Dead Man's Bluff

by Roderic Jeffries

  ‘Why should I?’

  ‘One good reason might be that you’re on oath to tell the truth.’

  ‘That is the truth.’

  ‘We shall have to examine the matter more closely. When and how did you first meet Daniel Knott?’

  ‘In October last year. He came into the shop and bought some flowers.’

  ‘Was this in the beginning of the month?’

  ‘It was about the middle.’

  ‘When did you first have sexual intercourse with him?’

  ‘I can’t remember.’

  Hapwood picked up a piece of paper. ‘I have a certified bank statement here … Usher, pass copies to his lordship and the jury, please … and it shows that in the last week of October, Daniel Knott started drawing cash cheques on a hitherto unprecedented scale. It seems reasonable to suppose that most of this extra money was spent on you.’

  ‘He didn’t take me out much,’ she protested sullenly.

  ‘By February, Daniel Knott had an overdraft of twelve hundred pounds and the bank was pressing for repayment. From then on, the amount drawn was of necessity far smaller and as a direct result he could not spend nearly as much on you. I suggest that this led to great discontent on your part?’

  ‘That’s a lie.’

  ‘I suggest you went out with him because you originally thought he was very much better off than he was and that when you discovered the truth you threatened to have nothing more to do with him?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Which is why, besotted in his love for you, he set out to conduct an insurance swindle. I further suggest that in order to hold your interest he told you all about the swindle and the forty thousand pounds?’

  The judge intervened. ‘Mr Hapwood, by your questions you have inferred the existence of a number of facts — that Knott spent a great deal of money on entertaining this witness, that this witness believed him to be rich, that when she discovered he was not she threatened to break off her relationship with him, and that she was fully aware of the intended insurance swindle. What proof have you of these allegations?’

  ‘My Lord, it is obvious from the surrounding facts and the nature of the friendship so clearly outlined by the witness herself at the start of the cross-examination … ‘

  ‘I will not, Mr Hapwood, have counsel inferring matters of a derogatory nature when there is no proof to support such inferences.’

  Hapwood, slightly surprised he had been allowed to continue for as long as he had, was satisfied that he had persuaded the jury this witness was not as blameless as she had managed to suggest in her examination-in-chief.

  The judge addressed the jury. ‘Members of the jury, you will be very careful to distinguish between proven facts, proved on evidence given in this court, and allegations made by counsel.’

  Hapwood remained unworried. Nothing the judge could say would now alter the picture in the jury’s minds of a man going out with a woman half his age, spending a great deal of money on her, and then when the bank refused to lend him any more, turning to an insurance fraud because he longed for the woman beyond any other consideration. ‘Miss Clews, on Monday, the twenty-first of August, you claim to have seen a woman outside the shop where you worked. You identified her as Mrs Knott. How many times previously had you seen Mrs Knott?’

  ‘Once.’

  ‘That refers, does it, to the time you and Daniel Knott were dining at a restaurant and she surprised you both?’

  ‘She didn’t surprise me,’ snapped Hazel Clews.

  ‘Then you expected to meet her there?’

  ‘That’s not what I meant.’

  ‘Please tell us what you did mean?’ said Hapwood mockingly.

  ‘What I meant was … We were doing nothing but having a meal.’

  ‘What else could you have been doing?’

  ‘You’ve got a dirty mind,’ she snapped.

  There was considerable laughter and it was several seconds before the usher’s calls for silence were heeded.

  Hapwood smiled, as if relishing the jest against himself, but those who knew him well could judge how false that smile was. ‘You were very vague about when and where this meeting took place: you suggested it might have been in April. That puts it at roughly four months before August the twenty-first?’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘And you did not see Mrs Knott between then and the moment when you claim to have seen her outside the shop where you work?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You have also stated that her features were distorted by emotion — you compared her to a woman having a fit. The features of a person under great emotional stress become considerably changed, don’t they?’

  ‘It was her.’

  ‘But you hadn’t seen her for four months …

  ‘I tell you, it was her. She’d come to find out who I was.’

  ‘How d’you know that?’

  ‘Ain’t it obvious?’

  ‘So on top of the weakest of identifications, you are adding a supposition for which you have no proof?’

  Hazel Clews made no answer.

  Hapwood leaned back against the front of his junior’s desk. There was no point in pursuing the matter further — it was quite certain Mrs Knott had not been at Miss Corrins’s at two that afternoon.

  It was a hell of a case, he reflected. The murder had been committed for gain, three people stood to gain from the death, four people might have carried out the shooting, yet all except Mrs Knottt had alibis. Defence counsel was not offered a sporting chance.

  Chapter 18

  The alarm woke up Clayton. He reached out for the clock to turn off the alarm, but only succeeded in knocking it to the floor with a loud clatter. Margery woke up. ‘Sorry,’ he said.

  She yawned. ‘I’ll bet you did that on purpose!’

  ‘Certainly not,’ he protested.

  ‘You can’t bear to think anyone else is asleep when you’re awake: it’s the sadistic streak in you.’

  He pulled back the bedclothes.

  ‘Don’t get out on your side,’ she said urgently.

  ‘Why ever not?’

  ‘It’s Friday the thirteenth so you know you mustn’t get out on the right-hand side of the bed.’

  ‘You and your superstitions,’ he said jeeringly.

  ‘All right, be pig-headed and get out on your side. And when the house burns down, everything goes wrong for you in court today, and Superintendent Akers is detailed back here for a much longer case, just remember what I said.’ He could ignore the threat of fire, or something going wrong in court, but the thought of Akers decided him. He carefully began to climb over her. She tickled him and he collapsed on top of her.

  ‘You’re just as superstitious as me,’ she said, ‘but you try to be all he-man tough and hide it.’

  He kissed her, then scrambled down on to the floor. ‘What time will you be back, Jim?’ she asked.

  ‘God knows! I’m getting to the office early to cope with some of my other work before I move to Relstone, but I’ll have to return to the station afterwards.’

  ‘Will the trial finish today?’

  ‘Not a chance.’

  ‘How’s Mrs Knott taking it?’

  He spoke slowly. ‘She looks utterly beaten.’

  ‘It must be terrible to have to live with something you did in a moment of passion.’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  She looked at him. ‘Is something wrong, Jim?’

  He shook his head. ‘Just thinking.’

  *

  Cynics who knew Hapwood claimed that one could always judge how well his case was going by the degree to which he attacked the police witnesses: if he suggested that even their evidence as to name and rank was suspect, his case was a real floperoo.

  ‘But who was in the house at that time?’ he said belligerently, in the middle of his cross-examination of Clayton.

  ‘No one, sir,’ answered Clayton.

  ‘Do you mean to tell us you broke into this house?’ H
is voice rose.

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Not? But what else were you doing?’

  ‘Mrs Knott had told me where the key was.’

  ‘On this occasion or on a previous one?’

  ‘On a previous one, sir, but she told me to go over the house when I wanted and so I assumed it would be all right on this second occasion.’

  Hapwood stared up at the domed ceiling of the courtroom. ‘It is a terrible thing,’ he said in solemn tones, ‘to know that a policeman is likely to break into one’s house whenever it is empty.’ He lowered his gaze. ‘Why did you not seek the owner’s permission to enter?’

  ‘I’ve already said what happened, sir. In any case, I wasn’t quite certain who was the owner. If the farm was entailed to Mr Hulton, was Mr Hulton the owner right away or was Mrs Knott the owner until probate was granted?’

  ‘That is sheer prevarication, aimed at keeping the court’s attention away from what actually happened.’

  The judge spoke. ‘It is not unknown for counsel to pursue such tactics, Mr Hapwood.’

  ‘Perhaps, my Lord, but no counsel would engage in such doubtful tactics before your lordship, whose dislike of such things is well known,’ replied Hapwood blandly.

  ‘Well known, but not always respected.’

  Hapwood faced the witness-box again. ‘You broke into this house and went through to the gun-room. Who was with you?’

  ‘No one.’

  ‘So there is no one who can verify your evidence?’

  ‘No, sir, not on this point.’

  ‘Wouldn’t it have been very much better had there been someone?’

  ‘Possibly, sir, but I had no men available — they were all too busy to accompany me on what could so easily have been a wasted journey.’

  ‘But you made certain it wasn’t wasted.’

  ‘I merely checked the case of cartridges I had previously seen in the gun-room.’

  ‘To see if there was one box inside of a different colour and of a different-sized shot to the others?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Since you had previously seen a box of a different colour, you must have known it was likely still to be there. I repeat, do you not think it would have been better to have had a witness?’

  The judge intervened again. ‘Mr Hapwood, are you accusing the witness of having lied about the manner of finding this case of cartridges and the number and type of boxes within it?’

  ‘No, my Lord. I merely wish to establish all the facts and to point out that when important evidence is uncovered it is naturally better if two persons are present at the time rather than one.’

  ‘Since you are satisfied the witness is telling the truth, this point becomes immaterial.’

  Hapwood’s shoulders slumped and his attitude suggested that his client was battling not only the prosecution but also a heavily biased judge. ‘Did you examine the boxes of cartridges?’ he finally asked.

  ‘Only visually.’

  ‘Were they neatly packed?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Was there anything to suggest when the green box had been put in the cardboard case?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘So it could have been there for weeks?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And in consequence might have nothing to do with this case?’

  ‘That’s possible.’

  ‘And if my client says she put the box of Super County cartridges in the case several weeks before the twenty-first of August, you cannot deny her evidence?’

  ‘I have no proof to the contrary.’

  Hapwood hitched up his gown. ‘Inspector, you told my learned friend that you questioned all the gunsmiths and none of them had knowingly sold a box of Super County three shot cartridges to Mr Knott. Did you also question the staff of every shop which sells cartridges? Is it not a fact that some ironmongers sell cartridges? Do not sporting shops, which are not gunsmiths, sell cartridges?’

  ‘Yes, sir. We questioned all known sources of cartridges in Gertfinden, Relstone, and Parqueton, without result.’

  ‘But not the shops in Abbotsbridge?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Or Trighton?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You don’t seem to have made very great efforts, Inspector, to see whether Daniel Knott — contrary to all your theories — did in fact buy those cartridges.’

  ‘We checked as far as we considered necessary, sir. We established the fact that Mr Knott had always bought all his cartridges from Janes and Lines in Gertfinden. If he had bought this box of three shot, surely he would have had no cause to go anywhere else to try and hide his purchase?’ And get round that one, thought Clayton.

  Hapwood didn’t get round the question — he just ignored it. ‘Have you been able to prove that Mrs Knott bought this box of cartridges?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Can you prove there was not another box, or more than one, of the same make and kind of cartridge in the storeroom?’

  ‘We were able to do no more than question Mr Browland on that point.’

  ‘Which, no doubt, can only have led to confusion?’

  ‘We didn’t find him confused when we questioned him.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ said the judge, ‘you do not have learned counsel’s ability to confuse a witness.’

  Hapwood bowed ironically at the Bench.

  *

  Hulton did not try to hide his feelings. ‘Of course I hated seeing the farm go to rack and ruin.’

  Hapwood flicked the tails of his wig away from his neck. ‘Perhaps you saw it as your inheritance that was being squandered?’

  ‘I saw it first as a farm.’ Hulton thrust his square chin forward. ‘It hurts to see any farm being ruined.’

  ‘But must hurt far more when that farm will one day be yours?’ Hapwood paused, then added: ‘Should you, of course, live longer than the life tenant. You must often have wished something would happen to Daniel Knott so that you could take over the farm before it was too late? I suppose that from your point of view his death came at the very last moment?’

  Hulton gripped his huge fists.

  ‘How long had he been dead when you turned up at the farm to claim your inheritance?’

  ‘Look, I came quickly … ’

  ‘So quickly your employer had no notice whatsoever you were going to leave his employment?’

  ‘If you’re so clever, tell me how a farm can run itself. Cows have got to be milked and fed. They don’t live on empty words.’

  ‘Unlike some counsel,’ murmured Riger.

  ‘Even with Daniel Knott dead, were there not the same number of persons about the farm as so often happened?’ asked Hapwood smoothly.

  Hulton hammered his fist on the side of the witness-box. ‘I tell you, there wasn’t anyone around who knew anything.’

  ‘Mr Hulton, who’s looking after the farm at this moment?’

  ‘There’s no one there right now … ’ Hulton’s face reddened.

  ‘So the farm can survive without you?’ Hapwood paused for several seconds before continuing: ‘You worked on a farm in the village of Idenford until you heard of the death of your uncle?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How far by road is Idenford from Endley Cross?’

  ‘Just on thirty miles.’

  ‘How long does it normally take you to drive those thirty miles?’

  ‘Near enough an hour.’

  ‘What sort of car have you?’

  ‘A small van.’

  ‘Could the journey be done by a fast car in a lesser time — say three-quarters of an hour?’

  ‘Maybe, if you aren’t worried about the people.’

  ‘If you had a really fast car, do you think the journey might be done in thirty minutes?’

  ‘I haven’t got a really fast car.’

  ‘I said “if”.’

  ‘If I had a helicopter, I could fly.’

  ‘Did you hire a helicopter to get from Jacktree Farm
to Knott Farm?’ asked Hapwood blandly.

  ‘Of course I didn’t.’

  ‘Then we need waste no time on that supposition. Let me repeat the question: If you have a very powerful car and drove very fast, could you make the journey in thirty minutes?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Thirty-five minutes?’

  ‘I don’t know. I haven’t got a fast car. I don’t drive fast.’ ‘Mr Fingle’s watch would only have had to be a few minutes wrong to extend the possible time available to you for such a journey?’

  Hulton’s face flushed. ‘I didn’t kill Daniel.’

  ‘But if you had been able to borrow a fast car, were an expert driver, and if Mr Fingle’s watch was wrong by only a few minutes, the times show you could have done.’

  ‘I didn’t kill him,’ he shouted.

  Hapwood sat down.

  Riger stood up. ‘Are you quite certain you don’t own a Ferrari or a Lamborghini?’

  ‘Of course I am.’

  ‘Have you any car other than your small Austin van?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did you, on or about the twenty-first of August, borrow or hire a very fast car?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Are you an expert driver?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Have you ever raced cars?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Have you ever known anyone make this journey in forty-five minutes?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Thank you, Mr Hulton.’ As Hulton left the witness-box, his expression was one of frustrated anger.

  *

  ‘This would seem to have been a complicated case?’ said Riger.

  Akers, in the witness-box, nodded. ‘Yes, sir. To begin with it was very complicated, mainly because it appeared to be simple.’

  ‘The court will appreciate the irony of that. However, your investigations soon showed these two deaths were not what they at first appeared to be?’

  ‘There were certain factors that didn’t fit. If I may use a phrase, the rhythm of the case became wrong.’

  ‘I’m sure we can understand what you mean by that, Superintendent. Will you tell us what happened?’

  ‘Right from the beginning, I was puzzled by the amount of cattle cake that was stored in the interior Dutch barn — if the farm was in such a parlous financial state, why had Knott spent so much money on buying food at a time when it was not wanted? Then from the PM I learned that the contents of the second dead man’s stomach showed a meal far too heavy for a day that was one of the hottest …’