‘If we could find the first of those two, the second wouldn’t be needed.’
‘Yes, but as we can’t, the second would at any rate clear Pinkie, if it didn’t help to find out who actually did shoot Eric. If – if it really wasn’t an accident after all.’
‘Oh, yes,’ Sheringham agreed. ‘The second would do that.’ He spoke without enthusiasm, and it was evident that he had no hopes of such a person existing. ‘By the way,’ he added to me, ‘I didn’t say anything about – you know what.’
‘What?’ asked Armorel quickly.
‘No,’ I said quietly.
‘You absolutely forbade it, remember.’
‘Quite correct.’
‘What?’ Armorel repeated.
‘Oh, one piece of evidence at any rate that Sheringham’s unearthed which may prove helpful later on,’ I said, purposely carelessly.
‘It might prove helpful now,’ Sheringham said with emphasis. ‘It might very well prevent your arrest. Don’t be a fool, Tapers. Let me tell the superintendent.’
‘No,’ I said firmly. ‘Not yet.’
Sheringham shrugged his shoulders.
Armorel looked from one to the other of us, but as it was clear that she was not to be enlightened, had the rather unexpected good sense to refrain from pressing us.
Sheringham jumped suddenly to his feet. ‘Well, I mustn’t waste any more time. I’m not coming to the inquest. I can read all the evidence afterwards. It’s too good an opportunity to miss of having a look around undisturbed. See you later, Tapers. And if they do put the gyves on you, keep your tail up. I’ll make the superintendent the sorriest man in Devonshire before I’m done.’
chapter eleven
I am not likely to forget the inquest on Scott-Davies so long as I live.
I had never attended an inquest before, so that the procedure was unfamiliar to me. If I were a practised novelist no doubt I should be able to dilate on the contrast between the old stone-built barn, with its homely smell of hay and straw, and the grim purpose to which it was now being put; on the strange aspect of the trestle tables set out upon its mud-trodden floor, with the coroner and the solemn-faced jury at one and the sharp-featured reporters at another end; on the interest with which I watched this inquiry into the circumstances attending the death of a man known to myself.
I intend to do none of these things, for they were no more than surface impressions. My real and only feeling, which I will not conceal from the reader though I did my best to hide it at the time, was one of sick apprehension regarding this vital piece of evidence which Sheringham had told me was now in the hands of the police. What it might be I could not imagine, but it was clearly serious. Had they in some cunning way managed to connect me with that rifle which had been removed from the house earlier in the day? I did not see how it was possible, but nothing could surprise me now.
I sat on a bench, between John and Ethel; and it seemed to me that the anxious solicitude with which Ethel was treating me must stamp me indubitably to all onlookers as the guilty person. John was naturally aware of my uneasiness, and endeavoured to distract me by pointing out the various local bigwigs. The coroner, I learned, was a solicitor in Budeford, the foreman of the jury an important farmer; the rest of the jury was composed almost entirely of men gaining their livelihood from agriculture, whether as employers or employed. It was only to have been expected, but the fact did not make me feel any the easier; it has been my experience that the practice of agriculture dulls the wits of all who engage in it.
Besides the coroner, the police solicitor was the only other legal man present. I of course was not represented, in spite of John’s urging.
Before the proceedings began I noticed a conference taking place at one end of the barn which I did not care about at all. It was between the coroner, Mr Gifford (the police solicitor), Superintendent Hancock, and a tall man with grey hair whom John had already pointed out to me as Colonel Grace, the chief constable. None of them so much as glanced in our direction, yet I felt utterly positive that I was their subject. When the conversation finished Superintendent Hancock seated his burly form on a bench opposite us close to the door of the barn. Still he did not glance towards me, apparently busy with a notebook, but I had the uncomfortable feeling that he was watching me the whole time.
The jury were sworn, and then immediately were marshalled out to view the body, which was lying in an adjacent shed. They returned more solemn even than before, and the coroner at once began to make his preliminary statement, addressing the jury in quite informal tones and language.
Unexpectedly to myself, but to my relief, I was the first witness called, as having been the person to discover the body. When I have an unpleasant task ahead of me, I prefer to get it over as soon as possible. At least I should not be long now in learning the worst.
I think I may flatter myself that I succeeded in presenting a collected front as I took up the position indicated to me at the witness table. None of the strangers whose eyes were fastened on me could have gathered that beneath my calm appearance my heart was thumping in a really suffocating manner.
The first questions were purely formal, my age, my profession or occupation, the length of time I had known the Hillyards, and the rest. I answered them in a voice which, I was privately pleased to find, remained perfectly steady. Furthermore, the coroner, a little elderly man with a trim grey beard and gold spectacles, was courtesy and kindness itself. If he had received any warning to treat me as what I believe is termed a hostile witness, there was no trace of it in his manner. I began to feel just a very little bit more at my ease.
‘Now, Mr Pinkerton,’ he said, after I had, so to speak, identified myself, ‘I’m not going to ask you any questions about how this little play that all of you enacted, as I was telling the jury, came into being. Mr Hillyard, who I understand was largely responsible for its composition, can tell us that. We’ll go straight on, if you don’t mind, to its performance. Now just tell the jury in your own words what happened after you left the house at approximately, I understand’ – he shuffled hurriedly among his notes – ‘yes, 2:45 that afternoon.’
‘With pleasure,’ I replied, with a slight bow, and turning to the jury I gave as succinct an account as I could of the events in question. From time to time the coroner interposed a question to make clear some point insufficiently elucidated. It was all exactly as I had expected. My troubles, I knew, would not come yet.
I described our performance of the mock drama. (‘I want you to listen very carefully to this, gentlemen,’ remarked the coroner confidentially to the jury. ‘It is essential that we should differentiate clearly between what was pretended and what actually happened.’) I narrated the part played by the three pseudo-detectives, who were of course all now in court, and I put forth the circumstances in which I heard the two shots fired, with my own subsequent discovery of the body. Fortunately it seemed that the officious individual who is popularly supposed to be included always in a coroner’s jury did not seem on this occasion to be present, for none of them volunteered to ask awkward questions – though I knew that my fill of awkward questions would very soon arrive.
It did so with the end of my narrative, when the coroner leaned back in his chair and murmured: ‘Thank you, Mr Pinkerton, thank you. That seems very clear. Er – have you any questions you wish to put to the witness, Mr Gifford?’
Mr Gifford rose with alacrity. I knew my real ordeal was upon me, and took a fresh grip of myself.
His first remarks were quite unexpected. ‘Just one or two points, Mr Pinkerton. In a case like this, you’ll agree that accuracy regarding times is essential. Now I have here a suggested timetable covering the period with which we’re really concerned, and I should like to know whether you agree with it. I’ll read it out:
‘3:30 p.m. You and Mrs Fitzwilliam begin to ascend the hill, Professor Johnson and Mr Bradley having gone on a few yards ahead of you.
‘3:32 p.m. The first shot.
�
�3:33 p.m. You go back.
‘3:34 p.m. You reach the bottom and pass out of Mrs Fitzwilliam’s observation.
‘3:37 p.m. The second shot.
‘3:43 p.m. You begin to ascend again.
‘3:44 p.m. You reach the point where you left Mrs Fitzwilliam and do not find her there, and a strange impulse seizes you to go down again, which you do.
‘3:45 p.m. You discover the body in an unfrequented track, and, without examining it, turn away to find help, and encounter Mr Hillyard.
‘3:46 p.m. Mr Hillyard notes the time.
‘Do you agree to those times?’
I saw at once that I had to deal with a tricky mind, and it was necessary more than ever to keep my head. Under the pretext of asking me to agree to a timetable merely, I was being asked to agree also to a number of quite damaging insinuations. And in any case the timetable was grossly inadequate. As it happened, Sheringham had also insisted on a timetable the previous evening, and John and I had compiled one between us which was as accurate as we could make it, so that I had the points more or less at my fingers’ ends.
All this passed in a series of rapid thoughts through my mind, so that there was no pause before I answered coolly: ‘Certainly not. It contains several inaccuracies.’
‘And yet I understand that it is based chiefly on your own statements?’
‘Some of the intervals are as I estimated them. Others are quite different.’
‘Perhaps you would indicate where you disagree?’
‘Certainly. Might I see the document?’
‘With pleasure.’
I took it and glanced through it, trying to focus my attention on the details. The main inaccuracy had been quite obvious to me as I heard it read, and I was at once convinced that the timetable had been deliberately cooked to provide it. Instead of the two or three minutes which had actually elapsed between my hearing the second shot and reaching the spot where I had left Mrs Fitzwilliam, no less than seven minutes were now shown. The inference was obvious: that during these seven minutes I, having killed Eric Scott-Davies by firing the second shot, am busily occupied in making the death appear accidental. A pretty trap!
I referred to this error first. ‘I see that the second shot is given as 3:37. It certainly wasn’t so early as that.’
‘Ah! Now what time would you put it at, then?’
‘3:42,’ I replied.
‘Why 3:42?’
‘Because it could not have been more than about three minutes before Mr Hillyard joined me.’
‘During which time you ascended the path through the wood, and went down again?’
‘Exactly.’
‘You’re certain that wouldn’t have taken you longer than three minutes?’
‘Perfectly.’
‘Very well. Do you agree with the other times, as shown?’
‘No, I do not. The first shot was certainly later than two minutes after we made a move towards the house. I should put that at 3:35.I did not go down immediately, and certainly did not reach the bottom before 3:39.’
‘You seem very sure of these times, Mr Pinkerton. Did you by any chance make a note of the time of the two shots?’
I was not to be caught so easily as that. ‘No, I didn’t. But as you say, I quite realized the importance of having the times as accurate as possible, and Mr Hillyard and I, with a friend of mine, were therefore at some pains to make out a timetable last night.’
‘In preparation for this morning?’ asked the man, with what he evidently considered an unpleasant insinuation.
‘Precisely. We thought it might assist the court. I have a copy with me. Perhaps you would like it. From all our recollections the times are very much more accurate than those you mentioned.’ A distinct point, I thought, to me. It gave me confidence.
‘Thank you,’ replied Mr Gifford at once, and took the paper I was offering him. ‘Now I see that, even according to your own account, you spent at least six minutes down at the bottom. I should like you to explain in rather more detail exactly what you did during them. It is not necessary for me to add that, if it was the first shot that killed Mr Scott-Davies, you were all that time within a very few yards of his dead body, and if it was the second shot, you were within a very few yards of him when he actually died. It does not, as I say, need me to point out to you, Mr Pinkerton, the extreme importance of your evidence concerning these six minutes which you spent, as you say, down there alone.’
It was exactly the same dilemma in which the superintendent had already placed me, and in almost the same words. In spite of the thought I had devoted to the point, I could give no more convincing an answer. That is not to say that I did not do my best. ‘I had gone down, as I said, to reassure Mrs Fitzwilliam. I called out several times to whoever might be shooting – a point on which I understand Mrs Fitzwilliam can confirm me.’ I added with a little bow in the direction of the lady herself, who nodded slightly. John had already told me, the previous evening, that he would see that Mrs Fitzwilliam did confirm me on that point.
‘When I was convinced that the firer must have moved on, the second shot being so much farther away, I went back to where we had played our little drama and picked up my cigarette case and matches, which I remembered having left there. I may have dawdled. Probably I did. Then I went up the hill, as I said just now, and down again.’
‘And that is all you can tell us?’
‘Really, I don’t see what more I could possibly tell you. There is nothing more to tell you.’
‘No? And yet six minutes is a long time, Mr Pinkerton, when one is doing nothing. You did nothing at all for six minutes, in spite of the fact that a second shot was fired during them quite close to you?’
‘Excuse me, the shot did not sound at all close. It sounded some distance away, upstream.’
And so it went on, with the same constant attempts to trip me up, and the same insinuations slipped in alongside of correctly stated facts, till I was hard put to it to keep a level head. The direction of the two shots, the sound of them, what I had said to Superintendent Hancock and how I reconciled it with what I stated now, so on and so forth, ad nauseam, almost literally.
So far it was all familiar ground at any rate, so that I knew the pitfalls in my path and could avoid them. But when it came to new territory I fell, like the veriest blunderer, into the very first trap spread for me.
‘Now, Mr Pinkerton, you were all of course very interested in this little burlesque you were to perform? You were all eagerly inventing details to add to its verisimilitude?’
‘Yes,’ I said. That seemed innocent enough.
‘And did you contribute anything? Oh – I beg your pardon. Yes, I have a note here that you did, the spot of lead on the coat, to represent blood; a very lifelike touch. That was your suggestion?’
How easy to have denied it. But I did not know what was to follow. ‘Yes,’ I agreed, unthinking.
‘Quite so. You suggested putting that conspicuous touch of paint on Mr Scott-Davies’ coat. Now I believe that Mr Scott-Davies frequently took a gun with him (we shall have evidence, I think, on that point later) when he went out for a stroll at Minton Deeps, and elsewhere no doubt in the country. Is that a practice of yours, Mr Pinkerton?’
‘Certainly not.’
‘You seem very emphatic.’
‘I think my objection to taking life is well known among my friends.’
‘I see. Is it because you object to taking wild life that you do not shoot?’
‘Certainly.’
‘But you know how to handle a gun?’
I hesitated for a moment. ‘Well, I know how a gun works, of course.’
‘That was not my question. I asked if you knew how to handle a gun – a rifle, we’ll say.’
‘I never do so.’
‘You give me the impression that you are quite unconversant with firearms. Is that what you wish me to understand?’
It was foolish of me, but the fellow’s sneering tone irritated me. I k
now now that this was precisely what he was endeavouring to do, and I blame myself for accommodating him. I answered, shortly: ‘You may understand anything you like.’
‘Thank you. I probably shall. I understand, for instance, that’ – he turned a little more towards the jury, so that they should miss nothing of the significance –’ that when at Fernhurst school you were considered a crack shot. That you represented the school, in fact, for three years as a member of the shooting eight at Bisley, and that for two years in succession you won the school Marksman’s Cup. Is that correct?’
‘Perfectly.’ The blow had fallen. This was the piece of evidence they had discovered, as I had been dreading all the time. Well, it was deadly enough; and the way that impertinent little solicitor had introduced it made it sound deadlier still. I had not heard the end of that fatal inspiration concerning the red paint.
‘Perhaps you would like to explain to the jury, then, why you wished just now to convey the impression that you were quite unconversant with the use of firearms?’
I looked round the court, at Ethel’s face unbecomingly blotched with anxiety, at Armorel’s dead-white one, at Mrs Fitzwilliam’s strained expression, at Superintendent Hancock studiously regarding his boots, at the little coroner uneasily fidgeting with his pencil, at the stolid faces of the jury already quickening with a suspicion that had penetrated even to their dull minds; and I was surprised to notice how calm I felt. To tell the truth, I had completely given up hope; and that has a wonderfully tranquillizing effect.
‘I wished nothing of the kind,’ I replied coolly. ‘If you yourself gathered such an impression, you were mistaken.’
‘Perhaps you will be good enough to leave me out of it. Would you like to tell them instead, then, why you never mentioned this important fact to any of those responsible for the investigations into Mr Scott-Davies’ death?’
I turned to the coroner. ‘Sir, I must ask you to protect me against this gentleman’s manner of framing his questions. Surely it is most irregular. Why should he assume that the fact was important at all, or that I knew it was? Is he entitled to combine two questions in one like that by taking it for granted that I did not mention the fact? I have had to submit to these insinuations contained in questions long enough. I look to you, sir, to prevent their recurrence.’
The Second Shot Page 17
