‘And the unfortunate husband?’
‘Medium height, heavy build and very dark – almost swarthy, in fact.’
‘Ah, yes.’ It was certainly not a description which, by any imagination, could fit Telham. ‘Then there was a third man, or so I was told. Where did he fit in?’
‘A third man? Oh, you mean Mr Karl Emden, I suppose.’
‘Emden was the name, yes. The police are particularly interested in Mr Emden. You see, although I do not imagine the story got into the English papers, the unfortunate Mr Karl Emden has been murdered.’
‘What? Him, too? Good gracious me! Whatever next?’
‘I have no idea.’
‘But the poor, pale, soft young man! Whatever could he have been doing to get himself murdered? Why, he only came here visiting. Once a week he came, on Fridays, to make up a four at bridge. Whoever could have wanted to murder him?’
‘That is what a good many people would like to know.’
‘You said something about it not getting into the English papers. Was he murdered abroad, then? I always say you can’t trust foreigners. That’s the way I see it. Poor soul! Such a quiet young man, you couldn’t think he could upset anybody, not even a heathen cannibal. Where did it happen?’
‘On the island of Hombres Muertos.’
‘Never heard of it.’
‘None of the party ever mentioned it in your hearing?’
‘Never, and it wasn’t for want of me listening, I assure you.’
‘What was the relationship between Mrs Lockerby and this Mr Karl Emden?’
‘Cool and polite. Quite friendly, but nothing more. No, no. It was what I have already told you. She was wrapped up in this fellow she called her brother.’
‘How long had they been living in this house before the husband was murdered?’
‘A matter of a year and a half.’
‘Did you ever know Mrs Lockerby to be hysterical?’
‘Only with her husband when there were quarrels. Of course, I will say he could be violent.’
‘How violent?’
‘Oh, not blows. I should have sent for the police if he had struck her. He used bad language and a lot of it. It was from him I found out that Mr Telham was not her brother.’
‘Did he ever use Telham’s name in the course of these quarrels?’
‘Not that I remember. He called him a great number of things, but never Telham.’
‘How did you know his name was Telham, then?’
‘Letters.’
‘Letters?’
‘His letters came here and she used to pick them up where I’d left them lying on the mat. I always used to get to the front door first because, by the time the post came, the men had gone off to business and my lady was still in bed.’
Dame Beatrice confided the gist of this conversation to Gavin.
‘It sounds a rum sort of set-up,’ he said. ‘The description of Telham fits Emden, you think, and Emden was clearly Telham. Ménage à trois, et un mari complaisant, en effet, n’est-ce pas? Well, it’s all of a queer do, but the more I know of human relationships, the less I’m prepared to put anything past anybody. The puzzle, though, far from getting itself unravelled, seems in more of a mess than ever. I mean to say, if Lockerby didn’t object to his wife’s making a love-nest with Emden, why the need for either of them to bump him off? Do you think perhaps Caroline wanted a divorce and he refused to play ball?’
‘Or did the chivalrous brother, the weekly visitor who made a fourth at bridge on Friday nights, remove the obstacle to a second and happier marriage for his sister?’
‘Goodness knows! As I say, it appears to me we’re as much in the dark as we were. Do you want me to tell Anson all this?’
‘If you think it will help him. I cannot see that it will. However, it will very likely help me when I get back to Hombres Muertos. The trouble there, from the beginning, has been that we have not known how to ask questions or, rather, what questions to ask and of whom to ask them.’
‘But now, you think, there are to be some interesting answers to be expected from Mrs Lockerby? What’s she like?’
‘Aged about twenty-nine and very charming. And very fond of her brother.’
‘The real Telham?’
‘The real Telham.’
‘Is the fondness genuine?’
‘Undoubtedly, I should say.’
‘Well, you would certainly know. I can’t say I envy you. You haven’t freed one of your suspects by coming back here. You’ve only been offered a lot of irrelevant details and spent a great deal of valuable time.’
‘I haven’t freed any of my suspects, it is true; but there is no doubt that on one or two of them, the searchlight of suspicion is differently focused. Before I leave London, I want to re-read my grandnephew’s notes on the trial of Mr Clun for manslaughter. And now, is it fair to ask how much longer you can spare your Laura to the island of bandits and bananas?’
‘Not very much longer,’ said Gavin, ‘sun-bathing and Señores notwithstanding. In other words, keep her as long as you want her, of course. That, by this time, goes without saying.’
‘And now to retrace our steps. What was all that about Mr Clun?’ said Dame Beatrice. She looked up her notes.
CHAPTER 13
The Case Against a Killer
INTO THE CROWN Court of Assize came the judge’s chaplain, the sheriff, then the judge, importantly dressed in red, followed by his marshal. The court stood. The judge bowed to counsel, who bowed in return, and to the jury.
Clun, immaculately dressed, stood in the dock and was flanked by two warders. The jury looked expectant, the witnesses stopped fidgeting, the Press poised their pencils. The judge’s clerk, a thin man in spectacles, traditionally and unnecessarily called the court to attention, and the assize clerk read the indictment. The prisoner pleaded not guilty, but only as a matter of form. He knew he stood no chance of being acquitted, but his counsel had insisted on the plea.
He was given the opportunity to object to the jury or to any individual member of it. Then the jury, eight men and four women, were sworn, and the trial began.
‘Members of the jury …’ the assize clerk opened the proceedings in a thin, clear voice – ‘Clun stands before you, charged with the manslaughter of Ernest Everard in the foyer of the Crown Hotel, Pawsey, at 10.45 p.m. in the evening of 18 March. Upon this indictment he has been arraigned, and, upon this arraignment, he has pleaded Not Guilty. Your charge, therefore, is to say whether he be guilty or no, and to hear the evidence.’
At a signal from the warder nearest him, Clun seated himself, and counsel for the prosecution stood up to address the judge and then the jury. He put his case plainly and straightforwardly, in a dry and non-committal voice. Clun had been one of a party of men who had had dinner together at the hotel. It was a stag party, the tie between the diners being that of belonging to a local political club.
‘It is not contested, members of the jury, that the parties had both been drinking heavily. It is not contested that the dead man had used insulting and intemperate language. You will hear from eye-witnesses that a scuffle took place, between him and the accused, at the top of a staircase leading from the dining-room to the foyer. You will hear that the accused acted under strong provocation; nevertheless, I submit that no provocation could be strong enough to justify the action of the accused in bringing about the death of Ernest Everard in the way you will hear described.’
Here counsel produced plans and diagrams for the inspection of judge and jury, and then called his first witness. This turned out to be Ian Lockerby.
‘Your name is Ian Lockerby?’
‘Yes.’
‘You live in flat number fifteen, in Temple Mansions?’
‘Yes.’
‘You were the convener of this dinner-party?’
‘Well, I’m the secretary, so, of course, I sent out the invitations.’
‘So you sent an invitation to Clun and another to a Mr Ernest Everard?�
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‘No, I didn’t. Clun was a member, but Everard came in place of one of the members who couldn’t turn up.’
‘Was that in order?’
‘Well, no, not really, I suppose.’
‘Will you clarify that answer, if you please.’
‘What I mean is that we didn’t usually admit non-members, but the member who couldn’t turn up had paid for the dinner in advance and we couldn’t refund him the money because the restaurant had it, and these chaps will never disgorge …’
‘Keep to the point, please.’
‘I thought I was.’ (Here Dame Beatrice’s grand-nephew had noted in his report that it seemed, according to the newspapers, that Lockerby had flushed up and looked annoyed.) ‘The point is that the fellow who should have come didn’t want to have paid for nothing, so he’d arranged with Everard to settle for it. He thought we wouldn’t mind, as we knew he was pretty hard up. He’d dropped a packet that week at …’
‘Please spare us these unnecessary details. What happened after dinner?’
‘We were slung out.’
‘That is not what I mean. When the dinner was over, and your party were about to descend to the foyer to go home, did you see Clun strike Everard?
‘Yes, I did.’
‘Did you hear him say anything to him before, or as he struck him?’
‘Yes, I did,’ said the witness, with an apologetic glance at the prisoner, who gave an ironic smile. ‘He said he would – am I to repeat his actual words, my lord?’
‘Certainly,’ replied the judge.
‘Well, he said he would knock him cock-eyed and he hoped he’d break his bloody neck.’
‘Fair enough,’ muttered someone from the back of the court.
‘What opinion did you form when you heard those words spoken?’
‘I had no time to form an opinion. As he spoke, he up and did it.’
‘Did what?’
‘Punched Everard in the eye, so that he staggered towards the top of the stairs. Then Clun held on to the top banister post with his left hand and upper-cut Everard with his right so that the fellow simply went crashing down the stairs on to the stone floor of the foyer. Of course, nobody thought…’
‘In your opinion, then,’ said counsel hastily, ‘the accused fully intended to knock his victim downstairs and injure him seriously?’
‘Well, I couldn’t honestly swear to that. I shouldn’t think he thought of actual injuries, don’t you know, and, of course, he was devilish tight at the time.’
‘He was …?’ inquired the judge.
‘Too drunk to be responsible,’ translated the witness.
‘Yes, yes. Thank you, Mr Lockerby,’ said counsel. ‘His Lordship understands you, I am sure.’ Counsel for the defence rose.
‘When you say that the accused was too drunk to be responsible, do you mean that he would not have acted in the same way if he had been sober?’
‘I’m sure he wouldn’t.’
‘That is a matter of opinion, not of fact,’ said the judge dryly. Counsel bowed.
‘When you said that you were “slung out” – that is the expression I think you employed – you mean, I take it that the management requested your party to leave?’
‘That’s about the size of it. We were pretty well tanked up, most of us …’
‘Will the witness confine himself to the Queen’s English?’ suggested the judge mildly.
‘Pardon, my lord,’ said the witness sulkily. ‘I should say that we had all had a fair amount to drink and were not altogether sober.’
‘Your party was requested to leave,’ pursued counsel. ‘What effect did that have?’
‘The blokes were a bit sore. That is to say’ – the witness glanced towards the judge – ‘some dissatisfaction was expressed. Then, when some of us were at the top of the stairs, after we’d got our things from the cloakroom, Clun hit Everard and Everard rolled down the stairs. He lay there, and when some of us went to help him and see what the damage was, we could see he’d busted his skull – er – he’d received a severe knock on the head which had broken the skin. We phoned the hospital but when the ambulance came it turned out that he was dead.’
The next witness was the doctor. He explained that the ambulance men had brought Everard to the casualty department of the local hospital, that he had been called at once to attend to him, but that he was dead.
‘How long, would you say, Doctor?’
‘A matter of half an hour, possibly less.’
‘In other words, he was dead before he was removed from the hotel foyer to hospital?’
‘Yes. I should say that something must have killed him immediately.’
‘Was it the injury to his head that killed him?’
‘No. That was severe, but the actual cause of death was, in common parlance, a broken neck.’
‘A result of the fall?’
‘It is not possible to say definitely.’
‘Will you explain that, please?’
‘From the nature of the injury, death could have been caused by a punch under the angle of the jaw, but I am not able to say that it was so caused.’
‘Upon what do you base the supposition that such a punch might have broken the man’s neck?’
‘I saw the same thing happen at a boxing match once, and have heard of other instances.’
Counsel for the defence asked:
‘Would it be a rare occurrence?’
‘I have experience only of the one instance. I have heard of two others.’
‘Were there not multiple contusions upon the body?’
‘Yes, but they were superficial injuries. The serious injury, apart from the knock on the head, was a broken jaw.’
‘Might not that also have been an effect of the fall?’
‘Well, I deduced that it was the result of a heavy punch, but one cannot be sure.’
‘Thank you, Doctor.’ Counsel sat down.
‘Call Charles Emden,’ said the prosecuting counsel.
It was too beautiful, thought Dame Beatrice, re-reading her grandnephew’s full and sufficient notes. That Clun, Emden, and Lockerby were all sewn up in the same parcel was matter more suitable to the dramas of Ancient Greece than to the world of the present century.
Karl Emden, it appeared, could not speak to the fracas at the top of the staircase, but he could, and did, provide contributory evidence in that he had been present at the beginning of the argument between Clun and Everard.
‘You are Charles Emden?’
(Surprising what a difference an anglicized baptismal name could make, Dame Beatrice thought).
‘Yes, I am Charles Emden.’
His home address followed and the witness acknowledged it.
‘You were present at a dinner-party held at the Crown Hotel, Pawsey, on the evening of 18 March?’
‘I was.’
‘At the conclusion of the meeting you went to the cloakroom for your overcoat and hat.’
‘And scarf and gloves.’
‘Quite so. While you were in the cloakroom you overheard an exchange of remarks between the prisoner and the deceased?’
‘Yes. They had a difference of opinion.’
‘Can you tell us the subject of this disagreement?’
‘Yes. Clun called Everard a dirty interloper and said he ought not to have gate-crashed the dinner, and Everard said that he’d paid as much as Clun had, and had a right to come. They argued like that for a bit, and then things got more personal, and they were shouting at one another, and then Clun hit Everard in the eye.’
‘You are certain that Clun was the aggressor?’
‘Well, I didn’t blame him really. Everard had just called him a …’
‘Never mind that. Answer the question.’
‘Yes, Clun hit him first.’
‘Did you see what happened at the top of the staircase?’
‘No.’
‘How was that?’
‘I couldn’t find my cloakroom
ticket, so I waited until everybody else had claimed his things and mine were left.’
‘When did you next see Clun?’
‘When I got to the foyer. He and some others were standing beside Everard, who was stretched out on the floor at the bottom of the stairs – well, not so much stretched out, I suppose, as crumpled up. I said, “Has he conked out?”’
‘What did you mean by that?’
‘Well, we’d all had drinks.’
‘Answer the question.’
‘I meant he was drunk. I also thought he’d tumbled down the stairs because I saw there was blood on his head. Clun said, “Lord! I’ve been and gone and done it now! Get a doctor, quick!”’
Defending counsel rose.
‘You are certain those were the words Clun used?’
‘Quite certain.’
‘What interpretation did you put on them?’
‘Well, I knew he’d hit him in the cloakroom so I thought he was referring to that.’
‘You did not think he meant he had killed him?’
‘Oh, no. I thought he meant perhaps Everard had been partly stunned by the first punch and had stumbled downstairs.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Call Inspector Truebody.’
Inspector Truebody’s evidence amounted to a disclosure of the accused’s words when he was confronted by the doctor’s verdict that Everard had been killed. These, it seemed, were:
‘Well, I’ve bought it this time. I never meant it like this.’
Then the accused himself was called.
‘Your name is Clun?’
‘Yes.’
‘You are twenty-six years of age and you live at number seventeen Murray Street?’
‘Yes.’
‘You attended a club dinner at the Crown Hotel on 18 March?’
‘Yes.’
‘At the dinner you learned that a non-member of the club was present?’
‘Yes.’
‘You took exception to this fact?’
‘I don’t like gate-crashers.’
‘Answer the question.’
‘I thought the dinner should be confined to members only. That was the rule.’
The Twenty-Third Man Page 16