Trial and Error

by Anthony Berkeley

  “They make it very difficult for a man who only wants to get himself hanged,” lamented Mr Todhunter.

  “You bet they do,” agreed Sir Ernest with great heartiness. “Otherwise chaps like you with these dam’ delicate consciences would be getting themselves hanged in rows at 8 a.m. every morning of the week in every prison in the country.”

  2

  Naturally this intricate legal situation required much discussion.

  In a way Mr Todhunter enjoyed these conferences. They made him feel important, and also he had taken a liking to the solicitor whom Sir Ernest had brought in on his behalf, a youngish man named Fuller, who was as unlike the usual idea of a solicitor as Mr Todhunter, unknown to himself, was like it. Fuller had a shock of blond hair through which he would run an occasional hand or even, when the situation seemed to demand it, both hands; he had also a suit which seemed permanently a little rumpled and a manner so eager and enthusiastic that when he became excited, as he often did, his words would run so closely together that they could hardly be disentangled.

  His knowledge of law was, however, first rate, and he had put all of it at Mr Todhunter’s disposal, together with his vast measure of enthusiasm for so entrancing a case. In fact young Mr Fuller entered the chase with such zest that Mr Todhunter felt at times, not without uneasiness, that nothing mattered to him but to get his client well and truly, if quite academically, hanged.

  As for the person who was to undertake the role of nominal prosecutor, Mr Todhunter himself had had an inspiration there. It seemed to him that there was only one person to act in that capacity: Furze. With characteristic energy Sir Ernest had at once hurled himself off there and then to the offices of the Middleman’s League and put the case to Furze on the spot.

  Furze had been delighted to oblige. The idea appealed to his somewhat intricate sense of humour, which had always enjoyed defeating the deficiencies of the law by its own excesses.

  Then there was the question of finance. The bill for his own prosecution was of course to be footed by Mr Todhunter himself, and the satisfactory sums rolling in upon him each week now from the Sovereign Theater appeared expressly designed for this purpose—as Mr Todhunter had indeed thoughtfully pointed out to the mother of their chief cause and creator, Felicity Farroway.

  And there was plenty of need for funds. Sir Ernest Prettiboy had naturally been instructed—or rather, had instructed himself—for the prosecution, and the matter of fees was not in question there; but there were juniors, there were the solicitors, there were the usual expenses connected with witnesses, there were a hundred and one alleys down which Mr Todhunter’s money was scurrying as fast as it could roll. For it was not merely a question of a trial. There were, first, the proceedings before the magistrate; for which, as was to happen at the ensuing trial should the magistrates prove so obliging as to commit him, Mr Todhunter had to stand the expenses not merely of his prosecution but of his own defence against his own prosecution.

  The situation was indeed becoming more and more fantastic. In the first place Sir Ernest Prettiboy was almost more worried by the possibility of the magistrates’ dismissing Mr Todhunter’s case against himself than he was over the chances of a jury subsequently failing to convict. In consequence it had been decided, by him and young Mr Fuller, but not of course by Mr Todhunter, that although the charge against him was that to which he had been confessing so long and so hard, when the thing actually came into court Mr Todhunter was to plead not guilty.

  “But I am guilty!” Mr Todhunter had cried from his bed. “What’s the good of saying I’m not? I may get off.”

  “You’re much more likely to get off if you plead guilty,” countered Sir Ernest. “Don’t you understand, if you plead guilty there can’t be a trial. You’ll never have a chance to call your witnesses, such as they are. I can’t thunder against you to convince a muttonheaded jury. They’ll just accept your plea, smile and stick you in an insane asylum for the rest of your life—and keep Palmer in clink. That’s my view.”

  “But how can I plead not guilty?” asked the harassed Mr Todhunter.

  “You’ll plead not guilty to murder, but guilty of manslaughter,” replied Sir Ernest glibly. “What you did was to take a revolver with you to that interview with Jean Norwood with the intention of threatening her, which you duly did, but in your excitement and inexperience of firearms the thing went off, and she was killed. Isn’t that what happened?”

  “Good heavens, no,” said Mr Todhunter with disgust. “I intended all the time—”

  “Isn’t that what happened?” shouted Sir Ernest at the top of his exceedingly powerful voice.

  “Oh, all right,” agreed Mr Todhunter sulkily. “Yes, that’s what happened.”

  “I thought so,” said Sir Ernest with satisfaction.

  “But don’t you get me off on it,” ordered Mr Todhunter.

  “You forget, my bonny boy,” retorted Sir Ernest, “I’m for the prosecution. I’m out for your blood, by Jove—and I’m going to, get it.”

  “Then who’s going to defend me?”

  “Ah!” said Sir Ernest thoughtfully. “We’ve got to think about that, haven’t we?”

  “What about Jamieson?” asked Fuller. “I’d say he’s clever enough to put up a good show and not clever enough to get our friend off.”

  “Jamieson’s the man,” agreed Sir Ernest.

  “Is he?” said Mr Todhunter in a depressed way.

  3

  Things were indeed enough to depress him. Mr Todhunter had always found difficulty in grasping details, and the details of his own case were now becoming so complicated that at times he despaired of unravelling them.

  Furze, for instance, who sometimes joined these conferences too—Furze had of course instructed solicitors of his own, who had to be in the game, too, and it was under the instructions of these that Sir Ernest nominally was acting; whereas Mr Todhunter, in constant conference with the counsel who was to prosecute him, never even met his own counsel who was to defend him against the best efforts of the man who was putting the case which he himself was trying to strengthen by every means in his limited power. It was all very muddling.

  The newspapers found it no less so. Sir Ernest Prettiboy was usually referred to as acting for Mr Todhunter, as indeed he was unofficially though officially exactly the reverse, and Mr Todhunter appeared somehow to be regarded as chief witness for the prosecution and defendant combined; as indeed he was again, in fact if not in legal fiction. The more sober periodicals tried occasionally to disentangle the riddle for their readers, with an air of aloof distaste; the less sober ones, caring nothing for details, continued to serve Mr Todhunter with such a continued roar of publicity as caused Sir Ernest to chuckle with gratification.

  “Bound to have its effect on the jury,” he would gloat. “Bound to. They’ll feel they won’t be playing the game unless they convict you. Bound to. You’ll see.”

  In the meantime the preparation of the case went methodically forward. Witnesses were interviewed who could support the fantastic story from its very beginning, which Mr Todhunter fixed as the little dinner party he had given to what seemed now a collection of ghosts a hundred years ago. Fortunately he had consulted so many people and discussed murder in theory with so many others that there was no lack of persons to speak to the idea that murder must have been very much present in Mr Todhunter’s mind, while Mr Chitterwick and Furze could both speak to a more particular intention. So far as all this went, things were not unsatisfactory; and with the help of so many witnesses and other witnesses, too, who were prepared without hesitation to give testimony of the kind that Mr Todhunter had “always been queer since a boy,” even his own tale might be expected to grow more and more credible in the minds of the jury, if only through sheer repetition.

  It was over the question of actual proof that heads were shaken; for here it had to be admitted that, out of sheer bad luck, no doubt, but nevertheless definitely, the proofs of Mr Todhunter’s guilt were not nearly
so striking as the police case against Vincent Palmer.

  “That bracelet,” would moan Mr Fuller and look as if about to beat his breast.

  It was the bracelet that had caught young Mr Fuller’s attention from the start. Under his directions Mr Chitterwick’s enquiries were renewed and all the old ground covered once more—but only the old, for no one could find any new ground. The result, as before, was completely negative, but Mr Fuller, alone of the four, refused to give up hope.

  “With that bracelet we’ve got a case,” he kept repeating. “Without it, I don’t know.”

  “There’s the second bullet,” one of the others would remind him.

  “Which proves that Todhunter knew of its existence. But nothing more. The police will simply say that he heard two shots when he was in the garden that night, knew that only one bullet had been traced and inferred that the other must be somewhere. That’s all.”

  And Mr Todhunter, who had prided himself a good deal on that second bullet, would feel more depressed than ever.

  4

  Nevertheless it did not seem as if the loss of the bracelet were to prove an insuperable handicap. For in due course Mr Todhunter left his bed and appeared before the magistrates, and in due course again, much later and after a number of further appearances which he felt to be altogether excessive, Mr Todhunter found himself committed for trial by a completely bewildered bench—just (it seemed) to be on the safe side.

  Mr Todhunter disliked these appearances excessively. He was almost mobbed each time he arrived at or left the court, and he was usually cheered too; for what reason he could not quite determine, possibly for having murdered a popular idol whose feet had proved to be composed mainly of clay. He was photographed, sketched and headlined, and the most determined attempts were made to interview him, if it was only to extract a single word from his almost fanatically closed lips. In short, had Mr Todhunter been a lady of rank with a title to sell, the publicity he was getting would have made him almost delirious with delight; as things were, it left his somewhat old-fashioned mind reeling with disgust.

  Sir Ernest, leaving nothing to chance, broke with precedent and appeared himself in the magistrates’ court. Mr Jamieson, on the other hand, did not (indeed Mr Todhunter had begun to wonder whether such a person as Mr Jamieson existed at all), and the man in the dock, not yet a prisoner nor apparently ever to be one, was defended by his excited young solicitor, happily with the unsuccessful results for which everyone hoped.

  Mr Todhunter thanked the magistrates with grave courtesy for committing him and returned from the dock to his bed.

  Nor apparently all this time did the Authorities, those nebulous potentates, seek to drop any spanners in the machinery. The police, it seemed, had now folded their arms across their chests and were awaiting the outcome with resignation and a cold aloofness. They would not arrest Mr Todhunter, not even on a charge of aiding and abetting, not even on a charge of loitering with intent; but they would not actively seek to prevent him making this consummate ass of himself. They maintained a legal representative in court, who never rose once, and let things go at that.

  Sir Ernest was jubilant.

  “Of course they had to, after the announcement in the House,” he said, contradicting all the fears he had been expressing for the last month, “but you never know with magistrates. Queer lot of old cusses, and the older the cusseder.”

  He refilled the glass that was in his hand and toasted Mr Todhunter, the Bench and the case in general with a comprehensive gesture.

  “Then you think the grand jury will be equally easy?” asked Mr Todhunter from the bed to which he had been sent, just like a naughty child, immediately on his return from court; for his time was getting short now, and there must be no risk of losing him—and with him (Mr Todhunter could not help feeling) the case of a century.

  “The grand jury? Oh yes, I think so. They’ll hardly dare to throw out the bill. The whole country’s looking forward to your trial. I believe there’d be a revolution if anything stopped it.”

  “If only we had that bracelet,” moaned Mr Fuller and ran both hands several times through his hair.

  “I believe I’ve got an idea about that,” modestly chirped Mr Chitterwick from the other side of the bed.

  Mr Fuller jumped up with such energy that Mr Chitterwick drew back in alarm, looking just as though he had feared that the young man was going to embrace him.

  5

  Was there a bracelet at all?

  That question, in Mr Todhunter’s guilty opinion, was in all minds and had been from the beginning. Not that Mr Todhunter had any reason to feel guilty, for he knew quite well that there was a bracelet. It was just that he could not help it, in face of the doubt that must lurk with the others and had been so very, very kindly never expressed.

  Even Mr Chitterwick had no proof that there had ever been a bracelet; yet there was no hint in his voice of any such doubt, except to Mr Todhunter’s super-sensibility, as he proceeded to expound his idea.

  “You see,” he explained, “we’ve exhausted the possibilities as we know them, and I’m quite convinced that none of the persons whom I’ve already interviewed had anything to do with the theft. Nor, I’m certain, have our friend’s excellent maids. But two days ago, passing the girl Edith on the stairs, I noticed that she had been crying. In fact she was crying still.” Mr Chitterwick paused and beamed round his audience.

  “Well?” asked Sir Ernest impatiently.

  “Oh, I beg your pardon. Yes, of course. Well, it occurred to me, you see, why she was crying.” Again Mr Chitterwick paused and beamed.

  “Well, why was she?” demanded Sir Ernest.

  “I—I don’t know,” replied Mr Chitterwick, a little flurried.

  “Then what the devil’s all this about?”

  “It was a surmise,” Mr Chitterwick hurried on, looking ashamed of himself. “Only a surmise. There is, you see, a well-known expression which is called up when anything happens to a man. Er . . . cherchez la femme, you know. Well, it occurred to me, you see, when one sees a girl crying, isn’t it equally fitting to observe cherchez l’homme? Er . . . that is to say, seek the man.”

  “I’m quite capable of understanding French,” observed Sir Ernest tartly.

  “It was my accent,” apologised Mr Chitterwick, going a little red. “I was afraid you wouldn’t . . . I was afraid it wasn’t quite—er—what you were accustomed to, so to speak.”

  “Anyhow, what about this homme?” Sir Ernest pursued.

  “Well, it’s just on the cards,” said Mr Chitterwick very tentatively, “that if there was an homme . . . a man, I mean, and his conduct was such as to make Edith cry (that is, assuming that’s what she was crying about)—well, you see,” Mr Chitterwick’s voice began to tail off before Sir Ernest’s incomprehending stare, “well, he might be a bad lot, you see, in which case. . .”

  If Sir Ernest was slow in the uptake, young Mr Fuller more than made up. He jumped to his feet and clapped Mr Chitterwick on the back with all the enthusiasm of which he was capable.

  “It’s worth trying,” he exclaimed. “My goodness, it is.”

  “What’s worth trying?” demanded Sir Ernest testily.

  His thumb already on the bell, Mr Fuller explained, more or less in words of one syllable.

  “Tch!” observed Sir Ernest, annoyed with himself for his obtuseness and therefore with Mr Chitterwick’s idea for its brightness. “Girls cry over other things than men, don’t they?”

  “I don’t know,” said Mr Chitterwick humbly; and indeed he did not.

  “May I conduct this interview?” asked Mr Fuller as the housekeeper’s slow tread became audible on the stairs.

  Apparently he took the consent of the others for granted, for when Mrs Greenhill arrived he took her in hand at once in the most fatherly manner.

  “Sit down, Mrs Greenhill. We just want to ask you a few more questions, though I’m sure you must be getting very tired of them.”

  “I’m
willing to do all I can sir, at this dreadful time,” replied Mrs Greenhill sombrely.

  “Yes, I’m sure you are. Well, it’s nothing of any great importance. Just about Edith and her young man. Let’s see . . . I never can remember his name.”

  “Alfie, sir. Alfie Brewer.”

  “Yes, Alfie Brewer, of course. They’re thinking of getting married, aren’t they?”

  “Well, Edie is, sir,” Mrs Greenhill said darkly. “But as for Alfie—well, it takes a good deal to say what he’s thinking, though I’ve got my own ideas.”

  Mr Fuller nodded with great energy. “Exactly. That’s just it. That’s just what I wanted to speak to you about; on Mr Todhunter’s behalf of course. He’s getting quite worried about Edie, and you know any kind of worry is bad for him. But it is worrying, when he hears us telling him that the poor girl is crying all the time.”

  “Edie didn’t ought to cry at her work,” agreed Mrs Greenhill with austerity.

  “Oh well, girls will be girls, you know. Yes, this Alfie. . . he’s a bit of a bad hat, isn’t he?”

  “Well, he’s never been in trouble,” answered Mrs Greenhill a little doubtfully. Even Mr Todhunter knew that this phrase stood for trouble of a particular sort; with the police.

  “No, but there’s always the possibility. Young fellows like him get too easily led astray. Especially living in that neighbourhood, eh?”

  “I’ve always told Edie she was making herself cheap, taking up with a fellow from that Smithson Street,” Mrs Greenhill asserted.

  “Exactly. But his parents . . . I mean . . . ?”

  “Oh, Alfie doesn’t live with his parents, sir. They’re both dead. He’s in lodgings. Family of the name of Guest.”

  “Most appropriate name,” smiled young Mr Fuller. “Yes. Now I suppose Alfie was in and out of the house a good deal while Mr Todhunter was away abroad?”

  “No, that he wasn’t, sir. I don’t hold with him and I won’t have him in this house, and I’ve always said so. If Edie wants to demean herself by taking up with a young fellow of his sort, well, she must meet him outside any house that I’m responsible for. Oh!” Mrs Greenhill’s eyes suddenly widened. “It’s that bracelet, sir.”