The Dawn of Reckoning

by James Hilton

  Philip, however, was wrong in his estimate of Mr. Milner- White. That gentleman was not elderly, nor was he either particularly scholarly or particularly sympathetic. He was a youngster almost fresh from Oxford, sent out to try his spurs on the somewhat arid adventure of bye-election reporting. Being perfectly well aware of his own brilliant gifts, he was determined from the first to make the Chassing ford contest a subtle, not to say sinister business. His dispatch to the Sentinel concerning the events of the polling-day, and culminating in a declaration of the result, was a final tour de force.

  “This election,” he wrote, “is proving an excellent stroke of business for Chassingford. Not only are all the hotels full to the last billiard-table, but local tradesmen have got rid of all their remaining stocks of last year’s fireworks at famine prices. To-day, the great day, has of necessity been something of an anti-climax. The slight drizzle of rain that has fallen most of the time has not, however, damped the enthusiasm, much less the fireworks of the protagonists. Indeed, the enthusiasm has increased, largely as a result of the substitution of Mrs. Monsell’s charming irrelevance for Mr. Monsell’s gloomy intensity. ‘What is your attitude on the mines question? asked a member of the audience at an eve-of-poll meeting, and Mrs. Monsell replied: I am afraid I don’t know very much about the matter at all, but I can assure you, sir, that my husband will take the right line on that as on all other questions.’ Well might a supporter at the back of the hall exclaim fervently: That’s the stuff to give ‘em!”

  “The poll has been very heavy and not without its minor excitements. Before the counting began, however, most people were quite certain that Mr. Monsell was in. Estimates of his majority varied from 500 to 2,000, and the narrow margin of 89 came as a great surprise…Owing to ill-health the successful candidate was not present at the declaration, but his wife charmingly deputised for him…When the crowd had shouted itself hoarse (for one side was pleased by the victory, and the other by the smallness of the majority), she made a pretty little speech in which she said that as soon as she learned the result in the counting-room she rang through to her husband at home to tell him the good news, but could not get an answer. ‘I expect the member for Chassingford has gone to sleep in front of the fire,’ she said, laughing. He will do it when I leave him alone in the evenings. But wait till I get home—I’ll soon waken him.’

  “Upon this pleasant note of domesticity the incident of the Chassingford bye-election has closed.”

  IV

  She disengaged herself from her too enthusiastic supporters and commissioned a taxi to drive her up to the Hall. She had to beg some of the party stalwarts not to come with her. “My husband is ill after the strain,” she told them, “and he simply musn’t get excited. When he has learnt the result I shall make him go straight to bed.” All of which the half-dozen or so attendant reporters diligently took down in their note-books.

  The gates at the entrance to the drive were closed, so she walked up the drive alone, after paying and dismissing the taxi-man. Not a light was visible in the Hall. It was very late—past midnight—and the night was pitch dark. Far in the distance she could hear the faint sound of cheering, and the muffled reports of fireworks. Chassingford was still revelling.

  She let herself in by her own private key. Nobody was in sight. Fear and excitement waged war within her for mastery. “Venner!” she called, going to the further end of the entrance-hall and shouting down. No answer. But he was very, very deaf. “Venner!” she called again, more shrilly.

  Still no sound. The echoes of her own voice were frightening. Still, she could do without Venner. She only wanted to ask him where Philip was. She hated to search dark rooms at night. And Philip might be anywhere.

  She opened the door of the library. Nobody was there. The empty silence cooled her excitement and sent a little shiver of apprehension through her—but a cold calm apprehension that made her walk very quietly to the door of Philip’s study and tap on the panel. No answer. She opened the outer door, and a long slit of light at the foot of the inner door showed her that the room was illuminated. Philip, therefore, was working, or reading, or perhaps he had gone to sleep, or perhaps—perhaps he was waiting for her.

  The thought of his possible occupations behind the closed door would have driven her to panic had she persisted in it. She turned the handle hastily and entered.

  Yes, he was there, and she was relieved to see that he was sitting quietly by the fire-side, leaning across the arm of his chair as if he had fallen asleep through sheer weariness. She felt sorry for him then, and was glad that she had brought him the news that the great dream of his life had at last come true.

  “Philip!” she cried, thinking to rouse him.

  She went nearer to him and called his name again, but his slumbers were seemingly too deep. Then she stooped down to shake him to wakefulness, and at last, when she saw the front of him, a strange agonised shriek went up that filled the whole house with echoes, and stirred even Venner, slumbering in his pantry near by.

  * * *

  CHAPTER XVI

  I

  “Tragic Death of New M.P.”—“Chassingford Victor Found Shot”—“Sensational End to Bye-Election”—were among the announcements that embellished the newspaper-shops on the following morning. Many who did not see the placards bought their morning journals to learn who had topped the poll at the Chassingford election; they read, to their immense astonishment, that Philip Monsell had not only been elected by a small majority, but that he had been found shot dead in his study shortly after midnight. Which of the two events had taken place first was not clear, but the Daily Wire, taking unique advantage of the uncertainty, issued the bold and challenging news-bill: “Dead Man Elected to Parliament.” Whereat at least a dozen habitual newspaper correspondents dived into Erskine May to see whether such a happening was even theoretically possible.

  All over the country the strange affair was eagerly discussed, for men’s minds were already attuned to Chassingford, and it was not difficult to interest them in a far greater sensation than any conceivable election result. In the little Essex market-town there was none of the half-drugged somnolence that usually follows on the morning after the declaration of the poll. On the contrary, the town was livelier than ever; small groups of people gossiped together at street-corners; newspaper reporters who were’ lucky enough not to have returned to town immediately after the result, stayed on and despatched frantic wires to their editors. The lane to the Hall was dotted from an early hour with curious, eager, and undoubtedly morbid pilgrims. At the Lodge gates two policemen were stationed, with orders to let nobody pass without proper authority.

  Amidst the heavy clouds of rumours that rolled to and fro, nothing was very clear except the bald facts as stated in the morning papers. Mrs. Monsell, according to more than one report of the scene at the declaration of poll, had stated that she had rung up her husband to tell him the news of his victory, but had been unable to get any reply. When she reached home, she found him dead in his private study, shot through the chest. The window was open wide, and outside in the shrubbery a revolver had been found. Venner, the aged and very deaf butler, had not heard any shot, but it was understood that he had been able to help the police with certain information. Scotland Yard had been summoned, and was credited with already possessing important clues. Beyond these facts, all was as yet surmise.

  The evening papers, although they had nothing new to report, fanned the flame of popular excitement by every means at their disposal. They examined the political aspect of the affair, searched the past for precedents, disinterred a certain Joshua Bone, M.P. for somewhere-or-other in 1765, who had died from shock at finding himself elected; they printed photographs of the Hall and of the town of Chassingford, and dived into Chassingford’s history to relate how Samuel Pepys once dined there with the rector. The one thing which everybody wanted to know was the one thing that they could not tell, and that was any further fact concerning the crime itself. They hinted, howe
ver, that the inquest might reveal much that was startling and sensational.

  II

  The inquest was held on the Friday morning in the drawing- room at the Hall. The room was uncomfortably crowded, and very hot for early March. Many of the reporters noted that it was “richly’ though not extravagantly furnished,” and Mr. Milner-White, transferred by editorial telegram to another field of enterprise, remarked superiorly that the room “possessed the typically Victorian layout of so many of our ancient houses.”

  Purely formal evidence of identification was given, and the inquiry was adjourned unto March 17th. “The room emptied amidst an atmosphere of foreboding,” wrote Mr. Milner White. “The stage was being set for a grander and more terrible drama, and we of the coroner’s inquest were being ordered curtly to get on with our little piece and then step back to the wings…We trooped out into the fresh March air for all the world like a crowd of scared school-children.”

  The opening of the inquest, little as it had disclosed, was yet reported fully in most of the papers. But a far more sensational event filled their headlines on the day following. This was the arrest of Aubrey Ward, the hero of the South Pole expedition, at Bergen, Norway, in connection with the Chassingford affair. He had been detained by the Bergen police as a result of a wireless message, and English detectives had arrived by the next boat. Within a couple of days he was back in England again, and was brought up before the Chassingford magistrates and charged with the wilful murder of Philip Monsell upon the night of February 27th. The police gave formal evidence of arrest and asked for eight days’ remand.

  The public was entirely staggered by the affair. No arrest could have caused a deeper and more immediate sensation, and the newspapers, realising the popular clamour for information, were compelled to disinter the whole of the South Pole episode. It read uncommonly well; indeed, as a famous London wit remarked, the effect of its publication could only be “to create a most unfortunate public prejudice in favour of the prisoner.”

  When the case came up on remand, a second remand was granted, and a day or two after that the adjourned inquest was resumed. Highly sensational evidence was given, and after a two hours’ deliberation, the jury returned a verdict of Wilful Murder against Aubrey Ward.

  The next stage was the examination before the Chassingford magistrates. The town was packed with visitors, and the tiny court-house could hardly contain a hundredth part of the crowd that had begun to form a queue in the High Street as early as seven o’clock in the morning. Those who gained admission were richly rewarded, however, for the evidence and depositions were again “highly sensational.” The prisoner’s bearing, according to one report, was “calm and unmoved, and the way in which he pleaded Not Guilty seemed to indicate his complete confidence that he would be able to establish his innocence.” The examination lasted four days, and by that time sufficient evidence had been brought forward to justify a committal for trial to the Colford Assizes. A feature of the examination had been the reading of written depositions by Mrs. Monsell, widow of the deceased, under Section 17 of the Indictable Offences Act. It was understood that Mrs. Monsell was seriously ill in a nursing home.

  Public opinion veered round considerably after the committal. There was still, no doubt, the “unfortunate prejudice in favour of the prisoner,” but the strength of the police case was impressive as well as surprising. On weight of evidence alone it seemed that Ward was guilty, although many people believed that the defence was keeping back its trump cards until the trial, when they might produce a more powerful effect. At any rate, the proceedings before the Chassingford magistrates did nothing to lessen popular interest in the case, and the opening of the Assizes at Colford in June was keenly anticipated. It was expected that by then Mrs. Monsell might have recovered sufficiently to give evidence in person.

  The months passed quickly; the public half forgot the case, but were very ready and eager to be reminded of it. Meanwhile the authorities took all precautions necessary for a cause célèbre. A few rickety benches in the Colford Assize Court were repaired and strengthened, and the Post Office arranged for an extra staff of telegraphists to be on duty during the trial. Colford as a whole was delighted at the prospect; the hotels expected a bumper week, as least as profitable as the annual show of the County Agricultural Society.

  The day of the opening of the Assizes dawned bright and clear, and Mr. Jefferson Milner-White, eating his ham and eggs in the breakfast-room of the “White Lion,” scanned the pages of the Daily Wire and mused upon the ineffable superiority of Manchester over London journalism. Meanwhile, Colford, the first town on the circuit, was preparing for the reception of the judge. Later in the day, Mr. Milner-White went out and described what he saw with that mingling of loftiness and curiosity that a secularist might affect in describing a revivalist meeting. He described the arrival of the judge at the railway-station, his solemn meeting with the High Sheriff of the county, the latter’s frantic efforts not to fall over his sword, the posse comitatus of county police, the ear-splitting fanfare of the trumpeters, the ride through the sunlit town, with the judge in his state carriage and his escort of “javelin” men with halberds, the extremely boring sermon preached by the sheriff’s chaplain in the parish church, and, in conclusion, the bucolic somnolence of rural country towns even when they had everything to make them excited. All this Mr. Milner-White most graphically described, and it was perhaps a pity that the Sentinel was not able to find room for all of it.

  The ensuing account of the trial is taken mainly from the columns of that journal.

  III

  As early as five o’clock the next morning a queue began to form outside the court. The doors were opened at ten, but the building was so small and the number of pressmen so large that only a few dozen out of many hundreds could gain admittance.

  Counsel for the defence was Sir Robert Hempidge, K.C., whose name had been associated with some of the most famous cases, both civil and criminal, during the past dozen years. Prosecuting for the Crown was the Solicitor-General, Sir Theydon Lampard-Gorian, K.C., M.P.

  The opening speech for the Crown was delivered by Sir Theydon in his usual manner. Unimpressive—almost even dull—at first, it gradually worked up during its two hours’ length to a pitch of excitement in which, as Mr. Milner-White remarked, “every face, including the prisoner’s and the judge’s, seemed held by the hypnotic spell of those calm, freezing words. The prisoner looked pale and care-worn, through his spruce bearing and keen thoughtful eyes drew attention from the fact.”

  Sir Theydon began by giving a rough sketch of the prisoner’s life and his relations with the late Mr. Monsell. He began with the prisoner’s first meeting with the deceased at Cambridge, and quickly outlined the history of the friendship up to the eve of the tragedy. He mentioned Mr. Monsell’s marriage “with a foreign lady—a native of Hungary,” and prisoner’s friendship with his friend’s wife as well as with his friend. “How far this friendship developed is a matter of conjecture, but there is some evidence that it aroused a certain amount of local gossip at the time.” Sir Theydon then went on to mention the polar expedition which took the prisoner away from England for two years, and on which he “bore himself with a high courage and a distinction which no fair-minded Englishman, least of all I myself, would attempt to deny.”

  Sir Theydon sketched the prisoner’s changes of abode after returning to England, and mentioned that one of his private cases had been that of his friend Mr. Monsell, whom he had attended for pneumonia. “The prosecution does not suggest that in this matter he acted in any way dishonourably or unprofessionally.

  “Now,” continued Sir Theydon, “let us make a particular examination of the events that occurred during the month or so that preceded the crime. I shall bring forward witnesses to show that on several occasions during that time the prisoner met Mrs. Monsell in London without her husband’s knowledge, and that she wrote to the prisoner many letters imploring him to meet her. Some of these letters were inte
rcepted by Mr. Monsell and never reached their destination. The fact was, that Mr. Monsell had begun to suspect his wife of infidelity and had taken steps to have her watched.

  “On the day that the late Mr. Grainger, M.P. for Chassingford, died, thus precipitating the bye election, Mrs. Monsell went to London and met the prisoner at Liverpool Street Station. They went to a restaurant near by and talked for several hours together. This was on February 7th. On the 16th the prisoner visited the Monsells at Chassingford, apparently in the role of friend of the family. In the evening Mr. Monsen had to speak at a public meeting, and the prisoner stayed in the house with Mrs. Monsell. They were alone except for the butler, whose evidence we shall shortly hear.

  “On February the 22nd, just five days before the night of the crime, Mrs. Monsell went again to London and visited the prisoner at the Bethnal Green Hospital. She stayed there from five in the afternoon until ten in the evening, when she had to hurry back to catch the last train to Chassingford. On the following Saturday the prisoner wrote Mrs. Monsell a letter which she destroyed immediately and answered. What this letter contained we should like very much to know, and perhaps the evidence we bring will help us to hazard a surmise.

  “Now we come to the actual day of the crime. It was the day of the bye-election, and Mr. Monsell was suffering from the strain of the fight. He therefore asked his wife to deputize for him at the declaration of the poll. She left Chassingford Hall at six p.m., leaving her husband reading quietly in his study. We have evidence that she arrived at the Town Hall at about six-ten, and that she did not leave until after midnight, when the result had been declared. This took place just before midnight, and she rang up her husband to tell him the news. She could get no answer. And no wonder, for at that very moment—at that very moment—the telephone-bell in his study was ringing beside a dead men.