IX—“Red Robes Without Hurry”
IF ANYBODY had asked me what would probably happen in case of a commotion like this, I should have thought of every contingency except what really happened. We all looked at the judge, since the prisoner was speaking to him. By this time Mr. Justice Bodkin had nearly reached the door, at the right hand side behind the bench, by which he entered and left. For perhaps a tenth of a second his brisk step hesitated. For perhaps a tenth of a second he turned his head slightly, with a blank gaze of deafness and non-recognition. Then his red robes—without any hurry—disappeared through the door, and it closed behind his tie-wig.
He “had not heard” the words which the prisoner, with fierce distinctness, was shouting across that void. So we did not hear them either. Like a room of mutes we bent to gather up our hats, our umbrellas, our parcels; we shuffled our papers, and looked at the floor and pretended to say something to the person beside us...
“My God, won’t anybody listen to me? Don’t you hear what I’m saying? You—listen—” The jury were going out in sheep-fashion, and not one of them looked round, except one scared woman who was touched on the arm by their guardian. “Please, for God’s sake listen to me! I killed him; I’m admitting it; I want you to—”
The soothing mutter of the warder droned. “All right, my lad; all right; down here; easy does it; take him easy, Joe—ee-easy—”
Answell stopped, and seemed to be looking from one warder to the other. Our glances did not go higher than the buttons of his waistcoat, yet you had an impression that he felt more trapped now than he had ever been before. His eyes looked hot and puzzled when they hauled him across to the trap.
“But listen!—wait, I don’t want to go—no; wait a bit—I—aren’t they going to listen to me? I admit it, d’ye hear?”
“Sure, my lad; plenty of time; e-easy there; mind that step—”
We went out in good order, leaving a dead schoolroom full of yellow furniture, and we did not comment. Lollypop, looking white, made a sign to me which I interpreted as, “Downstairs”; I could not see H.M. in the crowd. They began to switch out the lights. A sort of network of shuffling whispers caught us all together.
Someone said in my ear, “—and all over but the hanging.”
“I know,” muttered another voice. “And yet, for a couple of seconds there, I almost thought—”
“That he mightn’t have done it?”
“I don’t know: not exactly: and yet—”
Outside Evelyn and I conferred. “They’re probably right,” she admitted; “and I don’t feel so well. I say, I’ve got to go, Ken. I promised Sylvia to be there at six-thirty. Are you coming?”
“No, I’ve a message for H.M. Simply ‘yes,’ from the Hume girl. I’ll wait.”
Evelyn drew her fur coat closer. “I don’t want to stay now. Oh, blast it all, Ken; why did we have to come here? That—that cooks his goose, rather, doesn’t it?”
“Depends on whether it’s evidence, and apparently it isn’t.”
“Oh, evidence—!” said Evelyn contemptuously. “Bother evidence! What would you have felt if you had been on that jury? That’s what counts.
I wish we hadn’t come here; I wish we’d never even heard of the case. What is the girl like? No, don’t tell me. I don’t want to know. That last business—G’bye, darling. See you later.”
She hurried away into the rain, and I was left glowering in the crowd. People were scuttling like chickens at the door of the Old Bailey, though the rain had almost ceased. There was a now-we’re-out-of-school look about it. A bitter wind whisked round the corner of the building, and the lines of gas-lamps in Newgate Street were palely solemn. Among the crush of cars waiting for their dignitaries I found H.M.’s closed Vauxhall (not a certain Lanchester of weird memory), with his chauffeur Luigi. I leaned on the car and tried to smoke a cigarette against the wind. Memories were strong tonight. Up there, past St. Sepulchre’s church, ran Giltspur Street: off Giltspur Street was Plague Court, among whose ghosts H.M. and I had walked some years ago: and at that time there had been no thought of murder in James Caplon Answell’s mind. The crowd from the Old Bailey thinned slowly. After a general shooting of bolts had begun, a couple of City-of-London policemen—with their humped helmets like firemen’s hats in blue cloth—came out and looked the situation over. H.M. was almost the last to leave. He came stumping out with his own unwieldy top hat stuck on the back of his head, his overcoat with the moth-eaten fur collar flying out behind; and I could tell by the profane movements of his lips that he had been having a talk with Answell.
He pushed me into the car.
“Grub,” H.M. said succinctly. He added, “Oh, my eye, the young ass! That’s torn it.”
“So he’s really guilty after all?”
“Guilty? No. Not him. He was only bein’ a decent young feller.—I got to get him out of this, Ken,” said H.M. somberly. “He’s worth saving.”
A passing car, as we turned into Newgate Street, merely brushed our mudguard; and H.M. leaned out of the window and cursed with such resonance and imaginativeness that it was an index to his state of mind.
“I suppose,” H.M. went on, “he thought he’d only got to come out and confess, and the judge would say, ‘O.K., son; that’s enough; take him out and string him up,’—straightaway, d’ye see.”
“But why confess? And, anyway, is it evidence?”
H.M.’s attitude towards this was much like Evelyn’s. “Of course it ain’t evidence. The point is the effect it’s goin’ to have, even if old Balmy Bodkin tells ‘em to disregard it. I got great faith in Balmy, Ken....But did I hear you thinking the worst is over when the Crown gets through with its evidence? Son, our troubles haven’t begun. It’s the cross-examination of Answell that I’m dreadin’. You ever hear Walt Storm cross-examine? He takes ‘em to pieces like a clock and then dares you to put all the little wheels back into place. I’m not legally bound to put Answell into the box; but if I don’t I’m wide open to any comments Storm wants to make, and the story of this murder can’t be complete unless I do put the feller there. What I’m afraid of is that my own witness may go back on me. If he stands up there and swears what he just said a while ago—well, that will be evidence and the old man’s licked.”
“But I repeat (this damned courtroom manner is getting infectious), why did Answell confess?”
H.M. grunted. He was sitting back against the cushions, his unwieldy top hat tilted over his eyes and his thick arms folded.
“Because somebody’s communicated with him. I’m not sure how, but I’m pretty sure who. I mean Our Reginald. Did you notice how he and Reginald kept exchangin’ significant glances all afternoon? But you don’t know Reginald.”
“Yes, I met him this afternoon, at the Humes’ place.”
A sharp little eye swung round towards me. “So?” said H.M. with heavy inflection. “What’d you think of him?”
“Well—all right. A little on the oh-really and supercilious side, but decent enough.”
The eye turned back again. “Uh-huh. And, incidentally, what was the message from the gal?”
“She said to tell you yes, emphatically.”
“Good gal,” said H.M. He stared at the glass partition from under the brim of his tilted hat. “It may work out well enough. I had some passable luck this afternoon, and also a few nasty jolts. The worst of the jolts was when Spencer Hume didn’t turn up as a witness. I was countin’ on him: if I had any hair, it’d ‘a’ been grayer when I heard that. Burn me, I wonder if he’s turned tail! I wonder!” He considered. “People think I ain’t got any dignity. Fine spectacle it is, hey, of Lollypop and me running about gettin’ our witnesses and doin’ all the dirty work that ought to be done by solicitors? Nice thing for a barrister, I ask you—”
“Frankly,” I said, “the real reason is that you wouldn’t work with a solicitor, H.M. You’re too anxious to run the whole show yourself.” This, unfortunately, was so true that it provoked a fiendish outburs
t, especially as his grousing a moment ago indicated that he was worried about something else.
“So that’s the thanks I get, is it? That’s all the thanks I get? After all the trouble I had runnin’ round that railway station like a porter—”
“What railway station?”
“Never mind what railway station,” said H.M., checking himself abruptly in midflight, and looking austere. But he was so pleased at having caused another point of mystification that he cooled off a little. “Humph. I say, Ken: on the evidence you’ve heard today, what railway station would you have gone to?”
“To take what train? How the subject of railway stations got into this conversation at all,” I said, “is not quite clear; but is this a subtle way of hinting that Dr. Hume may have done a bunk?”
“He may have. Burn me, now, I wonder—” For a moment he stared at the glass partition, and then he turned excitedly. “Did you by chance see Dr. Hume at their place this afternoon?”
“Yes, he was there, full of platitudes and benevolence.”
“Did you follow my instructions about spreadin’ a little mysterious disquiet?”
“Yes, and I thought I succeeded remarkably well; though what I said that was so effective I can’t tell you. Anyway, he certainly told us he was going to testify this afternoon. He said he’d put over a strong intimation that Answell is insane; and, by the way, there was a mental specialist with him, a Dr. Tregannon—”
H.M.’s hat slid so slowly down over his nose and outwards that it was as though he had attempted a balancing trick with it. He is proud of that hat; but he did not notice when it tumbled to the floor.
“Tregannon?” he repeated blankly. “Dr. Tregannon. Oh, Lord love a duck! I wonder if I’d better go round there?”
“I hope we’re not out to rescue any heroines,” I said. “Look here, what’s up? Are you thinking of the sinister uncle again, or what he might do to Mary Hume for testifying on the side of the defense? I thought of all that too; but it’s rubbish. Plain cases, H.M., and sticking closely to the Facts of Life: you don’t suppose he’d hurt his own niece?”
H.M. reflected. “No, I don’t suppose he would,” he replied seriously. “But he’s fightin’ for his respectability. And psalm-singing Uncle Spencer may turn awful nasty if he discovers she can’t find his Turkish slippers....Now, now!”
“Is this allied with the secret and sinister connection between an inkpad and a railway station and a Judas window and a golf suit?”
“It is. But never mind. I suppose she’s all right, and what I want is grub.” It was some time before he got his wish. As the car drew up before H.M.’s house in Brook Street, a woman was mounting the steps. She wore a fur coat, and her hat was put on crookedly. Then she ran down the steps, rummaging in her handbag. We saw the eager blue eyes of Mary Hume: she was now breathless and on the edge of tears.
“It’s all right,” she said. “We’ve saved Jim.”
H.M.’s face wore a rather ghoulish expression. “I don’t believe it,” he said. “Burn me, it ain’t possible for us to have any luck! The blinkin’ awful cussedness of things in general has simply decided that that lad couldn’t have a decent stroke of luck if—”
“But he has! It’s Uncle Spencer. He’s run away, and he’s left me a letter, and it practically confesses—”
She was rummaging in her handbag, spilling a lipstick and a handkerchief out on the pavement. When she held out the letter, the wind took it out of her hand, and it was only with a flying catch that I retrieved it.
“Inside,” said H.M.
H.M.’s house is one of those ornate and chilly places which seem to exist only to give receptions, and most of the time is occupied only by H.M. and the servants: his wife and two daughters being usually in the south of France. Again as usual, he had forgotten his latchkey; so he pounded on the door and shouted murderously until the butler came out and asked him if he wanted to get in. In a chilly back library he seized the letter out of the girl’s hand and spread it out on a table under the lamp. It was several sheets of notepaper closely written in a fine and unhurried hand.
Monday, 2 P.M.
DEAR MARY:
“By the time you receive this I shall be outward bound; and it will, I think, be difficult for anyone to trace me. I cannot help feeling bitter about this, for I have done nothing—absolutely nothing—of which I need be ashamed: on the contrary, I have tried to do you a good turn. But Tregannon suspects that Merrivale has got at Quigley, and will put him into the witness-box tomorrow; and certain things I overheard at the house this afternoon lead me to the same belief.
I do not wish you to think too hardly of your old uncle. Believe me, if I could have done the least good I should have spoken before. About certain parts of this business I am feeling rather wretched. I can tell you now that it was I who supplied the drug which went into Answell’s whisky. It is “brudine,” a derivative of scopolamine or twilight-sleep, with which we have been experimenting at the hospital.”
“Wow!” roared H.M., bringing his fist down on the table. “This has got it, my wench.”
Her eyes were searching his face. “You think that will clear him?”
“It’s half of what we want. Now be quiet, dammit!”
“Its effects are almost instantaneous, and it ensures unconsciousness for a little under half an hour. Answell woke up a few minutes sooner than had been intended: probably due to the fact that he had to be propped up while the mint extract was poured down his throat to take away the smell of whisky.”
“Do you remember what Answell said himself?” demanded H.M. “The first thing the feller noticed when he woke up was that there was an awful taste of mint in his mouth, and he seemed to have slobbered it a good deal. Ever since the Bartlett case there’s been arguments as to whether you could pour liquid down the throat of a sleepin’ man without choking him.”
I still could not make head or tail of it. “But who drugged him? And why? And what in blazes were they trying to do? Either Avory Hume liked Answell or he hated him like poison: but which was it?”
“I thought at the time that it was a mistake to load the whole decanter of whisky with the stuff, instead of merely putting it into a glass; because it meant getting rid of the decanter afterwards. Believe me, Mary, the thought that someone afterwards might find the decanter has given me some horribly unpleasant moments.
Finally, I arranged with Tregannon and Quigley to do what was to be done. That is the limit of my dereliction. It is not my fault that my well-meant efforts produced such unfortunate results. But you will see why I could not speak.”
At this point, as H.M. turned over the page, a strangled noise escaped him; and then it became a groan. Our hopes went down with a clang like a broken lift.
“Of course, if Answell had really been innocent, I should have been compelled to speak out and tell the truth. You must believe that. But, as I told you, even the truth would do him no good. He is guilty, my dear—guilty as hell. He killed your father in one of those rages for which his family has been noted for a long time, and I cheerfully let him go to the hangman rather than set him loose on you. Perhaps his protestations of innocence are quite sincere. He may not even know that he killed your father. “Brudine” is still a comparatively unknown quantity. It is quite harmless; but, when its effect begins to wear off, it often leaves the patient with a partial gap in the memory. I know this will be terrible news for you, but please let me tell you what really happened. Answell thought that your father was drugging him and tricking him in some way. He knew that his drink was drugged as soon as he felt the effects coming on. It remained in his memory, and it was the first thing he remembered when he began to wake up—farther back than his own memory extends now. They had been talking, unfortunately, about killing people with arrows. He got that arrow and stabbed your father before poor Avory knew what was happening: that is how this dear fiance of yours came to be sitting up in the chair when his memory returned to him. He had just finished his
work.
Before God, Mary, this is what really happened. I saw it with my own eyes. Good-by, and bless you forever even if I do not see you again.”
Your affectionate uncle,
SPENCER.
H.M. put his hands up to his eyes and pressed his forehead. He lumbered up and down beside the table; finally he sat down in a chair. The little worm of doubt was in all of us now.
“But won’t it—?” the girl cried.
“Save him?” asked H.M., lifting a dull face. “My dear good wench, if you took that letter into court nothin’ in the world could save him. I’m wondering if anything can save him now. Oh, my eye!”
“But couldn’t we cut off the last part of the letter and just show them the first part? That’s what I thought of.”
H.M. regarded her sourly. She was a very pretty piece, and very much more intelligent than this suggestion sounded.
“No, we couldn’t,” he told her. “Not that I’m above hocus-pocus; but the blazin’ bad part of that letter is on the back of the sheet that tells about the drugged whisky. Here’s proof—here’s evidence—and, burn me, we don’t dare use it! Tell me something, my wench. In the face of that letter, do you still believe he’s innocent?”
“I most certainly....Oh, I don’t know! Yes. No. All I do know is that I love him, and you’ve got to get him off somehow! You’re not going back on me, are you?”
H.M. sat twiddling his thumbs over his paunch and staring at the floor. He sniffed.
“Me? Oh, no. I’m a glutton for punishment, I am. They get the old man in a corner and whack him over the head with a club; and every so often they’ll say, ‘What, ain’t you unconscious yet? Soak him another one’; and yet—burn me, why should that chap lie? I mean your good old uncle. He admits it about the whisky. I was lookin’ forward, you see, to cross-examinin’ him today. I was all ready to tear him to pieces and show up the truth. I could ‘a’ sworn he knew the truth, and even knew who the real murderer is. But here he is swearin’ that Answell...” H.M. brooded. “‘I saw it with my own eyes.’ That’s the part I can’t get over. Curse it all, how could he have seen it with his own eyes? He couldn’t. He was at the hospital when it happened. He’s got an alibi as big as a house; we tested all that. He’s lyin’—but if I prove he’s lyin’ about that, the first part of the letter isn’t worth firewood. We can’t have it both ways.”
The Judas Window Page 11