When Last I Died

by Gladys Mitchell

"How did you know that? I've never told anybody that!"

  "It was fairly obvious. Bella, of course, knowing the boys so much better than your husband did, was afraid that something of the sort would happen. She went along to see whether Mr. Turney was all right. It was when she discovered that he was going to use the incident to lay a charge against her of attempting to murder him because he had evidence against her for the murder of Aunt Flora that she realized it would be safer for her if he were out of the way. It would be easy enough, she thought, to accuse the boys of the murder. What I can't understand, and what I should like you to explain, if you can, are these points:—"

  Muriel shied like a startled horse at the sight of Mrs. Bradley's little notebook.

  "I don't suppose I can tell you anything at all," she said wildly. "And I don't know at all why she wanted to kill poor Tom and those poor boys. All I know is ..."

  "Now, listen, Mrs. Turney," said Mrs. Bradley. "First, I can't understand why, with the death certificate duly signed by the doctor, she was afraid of anything which your husband might have to say about the cause of Aunt Flora's death. After all, even an exhumation of the body couldn't have proved the doctor wrong. It was Bella Foxley's word against that of your husband."

  "Ah, but there was the motive, wasn't there? All Aunt's money, except for the little bit left to Eliza Hodge."

  "Ah, yes, the money. But, don't you see, Mrs. Turney, that, even granted a motive, there would be little to gain by accusing Bella of a murder which could not possibly be proved? If your husband had gone to the police with his story he would have been thought a malicious man who was jealous because the woman he was accusing had inherited a fortune to which he may have thought he had some claim. If he had been able to produce other witnesses, or some sort of circumstantial evidence ... but even you yourself could not have supported his statement, could you?"

  "Don't you believe, then, that Bella did murder Aunt Flora?" Muriel demanded, without attempting to answer the last question.

  "That is not the point. At the moment I am pointing out that belief isn't proof, and that the unsupported testimony of one man could not be accepted in a court of law. Now, come along, Mrs. Turney! Why did Bella Foxley murder your husband?"

  "I don't know anything more than I've told you already," said Muriel tearfully. "I don't see why you won't have it. 1 don't suppose Bella knew any more about the law than 1 do. I still think she believed Tom would give her away."

  "And I still believe that that is nonsense," said Mrs. Bradley crisply. "Oh, well, if you won't tell me, I must seek other means of finding out."

  "I'm sure I wish you success," said Muriel, perking up a little. "As long as she's punished for it, I don't mind what means you take."

  "It is the death of the boys I am investigating," Mrs. Bradley reminded her. "Bella Foxley has already been acquitted of murdering your husband."

  "Well, the boys were killed because they knew she was going to kill Tom," said Muriel. Mrs. Bradley looked at her for a little time in silence. This apparently caused her some alarm and discomfort, for she added, dropping her eyes, "Oh, no, it couldn't be that! How silly of me to say that! Unless, of course ..."

  "Unless what?"

  "Unless, as you thought at first, I believe, it was Bella who pushed Tom out of the' window the first time, and not the boys at all."

  "It was not Bella," Mrs. Bradley responded. "If it had been, Tom—your husband—would not have exposed himself a second time to be attacked."

  Chapter Nine

  COUNSEL'S OPINION

  Love forbid that through dissembling I should thrive, Or in praising you myself of truth deprive! Let not your high thoughts debase A simple truth in me: Great is Beauty's grace, Truth is yet as fair as she.

  CAMPION.

  THE trial of Bella Foxley for the murders of Frederick Pegwell and Richard Kettleborough began on Tuesday, November 5th, and was concluded on Friday, November 8th. It was not a sensational trial, as trials go; it had none of the historic horror of the trial of Burke and Hare for the murder of the Widow Dogherty; it did not enhance the reputation of the Counsel for the Defence as did the trial of Mrs. Maybrick for the murder of James Maybrick, her husband; neither did. it achieve that almost sublime position in the annals of the Sunday press which was granted to the trial of Hawley Harvey Crippen for the murder of his wife, Belle Elmore, Cora Turner or Cunigunde Mackamotzi; to the trial of Ronald True for the murder of Gertrude Yates, alias Olive Young; and to the trial of Patrick Mahon for the murder of Emily Kaye in the bungalow on the Grumbles at Eastbourne. Nevertheless, it had its own interest, and received, as Mrs. Bradley admitted to Mr. Pratt later, a very good press.

  The trial opened on a fine but chilly morning, with Bella Foxley pleading 'Not Guilty' to the charges brought against her. Muriel and the young seaman, Larry Lawrence, should have been the most damning witnesses for the prosecution, but Muriel made a bad impression, was confused, hesitating, contradictory and nervous, and the defence scored several points in the cross-questioning. Larry, however, was unshakable. He was slow-minded, sure of his facts, unimpressed by his surroundings and obviously certain of Bella Foxley's guilt. Unfortunately, however, his early lapses, for which he had been sent to the Institution, told against him, although they were not referred to in so many words. It was enough that he had been an inmate.

  Gradually the story of the crimes emerged, but the most interesting part of the trial from the point of view of the spectators was when Bella Foxley herself went into the witness box to give her own version of the occurrences.

  She had heard of the haunted house through an agency, she averred, which sent her advertisements from time to time of such houses. Knowing (she did not give Cousin Tom's name at this point, and was not asked for it in case it should prejudice the jury if they remembered that she had been tried for his murder) that some relatives on her mother's side were interested in psychical research, she had informed them that this particular house was in the market and that she had already visited it and had been greatly impressed by some unaccountable happenings which she had witnessed.

  Later (she did not refer to Aunt Flora's death) she went to visit them after they had taken a lease of the house, and they agreed with her that the house was under supernatural influences. She visited them on three or four occasions. The longest single visit that she made lasted from a Friday evening until the following Sunday afternoon. On other occasions, two or three in number, she could not remember exactly how many, she had stayed a single night.

  It was represented to her by the prosecution that she had once spent more than a week in the house. She denied this, and then, looking very uncomfortable for the first time since the proceedings had begun, she admitted that she had stayed for several days in a hotel not far from where the house was situated. As this week covered and included the time of Cousin Tom's death, she was not asked to enlarge in any way upon her answer, and it was doubtful, Mrs. Bradley thought, whether the prosecution had scored a point or not, since the jury were not to be encouraged to realize that they were trying a woman who already had been acquitted on one murder charge and was fortunate to have escaped a previous one.

  Bella then denied completely that she had had any part in the escape of the two boys from the Institution, that she had connived at it, or that she had the slightest idea of what had happened to them after they had got away.

  The defence of stout denial is always a good one, Mrs. Bradley reflected, particularly if the accused does not commit the error of embroidering the denial by producing facts in support of it. Bella Foxley produced none. In effect, she challenged the prosecution to prove that the bodies which had been found in the crypt were those of the two boys who had escaped from the Institution, and she challenged them to show that she had had any knowledge of the whereabouts of the boys after they had escaped.

  "All over bar the shouting," wrote Mr. Pratt to Mrs. Bradley in the court. She grimaced at him in reply. It was Larry against Bella, she knew, for Muriel
could not have done more to prejudice the case in favour of the prisoner if she had been on the opposite side; and Larry, poor fellow, still had his boyhood to live down. Bella herself appeared to have no doubt of the result. She remained calm, almost phlegmatic, self-assured and clearheaded.

  A scale model of the haunted house had been prepared, and from it Mrs. Bradley had made clear her discovery of the passage connecting the well with the crypt and of her further discovery of how simple a matter it was, with the aid of two boys, to reproduce psychical phenomena of poltergeist character. This, she inferred, had been Bella's motive in assisting the two boys to make their escape from the Institution.

  The old caretaker had referred to screams, shouts and moans which had come up 'through the floor' of the house, but his evidence did not stand the test of cross-examination by the defence, for he was confused as to dates, and ended by agreeing (although he did not, to the end, realize this !) that he had imagined the whole thing. Miss Biddle's charwoman fared no better at the hands of Counsel for the Defence.

  "You'll never get her, Mother," said Ferdinand, gloomily. "She's as guilty as hell, but old Crodders has got you on toast. You see, you yourself can't speak to anything except the finding of the bodies, and although Muriel ought to have been able to slam the nail on the head that they were the bodies of those particular wretched kids, she didn't do it. Scared of finding her own neck in the noose; that's the trouble with her."

  "Oh, I knew she'd make a thoroughly bad witness," said Mrs. Bradley comfortably. Her son gaped at her, but she did not enlarge upon her answer.

  The cross-questioning of Bella Foxley nevertheless remained the high spot, as Caroline called it, of the proceedings. There was a 'sensation in court,' for instance, when in reply to questions the prisoner at last admitted that she had known of the presence of two boys in the haunted house, and agreed that the phenomena were fraudulent. She persisted in maintaining, however, that she had had nothing whatever to do with introducing the boys into the house, and declared that they were there at the invitation of those relatives of her own in whose name the house had been rented.

  "You helped these boys to escape?" the enquirer persisted.

  "No."

  "Do you deny that you helped them to file through the window bars of their sleeping quarters?"

  "I deny it absolutely."

  "Do you deny that you supplied them with the files?"

  "Yes, I deny that, too."

  "How do you think the boys got in touch with your relatives?"

  "I mentioned that two boys had escaped from the Institution and were at large."

  "I suggest that your relatives knew from you how to get hold of these boys."

  "No, not from me."

  "From whom, then?"

  "I don't know,"

  "I suggest that you know perfectly well."

  "I'm sure I don't. It seems to have been coincidence."

  The judge intervened at this point to remind the prisoner that she was on oath, 'like any other witness.'

  "When you knew that the boys were in the house, did you take any steps to inform the police that you knew where they could be found?" the prosecuting counsel continued.

  "No."

  "Why not?"

  "I believe in the idea of live and let live.' "

  "But you knew why these boys had been sent to the Institution?"

  "Well, yes, more or less."

  "What do you mean by that?"

  "I mean I knew they were supposed to have done something wrong."

  "Something so wrong that one of them, at least, was a potential danger to the community."

  "I didn't know that. We were never told the reason—not any particular reason, I mean—why any boy was at the Institution."

  "Even so, did you not believe it to be your duty, as a citizen, to inform the police as to the whereabouts of the boys?"

  "No."

  "Would you call yourself an anti-social person?"

  "No. I'm unsociable, but I liked the boys."

  "When you had made up your mind not to hand the boys over to the police, did you set about organizing their activities so as to benefit yourself and your relations?"

  "No."

  "You didn't help to exploit these boys for gain?"

  "Certainly not. As I explained before (this had been during her statement to her counsel) I had no reason to want to make money, either with or without the help of the boys. I had plenty of money. The boys were amused at playing the poltergeist tricks, and it was such a change to see them laughing and happy."

  "But when their laughter and happiness grew too dangerous, you battened them down in that cellar with frogs, newts and all kinds of slimy and disgusting creatures, and left them there in the dark and the wet to starve."

  "I never did that! I swear it! This is all a mistake. I am not the person who ought to be accused."

  "When did the boys become a nuisance?"

  "Never. I did not find them a nuisance. I had very little to do with them. I was at the Institution most of the time they were at the house."

  Counsel had led up to this point very well, Mrs. Bradley thought. The next part of the argument did not take her by surprise, but it seemed to flummox the prisoner. Pointing at her (one of the few histrionic or dramatic gestures he made during the trial) Counsel for the Prosecution said clearly :

  "You were not at the house during most of the time that the boys were there?"

  "No."

  "You were still at the Institution?"

  "Yes, certainly."

  "Will you tell the court the amount of your salary at the Institution?"

  "I—let me see—I think I was getting about a hundred and sixty."

  "And your board and lodging, of course?"

  "Yes, except during holiday periods."

  "Quite so. When did you begin to receive your legacy?"

  "About—on—let me think. It would have been—I think I had the first payment towards the end of February."

  "Towards the end of the February?"

  "Yes, I believe that's right."

  "And the boys escaped from the Institution on January twenty-third, according to the records kept by the Warden."

  "Yes, I suppose that would be right."

  "It is right. We can call witnesses to prove it, if necessary. Now, tell me: did you know, when those boys escaped—that is to say, on January twenty-third—that your aunt was going to die and leave you all this money?"

  "No! No, of course I didn't!"

  So she did not, even now, perceive the trap, thought Mrs. Bradley.

  "Well, then, I suggest that perhaps your financial position, at the time that these boys escaped and found their way to this house which your relatives had rented, was not quite as assured and as satisfactory as you would have the court to believe?"

  "Yes, but—No, I know it wasn't, but, don't you see——"

  "I am afraid we do see," responded the learned gentleman, with a satisfied smile. "We see that your protestations that you did not need to exploit the mischief-making powers of the boys for your own gain are not, in the light of your own evidence, either acceptable or true, and I forbear to enlarge upon the point, which is, I am convinced, perfectly comprehended by the jury, but it was a very odd coincidence indeed that these boys, with no help from you, should have managed to find their way, not only to your relatives, but into a house where their services could be utilized in such a gainful way to their employers."

  "I know all that. I agree," said Bella Foxley desperately, "but I didn't kill the boys! I didn't shut them up! There are those who know far more about that than I do!"