Beyond This Place

by A. J. Cronin

  Swann paused, moistened his lips.

  "Unfortunately for him, Mathry was a quick-tempered man, he resisted his arrest, made the fatal mistake of striking an officer. Add on the fact, as I've just said, that he was taken in the very act of leaving for South America, and you had a very damning situation. And straight away he made it worse. Naturally, at his preliminary examination the first question asked of him was: 'Where were you between eight and nine on the evening of September eighth?' Not knowing that his friend had given him away, Mathy answered: 'Playing billiards with a man named Rocca.' That seemed to put the clincher on it."

  Swann let his head fall back, and a queer look came into his lack-lustre eyes.

  "I must tell you about my boss, the Superintendent — now he's the head of the Wortley police, Chief Constable Adam Dale. The son of a Cumberland farmer, he'd worked his way up from the bottom, was strict on discipline, loyal to his men, a first-rate officer, and he never took a bribe in his life. He loved his work and used to boast to me that he could spot a criminal a mile away. And from the beginning, he'd spotted Mathry."

  Fired by his own words, the sick man strove to raise himself upon his elbow.

  "Now for me it wasn't so easy. Although the evidence seemed so conclusive, I pointed out that Mathry had booked the tickets to South America in his own name, that he had likewise engaged rooms at the Liverpool hotel for himself and his family quite openly, without concealing his identity — a thing inconceivable

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  in the case of a man who was afraid of pursuit and who wished to cover up his traces. Besides, in spite of the chain of damaging evidence, Mathry impressed me favourably. He made no attempt to deny that he knew Spurring, acknowledged he had sketched and sent her the post card. And he maintained he was only out for a bit of mild amusement. Now that flirtatious, slightly silly message on the card, 'Absence makes the heart grow fonder' bore this out exactly. Again, the injuries to Spurring were so terrible they could only have been inflicted by a powerful individual, and Rees was slightly built. His character was lightweight too, and this struck me as a conceivable explanation of his attempt to arrange the alibi with Rocca. Nervous and worried, more and more alarmed by the publicity given his stupid post card, he might have felt the need of somebody to back him up. A foolish step — but one that fitted the pattern of his story.

  "I put all this up to the Chief but he would not listen, he was convinced — and quite honestly, mind you — that he had the right man."

  Swann sank down on his pillows and rested for a moment before resuming, more quietly:

  "The official mind works in regular channels — nobody knows that better than me — and the routine set in motion by Chief Constable Dale followed the standard and, of course, perfectly proper practice. He wanted to find a weapon among Mathry's belongings accountable for the victim's injuries. He wanted to discover blood stains upon Mathry's suit. He wanted witnesses who could identify Mathry as the man seen at the scene of the crime.

  "Almost at once, in one of Mathry's trunks, the Chief Constable found his weapon. This was a razor, a large old-fashioned German blade, slightly rusty from disuse. Mathry freely admitted it had been in his possession for years — he had inherited it from his father. He had often been tempted to scrap it, but for sentimental reasons he hadn't. Now, if Mathry had used this blade to do the deed was it likely that he would have carefully and considerately preserved it for us to find? No, no, without exception the first action of a murderer is to rid himself of the weapon.

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  Yet Dale was near jumping with pride and satisfaction when he showed the razor to me.

  " Didn't I tell you,' he declared. 'We have him now.'

  "It was sent to the experts to be examined tor blood stains, along with a large package of Mathry's clothing. Meanwhile, the examination of the witnesses was proceeding, who on the night of the crime had seen the murderer coming from the flat . . . Mr. Prusty, Edward Collins, and Louisa Burt. Prusty was a shortsighted man, Collins a soft youth who seemed reluctant to testify. However, the witness Burt was qviite a different character. Now this young girl, on a dark and rainy September night, in a street with hardly any lights, got one second's glimpse of the criminal. Yet she professed herself able to supply the most exact details of his appearance. I can still see her round, earnest face, as she came gushing; out with her statement.

  " 'A man about thirty-five,' said she. Tall, thin and dark, with pale features, straight nose, clean shaven. He wore a check cap, a drab-coloured raincoat, and brown boots.'

  "At first, Dale was pleased with this description. However, after the arrest of Mathry, the band played a different tune — for Mathry was neither tall, dark, nor clean shaven, but of medium size, fair-complexioned, and he had a brown moustache. Also, his clothing was quite different. However, Burt was equal to the occasion. She protested she had been confused, had spoken in a hurry when she made her first statement. Quite calmly she shelved the big, clean-shaven character in favour of a shorter man with a moustache. And Collins, who, immediately after the event, had flatly told me he would not be able positively to identify the man now came into line with Burt. The light check cap became a soft dark hat, the raincoat a grey ulster. In short, the description was adjusted to one which, though it was vague, might well have fitted Mathry."

  Swann rested again, his pale lips drawn back, as he fought to get his breath.

  "The next step was to take these important deponents to view the prisoner. The Chief himself accompanied them, and I was in the party also. Eleven policemen in plain clothes were lined up in a room with Mathry. It's the standard identification parade

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  and some think it's a fair test. At any rate, the two witnesses were positive in their identification. Mathry was removed to Wortley, formally charged with the murder of Mona Spurling."

  The sick man turned weakly on his side and gazed directly at Paul.

  "Yet I still couldn't think that his number was up . . . the case against him was too perfect and I felt that somewhere it must crack. But I hadn't bargained on the advocate who was counsel for the prosecution. You might think that the Chief Constable — honest, dogged Dale — was mainly responsible for what happened to Mathry, but no, no, when it came to the bit, it was this Sprott, this brainy man who really did the trick. He's now Sir Matthew, he's risen near the top of the tree, and hell likely go further, but then he was unknown, and desperately anxious to succeed. The minute I heard him I saw that he meant to hang Mathry.

  "Well, it began. The prosecution called all its experts. They didn't call Dr. Tuke, the doctor who had first seen the body. They had, besides the police surgeon, Dobson, a professor named Jenkins, who testified that the Frass razor could have caused the injuries which had proved fatal to the victim. He was not prepared to swear that there were blood stains upon the weapon or on the prisoner's coat, but he had found traces of bodies which might have been mammalian corpuscles. Next came the handwriting expert who swore that the charred note found in the victim's flat was written by Mathry 'in a disguised left hand.' When Collins and Burt went into the box they surpassed themselves — Burt, especially, with her young innocent face and big earnest eyes made a tremendous impression on the jury. She stood there like an angel, and swore: 'That is the identical coat,' and 'That is the very man,' and again — referring to the identity parade —with real pride: 'I was the first to put the finger on him!'

  "Then came the speech for the Crown. For three hours Sprott let himself go, without a pause, without a single written note. The words flowed out of his mouth and put a spell upon the court. When he painted the picture of the crime, by God. he laid it on heavy — the guilty man hugging the razor in his pocket, brutally

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  attacking his defenceless paramour, the mother of his unborn child, then fleeing headlong to hide himself in a foreign land ... I tell you it was masterly. The jury, open-mouthed, hung on every word.

>   "The speech by the prisoner's counsel was useless beside this performance. The financial resources of the defence were negligible, counsel was an oldish man, draggingly slow, with a thin voice, and he was uninstructed on many points. In particular he seemed quite unaware of evidence likely to be favourable to Mathry.

  "Well, it was soon over. Guilty. The prisoner's protests of innocence went through me like a knife. But he was dragged away and everybody was well pleased. The £500 reward offered for conviction was paid out to Collins and Burt. God knows they had earned it."

  The sick man's strength seemed at last to fail him, he lay back, and, in an exhausted voice, declared that he could not continue.

  "Come again in a day or so. You'll hear the rest then."

  There was a long, a terrible silence in the narrow room. Silently, Boulia got up, poured some water into a glass and put it to Swann's lips. He swallowed, without moving. All this time, Paul sat dazed, his head supported in his hands, a storm of emotion sweeping him. A string of questions trembled wildly upon his tongue. But he knew he could not put them, that the session for today was ended — Swann had closed his eyes, completely limp, beyond all further effort. As Mark tip-toed from the room Paul rose unsteadily, pressed the sick man's hand between his own, then followed through the door.

  CHAPTER XI

  COULD it be that an innocent man had been buried alive for fifteen years? Uncertain and confused, swayed this way and that, Paul scarcely dared frame that frightful question. Swann had as

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  yet offered no concrete proof, only an attitude of mind. The thing seemed inconceivable. Yet the mere possibility of such a monstrous injustice inflicted upon his father was enough to drive Paul frantic. He must not think of it. Determinedly he strove for command of his emotions. He realized that now, above all, he must be calm, practical, and resolute.

  His first step was to write home asking for a parcel of fresh clothing, his next to find a permanent lodging which would afford him more freedom of action than the Y.M.C.A. After some searching he discovered a cheap attic on the fifth floor of a rooming-house in Poole Street — a frowsy but respectable thoroughfare in a loop of the Sherwood Canal mainly given over to inferior boarding houses, which lay south of the traffic-infested channel of Ware Street. The landlady, Mrs. Coppin, a spare little woman with a penetrating voice, showed him upstairs, gave him soap and a coarse clean towel. The advance payment on his room almost exhausted the small store of money he had brought from Belfast, and, when he had washed, he set out to find some means of supporting himself.

  Wortley was a humming city, a vast hive of activity, embedded in flat farming country, but, like its neighbours Coventry and Northampton, its industries were highly specialized, devoted mainly to the manufacture of china, cutlery, and leather goods — trades demanding a technical training and skill which Paul did not possess. Also, he had no union membership card, no references which he cared to produce, and of course he was not yet fully qualified as a teacher. When two days had gone by without result he scanned the "situations vacant" columns of the newspapers with increasing anxiety.

  But on the following morning a stroke of real luck came his way. As he came out of his attic room and walked along the crowded pavement of Ware Street to the cabman's shelter, where he had discovered that he could lunch for a few pence on a sausage roll and coffee, he observed, pasted on the window of a large store known as The Bonanza Bazaar, a notice:

  Pianist Wanted.

  Apply Mr. Victor Harris, Manager, within.

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  After a moment's hesitation, Paul entered the shop. It was one of those emporia selling all sorts of everyday goods, from hardware and cosmetics to underwear and children's toys, lavishly displaying its merchandise upon a series of open counters — a local replica of the transpontine five-and-ten-cent stores. The manager, a man of about thirty with marcelled hair and a smoothly efficient manner, took a brisk look at Paul, then led the way, in his striped double-breasted suit, his flowered tie blowing in the breeze of the electric fans, to a section of the store where an upright piano stood amongst a display of sheet music. Taking a piece at random, he placed it on the instrument and said briefly:

  "Play!"

  Paul sat down and ran his fingers over the keys. He could read perfectly at sight, even difficult music, and this popular waltz before him was simplicity itself. He played it through, repeated it with some variations of his own, then picking up several other sheets, he played these over too. Before he had finished, the girls at the adjoining counters were listening and Mr. Harris was beating time approvingly on the counter with his rhinestone ring.

  "You'll do." The manager nodded his decision. "You're hired. Three pounds a week and a sandwich lunch. Only see you keep going. No slacking or you're out on your ear. And use the loud pedal. Make the customers buy."

  He gave Paul a patronising smile, showing the gold in his teeth, then, with a frown towards the other assistants for wasting their time, he moved easily away.

  Paul kept on playing all day. It was no sinecure. He began freshly enough, but as the hours wore on his muscles ached from sitting, unsupported, on the hard piano stool, and when the ill-ventilated store filled up, the crowd milling and pushing around him, breathing down his neck, jogging his elbows, almost silting on the keyboard, became unbearably oppressive. His mind, too, was in a turmoil, torn by thoughts of his father, by half-formed plans and projects, by the need for deciding upon a definite course of action.

  Towards one o'clock Harris swaggered out for lunch and

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  after a few minutes the girl in charge of the cafeteria brought over coffee and a plate of sandwiches to Paul. Glad of a respite, he got up, stretched himself, and, with a smile, asked her name. She told him, flatly, Lena Andersen. But although he had thought to exchange a word with her, she moved off immediately to another part of the shop. There was nothing uncivil in this reserve; yet beneath the surface of her manner he sensed a constraint which, through his troubled mood, stirred his curiosity. And later, when she returned to the cafeteria across the way, almost instinctively he glanced towards her before beginning once more to play.

  She could not have been more than twenty years of age and seemed to him a Scandinavian type — tall, with blond hair, and long limbs. Her features were regular and, though marred by a fine white scar running down from her high cheek-bone, would have been attractive but for a deep melancholy concentrated between her brows. Indeed, in repose, her face was unusually sad, her expression distant, intent, and serious. Several times that afternoon, despite himself, Paul's gaze was drawn towards this tragic young Amazon. He noticed that she wore her uniform quietly, with good taste. Although she appeared on good terms with the other assistants, she kept herself apart, and was restrained with all but a few of her regular customers. What sort of person was she? He tried her with a glance, inquiring and friendly, but it passed unanswered. Instead she lowered her gaze and turned away.

  The afternoon dragged on. He closed his eyes while his fingers hammered out on the keyboard a melody already so sickeningly familiar he knew it by heart. Six o'clock came at last and, with a sigh of relief, he was free. Hurrying from the store, he made his way directly to the infirmary, and after some difficulty, again gained admission to Swann. The sick man seemed worse, and in a low and brooding mood was disinclined to talk. Indeed, it was as though he regretted having spoken so freely on the previous occasion. But as Paul sat patiently by his bedside, not pressing him in any way, he gradually relented. He did, then, turn his head, gazing at the young man with a kind of pity.

  "So you came back?" he said at last.

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  "Yes," Paul answered in a low voice.

  "I warn you ... if you go on with this it'll change your whole life ... as it did mine. And once you've put your hand to it, there'll be no turning back."

  "I won't turn back."

  "Then how do you propose to beg
in?"

  "I thought if I typed out a statement and you signed it, I could take it to the authorities . . ."

  Swann could not laugh — but a short, sardonic tremor passed across his pale lips.

  "What authorities? The police? They're already fully informed — and quite satisfied with the situation. The Public Prosecutor, Sir Matthew Sprott? From personal knowledge of that gentleman, I advise you not to meddle with him." Swann paused, taken by a long fit of coughing. "No. The Secretary of State, in Parliament, alone has the power to open up the matter, and you wouldn't get within a mile of him with your present evidence. The delirious ravings — that's what they'd call it — of a dying, discredited ex-policeman would carry no weight whatsoever. They'd simply laugh at you."

  "But you believe my father is innocent."

  "I know he's innocent," Swann answered, with a trace of brusqueness. "In his summing up the judge called the Spurling murder a vile, brutal, monstrous crime, for which the extreme penalty of the law was too light a punishment. And yet they reprieved Mathry. Why, I ask you, why? Maybe they weren't quite sure, after all, that the man they'd convicted was guilty and so, out of the generosity of their hearts, they didn't swing him up quick, they gave him slow death instead — life imprisonment in Stoneheath."

  Paul sat, silent and appalled, while the sick man struggled to regain his breath.

  "No," Swann said presently, in a dry, totally different tone. "There is only one way to force them to re-open the case. You must discover the real murderer."

  Taken unawares, Paul felt a chill traverse his spine. Hitherto he had considered only his father's innocence, the thought of the

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  actual assassin had scarcely entered his head. It was as though a new and formidable shadow had fallen across his path.

  "The man Rocca," he ventured, after a prolonged silence. "What about him?"