by Grant Allen
As he spoke and wagged his head, a little lane was made with difficulty by the ushers through the dense mass of humanity that packed the floor of the building, and a torn and draggled figure advanced along it, breathless with fiery zeal, towards the box for the witnesses.
The new-comer’s appearance was, indeed, sufficient to surprise the judge and excite remark from all spectators. Her hair, to be sure, was not dishevelled, as in all dramatic propriety it ought to have been — nobody ever saw that model lady’s-maid’s hair in any other condition, either in private or in public, than neatly coiled and carefully braided; but her head was bare, her eyes were red, and her dress, already muddied and splashed with running headlong through the streets, had been torn into shreds and tatters at certain points in her sharp struggle with the ushers and door-keepers. She was panting and excited; and though her face as a whole looked pale with bloodlessness, a fiery red patch burned bright in either cheek with momentary exaltation.
‘I’ve run all the way here, my lord,’ she cried, in a tone of eager frankness, as she came up to the box. ‘I’ve run for my life, like. I couldn’t get away before. They’d locked me up in the house to prevent my coming out to give evidence and save her. I didn’t know whether it wouldn’t all be over. But I’ve got out in spite of them, and I’m in time — I’m in time! I don’t care for anything — they may kill me if they like now — as long as I’m in time to save her — to save her!’
The blind old judge fidgeted angrily in his seat:
‘This is very irregular,’ he repeated once more, with a shiver of disapprobation, for his sense of form was severely tried; ‘these incoherent statements, so little to the point, and not on oath either. Unseemly! Unseemly! If you mean to produce the witness at all, Mr. —— eh, what is it? Harrison — ah, yes, thank you — if you mean to produce her, you should at least proceed to swear her in due form before she begins to make any personal statement.’
‘May I give her a few minutes to collect herself, my lord?’ Douglas asked suspiciously, eyeing his new ally with a somewhat doubtful glance, in spite of Linda’s recommendation — and, indeed, he had full confidence in Linda’s judgment. ‘She seems to me just at present to be somewhat fatigued and hysterical.’
‘Or the worse for drink,’ that smart junior Mr. Erskine suggested humorously beneath his breath — a comment which raised a smile in his immediate neighbourhood.
But Elizabeth Pomeroy, alias Woodward, looking up with her flushed face and dark-ringed eyes, and pulling herself together suddenly, answered in a very much more coherent voice, now she saw her purpose was fairly gained:
‘I’m quite ready to be sworn this moment, my lord, and I’m not the worse for drink, though I’m hot and tired. I’ve slipped out of a guarded house and from a bed of illness with very great difficulty, to serve the ends of justice, and I’ve run over a mile to get here in time, which has taken away my breath; but if you’ll allow them to swear me at once, I’m prepared to give evidence — important evidence.’
‘Let the woman be sworn,’ the old judge said, in a very official voice, and sworn Miss Elizabeth Pomeroy was accordingly.
‘I believe your name is Elizabeth Woodward?’ Douglas Harrison began, setting out on his examination very much in the dark — for he hadn’t the slightest idea what this new witness, thus dropped down upon him from the clouds, was prepared to prove; and he took even her name on trust from a little piece of paper handed up to him by the solicitors.
To his immense surprise, the witness took his breath away by answering, in a very matter-of-fact voice:
‘No; not Woodward. That’s what I was called while I was in her grace’s service. But my real name is Elizabeth Pomeroy.’
‘Oh, your real name!’ the little judge said sharply, with a sarcastic emphasis. ‘Then the other’s an alias! You’re one of those people, I suppose, who go about the world with a choice selection of names, as occasion demands them.’
‘Yes, my lord,’ the new witness responded, with quiet incisiveness. ‘The other’s an alias, and not my only one. I’m quite accustomed to courts; the police know me well — Mr. Inspector there can answer for that — and I have a story to tell that the Duchess’s counsel knows nothing about, so it isn’t much use his questioning me and extorting it. Perhaps, if he’d allow me to tell my tale my own way, I’d save the time of the court and get sooner through with it.’
‘By all means,’ Douglas answered, nothing loath, obedient to a significant glance from Linda— ‘with his lordship’s permission.’
‘Go on,’ the little judge remarked, with a resigned air, leaning back on the bench. This witness was evidently not a person for a judge who respected his ermine to bandy words with.
‘Very well, then,’ Miss Pomeroy went on, gathering the loose shreds of her gown together in front, and gradually resuming her more ordinary demeanour in her alternative character of model lady’s-maid in a highly respectable family. ‘I’d better begin by explaining at once that I was her grace’s maid for a few weeks this spring; but that I’m also, and have always been’ — she paused and hesitated— ‘the associate and confederate of thieves and burglars.’
And as she spoke she cast a defiant glance around her in her sudden access of virtuous resolve to make a clean breast of it and save the Duchess.
‘God bless my soul, you don’t mean to say so!’ the half-blind old judge burst forth spontaneously, forgetful in his surprise of the dignity of the Queen’s justiciary. He regarded Miss Pomeroy’s coiled hair with close attention. ‘The associate and confederate of thieves and burglars!’ he repeated slowly.
‘Yes,’ Miss Pomeroy went on, with passionate warmth. ‘I keep nothing back. I want to tell the whole truth and explain the whole circumstances. I’ve been put into good places in many West-End houses for several years back by means of forged characters. The man Arthur Roper — Mr. Inspector knows him — he always forged them. I was maid to that lady there for a month or two at Hurst Croft, Mrs. Hubert Harrison — she was Miss Venables then — and while I was there the house was broken into and Miss Venables’ jewels and money were stolen. She’ll go into the box after me and swear to it, I don’t doubt, if your lordship wants corroborative evidence. Mrs. Harrison must remember me. I was called Elizabeth Williams then. I varied my surname from place to place as far as necessary, but for convenience’ sake I was always Elizabeth; it saved time and trouble. Arthur Roper, an expert thief, well known to the police — they call him the “gentleman burglar”’ — Mr. Inspector nodded— ‘he stole the jewels, and Mrs. Harrison can corroborate me that I was there at the time, and wouldn’t go into the room where they lay, because I knew he was in there stealing them.’
Sabine nodded unobtrusively a confirmatory nod, much wondering in her heart what all this could mean; but the little old judge, in spite of his blindness, caught the movement at once, and mumbled out angrily:
‘Don’t make signs to the witness, madam. Let her tell her own tale unaided. Besides, I don’t see that this rigmarole is evidence at all. What’s all this got to do with the Duchess of Powysland?’
‘I want to tell your lordship and the jury,’ Miss Pomeroy answered, turning round and growing calmer each moment now she felt she was really safe from pursuit, ‘how it was I came to see the Duke poison himself, and why it was that Arthur Roper, my companion in crime, locked me up ill in my room all this time, to prevent my coming here to give evidence about it.’
‘Oh!’ his lordship echoed, somewhat mollified. ‘You saw the Duke poison himself? That’d be evidence indeed, if you really saw anything that could be fairly so described. Proceed with your story, witness.’
And he eyed her narrowly.
‘Then I was three months with that lady there, the Baroness Von Förstemann,’ Miss Pomeroy went on, ‘at the Austrian Embassy; and before I left the embassy was burgled, and her daughter, Baroness Sophia, had her jewels and important documents stolen. That was the way we worked. Arthur Roper used to send me with forged ch
aracters to a good house as maid; and as soon as I’d learnt the ins and outs of the place, so that I could draw a ground-plan and show him his way well about the rooms, why, he made up his mind and came in and robbed them.’
‘How was it you didn’t rob them yourself?’ the blind old judge asked peevishly. ‘That would have been so much simpler. This seems a very clumsy, roundabout proceeding — like the rest of your evidence.’
‘Oh dear no, your lordship; in that case I might have got caught,’ Miss Pomeroy answered in a very matter-of-fact tone, for this was to her a business detail; ‘and, anyway, there’d be a clue, a very easy clue, to me. It would never have done to let one of the servants in the house be suspected, or all would have come out. But Mr. Roper broke in with jemmies and all that, like a regular professional out-door burglar, and nobody questioned the servants almost ... least of all me. I was always so respectable.... I’m telling the whole story now to save that lady’s life, because she saved mine, and because I’m disgusted and thoroughly ashamed of myself. I give myself in charge for all these robberies by coming here to-day to save her life — Mr. Inspector, I’m your prisoner — and perhaps another time your lordship may try me for them, and send me to prison, where I know I deserve to be.’
And she paused, all trembling.
‘Perhaps,’ his lordship muttered below his breath. ‘Well, go on, witness.’
‘After that,’ Miss Pomeroy continued, glancing around the court once more in a cold chill of remorse and self-accusation, ‘I don’t deny I was concerned in several other burglaries till the spring of this year, when I took service at last with the Duchess of Powysland.’
‘Ah, now we’re getting to it, then!’ the little judge put in, waking up suddenly, and beginning to be attentive.
‘There I stayed for six weeks or so,’ Miss Pomeroy continued, looking down at the rail, ‘and there I fell ill with typhoid fever.’ And then, in quick and eager language, she went on to explain how Linda had nursed her through her illness with sisterly care; how she had treated her more like an equal than an upper servant; how she had done everything for her that the most delicate kindness or thoughtfulness could suggest; and how at the end she herself, the poor penitent associate of thieves and burglars, stricken down with remorse and grateful for benefits received, had felt she could never more follow her hateful trade, but must strive to make amends for the wrong she had already contemplated towards her generous nurse and mistress.
‘I’d always had penitent fits like that from time to time,’ the girl went on passionately. ‘I suppose it’s my nature, and the double life I always had to lead; but every now and again I just hated myself for helping them in all their robberies. But I was afraid to leave them; I was afraid even to say I wouldn’t rob the Duchess. If I’d said so, I believe that brute, Arthur Roper, would have murdered me outright. He’ll murder me now, unless I’m put in prison, if he catches me after this, for turning Queen’s evidence.’
‘We’ll take good care about that,’ the little judge interposed, smiling serenely. ‘Go on with your story, woman.’
‘So I left the Duchess, as I said, quite unexpectedly, just putting a letter on her dressing-table to say I’d gone, a day or two before the Duke came home from Norway. I told Arthur Roper I had reasons for leaving — I never said what — and for taking a place just five doors off in Onslow Gardens. I can prove all this, if you like, by the evidence of the people in the house I went to — Mr. Nicholas Mortimer’s. I wanted to be near, so as to look after the Duchess; and I meant to prevent that man, Arthur Roper, from committing this burglary, and to give notice to the police as soon as he’d arranged a night for doing it, so that he might be caught in the act, red-handed. I was sick and tired of my way of life, and I wanted to do what I could to save the Duchess. I knew the Duke was jealous of her, and had quarrelled with her and hated her; and I knew she was an angel, and I couldn’t bear to go away from the place altogether and see no more of her.’
‘But how could you see her five doors off?’ the judge asked sceptically.
‘Why, that’s just what I’m coming to,’ Elizabeth Pomeroy went on. ‘That’s how I caught the Duke himself in the very act of giving himself the morphia.’
CHAPTER XLIX.
THE MYSTERY SOLVED.
‘Outside all the houses in Onslow Gardens there’s a continuous ledge — a sort of platform or terrace. The Duchess knows it well. It’s formed by the projection of the first floor rooms, so that you can step right out on to it from the bedroom windows. Well, I used to walk out on this ledge by night; and as I went from Mr. Mortimer’s, where I was living, to the Duke’s house, I passed first the Duchess’s boudoir window, and then the windows of the Duke’s bedroom. I used to look in sideways into both these rooms, through two little holes I’d made in the blinds on purpose before I left — little holes you had to hold your eye close to see — and there I could easily make out everything that was passing in either of them.
‘Through all the Duke’s illness I went along the ledge a great many times; and at last, on the night the Duke died, I went there, I think, about half-past nine; but anyhow it was after my lady had come up from dinner — the Mortimers dined at eight sharp — and was sitting in the drawing-room. I stole along the ledge quietly, close under the window, so as not to be observed. When I got to 20, I noticed, to my surprise, as I passed, that the Duchess’s boudoir window had the blinds still up; and the Duchess herself was sitting there alone, and I was afraid she’d see me — of course the blinds ought to have been drawn — but she had her head in her hands, and she didn’t see. So I crept on past her, and looked in through the tiny hole in the blind I’d made next door in the Duke’s window.
‘All this time Arthur Roper was waiting below in the garden for me to give him the sign when the coast was clear; but I didn’t mean to give him the sign that night, because I hadn’t communicated yet with the police; so I only just crouched there and watched, and made signals to him that it wouldn’t be safe to try, as the Duchess was in her boudoir. And, indeed, it wouldn’t have been. Then I kept on looking in at the Duke’s windows for a good long time. I could see everything. There were two nurses there. Why, those are the two — those women sitting in the well of the court, by the box, only then they were dressed in nurses’ uniform. I saw them distinctly. By-and-by I saw the Duke send them out of the room — first this one with the blue dress, and then that one in black. As soon as they were gone, I was very much astonished to see what happened. The Duke rose out of bed. He was very weak and ill, and he staggered horribly; but he had a fixed sort of look on his face as he turned his eyes first this way, then that — just so — to see if he was observed. As soon as he’d made sure he was quite alone, he smiled a dreadful, mad-looking, inhuman sort of a smile — oh, the awfullest smile I ever saw in my life, though I’ve seen some awful ones! — and got down on all fours on the floor like a child, and crept very cautiously across towards the window.’
By this time the interest in court was profound in its intensity. Linda leant forward in breathless suspense to hear to what conclusion this strange confession of her strange maid’s was leading them.
‘The Duke crept on, crept on, crept on, till he reached the edge of the carpet, corner-wise, at the end next the drawing-room,’ the girl continued, after a short pause, wiping her eyes and forehead. ‘It was a Turkey carpet, lying loose on the floor, with the edge untacked; and the sides of the room were polished. His grace lifted up the corner, holding his head on one side, for all the world like a monkey for cunning; and then, with something sharp he held in his hands — a pair of nail-scissors, I fancy — he egged up a loose square in the parqueted floor, and took out — a parcel. The square was one of the little black ones that lie between the light brown bits — about as long as that, and wide as that, and diamond-shaped. It seemed to me as if it came up quite easily. The thing he took out was a blue paper packet.’
‘A what?’ the judge asked sharply.
‘A blue paper
packet, my lord,’ Miss Pomeroy answered, amid breathless silence. ‘I saw the Duke open it. It had inside it a white powder.’
A shudder passed visibly through the court as she spoke. Miss Pomeroy took no notice of it, but went on excitedly:
‘The Duke laughed when he looked at the powder — laughed low to himself like a madman, and stared around him once more. His look was ghastly. Then he rose on his feet, staggered across the floor, and dropped a lot of the powder — more than he meant, I think — into a jug by the bedside. After that he paused, glanced behind him suspiciously, and dropped a second lot into the glass, and some into the medicine bottle; then he laughed once more, and looked towards the door, as if he was frightened that somebody was coming. I think he heard a noise outside, for he half jumped towards the bed — stronger than you’d have thought a man like him could have done it, for he seemed possessed, somehow. But there was nobody there, so he stood a minute again, steadying himself with his folded hand on the table, and looked as if he was filling a little glass thing he held in his hand — I should say a syringe, or something of the sort — out of the tumbler by the bedside he’d dropped the powder into.’
The court sat enthralled, and listened awe-struck to her story.
‘After that,’ Miss Pomeroy continued, pale, with her tale, ‘he paused again, and looked around him nervously. I could see big drops were standing upon his brow. He seemed horribly ill. He tried to walk, but couldn’t, so he got down on all fours again, and crept slowly across the floor, grinning once more to himself — oh, so horribly! so horribly! It was dreadful to look at him. I almost screamed with fright. But I didn’t think then he was doing any harm. I just thought he was mad, behaving like a lunatic in his delirium, and that the nurses would soon be back to look after him.