Obediently he goes, half into shadow, and then turns to listen.
(Into phone.) Hallo. Is that Mrs Jenks?… Alma Rattenbury… Ratz and I wondered if we could take you at your word and come over for a few days… (To WOOD.) Go on, ducky –
WOOD. I’m warning you, Alma. Something really bad –
ALMA (into phone). Well, I thought tomorrow, if you could have us – Oh, that is nice… Yes, we’ll drive over… I’ve a chauffeur now, you know. Lovely, see you soon. Goodbye.
WOOD runs out.
Fade out except for the spot on O’CONNOR, and dimly on the JUDGE.
O’CONNOR. Wood’s statement continues –
The light on the JUDGE fades out.
‘I went to my dad’s and borrowed the mallet. Then I went back. I could see them through the French windows, playing cribbage. Then she went up to bed. So I went into the room and hit him three times on the back of the head with the mallet. Then I went into the garden and hid the mallet. Then I went up to bed.’
The light on O’CONNOR fades and comes up on the Villa Madeira. In the sitting room, very dimly seen, is the slumped figure of RATTENBURY in the armchair. Upstairs ALMA is in bed in pyjamas, reading.
ALMA (calling). George!
WOOD (off). Yes.
ALMA. Where have you been all evening?
WOOD (off). Out.
ALMA. What are you doing?
WOOD (off). Getting undressed.
ALMA. You want to come in?
Pause.
WOOD appears in the passage, dressed in silk pyjamas. He goes into ALMA’s room, and slips off his pyjamas, letting them drop on the floor.
(Lovingly.) That’s no way to treat three-guinea pyjamas, my lad –
He climbs into bed. She kisses him. He turns on his back.
WOOD. I’m in trouble, Alma. Real trouble.
ALMA. ‘Real trouble’? There’s no such thing, that’s what I always say –
He turns over again, his back to her, and begins to cry.
This is a lovely world, and we’re all meant to enjoy it. Now, come on. Look at me –
WOOD. I can’t.
ALMA. Well, at least then tell me what it is.
WOOD. I can’t… It’s Ratz.
ALMA. What about him?
WOOD. I’ve – hurt him –
ALMA. You had a fight?
WOOD. Not a fight… I wish it had been a fight.
ALMA. Have you hurt him badly?
WOOD. Yes. Very badly.
Suddenly there is a hoarse sound from RATTENBURY, whose head falls forward.
ALMA (rising). Was that him?
WOOD. It must have been. I thought I’d killed him.
She sits up in bed.
ALMA. What have you done to him?
There is another sound from below.
(Calling.) I’m coming, Ratz, I’m coming, darling.
She puts on a blue kimono, lying on the end of the bed. He clutches her arm.
WOOD. Don’t go down.
ALMA. I must. If he’s hurt badly, I must help him –
WOOD. I’ve done for him, Alma. You won’t get him back –
ALMA (running down the stairs). I’m coming, Ratz darling. I’m coming.
She runs into the darkened sitting room. After a moment she lets out a loud scream.
WOOD gets back into his pyjamas and leans over the banisters again.
IRENE comes out of her room.
IRENE (to WOOD). What’s the matter?
WOOD. Don’t know, I’m sure.
She gives him a suspicious glance, then runs down the stairs, just as ALMA comes out of the sitting room staggering from shock.
IRENE. What is it?
ALMA. Ratz. Someone’s hurt him, Irene – Agh! Dr O’Donnell. Run out and get Dr O’Donnell. Quick, Irene – quick… Tell him Ratz may be dying.
IRENE runs out of the front door. We still don’t see RATTENBURY clearly, but as ALMA approaches the chair his body suddenly slumps out of it on the floor. ALMA gives a gasp and runs away. Then she kneels at his side. WOOD has come into the room.
Ratz – my darling Ratz – help’s coming soon. Stay alive, please stay alive – Ratzie, can you hear me?
WOOD has approached the body.
WOOD. It’s no good, Alma. I told you upstairs I’d done for him, and I have.
ALMA. Oh no, no – he isn’t dead. He can’t be. Ratz… Ratz –
WOOD pours her a large whisky, and makes her drink it. It makes her retch.
Why did you do this? Why, why?
WOOD. I had to. He was stealing you away from me.
ALMA. Oh God, you little idiot. He wasn’t stealing me – he couldn’t have – Look, oh my God! He’s –
She points to RATTENBURY’s trousers, where he has fouled himself. Again ALMA retches.
WOOD. I told you I was going to do something really bad –
ALMA. To me. I thought you meant to me.
She takes off her kimono, and covers RATTENBURY with it.
Oh God, poor Ratz. Why didn’t you kill me?
There is a ring at the front door.
Go upstairs. Go to your room. Don’t come down here unless you’re sent for, and then know nothing about it. Nothing at all, do you understand?
There is another ring at the front door.
Go upstairs.
WOOD turns to go.
WOOD. What’ll you tell them?
ALMA. I’ll think something up. Coming?
O’CONNOR. ‘I’ll think something up’… ‘I’ll think something up.’ And what she thought up was the ludicrous mad story she told the police. Was it the story of a sane, calm, balanced woman? Or was it not a story thought up in panic by a woman in a deep state of shock, aggravated by repeated doses of whisky, and desperate at all costs to save the life of her lover?
CROOM-JOHNSON. You’re addressing the jury! My lord, really I must object. Counsel is addressing the jury.
JUDGE. Yes, I quite agree. Mr O’Connor, that was highly improper. The time for your address to the jury is not yet, as you very well know. That was really highly improper.
O’CONNOR. I’m so sorry, my lord, you are, of course, quite right. I’m afraid I was momentarily carried away. I do apologise to my learned friend, and to you, my lord.
JUDGE. Have you finished with Wood’s statement?
O’CONNOR. Yes, my lord.
JUDGE. And you propose to continue your examination on more conventional lines?
O’CONNOR. Indeed, my lord.
JUDGE. Then first I must address a few remarks to the jury, and try to make certain important matters clear. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I trust you understand that what you have just heard read to you is a statement made by the prisoner Wood, and cannot be used in any way at all as evidence against the prisoner Rattenbury. If you have heard anything you consider prejudicial to Mrs Rattenbury, you must put it completely out of your minds. I trust that is clear. Very well, Mr O’Connor, you may proceed.
O’CONNOR. Thank you, my lord. Now, Mrs Rattenbury, I’m going to ask you a very important question. Is there any part of that statement of Wood’s that is in any way inaccurate or untrue?
JUDGE. Mrs Rattenbury, you must answer the question.
O’CONNOR. Is there?
ALMA shakes her head.
Mrs Rattenbury, is any part of that statement inaccurate or untrue in any way?
ALMA. … No.
O’CONNOR. None whatever?
ALMA. No.
O’CONNOR. Thank you. And what you thought up, was the ludicrous mad story that you told the police…
CROOM-JOHNSON. Is that a question?
O’CONNOR. It is a question. Mrs Rattenbury, have you ever in your life suffered a greater shock to your mind, body and spirit than you suffered that night when you found your husband battered to death by your lover?
CASSWELL and CROOM-JOHNSON are both on their feet.
CASSWELL and CROOM-JOHNSON. My lord –
O’CONNOR. –
Presumably by your lover?
ALMA. No. Nothing ever – in all my life.
O’CONNOR. These stories of your dancing semi-nude, making advances to policemen, playing the gramophone at full blast – did they or did they not come as a complete surprise to you when they were told to you as late as three weeks ago?
ALMA. Yes, they did.
O’CONNOR. And what was your overriding emotion on hearing of them?
ALMA. Shame. Deep, deep shame.
Pause.
O’CONNOR. Mrs Rattenbury, three last questions. Did you murder your husband?
ALMA. No.
O’CONNOR. Did you take any part whatever in planning his murder?
ALMA. No.
O’CONNOR. Did you, in fact, know a thing about it until Wood told you, in bed upstairs, that he had done it?
ALMA. No. If I’d known, I’d have prevented it.
O’CONNOR. Thank you. That is all.
He sits down. ALMA starts to leave the box.
CROOM-JOHNSON (getting up quickly). Just a moment, Mrs Rattenbury, you’re not finished yet. I have some questions to ask you. In fact, a great many questions.
The lights fade.
The lights come up on CROOM-JOHNSON’s cross-examination of ALMA, which has now been in progress for some hours. She is very tired.
… Mrs Rattenbury, just how old was Wood when you first invited him into the Villa Madeira as your lover?
ALMA. I didn’t invite him – not in the way you mean. He insisted on living in –
CROOM-JOHNSON. ‘Insisted’?
ALMA. Why not?
CROOM-JOHNSON. But surely you could have resisted him easily, a boy of seventeen?
ALMA. Not ‘easily’ at all. Ever since this case began, the one thing I’ve heard is how I must have dominated this boy. Well, I can only say that if anyone dominated anyone else, it was George who dominated me –
CROOM-JOHNSON. Very interesting, but let us please stick to the facts. You have admitted, have you not, cheating your husband out of a considerable sum in order to take your lover up to London. Was that done under Wood’s ‘domination’?
ALMA. It was his idea.
CROOM-JOHNSON. And The Royal Palace his choice of hotel?
ALMA. No. That was mine.
CROOME-JOHNSON. And whose idea was it buying the engagement ring?
ALMA. It wasn’t an engagement ring.
CROOM-JOHNSON. Well, whatever it was, who suggested buying it?
Pause.
ALMA. I did.
CROOM-JOHNSON. Indeed. Now, let us return once more to the evening of the murder. This purported conversation – this alleged confession of Wood’s – took place in your bedroom?
ALMA. Yes.
CROOM-JOHNSON. But I understood that your sexual meetings usually occurred in Wood’s room?
ALMA. Yes. That was because of little John sleeping in mine.
CROOM-JOHNSON (a shade wearily). That night then little John was somewhere else?
ALMA (almost equally weary). No. He was in my room.
There is a murmur in court. CROOM-JOHNSON instantly perks alive. The JUDGE looks up. Even O’CONNOR looks unhappy.
CROOM-JOHNSON. Little John was in your room?
ALMA. Yes, but sound asleep.
CROOM-JOHNSON. Your lover climbed into your bed with your little son in the same room?
ALMA. Yes, but he was sound asleep.
CROOM-JOHNSON. Used this to happen often?
ALMA. Well, it had to sometimes, when Christopher was home.
CROOM-JOHNSON. Your lover would clamber into bed with you and you would indulge in sexual congress, with your six-year-old child in the same room?
ALMA. But he’s a very sound sleeper.
CROOM-JOHNSON. A little child of no more than six summers –
O’CONNOR. My lord, I fail to see how any of this is pertinent, unless, of course, my learned friend intends to call little John as a witness in rebuttal of his mother’s testimony.
CROOM-JOHNSON. I find that remark in the most appalling taste –
O’CONNOR. And I find these constant references to little John’s presence in that room – a cheeild (Pronounces it so.) of no more than six summers – autumns, winters and springs come to that – I find these slurs on my client’s moral character not only in appalling taste, but immoral, unfair, and entirely irrelevant. Who killed Francis Mawson Rattenbury? Isn’t that what this court is convened to find out? It is surely not whether an act – or several acts – of sexual congress were committed in the distant presence of a heavily dormant child.
CROOM-JOHNSON. I trust my learned friend will have breath for his final address –
O’CONNOR. You need have no fear of that.
JUDGE. Gentlemen, please. This is becoming more of a cockpit than a court of law. I think Mr O’Connor is right, Mr Croom-Johnson. You have asked the witness a question – a perfectly relevant one in my view – and she has answered it. Pray let the matter rest there.
CROOM-JOHNSON. As your lordship pleases. Now, I want to be absolutely fair to you, Mrs Rattenbury –
O’CONNOR (muttering). ‘Fair’?
CROOM-JOHNSON. When Wood, in bed with you, with your little boy in the comer –
O’CONNOR. My lord.
CROOM-JOHNSON. I have not asked my question yet.
JUDGE. Please ask it, Mr Croom-Johnson.
CROOM-JOHNSON. When Wood told you that night that he had hit your husband with a mallet, did you believe him?
ALMA (her voice a weary croak). Not at first. No.
CROOM-JOHNSON. When you went downstairs and found your husband had indeed been hit on the head, did you believe him then?
ALMA. Well, one naturally would, wouldn’t one?
CROOM-JOHNSON. You are here to answer my questions, not to ask them of me, madam.
ALMA. I see. Well, I did believe that he had done it then.
CROOM-JOHNSON. It is my duty to submit to you that you knew Wood had done it because you had encouraged him to do it? (After a pause.) Well?
ALMA. I’m sorry. Was that a question?
CROOM-JOHNSON. It was a question, Mrs Rattenbury, and a very important one.
ALMA. I thought I’d answered it. Still, if you want it again. (Raising her voice.) I did not plot my husband’s death. It was a great shock to me. I have never, in all my life, harmed a human being.
CROOM-JOHNSON. You have never ‘harmed a human being’?
Pause.
ALMA (on the edge of tears). Not meaning to. Not till now.
The JUDGE indicates to CROOM-JOHNSON to continue.
CROOM-JOHNSON. Mrs Rattenbury, in answer to my learned friend you said that if Wood had told you of his intention to murder your husband you would have prevented it. How would you have done that?
ALMA. I’d have told him not to dare do such a wicked thing.
CROOM-JOHNSON. Would that have been enough?
ALMA. The way I’d have said it it would.
CROOM-JOHNSON. But I thought you said he dominated you?
ALMA does not reply.
Well – supposing you had failed to persuade him, what would you have done?
ALMA. Gone to the police, I suppose.
CROOM-JOHNSON. But after the murder, the police were all over the house. Why did you not tell them then?
ALMA. That was different.
CROOM-JOHNSON. Why?
ALMA. Well, Ratz was dead and I suppose I felt responsible.
CROOM-JOHNSON. I beg your pardon?
ALMA. I said – I suppose I felt responsible.
CROOM-JOHNSON. ‘Responsible.’ Thank you.
He sits down. O’CONNOR gets to his feet, stifling a yawn – an old trick of his.
O’CONNOR (languidly). Only two questions, Mrs Rattenbury – (Straight at CROOM-JOHNSON.) only two. By the word ‘responsible’ did you mean criminally responsible for your husband’s murder?
ALMA. No.
O’CONNOR. Did you mean morally responsible for you
r lover’s protection?
ALMA. Yes. That’s exactly what I meant.
O’CONNOR. Thank you, Mrs Rattenbury. That is all. That is the case for the defence of the prisoner Rattenbury, my lord.
JUDGE. Very well. I think that is a convenient moment to adjourn…
ALMA seems momentarily entirely ignored.
The lawyers rise, stretch, and gather their papers, as the JUDGE perfunctorily nods three times, and leaves his chair. MONTAGU has seen ALMA delaying in the box. He assumes rightly that she has not the physical strength to regain the dock – nor, perhaps, the moral strength either. He goes to the box through his preoccupied colleagues, and offers her his arm.
MONTAGU. You did very well – very well indeed.
She seems not to have heard.
(Comfortingly.) Your job is done now.
ALMA (in a hoarse whisper). Yes.
Fade out on the court as ALMA and the lawyers leave.
The lights come on in MRS DAVENPORT’s sitting room. STELLA is on the sofa, her head deep in a newspaper. MRS DAVENPORT comes in.
MRS DAVENPORT. Has Tony called yet?
STELLA. Tony? No. He hasn’t. Well? How was Mrs Rattenbury?
MRS DAVENPORT stops, but doesn’t reply.
My God – she must have dominated that boy. Did she –
MRS DAVENPORT laughs harshly.
What’s so funny?
MRS DAVENPORT. Yes, I suppose that’s how it must seem.
STELLA (appalled). ‘Seem’? Edie, you’re not saying –
MRS DAVENPORT. I’m not saying anything.
STELLA. Yes, you are. I know you too well. ‘That’s how it must seem.’ Edie – she’s an awful, awful woman. Sleeping with that boy with her baby in the room –
MRS DAVENPORT. What’s that got to do with whether she committed murder?
STELLA. Everything, I should have thought –
MRS DAVENPORT. Then you don’t know the law.
STELLA. It seems as if I don’t know you.
MRS DAVENPORT. Perhaps you don’t. It’s that word – ‘dominated’. All the time, all the time that man was on at her: ‘You were twenty years older, madam. Twenty years older. I put it to you – you dominated that boy.’ Do you know what she answered? ‘When an older person loves a younger, it’s the younger who dominates because the younger has so much more to give.’
Pause.
STELLA. And you thought of Tony?
MRS DAVENPORT. Of course.
Cause Célèbre Page 12
