The Crime at Halfpenny Bridge

by George Bellairs

The only comfortable one in the audience was Mr. Menelaus whose dreadful personal aroma kept intruders at bay and permitted him to sit in peace like an astrologer in his pentacle.

  The hour of sitting was earlier than usual. A deputation of master mariners had—on Sunday of all days!—broken upon the Coroner’s afternoon snooze with a request to get it all over and done with before the eleven o’clock high-tide. In these days of shipping shortage it was the least Jackson could do to release O’Brien and Creer and let the Ynyslan and the Mannin Veen get under way on Monday morning.

  At nine-thirty sharp, therefore, Mr. Jackson hammered his desk for silence.

  Sam Prank, deceased came first. Not because he had a prior claim, but because the witnesses in his case were champing at the bit to be off.

  Formal identification of the remains was given by “Captain” Sprankling, who adjudicated soberly, like the judge at a dog-show. His reputation for being a wiseacre increased among his following, for his stupidity was mistaken for oracular profundity.

  The police-surgeon, Dr. Swann, gave his evidence coldly and methodically. He looked like a medical Mephistopheles, dark, tall, slim and sardonic.

  “… Yes. In simple language, he was first rendered unconscious by a blow on the head from a blunt instrument—a stick, a piece of lead or rubber tubing, or even a spanner, I would say. Then, whilst unconscious, he was flung in the dock, where he drowned, unable to help himself.…”

  There were cries of Shame! and groans of horror. A woman fainted and was carried out. The audience wanted plenty of sensation. They moaned sympathetically as the surgeon told his tale. He left the box all too soon. Some of the listeners would have given him an encore had it been possible.

  Dr. Wolfgang Amadeus Smith, county pathologist, confirmed Dr. Swann’s statement.

  Constable 89, John William Fasbon, entered the box next and gave his evidence in a dull sing-song, refreshing himself from time to time by referring to his notebook. This he did with a proper professional gesture, using both his hands and holding his copy low and well away from his mouth, for in his spare time he was a bass singer.

  The jury, which included three women, with the local stationmaster as foreman, were dressed in their best and on their best behaviour, as though their foreman were taking them on an excursion in some of his rolling-stock and had promised them a new shilling each if they behaved. Every time a train whistle sounded from the distant Werrymouth (Town) Station, the stationmaster winced as though suspecting that schedules were going to pot in his forced absence. He kept taking out a huge watch and consulting it every time he heard a train on the move.

  “… At ten-twenty-seven on the night of Saturday last I was on duty patrolling in the vicinity of the Old Quay, when I was informed that someone had fallen h’in the dock,” intoned P.C. 89, in his best “Trumpeter what are you sounding now?” style. “I hurried … body ’ad been recovered … assisted in bringing it to quayside … unsuccessfully tried artifiicial respiration … resuscitator … arrival of doctor … pronounced life to be h’extinct.”

  No. 89 halted and, only just in time, prevented himself from bowing in anticipation of a storm of applause.

  “Any questions?” This from Mr. Jackson to the jury, stretching his neck and turning to them like a talking-doll.

  “Next witness.”

  “Call Michael Ambrose O’Flaherty O’Brien.…”

  The intermediate names brought a titter and some jovial mumblings from the nautical section of the crowd, who carefully noted them in their minds for future ridicule.

  O’Brien mounted the stand with a vigorous, swaggering air. He looked quite at home and took the oath solemnly.

  “… and nothing but the truth, so … help … me … God,” and then he added, “St. Michael and all the blessed angels,” ending by kissing the Book loudly and with a flourish.

  “No need for you to embellish the oath, O’Brien,” said Mr. Jackson, glaring and taking the measure of the witness. “This is a serious business, not a comic turn. Curb your exuberance.”

  “Very good, yer Lordship.”

  “Mr. Coroner is a sufficient honour to pay me. Now to business.”

  O’Brien was a masher and no mistake.

  His cheeky, wedge-like face shone and beamed. He had his best suit on, which between trips and solemn occasions calling for its use, he stored in the pawnshop. Round his neck was knotted a kerchief of many colours. A pair of brown boots, also a redeemed pledge, although invisible in the witness-box, finished off the display of finery.

  “Name.”

  “Michael Ambrosius O’Flaherty O’Brien. Born Dublin, March 21st, 1893, mate of the Ynyslan of Cardiff, at present docked in Werrymouth harbour.”

  “Tell the court what happened on the night of Saturday last … as succinctly as you can, please.”

  “Beg pardon.…”

  “Briefly.…”

  The Irishman lubricated his lips by running his tongue along them and then rubbing them against each other.

  “On the noight of Saturday last, my friend Creer and me was leavin’ the “Welcome Home” where we’d been spendin’ the evenin’ quiet and sober like. The night was dark and as we was leavin’ the place I sez to Creer …”

  “We don’t want to know what you said to Creer. What did you see at the time of the crime?”

  “Oi’m comin’ to that if your Lordship will let me. As Oi was saying, I sez to Creer …”

  The nautical portion of the audience tittered and chirped and Mr. Jackson thrashed his desk with his wooden hammer.

  “Silence! Now, you, O’Brien, just answer my questions if you want to sail with the Ynyslan to-day.”

  “That he does,” roared the Captain of that vessel, who was in the body of the court “And you, O’Brien, just answer his worship civil and proper, or I’ll knock the teeth down yer throat.”

  “I can manage affairs in my own court, thank you,” tartly ejaculated the coroner. “Now, witness …”

  Eventually they got a proper tale out of him which merely amounted to an ornamented repetition of the statement O’Brien had already given.

  “… the second flash showed dirty work indade. By we saw one dark shape stroike the other a foul blow and drag him to the water side. There was a splash. When the next beam came, what did we see? Nothin’ at all. The villain had gone. Bad cess to him! So to attack a helpless man in the noight.”

  There was a loud and sustained murmur of sympathy from the body of the hall. Several of the devout crossed themselves. The coroner again smote his desk with his hammer like a frenzied auctioneer knocking down a lot to a lucky bidder.

  “Thank you. Stand down, O’Brien.…”

  The Irishman was in the limelight, however, and was ready to go on with details concerning the recovery of the corpse and with medical particulars concerning the state it was in when landed.

  “STAND DOWN,” yelled Mr. Jackson, kicking his unseen and dangling legs to and fro in a tantrum.

  O’Brien was led off by a policeman and parked where he could do no further harm.

  Edward Creer, huge, awkward, sweating, lumbered into the box.

  He took the oath and gave details of his age and birthplace. These he immediately followed by a statement in which his Irish buddy seemed to have schooled him.

  “… and I hereby confirm all the testimony given by my friend and one-time shipmate, Michael Ambrosius O’Brien.…”

  “Wait a minute, Creer …” yelled Mr. Jackson.

  Creer stood like a patient ox awaiting slaughter. He was an excellent mariner—none better—but publicity was purgatory to him. His laboured breathing could be heard all over the court. He had fortified himself with courage before his ordeal and blew a blast of alcohol in the face of the constable who handed him the card from which to read the oath.

  Mr. Jackson led Creer through his business, like a drover dragging a huge bull to market by a ring in his nose.

  “… I ’eard the footsteps, saw the flash, an’ heard
the splash,” admitted the Manxman.

  “Nothing to add to O’Brien’s testimony?”

  “I said so at the beginning, yer Lordship.”

  “How many more times must I tell you …? Stand down.”

  “Hoi!” rumbled Creer in a stage whisper to the nearby bobby whose neck, face and bald head grew livid by degrees as a hoarse consultation went on.

  Meanwhile, in the well of the court, the masters of the Ynyslan and the Mannin Veen rose noisily like men with a set purpose and rolled to the door, after saying goodbye to all their pals within hailing distance.

  As for Mr. Jackson, he sat beneath the all-seeing eye like the operator of a marionette show who has more dolls on his hands than he can manage to manipulate. He glared at the embarrassed constable in tête-à-tête with Creer; he tried to keep his dignity before his jury; and he ferociously watched the disorder caused by the withdrawal of the two captains. Then he battered his desk again with renewed fury with his mallet.

  The effect was electric. Creer ceased his loud whispering and hung suspended over the edge of his pen. The constable’s mouth fell open. The two master mariners halted in the aisle like ships suddenly becalmed. All eyes focussed themselves on the bellicose little coroner, as though drawn by some magic formula or else by the object like an optician’s advertisement above his head.

  “What is all this? Witness, stand down! If you require information, I’m the one to consult. Have you anything to say?”

  “Can me and O’Brien join our ships and set sail, yer honour?”

  “Under the circumstances, yes. It is unusual for such a release to take place before the verdict, but I take it the jury will concur if I agree, in view of the present shipping situation.”

  The jury nodded unanimously and the station-master said, “yes” loud enough for the lot of them.

  “Thank you kindly, gentlemen—and yer honour,” bellowed the skipper of the Mannin Veen.

  “Hear, hear,” boomed his companion of the Ynyslan.

  There were rumblings of approval from the rest of the nautical section of the audience.

  The four sailors returned to the “Welcome Home” to re-inforce themselves, and then embarked.

  The congregation of the Coroner’s Court heard the two ships blowing their sirens at the swing-bridge and nodded to each other approvingly. A wave of general good will seemed to wash over everyone except the coroner and the holidaymaking portion of the throng.

  “It was then that it dawned on me that things wasn’t as they oughter be …” the bridge-keeper, now in the witness-box was saying. Without his official cap he looked an insignificant nonentity. He was dressed in his best, with highly polished shoes which curled-up queerly at the toes, and his bowler hat was in his hand.

  “And then?”

  “I took a boat and put-off … pokin’ around with a boathook until I found ’im.”

  And so on. All the details of the previous Saturday evening’s adventure. The bulk of the audience were getting bored. They shuffled, yawned, kicked their feet and finally were seized with an epidemic of coughing, which one member took-up as another left-off, like a game at a Christmas party. Mr. Jackson had to threaten to clear the court a time or two.

  The inquest of Sam Prank terminated dismally.

  Mr. Jackson summed-up pompously. As if there was anything to sum-up for! The jury jumped like one man at his suggestion. Inquest adjourned; repeat performance later.

  Then followed Miss Harriet Prank’s enquiry. That was more sensational.

  Jane Prank identified the corpse and “Captain” Sprankling, with the great approval of the many Oddfishers there, gave an encore.

  The two doctors created a great sensation. Miss Prank was first knocked-out by an overdose of digitalis. And then suffocated whilst unconscious and alone.

  Mr. Jackson then began to put Jane Prank through the hoop.

  Why was she so long away? Why, when the deceased suffered so badly from cataracts, had she allowed her to handle her own dangerous drugs? Did she not think she had been guilty of gross carelessness? Now, as to the cushion; where was it when she left the deceased? And so on.

  Heavy, stupid, with glazed eyes and a half-witted expression on her features, Jane Prank explained her cousin’s stupidity. Harriet Prank considered that she could well look after herself. She was of an independent and irritable disposition and soon got annoyed at any suggestion that her faculties were on the wane.

  The Coroner could make no impression on the witness. He told her at length to stand down. She left behind her an unpleasant feeling that somehow she had not told all she knew. She had outwitted the Coroner by a show of stupidity.

  Mrs. Dabchick, proudly carrying the next generation before her, testified concerning events on the night of the murder. Her husband danced anxious attendance upon her, as though expecting his progeny to be born in the witness-box, and afterwards was almost too overcome with anxiety to corroborate what his wife had stated.

  Then, like a conjurer producing a rabbit from a hat, Mr. Jackson called an unexpected witness.

  Canon Conant, priest of the Holy Name, entered the box and was sworn. A tall, heavy man with a pink face, close-cropped white hair and loose hanging cheeks. A diabetic. His large, flabby hands trembled as he took the Book for the oath. A good-living man, well-beloved by his large flock and respected by outsiders. He was fighting physical infirmity with courage.

  This morning the Canon was not at his best. Over the week-end he had received one shock on top of another. These had put a lot of sugar in his system. He felt torpid and leaden-footed.

  “I understand that you have come forward to make a voluntary statement, Canon Conant, concerning something the deceased woman recently told you. Is that so?” said Mr. Jackson.

  The Coroner tried to be coldly formal towards this witness to prove that the priest’s vast influence did not extend to his court. But somehow, he couldn’t quite pull it off. It was a matter of personality. The Canon had it every time, in spite of his bad health. Try as he would, Mr. Jackson found it impossible to forget that his legs were dangling almost a foot from the ground and that he had to be buttressed to make him appear adult at his desk. Mr. Jackson’s attitude towards the witness ended in becoming one of furtive humility.

  The Coroner’s voice sounded to the priest to come from very far away.

  “That is so, Mr. Coroner.”

  “Please tell the court what Harriet Prank said to you.”

  “She told me that she feared for her life.”

  A collective intake of breath sounded in the well of the court, a united and expectant hiss, followed by shuffling sounds as the audience voluptuously writhed in expectation of further horror. Then a hush.

  “When was this?”

  Mr. Jackson was peering, open-mouthed over his glasses at the witness.

  “After service on Wednesday evening. She was very agitated.”

  “Did she give you any idea from which direction she expected an attempt on her life?”

  The priest hesitated. He had already told his story to the police, who had passed it on to the Coroner, with a request that it be held over until the resumption of what certainly would be an adjourned enquiry. But Mr. Jackson had insisted on the witness being called this time, promising to be discreet in his questions and merely to take enough testimony to prove plainly the need for a deferment.

  Hoggatt, sitting with Littlejohn and Cromwell in front of the court, half rose as though to stop Mr. Jackson from making an ass of himself, but too late.

  The Coroner removed his pince-nez, pulled his nose and then put them on again.

  The Canon hesitated. The Coroner’s voice seemed to come from very far away again, and now he could not see Mr. Jackson properly. All he could make out was the high lights shining on his bald head and eye-glasses.

  “Come, come, sir. You are on oath, remember.”

  Mr. Jackson realised as soon as he had said the words that he had gone too far.

  The
priest fixed him with a steady eye. For a minute their glances held each other. Then the Coroner’s fell on his notes. He did not know that the Canon was now seeing only fluid blackness, almost like ink.…

  “Well, sir?”

  “I cannot disclose any more that I know.…”

  “You what!”

  “I cannot …”

  Littlejohn turned his calm blue eyes on the priest. He knew what was coming. The Coroner had landed himself in a jam.

  “Cannot disclose … revealed to me in Confession … my lips therefore sealed.…”

  And with that Canon Conant sank slowly down and collapsed in a heap on the floor.

  The inquest was adjourned sine die. Some of the frustrated jury said that Jackson had behaved like a cad in keeping the priest standing when he was obviously in such poor shape.

  The audience had certainly had a bellyful of sensation and as they watched the ambulance taking away Canon Conant their sentiments concerning the Coroner were unanimous. One section, the sporting element, wanted to wait for him at his private exit and treat him as they treated unpopular referees down at the Werrymouth United football ground. The other lot got busy enquiring from one another the procedure for impeaching and sacking a Coroner.

  However, kindly nature took matters in hand and by removing malice from the situation in her own astonishing fashion, saved Mr. Jackson from what might, to say the least of it, have been a rough house. A seagull accurately placed a large dropping on the crown of the Coroner’s hat as he left the courthouse, putting him completely out of countenance and turning the wrath of the waiting crowd into roaring hilarity. Such an unexpected anointing is regarded as a good omen by fisherfolk, but Mr. Jackson didn’t agree.

  That evening, there was great activity among the Bromiloe sycophants, who were so triumphant at the downfall of the Jacksons, widely trumpeted round the town, that, after meeting to arrange for comforts for the Merchant Navy, they drove their cars to and fro blackguarding Mrs. Jackson in every direction and wasting the precious petrol intrepidly brought at terrible risk by the very sailors they were patronising.

  VII

  MR. ROSIE LEE