Speedy Death

by Gladys Mitchell

  ‘Clever woman! That’s had its effect on the jury!’

  The first witness for the prosecution was called and sworn. It was Carstairs. He was asked to describe the finding of Eleanor’s body in the bathroom.

  ‘Had you any suspicion of foul play?’ he was asked next.

  ‘Well, yes, of course,’ answered Carstairs, raising his eyebrows at what seemed to him a pointless question.

  There was a flutter of interest. The audience had become rather bored with the fat little counsel for the prosecution, but this thin, hatchet-faced man promised better.

  ‘Oh? You did suspect foul play? Will you please tell the court why?’

  ‘Well, Miss Bing always seemed to me a strong, healthy young woman. I could not imagine her fainting and so getting drowned in the bath, so I took it that she had been murdered—that is, that somebody had drowned her,’ replied Carstairs, without hesitation.

  ‘Had you any reason for thinking so?’

  ‘Yes. She was lying in a bath full of water,’ said Carstairs innocently.

  It had annoyed him to find he had been called as a witness for the Crown, but he intended to give the prosecution as little help as he could within the strict terms of his oath.

  The titters were not very easily repressed, and the counsel glanced towards the judge. His lordship, however, made no comment, and the questioning proceeded.

  ‘I understand that, of course, I mean, why should you suppose anyone in the house had met with foul play?’

  ‘We had had one person drowned in the bath during the same week, and another would have been violently killed as she lay in bed, but for the substitution——’

  ‘Yes, yes! We will come to that later. Keep to the point, if you please!’

  ‘What can one think of a man who bullies his own witnesses?’ thought Mrs Bradley, with her sardonic grin. ‘Poor Mr Carstairs! He is afraid he’ll say something to my disadvantage in a minute. I expect he will, too!’

  ‘I was answering your question,’ observed Carstairs mildly. ‘I thought you asked me——’

  ‘This is no place for thinking,’ said the prosecuting counsel. At this point in the proceedings a person at the back of the court who cried ‘Hear! Hear!’ was ejected, and the counsel continued his examination of Carstairs in peace, but elicited nothing further except some precise information as to the position of Eleanor’s body when Carstairs, with others, had forced their way into the bathroom.

  He was cross-questioned by the defending counsel at this point, and the court learned that it was Alastair Bing who had feared foul play when his daughter did not appear at breakfast on another occasion, the reference being, of course, to Bertie Philipson’s attempt to drown her.

  ‘Alastair Bing? That is the father of the dead woman, is it not?’ purred Ferdinand in his silky voice.

  The witness agreed that this was so.

  ‘The man whom it is suggested the prisoner wished to marry?’

  Carstairs again agreed.

  ‘Where is he now?’

  The question came with such startling force that the court sat up with a jerk.

  ‘On his way to Tibet. He may have arrived there by now, for all I know,’ replied Carstairs, perceiving the drift of this interrogation.

  ‘He is not in court?’

  Once again the whip-crack question.

  ‘No,’ answered Carstairs.

  At this point the prosecuting counsel raised formal objection to these questions, but his lordship allowed the cross-examination to proceed.

  ‘Why did he leave England?’

  Carstairs and Garde had made up their minds that if this question were asked they would answer it by pleading complete ignorance, and letting the defence make what they could out of Alastair’s absence.

  Carstairs, therefore, briefly announced that he did not know, but—with a sudden inspiration—that he believed there had been some unfortunate affair with one of the maidservants.

  The leading counsel for the defence nodded his distinguished head.

  ‘I see,’ he drawled, eyeing the jury keenly to note whether they were sufficiently alert to note his point in asking these questions. ‘Exactly the kind of man, in fact, that one would expect to find the prisoner risking her neck for!’

  A roar from the crowded court told that the shot had gone home.

  Ferdinand Lestrange sat down, and the next witness was called, in the person of Bertie Philipson. He was merely asked to substantiate what Carstairs had told the court about the finding of the body.

  The third witness for the prosecution was the doctor who had re-examined the body to discover the cause of death. From him was extracted a fair amount of information respecting the nature of the drug hyoscin, the means of obtaining it, the amount usually dispensed to a patient, the amount necessary to cause death, the method of giving the drug to a patient, and the probable method of administration in this particular case.

  The court learned from this witness that hyoscin was extracted from a plant called henbane, that it was used as a calmative drug for the insane, for cases of extreme nervous disability, for patients suffering from delirium, and was usually dispensed to medical men only, and not sold to the public. Doctors obtained it in the form of crystals which could be dissolved in alcohol, then diluted with water, and then administered to the patient hypodermically—that is, by injection under the skin. It was quite possible, however, said the witness, for the drug to be taken in liquid form through the mouth. In this particular case, there could be no reasonable doubt that such had been the means of administering the poison.

  His evidence was supported by that of another doctor, who was called as the next witness.

  Evidence was then forthcoming as to the possibility of the prisoner’s having been able to obtain the drug. It was proved that she was a psycho-analyst.

  ‘What is a psycho-analyst?’ asked the judge, at this juncture.

  ‘I understand, my lord, that it is a disciple of Herr Sigmund Freud, an Austrian specialist in nervous and mental diseases,’ replied the prosecuting counsel.

  ‘Wrong, child, wrong!’ murmured the prisoner, under her breath.

  It was proved that she had visited mental hospitals in this country and in America (where the drug is used more commonly than in England), and that it might have been possible for her to obtain a sufficient quantity for her purpose. This purpose, according to the prosecuting counsel, was to accomplish the death of Eleanor Bing, and become the mistress of Chaynings.

  ‘The motive is the weak part of it,’ said Carstairs to Bertie Philipson. ‘If they could think of a more reasonable motive——’

  The Crown was unable to prove that any word of love or even of ordinary courtesy had passed between Mrs Bradley and Alastair Bing. They had never been found alone together—in fact, as one ingenuous village maiden observed (without prompting from the Crown, needless to say!), ‘they fair ’ated the sight of each other! If one of ’em come into my shop, the other ’ud go out of it!’

  This witness was dismissed rather hastily, Ferdinand Lestrange smiling cynically and not even bothering to cross-examine.

  The matter of the coffee was now thoroughly attacked. Carstairs, who stood listening to the other witnesses, drew a deep breath. He felt shaky on the question of that coffee. ‘Tasteless in coffee or tea!’ The words kept repeating themselves in his brain.

  The jury were visibly affected by the fact that the accused had administered coffee to the deceased, and, when the court adjourned, more than three quarters of the people present felt convinced that Mrs Bradley would be found guilty.

  ‘She looks like a murderer,’ said one woman to her neighbour, as they pushed their way out. ‘See ’ow contemptuous she smiled. She’s a deep one, you mark my words! ‘Ardened to it, you can tell that. I reckon ’er looks give ’er away all the time.’

  ‘Looks ain’t everything, Martha,’ came the reply. ‘And we got to ’ear the other side, yet, mind.’

  When the court re-asse
mbled, there remained but two witnesses for the prosecution still to be heard. The first of these was Mrs Bradley’s maid, who was closely questioned about the events of the night preceding Eleanor Bing’s death. Her replies, rendered in that broken English which is one of the charms of French servants, did her mistress more good than harm, however. A suggestion that there had been quarrels between Mrs Bradley and the murdered woman she repudiated with Gallic fervour and intensity.

  ‘Mais non, monsieur! Non, non, non! Madame, she speak but always the kindness to la pauvre demoiselle! She is so sweet! So devoted!’

  The court glanced at Mrs Bradley and smiled incredulously.

  ‘You say your mistress asked Miss Pamela Storbin to sleep in her room that night? Why did she do that?’

  ‘But, monsieur!’ protested Celestine, gesticulating violently. ‘Me, how should I know? I cannot say to Madame, “Why this? Why that?” Me, I should receive the kick—no, the push, as you Engleesh call him! But, no! Nevaire I make the inquiry! Nevaire I have the curiosity! That is not the way to advance oneself!’

  The court chuckled appreciatively, Ferdinand Lestrange smiled ironically, and, having obtained as full an account of the night’s happenings as Celestine could give, the prosecution dismissed her and called their last witness.

  This was Detective-Inspector Boring. He had caused the prisoner to be arrested, he asserted, on the grounds that she was the last person to have seen the deceased alive, and that she had given the deceased a cup of coffee which probably contained poison.

  Ferdinand Lestrange rose to cross-examine this witness.

  ‘How do you know that the prisoner was the last person to see Miss Bing alive?’

  ‘I cannot find anyone who saw Miss Bing alive after Mrs Bradley left her on the night of August 18th.’

  ‘Just so. You cannot find anybody else. Did you attempt to find anybody else?’

  This question seemed to confuse the witness, and he rendered no intelligible reply.

  ‘Again,’ pursued the defending counsel, ‘on what fact do you base the statement that the cup of coffee which the prisoner gave the deceased was poisoned?’

  ‘By her own confession that she administered the coffee, and by the evidence of eye-witnesses who saw her do so,’ replied Boring.

  ‘Exactly,’ purred Ferdinand. ‘That accounts for the coffee, but does not account for the poison.’

  ‘Except for a harmless sleeping-draught, also administered by the prisoner, I could not discover anything else which could have contained the poison in a tasteless form.’

  ‘Come, come,’ countered the inquisitor almost playfully. ‘You don’t mean to tell me that if, as you plainly imagine, the cup of coffee contained the poison which killed Miss Bing, the murderer would not realize the significance of allowing all those witnesses to watch her as she administered it?’

  ‘I thought she might be bluffing,’ said the inspector, glaring resentfully at his adversary.

  ‘I see.’ Counsel’s dry acceptance of this explanation provoked chuckles from the court. Without giving the unfortunate witness time to recover, he continued:

  ‘Why did you not read the warrant for her arrest to the prisoner?’

  ‘I was under the impression that it had been read to her as a matter of course.’ The detective flushed darkly as he made this reply, and muttered something about ‘local fatheads.’

  Counsel smiled.

  ‘It is a technical point, of course,’ he remarked pleasantly.

  The witness then stood down, quite discredited in the eyes of the jury, as Ferdinand intended he should be.

  Counsel for the prosecution, who had had some idea of re-calling Bertie Philipson, suddenly recollected that the young man himself had no alibi for the night of August 15th, if the unseemly occurrences of that night should be dragged into the light of day by Ferdinand Lestrange, and so wisely decided that the case for the Crown might be stronger without his evidence than with it.

  Ferdinand Lestrange glanced at his mother, and wondered how much he could get her to cough up when the trial was over!

  The court then adjourned.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The Defence

  FERDINAND LESTRANGE CLEARED his throat and addressed himself to his lordship and the gentlemen of the jury with impartial courtesy. His voice was good, his appearance distinguished, and he was determined to do himself credit, his mother’s fate being merely a secondary consideration in his eyes.

  He did not wish to take up the time of the court, he said, by a lengthy refutation of the statements made by the Crown. It was for the jury to decide, when they had heard all the evidence on both sides, whether the prisoner was guilty or not guilty of the terrible deed which had been attributed to her. It was not for him to suggest that there might arise grave doubts in the mind of any reasonable man—any man of the world, that was to say—as to whether the woman they saw before them—wealthy, famous, extraordinarily clever, and, he would remind them, a true benefactor of the human race in that, while others were physicians of the body, she, gentlemen, might be termed a physician of the mind—that strange and marvellous attribute, gentlemen, without which men would be as the beasts that perish—as to whether such a woman could stoop to the sin of Cain, to the horrible crime of murder. For murder is a horrible crime, gentlemen—a terrible, an almost incredible crime—and if they thought that the woman before them had committed such a crime they must not shirk their responsibilities, as men and citizens.

  But—the learned counsel paused, and fixed the jury with a hypnotic eye—were they so convinced? Had the Crown proved its case? For, remember, gentlemen, that the burden of proof rests upon the prosecution. If the prosecution cannot prove the guilt of any person brought into this court for trial—more, gentlemen, if there is the slightest shadow of doubt involved—the accused goes free.

  He paused again, to allow this principle of English justice to sink into their minds.

  ‘Now I propose,’ he continued, ‘to call witnesses who will show you that there were no less than five other people staying in that house (on the night when the poison was administered) who were in exactly the same position there as the woman who is standing her trial at this moment. They had equal motive—or lack of motive—to commit the crime, and—here, gentlemen, is a point I ought to stress—they had equal opportunity of doing so. But we are not trying them, gentlemen! No! They will be called upon to give their evidence, as, in a moment, the prisoner will be called upon to give hers; but their evidence heard, they will be free men and women, gentlemen, whereas the unfortunate prisoner will return to the dock where she now stands!’

  Abruptly, it seemed to the listeners, he stopped, almost like a runner who halts in the middle of the race, and called his first witness.

  Dorothy Bing, née Clark, stepped to the witness-box and was sworn. Ferdinand addressed this obviously nervous witness with suave courtesy.

  ‘You are Mrs Garde Bing?’

  ‘Yes.’ The reply was nothing more than a whisper.

  ‘You were living at Chaynings when this unfortunate affair took place?’

  ‘When Miss Bing was—when she died?’ faltered Dorothy.

  ‘Speak up, please, Mrs Bing. Yes, that is the time to which I refer.’

  ‘Yes, I was staying in the house.’

  ‘You were married then?’

  ‘Yes. I—I had very recently married.’

  ‘Quite so. And everybody congratulated you both and wished you happiness, I dare say?’

  ‘They were—yes, they were all very kind.’

  ‘Of course they were. All of them, Mrs Bing. Everybody?’

  ‘Yes—well—perhaps——’

  ‘Ah! We are in doubt! We would like to think about it for a minute. Among all those very kind people, Mrs Bing, there was one, was there not, who was—let us say, not quite so kind?’

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t understand you.’

  ‘Let me make myself clear. Will you tell the court what was Miss E
leanor Bing’s attitude towards your marriage?’

  ‘She was—very cross when we became engaged,’ faltered Dorothy, ‘but——’

  Ferdinand shot a triumphant glance around the court.

  ‘Ah!’ he exclaimed, without allowing her time to conclude her sentence. ‘And what did you think about that?’

  ‘I—I—well, I thought it was rather unkind of her. I—we—I mean, it wasn’t as though she was very fond of Garde—of my husband!’

  ‘So you quarrelled about it?’

  ‘No. We—it was more horrid than that. You—I don’t think a man could quite understand——’

  Loud laughter from the court interrupted this sentence, and greatly added to the nervousness of the witness. Order was restored, and Ferdinand continued smoothly:

  ‘Perhaps not! I suggest, though, that on one occasion Miss Bing told you she hated you?’

  ‘Yes.’ Very low came this admission.

  ‘And that on another occasion she flung a clock belonging to you heavily upon the floor in a fit of passion?’

  ‘Yes. She might have dropped it by accident, though. I don’t think she meant to throw it down and smash it.’

  ‘Mrs Bing’—Ferdinand’s beautiful voice became husky with well-simulated admiration—‘you are that wonderful and tender thing—a good woman. You have a power of forgiveness that I wish could be extended to us all. For this woman, whose passion you are trying to conceal from us, did worse than break your property. She made an attempt upon your very life!’

  The witness grew deadly white and swayed dizzily on her feet, but remorselessly the counsel pressed his point home.

  ‘Can you deny it, Mrs Bing? Did she not creep into your room in the early hours of the morning——’

  But the witness could bear no more.

  ‘Oh, don’t! Please don’t!’ she cried. ‘She did do that! But please don’t talk about it!’

  The next witness was Garde, who looked exceptionally big and tall in his plus-fours. He grinned engagingly at Ferdinand and stood at ease, waiting to be questioned.

  ‘How did you get on with your sister, Mr Bing?’ The counsel shot a keen glance at him.