‘Never mind,’ I said. ‘But let me just try a small experiment – for my own satisfaction.’ I took a ten shilling note from my wallet and passed it to him. ‘Is this one of yours?’
He held it up to the light, squinted knowingly, then shook his head. ‘Definitely not.’
‘You’re certain?’
‘Never more so.’
‘What about this?’ I replaced the ten shilling note with a pound.
The inspection was repeated, with the same result.
‘And this?’ I proffered the five pound note I had taken from Victor’s safe.
‘I don’t even need to glance at it. It’s too new to be one of ours.’
‘It could have been hoarded away.’
‘Sock under a mattress, you mean?’
‘Something like that.’
‘All right, I’ll take a look. But there’s not a – Well, blow me down!’
‘What’s wrong?’
‘The strangest thing. This fiver—’ He peered at it in evident amazement. ‘It’s got the Peto water-mark. I’d know it anywhere.’
Wednesday 23 January 1924 (3 p.m.)
Mr Justice Stillingfleet required only half an hour after lunch to draw together the threads of his summing-up and send out the jury to consider their verdict. So now we wait here in the great hall of marble and plaster, gathered in ones and twos and fours and sixes, some standing, some sitting, some talking, some not. Journalists, policemen, lawyers and hangers-on like me, embarrassed by our unity of purpose, trying not to look at each other or wonder what we are all expecting.
Over lunch, the judge must have reproached himself for being too hard on the defence. Either that or food and wine mellowed his temper. Whatever the explanation, his concluding remarks were shot through with reminders for the jury to convict only if they are absolutely certain of Consuela’s guilt and to base their verdict on the facts laid before them, not on impressions or suspicions they may have accumulated during the trial. They are to bear in mind that the evidence against Mrs Caswell is largely circumstantial. They are also to bear in mind that circumstantial evidence is not to be despised and can often be compelling. And now, at last, they are to reach their decision.
How long will it take them? Some of the journalists have organized a covert sweepstake on the time of their return. Thanks to Mountford’s acoustics, I can catch such phrases as ‘Tanner a ticket’, ‘On the dot of half four’ and ‘You must be joking’ rising in a vague babble towards the dome. But the figure of Justice seems not to hear. She stares down at us with stony contempt, scales held aloft in her left hand whilst, with her right, she firmly clasps the haft of a two-edged sword. Perhaps she knows what I am coming, more and more, to believe. Justice is merely the name we have given to the bizarre form of business we conduct in this place of Mountford’s devising. Its forms and conventions are faithfully adhered to. But they do not bestow truth or certainty upon its outcome. The only truth recognized here is what the courts define as such. And the only certainty is that their definition is often a long way from the truth.
I drove out of Ross along the Ledbury road. I cannot say precisely what my intention was. The realization that I had been deceived, that all of us had been deceived, about the sort of man Victor Caswell was, had become overwhelming. I wanted to strike back at him, to denounce him before those who respected him.
Only when I reached the cross-roads where I would need to turn off for Hereford did I hesitate. I pulled to a halt beneath the finger-post and stared up at it. FOWNHOPE 5½. MORDIFORD 8. HEREFORD 12. Did I really want to go back again? Possession of a mint-condition five pound note printed on Peto paper proved nothing whatever. Even if I could show that it was a forgery, nobody would believe I had found it in Victor’s safe. And by now the police might have learned that Rodrigo had lodged with a companion at the Green Man in Fownhope. The landlord did not know my name, but he could probably give them a fair description of me – and of my car.
A fine drizzle was falling and the light was already failing. I switched off the engine and lit a cigarette, watching the droplets of rain form and merge on the windscreen. Hereford lay twelve miles to the left, Gloucester – and a clear road to London – fifteen miles to the right. There was no doubt which way I would choose. But for a little longer I could pretend there was.
I had nearly finished the cigarette when a figure appeared ahead of me, walking towards the cross-roads from the direction of Hereford, a ragged, weary-looking figure whom I recognized at once as Ivor Doak. He was bare-headed and stooped against the rain and he glanced neither to right nor left. Accordingly, so far as I could tell, he remained unaware of my presence and I was too astonished to sound the horn or call out, for he was wearing, draped like a cape around his shoulders, a plaid travelling rug. It too I recognized at once. It was the blanket Rodrigo and I had carried into the grounds of Clouds Frome and abandoned there after the attack by the dog. I had forgotten all about it and, but for this, would probably have not remembered it until much later. Doak had told me he came and went freely at Clouds Frame, but I had not believed him. How wrong I had been was only now apparent.
At the cross-roads, Doak turned left and trudged away towards Ledbury. Perhaps, with a rug he had found at Clouds Frome on his back, he thought he should give the place a wide berth for a few nights. How much did he know? I wondered. How much had he heard or seen? Whatever the answer, I could take some comfort from the fact that he would tell nobody. Ivor Doak, I was beginning to think, had as many secrets as the rest of us – and he was better than most at keeping them.
I waited till he was out of sight, then started the car and headed down the Gloucester road. As the car picked up speed, I lowered the window by an inch, slipped the five pound note from my pocket, held it up to the gap and let the wind pluck it from my fingers. Suddenly, it seemed safer not to possess anything that connected me – however remotely – with the Caswells. Suddenly, all I wanted was to be back in London, where my lies and denials would sound convincing, even to me.
Wednesday 23 January 1924 (5 p.m.)
It was at twenty past four that a general hubbub in the court signified the return of the jury. I hurried to take my seat, surprised that they could have reached a decision in under two hours and vaguely resentful that they had done so. Sir Henry Curtis-Bennett looked of the same mind, shrugging his massive shoulders and raising his eyebrows at his opposite number. Consuela was already in the dock, seated and therefore barely visible. When Sir Henry moved across to speak to her, however, she rose and leaned out across the rail. I thought I could detect a faint tremor in her hands, but perhaps it was merely that I expected to. She certainly responded calmly enough to Sir Henry’s whispered remarks. If anything, he was the more agitated of the two.
As for the jury, they seemed indecently relaxed, smiling and confiding behind cupped hands. They could have been the members of some small-town committee about to debate the progress of fund-raising for the local war memorial. It was scarcely credible to me that they were about to pronounce on a life-or-death issue.
Mr Justice Stillingfleet entered and, when we had all sat down again, there came the first sign that matters were not about to proceed in the way I had assumed they would. The usher handed him a note covering a side and a half of foolscap. This he read at a deliberate pace, whilst total silence reigned. Then he said: ‘The jury have sent me a note. You will want to read it before I comment.’ ‘You’ evidently meant the opposing counsel, because the usher carried it to Talbot and Sir Henry in turn. The silence resumed during their perusals of the note, growing more tangible the longer it lasted. I did not look at Consuela. Somehow, I could not bear to. It was as if the only kindness I could show her at such an agonizing stage was to look elsewhere.
Then, at last, Mr Justice Stillingfleet put us out of our collective misery. The note, he explained, was a request for elucidation. The jury wanted to know whether, if somebody was killed as an accidental result of an attempt to kill somebody else, i
t was legitimate to find the person who had killed them guilty of manslaughter rather than murder. The bearing of this question on their verdict was at once obvious to me, but I was too busy listening to the judge’s answer to consider whether it suggested they were inclined towards a particular conclusion.
Mr Justice Stillingfleet told them, with greater forbearance than the tone of his summing-up had led me to believe he possessed, that manslaughter could only apply where the ‘accidental result’ could neither have been foreseen nor averted, that is to say where the guilty party had not known of it and could not have prevented it. He did not think this argument could be sustained in relation to the case against Mrs Caswell. With that, he sent them back to their deliberations.
And he sent us back to our uneasy vigil here in the marbled hall, where there is ample opportunity – indeed, far too much of it – to ponder the significance of the jury’s question. Does it mean they were veering towards a guilty verdict, but were deterred by the consequences? Were some of the more squeamish members trying to find a compromise? If so, the judge’s reply will have given them no comfort, for manslaughter, it seems, is not an option; they must face the issue squarely. And so must the prisoner awaiting their decision in a cell below us. What she will be thinking now I dare not try to imagine.
The drive back to London was long and tiring. Darkness fell swiftly and the rain intensified. At High Wycombe, with only another thirty miles or so to go, I stopped for a drink and a sandwich. The Bell Inn was quiet but welcoming and, sitting by its roaring fire, I realized just how drained I was by the events of the previous twenty-four hours. I had half a mind, indeed, to ask if they had a room for the night.
Then, quite suddenly, my attention was seized by the name CASWELL blazoned in a newspaper headline. A man sitting at the bar who had come in after me was reading a London evening paper and on the front page, partially obscured by his fingers, were the words JURY OUT IN CASWELL MURDER TRIAL. I had realized the conclusion of Consuela’s trial could not be far off, but, foolishly, had not supposed it could be quite so close at hand.
Shock instantly displaced fatigue. If the jury had already gone out when the paper went to print, they might well have returned by now and delivered their verdict. Consuela might be learning her fate even whilst I was toasting my toes in a Buckinghamshire inn. Leaving a half-full glass and most of a sandwich behind me, I started for the door, glancing at the clock behind the bar as I went. It was just on a quarter past seven.
Wednesday 23 January 1924 (7.15 p.m.)
Two and a half hours have passed since the jury were sent out for the second time. Excluding their brief reappearance in court, they have been considering their verdict for more than four hours now. The journalists are becoming fretful about catching their late editions, the policemen weary of so much shuffling to and fro when they could be home with their feet up, and the lawyers – well, there is as ever no way of telling what they are thinking. I heard somebody muttering a few moments ago about the possibility of an overnight adjournment. How any of us – far less Consuela – would cope with that I dread to contemplate.
But it will not be necessary. Even as I write, the usher is signalling to us from the door of the court. The jury is back and this time, surely, it cannot be a false alarm. The hall is emptying rapidly as, all around me, people hurry to take their places. I must join them. Already, I notice, my hand is shaking and the creases on my palm are lined with sweat. Through that door, Justice awaits. What disguise, I wonder, will she be wearing?
It was on the bill-board of a news-stand at Oxford Circus that I saw the announcement I had dreaded. VERDICT IN CASWELL MURDER TRIAL. I stopped the car at once, jumped out and raced across the road. As I neared the newsstand, my feelings were a jumble of apprehension and relief. At last, now, I remember thinking, I would know.
Late editions of the Evening Standard were piled high and selling fast. I snatched one up, scanned the front page in vain, then saw, in the stop-press column:
CASWELL MURDER TRIAL VERDICT
Consuela Caswell convicted of murder and attempted murder at Old Bailey this evening after nine-day trial. Jury took nearly five hours to arrive at verdict. Judge sentenced Mrs Caswell to hang.
And so it was over. The pretence, that is. My pretence that it would never come to this, that they would never find her guilty, never decree she had to die. But now they had. And, closing round me in the damp London night, there was the realization that a new and still more awful phase had opened in the wake of their decision. Even as I stood there, staring at the lines of print as if the words could be forced to re-arrange themselves on the page, Consuela’s meagre allowance of time – her ration of life itself – had begun to expire.
Wednesday 23 January 1924 (8.15 p.m.)
I cannot believe the speed with which it was done. An hour ago, it was still possible to cling to the notion that the jury would acquit Consuela. Now such thoughts belong in the lumber-room of what might have been, because now we know for certain. And what does such knowledge bequeath us? An empty building, a prison van bound for Holloway, a pen moving on a page.
I shall set this down before I am too weary to make the effort. The court was full, despite the lateness of the hour, but there was a chill in the air, perhaps because it had been so long unoccupied, perhaps … for some other reason. Consuela was not in the dock when I entered and Sir Henry Curtis-Bennett was nowhere to be seen. He arrived – short of breath and somewhat flustered – only a few seconds before the judge himself. I had only a minute or so to scan the jury’s faces. They looked more sombre – more aware of the gravity of their task – than during their earlier reappearance. Then my attention was diverted elsewhere.
Mr Justice Stillingfleet stared pointedly at the dock, as if irritated to find it empty. But he was not kept waiting long. Consuela entered beside a wardress. She moved to the rail, grasped it and, to my surprise, looked slowly round the court with a slight frown – almost of puzzlement – on her face. Of one thing I was certain. In that moment she was not afraid. She was better prepared for what would follow than most of us.
The Clerk of Arraigns addressed the foreman of the jury, asking him if they had agreed upon their verdict.
‘We have,’ he earnestly replied.
‘How say you on Count 1?’
‘Guilty.’
(For a fraction of a second I became confused about which count was which. Then, before my confusion was resolved, it ceased to matter.)
‘And on Count 2?’
‘Guilty.’
There were gasps, I think, perhaps a stifled sob, though I cannot be sure. I do not know if Consuela reacted in any way, because I kept my eyes trained on the foreman of the jury, willing him to add something – a recommendation of mercy, a plea for compassion. But all he did was sit slowly down.
The Clerk of Arraigns turned towards the dock and said: ‘Consuela Evelina Caswell, you stand convicted of the murder of Rosemary Victoria Caswell and the attempted murder of Victor George Caswell. Have you anything to say before sentence is passed upon you?’
My gaze, and that of every man and woman in the court, focused now on the prisoner standing slim and erect in the dock. The frown had left her face. In its place was a strange and placid melancholy. She glanced once at the jury, then looked straight at the judge. ‘Nothing,’ she replied in a steady voice.
The chaplain bobbed up behind the bench and fumbled for a moment at the judge’s side. When he retreated, I saw that he had placed the black cap on Mr Justice Stillingfleet’s head. ‘Prisoner at the bar—’ The judge’s tone was hard now and peremptory. I wondered if this was deliberate, whether it was as much a part of the ritual as the cap and the nameless mode of address. ‘You have been found guilty of the charges laid against you after a full and fair trial, during which you were most ably defended. I concur wholeheartedly with the jury’s verdict. To plot the murder of your husband was bad enough, even if you did genuinely believe he had been unfaithful to you. But to al
low your plot to claim a wholly innocent victim – a young girl on the brink of womanhood, whom you had known most of her life – renders your offence unforgivable. I therefore have no hesitation in passing upon you the only sentence which the law allows.’
Mr Justice Stillingfleet had been staring at Consuela as he spoke. Now he looked down at a sheet of paper before him and began to read the prescribed words with a sort of mechanical reverence that made me think, for a crazy moment, that it was a prayer we should all recite under our breath. ‘This court doth ordain that you be taken hence to the place from whence you came; that you be taken thence to a place of lawful execution; that you be there hanged by the neck until you are dead; and that you be afterwards buried within the precincts of the prison in which you shall last have been confined. And may the Lord have mercy upon your soul.’
I suddenly noticed that the lady in the pink toque was crying. Had she expected to? I wondered. Had she brought a spare handkerchief with this precise contingency in mind? ‘Amen,’ murmured the chaplain. There were tears in my eyes too. Fool that I am, I felt a manly obligation to pretend they were not there. When I looked up at the judge, expecting him to add something to his pronouncement, the grey of his wig and the scarlet of his robe were blurred and expanded like water-colours running in the rain.
But the judge did not speak. Instead, the Clerk of the Court barked out: ‘Have you anything to say in stay of execution?’
Later, leaving the court behind two onlookers more knowledgeable than me, I discovered from their conversation that this question supplies condemned women with an opportunity to disclose that they are pregnant. If they are, they cannot be hanged. At the time, it seemed a cruel and pointless repetition of an earlier question. For answer, Consuela merely shook her head.
Mr Justice Stillingfleet cleared his throat and said in a flat dismissive tone: ‘Take her down.’ He was eager to be on now, to be finished and away.
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