering the flat. These actions are, I suggest to you, “explainable only on one hypothesis”, that the accused knew Sylvia Gresham, that she was his mistress, and that he strangled her in a fit of rage. And when, a few days later, the accused felt the net tightening round him, what did he do? He packed his bags hastily and without telling anybody of his intention – his wife, his partner, his neighbours – he tried to leave the country. He was stopped at the airport. His explanation of his action was that he had quarrelled with his wife who had gone to stay with her family, and he acted upon impulse. That is his explanation. Can you, as reasonable men and women, members of the jury, believe that it is true?
I think I shall start my story by describing to you the events of Friday evening, the 20th of September. On that evening the accused and his wife, Marion, went to a party at the house of some friends and neighbours of theirs named Weldon…”
(end of transcript)
Very few English courts of justice are impressive. They seem rather, to our eyes which have been sophisticated by seeing so many such courts on stage and screen, rather like a stage set. That oak panelling – surely it is a fake, something that will be removed at the end of the scene? And the counsel who sit so close to each other, nod so knowingly at the messages whispered by their juniors, and refer to each other upon occasion with such studied distaste or indignation, they are surely actors whose legal personalities will be taken off with their wigs, leaving behind a couple of young men who say to each other, “Gets pretty boring playing lawyers, doesn’t it? I’ll really be glad when this one’s finished its run”. Number 1 Court at the Old Bailey gives little hint of the dramas enacted there. It is oak panelled, of average courtroom size, anonymous in character. Its dignity is derived from the wigs and robes, the formality of the speech, the raised platform upon which the judge sits in his scarlet and ermine.
Upon this platform, Mr Justice Crumble sat now listening patiently to Eustace Hardy as he unwound the tale of what Solomon Grundy was alleged to have done. Mr Justice Crumble really did look as though he was crumbling away. His large red nose was manifestly rotting and the hands that occasionally peeped like mice out of his scarlet sleeves had backs visibly scaly with age, from which thick plum-coloured fingers depended like over-ripe fruits ready to drop from the bough. These fruity appendages were obviously not ideal instruments for taking notes, and the pencil which Mr Justice Crumble used wavered considerably. Yet he was a judge well regarded, not particularly for his knowledge of law, but for his patience with and courtesy to counsel.
Eustace Hardy’s junior, Leslie Stevenage, thought as he listened to his eminent senior what a laboured opening it was, and how much better he could have done it himself. Hardy had a beautiful speaking voice, a fact of which he was only too well aware, he was lucid, he had a style markedly individual, but there was no feeling, no warmth. And to open on such an apologetic note, with all that stuff about circumstantial evidence, wasn’t that a mistake, wouldn’t it have been better to let the defence say some of that and then counter it? Leslie Stevenage knew the theory that it was a good thing to spike your opponent’s guns before he had a chance to fire them, but personally he believed in firing your own guns first.
Magnus Newton sat with his little legs stuck out in front of him and his lower lip critically outthrust, which was a habit he had recently developed. He listened to Hardy’s opening without ever giving it his full attention. His own line of defence was fairly clearly mapped out in his mind, and nothing he heard in Court was likely to alter it. He thought that the prosecution had a fairly flimsy case, and that there was good hope of an acquittal. If only, he thought, looking at the prisoner in the dock, if only he didn’t look such a hulking great bruiser. His principal worry, indeed, was the effect that Grundy would produce when giving evidence. He would have liked to keep Grundy out of the witness box altogether, but knew that the omission to do so might be irreparably damaging. Newton had talked it over with his junior, Toby Bander, and they had agreed that they couldn’t risk it.
Toby Bander, a bachelor, thought about the girl he was taking out that night. He looked at the jury, nine men and three women, and thought that they seemed a pretty averagely awful lot.
And the prisoner, what did he think about? He sat with his big hands gripping the sides of the dock and looked sometimes straight ahead of him at the judge, sometimes down at his counsel and the solicitor who sat in front of them. The corners of his mouth twitched occasionally. Was this a tic, or was he really amused by what he saw?
Eustace Hardy came to the end of his opening. He had spoken for an hour and a quarter with his usual clarity, so that every member of the jury must or should have a picture of the exact sequence of events, and the motives that had prompted the man Grundy to kill the woman Gresham. There was nothing wrong with his performance, yet he was conscious that he was not quite at his best. He found prosecution in a sex crime of this sort slightly distasteful, because he had a good deal of sympathy with the accused. His view of sex relations was tolerant in a rather eighteenth-century manner. He regarded it as perfectly reasonable that Grundy should keep a mistress, since apparently he didn’t get on with his wife. And then when he found out that his mistress was playing around with a coloured chap and apparently actually proposing to marry the fellow – well, Hardy felt nobody should be surprised by what happened. But of course, these feelings lay below the level of consciousness. Eustace Hardy was too experienced not to order and present his case in the most effective way possible.
Trial Transcript-2
JENNIFER LOIS PAGET, examined by Mr Eustace Hardy.
“I am seventeen years of age, and I am a student at Malhearne Grammar School. I went to the party at Mr and Mrs Weldon’s on the night of Friday, September 22nd. At about ten-thirty in the evening I had gone upstairs to the toilet, and while I was in there I heard a scream. I opened the door and I saw Mr Grundy, and a lady who was a stranger to me, but whom I now know to have been Miss Gresham.”
MR HARDY “What were they doing?”
“They were standing in the bedroom doorway, the bedroom that was used for coats. He was holding her shoulder.”
“Was he trying to detain her?”
“That’s what it looked like.”
“What else did you notice?”
“Well, I could see her dress was torn. I noticed that because she was holding it up with one hand.”
“Did you see any mark on the accused’s face?”
“No, I didn’t see that.”
“What happened next?”
“Well, then she sort of broke away from him and came down the stairs. And after a moment he followed her.”
“What did you do then?”
“I was – rather frightened. I went back into the toilet. I’d never really come out of it, you see, and I locked the door and didn’t come out till they’d gone.”
“In order to go down the stairs both Miss Gresham and the accused would have had to pass you. Did they see you?”
“I don’t think so. They were too intent on what had been happening. And I shut the door quickly.”
“As to what happened afterwards, you can’t help us?”
“No.”
“Now, let me move on to the following evening. I believe you had taken your dog for a walk.”
“That’s right.”
“What time would this have been?”
“About, I wouldn’t like to say exactly, but about half past ten.”
“Now, just tell the Court where you went and what you saw.”
“Puggy and I walked up Brambly Way and just into The Dell. I often go that way for an evening walk. Just a few yards inside The Dell I saw Mr Grundy and Miss Simpson – Gresham. He was holding her and saying something, I didn’t hear what. Then he kissed her. Then Puggy went back into Brambly Way again and I went with him, but I just looked back and they were going into the corner house, Mr Kabanga’s house.”
“Will you tell the jury how you can be certain of the identification?”
“Well, you see, I keep Puggy on a lead mostly because he wanders about, but it didn’t seem necessary because this was at night, and he went rather near them, so I had to go rather near too.”
“And how near is the nearest street light?”
“Just a few feet away, I should say six feet.”
“And how near were you to them?”
“Puggy went almost up to them, you see. So I went – oh, about three or four feet away. They didn’t take any notice of me.”
“If they were holding each other, how can you be so certain of your identification?”
“First of all they were just holding and talking to each other, and I could see her quite clearly. Mr Grundy had his back to me, though I could see his hair. It’s sort of ginger even under the light. Then when they were going into the house – you know, when I turned round I saw his face.”
“Are you quite sure of your identification?”
“Quite sure.” (end of transcript)
Edgar and Rhoda both attended this first day of the trial, and they took Jennifer to a small restaurant opposite the Old Bailey for lunch. Jennifer’s hair had been done for the occasion, she had spots of colour in her cheeks, and she looked almost pretty. Edgar was in high spirits. As the days had passed he had more and more identified the case with his struggle against the pseudos, a battle in which victory was important to the spiritual health of the nation. He ordered a bottle of wine, and insisted that Jennifer should be allowed to have a glass.
“Can’t possibly do the little girl any harm. You spoke up very well, very good clear answers, didn’t she?”
“Very well.” Rhoda, square-bodied, wearing square-toed shoes, cut firmly into her chop.
“Wonderful thing. English justice.” Edgar leaned back in his chair, picked at his teeth. “First one side has its chance, then the other. Couldn’t be fairer. That chap Newton will be having a go at you this afternoon.”
“I know, Daddy.” Jennifer drank the wine in little sips.
“Don’t suppose he’ll try to bully you, but if he does, stand up to him. Nothing to be afraid of. And don’t be provoked, just keep calm.”
“Oh, really, Daddy, please.”
Rhoda cut a potato into four almost identical pieces.
“Listen to what your father says. This is serious, you’re not here to enjoy it.” She speared one piece of potato and conveyed it to her mouth, which shut on it.
“I’m not enjoying it.” But the colour in Jennifer’s cheeks belied her words.
Back in Court, all the actors were in their places. Mr Justice Crumble’s fingers shook more than usual as he picked up his pencil – how had they managed to cut the charcoal-grilled steak he had eaten, avoided spilling the Guinness he had drunk? Eustace Hardy, an arm swept out in casual abandonment, rested, a greyhound out of the slips. Jennifer, a composed respectable schoolgirl, stood in the witness box. Magnus Newton got up, gave a preliminary cough, twitched at his gown.
Trial Transcript – 3
JENNIFER LOIS PAGET, cross-examined by Mr Newton.
MR NEWTON “Are you proud of your powers of observation, Miss Paget?”
“Not particularly.”
“I ask because you seem to have shown them in this case. You were very much on the spot at the time things happened, weren’t you?”
“I just happened to be there, that’s all.”
“So you say. Take the evening of the party. You say you were in the lavatory. Did anyone see you when you came out?”
“I don’t think so.”
“You must have come down the stairs when all the commotion was over, but nobody noticed.”
“No. I stayed there afterwards for – oh, perhaps a minute. Or more.”
“I see. But you’d really seen everything that mattered, hadn’t you? Did you tell anybody?”
“My mother and father.”
“Nobody else?”
“No.”
“You were discreet. Then we will pass on to the following evening, Saturday. You were on the spot again in the right place at the right time. Did it strike you that these two people you saw were behaving in an extraordinarily foolish way?”
“Not particularly.”
“Anybody could have seen them?”
“I suppose so.”
“But it just happened to be you. Did it occur to you that they could have gone into the house straight away, and not stood about in the open?”
“I didn’t think about it.”
“But that’s true, isn’t it? If Grundy had wanted to go and see Miss Gresham in that house, it would have been sensible to go straight to it, isn’t that so? And extremely foolish to stand about in the roadway embracing – and so near a street lamp too?”
THE JUDGE “The witness has told you what she saw, Mr Newton. I do not think she should be required to provide any explanation of it.”
MR NEWTON “As your lordship pleases. I will be plain with you, Miss Paget. I suggest that the whole of your evidence is the product of your highly romantic imagination.”
“That is quite untrue.”
“We shall see. You have done this kind of thing before, have you not?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“You have a short memory. Do you remember that last year you produced at school anonymous letters that you said had been sent to you? Do you remember that, Miss Paget?”
“Yes.”
“And that you suggested that a particular girl had sent them? And that an investigation was made, with no result except the strong suspicion that you had written the letters yourself?”
“That’s not true. They never found – the one who sent them.”
“Let us cast back a little further. Do you remember an incident three years ago, when you were at another school, before you went to Malhearne? Do you remember that some money was missing, and you accused another girl of stealing it? Answer me, please.”
“I – yes.”
“And was the money found simply to have been mislaid?”
“Yes.”
“And was it suggested to your parents that it would be as well for you to leave, because of the feeling of other pupils against you?”
“No. No, that isn’t true.”
“Why did you leave, then?”
“I didn’t like it there. I wanted to go. I asked to leave.”
THE JUDGE “You will be calling evidence in support, Mr Newton?”
The End Of Solomon Grundy Page 14