Evidence of the Accused

by Roderic Jeffries

  At ten to four he left the kitchen and crossed the hall to the study where Beryl Bishop had said the telephone was.

  He telephoned the Ashford police, spoke to Chief Inspector Waldron, explained his business and was quickly, almost suspiciously quickly, transferred to Detective-Inspector May.

  ‘Well, what’s wrong now?’ asked May in a voice in which there was a thin trace of a Kentish accent.

  ‘Hang on a sec, my blasted pipe’s gone out again.’ He put the receiver down on the table, struck a match and sucked flame into the tobacco. ‘I’m at Settle Court. Titterton.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘It’s owned by a couple called Cheesman. The wife has just fallen through the banisters head first to the floor of the hall. She’s very dead. Someone might come out and have a look.’

  ‘Why d’you suggest that?’

  ‘It’s the kind of accident I always think needs a second pair of eyes.’

  ‘Especially on a Saturday afternoon! I’m due to go off in half an hour for my well-earned rest.’

  ‘So you’ve got to do a little overtime for once.’

  ‘You doctors never seem to think anyone but you ever works … How’s the husband taking things?’

  ‘I’m told he’s out shooting with a friend.’

  ‘Are you their doctor?’

  ‘I’m dog’s-body, dragged out on my afternoon off because no one knows who is their doctor.’

  ‘I suppose I’d better come out.’

  ‘I’ll order a fresh pot of tea.’

  The doctor replaced the receiver and looked round the study. He wondered how anyone could furnish a room with so many pale, insipid, colours. He liked bold thrusts of reds, blues, greens.

  He stared out through the left-hand window. Part of Settle Wood was visible as was an eastern section of the Marsh. Occasionally, usually just after summer rain, one could see the coast of France. That always made him sigh inside. France was the land of wine and food: two things he had to enjoy less and less because he was growing older.

  He returned to the kitchen. Beryl Bishop was sitting down reading a newspaper. On his entry, she jumped up and hurriedly tried to make out she was on the point of washing up. He smiled. ‘Could you organize another pot of tea for Inspector May who’s coming out here? Say in quarter of an hour.’

  She took the tea-pot, emptied the leaves into a plastic bucket, washed the tea-pot under a running hot tap.

  The clock in the kitchen showed just after five past four when they heard a car come to a halt outside.

  Enton went through to the front door, opened it as Detective-Inspector May was about to step into the porch. They shook hands before they entered the house.

  May studied the body, looked at the broken banisters. He was about to climb upstairs when Beryl Bishop opened the kitchen door and looked out. ‘Ready for tea, Doctor?’ She had been sweating and her straggly hair was plastered in streaks across her high forehead.

  ‘How about some tea, May?’ asked Doctor Enton.

  ‘Excellent suggestion.’

  ‘I’ve just had two cups but that doesn’t mean there isn’t room for a third.’

  Later, they returned to the body. The detective-inspector climbed the stairs and studied the banisters, returned below. ‘Nasty way to die,’ he said as he looked at the body.

  ‘Aren’t all ways?’

  ‘You doctors always seem eager to paint things a funereal black. Met one last week who couldn’t feel happy until he’d impressed on me that after the age of forty-five one’s living on borrowed time. Made me look damned carefully in the first mirror I came across afterwards.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘To see which parts of me were worn out.’ May scratched his neck. ‘Poor girl. She’s owed time.’ He knelt down and examined the body more closely. He came to her hands. They were long, thin, delicate hands which showed the care with which they had always been looked after. Because one arm was doubled under her body they lay close together.

  May looked up. ‘Did you search the body at all: examine it for life?’

  ‘No. No need to.’

  ‘Could one of your head hairs have become caught under the finger-nail?’

  ‘Not a chance.’

  ‘There’s one here.’ He pointed at the right hand, reached into his pocket and brought out a small folding magnifying glass. He opened this and examined the hair through it. ‘Torn out by the root. Colour’s a very ordinary mouse brown … Is her blonde hair natural, would you say?’

  ‘I’d be most surprised to hear it wasn’t.’

  May shut the magnifying glass, put it back into his pocket. He stood up. ‘She wasn’t the kind of person, I’d say, to have anything sticking in her fingernails and not do something about it.’

  The doctor made no comment.

  May paced along the carpet to the window and stared at the Marsh. ‘Looks like rain over there,’ he said inconsequentially. He turned round. ‘I’m calling out the boys even if it is Saturday. I’m also going to get in touch with his holiness.’

  ‘And who the devil’s that?’

  ‘Detective-Superintendent Pope from Maidstone. He’d have been his holiness if he wasn’t always so damned prickly … He’s down at Ashford on some other matter. Where’s the telephone?’

  ‘In that room.’

  May reached the study door, opened it, hesitated. ‘Prophet, the divisional police surgeon, is out of commission with flu. You’ve done some work for us before. How about doing a time check on the body, if you can without disturbing things?’

  ‘I had a feeling that was coming.’

  Enton watched the detective-inspector go into the study, then he crossed to the kneading-trough on which he had left his case. From the case he took out a clinical and an ordinary thermometer, crossed to the body, placed the ordinary thermometer on the ground.

  He checked that the clinical thermometer was set and ready for use, inserted it in the body. He then carefully moved her head, her arms, her legs, making certain that the limbs were returned to the position they had been in.

  He stood up, took his pipe from his pocket, pulled out the stem and blew through it. A tight wad of moist tobacco was ejected on to the carpet. He bent over and picked up the wad, dropped it into his coat pocket.

  From the direction of the wood he faintly heard the sounds of two shots being fired in quick succession. Someone had had a right and a left. He wondered if the second shot had dropped whatever had been missed with the first. There was a noise at the glass door at the far end of the hall. A dog was outside, its nose pressed against the glass, tail wagging, which looked at him and plainly wondered whether to bark. He tried to name the breed and could not.

  May returned. ‘I’ve been through to everyone. Pope’s coming rushing out to see I don’t mess up things even though he told me I was making a mountain out of a bloody molehill. He’s never learned other people can handle the job. Not like old Sommerville who reckoned the local men could handle anything but an assassination of royalty. He was the poor devil who got shot up by a young thug and was so badly injured he had to retire. The defence called a psychiatrist who said it wasn’t the thug’s fault at all. Kind of chap who seems to think the criminal is ten times more important than the criminal’s victim … Ever met Superintendent Pope?’

  ‘Not to my knowledge.’

  ‘A queer devil. The kind of man you say is his own worst enemy because you can’t think of any other way of describing him. Clever, though: and got the determination of a bulldog.’

  Enton pulled his pipe apart and blew through the stem. ‘The rigor’s started about the head but hasn’t got very much farther. I haven’t searched for post-mortem lividity because I thought it much better to leave well alone until the rest of you chaps have finished. In any case, it’s most unlikely to have started yet … I’ll have a look at the temperatures.’ He knelt down and examined the ordinary thermometer. ‘Sixty-eight degrees. The central heating must cost him something in fuel each yea
r.’

  ‘You wouldn’t run the rest of the place on sixpence.’

  The doctor withdrew the clinical thermometer and read it. ‘Down something over three and a half degrees from normal — what’s that in centigrade?’

  ‘The devil only knows.’

  ‘If I call it two there’s little room for error … Having regard to everything, she’s been dead about two hours.’

  ‘Would you call that figure any more accurate than usual?’

  ‘Of course not. You know as well as I do what we’re up against: outside temperature, amount of clothing worn, unusual bodily responses … It’s as good as a Ximenes crossword.’

  ‘Call it two hours, then. Puts us back to two-thirty. What time did the woman arrive?’

  ‘Beryl Bishop? I’ve no idea.’

  ‘I’ll go through to the kitchen and find out.’

  ‘A little whisper in your ear. If you can’t make sense of what she tells you, try again more slowly and simply.’

  ‘Like that, eh?’ May turned, looked round himself. ‘Which the hell door is the kitchen — I can’t remember?’

  ‘Last one on your right-hand side. Start off by telling her the tea she made was delicious. It’ll help to alleviate her initial nervousness of you.’

  The inspector left.

  The doctor lit his pipe. He hated death, never more so than when it struck the young. It made such a futility of life.

  *

  Detective-Superintendent Pope was small, thin, furry, and at times he seemed to undulate rather than move. He would never become bald. His eyebrows met across the bridge of his nose, his chin was perpetually at five o’clock shadow.

  He studied the body, then the broken banisters above. ‘Anything more come to light?’

  ‘Nothing, sir,’ replied May.

  Pope turned and spoke to the doctor. ‘You ’ave a time for death?’ Sometimes he pronounced his aspirates and laboured them, sometimes he did not bother.

  ‘I’ll give it as two-thirty.’

  ‘How definite is that?’

  ‘No more than usual.’

  ‘Doesn’t mean much then.’

  ‘Too many imponderables ever to be as accurate as you people want.’ The doctor leaned against the wall and smoked. He suffered a longing to escape from the house of death, wondered how many minutes of ignorant happiness were left to the husband.

  Pope climbed the stairs, briefly examined the banisters, returned below. He jerked his thumb towards the southern end of the hall. ‘Two men coming up.’

  The detective-superintendent, detective-inspector, detective-sergeant, the detectives who doubled up as photographers, fingerprint men, and the doctor, all became silent.

  They heard a dog’s bark of welcome and two voices which began as a murmur. The doctor cursed the world for what was about to happen. ‘Someone ought to go out and tell them,’ he said urgently.

  Pope turned and looked at him but made no answer.

  They could now distinguish and understand what was being said.

  ‘I knew I’d hit him because I saw him wobble. Sent Apples off not reckoning she could do any good and tried to call her in after a couple of minutes. Then damned if she didn’t return with the old boy some time after that. Must have been a half mile retrieve.’

  ‘We’d have had the other one if Pears had been with us.’

  ‘I don’t reckon it was as much as pricked. In any case, we’ve each ended up with a brace which isn’t to be sneezed at … We’d better go through the scullery and leave our boots there. Drop any of this mud in the house and Lindy’ll scalp us.’

  They came into view, their outlines blurred by the distortions of the glass windows and door and by the gathering dark. One of them came to a sudden stop.

  You poor swine, muttered the doctor to himself.

  Mark Cheesman opened the door, entered the hall, careless about the mud on his boots. He held his gun, broken, over the crook of his right arm. ‘What the hell’s going on?’ Behind him, Stuart Tetley stepped inside, closed the door.

  ‘We’re police, sir,’ said Pope.

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  Enton suddenly had the bitter thought that Pope was going, without further explanation, to move so that the body of Mrs Cheesman came abruptly to the attention of the husband and the latter’s reactions could be observed. Enton spoke. ‘You’re Mark Cheesman, aren’t you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’m Doctor Enton.’

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘A very terrible thing has happened.’

  ‘Lindy?’

  ‘She’s had an accident and fallen from upstairs.’

  They all watched Mark Cheesman although most of them hated doing so. They felt a compulsive need to stare, a self-repugnance because they did.

  Pope moved and the body became visible to the new-comers.

  Mark Cheesman stared at his dead wife. His squarish face whitened until there was, incongruously, only colour left about his nose. He licked his lips. He stood there motionless, the gun still held carefully and safely over his right forearm.

  Stuart Tetley began to shiver.

  Outside, the three dogs stared through the glass, wagged their tails, and waited to be let into the warmth.

  *

  ‘Is it all right to question ’im?’ demanded Pope.

  ‘No,’ replied Enton.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘If you’ll stop to think, you’ll realise he’s been very badly shocked.’

  ‘I’m not asking for an hour’s interview.’

  ‘You won’t get it … Why are you so convinced he’s something of interest for you?’

  ‘He must have, even if it’s negative — and now’s the time when you don’t get anything but the truth.’ The superintendent waited but when there was no further comment he walked away and spoke to the men who waited at the far end of the hall.

  The doctor drew on his pipe and smoke whirled up out of the bowl. May came across. ‘How d’you find our holiness?’

  ‘I doubt I’d ever choose him as a companion to go to the moon.’

  ‘Funny thing is, he never means to be rude.’

  ‘Does he suffer from a long-standing inferiority complex?’

  ‘Wouldn’t know about that: never been able to sort out one complex from another. All I can say is, once Pope’s in a case, nothing will make him let go. Worries away at it long after everyone else is fed to the teeth with it. Sometimes I think he sees the things as a duel … especially when it happens in this kind of a household.’

  ‘Down with the privileged classes?’

  ‘I didn’t exactly mean that,’ replied the inspector uncomfortably.

  They became silent. They watched the photographer position himself about the body. He went to step from the carpet on to the parquet flooring and received a blasphemously worded order to stay where he was from the superintendent.

  Enton went over to Pope. ‘I’ll look in once more on Cheesman.’

  Pope grunted. Enton walked towards the study, careful not to move off the carpet.

  CHAPTER IV

  The superintendent knelt by the body. He studied the hair in the finger-nail, looked up. ‘Got a good shot of this?’

  ‘Took three to be certain, sir.’

  ‘Right. Give us a wrapper.’ He held out his right hand.

  Sergeant Ventnor searched quickly in the small leather case and brought out a number of plastic sheets. He separated one from the rest and took it across the hall.

  The superintendent eased the flesh of the middle finger of the right hand away from the nail until the single hair was not under pressure. He then, with a very delicate touch, withdrew the hair and dropped it on to the sheet. Ventnor folded the plastic around the hair so that it was enclosed but no crease of the plastic came over it.

  Comparison hairs had to be taken. To watch Pope was to believe he did the task automatically and without thought: that was incorrect. Within him was a revulsion, a fee
ling that he was committing desecration of the dead.

  He plucked out several hairs from different parts of the body. Each set of hairs was placed in a plastic pack, each pack was labelled by the sergeant.

  Pope stood up. ‘Get the lights set up.’ Small portable searchlights were switched on. Their beams were first focused at right angles to the area of wall or floor that was to be searched, then were altered to an obliquely angled setting.

  Detective Carron moved a light away from the wall by the kitchen and brought it near to the body, set it to shine across the floor beyond the carpet at an angle of thirty degrees. He stood up and looked vertically downwards, carefully studied consecutive sections of the floor. When he was close to the feet of the dead woman, he said: ‘Something here.’

  Pope crossed to his side, studied the blurred imprints that came into view under the oblique light. ‘Photographs, sketches, foils.’

  The photographer was busy for nearly ten minutes as he made certain he had found the best position from which to take the photographs. His place was taken by a detective who made a rapid but exact sketch of what he saw: then another detective used a celluloid foil to try and lift an impression of the imprints. His muttered oaths testified to complete lack of success.

  The superintendent sat back on his heels after he had studied the marks for the second time. ‘Part of a rubber boot?’

  Ventnor, standing up, agreed. ‘A Wellington that’s seen good service. It’s a pity the print was blurred as it was made: doubt it’ll tell us much.’

  ‘What d’you make of the second mark?’

  ‘If you’re asking for a complete guess, sir, I’d plump for a dog’s pad.’ Ventnor heard a sound, turned, and stared at the glass door at the end of the hall. Apples and Pears, visible because of the light that spilled out from inside, stood outside in the drizzle that had come with night, wagging their tails as they patiently waited to be let into the warmth.

  ‘Wouldn’t surprise me into next week if you’re not far wrong,’ said Pope. ‘Someone walked up to the body to see what was what and the dog came too … May — could you ’ave made this mark? Got rubber soles to your shoes?’