by Diane Janes
‘How did Ernest Brown behave towards Mr Morton?’
‘Well, they were always friendly. Mr Brown was respectful of course and always treated Mr Morton like you would an employer, but it was very friendly on both sides.’
‘You never saw any antagonism, or quarrelling?’
‘No. None whatsoever.’
The final prosecution witness was Frank Cawood, another ruddy faced countryman, who looked ill at ease in his stiff collar and a dark suit bought for a funeral which had been held when he was several pounds lighter. He had even put on his old Dad’s watch and chain, Ernest noticed, probably in order to invest himself with a degree of formality, appropriate to this unaccustomed environment.
‘You are a farmer, are you not?’ began Mr Paley Scott, whose friendly overtures seemed lost on Cawood, who was clearly nervous and merely nodded vigorously in response, until firmly reminded that he had to answer all the questions out loud.
‘Aye, yes I am. That’s right.’ Having found his tongue, Cawood now appeared desirous of answering the question three times over, thereby provoking some stifled mirth in the public gallery.
‘Your mother is the licensee of a public house, known as the Boot and Shoe, at Peckfield, is she not?’
‘That’s correct.’
‘One moment if you please, Mr Paley Scott.’ The judge spoke in the same irritable tone which he had adopted when reference had previously been made to plans of the farm. ‘Is this place, Peckfield, marked on the map that has been provided as an exhibit?’
‘It is my lord.’
‘For the benefit of the jury, can you please confirm for us, how far these various hostelries are from the scene of the crime?’
‘Of course, my lord.’ Paley Scott referred to his notes. ‘Peckfield is between five and six miles from Saxton Grange.’
‘And it would take approximately how long to travel between one and the other in a motor car?’
‘The police undertook to time it, my lord and they say that it takes no more than ten minutes and can of course be done in rather less.’
‘And from the hotel belonging to the last witness?’
‘It is seven miles from Mrs Jackson’s inn at Garforth Bridge to Saxton Grange, my lord.’
‘And between Garforth Bridge and Peckfield?’
‘Less than a mile, my lord. No more than four or five minutes’ drive at most.’
‘Thank you, Mr Paley Scot. Please proceed.’
‘Thank you my lord.’ Turning back to the witness, the barrister resumed: ‘On Tuesday 5 September, you were at the Boot and Shoe, helping your mother behind the bar were you not?’
‘Aye, I was. The feller what normally helps out was off with a bad foot, so she was shorthanded.’
‘And during the course of the evening, Mr Frederick Morton came in and ordered a drink?’
‘He did.’
‘You knew him well.’
‘Very well indeed.’
‘Was he alone?’
‘He was.’
‘How did he seem to you?’
Cawood appeared to consider a moment. ‘His usual self.’
‘Was he drunk?’
‘No.’
‘Did he seem unhappy in any way?’
‘No.’
‘Worried?’
‘No.’
‘Did you have a conversation with him?’
‘I did.’
‘What about?’
‘I sold him some cattle cake. He bargained with me for a while, and beat me down in price.’
He would do, Ernest thought.
‘But it was a good humoured exchange?’
‘Perfectly,’ Cawood agreed. ‘We’d done business plenty of times before.’
‘At what time did Mr Morton arrive and leave that evening?’
‘As far as I can recall, he came in at about quarter past eight and he left half an hour later.’
‘Did he say where he was going next?’
‘No.’
When it was Mr Streatfield’s turn, he wanted to know how much Freddie Morton had drunk while he was at the Boot and Shoe.
‘He had two glasses of bitter.’
‘I see you are wearing a very handsome watch and chain, Mr Cawood. Were you wearing it on 5 September?’
‘No.’
‘How then do you fix the time that Mr Morton arrived and left that evening?’
Cawood gaped, his big bullock’s eyes widening. ‘I don’t rightly know.’
‘You didn’t look at your watch. In fact you have told the court that you were not wearing it. Did you particularly look at, or comment on the time, when Mr Morton arrived, or left?’
‘No. I had no reason for fixing the time.’ Cawood sounded disgruntled.
‘So it is just an estimate?’
‘Aye, just an estimate.’
‘Thank you, Mr Cawood. That is all.’
Chapter Ten
Thursday 14 December 1933
Leeds Town Hall, The Yorkshire Assizes
As he took the oath, his hand on the New Testament, Ernest squared his shoulders and reminded himself that he was as good a man as any one of them, for all their educated words, their pomp and ceremony. Yet in spite of his determination, his throat dried and his words rasped out of it like leaves blown along the lane on an autumn afternoon.
As Mr Streatfield stood up and approached him, everything else seemed to loom closer as well. After watching from the slight elevation of the dock, Ernest now found himself hemmed in by hostility, with the judge above him to the right, the public gallery rising higher still to his left, the journalists at his back and the jury staring straight into his face. Only Mr Streatfield, on his feet and approaching to start his questions, presented a countenance which could have been described as remotely friendly.
‘Ernest Brown, can you please tell the court how long you had been working for Frederick Morton, by September of this year?’
He tried to speak but the words would not come. His answer emerged as little more than a whisper.
‘Speak up, please.’ For once that fussy old devil on the platform sounded almost friendly. ‘This is your opportunity to tell your side of the story, you know. It is no use if we cannot hear you.’
Ernest nodded, took encouragement and said firmly, ‘Yes, my lord,’ before he began again. This time he remembered to breathe in the right places, to look Mr Streatfield straight in the eye. Ignore the old biddies, ignore the jury, and ignore the bloody judge too, unless directly spoken to. Tell his side of the story. Yes, right.
They had already agreed, in one of those conversations which had taken place in the little, tiled cell, in the basement of the building, that Mr Streatfield would ask him very little about the affair with Dolly, except to establish whether he had ever been violent toward her, or threatened her in any way – questions to which Ernest responded with firm denials.
‘Were you ever jealous, when she paid attention to other men?’
‘No.’
‘Did you make threats toward her or anyone else, in order to regain your job in June?’
‘No.’
‘And after you returned to work at Saxton Grange in June, did you continue to be intimate with Mrs Morton?’
‘No.’
‘Were you unhappy about that?’
‘No.’
‘So you had no wish to coerce her into continuing this relationship of intimacy which you had formerly enjoyed?’
‘No.’ He repeated the word again and again, calmly, but firmly. With each response, he was conscious that his voice had strengthened and was carrying greater conviction.
‘How long had you known Mr Frederick Morton Jnr.?’
‘I should say about sixteen or seventeen years, certainly since he was still in schoo
l.’
‘And did you get along well with him?’
‘I liked Mr Morton and we were rather good friends, though I did not always like the way he did business, or treated his customers.’
‘Did you ever have disagreements with him?’
‘We occasionally disagreed over the price he had paid for horses, but that was purely business. It didn’t affect our friendship.’
‘Did you ever make threats against Mr Morton? For example saying that you would like to hit him?’
‘I don’t remember making threats about hitting him, but I may have done. If so, then I did not mean it. I may have said it as a joke.’
‘So it was never your intention to hit Mr Morton.’
‘If it had been my intention, then I would have carried it out.’
‘Did you ever threaten to wreck Mr Morton’s business?’
‘I did not. I did once say that we would all be out of work in a couple of months, if things went on as they were.’
‘And what made you say that?’
‘Because we were doing very little trade at the time and Mr Morton had been saying earlier that day, that we would have to have a round-up of all the cattle, where the customers were behind with their instalments.’
‘Do you remember saying that the business would run better without Mr Morton?’
‘No – and if I ever did, then it would only have been in jest.’
‘Now after you had returned to work for Mr Morton in June, you were allocated a different set of duties, were you not? Can you tell the court about your new job?’
‘I was to drive the new horse box, take charge of maintaining the family’s motor cars, and the tractors used on the farm, and I was also to try out all the heavy horses that were bought.’
‘Were you unhappy with these new responsibilities?’
‘No I preferred them. Mr Morton had already been planning to move the jobs around before I left and was in the process of taking on a new groom in place of me. He was only waiting on the new horse box being delivered before he put the new arrangements in place.’
‘Why did you prefer the new arrangements?’
‘There was less heavy work and mucking out, and being put in charge of the horse box got me out and about, driving around the countryside, which I enjoyed.’
‘And there was no reduction in your wages?’
‘No. I was paid exactly the same as before.’
‘Did you consider that fair?’
‘Perfectly fair.’
Though Fred had driven a hard bargain with his suppliers and customers, he had always been fair with his own men, Ernest thought. Two pounds ten shillings a week and all found, had been ample enough to tempt a man who was good with stock, such as himself, to work out in the sticks. As for driving the horse box, it was no more than the truth that he had loved to get out in the country, bowling along between the hedgerows that summer – in fact he could remember days when he had sung for the sheer joy of it. How often had he thanked his lucky stars that unlike most of the men, he had learned to drive and thereby earned for himself a role in the business which had given him the freedom of the open road?
Now that he thought about it, he fancied that he and Wally had sung a few choruses of ‘Tipperary’, that very day in September, as they had driven back from the errand in Greetland, with the shadows of the late summer afternoon lengthening. The day to which Mr Streatfield was now recalling his attention. The day when everything had been about to go all wrong.
‘I want you to cast your mind back to Tuesday 5 September,’ Mr Streatfield was saying. ‘Can you tell us what kind of morning that was?’
Ernest hesitated. Did he mean to ask about the weather, or what? ‘It was an ordinary morning,’ he said.
‘Just another ordinary day on the farm?’
‘Yes.’ Up at half past six as usual. Chores to do. Horses calling for their breakfast, their heads appearing out of loose boxes at the approach of boots across the yard. Buckets clanking as they were carried across from the trough, greetings called out, as one by one the other men arrived for work, the familiar sounds soon topped off by the distinctive clang of the blacksmith’s hammer.
‘At some point in the day, were you asked to take the horsebox out?’
‘Yes. At about midday, Mr Morton told me to load up a cow and take her to Harry Lumb’s farm, at Greetland.’
‘And what did you do, in response to this?’
‘I loaded the cow and left at about quarter past twelve.’
‘Did you stop in Tadcaster to pick up Mr Wright?’
‘I did.’
‘Do you think Mr Morton would have had any objection to that arrangement?’
‘I knew that he would not. I wouldn’t have taken Mr Wright along with me, if I had thought that Mr Morton would object.’
‘What happened when you reached Mr Lumb’s farm?’
‘After I had unloaded the cow and he had looked her over, he said that the beast was not what he wanted and that I was to take her back.’
‘So you put the cow back into the horsebox and drove back to Saxton Grange. Now, on your way, you stopped at Tadcaster, did you not, to drop your friend Mr Wright, back at the Malt Shovel?’
‘I did.’
‘And you told him that you would see him again later?’
‘Yes, after I had taken the cow back and done my other chores.’
‘At what time did you leave the Malt Shovel?’
‘It was between eight o’clock and a quarter past.’
‘Very well. Now please tell us what happened next.’
‘I drove back to the farm. It would take me about ten minutes.’ Almost exactly ten minutes. He knew the road like the back of his hand. Knew the very moment when the roof of the farmhouse came into view. Knew the sound of the gravel under the tyres as he turned the big vehicle in through the always-open gates at the top of the drive, passing the Essex, which had been left as it often was, pulled in to the side, leaving only just enough room for him to get the lorry by. The tight left hand turn into the yard at the back of the farmhouse, still bright with its new paint: white stonework, with the woodwork all picked out in blue, the colours of Fred’s football team, Huddersfield Town. They were both Huddersfield men. It was part of the bond between them. And as he drove down into the yard, there at the water trough had been the familiar figure of Dolly herself, filling buckets for the horses.
‘Did you see anyone when you reached Saxton Grange? Can you tell us what happened when you arrived there?’
‘When I drove into the yard, I noticed Mrs Morton was filling buckets, at the water trough. I turned off the engine, got down from the cab, then went straight round the back and started taking down the ramp, ready to unload the cow. Mrs Morton came over to help me. I asked her where the boss was, and told her that I wanted to go back out again, shortly.’
‘And what did she say?’
‘She said, “Oh do you?”’
‘Did you ask her what she had been doing that afternoon?’
‘No, I didn’t, but she told me that she had been swimming at Wetherby.’
‘She simply volunteered this information without being asked?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Were you in any way upset by this?’
‘No. I was not particularly interested.’
‘Have you any idea why she told you about going swimming with another man, that afternoon?’
‘You would be better asking her.’
Mr Streatfield’s eyes conveyed a warning look. There was nothing to be gained, from getting too cheeky.
‘Did you, at any point, drag Mrs Morton across the yard?’
‘No.’
‘Did you push her over?’
‘I did not.’
‘Can you tell us what you did
do?’
‘I had a halter on the cow and Mrs Morton helped me to walk her into the mistal and as we were both coming out again, Mrs Morton got in my way and I pushed her. It was accidental, but the floor was greasy and she slipped and fell.’
‘Did you assist her to her feet?’
‘No. She got up before I could help her. She was annoyed, and she said, “You have done something that you will be sorry for.”’
‘And what did you reply?’
‘I think I said something in apology, but she was still angry. Then I went into the barn to fetch some hay for the cow and I think she followed me in there. I heard her calling out something, but I’m not sure what she said, because I was up the ladder in the loft by then. While I was still up there I heard another voice outside in the yard, which must have been Miss Houseman, and after that it went quiet and I assumed that they must have both gone inside.’
‘So what did you do next?’
‘I got on with my chores. I took the horsebox round to the muck heap and part cleared it out. I only part did the job as I wanted to get done in time to catch the bus that passes the road end at nine o’clock. I intended to finish the job off the next morning.’
‘You intended to catch the bus back to Tadcaster?’
‘Yes.’
‘Had you not made an arrangement to take the Essex car and give Mrs Littlewood a lift into Leeds?’
‘No. There was no firm arrangement made with Mrs Littlewood. I never used the car without the master’s permission, and as he was not there to give it, I intended to catch the bus.’ It made him feel uncomfortable, to contradict Wally’s evidence in this way, but there was no helping it.
‘So,’ Mr Streatfield prompted. ‘After you had dealt with the horsebox, then what did you do?’
‘I went into the house. Miss Houseman was in the kitchen and I asked her to fetch Mrs Morton, so that I could speak with her. I waited while she fetched Mrs Morton and then I explained to her about the cow – so that she could tell Mr Morton when he came home. Then I asked her for some help getting the ducks in for the night.’
‘Was this a usual thing?’
‘Oh yes. It’s much easier to do with two of you, and Mrs Morton had often helped in the past, but that night she said she couldn’t, as she was waiting for a phone call from her father.’
