Having already been deprived of the opportunity of attempting anything further that evening, Roger did not feel that the loss of an extra hour round midnight would now make any material difference. While waiting for the doctor he had had ample time to review the situation, and he had come to the conclusion that it would be futile for him to try to see Vorontzoff again.
In the first place, after what had already occurred, the Ambassador would be extremely incensed against him and, in the second, he was now in no shape for further heroics. Therefore, he must get somebody else to go and talk to the Russian on the lines that he had meant to adopt himself; and the most suitable person for this delicate mission was clearly Droopy Ned.
Droopy had been at Stillwaters over the fatal weekend. He already knew most of the facts and could be told the rest, as he was entirely to be trusted. He was shrewd, diplomatic, and a person of sufficient prestige to secure an interview with Vorontzoff at any time, if he requested it on the plea of urgent business. The only possible alternative was Colonel Thursby; and Roger ruled him out as already so exhausted and overwrought, by his daughter’s impending fate, as temporarily to be lacking in the agility of mind and force of will necessary to bring Vorontzoff to heel.
Dr. Dillon insisted on seeing Roger home, so at one o’clock in the morning, they walked down the garden-path, got into the waiting carriage and told the patient Tomkins to drive to Arlington Street.
The moon was up, and five minutes later, as the carriage turned out of the Edgware Road into Oxford Street, they could see on the west side of the corner the three stout posts and their cross-beams that formed the gallows, standing out clearly against the night sky.
‘Look at old Tyburn Tree,’ remarked the jovial Irishman ‘I’ve seen many a good hanging yonder, and may the blessed St. Brigit preserve me to see many more.’
Roger shuddered, but did not reply. Already the very sight of the gibbet had conjured up an awful vision in his mind, He could see his dear, beautiful Georgina hanging there; her head lolling limply on one shoulder, her dark curls hanging in disorder over her purple face; her flashing eyes dull and lifeless as they protruded blindly from their sockets, and her laughter-loving lips horribly swollen about a gaping, sagging jaw.
He knew that unless he could do something within the next few hours that nightmare vision would become an actual fact, and that, even if he gave his own life uselessly, no course must be left untried which might avert that grim reality.
At Amesbury House he shook hands with old Tomkins, asked him to take Dr. Dillon home on his way back to Bedford Square, and gave him a handsome tip. Then, bidding good-night to the Doctor he pulled the bell beside the big carved door.
The night-footman let him in and told him that Lord Edward had come home an hour before and gone straight to bed. Roger went up to Droopy’s room and found him in bed, lying on his back and snoring loudly. All attempts to rouse him failed, so, much perturbed, Roger went downstairs and sent the footman to rout out Droopy’s valet.
When the valet appeared he said that his master had been much worried by the course that Lady Etheredge’s trial had taken. He had been present at each session and given evidence himself on Tuesday. After the adjournment which had taken place on the previous afternoon, he had gone to Lincoln’s Inn to consult the Counsel who were defending her ladyship, in the hope that a conversation with them would produce some hopeful aspect of the case. He had returned greatly depressed at half-past seven, and on learning that Roger had arrived in London, went out again to try to find him at White’s Club, Colonel Thursby’s, and various other places to which he might have gone. He had been back twice after that to see if Roger had come in, and on his final return at midnight, had told his man that ‘he meant to sleep this night if he died of it’; then he had taken a large dose of one of his Eastern drugs and allowed himself to be put to bed.
Droopy’s deep concern for Georgina was, Roger realised, mainly inspired by his friend’s knowledge of his own attachment to her. He had obviously felt himself to be in loco parentis, even to the point of interviewing Counsel; but, as matters stood at the moment, that made it all the more exasperating that, only an hour before, he should have thrown his hand in and sought refuge from further anxiety in impenetrable oblivion.
Too late, Roger saw that if only he had not been in such a hurry to dash off to Mr. Pitt that afternoon the Marquess would have told him about Georgina’s trial and Droopy’s pre-occupation with it. Then, if he had waited until Droopy had come in they could have put their heads together, and things might have been in far better shape. As it was he could only ask the valet to come upstairs and help him to undress; then, when he had been propped up in bed, issue an imperative order that in no circumstances was he to be called later than six o’clock.
In spite of a distinct feverishness and the gnawing pain in his left shoulder, mental exhaustion carried him off to sleep quite quickly. Yet when Droopy’s man came to rouse him he felt that barely ten minutes could have elapsed since he had closed his eyes.
On looking in the mirror he saw that he had a black eye where Natalia had struck him, and he wondered if, apart from a black, blue and aching tummy, she was by now well on the way to recovery from the effects of her nasty fall. Then his mind snapped back to Georgina, and the fact that this was the fateful day upon which it must be decided whether her generous youth and vital loveliness was to be preserved as a joy to all who knew her, or soon be transmuted into a lump of senseless, ugly clay.
* * * * *
It took three-quarters of an hour for Droopy’s man to get Roger into his clothes, adjust the sling round his arm, and make him as presentable as possible. Immediately this painful process had been accomplished, they hurried downstairs. Droopy still lay like a log and, for over an hour, defied all efforts to wake him.
They shook and slapped him; put an ice-compress on his head and poured the most fiery liquor they could find down his throat. The valet tickled the soles of his master’s feet and Roger stuck pins in his arms, but still he lay impervious to this violent treatment, except for an occasional jerk, or a snort through his fleshy nose.
It was not until eight o’clock, after Roger had ordered a hip-bath to be brought in and filled with cold water, and had Droopy’s limp form plunged into it, that he at last showed signs of returning consciousness. Then it took them another quarter of an hour of slapping his face, holding smelling-salts under his nose, and pouring black coffee into him to restore him to his full senses.
He took his arbitrary treatment with perfect good temper and only protested mildly that he was well-acquainted with the properties of the drug he had taken; and, that had he been left alone, he would in any case, have woken round about eight o’clock and been at the Old Bailey soon after nine to hear the judge’s summing-up.
When he was stretched comfortably on his gilt day-bed with Roger seated beside him, the valet brought them up breakfast. Only then did Roger realise that he had not eaten since breakfasting with Natalia Andreovna in the sloop that had brought them home from Stockholm. Relays of food were sent for, Droopy cut the eggs, sausages, mushrooms and ham into mouthfuls, and between them, the now one-handed Roger spoke rapidly and forcefully of Georgina’s frightful situation.
By a quarter to nine they had fully agreed on the only course of action which might still possibly save her, and leaving Droopy to complete his dressing as swiftly as he could, Roger hurried downstairs, got into a coach that he had already ordered, and drove to the Old Bailey.
The trial of a lady of fashion on a charge of murder had aroused great interest, so ghouls from the social world had vied with all the enthusiastic amateurs of crime in London to get places in the portion of the Court reserved for the public. As the Court was already sitting when Roger arrived he would have stood no chance at all of getting in, had it not been for his intimacy with Colonel Thursby. By bribery accompanied by alternate smiles and menaces he eventually succeeded in being conducted through the press to a seat beside the C
olonel at the solicitors’ table.
Georgina, dressed entirely in black and looking very pale but quite calm, and still strikingly lovely, was seated in the dock. The stir caused by Roger’s entrance caused her to look round. The second her glance fell on him her eyebrows went up and her mouth opened as though she was about to emit a piercing scream. With an obvious effort she stifled it in her throat but made a swift gesture with her hands as if to say: ‘Go away! Please! Please! I beg you to go away from here.’
He gave her a reassuring smile, sat down and looked round the Court. It was packed to capacity with row upon row of hard, avid, gloating faces. Few but those of the lawyers, the court officials and the double row of ’twelve good men and true,’ in their jury-box, showed any trace of solemn decency.
The place had a dank, chill atmosphere, which was calculated to make a stranger to it shiver even on a summer’s day. The floor was dirty and there was a subtly unpleasant smell which conjured up the thoughts of gaol-fever. Roger did not wonder that the judge held in his hand a paper-frilled posy of sweet-smelling flowers, and that learned Counsel occasionally sniffed at oranges stuffed with cloves.
The judge, an elderly, red-faced man, was addressing the jury almost tonelessly; yet, obviously, he felt that this was no clear-cut case of crude murder arising out of a proven hate or desire for gain, since he was taking great pains to present an unbiased analysis of the evidence that he been given by both sides.
Roger soon realised that had he not had such difficulty in getting into the Court he would have been in time to hear the opening of the day’s proceedings, as it was apparent that the judge had only just started his summing-up. What length of time could be hoped for before he completed it, was the question which now agitated Roger’s mind.
His final plan before going to sleep had been that Droopy should set off for the Russian Embassy soon after seven, so that he would have a full hour in which to argue with Vorontzoff and, if he was successful, be able to bring the Ambassador to the Old Bailey by the time the Court opened at nine. But Droopy’s addiction to strange drugs had ruined all hope of that.
Now, even in his racing curricle, he could not have got out to Woronzow House before nine; he might be kept waiting anything up to a quarter of an hour before Vorontzoff was ready to see him, and it was hardly likely that it would take less than half an hour to induce the Russian entirely to reverse his attitude towards Georgina; then they had to get from St. John’s Wood to the Old Bailey, so, at the very best, it could not be hoped that they would appear there before ten.
If the judge was still summing up all would be well. Georgina’s Counsel would be able to request permission to submit new evidence; but if the jury had been sent to consider their verdict the judge might rule that, since Vorontzoff had already given his evidence and the defence had had ample time to recall him if they wished, the minds of the jury must not now be influenced further in either direction.
What was to happen then? Or if Vorontzoff proved adamant and Droopy arrived alone to say that he had failed to secure the Russian’s co-operation?
From time to time Georgina turned to look at Roger. Each time their glances met her black eyes said: ‘What stroke of ill-fortune has enabled you to appear here at this last moment? I beg you to remain silent! Say nothing! Say nothing!’
And Roger’s solitary blue one, for the other was now almost closed in a great purple bruise, replied: ‘Courage, Georgina, courage! All is not yet lost. But if we have to swing, we’ll swing together!’
Ten o’clock came and the judge was still talking. Roger had his watch out lying in front of him on the table. Every other moment he glanced at it and the long hand seemed to leap from minute to minute; five past, ten past, a quarter past, twenty past, twenty-five past. Still the judge was speaking, yet still the faces that Roger was so desperately anxious to see failed to appear among the crowd that packed the doorway.
At half-past Colonel Thursby leaned over and whispered in Roger’s ear: ‘I think he is near through; and I doubt if our agony will be greatly prolonged by the jury.’
Roger knew that he referred to the general tendency that the summing-up had taken. The judge had been scrupulously fair, but the dominant motif of his instruction to the jury was that—if they reached the conclusion that the cut-glass scent-bottle could have struck Sir Humphrey Etheredge upon the head only through the agency of the prisoner’s hand, and that she had thrown it at him with deliberate intent to cause him an injury, then her act had resulted in wilful murder, and they would have no alternative but to return a verdict of ‘Guilty’.
In his hour-and-a-half’s review of the evidence those questions had been answered beyond further dispute, so it now seemed certain that the jury would be absent only for a few minutes before returning such a verdict. That was the thought in the Colonel’s mind, and Roger would have given a very great deal to be able to give him some comfort, by telling him that he had dispatched Droopy Ned on an attempt to induce Vorontzoff to appear in court and make a fresh statement. But he dared not raise the distraught father’s hopes, because he was far from certain that Droopy would succeed in his mission; as, however justifiable in this particular case, it would prove no easy matter to persuade the Russian to come into court and bear false witness. All Roger could do was to write a note and pass it across to Georgina’s leading counsel.
At twenty-five to eleven the judge concluded his address, and he was just about to instruct the jury to retire to consider their verdict when Georgina’s counsel rose with the note in his hand, and said:
‘My lord. I crave your indulgence to produce a new witness. My excuse for not putting him in the box at an earlier stage of the trial is that he returned from abroad only yesterday. But he is a Mr. Roger Brook, whom your lordship will recall as having already been named in this case among the members of the house-party that has been the subject of this inquiry. I therefore submit that his testimony may prove highly relevant, and pray that your lordship will be pleased to hear him.’
Georgina had come to her feet with a half-strangled cry. Leaning out of the dock she wrung her hands towards the judge and gasped imploringly: ‘I beg you, Sir, not to hear this gentleman! He can know nothing of the matter! Nothing!’
There was an excited rustle among the crowd, then the judge waved her sternly back to her seat and said quietly to counsel: ‘You may swear your witness.’
* * * * *
As Georgina sank back on to her chair and burst into a flood of tears, Roger stepped up into the witness-box and was duly sworn. Then counsel for the defence asked him to tell the court anything that he could relating to Sir Humphrey Ether edge’s death.
It was now a quarter to eleven. Roger’s hopes that Droopy would arrive with Vorontzoff were fast diminishing. But as long as Droopy did not appear alone, to announce failure, there was still a chance that the two of them might make a belated appearance. So Roger meant to gain a little more time by giving irrelevant evidence to start with.
He thought that he might be able to keep it up for about a quarter of an hour, but by eleven o’clock Droopy would have had nearly an hour and a half in which to plead with and threaten the Russian, and if by eleven they were not in court, it could only be because Vorontzoff had proved adamant, and Droopy was too distressed at his failure to come and admit it.
In that case Roger had determined to make a clean breast of the whole affair, in the slender hope that the jury might disagree as to whether Georgina throwing the scent-bottle or his striking Sir Humphrey over the heart had been the real cause of death. Owing to the ensuing doubts as to which of them had inflicted the fatal injury they might get off with transportation for life, if not they would die as they had lived and go bravely side by side in the death-cart to Tyburn.
To begin with he spoke of his first meeting with Georgina. Of her lonely childhood and unhappy upbringing from the fact that all her neighbours in the county had ostracised her on account of her gipsy blood. The judge heard him patiently at fir
st and then began to fiddle restlessly with his nosegay. Roger saw that he must soon come to more cogent matters, and was preparing to start on the story of the fatal week-end when there was a sudden stir in the doorway of the court.
With his heart in his mouth Roger stopped speaking and stared in that direction. To his bitter disappointment it was only a messenger, but the message was for him, and an usher brought it over to the witness-box.
Having asked the judge’s permission he read it. The folded paper bore a scrawl by Droopy Ned which ran:
‘When I reached the Russian Embassy I learned that Vorontzoff had already gone out, to spend the day at Richmond. I have gone after him.’
Roger drew his hand across his eyes. This was too terrible. Everything still hung in the balance. Droopy might yet succeed in bringing the Russian to the Old Bailey, but, perhaps not for another hour or so. On the other hand Vorontzoff might refuse to come, so it was impossible to tell the judge that another witness was still being sought for. There was only one thing to do. Somehow he must spin out his evidence with out finally committing himself until the very last possible moment.
It was eleven o’clock as he resumed his tale. He spoke of Georgina’s unfailing generosity and of her kindness to her servants; then when he saw that the judge was getting restless again he brought in her strange gift of second sight, and managed to intrigue the court for some minutes by giving examples of it.
Where the minutes had flown during the judge’s summing up they now seemed to drag interminably, and Roger had never realised before how many words had to be spoken to fill sixty seconds.
For some twelve minutes the judge listened to him without comment, then he suddenly coughed, and said: ‘None of this is relevant. The witness must confine himself to facts affecting the case.’
Roger murmured an apology and was forced to start on the house-party at Stillwaters. On coming into court that morning he had felt ghastly. The torn muscles of his shoulder throbbed and nagged, seeming to thrust their pain down into his backbone and chest. His swollen eye felt as big as a cricket ball, and his head ached intolerably. But now, in the intensity of his effort to hold the interest of the court he forgot all his pains and injuries. He was a natural orator and an excellent raconteur, and as he described the house and guests it was clear that everyone in court was following the picture that he drew with the closest attention.
The Shadow of Tyburn Tree Page 58