The Judas Window shm-8

by John Dickson Carr

The judge looked up quickly. 'One moment, Sir Walter ...' He turned his little eyes on the witness. 'If you arrived there at ten minutes past six, that must have been at the same time as the prisoner?'

  'Yes, my lord. As a matter of fact, I saw him go in.'

  There are, I suppose, no degrees of a man's being motionless. Yet I had never seen H.M. convey such a mere impression of absolute stillness as he did then. He was sitting with a pencil in his hand, enormous under his black gown: and he did not even seem to breathe. In the dock, James Answell's chair suddenly scraped. The prisoner made a curious, wild gesture, like a boy beginning to put up his hand in a class-room, and then he checked himself.

  'What did you do then?' asked the Attorney-General.

  'I did not know what to do. I wondered what was happening, and why Jim was there. He had not spoken about coming here when I saw him last at Frawnend. I wondered if it concerned me, as having been a suitor of Miss Hume's. For what I did,' said the witness, drawing himself up, 'I do not apologize. Any human being would have done the same. I knew that there was an open passage leading down between Mr Hume's house and the house next door -'

  Sir Walter Storm (be it recorded) seemed forced to clear his throat. He was not now like a man either examining or cross-examining, but one trying to get at the truth.

  'Had you ever been to the house before, Captain Answell?'

  'Yes, several times, although I had never met Mr Hume. I had been there with Miss Hume. Mr Hume did not approve of our acquaintanceship.'

  'Go on, please.'

  ‘I -I -'

  'You hear what counsel tells you,' said the judge, looking at him steadily. 'Continue your story.'

  'I had heard a great deal of Mr Hume's "study" from Miss Hume. I knew that if he entertained Jim anywhere, it would be there. I walked down the passage beside the house - with no motive in mind, I swear, except to get near them. Some way down the passage, on the right-hand side, I found a short flight of steps leading up to a glass-panelled door with a lace curtain over it. The door looks into the little passage outside Mr Hume's study. As I looked through the curtain, I saw the butler - who was taking Jim there - knock on the study door.'

  The change in the air was as though a draught had begun to blow and scatter papers on counsel's table. 'What did you do then?' 'I - waited.' 'Waited?'

  'Outside the door. I did not know quite what to do.' 'How long did you wait?'

  'From about ten or twelve minutes past six until a little later than half-past six, when they broke in.'

  'And you,' demanded Sir Walter, pointing, 'you, like others, have made no mention of this to anyone until this moment?'

  'No. Do you think I wanted them to hang my cousin?'

  'That is not a proper reply,' snapped the judge.

  'I beg your Lordship's pardon. I - put it that I was afraid of the interpretation which would be placed on it.'

  Sir Walter lowered his head a moment. 'What did you see while you were outside the glass-panelled door?'

  'I saw Dyer come out about fifteen minutes past six. I saw Miss Jordan come down about half-past six, and knock at the door. I saw Dyer return then, and heard her call out to Dyer that they were fighting. And the rest of -'

  'One moment. Between six-fifteen, when Dyer left the study, and six-thirty, when Miss Jordan came downstairs, did you see anyone approach the study door?'

  ‘I did not.'

  'You had a good view of it?'

  'Yes, the little passage has no light; but there was a light in the main hall.'

  'From where you were standing outside that door -hand the witness up a plan - could you see the windows of the room?'

  'Yes. They were immediately to my left, as you can see.'

  'Did anyone approach those windows at any time?' 'No.'

  'Could anyone have approached those windows without your knowledge?'

  'No. I am sorry. I suppose I incur penalties for not telling this -'

  I make a pause here, for there was a similar kind of blankness in the room. We have heard much of last-minute witnesses for the defence. This one, though called for the defence, was a last-minute witness for the prosecution who put the rope firmly round the prisoner's neck. James Answell's face was a colour it had not been at any time during the trial; and he was staring at his cousin in a vague and puzzled way.

  But there was another kind of pause or change as well - that is, if it did not exist only in my own prejudiced mind. Up to this time, sallow-faced and stiff-lipped Reginald , had seemed (in a quiet way) inspired. He compelled belief. He brought to this case what it had heretofore lacked: an eyewitness to support circumstantial evidence. It may have been a certain turn in his last sentence. 'I suppose I shall incur penalties for not telling this -' which gave a slightly different glimpse. It did not last long. But it was as though a cog had failed to mesh, or a shutter had been drawn aside, or the same glutinous quality of hypocrisy had appeared in his speech which had appeared once before. The man was lying: I felt convinced of that. More, you could see he had gone into the box with the deliberate intention of lying in just that way. He had made an obvious attempt to draw Sir Walter Storm's attack –

  But surely H.M. knew that? H.M. must have been prepared for it? At the moment H.M. was sitting in the same quiet way, his fists at his temples. And the point was its effect, not on H.M., but on the jury.

  'I have no more questions,' said Sir Walter Storm. He seemed puzzled.

  H.M. roused himself to a re-examination which was really a cross-examination of his own witness. And when H.M. did get up, he used words that are not common at the Old Bailey, and have not been since the days of Serjeant Arabin. But there was not only violence in it; there was a sort of towering satisfaction which made him seem about a foot taller.

  ‘I’ll give you just two seconds’ said H.M., 'to admit that you had an attack of delirium tremens, and that everything you said in that examination was a lie.'

  'You will retract that, Sir Henry,' said the judge.-'You are entitled to question the witness on any matters that have arisen out of Sir Walter's cross-examination; but you will express yourself in a proper manner.'

  'If yrludship pleases,' said H.M. 'It'll be understood why I'm takin' this line when I do question ... Captain " Answell, do you want to retract any statement you've made?'

  'No. Why should I?'

  'All right,' said H.M. with massive unconcern. 'You saw all this through the glass panel of the door, did you?' 'Yes.'

  'Was the door open ?' 'No. I didn't go inside.'

  'I see. Aside from the night of January 4th, when was the last time you visited that house?'

  'Nearly a year ago, it may have been.'

  'Uh-huh. I thought so. But didn't you hear Dyer testify yesterday that the door with the glass panel, the old door, had been removed six months ago; and they substituted an ordinary solid wooden door? If you got any doubts on the matter, look up the official surveyor's report - it's one of the exhibits here - and see what he has to say about it. What do you have to say about it?'

  The witness's voice seemed to come out of a gulf. 'The - the door may have been open -'

  'That's all,' said H.M. curtly. 'At the conclusion of our evidence, my lord, I'm goin' to suggest that somethin' is done about this.'

  To say that the blow was a staggerer would be to put the matter mildly. A witness had come out of the void to testify to James Answell's certain guilt, and, just eight seconds later, he was caught in flat perjury. But that was not the most important point. It was as though a chemical change had affected the sympathies of the jury. For the first time I saw some of them honestly looking at the prisoner, and that is the beginning of all sympathy. The word 'frame-up' was in the air as palpably as though it had been spoken. If H.M. had expected Reginald to play a trick like that, it could have been no more effective. And the sympathy was mounting. If H.M. had expected ... ?

  'Call your next witness. Sir Henry,' said the judge mildly.

  'My lord - if the Attorney-General's g
ot no objection -I'd like to ask for one of the Crown's witnesses to be recalled. It's merely for the purpose of identifyin' some articles I'd like to put in in evidence; and it could be done best by a member of the household whose knowledge of the articles has been established.'

  'I have no objection, my lord,' said Sir Walter Storm, who was surreptitiously mopping his forehead with a handkerchief.

  'Very well. Is the witness in court?'

  'Yes, my lord. I'd like to have Herbert William Dyer recalled.'

  We had not time to reflect over each new twist of this infernal business when Dyer entered the box. But the prisoner was sitting up, and his eyes were shining. The grave Dyer, as neat as yesterday if in slightly less sombre clothes, bent his grizzled forehead attentively. By this time Lollypop was busy arranging near the table a series of exhibits mysteriously swathed in brown paper. H.M.'s first move was to display a brown tweed suit with plus-fours - a golf-suit. Evelyn and I looked at each other.

  'Ever see this suit before?' questioned H.M. 'Hand it up to him.'

  'Yes, sir,' said Dyer, after a pause. 'It is a golf-suit belonging to Dr Spencer Hume.'

  'Dr Hume not bein' within call, I presume you can identify it? So. Is that the suit you were lookin' for on the night of the murder?'

  ‘It is.'

  'Now just feel in the right-hand coat pocket. What do you find there?'

  'An ink-pad and two rubber stamps,' said Dyer, producing them.

  'Is that the ink-pad you were lookin' for on the night of the murder?' 'It is.'

  'Good. We got some other stuff here,' continued H.M. off-handedly: 'laundry, and a pair of Turkish slippers, and the like; but that'd be out of your province. We can get it properly identified by Miss Jordan. But tell me if you can identify this?'

  This time there was produced a large oblong suitcase of black leather, having the initials stamped in gold on the flap beside the handle.

  'Yes, sir,' replied Dyer, stepping back a little. 'It is undoubtedly Dr Hume's. I believe it is the one Miss Jordan packed for Dr Hume on the night of the - circumstance. Both Miss Jordan and I forgot all about it; or at least -she having been very ill afterwards; and, when she asked me what had happened to it, I could not remember. I have not seen it since.'

  'Yes. But here's just one more thing that you're the one to identify. Look at this cut-glass decanter, stopper and all. You'll see it's full of whisky except for about two drinks poured out. Ever see it before?'

  For a moment I thought H.M. had got hold of one of the prosecution's own exhibits. The decanter he produced was indistinguishable from the one the Crown had put in evidence. Evidently Dyer thought so too.

  'It looks -' said the witness. 'It looks like the decanter which Mr Hume kept on the sideboard in the study. Like - that other -'

  'It does. It was meant to. Between those two, could you swear which was which?' 'I'm afraid not, sir.'

  'Take one in each hand. Can you swear that my decanter, in your right hand, is not the real one you bought from Hartley's of Regent Street; and that the first exhibit, in your left hand, ain't a copy in inferior glass?'

  'I do not know, sir.'

  'No more questions.'

  Three witnesses then passed in rapid succession, being not more than five minutes in the box among all of them. Mr Reardon Hartley, of the firm of Hartley and Son, Regent Street, testified that what H.M. called 'my’ decanter was the original one supplied by him to Mr Hume; the prosecutor's exhibit was a copy which Avory Hume had bought on Friday afternoon, January 3rd. Mr Dennis Moreton, analytical chemist, testified to having examined the whisky in 'my' decanter, and to having discovered in. it one hundred and twenty grains of brudine, a derivative of scopolamine. Dr Ash ton Parker, Professor of Applied Criminology at the University of Manchester, gave the real evidence of the three.

  ‘I examined the cross-bow there, which I was told belonged to Avory Hume. In the groove down the centre of the cross-bow, evidently used for the reception of a missile - here,' said Dr Parker, indicating, 'the microscope showed flakes of what I believed to be dry paint. I judged that these flakes had been rubbed off owing to the sudden friction when some wooden missile was fired from the bow. Under analysis, the paint was ascertained to be a substance known as "X-varnish", used exclusively by Messrs Hardigan, who sold to the deceased the arrow in question. I present an affidavit to that effect.

  'The arrow here was - ah - kindly lent to me by Detective-Inspector Mottram. Here the microscope showed along the shaft of the arrow signs that flakes of paint had been chipped in an irregular line from it.

  'In the teeth of the windlass on the cross-bow I found the piece of blue feather which you see there now. This I compared to the broken feather on the end of the arrow. The two pieces made up a complete feather, except for an irregular bit which was missing. I have here photomicrographs of the two pieces, enlarged ten times. The joinings in the fibre of the feather can be seen clearly, and leave no doubt in my own mind that they came from the same feather.'

  'In your opinion, had the arrow been fired from this cross-bow?'

  'In my opinion, it unquestionably had.'

  This was hard hitting. Under cross-examination, Dr Parker acknowledged the scientific possibility of an error; it was as far as he would go.

  'And I acknowledge, my lord,' said H.M. in reply to a question from the bench, 'that so far we've not shown where this cross-bow or the other articles came from, or what happened to the missin' piece of feather. We'll remedy that now. Call William Cochrane.'

  ('Who on earth is that?' whispered Evelyn. H.M. had said once before that you would no more cause a commotion in Balmy Rankin's court than you would cause one on a chess-board; but the curiosity of the court had now reached to as flaming a pitch as it could go. It was stimulated still more by the quietly dressed elderly man who took the oath.)

  'Your full name?'

  'William Rath Cochrane.'

  'What's your profession, Mr Cochrane?'

  'I am the manager of the Left-Luggage Department at Paddington Station - the Paddington terminus of the Great Western Railway.'

  'I think we all know the process,' rumbled H.M., 'but I'll just go over it here. If you want to leave a bag or a parcel or the like for a few hours, you hand it across a counter, and you get back a written slip that allows you to claim the parcel again?'

  'That is right.'

  'Can you tell the date and the time of day when the parcel was handed in?'

  'Oh, yes. It is on the ticket.'

  'Now, suppose,' said H.M. argumentatively, 'a parcel is handed in, and nobody comes to claim it. What happens to the parcel?'

  'It depends on how long it has been left there. If it seems to have been left there indefinitely, it is transferred to a storage-room reserved for that purpose. If it is not claimed at the end of two months, it may be sold and the proceeds devoted to railway charities; but we make every effort to find the proper owner.'

  'Who is in charge of this department?'

  'I am. That is to say, it is under my direction.'

  'On February 3rd, last, did anybody come to your office and enquire about a suitcase which had been left there at a certain definite time on a certain definite date?'

  'Yes. You did,' replied the witness with a shadow of a smile.

  'Was there anyone else present?'

  'Yes, two others whom I now know to be Dr Parker and Mr Shanks.'

  'A week after we had been there, did another person - another person in this case - also call and enquire about it?'

  'Yes; a man who gave the name of -'

  'Never mind the name,' said H.M. hastily. 'That's not our business. But about the first people who asked for it. Did you open the suitcase in their presence?'

  'Yes, and I was convinced that the suitcase belonged to one of them,' said Cochrane, looking hard at H.M. 'The contents of the suitcase, not usual contents, were described before the suitcase was opened.'

  H.M. indicated the big black-leather suitcase inscribed wi
th Spencer Hume's initials. 'Will you look at that and tell us whether it's the suitcase?'

  'It is.'

  'I'd also like you to identify some other articles that were in the suitcase at the time. Hand them up as I indicate. That?' It was the golf-suit. 'Yes. These?' An -assortment of wearing apparel, including a pair of gaudy red-leather slippers. 'This?' Up went the decanter H.M. had put in in evidence, the decanter containing drugged whisky from which two drinks were gone. 'This?'

  'This was a syphon of soda-water with its contents depleted perhaps two, inches. Next came a pair of thin gloves in whose lining the name Avory Hume had been written in indelible ink. Next came a small screw-driver. Next, in order, two drinking-glasses and a small bottle of mint extract.

  'Finally, was this cross-bow in the suitcase?' demanded H.M.

  'It was. It just fitted in comfortably.' 'Was this piece of feather caught in the teeth of the windlass?'

  'Yes, my attention was called to it. It is the same one.'

  'Uh-huh. At a certain time of night on Saturday, January 4th, then, a certain person came there and left the suitcase?'

  ‘Yes.'

  'Could that person be identified, if necessary?' 'Yes, one of my attendants thinks he remembers, because -' 'Thank you; that's all.'

  For a brief space of time Sir Walter Storm hesitated, risen just half-way to his feet.

  'No question,' said the Attorney-General.

  The whispering of released breath was audible. Mr Justice Rankin, whose wrist seemed tireless, continued steadily to write. Then he made a careful full-stop, and looked up. H.M. was glaring round the court-room.

  'My lord, I've got one last witness. That's for the purpose of demonstratin' an alternative theory as to how a murderer got in and out of a locked room.'

  ('Oh, Lord, here we go I' whispered Evelyn.) 'This witness,' continued H.M., rubbing his forehead reflectively, 'has been right here in court since the beginnin' of the trial. The only trouble is, it can't talk. Therefore I'm bound to do a bit of explaining. If there's any objection to this, I can always do it in my closin' speech. But since a couple o' words of explanation will' tend to produce another actual bit of evidence - another exhibit for the defence - I'd like the court's indulgence if I say that our evidence can't be completed without it.'