It was the jury room that had become the centre of things. And that was incommunicado. The last contact with the everyday world had been when the messenger had brought in a tray with the two large jugs of lemonade and the carton of cuplets beside them. He had then turned the key in the door behind him. That was nearly two hours ago.
The time had passed slowly. Already the clock on the wall showed three-fifteen; and, every five minutes or so, the foreman kept glancing up at it to see if it could have stopped altogether.
The cocoa man had been elected by his fellow jurors as foreman. He was sitting in his shirt-sleeves, wiping his forehead with his handkerchief. His tie, crumpled and sodden where the knot had been, hung over the chair back behind him.
For the moment, they were all talking at once.
‘I still didn’t hear what she said before she fainted.’
‘If she did faint.’
‘Well, they had to pick her up off the floor, didn’t they?’
‘Anyhow, he made her repeat it afterwards.’
‘I didn’t hear that time, either.’
‘Does it matter? She isn’t the one who’s on trial. The judge said so.’
‘But it still requires an answer, doesn’t it?’
The chairman brought his gavel down upon the sounding block: by comparison West Coast cocoa auctions suddenly seemed so quiet, so orderly.
‘Gentlemen, gentlemen,’ he said. ‘One at a time please. Let’s clear up the points as we go along. First of all, if she’d said she had murdered him, do you imagine they’d have let the trial go on?’
The jurors all turned accusingly towards the one who hadn’t heard. He was the new headmaster of the Amimbo High School. A pale, waxen-faced man, as mild-looking as an unlit candle, he had proved to be the one trouble-maker in their midst.
‘No, I suppose not,’ he admitted.
‘Then she must have denied it, mustn’t she?’
The schoolmaster was silent for a moment. He was twisting the cap of his fountain-pen as though he were winding the thing.
‘All right,’ he replied at last. ‘I won’t press the point. It’s simply that I want to be on record that I didn’t hear.’
‘Okay.’
The foreman took out the damp discoloured handkerchief again, and began mopping the back of his neck.
‘So let’s forget about Lady Anne, and all the rest of it, shall we?’ he suggested. ‘Just concentrate on Old Moses. Is that agreed then?’
He looked round the table as he finished speaking, and gave a quick nod for each one of them in turn. Nobody disputed the decision. Mr. Ngono, however, felt rather hurt: the chairman had been so brusque, so rapid, that he hadn’t given him enough time to nod back.
‘Very well,’ the foreman resumed. ‘Now for a look at the facts. It was Old Moses who had his hand on the murder weapon, and there was blood all over him. Right?’
He glanced up for a second, jerking his head back as he did so: it was a habit that he had retained from the old days when it had been part of his business to make sure that there were no late bidders.
One hand went up. It was the bank manager’s. He was known to be a steady, reliable sort of man, and the rest were prepared to take notice of him. Up to the present, he had simply sat there, listening.
‘That’s something we’ve got to be quite sure about,’ he said. ‘Everything else hinges on it.’
‘Correct,’ the foreman told him, ‘and that’s where the eye-witnesses come in. Two of them, remember.’
‘It’s the eye-witnesses that I was thinking about,’ the bank manager replied, speaking slowly, as though he were being asked to arrange an overdraft and was still dubious about the security. ‘They may have misled us, you know.’
‘Are you calling Lady Anne a liar?’
This time, it was the superintendent of railways who had spoken. Over the years, he had climbed slowly to his present position, and was a great respecter of authority.
So was the cocoa man.
‘Through the chair please, if you don’t mind,’ he told him. ‘Let’s try to keep things orderly.’
The bank manager folded his hands together.
‘It’s not a question of calling anyone a liar,’ he said. ‘It’s merely that they may have been mistaken. I’m bound to say that I was very much impressed by the demonstration. There didn’t seem to be any difference in the way he was holding it.’
‘Nor was there,’ the schoolmaster added.
‘None whatsoever. The judge damn well said so,’ Mr. Ngono added.
The foreman reached out his hand for his gavel. If he allowed the conversation to become general again, they would be there all night.
‘It wasn’t the judge,’ he corrected him. ‘It was Counsel. That’s a very different matter.’
The bank manager’s hands were still folded.
‘Not so far as I’m concerned, it isn’t,’ he said. ‘I don’t mind who said it. I could see for myself.’
It seemed to the foreman that this was one of those occasions when it might be wise to play for time.
‘You were saying, Mr. Ngono?’ he asked.
Mr. Ngono, as it happened, had stopped thinking about the demonstration. His mind was on something else: he was wondering whether, with a word in the right quarter, a hint dropped in someone’s ear at a cocktail party, he couldn’t interest the authorities in the complete overhaul of all the Court furnishings—chairs, tables, clocks, even quite little things like lemonade-jugs and pen-holders. Handled properly, it would be worth a small fortune.
‘I agree with everything that has been said,’ he replied. ‘I haven’t got so much as one single damn doubt about it.’
‘About what?’
‘About what the gentlemen have just been saying. It is all most extremely clear.’
The foreman thanked him and turned away.
‘And you, sir?’ he asked. ‘May we have your views?’
This time, it was the head cashier of the European Emporium that he was addressing. A plump, owlish man, caged up during most of his working day behind steel bars somewhere at the back of the shop, he gave the impression of having only just emerged into the daylight. As he spoke, he kept blinking.
‘I don’t see what it’s got to do with it,’ he said. ‘The grip, I mean. Just because that’s the way you’d hold it if you were pulling it out doesn’t prove you weren’t doing the other thing. Not if the two grips were the same, if you follow me.’
The foreman saw this for his opportunity.
‘And there’s another aspect we haven’t touched on—Old Moses losing his speech like that. I’m not saying it isn’t genuine. It may be, for all I know. But it seems very peculiar to me. Very peculiar indeed. It stops him admitting anything.’
‘That is, if he’s got anything to admit,’ the schoolmaster reminded him.
‘Precisely. But look at it this way. Suppose you’d lost your voice, and somebody accused you of committing murder. Wouldn’t you find some way of denying it? Even shaking your head, or something?’
‘I might. I don’t know. It’s never happened to me.’
The bank manager leant forward.
‘It’s a good point,’ he conceded. ‘A very good point, indeed. I must admit, it hadn’t occurred to me.’
He was at once supported by the superintendent of railways.
‘Quite agree,’ he said. ‘Always thought there was something fishy about that voice business.’
Even the owner of the Missionary Bookstore, sitting beside him, was impressed.
‘You’d have thought he’d have made some effort,’ he said. ‘Found some means of communicating. Unless, of course, he is guilty. In which case, the less said the better from his point of view. It’s all very…’
He paused long enough to make them think that something new and of importance was coming.
‘… very disturbing,’ he added. ‘The uncertainty, you know.’
‘And what about you, Mr. Ngono?’ the chairman
asked. ‘If you were falsely accused, wouldn’t you find some way of defending yourself?’
This time, Mr. Ngono really had been listening; concentrating hard, in fact.
‘You’re damn well right, I would,’ he replied fervently.
The chairman did not attempt to rush them. He gave them all ample time to consider the significance of the last three answers.
‘And Old Moses hasn’t done so, has he?’ he asked at last. Not once made the slightest attempt to clear himself. I’m afraid that points only one way in my opinion.’
‘We still haven’t established any motive,’ the schoolmaster persisted. ‘You can’t have a murder without motive. It doesn’t make sense.’
Under the stress of argument, his complexion was changing. There were now faint patches of colour in the centre of his sallow cheeks.
The superintendent of railways ignored the chair altogether.
‘If you’d seen what I’ve seen,’ he said, ‘you wouldn’t talk like that. Remember that last affair? One of our local controllers slashed to death for absolutely nothing. And who was responsible? His own chief clerk. Someone he’d looked after and promoted.’
‘They’re certainly like that,’ the shipping company representative agreed. ‘It’s just the mad streak coming out. All Mimbos have got it. They’re just savages.’
Mr. Ngono swung round in his chair and faced the man. The foreman noticed the movement and became apprehensive. But he had under-rated Mr. Ngono. Mr. Ngono had handled delicate situations before. He was smiling broadly and holding out his monogrammed gold cigarette case with the built-in lighter.
‘Smoke?’ he asked. ‘Egyptian, your side. Handrolled Virginian, over here.’
All hi all, a bit of light relief was, the foreman decided, just what had been needed. It helped to keep the rest of it running smoothly. And, in any case, things weren’t going too badly; already there were the first signs of progress. He was particularly pleased that at last he had got the shipping representative to join in the discussion. Up to that moment, it had seemed that nothing short of a First-Class stateroom accommodation could have roused the man.
‘I’m afraid he’s right,’ the foreman said slowly. ‘There isn’t a motive every time.’
The schoolmaster was fiddling with his fountain-pen again.
‘Mr. Das suggested a motive,’ he pointed out.
But this was too much for the foreman. He thrust the pad, with his pencil notes scribbled all over it, away from him, and sat back.
‘Can’t bring that up now,’ he said. ‘We agreed to forget all about it. “Just concentrate on Old Moses” were the words I used.’
‘You may have agreed it,’ the schoolmaster came back at him. ‘I didn’t. I never said a word.’
‘Does the last speaker mean that he thinks that Lady Anne and the Stebbs fellow were having an affair together?’ the superintendent of railways asked, speaking formally through the chair this time.
‘They may have been. I don’t know.’
‘And plotting to murder Sir Gardnor?’
The schoolmaster put down his fountain-pen, and brought his fingertips together.
‘The two things go together,’ he said. ‘If they were having an affair…’
‘But he denied it, didn’t he? Or couldn’t you hear that bit either?’
Already the chair had been forgotten, and the superintendent and the headmaster were confronting each other.
‘I most certainly heard him. And, of course, he denied it. If he were a guilty party, he could hardly have been expected to do otherwise. And, if they were both guilty partners, there is your motive for wanting to put Sir Gardnor out of the way.’
‘Like stabbing him to death?’
The schoolmaster looked over the top of his glasses. He was finding it increasingly difficult to talk, quietly and logically, to anyone so obviously under-educated as the railway man.
‘The method is entirely immaterial,’ he said.
‘Well, I think you should be bloody well ashamed of yourself,’ the superintendent shouted back at him. ‘Filling people’s ears up with dirt like that.’
He was thumping the table while he was speaking, bringing his closed first down on it.
‘My God,’ he wound up, ‘and to think that you’re the sort of man we get to look after our children.’
The foreman glanced up at the clock again. It showed nearly four o’clock by now. Picking up his gavel he brought it down, viciously this time as if he were trying to crack something. The report startled them.
‘Gentlemen, please,’ he said. ‘May I just remind you of something. We’ve been here nearly two hours, and we are now back where we started. At this rate, we’re never even going to reach a verdict.’
Now that the foreman had temporarily regained his authority, he was anxious to show them all how alert he was, how smart at picking up any loose ends.
‘If there had been any love affair. I feel we’d have heard more about it,’ he observed. ‘And there’s another thing that weighs with me—the way Old Moses behaved. He’d have been the first to know about it. The suggestion obviously came as a great shock to him.’
‘I’m inclined to agree,’ the schoolmaster said quietly. ‘I was only arguing the point.’
‘Then you think that Old Moses did it?’
The schoolmaster had brought his finger-tips together again.
‘I haven’t said so,’ he replied. ‘Not yet. But if Old Moses had just committed a ritual killing, then naturally he wouldn’t want the whole thing reduced to the level of sordid domestic tragedy. It could account for his sudden, unexplained anger.’
‘So you think he’s guilty?’
‘On balance, yes. It’s the logical conclusion. But only on balance, mind you.’
He had separated his two hands while he was speaking, and was now busily winding up his fountain-pen again.
The foreman smiled back at him. And he intended to make the most of his new advantage. This was clearly the moment for going round the table as rapidly as possible.
‘You don’t have to ask me,’ the superintendent of railways replied. ‘You know my views. You could have had them when we sat down. Guilty.’
The foreman moved on further down the table.
‘No doubt about it. Guilty. Plain as a pikestaff. Afraid so.’
The chief cashier hadn’t even bothered to look up as he was speaking.
‘And you, sir?’ the foreman asked, turning towards the bank manager.
I’m by no means sure he did,’ the bank manager replied, ‘and I’m by no means sure he didn’t. He had the knife in his hands, that’s for certain. And, as our friend here’—he indicated the chief cashier as he said it—‘explained to us it doesn’t prove anything how he was holding it. If it wasn’t him, I don’t know who it was. So, I suppose, it’s guilty.’
The shipping representative did not hesitate: even without any evidence at all, he would have been ready to convict.
‘Guilty,’ he said.
They had come back to the schoolmaster. His finger-tips were pressed together in readiness.
‘I, too, say “guilty”,’ he replied, separating his hands for a moment and then bringing them back again. ‘But only for the time being. I may still change my mind. I don’t, by any means, regard the case as closed you know.’
The chairman thanked him and passed on hurriedly: he felt that a mind like that needed very gentle handling.
‘And you, Mr. Ngono?’
Instead of answering immediately, Mr. Ngono tried to light another cigarette. But it was no use. His hands were trembling too much.
‘It’s up to you,’ the foreman reminded him. ‘It’s your opinion we’re waiting for.’
Mr. Ngono was aware that all eyes were turned on him. They were eager, expectant eyes: he knew how warmly they would light up if only he said the right thing. And they were certainly the élite of Amimbo who were sitting there: between them, they could be of immense business assistance.
They could make him.
On the other hand, there was Mr. Talefwa: he, too, cast a long shadow. Mr. Ngono remembered very clearly their last talk in the War Drum offices, recalled sentence by sentence what Mr. Talefwa had said about the brief future for White Rule everywhere ; about an all-African Government in Amimbo when Independence came; and, most of all, about himself installed at the new Ministry of Commerce. Mr. Talefwa had more than half-promised.
Mr. Ngono decided, therefore, that the only thing to do was to keep talking. He spread out his hands, palm upwards.
‘Why damn well bother so much about me?’ he asked. ‘Why not rely on these other distinguished gentlemen?’
‘Unanimous, or nothing,’ the foreman told him. ‘That’s the law.’ Mr. Ngono shifted in his seat.
‘Then why not a ballot?’ he suggested. ‘In secret, of course. That would give you our inmost thoughts. And in writing, too.’
The foreman shook his head.
‘No ballot,’ he said.
Already, the eyes seemed to have hardened: they were glinting at him.
Fortunately, he still had his skill as a debater: it comforted him to remember how many times his speeches at Cambridge had been admired, how often he had been congratulated.
‘You really want the goddam truth?’ he asked.
‘I do.’
‘Then I say we’re barking up the wrong tree,’ he said. ‘Being led up the garden path by our bloody noses, in fact. One eminent Counsel says one thing, and the other eminent Counsel clouds our minds for us. What do we know about the law in comparison with such clever people?’
‘It’s got nothing to do with the law.’
Mr. Ngono saw this for his opportunity. With his debating experience, he felt sure that he could keep things going indefinitely, simply wear them down until they grew tired of asking him.
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