Death of a Dancer

by Caro Peacock

  ‘Was this package among them?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘You’re sure of that?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘In this condition, as if somebody had opened it and done it up again hurriedly?’

  ‘Objection!’ Phillips was on his feet. ‘The constable is being asked to give an opinion on something he could not have witnessed.’

  The judge upheld the objection.

  ‘Very well. Was the package in much the same condition as you see it now?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Did you show the package to anybody?’

  ‘To the doctor, sir.’

  The doctor was recalled to the witness box and testified that, on the day following the prisoner’s arrest, he had been shown the basket and the package in question. The prosecution barrister asked him if he’d been able to form an opinion as to what the package contained.

  ‘The leaves, seed pods and seed of datura stramonium.’

  ‘A poison?’

  ‘As I said, highly poisonous.’

  ‘Is it easily procurable by a lay-person?’

  ‘Reasonably so. Many chemists sell it.’

  ‘Would you be surprised to find it in the collection of a young woman who, we are told, treated bruises and sprains?’

  Phillips objected. The judge over-ruled it.

  ‘Somewhat surprised,’ the doctor said.

  When it came to Phillips’ turn to examine the witness, he seized on this.

  ‘You say you were only somewhat surprised. Might there be any innocent reason for a person to possess it?’

  ‘Yes. In low doses, it is effective in treatment of ulcers, inflammations and various other conditions.’

  ‘So the simple possession of it does not imply the intention of doing harm?’

  ‘No.’

  Again, Phillips sat down looking as if he’d scored a great point, but I could see from the faces of the jury that they weren’t impressed.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Soon after that, the court rose for lunch. Daniel stared at Jenny as she was taken down from the dock, willing her, I think, to look up and see him. She didn’t. We held back while the other spectators filed down the stairs.

  ‘She’s a hard one, isn’t she?’ one of the women said. ‘That stare of hers sends shivers through you.’

  It hadn’t struck me until then that Jenny’s shocked blankness could be interpreted as defiance.

  Outside, the smell of roast beef spread over the landing and the sound of male laughter came from behind closed doors. Judges and their officials dine well at the Old Bailey. Daniel wanted to look for Mr Phillips and ask him about points he thought should have been made; Kennedy practically had to drag him out of the building and across the road to the coffee house. All the while, Daniel kept asking in various ways if we thought it was going well for Jenny.

  ‘Surely Blake could have spoken up more for her.’

  ‘Blake did what he could,’ Kennedy said. ‘Any more and the jury would have thought he was too much on her side.’

  ‘Why didn’t Phillips ask him about Columbine and Hardcastle?’

  ‘Because it would only have been hearsay. If we wanted it in evidence, Phillips would have had to put Hardcastle in the witness box, and that wouldn’t have helped Jenny.’

  ‘There must be more he can do.’

  ‘Wait for his final speech to the jury,’ Kennedy said. ‘Everybody says he’s the most eloquent man at the criminal bar.’

  At four o’clock we filed back into the spectators’ gallery. All the gas-lamps had been lit, casting giant shadows of the barristers wavering round the walls. They were clearly agitated. The prosecution barrister and Phillips seemed to be arguing hotly, though in low voices. At one point Phillips slammed a book down on the green baize table with such force that everybody’s eyes turned to him. Soon after that, the judges came back in and Jenny was brought back in to the dock. The prosecution barrister remained on his feet as everybody else sat down.

  ‘My lords, as you know, we are asking leave to call an additional witness.’

  A murmur ran round the public gallery. Everyone had assumed that the doctor had been the last witness, with only the barristers’ final speeches and the judges’ summing up still to come. The middle judge gave a grave nod, confirming something that had already been decided. From Phillips’ furious expression it was obvious that he had been arguing to the last ditch and lost.

  The usher’s voice sounded faintly from the corridor outside: ‘Call Jane Wood.’

  The name meant nothing to me, but beside me Daniel said, quite loudly, ‘What are they doing?’ Kennedy and I shushed him.

  The woman who came into the box was in her early twenties, wearing a plain dress and a dark bonnet over a round, snub-nosed face. It took me a moment to recognise her as one of the dancers from the Augustus. I’d seen her on stage and in the dressing room but never heard her utter a word. There’d been nothing remarkable about her. She was sworn in, her Cockney voice nervous but clear. She didn’t glance at Jenny, who stood looking down at the edge of the dock as if none of this had anything to do with her. The prosecution led Jane through the opening questions, establishing that she was employed as a dancer at the Augustus and had been present at the theatre on the night of the murder.

  ‘Do you recognise the prisoner in the dock?’

  She glanced now, then quickly away again.

  ‘Jenny Jarvis.’

  It was simply a statement of fact, neither liking nor enmity in her voice.

  ‘When did you last see the prisoner?’

  ‘That night. The night she was poisoned.’

  Kennedy was having to struggle to keep Daniel in his seat, bringing angry looks from the spectators around us.

  ‘Do you mean the night Miss Priddy was poisoned?’

  ‘Miss Priddy?’

  ‘Columbine.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Where did you see the prisoner on that night?’

  ‘In our dressing room.’

  ‘Do you mean the dancers’ dressing room at the theatre?’

  ‘That’s what I said, yes.’

  ‘In what circumstances?’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘What were you and she doing when you saw her?’

  ‘I’d forgotten me garland. I had to go running back for it.’

  ‘Garland?’

  She stared at the barrister as if he were slow-witted.

  ‘Me flowers, for the ballet.’

  ‘So you went back to the dressing room for your garland. Was anybody there?’

  ‘I told you. She was. Jenny. I said I was surprised she was showing her face there, after what happened.’

  ‘And what did she reply?’

  ‘She said she was looking for her basket. I said somebody had taken it away.’

  ‘Did she say anything to that?’

  ‘If she did, I didn’t hear it. The music for the ballet was starting so I had to shift like a dog with a boot up its backside.’

  Mr Phillips took his turn, rising heavily as if the weight of the world were on his shoulders. He tried to unsettle her on the precise time she’d seen Jenny in the dressing room, without success. She had no idea what time it was by the clock, but was adamant that it was just before the first ballet started.

  ‘Did she say anything about Columbine?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did you see her going towards Columbine’s dressing room?’

  ‘I wouldn’t have, would I? She was still in our dressing room when I had to go on stage.’

  ‘Then you have no knowledge that she was anywhere but in the dancers’ dressing room?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why have you waited until now to give this evidence?’

  ‘I didn’t know it mattered before, did I?’

  Jane Wood was allowed to leave the witness box. In the worst of circumstances, sounding both tired and disappointed, Phillips began his speech for the defence.
It was a good enough speech, in its way, but he’d planned it before this last depressing evidence. In his calm Irish brogue he set out the logical arguments for the defence. It had been established that on a performance night in the theatre, anybody could come and go backstage entirely unchallenged. Dozens of people were employed at the theatre and all of them had friends or families with whom they would discuss events there. As a result, hundreds of people were in a position to know about Miss Priddy’s habit of taking nothing but syllabub on performance days. As for a knowledge of herbs – if that were a sign of murderous guilt, then tens of thousands of respectable housewives would stand in fear of arrest. There were even a few laughs from the gallery at that.

  ‘And so we come to the question of events on stage at the Augustus,’ Mr Phillips said. ‘An event so widely reported and discussed naturally attracts to it all manner of embroidery and exaggeration. If in the strain and heat of a stage performance one dancer accidentally impedes another, words may be said and actions performed that are not as ladylike as we might hear or see in drawing rooms. A more experienced performer than my client – a young woman unused to the rough and tumble of the city – might have known that. Consider, gentlemen, her situation. She has flitted like a butterfly from her native countryside to perform her art on a wider stage. But she remains innocent, unblemished. She is respectful to her employer, kindly to her fellow dancers – even if they are not always appreciative enough of her kindness. Then, one evening her world is reduced to ruins. She faces anger and dismissal from her employers, ridicule on the streets of London. What should she do but seek out some dark corner to hide herself? Then, gentlemen, a worse nightmare ensues. She is dragged from her hiding place and thrust into the pitiless light of this court, accused of the very worst of crimes. All she can do, as she has done, is to declare her innocence and trust to your judgement. The case against her is flawed and circumstantial. It lies in your hands to give her justice and permit her to return to the kindly countryside that she must regret so bitterly ever having left.’

  He sat down, head bowed. I think he was genuinely affected by his own eloquence. But it had failed, I knew that. I’d sensed it from the fidgeting of the jurymen, the glances exchanged by a man and woman on the benches in front of us, the way one of the judges picked up a pen and pretended to make notes, though there was nothing in particular to note down. Kennedy looked at me, then quickly away again. He knew too.

  The prosecuting barrister hardly raised his voice in delivering his final speech and used no eloquence to embroider the facts. He had no need. Jenny and Columbine had fought. Jenny had knowledge of the use of herbs, of Columbine’s habits and the arrangements backstage at the Augustus. Jenny had hidden from the police and disguised herself. Jenny had possessed deadly thornapple. Although there was no direct evidence that she had introduced the poison into the bowl, she’d had motive, means and opportunity, and the fact that she had not come forward when she must have known the police were looking for her spoke for itself.

  The middle judge gave his directions to the jury, scrupulously fair. He summed up the established facts and told them if there were any reasonable doubt in their minds then they should find the prisoner not guilty. I looked at their faces as they filed out and saw no sign of doubt.

  Jenny was taken down from the dock, still without looking up.

  ‘They’ll be back in ten minutes,’ said the woman in front of us.

  It took them fourteen minutes by Kennedy’s watch. They came in, heads bent. Jenny had been brought back into the dock. When the foreman of the jury said the word ‘Guilty’ her mouth opened slightly and that was all. The judge, sounding as if he genuinely regretted having to do it, pronounced sentence.

  ‘Jenny Jarvis, you are sentenced to be taken hence to the prison in which you were last confined and from there to a place of execution where you will be hanged by the neck until dead and thereafter your body buried in the precincts of the prison and may the Lord have mercy on your soul.’

  Jenny said and did nothing until the warder behind her put his hand on her shoulder, quite gently, to guide her back down to the cells. Then she screamed, the high, terrified scream of a child waking up and finding the monster from the nightmare is still there in the corner of the bedroom.

  Her scream continued echoing in the courtroom long after she’d been taken down.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  ‘What will help her then? Tell me that.’

  We’d just come up from the cell after seeing Jenny. Daniel stood with his knuckle bleeding in drops on to the greasy pavement outside the Old Bailey, oblivious of the crowds round us. Toby Kennedy was trying to cross the road to get to us, dodging carts.

  ‘Is it true about Jenny being inside the theatre that night?’ I said.

  I understood now why he’d kept away from me and why he hadn’t wanted to face my questions. Kennedy joined us in time to hear Daniel’s answer.

  ‘Yes, it’s true.’

  ‘Then for God’s sake why didn’t you tell us, man?’ Kennedy burst out, more angry than I’d ever known him. ‘didn’t you see it would make it a thousand times worse if it came out the way it did? Charles Phillips is furious, and I don’t blame him.’

  ‘What could we do? It made things so black against her. And when Jane Wood didn’t speak up at first, we thought she wasn’t going to.’

  ‘You were outside the theatre that evening,’ I said. ‘I suppose you saw Jenny coming out. Was that when you decided to take her home and hide her?’

  ‘No, I didn’t find her until the day after. She’d been hiding in the cellars of her lodgings at Seven Dials. I couldn’t leave her there. She told me that She’d been in the dancers’ dressing room on the night Columbine died, but I said she mustn’t admit it. I knew the police would think it closed the case against her. What else could I do?’

  ‘Be honest with your friends at least,’ Kennedy said. ‘Is there any other little detail you haven’t told us, like Jenny having committed murder?’

  ‘No!’

  For a moment I thought Daniel was going to hit Kennedy. I could see Kennedy thought so too, but he stood his ground. His angry expression changed to a look of great sadness.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell us? We could have done something.’ He took Daniel’s arm. ‘Look, there’s a gig for hire over there. We’ll go and …’

  Daniel pulled his arm away and took a few steps, not towards the gig but back towards the doors of the Old Bailey. Two police constables were standing outside it. I went after him.

  ‘Don’t.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Libby.’

  ‘They won’t believe you. It will only make things worse.’

  By then Kennedy had his arm again. The policemen looked on, mildly curious. Emotional scenes outside those doors were nothing new.

  ‘Not another lie,’ I said to Daniel. ‘You’re not good at them.’

  ‘I’m going back inside there to tell them I killed her.’

  Kennedy let go of his arm and stood in front of him, his voice quiet.

  ‘My friend and brother, if you look me in the eye and tell me you killed Columbine, then I’ll go in with you and support you all I can to the end.’

  Daniel looked at him, opened his mouth to speak, said nothing.

  ‘Well then,’ Kennedy said.

  He took Daniel’s arm again and led him unresisting over the road to the gig.

  Kennedy gave the driver the address of his own lodgings in Holborn and informed Daniel that he was coming to stay and they’d send to Bloomsbury Square for his things later.

  As the driver ground his way through the traffic coming from Smithfield, Kennedy told us about the short conversation he’d managed with the barrister after the verdict.

  ‘I asked him about an appeal. As I understand it, there can be two grounds. One is that legal mistakes were made in the course of the trial, the other is that the sentence was too harsh. Phillips needs time to cool down and consider it, but his view is that the trial
was properly conducted. The chief judge, Charles Law, is considered to be the fairest and most merciful on the bench …’

  ‘He’s just condemned an innocent woman to death,’ Daniel said.

  ‘As for sentence, once the jury found her guilty of murder, there was only one sentence possible.’

  ‘Mr Phillips holds out no hope?’ I said.

  ‘There is the royal prerogative of mercy, but…’

  His voice trailed off. No mercy for poisoners.

  ‘When?’ Daniel said.

  The meaning was unmistakeable.

  ‘I believe that at least two Sundays have to pass,’ Kennedy said.

  That meant that Jenny might have only thirteen mornings of life left to her before she took the short walk from the condemned cell in Newgate to the gallows outside. I didn’t see how Daniel could stay sane.

  ‘So we’re in exactly the position we were,’ I said. ‘The only way to change things is by finding new evidence.’

  I didn’t mention Lady Silverdale. As yet I had no evidence at all, only a wild idea. ‘God knows, we’ve looked hard enough,’ Kennedy said.

  He sounded weary and I couldn’t blame him.

  ‘But we haven’t, have we?’ I said. ‘It struck me in court, we’ve all accepted too easily that almost anybody could have got into Columbine’s dressing room. Somebody must have seen something that evening.’

  ‘Marie?’ Daniel said.

  At least his mind was moving.

  ‘Yes, Marie. Everybody else backstage would have their minds on the performance. All she had to do was look after Columbine.’

  ‘I thought She’d be a witness,’ Kennedy said.

  ‘Yes, so did I. Perhaps the police can’t find her either. That’s why they had to put Barnaby Blake in the witness box instead.’

  ‘Don’t you find it odd that the girl Wood should have decided to give evidence at the last minute?’ Kennedy said.

  ‘Very. Daniel, did she have any particular enmity against Jenny?’

  ‘No. Jenny helped her when She’d hurt her knee and it seemed Jane liked her. That’s why she thought Jane wouldn’t give her away.’

  ‘What changed her mind, I wonder?’

  My mind went to Pauline. I couldn’t see what advantage there’d be in it for her, but perhaps She’d acted out of sheer malice. I’d have to pay another visit to the Augustus.