And so the whisper ran, from street corner to street corner, from coffee stall to coffee stall. Telephones woke sleepy men in their beds who listened, and grunted. Many turned over and went to sleep again. A few decided that a stay in the country would suit their health and packed their bags and left London on very early trains.
At four o’clock in the morning, when the streets were quiet and the blood was thin, the telephone on Kellaway’s desk sounded. He put down his cigarette quietly, balancing it on the rim of the ash-tray before he picked up the receiver. It was a woman’s voice that spoke, briefly, without introduction or preamble. Kellaway, for his part, said nothing at all. When the woman had finished what she had to say, he replaced the receiver gently and got up from his chair. There was nothing in his movements to suggest that he had been sitting there, on and off, for seven hours. He walked across to the wall cupboard, opened it, and took out a new, soft black hat and placed it carefully on his head, the brim tilted very slightly forward and to the right.
Then he left the room, walked down into the courtyard, and woke up a dozing driver.
Ten minutes later he stopped the car at the end of a small street, spoke to the driver, who nodded, and got out, leaving the door open behind him. He walked along the pavement, his crêpe-soled shoes making no noise, and stopped at a doorway. As he got there, the door opened. A middle-aged woman, a dressing-gown round her shoulders, was crouching inside.
“First floor, back room,” she said. “There’s no lock on the door. The light switch is on the left as you go in. They promised–”
“Any promise that was made will be kept,” said Kellaway. “Do your stairs creak?”
“Not a lot.”
He went up them, drifted along the corridor, and threw open the end door, slamming down the light switch.
Boot Howton was up, on one elbow; but both his hands were visible.
“Get dressed,” said Kellaway, “and come along.”
8
The Magistrate Asks a Question
The barrister briefed by the director of public prosecutions was young and very painstaking. His wig was white and his soul was pure.
‘There’s no call to make heavy weather of it,” said the head of his department. This is only the police court. You’ll have Younger to lead you when you get to the Old Bailey.”
“If we get to the Old Bailey,” thought Mr Horsey, in a moment of panic, for it was his first big case. Two nights earlier he had woken his wife at midnight by sitting up in bed and beginning his opening speech. The next evening, being a woman of resource, she had slipped a couple of phenobarbitone tablets into his coffee.
“Your Worship,” said Mr Horsey, “this is a case in which the Crown charges capital murder against the prisoner, Thomas Albert Howton.”
“Capital murder, Mr Horsey?”
“That is so. Murder by shooting, contrary to subsection l(b) of Section 5 of the Homicide Act, 1957.”
Even this arid formula could not conceal the real meaning of his words, and all eyes swivelled round, for an uncomfortable moment, to the man in the dock. The old beast of Capital Punishment had been driven into retreat, but here was one human being who still stood within reach of his claws.
“Very well, Mr Horsey,” said the magistrate.
“It is my duty to adduce the evidence on which this charge is founded and to show a” – Mr Horsey swallowed briefly – “prima facie case for committal.”
“I think we’d better have that window shut,” said the magistrate. “Why the County Council must constantly operate a pneumatic drill when my court is sitting is something I have never been able to understand. Surely with a little co-operation they could do the work at weekends?”
The clerk said he would make a note of it.
The interruption enabled Mr Horsey to arrange his brief more conveniently, and he now proceeded with increasing confidence.
“The body of a woman, subsequently identified by the dental surgeon and the doctor who had treated her during her lifetime, as Mrs Rosa Ritchie, was discovered by some boys, lying among the bushes which overlook the Binford Park Reservoir, on the evening of November 5th.”
“This year, or last year, Mr Horsey?”
“Oh, this year, sir.”
“It’s as well to be clear about these things.”
Thus rebuked, Mr Horsey temporarily lost his place, but was given a further respite when the magistrate decided to have one of the radiators turned off.
Very gradually, as a small boat, its mast bent, its sail taut, will make headway on a succession of short tacks and violent jibes, so did Mr Horsey manage to unfold the prosecution’s story. An additional source of discomfort to him was the presence, in the bench in front, of the grizzled wig, tipped at a sharp angle over the leathery face of Mr Claude Wainwright, QC. Mr Wainwright had appeared from nowhere, at the last moment, and announced that he was instructed on behalf of the prisoner. With him, Mr Clayesmore.
This, felt Horsey, was unfair. He had been clearly given to understand that senior counsel were not to take any part in the preliminary proceedings. It was not that Wainwright had done anything or said anything, but the presence of his stringy neck and indestructible wig was an affront.
“It seemed unnecessary to produce the boys themselves as witnesses,” concluded Mr Horsey, “since they immediately, and very properly, sent for help in the form of the police. I will therefore call, as my first witness, Detective Sergeant Petrella.”
“Detective Sergeant Petrella,” boomed the uniformed usher, and Petrella, who had up to this moment been sitting in the company of the other Crown witnesses, on a nine-inch wide, worn, pinewood bench in an adjoining room, now stepped through the door and took the stand.
He described briefly how he had found the body, how it lay, and how it appeared to him that some effort had been made to cover it with leaves. He mentioned the finding of the newspaper with its missing centre pages, and he produced a large-scale plan of the reservoir, which was handed up to the magistrate, who kept the court waiting for several minutes while he examined it the wrong way up.
“One or two more questions, Sergeant,” said Mr Horsey, “relating to a later date in this investigation. Do you identify these six pieces of jewellery?”
Petrella agreed that he did so.
“Have they been identified as the property of Messrs Colegraves, Jewellers of Oxford Street?”
Mr Claude Wainwright’s wig rose about two inches, vertically, and the magistrate said, “I think, Mr Horsey, you ought to call a representative of Messrs Colegraves on that.”
“Certainly, sir,” said Mr Horsey, blushing again. “I intend to do so. I merely wished to establish with this officer that the pieces of jewellery in question were noted in the police pawn list as the property of Messrs Colegraves.”
“The alleged property of Messrs Colegraves,” said Mr Wainwright.
“Very well,” said Mr Horsey patiently, “the alleged property of Messrs Colegraves.”
Petrella admitted that this was so, and described his two visits to Mr Robins’ shop. Mr Wainwright did not cross-examine, and he was released. He departed through the doors at the rear of the court, waited until he judged that Mr Horsey had got his teeth into the next witness, and then came quietly back and slipped into one of the public benches. The uniformed policeman on duty saw him come in and winked at him.
He had never really appreciated before what a very large number of witnesses, most of them quite unimportant, the law demanded before it would accept the simplest fact.
The next man in the box was the draftsman from New Scotland Yard who had actually drawn the plan to which Petrella had referred. There followed the compiler of the pawn list, a representative of Messrs Colegraves, Mr Robins, and Mr Robins’ son, Richard.
Claude Wainwright, who had been apparently asleep, now woke up for a moment.
“When you were asked to identify the man who, it is suggested, had deposited these articles with you some time previou
sly,” he said, “how was the matter transacted?”
Young Robins, who had lost his bearings about halfway through the question, gaped at him.
“I mean,” said Mr Wainwright, “what happened? Did the police officer produce Howton to you in person, eh?”
“Oh, no, sir.”
“Showed you photographs then?”
“That’s right, sir. He had a photograph.”
“I’ve no doubt,” said Mr Wainwright, “that being a conscientious officer, who knew his duty, he showed you six or eight different photographs and asked you to pick out from them the person you recognized?”
“Well, no, sir. He just showed me one.”
“Indeed,” said Mr Wainwright. “And what did he say? Did he say, ‘That’s the man who left the jewellery here, isn’t it?’”
“I can’t remember exactly what he did say.”
“Something like that?”
“Yes, sir.”
Mr Wainwright subsided into his gown like an old, tired balloon deflating.
The next witness was Dr Summerson. He told, in his high-pitched, impersonal voice, of the finding of the body, of his observations as to the probable time it had been there, of the autopsy subsequently conducted by him in the Highside Mortuary, and of his conclusion that Mrs Ritchie had been killed by a bullet, fired from a pistol actually pressed against her body.
“I removed,” he concluded, “from the neighborhood of the spinal column, at a point seven inches below the fourth cervical vertebra, a cupronickel-cased lead bullet which I placed in a plastic envelope. I sealed and initialled the envelope and subsequently handed it to Superintendent Causton of the Forensic Science Laboratory at New Scotland Yard together with certain other exhibits.”
Dr Summerson proceeded to detail in precise tones, which somehow robbed his words of offense, exactly those portions of poor Mrs Ritchie that he had removed, labelled and handed to Superintendent Causton. At the moment when he seemed to be about to step down from the box, Mr Horsey asked, “Were there any other points of general interest about your examination which might assist the court?”
“My examination,” said Dr Summerson, “also revealed that the deceased was three months pregnant at the time of her death.”
The reporters’ pencils scurried and squeaked. Summerson was always news. And here, at least, was a simple fact. Something that the reading public could grasp, and speculate about. The woman had been found in November. Her husband went to prison – when? About the previous Christmas. Now they were getting somewhere.
Disappointingly, Mr Wainwright seemed unmoved and unsurprised. He broke off a low-voiced conversation with Mr Clayesmore long enough to indicate that he had no questions to ask, and Dr Summerson stepped smartly from the box and was driven off in the direction of Greys Hospital, where he was due to deliver a lecture on gallstones as an aid to identification.
His place was taken by Superintendent Causton, who deposed that he had handed over the bullet handed to him by Dr Summerson to another authority for microphotographic examination, and he, in turn, was replaced by Charles Fenwick (“the well-known ballistics expert”), who expressed the view that the bullet found in the body had been fired from a P38 pistol, a high-velocity weapon used by the German Army.
“Normally,” said Mr Horsey, “a bullet fired from such a weapon might pass right through the body of the person it struck?”
Mr Fenwick agreed that it might, but said that if the pistol were actually pressed against the body of the victim, as Dr Summerson had suggested, this would decrease its momentum and velocity.
Mr Fenwick then described, in considerable detail, a series of experiments he had made, by firing bullets from a P38 pistol handed to him (Exhibit Six) and discovered, so he understood, adjacent to the scene of the crime.
At the end of all this Mr Wainwright rose to his feet and observed that the defence did not intend to contest the fact that the bullet found in the deceased’s body had been fired from the automatic pistol (Exhibit Six). It occurred to Petrella that if he had said so earlier, it would have saved everyone a lot of time and trouble but Mr Horsey seemed to be gratified by the admission.
“I now propose,” he said, “to deal with the question of identity.”
“After lunch,” said the magistrate, and rose to his feet and disappeared. The court emptied. Petrella wanted time for thought, and ate a solitary meal at a snack bar round the corner. There were, no doubt, a number of little routine jobs which he could have been doing, but technically he was still engaged, full time, on the Rosa Ritchie case and he could think of no more useful place to study that case in its entirety than the back of the Highside Magistrate’s Court.
In the somnolent hour which followed lunch the court disposed of Mrs Ritchie’s doctor and dentist, who were able to set at rest, from their careful records, any doubts as to identity. After them came Mrs Fraser.
“It was with this witness,” explained Mr Horsey, “that the deceased was lodging at the time she met her death. She was the first person to identify her, but her evidence, as to clothing and shoes and so on, is not, perhaps, necessary in view of the witnesses you have just heard.”
The magistrate agreed that this was so.
“I shall ask her, then, first to tell us what she can about the deceased’s movements on the day she met her death.”
“Is presumed to have met her death,” said Mr Wainwright. “We have at the moment no evidence on the point beyond an evening paper, which, even if it belonged to the deceased, she may easily have purchased some days before and carried about with her.”
Mr Horsey’s mind was not flexible enough to deal, on the spot, with the possibilities opened up by this comment, so he merely repeated submissively, “Very well – is presumed to have met her death. Now, Mrs Fraser–?”
There was not, after all, a great deal that she could tell. Rosa had not left the flat when she herself went out to work. That would have been before half past eight. She had to be at work by nine. Being Saturday, she had her lunch at a place near her work, did some shopping, and got home about three. Rosa was gone. Her handbag and coat and hat were gone, but there was nothing to show that her departure was intended to be permanent.
“But in fact you never saw her again.”
“Never.”
“She had her own key?”
“She had a front-door key and a flat key.”
“Which were found in her handbag and later identified by you?”
“Yes.”
“Was she often out late at night?”
“Yes.”
“Sometimes all night?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Did you ever ask her where she had been?”
“Certainly not, why should I?”
“No reason at all,” agreed Mr Horsey. “Only, if you had asked her, and she had told you, it might have been interesting for us to know.”
This did not appear to be a question, so the witness made no attempt to answer it.
“I should like you to look at the accused.”
Mrs Fraser twisted round and looked unwillingly at Howton, who glared back at her out of his single eye.
“Have you ever seen him before today?”
“Once or twice, yes.”
“In what circumstances?”
It was clear that she was pausing to choose her words.
“He seemed to be some sort of acquaintance of Rosa’s.”
“Someone she was intimate with?”
“Really!” Mr Wainwright exploded like an expensive cracker.
“I meant, was he an intimate friend?”
“Intimacy, Mr Horsey,” said the magistrate, “is a word which, when used in court, for some reason I have never been able to understand, almost always implies impropriety. Is that what you are alleging?”
It was clearly what Mr Horsey would have liked to allege; it was also quite clearly outside his brief, so he shook his head sulkily.
“If not,” continued the magistr
ate, “I would suggest that you merely ask the witness to describe what occurred within her own observation.”
It amounted, again, to very little. Howton had called once or twice. She could not be pinned down to dates, but certainly not more than six times during the period that Rosa had lodged with her.
“And were any of those the occasions on which she failed to return until the following morning?” inquired the magistrate.
“No. She was back within a few hours on those occasions.”
Mr Horsey looked cross and said he had no more questions. Mr Wainwright looked pleased, and indicated that he, too, would leave well alone. As the witness was on the point of descending and the usher had actually taken a deep breath to shout for the next witness, the magistrate raised his hand. He was a very shrewd old man, wise by experience rather than book reading in the ways of the law. He could read the minds of both counsel with precision. Both were afraid of asking any more questions lest they prejudice their position at the later hearing. He was servant to no such hopes or fears.
“I would like to be a little clearer about this, Mrs Fraser,” he said. “It is a matter of some importance, you know. You are describing the relationship between the woman who is dead and the man who is accused of her murder. Would you have described them as lovers?”
Mrs Fraser thought about it. Then she said, “Not in the film sense.”
“You mean there was nothing romantic about it?”
“Definitely not.”
“But there could have been a more sordid relationship.”
“Yes. I suppose so. There could have been.”
“I am not here to put words into your mouth, Mrs Fraser. You are a woman of the world. Just how would you describe it yourself?”
“I should say that it was – a sort of business relationship between them.”
The magistrate turned it over in his mind. The packed court was completely silent. Petrella found that the palms of his hands were wet. It was extraordinary how the bumbling processes of the law could roll along, hour after hour, producing nothing, and then, suddenly, a witness would say something that opened up a vista of startling clarity.
Blood and Judgement Page 9