“Now don’t start saying to yourselves—” Macrea swung round on the jury again—“‘Oh, that’s just a theory.’ Of course, it’s just a theory. But so is the prosecution’s case. There is no more and no less evidence for the one than the other. Again, the prosecution has very lightly laughed away the idea that an outsider may have made his entry by ladder from the passage at the back. No real attention was paid to the theory. It was set up just to be knocked down. I propose to treat the idea with a little more respect. I shall be producing evidence for you that there was some sort of secret activity in that quiet passage at the back of the hotel—”
“My God,” said the Evening Echo to the Banner, “Macrea’s beating his own record. Two surprise witnesses—”
“You will admit, I think, that if I can make good my promises on these two main points – and I assure you I shall do my best to do so – then there will be very little of the prosecution’s case left. If I can show first, that the prisoner had no conceivable motive for killing Major Thoseby, and secondly, that there is evidence that several other people had at least as good an opportunity, then you will admit that most of the positive side of the case has gone.
“Before calling my evidence on these two points, however, I should like to sum up for you what I referred to as the minor inconsistencies of the prosecution’s case. Some of them have been brought out already in cross-examination.
“First, there was the question of fingerprints on the knife. You all saw how the police witnesses were driven to shift their ground over this. At the outset we were meant to believe that the prints on the knife handle were the prints left on it by the prisoner when she drove that knife into Major Thoseby. This was shown to be, at the least, unlikely. Whereupon, there is a remarkable change of front. Now, say the police, the prisoner did not make the prints at the time of the murder. She made them in the kitchen. Therefore, she must have been wearing gloves at the time of the murder. An odd feat then emerges. No gloves were found either on the prisoner or on the scene of the crime, although the prisoner had clearly no opportunity for getting rid of them unobserved.
“Secondly, there was the curious spotlessness of the bell-push. Astounding hotel, where they polish their bell-pushes!
“Thirdly, there was the knife itself. Has it occurred to anyone to wonder at what precise point in the proceedings the prisoner is meant to have got hold of the knife? Did she take it with her to the cinema? Remember that after she came back she went straight to the reception desk and stayed there. She could not have gone to the kitchen without being seen by Camino.
“Fourthly, there was this peculiar, this elusive ‘thud’ which Mrs. Roper either did or did not hear. You will yourselves have formed your own opinions on Mrs. Roper’s reliability as a witness. But allow for a moment that she did hear this thud. Was it not an extraordinary performance? Can you visualise a girl walking into a room, walking straight up to a man she had not seen for three or four years, and sticking a knife into him? No words, no recriminations, no arguments, no threats, no tears. The whole thing accomplished as coolly as a surgical operation. Is that your idea of the character of the prisoner? Were her screams – the most horrible, one witness said, he had ever heard – were they then faked screams?
“Is it not an extraordinary character the prosecution are asking you to believe in? A woman who can nurse a passionate hatred for three years, and yet can be so unmoved when the time comes that she will not even stay in to meet her victim. It is her night out, so she takes it – a cool customer. She walks up unobserved and stabs Major Thoseby quietly, and quickly. Then, instead of creeping away again, she clumsily hides the knife on the spot and breaks into screams loud enough to attract everyone in the hotel – everyone, I should say, except Colonel Trevor Alwright, sleeping a soldierly sleep, on nine whiskies. I will be excused, perhaps, if I say that the whole thing looks to me like a jigsaw puzzle which has been half done by an inexpert child. Any bit that seems to fit has been left in. Any bit that doesn’t fit has been disregarded.
“Now I say again, it is no business of mine to finish this jigsaw. If, when I have done, a recognizable face should happen to appear in the puzzle it will only be by chance. But let me at least demonstrate that the picture which the prosecution is trying to fashion cannot be put together.
“It simply does not exist.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
“Your name is Victoria Lamartine?”
“Yes.”
“Now, Miss Lamartine, you speak English well – we can hear that – I should just like to ask you whether you fully understand and appreciate the significance of all that you hear.”
“You mean, do I understand what goes on here?”
“Yes.”
“Very well, thank you. I was puzzled by the former proceedings—”
“The police court proceedings.”
“Yes.”
“If there is anything,” said the judge courteously, ‘that I can explain to you, I am entirely at your service.”
“You are very kind. I understand now perfectly.”
“Very well. Mr. Macrea.”
“I wish it to be quite plain,” said Macrea, “that the prisoner understands the nature of the questions that I am putting to her. A sort of convention has grown up that they are put to a prisoner at the end of the evidence. I consider them of sufficient importance to place them at the beginning. Now, then, did you kill Major Thoseby?”
The question was rapped out like a word of command.
“I did not.”
“Did you have any reason to wish Major Thoseby any harm?”
“No reason at all.”
“Was he the father of your child?”
“No.”
“Very well, mademoiselle. I wish the jury to hear your answer to those questions. Now, before dealing with the night of the murder there are one or two points I should like to clear up about the earlier history of this affair. I should like you to take your mind back to the events of September twenty-sixth, 1943.”
“Shall I ever forget them?”
“Would you tell the court, then, in your own words, what happened on that day.”
“In the early afternoon, after lunch, I was sent out by the patron, Père Chaise, on a mission. I had to take a message – it concerned the distribution of some arms and ammunition – to another Maquis post. This post was a farm – called the Ferme du Grand Puits. It was some distance away, and stood on a hill. I took a bicycle, and part of the way I rode, and the last part I walked, through the woods. It was very hot. It was about three o’clock when I arrived. The two brothers who owned the farm, Pierre and André Marquis, were out—”
“You knew these men?”
“No. I had never met them. In fact, I never did meet them. I waited for them until nearly seven o’clock, then I started back. It was not safe, in those days, to be out after dark. As it was, I went on foot, wheeling my bicycle by a way that I knew—not along the main roads at all. It was this that led to my capture. Had I gone by the road, one or other of the Maquisards who had been posted there would have stopped me. As it was, I got back to the farm unobserved and was immediately taken by the Germans, who were waiting there hidden. One does not complain. That was how it went, in France, in those days. You turned to the left, and you lived, you turned to the right and you died. One could not foresee everything.”
“Yes.” Macrea took a quick look at the jury to see what they were making of this.
“Now, mademoiselle, let us turn to your stay in England. You came here in 1947?”
“That is right. In May of 1947.”
“After the death of your child.”
“That is so. I came here to find work. I was fortunate to find a job at Monsieur Sainte’s hotel.”
“You were happy there?”
“As happy as I could be anywhere.”
“During that time did you make efforts to contact Major Thoseby?”
“Yes. Many efforts,”
�
�Can you give us your reason for this?”
“Certainly. It was through Major Thoseby alone that I could hope to find Julian Wells.”
“Could you be more explicit about that?”
“Major Thoseby was of your Intelligence Service. His work in Germany was concerned with tracing the victims of the Gestapo. He was my friend. It was natural that I should turn to him.”
“Quite so. And did he help you?”
“He did what he could. Toward the end, I must admit, I felt that his efforts on my behalf were becoming less.”
“Why do you suppose that was?”
“I think he was more and more convinced that Julian was dead.”
“You mean he had found no trace of him in the Gestapo records?”
“No trace at all.”
“Did you think Lieutenant Wells was dead?”
“I knew he was not.”
“You knew he was not. Did you have any evidence?”
“No evidence at all. It is a thing one feels.”
“Very well. Now what happened in March of this year? We have heard that Monsieur Sainte received a letter from Major Thoseby.”
“It came on March thirteenth. I remember it well. I was very excited. I was convinced he would have news for me.”
“Did Monsieur Sainte show you the letter?”
“No. He told me of it at once, though.”
“Very well. What happened next?”
“After lunchtime on the next day, March fourteenth, Monsieur Sainte called me to his office. He had been speaking to Major Thoseby on the telephone. He said he would be coming to the hotel that night. Imagine my excitement.”
“One minute, if you please. I wish to be quite clear about this. Did Monsieur Sainte tell you that Major Thoseby might be at the hotel early that evening?”
“No. He said, as I recollect, ‘Major Thoseby will be sleeping here tonight. He will probably arrive late.’
“What time did you imagine that meant?”
“No time exactly – about half-past ten or eleven.”
“That was what Monsieur Sainte usually meant when he told you a guest would arrive late?”
“Yes. For example, there was a train which arrived at Euston from the north at half-past nine. A guest who was coming on that was always referred to by us on the staff as a ‘late’ guest.”
“Did Monsieur Sainte indicate that Major Thoseby might be at the hotel in time for dinner?”
“Not to me.”
“Thank you. Please go on.”
“I got back to the hotel that evening at about half-past ten. Camino was leaving the desk as I came in. I took his place.”
“Did you say anything to each other?”
“We may have said good evening or hullo. I can’t remember. There was no need for any explanation, you understand. It was our usual arrangement that I took the desk after my evening out.”
“Was the lounge empty?”
“So far as I could see, quite empty.”
“Was anyone else about?”
“No. I could hear Camino moving in the kitchen. Otherwise, it was quite quiet.”
It was quiet in the court, too. Macrea let the moment hang.
“What next, mademoiselle?”
“The bell sounded. I was a little surprised. I had not known that room was occupied. Then I noticed the key was gone so I supposed it must be occupied. I went up.”
“And then, mademoiselle.”
“I found Major Thoseby.”
“And then—?”
“Then I believe I screamed.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
On the previous afternoon, at about the time that Dr. Younger left the witness box to make way for Detective-Sergeant Cleeve and Nap sat by himself in the Public Gardens at Angers, looking at the monkeys, McCann was getting out of a bus at the crossroads by the Stonehenge Inn.
The rain had stopped and the washed grey uplands of Salisbury Plain stretched round him, bare, unchanging and unfriendly under a monochrome sky.
The six pink-and-white bungalows looked like six little intruders.
He walked up the short gravel path, between two rows of flat, whitened stones. There were a few marigolds, a few sweet Williams, the rest was a dreary jungle of Michaelmas daisies.
For a few moments after he had rung the bell nothing happened. A spotter plane from Old Sarum buzzed slowly across the sky. It was very peaceful. McCann had spent the half-hour in the bus coming over to Amesbury persuading himself that he was on a fool’s errand. He would do no good. He might easily do harm. He had no idea what he wanted to say. He felt glad, in a cowardly way, that there should be no one at home.
Then a child’s voice shouted something from inside the house and there was a shuffle of slippered feet down the hall. The woman who opened the door answered one question before she spoke. The brown hair, the plain but friendly face, the kind, slightly anxious eyes, the immature tilt to the nose – even the freckles. They were all there. He had seen them all before. She was a little older than Ivy Pratt, less carefully dressed than Victoria Lamartine. But in effect she was the same. McCann knew exactly what he was looking at. He was looking at the sort of girl that had appealed to Lieutenant Julian Wells. The real likeness between the three was almost as uncanny as the real differences.
He was aware that he had been staring.
“I beg your pardon,” he said: “Mrs. Bellerby?”
“Yes.”
“I’m McCann. I’m quite certain the name won’t mean anything to you. I’m from London. I—look here—I can’t possibly explain all this on the doorstep. May I come inside?”
He observed a flicker of distrust.
“I promise I won’t try to sell you a vacuum cleaner.”
“I’m sure you won’t.” Mrs. Bellerby smiled. “Please come in. I’m afraid you caught me – I was having my afternoon nap. I won’t be a minute.”
She led the way down the passage, showed him into the living room and disappeared. It was a neat and cheerful room. Perhaps the nicest thing about it was the view from the big window. The garden ran away, and over the low hedge you could see an uninterrupted piece of downland. The furniture was like the furniture of all the Army families everywhere. It looked as if every stick of it had changed hands at least a dozen times but had, at last, got resigned to it.
There were some photographs on the wall. One of a young gunner wearing a side hat and a cowlick. The other a picture of the same man, rather older, kneeling beside a monstrous-looking gun with six trumpet-shaped barrels, which had apparently just exploded in his face.
Mrs. Bellerby came back. She had done the mysterious things which women do to themselves on such occasions and look ready to entertain a duchess.
“That’s my husband,” she said. “He’s clever about everything to do with guns. They terrify me. That one with six barrels is the only one in England, and he’s the only man who really understands it, so they say.”
McCann thought on the whole that it wasn’t an act. He thought she sounded really fond of him. It made what he had to say somehow easier.
“I’m going to tell you a story,” he said, “from the beginning. It’s a true story. I’m leaving out one or two names, but otherwise I’m giving you the full strength of it.”
She was a good listener. She only interrupted once, when he came to the trial. Then she pointed to the evening paper and asked, “Is this the Euston murder?”
“That’s it,” said McCann.
“All right,” she said. “I just wanted to know. Please go on.”
At the end she said, “How do I come into it?”
“The young officer,” said McCann, “the one who disappeared in France. It was Lieutenant Wells.”
“You didn’t have to tell me, really,” said Mrs. Bellerby. “I guessed. He’s dead, isn’t he?”
“Yes,” said McCann. “Yes. I really think he must be.”
“Poor Julian.”
She was silent for a long time. It was gett
ing dark in the room, but there was still a little light in the sky. She seemed to be watching the clouds.
“Poor Julian. What a—what a person he was.” It was difficult to say whether she was laughing or crying. “He used to talk to me. You know he lived here?”
McCann nodded.
“He had ideas, about himself, and the war. He wasn’t content just to be a gunner. He wanted to do something real, something—dramatic. I can’t explain it. He tried lots of times to get into the commandos and things like that.”
“We turned away fifty a week,” said McCann quietly. “There just wasn’t room for them all. You had to know someone—”
“I think it made him bitter – a little. He thought they were laughing at him. Then he found out that the one thing he had never thought about was the thing that mattered – his beautiful French. He really was good. He lived in France until he was fourteen and spent all his holidays there. When they found that out they were keen enough to have him. He did a lot of special training. He wouldn’t tell me much about that—because it was secret. But sometimes, he simply couldn’t keep it in. I remember him sitting there, playing with a little silver pencil, and saying that he could blow us all up with it.”
“Just a boy scout,” said McCann. He didn’t mean it unkindly. It didn’t matter, because she didn’t seem to be listening, anyway. After a bit she said, “Have you got a photograph – of the French girl? The ones in the papers weren’t very good.”
McCann took out a photograph and pushed it across the table.
“She looks kind.”
“I think she is that,” said McCann.
“Did she kill Major Thoseby?”
“I don’t know,” said McCann. “I don’t think so.”
“What were you hoping to find – down here, I mean?”
Death Has Deep Roots Page 18