by Clara Benson
‘Excellent,’ said Mr. Travers. ‘And as a matter of fact, you have put your finger on the very thing that is most important in the affair. It would be a grave error for us to try and paint you as a victim of an unpleasant husband, for that would give the jury the idea that you had a strong motive to kill him. Motive does not make a case but it must be a very independent-minded jury indeed that fails to be swayed by it, and of course the peculiar circumstances of your husband’s death make it all the more important to play down any apparent animosity between the two of you.’
‘I know that very well,’ said Angela. ‘It’s just rather unfortunate that we disliked one another so much.’
‘You must not mention that,’ said Mr. Travers. ‘Now, then, we come to Mr. Marchmont’s unexpected appearance in London. I understand from the police that you gave him a cheque for a rather large sum of money.’
‘Yes, I did,’ said Angela.
‘Why is that?’ said Mr. Travers.
‘Why, to get rid of him,’ said Angela. ‘I wanted him to go away.’
‘But five hundred pounds? That is an enormous sum. And I understand that that constituted most of the money you had in your bank account at the time.’
Angela opened her mouth to reply, but Mr. Travers went on:
‘Mrs. Marchmont, you must understand the way a jury’s mind works. Of course, you are perfectly aware that under the law a person is considered innocent until proven guilty. Now, it is my unpleasant duty to tell you that whatever the law says, this is pure nonsense. The very fact of your appearing in court accused of a crime creates an unintentional presupposition that you are guilty—for if you were innocent, then why should you be there at all? That is what people think, and that is why it can be very difficult to secure an acquittal once a case has come to court, for the jury is already half-convinced that the person before them is guilty of the crime for which he is being tried. It is unfortunate, but it is the best system we have at present, and this is what you are battling against. Now, then, if a jury hears that you have been writing cheques for five hundred pounds and giving them to people you dislike—for the fact of your estrangement from your husband indicates that you were no longer on good terms—they will immediately wonder why you did it. And in this sort of case, the first word that is likely to spring into their minds is “blackmail.”’
He paused and looked at her earnestly.
‘Mrs. Marchmont, was your husband blackmailing you?’
Angela hesitated. She had never thought of it in those terms.
‘I shouldn’t call it blackmail, exactly,’ she said reluctantly at last.
‘Ah,’ said Mr. Travers. ‘I thought so. Then he knew something to your disadvantage and was threatening to disclose it? Did he have evidence of another man, perhaps? I beg your pardon, but I must ask these questions.’
‘No, he had no evidence of anything like that,’ replied Angela with exact truth.
‘Then what is it? What have you not told me? Did anybody else know of it? Is it something which is likely to come out in court? I understand the prosecution intends to produce one or two witnesses from the United States, including your husband’s mother.’
Angela looked up sharply.
‘Della?’ she said in dismay. This was bad news. Davie’s mother had always heartily disliked Angela, and if she were intending to give evidence against her daughter-in-law then that meant only one thing: it would certainly all come out now.
‘You had better tell me,’ said Mr. Travers gently.
There was no getting out of it. Angela hesitated, then took a deep breath and told him the thing she had not wanted people to know.
ELEVEN
The news of Angela Marchmont’s arrest for the murder of her husband took all her friends and acquaintances completely by surprise. Many of them had not been aware that she had a husband, and even those who knew it were astonished at the idea of the mild-tempered Angela’s taking a gun to anybody in anger. Perhaps the most shocked of all was Freddy Pilkington-Soames, who, having seen Angela only the night before her husband’s death, could not quite believe what had happened after her sudden disappearance from the White Rabbit Ball. His immediate thought was that the man he had seen dancing with Angela must have been her husband, but as soon as he read a description of the dead man he knew that it was not so, for Davie Marchmont had been fair-haired and stood at more than six feet tall, whereas the man at the ball was dark and not more than about five feet eleven. Furthermore, Davie had not been wearing evening clothes when he was found. Who was the other man, then?
Had this been a story on which he was reporting for the Clarion, in which the principals were personally unknown to him, Freddy, that most suspicious of young men, would immediately have assumed that the lady and the gentleman had been in it together; that they had left the ball and gone back to the lady’s flat, whereupon they had unexpectedly encountered her husband, with all too tragic consequences. But this was his friend Angela Marchmont, and cynic as he was, he would not believe it of her. She was not the sort of person to involve herself in sordid doings of this kind, he was sure of it. Perhaps the man he had seen at the ball was a mere acquaintance of Angela’s. But no; a few minutes’ reflection was enough to tell him that he had not been mistaken in what he saw. There had been something between them—that was clear enough—but surely it had no connection to this Marchmont fellow’s death? Freddy was certain that Angela had not shot anybody, but might this man have done it? Again, though, that did not sound like Angela, for he could not believe that she would lie to protect a murderer, whatever her feelings for him might be. It was a mystery, and one that had put Angela in peril of her life, for the police did not seem to be looking for anyone else in connection with the affair. If another suspect could not be found, then Angela would be tried, found guilty and hanged, Freddy was almost certain of it.
He was determined to help, and so as soon as he could he volunteered his services as a detective to Mr. Addison. The solicitor was doubtful at first, but Freddy was insistent and in the end Mr. Addison agreed to ask his client whether she would consent to it. Angela did not believe there was much Freddy could do, but recognized the expression of friendship that lay behind the offer and was grateful for it, for she had been uncertain how people would take the news of her arrest. The young man had many leads he wanted to pursue, said the solicitor, and it certainly could not do any harm to let him try. Angela agreed, therefore, and Freddy set to his task.
It was the work of only a day or two to speak to the police and trace Josiah McLeod, whose evidence sounded most promising despite his unprepossessing appearance. Unlike Angela, however, Freddy did not make the connection in his mind between the man at the ball and the man on the steps of Burkett’s, for he had fastened too strongly upon Jos’s description of the latter as foreign-looking, and was imagining someone of far less English appearance than Edgar Valencourt. Freddy thought that the man on the steps might be someone with whom Davie Marchmont had fallen out (for, from the little he had heard of Angela’s husband, he seemed the sort of chap who fell out with everyone sooner or later), and hoped that if more evidence of this row could be found, and if it could be proved that Angela had not been at home on the night of the murder, then she would be cleared.
The only flaw in this line of reasoning was that Angela had stated quite firmly to the police that she had spent that Saturday night in her flat. Of course, if she had indeed been somewhere she ought not to have been, then this was only to be expected—in the early stages of the investigation, at least, but it seemed rather odd to Freddy that although they were now at the point of planning her defence for the trial, she was still apparently clinging to her original statement. However carefully he put the question to Mr. Addison or Mr. Travers, they still seemed to think that she had no alibi for the period after midnight on the night of the murder. That presumably meant Angela was telling the truth about where she had spent the night—either that or she had not told her lawyers where she had
really been, for some reason of her own. Freddy reflected long and hard on this. Of course, he had no proof at all that she had not done exactly as she said on the night of the ball, but it was not like her to go home early without saying goodbye—and, furthermore, it was most unlike her to fail to spot a dead body lying in her own flat. Why, she had made a reputation for herself as a detective precisely because of her keen powers of observation. It was almost unthinkable that she should have missed the sight of her husband lying dead in a pool of blood for nearly seven hours! No, the more he thought about it, the more certain Freddy became that Angela might have a perfectly good alibi if she chose to use it, but that up to now she had chosen not to use it. This would not do; evidently the shock of being arrested had affected her powers of thinking in some way, for it was quite absurd of her to risk her life over her reputation. If she would not admit to it, then it was up to him to find the evidence that would prove where she had been that night.
His first thought was to ask the other members of the party whether any of them had seen Angela with a man that night, but somehow he could not bring himself to do it, for he knew she would hate it if she found out that they had been talking about her in this way. His next idea was to search quietly for the taxi driver who was supposed to have taken her home shortly after midnight, for he had the suspicion that the man had carried more than just Angela in his cab, and that they had not gone to her flat. But again Freddy was uncomfortable at the idea of doing this, for he felt that it was somehow furtive and underhand. In the end, he decided that before he started his investigation he would give Angela the opportunity to tell him about it herself, and then only if she denied everything would he take matters into his own hands.
So it was that he found himself sitting in the uncomfortable chair opposite Angela, who had reluctantly agreed to allow him to visit her in prison, although she had at first insisted that she did not want to see anyone. The atmosphere was stiff for the first few minutes; she replied shortly to his inquiries after her health, and looked altogether as though she would rather be elsewhere.
‘You’re looking a little thin,’ he said at last. ‘Aren’t you eating? I dare say the food isn’t up to much here.’
‘No, it isn’t,’ she replied. ‘The foie gras is quite dreadful, and I had to send the smoked salmon back the other day because it was starting to curl at the edges.’
‘That’s more like it,’ said Freddy. ‘I knew you were in there somewhere.’
‘Somewhere, perhaps,’ said Angela. ‘I’m not certain there’s much of me left.’
‘Cheer up, old girl!’ he said. ‘We’ll get you off, you’ll see. I have lots of tricks up my sleeve.’
‘I wish I could believe it, Freddy,’ she said, ‘but it all looks rather hopeless from where I’m sitting.’
‘Well, yes, everything’s bound to look hopeless when you have to sit on these chairs. Did someone design them with the express purpose of causing numbness to the average human posterior within the space of five minutes or less, do you suppose?’
She did not laugh, and he regarded her sympathetically.
‘Listen, Angela,’ he said. ‘I wanted to talk to you seriously without all these overbearing lawyer chaps present. As a friend, you understand. I want to help you so very much, but it’s difficult when you’re not telling the whole truth to people.’
‘What do you mean?’ she said. ‘Of course I’m telling the truth.’
‘Well, yes, in some respects I expect you are,’ he said. ‘But why are you keeping quiet about this man of yours?’
He observed her closely as he said it, and had to admit to himself that she carried it off very well, with merely the slightest flicker of the eyelids.
‘What are you talking about?’ she said. ‘Which man?’
‘Why, the man I saw you with at the White Rabbit Ball. You were dancing and making the most awful sheep’s eyes at one another when you thought nobody was looking.’
‘I danced with lots of men that night, Freddy,’ she said with apparent carelessness, although inwardly she was aghast at how easily she had been seen through. ‘And I can assure you I didn’t make sheep’s eyes at any of them.’
‘But I saw you,’ said Freddy. ‘I was struck by it at the time, and I was making up my mind to tease you about it when I saw you next. But then this all happened and I never had the opportunity. I never shall now, because it’s suddenly become far more important than just a silly joke. You must see that. I should hate to think of your being found guilty of something you didn’t do just because you’re trying to protect someone who probably doesn’t deserve it.’
For a moment he looked like a worried little boy, and she was touched by his concern. Could she have told she might have done it then, but of course she could not.
‘I do see it,’ she said, ‘and I wish I could say anything different, but I can’t. Do you really think I’d be sitting here now if I had a handy alibi? I assume that’s what you mean, at any rate: you think I wasn’t at home that night, but I can assure you I was, just as I said. I don’t know which man you’re talking about. I danced with quite a few that night, and I dare say I flirted with one or two of them, as one does when one’s enjoying oneself. Then I came home and went straight to bed, and rather stupidly didn’t spot until the next morning that someone had killed my husband and left his body behind the sofa.’
‘Oh, Angela,’ said Freddy sadly, for he did not believe a word of it.
There was a silence, and she looked down at her hands.
‘Besides, don’t you think it would look even worse if there were someone?’ she said quietly. ‘I still shouldn’t have an alibi because they’d just think we were in it together—that we’d both killed Davie. Then they wouldn’t call me only a murderer, but other things besides.’
For a second her lips trembled, and Freddy regarded her with the greatest pity. He was now certain that his guess had been right, and was privately disgusted at the man, whoever he might be, for not coming forward and giving her an alibi. Presumably he was married and had a position to maintain, and would let Angela hang rather than get himself into trouble. Angela was an honourable woman and would not give him away, but any true gentleman would have stepped in immediately to save her. Freddy resolved there and then that he would find this man if at all possible, and force him to do what he ought.
‘Angela—’ he began.
‘Listen, Freddy,’ she said in a firmer voice. ‘I promise you that if there were anything I could possibly do to make them let me out, then I should do it—should have done it long ago, in fact. I’m in the most awful fix, I know that, and I’m tremendously grateful that you’ve done as much as you have for me, but please don’t feel bad if things don’t—turn out well.’
‘You mustn’t think like that,’ he said. ‘Of course things will turn out well. We’ll find out who really did it and they’ll acquit you and let you go with a handshake and an apology, and perhaps even a bouquet—’ here she did manage a smile, ‘—and we’ll forget any of this ever happened.’
‘I hope so,’ she said. ‘But how can we find out who did do it?’
‘I only wish I knew,’ he said. ‘It’s a pity you can’t do any investigating yourself, stuck in here. But I shall do what I can, if you’ll only tell me where to start. I mean to say, you must have plenty of spare time here to think about things. Have you come to any conclusions as to who might have murdered your husband?’
‘Well it must have been someone he knew,’ she said. ‘I imagine I wasn’t the only person to find him tiresome. I don’t know who would have had a big enough grudge against him to kill him, though.’
‘Did he have friends in England?’
‘Well, there was the man he was staying with at Burkett’s. I can’t remember his name, but I dare say you could find it out. I don’t know about anyone else. As far as I knew, he had none.’
‘But what was he doing in your flat?’ said Freddy. ‘Surely that’s the oddest part of this who
le thing. Why did he come?’
‘I’ve no idea,’ said Angela. ‘I’ve thought and thought about it, but I don’t know why he should have come when he did. He’d visited twice and asked for money, but it was a Saturday night, and he could hardly expect me to be at home—as a matter of fact, I’m fairly sure I mentioned to him that I should be out that night.’
‘Perhaps he came deliberately, knowing you would be out,’ said Freddy.
‘Yes, I’d thought of that,’ said Angela. ‘He’d made various threats about—things, and I rather wonder whether he hadn’t come to search my flat while I was at the ball.’
‘Search it for what?’
‘Evidence of another man, I expect. You’re not the only person to accuse me of it. I made some mention of divorce and he didn’t take it kindly. There is no such evidence, of course, but he wasn’t to know that.’
‘That makes sense,’ said Freddy. ‘Let’s take it as a logical hypothesis, since he’s not here to speak for himself and contradict us. So, then, let’s say he was here to rifle through your escritoire and disarrange the silverware. What happened between his arrival and his departure, so to speak? Did he make so much noise opening and closing drawers that he attracted the ire of one of your neighbours, who turned up with a gun and dealt with the problem in summary fashion? I know there’s little in this world that’s more infuriating than someone rattling about in the next room when one’s trying to sleep.’
‘I doubt it,’ said Angela. ‘Most of the people in the building are old dears who can’t hear a thing one says unless one shouts.’
‘Well, in that case whoever did it must have arrived in company with your husband—otherwise they wouldn’t have been able to get in through the front door downstairs.’
