‘Well then?’
He stepped closer. ‘Jacinta trusts you. She will do what you tell her to do. You could tell her to open a window, the window of her bedroom, perhaps. At night, when everybody is asleep. Then we could enter without anyone except Jacinta knowing.’
‘It wouldn’t work. How could we scale the wall – or get past the dog?’
‘O muro? O cão? You are frightened of such things?’
‘I’m frightened we’d fail. How would that help Consuela?’
Rodrigo’s eyes flashed with anger. He grabbed at the collar of my coat. Then, even as he grasped it, he relaxed his hold.
‘I will get us over the wall. And I will deal with any dog that shows its teeth at us.’
‘It still wouldn’t work. Jacinta’s a virtual prisoner. I’m not allowed to visit her. I’m not even allowed to write—’
As I hesitated, Rodrigo nodded. ‘Now you understand. Hermione Caswell. She is the answer.’
‘How did you—’
‘She testified in court today. I listened to her. I decided she was one I could trust. I have just come from her. She told me about the letters she has passed between you and Jacinta. She told me she could pass another letter when she returns to Hereford tomorrow. Victor will stay in London with his brother. Half his servants are here as well. So, it is quiet at Clouds Frome. It is the perfect time for two burglars to go to work.’
‘Burglars?’
‘Yes, Staddon. Dois arrombadores. You and I, together.’
‘You really mean this? You really think this will save Consuela?’
‘There is no other way.’
And Hermione’s willing to help us?’
‘She agrees with me. There is no other way.’
‘But, for God’s sake—’
‘I cannot go alone. If I could, I would. I would prefer to. You know that, I think. And why.’
‘The risks would be appalling.’
‘The risks will be for Consuela. My sister. The mother of your child.’
I stared at him and he at me. There was nothing, absolutely nothing, that drew us together but this one mad strand of hope. Victor’s will might hold the key to Consuela’s freedom, to her very life. Or it might not. But, either way, trying to find it was better than doing nothing, better by far than watching helplessly while fate pursued its course. ‘Very well,’ I murmured. ‘I’ll help you.’
Chapter Fifteen
Thackeray Hotel,
Great Russell Street,
London WC1.
19th January 1924
My Dear Jacinta,
I am writing to you from the hotel where your Aunt Hermione is staying. She is with me now, as is your Uncle Rodrigo. Hermione is returning to Hereford tomorrow and will call to see you at Clouds Frome on Monday, when she will try to deliver this letter to you. It is very important for your mother’s sake that nobody except we four know what is in this letter or that you have received it. Therefore, after reading it, please tear it up and burn it. Nobody at Clouds Frome – especially Miss Roebuck – must know anything about it.
Your mother’s trial is nearly over. Hermione has been here to testify in her defence. She, Rodrigo and I believe your mother is innocent, but your father, your Uncle Mortimer and Aunt Marjorie believe she is guilty. I am telling you this so you will know who to trust and who not to trust. We are trying to save your mother. The others are not.
When we last met, I told you I was trying to help your mother in every way I could. I still am. But it may not be enough. That is why I am writing this letter to you, Jacinta, because the time has come to ask you to do something to help your mother, something difficult and dangerous, but something I know you are capable of doing.
All doors and windows at Clouds Frome are closed and locked at night. We know this. But Rodrigo and I need to enter the house by night. I am not going to tell you why. It will be safer if you do not know. But it is necessary – it is absolutely vital – if we are to save your mother. Therefore, on Tuesday night, I want you to open a window so that we can climb in.
This is what I want you to do. Go to bed as usual, but do not go to sleep. Wait until the house is completely quiet. Then leave your room (Hermione has told me where it is) and go into the old nursery. Open the Catherine wheel window. Then go back to bed. If you hear anything after that, do not react in any way. Whatever happens, pretend you are asleep.
We will come between one and two in the morning, so the window must be open by one at the latest. If that is not possible, or there is some reason why you cannot do as I ask, try to let Hermione know. But do not take any risks. We can probably wait until Wednesday night if we have to.
You will need to be very brave and very careful. I know you can be both those things. We are relying on you. So is your mother. Remember, Jacinta, trust us and nobody else. Do your very best.
I am your friend and your mother’s friend,
Geoffrey Staddon.
THE LETTER BETRAYED none of the qualms I felt at writing it. It was essential that Jacinta should have no inkling of how uncertain I was that we were doing the right thing. Not that my fellow conspirators, however, seemed in any doubt. For Rodrigo this was merely one of many chances – by no means the most desperate – he was prepared to take for Consuela. For Hermione it was a risky venture justified by the extremity of the circumstances. Like Imry, she had detected few signs at Consuela’s trial that the defence would be successful. Now, bridling at her treatment by the prosecution, she was willing to play her part in a less conventional way.
It was difficult at times, as we sat together in Hermione’s sitting-room at the Thackeray Hotel, to believe that what we were planning would actually take place. An air of unreality enveloped everything we proposed to do, even as it enveloped what would happen to Consuela if we failed to intervene. Both futures – her salvation and her condemnation – had become for me equally incredible. Perhaps only in that way could my mind hold dread and hope at bay and concentrate on action. Perhaps only by ceasing to look ahead could I go forward at all.
Hermione was to return to Hereford by train the following day. Rodrigo and I were to follow in my car on Monday. We would book into a country inn at a discreet distance from the city, whilst, that afternoon, Hermione called unannounced at Clouds Frome. It was inconceivable that Miss Roebuck would raise any objection to her seeing Jacinta and she would therefore have an opportunity to convey my letter to her. That this had been successful she would confirm when we met on the Wye Bridge in Hereford at three o’clock on Tuesday afternoon. By then Rodrigo would have selected the best point at which to enter the grounds of Clouds Frome. We would do so that night, equipped with a ladder, torches and a knife. (The last of these was a precaution against attack by the guard-dog, a contingency I viewed with horror.) We would then enter the house via the nursery window. (I had chosen this window because its Catherine wheel shape made it easily distinguishable from the ground and because it was close to Jacinta’s bedroom.) From that point on it would be a question of inspecting each room – starting with the most obvious ones – in search of the false wall and the safe concealed behind it. With Victor and half the staff absent, the task promised to be both feasible and straightforward, so long as we avoided those rooms (already identified by Hermione) which were likely to be occupied.
So much for the theory. The practice, my instincts told me, would prove far more complex and demanding. But, so long as I did not devote too much time to imagining the risks, I could pretend, or at least behave as if, they did not exist.
I disclosed none of this to Imry, fearing that he would point out all the cogent reasons why to proceed was folly. Instead, on Monday morning, just as Consuela’s trial was resuming at the Old Bailey, I left the office with a vague and hasty explanation that I might be away for several days. Then I delivered a message to Imry’s club, telling him I would not be able to keep our regular appointment and would be out of London at least until Wednesday. With my tracks covered, it onl
y remained to collect Rodrigo from our agreed rendezvous halfway along Park Lane and drive west towards Hereford and whatever outcome our actions were to have.
Monday 21 January 1924
When we parted on Saturday, Geoff assured me that he would meet me at the club as usual at six o’clock this evening. All that awaited me here, however, was a message left with the porter this morning, to the effect that he had had to leave London and would not be back before Wednesday. This I find inexplicable. Reg, when I telephoned him, confirmed that Geoff’s vanishing act has nothing to do with the partnership. So, what has it to do with? What could possibly have precipitated his departure at such a crucial stage of the trial? Where, and why, has he gone?
Ironically, I made my way here from the Old Bailey dreading the very prospect of meeting Geoff, turning over in my mind innumerable ways of applying a brave gloss to the events in court which I thought I would have to describe to him. Well, the effort was wasted. No gloss was needed. And perhaps, in all the circumstances, that was just as well.
Number One Court seemed somehow fuller this week than last, more closely packed and intense. This was an illusion, of course, since it has been full to capacity every day of the trial. Yet there was an absence of ornament and diversion in the proceedings, a refined awareness of what we were there to do and see done, that imposed its solemnity on all of us, lawyers and laymen alike. Many, I think, realized for the first time that the drama is nearly at an end, the succession of question and answer about to draw to a close. When it does, these long punctilious days in court will seem few and fleeting, the hopes and doubts they have bred absurd in the face of whatever reality overtakes them.
For the moment, the consequences of Consuela’s testimony remain uncertain, my assessment of them as valid as any other. I may be wrong about how the jury will react. And I can only pray, for Consuela’s sake, that I am. What I fear, however, is that her slim chance to sway them has come and gone – and they have not been swayed.
When Sir Henry Curtis-Bennett rose this morning and called the accused herself as his next and final witness, she became, even more so than before, the focus of the Court’s attention. As she made her way from the dock to the witness-box, all eyes, including mine, were fixed upon her. What we saw was a slim upright woman of medium height and elegant carriage, dressed in a black suit of almost military severity, belted and buttoned to the collar. She wore a matching hat with a narrow upturned brim, set low over her right eye. There was a vestigial feather in the band of the hat, ruffed lace at her neck and wrists and a lozenge-shaped brooch on her left breast. Her dark hair was drawn back, revealing a face of exceptional beauty and an expression of singular restraint.
That there was evidently to be no repetition of Saturday’s loss of self-control on Consuela’s part I instinctively regretted. I think I know the sort of dull middle-class Englishmen who appear to dominate the jury. What they expect of women is either submissiveness or nervousness, preferably both. When the woman whose life is at their mercy displays neither quality, they become suspicious. And when that woman is also beautiful and obviously of foreign extraction, their suspicion turns to hostility. So it was that, from the very first, Consuela took more risks than she could have realized with the prejudices and susceptibilities of the Court.
Would she look at her husband as she descended from the dock? He was in his customary place next to the jury-box and everyone must have wondered whether, as Consuela reached the foot of the dock steps and turned towards him, some glance – some signal of how they felt towards each other – would be exchanged. But none was. Consuela gazed resolutely at her destination, whilst Victor stared at the chandelier above our heads.
The moment was past as soon as it was upon us and Consuela was being sworn in. The judge was leaning forward, squinting across at her. Talbot was lounging back in his chair, fiddling with a pen. Sir Henry was clearing his throat and adjusting his gown. Every neck was craning, every eye staring, every ear straining. To this woman’s words had been reduced the issue of all the other words that had gone before.
At Sir Henry’s invitation, Consuela recounted her origins in Brazil, her first meeting with Victor, her arrival in England, her years as the mistress of Clouds Frome. In his questions, Sir Henry seemed to be urging her to reveal more of the shy nineteen-year-old she had once been, more of the gauche and inexperienced bride, the homesick and neglected wife. But the years of living by her own devices, of surviving in a foreign land and a loveless marriage, had taught her too well. The true Consuela had retreated out of reach and sight, leaving only an aloof and dignified stranger in our midst who meets danger with disdain and answers accusations with indifference. I was reminded of a tigress I once watched at the Zoo, pacing her cage while schoolchildren gaped and growled in mockery. Not once did she gratify them with a response. Not even with so much as a rake of her proud Siberian eyes did she reward their provocations. She was their prisoner, yet in her gaze was a consciousness of freedom such as they had never dreamt of.
We turned to more recent times. Consuela explicitly denied receiving the anonymous letters and said that, had she done so, she would have ignored them. She was not a jealous woman. There was, she silently implied, nothing to be jealous of. The accounts other witnesses had given of the afternoon of 9 September were factually correct but had been misinterpreted. She had indeed been in the drawing-room when Noyce delivered the tea-trolley, but she had gone into the garden to take the air before anybody joined her. When she returned, Victor was already descending the stairs. In the intervening few minutes, she surmised, somebody had entered the drawing-room and poisoned the sugar. She had been as innocent a participant in subsequent events as anybody else. For Rosemary she expressed genuine but measured sorrow. ‘We were not close, but relations between us were always cordial. She was a cheerful, good-natured girl. I would never have done anything to harm her. If I had known there was poison in the sugar, I would have prevented her eating any.’
Consuela’s memory of the evening that had followed was that Gleasure had merely mentioned Victor’s illness, not urged her to call out a doctor. Even if he had, she would not have done so without Victor’s agreement and he would not have expected her to. Until Mortimer’s telephone call from Fern Lodge, she had assumed Victor was suffering from a bilious attack. Dr Stringfellow’s suspicion that Victor, Marjorie and Rosemary had all been poisoned by something they had consumed during the tea party had shocked her, but at no stage, up to and including the day of the search, had she thought they might have been deliberately poisoned. The discovery of the letters and the arsenic in her bedroom had come as a hideous bolt from the blue. She could in no way account for their presence unless they had been hidden by somebody wishing to fasten the blame for Rosemary’s death on her.
Thus we arrived at the most sensitive passage of Consuela’s testimony. Her innocence is only credible if it is assumed that the evidence against her was planted. If it was, then somebody else not only wanted Victor dead but wanted her blamed for it. Who could this person be? Who, close to the Caswell family and the Clouds Frome household, probably among those who have already testified in this trial, has any reason to plan and commit such a diabolical crime?
Wisely, Consuela did not attempt to answer the question posed by her version of events, even though the judge intervened to suggest that she should. Mr Justice Stillingfleet’s attitude on the point was in stark contrast to the approval he had shown for Victor’s reticence about authorship of the letters and reflected his overall lack of sympathy for Consuela. The explanation for this – be it misogyny, xenophobia or some ragbag of other prejudices – is less important than its result. For a court, as far as I can see, is a society as well as an institution, a society in which the judge is patriarch and the jurors a careful selection of the most humble and obedient citizens. Where he leads, impartially or not, they will surely follow.
By the time Sir Henry’s examination of his client had drawn to a close, a curious change seemed t
o me to have crept over the court. Certainty of Consuela’s guilt had ebbed, but a perverse determination to find her guilty had more than offset this. If she had behaved differently – seemed more awe-stricken, more vulnerable, more fearful about the outcome of her trial – it might have tipped the balance in her favour. But she was none of these things. Nor, in an ideal world, should she have been. Her fate ought to rest on a dispassionate assessment of what is true and what is false, what is proven and what is not. Alas, the Old Bailey exists in an altogether less certain world, in which the only absolute is a verdict, reached by a twisting and irrational route.
Mr Talbot, KC, commenced his cross-examination at a provocative clip, asking few questions that were not accusations subtly rephrased. Perhaps he had sensed the judge’s antipathy to Consuela. Perhaps he shares it. Or perhaps, as I suspect, he is a little frightened of her and what he is frightened of a pampered upbringing has taught him to despise. Whatever the reason, he was cold, arrogant and contemptuous. And Consuela, though never intimidated, was slowly reduced to despairing repetition. ‘No, I did not.’ ‘Absolutely not.’ ‘That is not true.’ ‘There is no truth in it.’ ‘No, sir.’ ‘No.’ ‘No, no, no, a thousand times no.’
Poor Consuela. She stands alone, condemned as proud, foreign and far too beautiful long before her guilt on a charge of murder was ever considered. She has admitted nothing and refuted nothing. And the prosecution has proved very little. Yet still, as she walked slowly back this afternoon from the witness-box to the dock and so descended, as she has every day, to the cells beneath the court, hopelessness seemed somehow visible about her, a hopelessness that defied her accusers to spare her in spite of themselves. Yet nothing, absolutely nothing, in the faces of the jurors or the frowns of the judge, gave me any cause to think they had even heard her plea.
Rodrigo and I took rooms at the Green Man, Fownhope, a few miles south of Mordiford. In the bar that evening, local gossip was overtaken by the news that the government had lost a censure vote in the House of Commons, making it inevitable that the Labour Party would take office for the first time in history. To the rustics of Fownhope, it was barely credible; a Bolshevik revolution was upon us. To Rodrigo, however, when I explained what had happened, it was a ray of hope.
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