Evidence of the Accused

by Roderic Jeffries

  ‘So long, Mark,’ I said. ‘Thanks again.’

  ‘Glad you were able to make it, wish you did so more often. We like to see you over here.’ I crossed to the Austin and hit the driver’s door just beneath the lock. For some unaccountable reason, that, and that alone, opened the door. I sat behind the wheel, slammed the door shut, switched on and pulled out the starter. The engine refused to fire. I gave full choke and after two more attempts the engine began.

  Mark walked over to the Jaguar, climbed inside. I could imagine the quiet pride of ownership he would be feeling.

  I drove off and bounced my way along the uneven-surfaced drive. The jumping headlights picked out the tail-end of a rabbit as it jinked away under a rhododendron bush: one of the growing number of rabbits which were slowly returning after the second scourge of myxy. I liked to see them around: but then I didn’t farm.

  I reached the road, turned left. Down the hill and up the far side which necessitated changing down to second. The Old Girl was getting too long in the tooth for hills. I joined the Hamstreet road, turned off it a couple of hundred yards along and drove towards the Marsh. I crossed the Military Canal. Now I was on the Marsh. I was often asked if I found it a queer land. People thought Marsh meant marsh and they remembered the smuggler tales. I always replied I didn’t know. Most times it was normal: roads, dykes, fields, sheep, crops, villages. Then would come a moment of half-light with low-lying mist, when time and space became distorted and the Aldington Gang might be round the corner: or a scarecrow that moved. But was that sensation experienced because one knew of the reputation and was therefore searching for strangeness; or was it really there? I didn’t know. Sonningchurch was in the centre of the Marsh, mid-way between the hills and the coast, well away from the tourist sections. I passed the council houses and turned left at the T junction, came to my cottage. Dimly, I could see opposite the black outline of the wooden steeple of the church. Popular legend said that church had twice been under water. When it rained for days on end, I was prepared to see the cottage follow suit.

  I drove the car into the shed, walked across the apology of a garden into my home. Originally it had been two labourers’ cottages, then a previous owner had demolished the top floors, rebuilt the roof, converted the remaining ground floors into one place. He had died in an asylum, so the locals said.

  I lit the oil lamp in the sitting-room. Electricity went through the village but I’d never nerved my bank balance to the point where I could take advantage of the fact.

  I sat down on the settee. A spring twanged. I shifted to a more comfortable position. There was still some fire left and a little heat. I lit a cigarette. I remembered how clinically neat Lindy kept her house, then compared that standard with the one which pertained to my place. I grinned.

  CHAPTER II

  Saturday.

  I reread the very learned judge’s article about which Sir Brian Tetley had warned me. The judge was proving, to his own satisfaction, that Roman Law and in particular the Institutes of Justinian were founded on laws promulgated at Cnossus in the Minoan age. Overlooking the fact that no one reading the magazine would be interested where the Institutes came from, having only a vague and hostile memory of them which went back to the Bar exams, historically and from a common sense point it was impossible that there could be any connection between the two codes.

  I lit another cigarette. At one time, the lung cancer scare had driven me down to ten a day but I’d soon crept back into the late twenties. I worked on my own and lived on my own. Cigarettes helped to use up the time.

  I thought about Laws and Lawyers. As editor, I was paid four hundred a year. Without that income I’d have been forced to earn a living from outside the literary field: with it, I managed. The job wasn’t onerous, merely boring.

  We tried to maintain Laws and Lawyers as a magazine that offered interesting comments on all aspects of the law. Erudite articles, law reports and comments on some of the cases, profiles contemporary and historical, suggested reforms in the practice of law, letters from readers, poetry and fiction by lawyers, legal humour, both past and present. Strangely, it was the humorous snippets which allowed the magazine to be published monthly at two shillings and pay its way, despite the comparative lack of advertising. Wit at the Bar was a fruitful source of anecdotes — it was a pity F.E was not still alive — and one of my jobs was to sell as many of these as I could to the Digests. Reader’s Digest was by far the most profitable market. They would pay heavily for a couple of lines.

  The grandmother-clock struck the hour. It was time for a refreshment break. I pushed the papers to one side, checked the fire would keep in safely, left the cottage and walked down the road, past the church, to the Marsh Arms.

  Bill was deep inside a pint of bitter. I ordered a refill for him, a gin and tonic for myself. It should have been he who did the ordering. Bill farmed five hundred acres of Marsh land which meant that, counting stock, he had a working capital of somewhere around a hundred and fifty thousand pounds. No doubt in one year he drew, in subsidies, what it took me ten years to earn. Certainly, the farmers had never had it so good.

  After he had given me the drinks, Clarence Dewar, the landlord, retired deep-sea sailor, leaned on the bar which was no more than a sill fitted into a doorway. ‘Busy, Mr Waring?’

  ‘I was working at one o’clock this morning,’ I replied.

  He chuckled disbelievingly.

  I always found that because I wrote for a living people thought I spent my time playing golf. Had I been successful, I might have done. But there aren’t many successful authors in the world today.

  I drank. I watched Bill lower his bitter, then look at his watch. He mumbled something about having to rush back to work and would I have one with him next time? The trouble was, with him there never was a next time.

  *

  Mark Cheesman walked across to the gun cupboard: Apples and Pears began to whine and wag their tails. He opened the door and picked out his gun, game-bag, and cartridge-belt. ‘No, Pears, you’d better stay behind.’

  ‘Aren’t you taking them both?’ asked Stuart Tetley.

  ‘She’s still carrying too much milk. The vet’s given me pills to dry it up but until they work she’s to take life calmly … Anyway, you’ve got Blaze.’ He indicated Stuart’s dog, another G.S.P.

  Blaze was lying down a little apart from the other two. Relations were not as cordial as they might have been.

  ‘Poor old Pears,’ said Stuart. ‘The best pointer in the south of England left at home.’

  ‘Apples is nearly as good now.’

  ‘No one compares with Pears. In a trial she’d make all the others retire home to put on L plates.’

  ‘I’ve been wondering lately about going in for trials.’

  ‘Don’t wonder any more, old boy. They’re divorced from reality and the dogs trained for them don’t know what to do when they meet the real stuff. I tell you straight, Mark, before I bought Blaze I answered an advertisement and took a springer on appro. Trials champion out of generations of trials champions. Damn thing was loony. Wouldn’t touch bracken and used to put a paw into water to see if it was warm enough for it to go in.’

  Mark tied the cartridge-belt around his waist.

  ‘Let’s move.’

  They left the study. The three dogs followed them. Stuart Tetley’s gun, game-bag, and shooting jacket, lay on top of the oak kneading-trough in the hall. Lindy hadn’t noticed them there or they would have been moved to where they ought to have been put.

  They donned coats, hats, rubber boots. The dogs were becoming frantic with excitement and they rushed forwards and backwards to the door.

  Lindy stepped out of the kitchen. ‘Have a good day.’

  ‘We’ll come back with red-hot guns,’ promised Stuart.

  ‘The larder’s bare at the moment and I want at least a brace. I’ve discovered a wonderful new recipe for pheasant.’

  Her husband laughed shortly. ‘That’s not the descri
ption I’d give it. You begin by pouring Château-Yquem over the birds. Imagine doing such a thing. I’d as soon buy a handful of sovereigns to throw into the Channel.’

  ‘You’re a mean old basket, Mark. Worth a ruddy fortune and you won’t let your loving wife have a little experiment.’

  ‘He will,’ said Lindy.

  ‘Very well: on one condition. You buy a dress from Dior and give it to me to polish the car with.’

  ‘Certainly — if you’ll publicly wear it first.’

  ‘Watch out, Mark,’ warned Stuart with mock severity. ‘The older judges don’t take kindly to transvestitism.’

  ‘Bring me back a brace,’ said Lindy.

  ‘Not if they’re going to be used with Château-Yquem,’ retorted her husband.

  She smiled.

  The two men left the house by the front door. Pears, hoping against hope until the door was shut in her face that she was to be allowed to go as well, sat down and waited and whined.

  ‘If you’re going to make a filthy row go and do it outside,’ snapped Lindy. Once she judged the two men were clear of the grounds, she let Pears out of the house. The wire-netting fence about the garden would prevent her joining up with Apples.

  Lindy looked about the hall for dust, found none. She was never certain how she felt about the hall. The entrance was narrow and unimpressive, but it did eventually broaden out to a satisfyingly large space and the beams in one of the walls helped to bolster the weak claim that part of the house was Elizabethan.

  She adjusted the nearest of the Redouté prints so that it exactly hung in line with the others. She liked those prints because they were of roses, her favourite of all flowers.

  A check on the time showed it was five to two. Beryl Bishop would be along at three to do the washing up: she would always turn up over a weekend for an extra sixpence an hour. For a moment, Lindy tried to work out how they could afford a full-time live-in servant even though Mark said they couldn’t. After all, the Astons had one.

  She fingered the pearls round her neck. Mark had given her a small necklace for her wedding present and had promised to add one pearl every anniversary and birthday. Each addition was now costing him over fifty pounds. She kept him to his word, though, even if he’d never thought a pearl could cost more than ten pounds. A promise of that sort was a promise.

  She tried to square up the hall carpet. It was a light blue Wilton. The colour was one that she particularly liked so they had chosen it despite the fact that it was quite obviously going to show all dirt and stain marks: something that necessitated its being cleaned at very frequent intervals. Once again, she reflected how glad she was she had not accepted the Ispahan carpet from her mother. Admittedly it was very old and valuable, but it had become worn at one edge and nothing would have hidden the fact. Lindy wanted nothing worn in her house. The Astons’ house was newly furnished throughout.

  The sun-ray clock in the drawing-room struck two. She went into that room and made a quick visual check that everything was in order. Beryl could take the Hoover round it later on and remove any dust.

  *

  Beryl Bishop walked up to the back door of Settle Court. One of the dogs heard her and began to bark from the garden. She was vaguely surprised they had not both gone out shooting with Mr Cheesman.

  She entered the scullery, hung her coat on the back of the door, put on an apron. She began to sing ‘Silent Night’. She thought it the most beautiful song in the world.

  She crossed the pantry-cum-larder, went through to the kitchen.

  Much of what was in the kitchen positively frightened her. She could understand and cope with the electric stove and refrigerator, but the Kenwood, the sink disposal unit, the Bendix, and the infra-red grill, put the fear of God into her. She expected them to run amuck.

  Dirty plates, dishes, saucepans, cutlery, were stacked up neatly on the left-hand draining board. Beryl Bishop stopped singing, stared at the mass of utensils. How could anyone use up so many for just one meal?

  She washed up, slowly, very carefully. Mrs Cheesman would inspect everything afterwards and would be quite nasty if she found any grease smears. Nasty in that soft smiling way of hers.

  Beryl Bishop dried everything with a clean cloth. There was a large draining-rack but nothing must be allowed to drain completely dry. Mrs Cheesman believed that to be an unhygienic and lazy way.

  Finally, the last of the plates was put away in the china cupboard. Beryl Bishop pushed some of the straggly ends of hair away from her forehead. She wished she could rid herself of the headache that had been hanging around for two days. It was to be hoped there was nothing too energetic to be done that afternoon.

  The kitchen had two doors, one of which led into the hall. She opened this one and went through.

  She wondered where Mrs Cheesman was and why she hadn’t come along to say what she wanted done for the rest of the afternoon. Beryl Bishop began to hope that the other hadn’t gone out. Nothing so disturbed her as the need to have to make decisions.

  She stared at the bundle lying on the floor near the dining-room door. Strange to find anything so untidy in Settle Court. Then she began to shake and a most dreadful terror fastened on to her. It was Mrs Cheesman.

  CHAPTER III

  Doctor Enton stared at his desk and the number of filled-in prescription forms on it. ‘Look, I’m not the Cheesman’s doctor. Don’t you know who is?’

  ‘No, Doctor, I don’t, and it’s terrible. Someone’s got to do something. You’ve got to come out, Doctor.’

  ‘Have you never heard them mention anyone? What about … ’

  ‘I haven’t heard nothing and you’ve got to come out. She’s been bleeding something terrible. I just don’t know what to do. He’s out shooting and I can’t get hold of him. I tell you, you’ve got to come out.’

  ‘It’s Settle Court, isn’t it?’

  ‘I came here to wash the dishes and do a bit of dusting and I did the dishes and … ’

  ‘I’ll be right out.’ He replaced the telephone receiver and sighed. He wondered what had really happened. One simply could not tell with the Bishop woman. Sometimes she’d be perfectly lucid, at other times she’d see Martians landing.

  He called out to his wife, left the house, climbed into his Consul and drove out of the gates. He quickly cleared Ashford, turned off the main road at the Mersham cross-roads, made his way along the twisting lanes to Titterton. From the day he’d read the Ingoldsby Legends he’d liked Titterton: the home of warlocks, demons, goblins, and indescribable orgies. He liked to amuse himself with mental pictures of the present inhabitants dancing naked round a yew tree. It would not be an aesthetically pleasing sight.

  He had been very friendly with the previous owners of Settle Court and had often visited the house. It was not a building he liked. He preferred the very old or the very new: not the inbetween that was to him either slavishly imitative or grotesquely repetitive.

  He parked the car in the drive, climbed out. The front door was opened and Beryl Bishop came running out. ‘It’s terrible, terrible, Doctor. It’s given me palpitations worse than ever.’

  ‘I’m sorry to hear it.’

  ‘Could you … Could you listen in?’

  ‘Shall we do that after we’ve seen what the other trouble is?’ He entered the house.

  ‘How’s your mother?’

  ‘Not very well, Doctor. Her heart keeps giving her so much trouble.’

  She’ll outlive the lot of us, he thought. Lives off the energy of the younger ones and sucks them dry.

  They passed the cloak-room and downstairs lavatory, reached the main square of the hall. He saw the body on the floor and noted certain facts with professional detachment. ‘She’s been bleeding something terrible.’

  ‘Go into the kitchen and make some tea.’

  ‘Did you say tea, Doctor?’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘For her?’

  He shook his head. ‘For us.’ He watched her leave, knew she was b
ewildered but glad to be given something definite to do. He crossed the floor.

  He had met Lindy Cheesman at a couple of cocktail parties, spoken to her at one of them. He remembered her as a young woman who tended to behave in the traditional manner of the dumb blonde because that was the approach most likely to attract the pleased attention of the men. Even with so clinical, and perhaps cynical, an assessment of her, he remembered he had found her attractive and amusing. Now, she was unattractive.

  She was dead and her head was very badly smashed. He looked up. Part of the broken section of banisters would have fallen but for the one remaining section of wood which, although split down the centre, was still in one piece.

  He crossed the hall and went into the kitchen. The electric kettle was making subterranean noises but the water was not yet on the boil.

  Beryl Bishop was preparing the tray. ‘Is she going to be all right? Tea won’t be long, Doctor.’

  He took his pipe from his pocket, slowly filled it from the cracked and smelly leather pouch. He tamped the tobacco down with his right forefinger, struck a match. He sucked in flame, blew out smoke. ‘I’m afraid Mrs Cheesman is dead,’ he said.

  The kettle boiled and prevented her becoming too emotionally upset by what she had just heard. She switched off the electricity, swilled water round the pot, emptied it, put in the tea and added water.

  The doctor smoked and thought about the body outside.

  Beryl Bishop took the cup and saucer from the tray, looked at him, translated the nod as a request to pour out.

  ‘No sugar but plenty of milk, please,’ he said. ‘Aren’t you having a cup?’

  She was diffident about drinking while he did, but was quickly persuaded to do so.

  He looked at his watch. A quarter to four. He finished the tea in the cup, accepted a refill. He relit his pipe which had gone out.