The Burden of Proof

by Roderic Jeffries

  Scatt, prosecuting counsel, addressed the jury at some length. He told them that his lordship would be explaining in great detail the law applicable to the facts and that therefore there was no need for him to do the same, then he, himself, launched into a detailed description of the law concerning express and implied malice, gross negligence, and the demarcation line between manslaughter and murder. The jury became bewildered and the judge impatient.

  Scatt reached the end of his address and he called the first witness. “Miss Amelia Printley.”

  Amelia Printley entered the courtroom and a uniformed policeman closed the door behind her and then indicated the witness box with a quick wave of his right hand. She walked forward and, either through nervousness or very limited acquaintance with the stiletto heels she was wearing, very nearly came crashing down to the ground.

  She took the oath in so quiet a voice she had to be asked to repeat it. She gave her name, address, and occupation.

  “What happened on Tuesday, the seventeenth of July?”

  She fiddled with gloves she was carrying. She had them with her because she had been taught when young to take them into church. “The seventeenth?”

  “That’s right.”

  There was a pause. “What day was it?”

  “Tuesday.”

  “Was that the day…” She became silent and stared with horrified fascination at the judge in his scarlet robes.

  The judge spoke. “Mr. Scatt, I feel certain Mr. Yorker will not object if you lead your witness just sufficiently to recall to her mind which particular day it is you wish to question her about.” Mr. Justice Sandfling had the nose of a hawk, the eyes of an eagle, and, so the story continued, the hair of a crazy mixed-up bird’s nest. Certainly his nose was long and his dark-brown eyes had a habit of fixedly staring at whomever he was addressing, but his wig successfully hid whatever head of hair lay beneath.

  Yorker looked up from his papers and mumbled something that was generally taken to mean he did not object.

  “Did you, Miss Printley, go for a walk with George Frey on the Tuesday I’ve mentioned? A walk that took you to the old gatehouse of Reton Park Hall?”

  Some measure of calm returned to her. “We’d both got the afternoon off.”

  “What happened?”

  She blushed.

  “Did you enter the gatehouse?”

  “Yes.”

  “Will you describe to the court what happened when you went in?”

  As she remembered the horror of those moments, she ceased to be worried whether people were thinking she and George had gone into the gatehouse for the purpose for which they had gone into the gatehouse. “We went into the passage and he said we’d look inside one of the rooms.”

  “Who went first?”

  “George did.”

  “What happened then?”

  “George seemed to be struck all of a heap and when I asked him what was the matter he didn’t say nothing so I had a look. She was dead. The moment I saw her, I knew she was dead.”

  “Did you go into the room?”

  “Not me.”

  “Did your companion?”

  “Not him neither. All he could say was he was going to be sick. He wasn’t,” she added.

  “Thank you, Miss Printley.”

  “No questions,” said Yorker, and he did not bother to rise from the row of benches in which he sat on his own because he was the only silk in court.

  George Frey was full of cocky bravado and a determination to show that he wasn’t in the least overawed by his surroundings. So firm was his determination, a few well-chosen words had to be spoken from the bench. After that, his manner was subdued and almost courteous.

  Phillip Carr, divisional police surgeon, took the stand.

  “I was called to the gatehouse of Reton Park Hall and there saw the body of a young girl. She had been dead for several days and the first thing I did was to try to estimate the time of death.”

  “Were you able to arrive at any conclusions?”

  “Rigor mortis had passed away, decomposition had started, and certain parts of the body had suffered damage. I could do no more than estimate that death had probably taken place at least one week, and not more than three weeks, previously.”

  “Were you able to establish any cause of death?”

  “The symptoms were consistent with poisoning but I was not able to say what type of poisoning.”

  “I believe you prepared certain samples which were sent away to be tested?”

  “I did. I collected them and marked the containers.”

  “Were you handed an empty bottle when you were in the gatehouse?”

  “Detective Inspector Fisher handed me an empty aspirin bottle. I examined it and because of the powdered sediment inside I decided it had at some time contained a substance other than aspirin. I couldn’t identify that substance and I advised it should be sent away for analysis.”

  “Thank you, Doctor.”

  “No questions,” said Yorker.

  Scatt asked if Doctor Carr might be excused further attendance at court in view of the fact that he had a great deal of urgent work in hand and the judge agreed with a grumble.

  Dr. Guy Walter, home office pathologist, was called. He was a tall, thin man with a drooping moustache under which was a most lugubrious mouth.

  “Did you conduct a post mortem on the body of Margaret Stukeley?”

  “I did. My first finding was that at the time of death the deceased was pregnant.”

  “Could you say how long she’d been pregnant?”

  “I should like to make it quite clear that my answer is not made as a skilled embryologist. My estimate was about two months, based on the extent of foetal development.”

  “I shall be calling an embryologist, Doctor Walter, and you’ll be interested to know that his estimate agrees with yours… Did you discover the cause of death?”

  “It was clearly some form of poisoning. There was a typical anoxial picture and, in view of the pregnancy, I became fairly certain that the poison had been some form of abortifacient.”

  “Evidence will be called later on to show that the drug in question was ergometrine maleate. Doctor, are you sufficiently conversant with this drug to tell us what is the fatal dose?”

  “The normal fatal dose is usually given as about fifteen grams. I made several tests to determine the actual dose taken by the deceased and in my estimation it was something less than half that amount.”

  “Would you then have normally expected death in this instance?”

  “Probably not, but one can say without doubt that she was allergic to the drug, in which case, of course, a smaller dose than normal is fatal.”

  “Can you tell us what was her general state of health?”

  “She was in sound condition and suffering from no traceable disease.”

  “Is there any doubt in your mind that the cause of death was the ergometrine maleate she took?”

  “None, sir.”

  Scatt sat down.

  “If,” said Yorker, as he stood up and adjusted the collapsible wooden stand on which he placed some of his papers, “responsible medical advice were sought on how to bring about an abortion, what would you imagine the advice would be?”

  “One word. Don’t.”

  “Because of the danger?”

  “I’m talking now purely from the practical side of the matter. There can be danger to the patient, as in any operation, when a therapeutic abortion is carried out under the most antiseptic of conditions. But when there is no honest medical supervision and the abortion does not take place in the sterile conditions of an operating room, that danger becomes alarmingly great.”

  “Someone who sought medical advice would almost certainly become aware of the very great danger attached to an attempted abortion?”

  “If he, or she, went to a reputable doctor that person would be made aware not only of the danger to the patient but also the danger, from a legal point of view, t
o himself or herself.”

  “I think, Doctor, we are more qualified to deal with that side of the question than you.”

  The judge spoke. “The witness is perfectly entitled to suggest that a doctor would, in the circumstances, stress both sides of the issue.”

  “As your lordship pleases.” Yorker’s tone of voice dismissed the judge’s words as being of no importance. “Would you not imagine, Doctor, that any such warning would be so strongly made that any reasonable person to whom it was made would never ignore it?”

  “I might imagine that, sir, had I not in my career so often, unfortunately, had to perform post mortems on those who had obviously not heeded such warnings.”

  Yorker stared at the jury with a look of pained astonishment which clearly said that if the witness was going to behave like that there was no room for honest men; then he sat down. He turned around and spoke to Pattern. Yerby, sitting in front of Yorker, twisted around and tapped Yorker’s stern to try and gain his attention.

  The witness was dismissed and the judge adjourned the court until two in the afternoon. As he left, the sounds of people increased until there was a mumbling hum of talking, coughing, sneezing and walking.

  The policeman in the dock tapped Roger on the shoulder. “Down you go.”

  Roger said, “Down?”

  “Down to the cells, mate, for some welcome grub. Lost yourself in the trial, eh? We had a bloke here once who made notes by the sackful and it never occurred to him it was him what was being tried. Then the old judge stuck on the black cap and this bloke realised at last it was his neck and all hell was let loose. Took two of us to carry him below. I remember asking him what he wanted done with the notes and he told us to stuff ’em. Terrible waste of effort.”

  Roger took the two paces that brought him to the head of the stairs that led below to the cells.

  Chapter 14

  Yorker ordered rump steak and sautéed potatoes. Having eaten before in Winscon, he was half prepared for the dried-up, leathery meat and the greasy pile of half-browned potatoes. “Bloody case,” he said, much of the venom in his voice coming from the fact that the knife could hardly cut through the steak.

  “Doesn’t give much room for manoeuvre, does it?” commented Pattern.

  “Not enough to swing a cat.”

  “D’you think there was another man?”

  “Neither the police nor the private ’tec has managed to find so much as the smell of him.”

  “Have you noticed what a moronic-looking lot this jury is?”

  “Aren’t they always? D’you know, Jeremy, one of my ambitions has always been to be called for jury service — which I never shall be, of course — and to see whether I could get all the other eleven of ’em voting against common sense and logic. I reckon I could.”

  “And the more absurd the verdict, the better chance you’d have. Beats me, sometimes, why some people defend. Only wastes their money.”

  “These days it’s usually the taxpayers’.”

  “True. Still, mustn’t start complaining. If all the guilty people ceased fighting, there wouldn’t be enough briefs to go round and help keep us starving barristers alive.”

  “True, Mr. Pattern, true, but never let your august benchers hear you expressing such sentiments or they’ll disbar you on the spot.”

  “You’re one of my benchers. Remember?”

  “So I am! Ah, well, a little youthful cynicism must be expected, I suppose.”

  *

  Patricia and Elizabeth sat at one of the small corner tables in the restaurant of the station hotel. They ordered cold beef and salad and when it came they tried to eat but couldn’t.

  “I wonder what he’s feeling,” said Patricia.

  Elizabeth put down her knife and fork. She lit a cigarette.

  “It’s the terrible futility of everything that makes me want to scream. I know there’s nothing we can do but I keep cursing myself because I’m not doing anything.” Patricia’s mouth seemed more twisted than ever. When she’d been younger, she’d seldom gone out because of her physical deformities, but latterly she’d learned to live with and forget them.

  “What was she really like?” asked Elizabeth suddenly.

  “What you’d expect.”

  “I can’t expect anything. What was she like, Pat, this girl who’s ruined everything? Was she clever, witty, amusing? Beautiful?”

  “Attractive for a man who only cares that his women come smart and snappy. She’d had a university education, but you couldn’t mistake what lay behind it. She thought Roger had the wealth of Croesus and couldn’t understand why he didn’t spend some of his money on modernising the house. You know the thing: paint the panelling white, rip away the dusty hangings from the walls, push out extra windows, use gaily coloured and contrasting wallpapers.”

  “Did Roger make it seem she’d have a chance to do all that?”

  “Did he ever propose to her — is that what you’re trying to ask? Of course not, Liz. Her type doesn’t wait for the proposal — they’re always three streets ahead.”

  “Why did he go out with her if she was so horrid?”

  Using unusual restraint, Patricia made no reply.

  *

  Fisher and Ritter ate in a café just along the road from the assize building. The food was cheap and adequate, if uninspired.

  “Did you watch the telly last night?” asked Fisher.

  “No, sir. Can’t afford it.”

  “In my day every erk and nark couldn’t afford to eat anything but stale bread and dripping, so don’t look in my direction for sympathy.”

  Ritter mumbled something.

  “The trial’s going along smoothly enough,” said Fisher.

  “So far, so good, sir.”

  “An odd thing happened this morning.”

  “Oh?” Ritter had tried hard to be excused the privilege of dining with his superior, but Fisher was a man who liked to have someone to talk to.

  “You know, I’ve been feeling really sorry for the Stukeleys. There’s the old man, forced to retire from the service, and now his only daughter’s dead. It’s as if fate had singled him out. Every time I thought of him I saw a bloke crushed and crumpled. A bloke who needed sympathy. So when I saw them waiting outside the court I went over to the two of them to say how sorry I was and could I help at all. He’s a right regular bastard and no mistake. None of that kindly disposition I’d imagined him with, but a right hard bastard. Funny how life throws out the joker, isn’t it?”

  Ritter eyed the approaching waitress with speculative eyes.

  *

  Roger’s inability to do anything but sit back and watch and listen was tearing his guts to ribbons. From the moment Margaret had been found dead he’d done nothing but run, yet all the time he’d longed to turn and fight.

  He half wondered how he was able to eat the Dover sole which so epitomised the outside world and the ease of life in it. But even as he wondered that, he knew the answer. Very soon there might be no ease in his life and therefore it was sensible to seize each single piece that was now offered him so that later he could remember it.

  The cell door opened with the echoing clang that had become the perpetual background and music to his life and the round and friendly policeman came into the cell. “Roast duck and green peas, and potatoes fried in balls. Giving me tummy rumbles, you are, with all this lovely grub.”

  Roger handed over the empty tray and received the loaded one in exchange.

  “How’s the old vinegar drop today?” asked the policeman.

  “Who’s he?”

  “The judge. We call him that because he’s usually so sour. Like the time when I was on the beat and nabbed a bloke acting suspicious, who thereupon tried to stick a knife into me guts. There was a friendly little dust-up as I took the knife away from him and then I called the ambulance. Came the trial and I gives me evidence and for cryin’ out loud if old vinegar drop doesn’t chew my balls off good and proper for using too much force
when making an arrest! You know what I’d have done? Let the bloke after the judge and see what his lordship would have done about it!”

  “Probably the same as me: run.”

  “And very sensible, too. Any idea how long your trial’s going to take?”

  “None.”

  “If you’re in tomorrow and they send you in another of those fishes, give me a taste, will you? I’d like to know whether it’s as good as it smells.”

  “I’ll try to make certain my trial goes on long enough to do that little thing for you.”

  The P.C. roared with laughter. He had an easy sense of humour.

  *

  The embryologist gave evidence that the deceased had been pregnant about eight weeks.

  Fisher entered the witness box and was taken through his examination-in-chief. His bearing was that of the completely dispassionate witness.

  Yorker rose to cross-examine. Before he put the first question, he spoke very quickly to Pattern.

  “Inspector,” he said, as he stood upright and ran his right forefinger along his eyebrows, “when you began your investigations, were you aware of the fact that the deceased’s father had been in the police force, from which he was forced to retire due to ill health?”

  “No, sir.”

  “How long was it before you did discover this fact?”

  “I can’t say for certain.”

  “It can’t have been very long, can it? Not if your inquiries were being conducted with the efficiency with which we have already heard they were.”

  “A few days at the most, sir.”

  “When you learned the truth, I suppose you redoubled your efforts to trace the person who’d given the pills to the dead girl?”

  “We carried on as before, sir.”

  “Are you telling the jury you weren’t that much keener to solve the crime now that you knew it involved a policeman?”

  Fisher hesitated.

  “There’s nothing wrong about saying you were, Inspector.” Yorker’s voice was exceedingly bland. “After all, it’s a very natural feeling. So much so, indeed, that if you were to deny any possibility of its happening, I rather think the jury might disbelieve you.”