Trial and Error

by Anthony Berkeley

  “I’m sorry, Todhunter,” said the governor curtly. “The Home Office refuses to entertain your request. On the other hand they feel there is no need for you to be kept in bed. You may get up, and you may also take exercise at the usual times and in the usual place.”

  “But. . .” began Mr Todhunter.

  “That is all I have to say,” the governor cut him short.

  7

  Mr Todhunter was extremely angry.

  He had been outmaneuvered, and he knew it. The Home Office was cunning. It did not want to hang him after all. The Home Office would, in fact, be most grateful to Mr Todhunter if he would kindly go ahead and kill himself. The Home Office would then be free to deal with Vincent Palmer just as it saw fit, without the handicap of Mr Todhunter’s execution to tie its hands.

  “Damn them,” said Mr Todhunter with subdued passion as he crept back into bed again. “Damn them, I will be executed!”

  8

  The authorities still believed Palmer to be the criminal. That was the crux of the trouble.

  Mr Todhunter protested in vain. He swore, on any oath the chaplain liked to name, that Palmer was completely innocent. The chaplain allowed him to swear on the New Testament, and believed him. The doctor believed him. Even the governor believed him. But the Home Office remained bureaucratically indifferent. For once not even the popular clamour moved them. Palmer remained in gaol, and the Home Office issued a statement.

  “The home secretary,” ran the statement, “after fullest consideration, has advised His Majesty to respite the capital sentence on Vincent Palmer. He is now considering the advisability of commuting this sentence to penal servitude for life, inasmuch as, although a jury has pronounced a verdict which exonerates him from having fired a revolver at Ethel May Binns with intent to murder, yet this verdict does not exclude a reasonable doubt that Palmer was a party to this act. The home secretary’s decision will be announced in due course.”

  This statement roused even The Times to cynical wrath.

  “Presumably,” it stated “a commutation of the sentence on Palmer to life imprisonment is designed to satisfy everyone, both those who believe in Palmer’s guilt and those who believe that Palmer had no hand in the crime. We can assure the home secretary that it will in fact satisfy no one. Moreover, it is opposed to every canon of British justice that Palmer should suffer life imprisonment on the assumption of the home secretary that he committed an offence for which he has never been tried by the properly constituted authority and of which he has never been found guilty.”

  Again, where The Times led, the rest followed. The News Chronicle even had a leader on the topic which mentioned neither Abyssinia, Spain nor the unemployed.

  The Home Office, however, appeared unperturbed.

  And Mr Todhunter remained resolutely in bed, trying not to fume.

  9

  The popular agitation of course produced its usual result so far as H.M.’s mails were concerned. A steady avalanche of letters, sometimes totalling thousands a day, descended on the prison for Mr Todhunter, who refused to open a single one of them. There also descended a regular supply of strengthening foods, patent medicines, Bibles, mechanical toys and heaven alone knows what not; but all of these were, in the ordinary course of routine, withheld from him to his considerable relief.

  Of genuine visitors Mr Todhunter had few. He refused to see Farroway, he saw Mrs Farroway once, for a few minutes only, and he saw Mrs Palmer; he saw Mr Benson several times for the purpose of making further alterations to his will; and he refused to see anyone else except Sir Ernest, Mr Chitterwick and young Mr Fuller. These three were allowed to visit him in his cell, where they sat, solemnly flanked by the two warders, on the further side of the table and conversed with Mr Todhunter in his bed.

  With these he debated the advisability of an appeal, in order to prolong the period for the popular agitation concerning Palmer to have its effect; but it was felt that in view of the attitude of the authorities the danger was so grave of the verdict being reversed altogether as being unjustified by the evidence that the risk could not be taken.

  There was now a fortnight left before the date fixed for the execution.

  Mr Todhunter did not want to be executed at all, but he hated a job half done; and there was no doubt that the hanging of himself would be the greatest lever in getting Palmer released, whatever statements the Home Office might issue.

  “It’s like this,” Sir Ernest pointed out. “The moment the drop falls, there’ll be such a howl that if the government don’t let Palmer go they’ll be turned out of office. It’s a fact. They haven’t got a majority in Parliament this minute for keeping Palmer in gaol, and they know it. It’s only a question of waiting.”

  “Damn,” said Mr Todhunter fretfully. “I wish to goodness the man could prove his innocence.”

  But every possibility had been long since explored there, and not the smallest piece of evidence could be found to substantiate Palmer’s contention that he had left the premises before the fatal shot had been fired.

  “That empty punt,” fumed Sir Ernest. “Someone holds the key to the secret. I’m convinced of it. Someone was in the garden that night with you, Todhunter.”

  “I had no knowledge of it,” Mr Todhunter said helplessly and with truth.

  “Well,” said Sir Ernest gloomily, “Chitterwick’s still pottering around, but I’m afraid it’s useless.”

  Mr Todhunter did not put in any request to see Palmer himself. There seemed to be no purpose in doing so; Mr Chitterwick had seen him, and so had Sir Ernest; and they could be relied on to obtain any information which it was in Palmer’s power to give.

  One further visitor Mr Todhunter did consent to see, though with the greatest reluctance.

  Ever since his conviction Felicity Farroway had been agitating for an interview. Mr Todhunter could see little use in it, and he greatly feared that Felicity would break down, with consequent embarrassment to all concerned. In the end he agreed to see her on the strict condition that she did not speak a single word during the meeting; she was to be allowed to nod and shake her head, but no more. Felicity sent a tearful message to the effect that she agreed to these cruel terms.

  “Well, well,” Mr Todhunter greeted her with false joviality when she had taken her seat at the table and was staring at him with huge mournful eyes. He felt extremely uncomfortable and wished the interview over. “Well, well, keeping quite fit, and all that? Play still going well? Good. I—er—I ought perhaps to tell you that I have left you my share of it in my will, so you will be quite free to carry on as your own actress manageress, or whatever they call it. Yes. H’m.”

  Felicity continued to gaze at him.

  “Now look here, my dear girl,” said Mr Todhunter irritably, “I know exactly what’s in your mind. Do you understand? I tell you I know. So there’s no need to say anything about it. You want—dear me, this is very awkward!—you want, I suppose, to—h’m—express gratitude and all that. I understand. I understand perfectly. We both know that your brother-in-law is an innocent man, and I want you to know too that I don’t regret—h’m!—well, anything I’ve done. That woman was a poisonous creature, and it’s no good talking about nil nisi bonum. Death doesn’t turn a devil into an angel.

  “Now please don’t think anything more about it. Your mother is very sensible. You must be sensible too. And please waste no regrets on me. I—um—dislike them. You see? And anything I have done, I’m most pleased to have done. Life, you see, means nothing to me either way. Oh, heavens, don’t look at me like that, girl! Smile, damn you, smile!”

  Felicity rewarded him with a watery smile.

  “I—I don’t want you to be hanged,” she gulped. Mr Todhunter cackled. “I’m not hanged yet. Besides, they tell me it’s quite painless. I’ve no doubt it would be less uncomfortable than my own complaint. It’s a race between them. Oh, do cheer up, my dear girl,” implored Mr Todhunter. “We’ve all got to die, you know. And apparently I ought to have b
een dead a month ago.”

  “I’ve signed the petition for your reprieve,” whispered Felicity, dabbing at her eyes. In spite of the reputed Fascism, the great heart of the British people had been smitten in its tenderest valve by Mr Todhunter’s honourable conduct. There was a strong movement in progress to dispense with his execution and merely keep him in prison till he died of his own accord.

  Mr Todhunter frowned. He knew of this movement and deprecated it. To his mind it was merely playing into the hands of the Home Office, which would then find still further excuse for keeping Palmer in prison, too, just to be on the safe side.

  “I wish you wouldn’t mix yourself up in my affairs,” said Mr Todhunter with severity.

  “But I am mixed up in them!” Felicity wailed. “We all are. I brought you into it. If it hadn’t been for me, you wouldn’t ever have—”

  “Birchman!” snapped Mr Todhunter. “Kindly remove her.”

  “No!” cried Felicity and clung to the table.

  “You’ve broken your promise,” Mr Todhunter pointed out.

  “I—I had to,” Felicity sniffed.

  “Nonsense! You must learn to control yourself. You’re an actress, aren’t you? Very well: act. Do you think it’s pleasant for me to have visitors crying all over my cell?”

  Felicity stared at him.

  “That’s better,” Mr Todhunter chuckled. “Now go home like a good sensible girl. It’s been delightful to see you, but scenes are bad for me, you know. The least agitation . . . yes.”

  Felicity turned to the more benevolent-looking warder.

  “Am I allowed to kiss him good-bye?” she whispered.

  “I’m very sorry, miss. I’m afraid you mustn’t go any nearer to him.” Birchman looked as if he really was sorry to deprive Mr Todhunter of the joy of being kissed by this delightful girl.

  Mr Todhunter, who had no wish to be kissed, hastily backed him up, “No, no. You might pass me a packet of poison. Regulations very strict about that sort of thing. Just—er—blow me one. Yes. Well, goodbye, my dear girl. I’m glad the play’s a success. In fact, I’m exceedingly pleased to have been able to be of service to you—perhaps in, h’m, more ways than one. Yes. Well, good-bye.”

  Felicity gazed at him, her mouth worked; then she clapped her hand to it and ran to the door. Fox jumped up and let her out.

  “Well, thank God that’s over,” muttered Mr Todhunter, wiping his brow.

  10

  As the days passed, it was not only the sentimental heart of the public that was touched; its sporting spirit was aroused too. Few people really wanted Mr Todhunter to hang, even among those who had no doubt of his guilt; while those who revered the traditions of the old school tie, in the best accordance with which Mr Todhunter was felt to have acted, signed the petition for his reprieve as many times as they could, in different names (not dishonourable; analogy, cribbing). In fact, everyone hoped that natural death would overtake him before the hangman arrived.

  Quick to gather this sentiment, the newspapers naturally gratified it. Every morning they ran some such headline as “Todhunter Still Alive,” and extremely eminent persons, from the Bishop of Merchester to a visiting American film star, were canvassed for their views on aneurisms and Mr Todhunter’s expectation of life. In the clubs there was a good deal of surreptitious betting on Mr Todhunter’s chances of beating the rope, and books on surgery touched phenomenal sales. It had in fact become a great sporting contest of Mr Todhunter versus the hangman, with the odds sentimentally just a shade in favour of the former; and Lloyd’s were compelled to issue a statement to the effect that they were unable to accept insurance against either contingency.

  This development delighted Mr Todhunter, who had a full share of the sporting spirit himself and was an ardent supporter of Middlesex in the cricket field. He tried once to persuade Mr Chitterwick to lay a bet for him and was prepared to offer 5-4 in favour of his aneurism. Mr Chitterwick, however, had come on a totally different mission and was not in the mood for these frivolities.

  “I don’t wish to raise your hopes in any way, Todhunter,” he said, blinking through his gold-rimmed spectacles, “but I do believe I am on to something at last concerning Palmer.”

  “Palmer?” Mr Todhunter ceased his infantile cackling and became alert. “What do you mean?”

  “Evidence, I mean, concerning the time at which he left Miss Norwood’s house.”

  “Eh? That’s good. That’s very good,” Mr Todhunter commended his detective. “But will it clear him?”

  “That’s impossible to say. We haven’t found it yet, you see.”

  “Then what the devil are you talking about?” demanded Mr Todhunter.

  Mr Chitterwick blinked again and apologised. “But you won’t get excited if I tell you?” he asked anxiously.

  “I shall get excited if you don’t,” said Mr Todhunter harshly.

  “Well, it’s like this,” began Mr Chitterwick.

  11

  The true tale (or more or less the true tale), from which Mr Chitterwick only gave Mr Todhunter, in the presence of his warders, judiciously edited extracts, was as follows.

  On the morning before Mr Chitterwick had had a brilliant idea and had hurried all the way down to Bromley with it to lay it before young Mrs Palmer.

  The idea concerned wrist watches, and Mrs Palmer was at first somewhat at a loss to grasp it. When, however, she did so, her enthusiasm far outdid that of Mr Chitterwick himself. In consequence she was only too ready to tell Mr Chitterwick all she knew about her husband’s wrist watches, including a certain one which Mr Chitterwick was able to mention as having been given to Vincent by Miss Norwood. Further, Mrs Palmer was delighted to allow Mr Chitterwick to search first through her husband’s belongings and then through the whole house for this particular wrist watch, which he did very thoroughly and then announced to her, beaming all over his face, that he had been unable to find it. This made Mrs Palmer beam, too (the first time, Mr Chitterwick thought, for months), and she insisted upon his staying to lunch, which he very readily did.

  That afternoon Mr Chitterwick, by pulling such strings as he and Sir Ernest between them could reach, managed to obtain permission for a special interview with Palmer in the prison. There was some attempt at official obstruction, but Mr Chitterwick succeeded in getting his interview arranged for the next morning.

  At the appointed time, then, Mr Chitterwick found himself facing Palmer across a table in a barred and boxlike room with a warder leaning in the doorway; a rather less sulky and rather more anxious Palmer, sitting stiffly in his chair with hands on the table the regulation distance apart. The ensuing conversation went something like this.

  “I think,” Mr Chitterwick opened it cautiously, “that I may be on the track of a piece of evidence which might go a long way to establish your innocence. I’ve asked for this visit because I want you to clear up one or two points which will help me.”

  “What piece of evidence?” Palmer asked in a subdued voice and not very hopefully.

  “It concerns a wrist watch. The wrist watch that Miss Norwood gave you.”

  “Miss Norwood never—”

  “Please listen to me,” said Mr Chitterwick earnestly, “and don’t commit yourself to statements that you may regret later. I have already ascertained that Miss Norwood did give you a wrist watch and your wife—your wife, mind you—tells me that it had the letters ‘V from J’ very rudely scratched inside the cover, possibly with a pin. There is no mistaking it, you see. Now, that is our premise, so kindly don’t try to deny it. You understand?” And Mr Chitterwick beamed at the young man with a mixture of friendliness, cunning and warning.

  The young man smiled slowly. “I’m not sure, but I think I do.”

  “Excellent.” Mr Chitterwick sighed with relief. “I’m sure you do. At any rate, you understand enough not to attempt to deny what I’m telling you. Your wife already knows, you see. Yes, indeed. Well now, let me reconstruct. You quarrelled that evening with Miss Norw
ood. You left the garden in a temper. Possibly you determined to have no more to do with her; with her or hers. It occurred to you that you were wearing a wrist watch she had given you. You were in such a rage that even this was an offence. You took the watch off and hurled it into the front garden of one of the houses you were passing. Yes, yes, I know all that; don’t interrupt me, please. The point is this: where did you hurl it?”

  “I’m not sure,” said Palmer doubtfully.

  “Well, I’ve been at some pains to trace out your route. You passed, I take it, from Riverside Road into Harringay Road, didn’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “And thence into Persimmon Road?”

  “I did,” said Palmer with a glance at the warder.

  “And in Persimmon Road you would have taken a bus. Therefore you must have thrown that watch into a garden in either Riverside Road or Harringay Road. Can you remember which? . . . No, of course not,” said Mr Chitterwick hurriedly. “You were extremely upset. You hardly knew what you were doing. Otherwise you would hardly have forgotten all about this watch incident. Or perhaps it did not strike you as important. Never mind. The importance is, you see, that the watch might have struck some hard object when you hurled it and have been broken in its fall. Now do you understand? Assuming that it showed the correct time, it would establish absolutely the exact moment at which you passed that particular spot. If you are innocent, it will be before nine o’clock. If you are guilty, it will be after that hour. You understand now?”

  “Perfectly,” said Palmer, and he added a slight grin.

  Mr Chitterwick deprecated the grin. This was difficult and delicate work.

  “Then are you willing to take the risk?” Mr Chitterwick was acutely aware that the warder was listening to every word.

  “What risk?”

  “Of the watch being found. It may still be there, you see.”

  “Oh yes. I’m willing.”

  “Because if found and if it is broken when found, you expect it to indicate your innocence?”

  “It must do so, because I am innocent.”