Final Witness

by Simon Tolkien

  “I suppose so.”

  “And Lady Anne would usually go down to the beach to walk, would she not?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Through the north door and down the lane. I expect that sometimes she may have forgotten to lock the door when she came back in. Isn’t that possible, Mrs. Martin? On particularly beautiful evenings.”

  “Oh, I see what you’re up to. You’re trying to say my Lady left the door unlocked for those men to come through. Well, you can forget it; she didn’t.”

  “But you don’t know, do you, Mrs. Martin? You’d already left. At just after five o’clock. That’s what you told Mr. Sparling.”

  Miles spoke quickly, having thrown off his lazy air like an unwanted mask, and then moved on giving the housekeeper no time to respond.

  “I want to go back to what you were telling us about before lunch, Mrs. Martin. To the events following the death of that unfortunate dog. Now, let’s be quite clear. You’re not saying that my client knew that the dog had to be kept in.”

  “I don’t know one way or the other. I didn’t tell her about it. I had as little conversation with her as I could.”

  “Mr. Lambert, we’ve already been over this,” said the judge.

  “Yes, my Lord. I just wanted to get things clear. Now you say that Thomas went for my client. That must mean that she was only doing the minimum to defend herself when she pushed him back.”

  “He was just a boy. She shouldn’t have touched him.”

  “But what choice did she have if he was attacking her?”

  The housekeeper transferred her attention from Miles Lambert to the ceiling but didn’t otherwise respond.

  “Well, I shall assume that you don’t have an answer for that, Mrs. Martin. Perhaps you will agree, however, that my client showed remarkable restraint when Lady Anne came downstairs and attacked her. She’d done nothing wrong, after all.”

  “She had. She’d got the little dog killed and then afterward she said those things behind my Lady’s back that made my hair stand on end. I don’t call that restraint.”

  “She didn’t, Mrs. Martin. She didn’t say those things.”

  “She did. As God is my witness, she did.”

  Mrs. Martin half shouted her answer with her hands now gripping the wooden edge of the witness box in front of her. The black leather handbag had fallen with a thud to the floor.

  Miles Lambert smiled.

  “You believe my client committed this offense, don’t you, Mrs. Martin?”

  The old lady had her eyes fixed on the defense barrister now. She nodded once.

  “You hate her for it, don’t you?”

  “I do.”

  “You’ve always hated her, haven’t you?”

  “No, I hate her because of what she did.”

  “She acted superior to you, didn’t she? You’d been the housekeeper all those years, and then she came down and treated you like a servant. That made you angry, didn’t it?”

  “No, it didn’t surprise me. She was just like a lot of these young people nowadays. They aren’t brought up to respect their elders like we were.”

  “Badly brought up and putting on airs. Is that right, Mrs. Martin?”

  “If you say so,” said the old lady. She was visibly trying to keep her emotions in check.

  “It’s not what I say; it’s what you say that matters. You didn’t like the way she tried to get Thomas away from you either, did you?”

  “He saw through her in the end. It just took him a bit longer.”

  “You hated her from the first,” pressed Miles, allowing the witness no time to think, and this time the old lady could no longer resist his challenge.

  “She’s poison!” she shouted.

  “You want her convicted, don’t you?”

  “I want justice. For my Lady. For Thomas.”

  “At any cost. You’d do anything to get what you want, wouldn’t you, Mrs. Martin?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Yes you do. I’m talking about giving false evidence. My client never said, ‘You’ve fucking had it now, Mrs. Posh.’ She never said that.”

  “Yes she did. She wouldn’t have done if she’d known I was there, but she didn’t. More fool her.”

  The old lady positively spat these last words out at Miles, who responded with one of his most pleasant smiles.

  “Well, Mrs. Martin, I’m sorry to see that you’re getting so upset. Let’s move on a bit and see if we can shed any more light on what happened. Now, where did my client go after this little speech that you say she gave?”

  “Out the front door. Same way Sir Peter had gone.”

  “I see. And when and where did you see her again?”

  “She was in the study a bit later on.”

  “How much later on?”

  “Later on in the morning. I don’t know more than that. She must have come in through the side door. I was in the kitchen on the other side of the hall when I noticed she was back.”

  “How did you come to notice my client’s presence in the study, Mrs. Martin?”

  “Because my Lady went in there to talk to her. She had Thomas with her, and she wanted to make things up. She was like that, my Lady was: too good for the rest of us, but she should never have done it if you ask me. She should have left that Greta to pack up and be off. That’s what she should have done.”

  “I see. And did you offer your Lady this advice, Mrs. Martin?”

  “No, of course I didn’t. It wouldn’t have been my place. I told her what that Greta had said, though.”

  “In the hallway?”

  “That’s right.”

  “And this would have been before Lady Anne went into the study to make things up with my client.”

  “It would.”

  “Isn’t that rather unlikely, Mrs. Martin?”

  “What?”

  “You tell Lady Anne that my client has just called her a ‘fucking stuck-up bitch’ behind her back and Lady Anne goes straight into the study to make things up with her. It doesn’t make much sense, does it?”

  “You didn’t know my Lady.”

  “It doesn’t make sense because it’s not true, is it, Mrs. Martin? You’re lying again.”

  The old housekeeper went white with anger, but instead of venting it on Miles, she turned round in her seat and looked up at the judge.

  “Listen, Your Lordship or whatever you call yourself, I want you to stop him talking to me like that,” she said. “You’ve had a go at me; now you deal with him.”

  “Mrs. Martin, I’m sorry if you feel that Mr. Lambert is being rude to you because I don’t think that’s his intention,” said the judge. “He’s got to put his case to you and examine your evidence, and that’s what he’s doing. Now please answer his questions.”

  “Thank you, my Lord,” said Miles. “Now, Mrs. Martin, I want to ask you about what happened in the study. Did you hear everything that was said?”

  “I did.”

  “You must have gone out into the hallway then.”

  “I may have done.”

  “To listen. Well, I’m sure that that was very natural. You say that Lady Anne went in to make things up. Does that mean that she apologized to my client?”

  “She did. I couldn’t believe it. It was that Greta who should have been doing the apologizing. Down on her knees, she should have been.”

  “And did my client accept Lady Anne’s apology?”

  “Of course she did. She must have thought it was her lucky day. She didn’t want to have to leave.”

  “And so they made up their quarrel and they were friends. Yes?”

  “No, they most certainly weren’t. My Lady apologized because she thought it was right, not because she liked Greta. She didn’t like her any more than I did. And Greta, she hated my Lady. I know she did. I saw the way she used to look at her, and I heard what she said in the hall.”

  “Well, we’ve already dealt with that, Mrs. Mar
tin,” said Miles. “Can you move on now and tell us about Thomas?”

  “What about him?”

  “Did he and Greta have any conversation in the study?”

  “Oh, yes. She was saying how sorry she was about letting the dog out and how she wished she’d known. She probably was sorry. She was always after Thomas. My Lady always felt like Greta wanted to take him away from her. Not that there was much chance of that.”

  “And how did Thomas react to Greta saying she was sorry?”

  “He was very upset, but he didn’t seem so angry with her as he was before. He always liked Greta, until he found out what sort of person she really was. Teenagers can be blind like that sometimes.”

  “We’ll let the jury be the judge of that,” said Miles, turning to a new page in his notes. “I want to talk to you about this locket now. Lady Anne was very fond of it, was she not?”

  “Yes, it was one of her favorite things.”

  “And so you would agree with me that she took it to London with her when she went up for the Chelsea Flower Show on the Thursday before she died.”

  “She may have done.”

  “You helped her pack, didn’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “And the locket was in the suitcase?”

  The old lady didn’t answer.

  “Come on, Mrs. Martin. Lady Anne took jewelry with her to London, didn’t she? You helped her choose it, didn’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “And the locket was one of the pieces she took.”

  Again no answer.

  “Wasn’t it, Mrs. Martin?” Miles spoke louder this time, with more urgency in his voice, and the housekeeper finally gave way.

  “Yes, she took it but she brought it back too.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because I saw it on her neck the day she died. I said that already.”

  “You saw the top of a gold chain. That could have been the gold chain to some other piece of jewelry.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “And you’ve never mentioned this bit of gold before today, have you? It’s not in your statement.”

  “I didn’t know it was important when I made the statement. That was before Tom found the locket.”

  “You’ve never made a statement since he found it, though, have you? And so we can no doubt safely assume that you’ve never told the police about it.”

  “I didn’t know I had to.”

  “The locket was found more than nine months ago, Mrs. Martin. You’ve had all that time to come forward and say something, and yet you wait until today to do so. Isn’t that because you only thought of it recently? On one of those long evenings that you’ve been spending with Thomas Robinson down on the coast with nothing to do except talk about this trial.”

  “I’ve got plenty to do. I’ve been running that house single-handed since Lady Anne died.”

  “Have you talked to Thomas about the locket, Mrs. Martin?”

  “I may have done.”

  “Of course you have, and that’s why you’ve come up with this story, isn’t it? Because he’s told you how important it is that somebody else should say that they saw the locket on Lady Anne after she came back from London. Isn’t that right, Mrs. Martin?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “You don’t know what I’m talking about. I see. Well, let me ask you a general question about the jewelry. Lady Anne liked talking about her collection, didn’t she?”

  “She was proud of it, yes.”

  “And she made no secret of the fact that she kept the jewels in the house, did she? It was well known among people who knew her, wasn’t it?”

  “It was well known to her,” said the old lady, pointing toward the dock. “Greta knew. That’s why she sent those men.”

  “All right, Mrs. Martin. Let’s talk about that. Let’s move on to the day of the murder. You say that my client told you that Mrs. Ball had invited Thomas for the night.”

  “That’s right.”

  “When did she tell you this?”

  “The day before, I think — the Sunday, unless it was the morning of the day it happened. I’m not sure.”

  “You’re not sure. And do you remember where you were when this conversation took place?”

  “No, I don’t. It’s more than a year ago now.”

  “That’s right. You don’t remember where or when you spoke to my client, so how can you be so sure of what she said?”

  “I know what she said.”

  “But why should you remember it, Mrs. Martin? Surely it wasn’t the issue of who came up with the idea of Thomas going to Edward’s that would have been significant to you. What was important was that you could give Thomas a lift.”

  “So who made the arrangement if it wasn’t Mrs. Ball?” asked the housekeeper, trying to turn the tables on the defense barrister.

  “Lady Anne asked Greta to ring up Mrs. Ball. Greta didn’t tell you that because she had no reason to. She simply told you about the arrangement.”

  “My Lady would never have asked Greta to do that. She’d have asked me.”

  “But you were out on the Sunday afternoon, weren’t you, Mrs. Martin? Out and inaccessible.”

  “What’s Sunday afternoon got to do with it?”

  “Because that’s when the call was made. Mrs. Ball has told us that.” Miles’s tone suggested that he felt he had won this particular argument.

  “Let’s go on to Monday afternoon. You say you checked all the doors and windows before you left.”

  “All except the door in the south wall.”

  “It’s the one in the north wall that concerns me. Are you quite sure that it was locked?”

  “Positive. I remember walking across the lawn and turning the key in the lock.”

  “I see. And what about the windows?”

  “All shut except for the ones in the drawing room.”

  “And that would include the window in Thomas’s bedroom?”

  “Yes. All of them.”

  “It was a warm afternoon, wasn’t it, Mrs. Martin? That’s why Sir Peter and Lady Anne had the window open in the drawing room.”

  “I expect so. It was a summer’s day.”

  “Yes. Now, one last question about that day, Mrs. Martin. We know that Lady Anne took a sleeping tablet in the evening. It was normal, was it not, for her to do this?”

  “Yes. She always had trouble sleeping, poor love. Ever since she was a girl.”

  “Thank you. Now finally, Mrs. Martin, I want to ask you about what happened at the House of the Four Winds nine days ago. On the evening of Wednesday July fifth, to be precise.”

  “What about it?” The old lady suddenly looked suspicious and distrustful.

  “You went out at about six o’clock to the Women’s Institute meeting in Flyte. Is that right?”

  “Yes. About that time.”

  “Before you left, you checked the doors and gates, I expect. All except the one in the south wall.”

  “I did.”

  “And the door in the north wall, was it locked?”

  “It was.”

  “You’re as sure about that as you are about it being locked on the night of the murder?”

  “I am.”

  “What about the doors of the house? Were they also locked?”

  “Yes, they were. Tom had the keys if he wanted to open them.”

  “And when you came back from the Women’s Institute, there were policemen in the house?”

  “Yes, there were four of them. Looking in everything, turning the place upside down. Those men had come again. That’s what Tom told me.”

  “Ah, yes, unless of course he was making it up.”

  Miles Lambert sat down suddenly, leaving the old housekeeper high and dry in the witness box.

  Chapter 15

  “How was it, honey?” asked Peter.

  He was sitting in the back of the Daimler with Greta. John the chauffeur was driving them
home from court. London went by smoothly outside the car’s black tinted windows.

  “It was good, I suppose,” she replied. Her voice was tired and came as if from far away, even though she was sitting right beside her husband, leaning against his shoulder. It was like the voice of a soldier who’d come back from the front, he thought: shell-shocked.

  Peter felt the anger rising in him again like it had a thousand times before, invading his throat, making his temples throb. He couldn’t get used to the unfairness, the injustice, and he fought for self-control. He didn’t speak until he had unclenched his fists and got sure of his voice again. Peace and calm were what his wife needed now.

  “Who were the witnesses today?” he asked.

  “There was a policeman and then Mrs. Ball from Flyte and Jane Martin. It’s incredible how that woman hates me. It’s like she won’t be satisfied until she sees me hanging from a tree. A tall tree.”

  “Don’t talk like that.”

  “She kept pointing at me. Looking at me. Saying I was poison. Things like that.”

  “I should have dismissed her ages ago. It’s just I didn’t know what to do about Thomas.”

  “It’s not just her. I feel like some caged animal in there. A caged animal who everyone’s got a license to mistreat.”

  “I just wish I could be there with you. Perhaps I should talk to Miles.”

  “No,” said Greta, and her voice was suddenly firm. “I don’t want you to hear those things they’re saying, and we must do what Miles says. He’s good, you know. He made Aunt Jane look just like the nasty bit of work she is.”

  “Well, that’s something,” said Peter. He took her delicate hand in his and gently stroked the back of it with the tips of his fingers, mapping all the tiny bones that radiated out from her thin wrist. It was something that he’d often done with Anne in the early years, before they grew apart.

  “What about the other witnesses? How did Miles deal with them?”

  “All right. He’s made it so it’s perfectly possible that Anne took a walk down to the beach after we’d gone and then left the door unlocked when she came back.”

  “Which door?”

  “The one in the north wall. There would’ve been time for her to do that and go to bed before Thomas came back. She’d have been out when he telephoned.”