23
The Shadow of Tyburn Tree
It was just four o’clock when Roger walked dazedly out of the door of No. 10. The Prime Minister had been most distressed on seeing the shock that his announcement had caused, but he could give Roger no detailed information. He explained that his mind was always so occupied with Parliamentary business that he had not the leisure to follow proceedings in the criminal courts; and would not even have heard of the matter, had not the fact that a celebrated beauty stood accused of murdering her husband caused an unusual stir in the fashionable world.
Pitt’s brain, so agile in debate and so brilliant when required to provide a cold, logical analysis, seemed suddenly to become benumbed when called on to offer sympathy to a friend stricken by a personal tragedy. Awkwardly, he had protested that he would never have broken the news so abruptly had he known that Roger and Georgina were such close friends, then patted Roger’s shoulder and offered him a glass of port. Roger had declined and hurried away, now seized with a terrible urge to know the worst.
On the corner of the street a row of sedan-chairs was plying for hire. It struck him that, if the chairmen could be induced to keep at a trot, this offered a swifter means of getting through the narrow, congested streets than taking a coach; so, picking the two most stalwart-looking bearers, he promised them half-a-guinea if they could get him to Colonel Thursby’s house in Bedford Square in a quarter of an hour.
Inspired by the high reward, they set off at a run, and as Roger was jogged along he endeavoured to fight down his terrible apprehensions. If Georgina had been accused and brought to trial that could only be Sir Isaiah Etheredge’s doing. Evidently, as Colonel Thursby had feared, the new Baronet bitterly resented being deprived of the bulk of his inheritance through Georgina’s marriage-settlement, and was endeavouring to recover it by getting her out of the way. But what evidence could he possibly have?
Georgina and Roger himself were the only people who knew the real truth as to how Humphrey Etheredge had died. Colonel Thursby suspected it and so did Count Vorontzoff. It was certain that the former would never even have hinted at anything which might have brought his beloved daughter into such a ghastly situation; but the Russian Ambassador might have done so. Yet even he could provide no proof. He might have recanted his statement that the midnight message which had brought Sir Humphrey to Stillwaters in the dawn had been inspired by Georgina as an April Fool’s Day joke, and thus thrown discredit on the rest of her story; but, apart from that, anything he might say could be based only on surmise.
As the sedan was carried across Oxford Street by the perspiring chairmen, Roger came to the conclusion that this terrible thing could have come about only through Sir Isaiah and Count Vorontzoff having plotted together to destroy Georgina. The Vindictive Russian must have allowed his rancour at Georgina’s treatment of him to overcome his apprehensions of Roger’s threat to kill him if he talked. Roger bared his teeth in a mirthless grin, at the thought that Vorontzoff had made a mistake that was going to cost him his life. That would be no consolation if Georgina lost hers; and Roger knew that he, too, might now soon end his days swinging from a rope on Tyburn Tree; but he was determined that, before he did so, he would send the Russian on into the valley of the shadows ahead of him.
At Colonel Thursby’s house the chair pulled up with a jerk. Roger jumped out, paid the men their money, and hammered on the front door. The footman who answered it told him in a subdued voice that the Colonel was not at home, as he was attending her ladyship’s trial at the Old Bailey; but that the court rose at four o’clock, so he should be back quite shortly.
Roger said that he would wait, and was shown into a small sitting-room on the ground-floor. Impatient as he was for news he did not like to discuss the matter with the man; but he suddenly thought of Jenny and, having ascertained that she was in the house, asked that she should be sent to him.
Two minutes later Georgina’s faithful maid appeared; her pretty face was drawn and her eyes were red from weeping. At the sight of Roger she burst into a fresh fit of weeping and buried her face in her frilled apron. Roger quickly put an arm arm about her shoulders and gave her a friendly squeeze, as he said:
‘Come, Jenny, m’dear. I know how you feel, but crying will not help her ladyship. I have been out of England these past three weeks and knew naught of this terrible business till half-an-hour ago. Tell me, I beg, how it all came about?’
‘Oh, Mr. Brook, Mr. Brook,’ wailed Jenny. ‘ ’Tis right glad I’d be to see you did I dare look you in the face. But should they take my sweet mistress away in the hangman’s cart, ’twill be on account of my stupidity.’
‘Nay, Jenny, I’ll not believe that,’ Roger said gently. ‘You were ever a good, loyal girl; and I’d go bail any day that you n’er did a thing that you thought might bring harm to her ladyship.’
Her head still bowed, Jenny turned a little, grasped one of his lapels and clung to him pathetically. ‘Oh, bless you for them words. Mr. Roger, dear. You was ever a real gentlemen—even when you were a little boy and me nought but nurserymaid to Miss Georgina. I’d have bit out my tongue before I’d have said it. I swear I would; but I’d not a notion they were setting a trap for me.’
‘But what did you say?’ Roger pressed her. ‘And who set a trap for you?’
‘ ’Twas yesterday, the second day of the trial,’ she whimpered. ‘I was taken to the law-court and put into the box. I’d fain have gone the first day, to be near her ladyship; but they wouldn’t let me. There she was, bless her heart, looking a little pale but as calm as though she was in her box at the opera; and when I curtsied to her she gave me a sweet smile. The Judge was in a red robe and all the lawyer-gentlemen were wearing wigs and gowns. One of them was a big red-faced man with bushy black eyebrows. After I’d kissed the Bible he asked me a lot of questions, and very nice to me he was, at first. He said that he expected that as a good maid I took pride in keeping her ladyship’s things clean and tidy; and I said of course I did. He said he had no doubt that I could remember just how many dresses her ladyship had, and what colours they were, and I told him, yes, to that too.
‘Then—then he asked me to describe her bedroom at Stillwaters. At that I looked across at her ladyship and she nodded to me, so I did as I was bid. After that the gentleman asked about her ladyship’s cosmetics, and what brushes and things she kept on her dressing-table. ’Twas not for me to say I thought that no business of his; and after telling him that I kept all her pots and jars in a special cabinet, I gave him the particulars he wanted. He made me repeat them, then he asked about the ornaments on the mantelpiece and the chest-of-drawers. At length he came to her bedside-table, and wanted to know what was kept on that. I told him her candle and night-light, one or two books and a big cut-glass bottle of scent.’
Roger stiffened, drew in a quick breath, and said: ‘Yes, go on, Jenny.’
She began to sob again. ‘He—he made me repeat that. Then—then he went back to the dressing-table and asked me if I had ever seen that particular scent-bottle on it; and—and I had to admit that I hadn’t. I—I knew that I’d said something I didn’t ought by then. But he’d become fierce and hor-horrible. He banged his fist on the edge of the box where I was standing and glowered at me as—as if he meant to strip my soul bare. Suddenly he—he pulled the bottle out from under his gown and thrust it within an inch of my face. He—he—he made me swear it was that bottle and no—no other; and that I’d never seen it anywhere except beside her ladyship’s bed.’
The grim significance of poor Jenny’s evidence was already clear to Roger. To account for the reek of scent from Sir Humphrey’s clothes and the bottle being found at the foot of the bed, Georgina had led everyone to believe that he had knocked it off the dressing-table with his whip, then fallen in the pool that the liquid had made on the floor. But the place where he had collapsed was a good twelve feet from her bedside-table; so, if it had been knocked from there he could not possibly have rolled in the spilled sc
ent. The inference was damnably plain. She must have thrown it at him.
* * * * *
Roger was still endeavouring to comfort Jenny when Colonel Thursby came in. He seemed to have aged ten years since Roger had last seen him. After the briefest greeting, the housekeeper was summoned to take charge of Jenny, and the two men went upstairs.
‘I landed from Sweden only after mid-day, Sir,’ Roger said, as soon as they were alone, ‘and learned of this ghastly business less than an hour ago. ’Tis beyond words terrible.’
The Colonel slumped into a chair. ‘It is indeed! This is the third day of the trial. The final speeches for the prosecution and the defence were made this afternoon, and no sane man could doubt that the balance of evidence is heavily against us. Tomorrow morning the judge will sum up. Somehow I must bring myself to listen to the cold logic he will employ; then await the verdict. But I already know what it will be. And there is nothing more that I can do.’
On learning that the situation was now so desperate, Roger’s heart was gripped by a fresh horror. But it was clear that if anything could still be done to save Georgina it lay with him to do it; for the Colonel was at the end of his tether. Going over to a side-table, he poured out a wineglass full of brandy, brought it over to the distraught father, and said:
‘All is not yet lost, Sir. Thank God I got back when I did. Tomorrow morning we will ask the Court to hear fresh evidence. I will go into the box and declare that, hearing the noise of an altercation in Georgina’s bedroom, I ran in, and, on seeing Sir Humphrey hit her with his whip, I struck him dead.’
Colonel Thursby took a gulp of brandy, coughed, and shook his head. ‘ ’Twould be useless, Roger. I’ve never doubted your willingness to shoulder the blame for what occurred; but to attempt to do so now would be only to sacrifice yourself without saving her.’
‘It has always been my belief that ’twas my blow upon his heart that killed him. I cannot stand by and let her—let her pay the awful penalty for my act.’
‘Nay. We must endeavour to put a check upon our natural feelings and, however hard, try to regard the matter dispassionately.’ The Colonel closed his eyes wearily, then went on after a moment: ‘None of us know, and no one will ever know now, what actually caused his death. It may have been your blow; it may have been the scent-bottle that Georgina threw at him. Again, neither injury need necessarily have been sufficiently serious to prove fatal. It may be that exhaustion and rage had so wrought upon his brain that before he was struck by either fist or bottle he was already beyond escaping an apoplexy.’
‘I know it,’ moaned Roger. ‘I know it! But the fact that either or neither of us may be guilty of his death cannot, from what you say, save one of us from being brought to book now. And, if so, I am determined that it shall be myself.’
‘Were it possible for you to take her place I would be hard put to it to dissuade you from doing so,’ the Colonel sighed. ‘God knows, ’twould be a frightful choice of evils; only the fact that I love her better than aught else in the world would force me to countenance it. But you have yet to hear my point. No one but you, I and she are aware that you struck him, or even that you were with her when he died.’
‘Count Vorontzoff saw the weal that Sir Humphrey’s lash left on my hand. He told Georgina so; and of his conviction that her husband died as the result of a brawl at which I was present.’
‘No matter. No one else appears to have noticed the mark, and it has long since disappeared. Vorontzoff has said nothing of it and there is not a shred of evidence against you. On the other hand, alas, it is now proven beyond doubt that Georgina threw the bottle. Had you afterwards run your sword through Humphrey Etheredge’s body and left it there as a mark of your identity, ’twould still make no difference to the case that has been established against her. They could hang you with her, but ’twould not save her from—from the gallows.’
Roger mopped his face. ‘I—I see your reasoning, Sir. Yet I cannot let her face this—this dread ordeal alone.’
‘ ’Tis her wish, my boy; and you would but add to her burden did you do otherwise. Each time I have been, to see her, knowing so well what your attitude would be, she has thanked God that you were still abroad and so could not be called upon to give evidence. At her most earnest request I have done everything possible to prevent your being associated with the case. Your name has scarce been mentioned in it, and then only on a par with those of Charles Fox, Lord Edward Fitz-Deveral, and others who were of the house-party. If you are determined upon it ’tis still within your power to commit suicide. For that is what a confession from you would now amount to. But ’tis idle to imagine that such an act would benefit Georgina. In fact it would deprive her of her one consolation; the thought that you have been spared from sharing her fate.’
‘Then, since I cannot save her, I must submit to her wish in this,’ Roger muttered. ‘Yet I cannot sit here idle and let events take their course. There must be something we can do. I pray you tell me how this frightful thing came about?’
The older man sipped his brandy. ‘We had no inkling of what was afoot until we returned from abroad. Had Jenny or my man Thomas remained at home ’tis certain that they would have written to give us warning that an inquiry was being made; but both of them accompanied us on our travels. Stillwaters was left in the care of the steward, Tobias Wenlock, an old servant of the Etheredge family. I kept him informed of addresses which would find us, in case of fire or any other calamity; but he remained silent on this matter; being, as I have since learnt, under pressure from Sir Isaiah.’
‘I guessed this to be his work,’ murmured Roger.
The Colonel nodded. It seems that directly he learned of Humphrey’s death he returned hot-foot from Jamaica, and went down to Stillwaters to ascertain particulars of his nephew’s sudden demise. The coroner’s report can have told him nothing, but, as transpired in court on Monday, the doctor gave him details of the bruise over the heart, the cut on the temple and the scent-splashed clothing. On this Sir Isaiah applied for an order to exhume the body and, as next of kin, obtained it. The bruise, of course, was no longer discernible; and later it was accounted for by the very explanation I had given myself, or near enough to it; for it transpired that Humphrey had been kicked in the chest the day before he died, just before mounting that brute of a horse that he took to Goodwood. But at the new post-mortem it was found that the bone beneath the cut on Humphrey’s temple had been fractured.
The servants at Stillwaters were then questioned and Georgina’s room examined. The housemaid who cleaned the room gave evidence on Monday that, on the first occasion she did so after Humphrey’s death, she found no trace of hair or blood on the bed-posts or nearby furniture, which would suggest that his head had come into violent contact with anything as he fell. And, in fact, while a man might stun himself and suffer an abrasion of the skin by his head striking a piece of wood a glancing blow, ’tis difficult to believe that on falling limp he would actually crack his skull in such a manner.
‘After the housemaid, John Gower, one of the footmen who carried Humphrey’s body from the room, gave evidence. On Picking up the feet of the corpse he had noticed the scent-bottle lying just beneath the valance at the foot of the bed. It was this emerging at the man’s first questioning by Sir Isaiah that must have made him believe that he was getting near the truth, and had enough evidence to bring a case. Every witness had confirmed the almost overpowering reek of scent in the room, so that must have come to Sir Isaiah’s notice early in his inquiry.
‘When he had dredged every source at Stillwaters he called on all the members of the house-party; and I fear that George Selwyn said much more than he need have done. ’Twas certainly not from any malice against Georgina, but from his absorbing interest in all forms of death; In the box on Monday he gave his evidence with reluctance, but he substantiated many points; particularly the fact that it was Humphrey’s head and shoulders which were drenched with scent, so he could hardly have become so soused throu
gh falling in a puddle of it; and he corroborated the statement of Vorontzoff as to the exact position in which the bottle was found.’
‘What attitude has the Russian taken in all this?’ Roger ask-asked, with an edge upon his tone.
‘He was proved no friend to us,’ replied the Colonel. ‘Of that I am convinced. On Tuesday morning, having waived his status as Ambassador, he gave evidence. He stood by his original story, that the note he sent to Humphrey at Goodwood was inspired by Georgina’s desire to make her husband an April Fool, and not knowing Georgina as well as you and I, everyone appears to believe him. In all other matters his conduct has been most correct. He has confirmed various pieces of evidence where he could hardly do anything else, but has refrained from mentioning you or otherwise blackening the picture, as he could have done had he chosen to infer all that he either knows or suspects. Yet, from various facts which have emerged in the evidence of others, I am convinced that, privately, he must have given Sir Isaiah a number of pointers towards Georgina’s guilt that her accuser would otherwise have missed.’
‘I threatened to kill him,’ Roger announced, ‘if he let his tongue run away with him. So it seems that despite my absence abroad he is still anxious to give me no open proof that he has taken this opportunity to be revenged upon Georgina.’
‘If the worst befalls, ’twill not be on account of anything that he has said, but owing to the cross examination of poor Jenny. ’Twas her evidence, that in her knowledge the scent-bottle had never been kept anywhere but beside Georgina’s bed, which makes it beyond doubt that she must have thrown it.’
‘Could it not have been pleaded that she did so in self-defence?’
‘We considered such a course,’ said the Colonel, ‘And I put a hypothetical case to Counsel, but he advised against it. Had Georgina done so in defending herself against anyone but her husband she would have been accounted justified. But this was no case of a woman defending her honour; and in English law a wife is still her husband’s chattel. Whether a wife be good or bad he is within his rights to give her a beating at any time he may feel so inclined. Had Humphrey threatened to kill her, that would have been different; but there is not the faintest suggestion that, at any time, he had meditated an attempt upon her life. The legal view is that no husband would be safe were a wife permitted to retaliate for a beating by snatching up some possibly lethal weapon; and that for a wife to kill her husband so, is one of the most heinous forms of murder.’
The Shadow of Tyburn Tree Page 55