Silence in Court

by Patricia Wentworth

  Sir Wilbury gathered up his gown with a characteristic gesture.

  “Do you know of any occasion when Miss Silence came into Mrs. Maquisten’s bathroom?”

  “Yes.”

  “When was that?”

  “On the Monday morning.”

  “The morning of Monday, November 16th?”

  “Yes.”

  “Will you describe what happened.”

  “I had been dusting the cupboard shelves. I had all the bottles out and was beginning to put them back, when Miss Silence came through from the bedroom and said Mrs. Maquisten wanted her smelling-salts. I gave them to her, and she went back again.”

  “She could have seen what you were doing?”

  “Oh, yes. She took a good look and said, ‘What a lot of bottles!’”

  Again Carey remembered very sharply. All those bottles. And she had been sorry for Cousin Honoria.…

  Well, they were finished with the tabloids at last. Magda was telling how she had gone out and come home, how she had stood at the connecting door and listened, how she had undressed and gone to bed. Then, in the morning, Ellen coming in frightened because her mistress hadn’t waked when she drew the curtains back, and Magda going through to find Honoria Maquisten dead.

  Sir Wilbury had finished with his witness. He sat down. Counsel for the defence rose to cross-examine. Carey found herself looking at him with strained attention.

  After Sir Wilbury’s massive build and handsome presence, Hugo Vane looked like a schoolboy who had somehow reached middle age without growing up. He must have been a cheerful, chubby child with a tendency to bulge. His brown eyes twinkled. His cheeks were round and rosy. The tendency to bulge was perhaps a little more marked. Seen through a diminishing-glass and at a little distance, he might have been a schoolboy still, dressed up in wig and gown. When he began to speak his voice had the same youthful quality. It had none of the vibrations, the range of tone, which Sir Wilbury could command. It was just a fresh, pleasant voice. Speaking to Jeff Stewart, Mr. Mordaunt had commended it. “Makes everything sound easy. Keeps the jury feeling how bright they are. Pleases them.”

  In this agreeable voice he now put a number of questions to Magda Brayle. She had been in the bathroom during Mrs. Maquisten’s interview with Miss Silence? Washing handkerchiefs, wasn’t she? How long did that take? She had been washing them half an hour before Molly James brought up that letter? Very troublesome handkerchiefs to wash, weren’t they? And the door was ajar all the time?

  Under his skilful management Nurse Brayle began to look like a very deliberate eavesdropper.

  “You were in the habit of listening to Mrs. Maquisten’s private conversations?”

  “Certainly not!”

  “But you did a good deal of listening on that Monday afternoon?”

  “I had to consider Mrs. Maquisten’s health. It wasn’t at all good for her to get excited.”

  “Mrs. Maquisten was excited?”

  “She was very much excited.”

  “Sufficiently so to make you nervous as to the effect of this excitement upon her health?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “Now, Miss Brayle—what were the relations between Mrs. Maquisten and Miss Silence? I am not asking you about this particular afternoon, but about the preceding fortnight.”

  “Mrs. Maquisten had taken a great fancy to Miss Silence. She was very fond of her.”

  “She showed her a good deal of affection?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “And what about Miss Silence—did she return this affection?”

  “She seemed to.”

  “They were on terms of mutual affection?”

  “It looked as if they were.”

  “Now, Miss Brayle—during this conversation, part of which you overheard, you have said that Mrs. Maquisten was very much excited, and you have said that excitement was bad for her health. Would not anyone who was fond of her have done what they could to calm this excitement?”

  “I suppose so.”

  “You have said in your evidence that Miss Silence did, in fact, use every endeavour to soothe and calm her cousin. That is so, is it not?”

  “Yes.” There was a little pause before the word.

  “I put it to you that during the whole of this interview all that Miss Silence said and did was compatible with an affectionate desire to calm and soothe a state of excitement which was obviously not at all good for an invalid. Yes or no, Miss Brayle?”

  For the first time a slight flush came to Magda’s face. She said,

  “Yes.”

  “Now, to go back to the beginning of this conversation which you overheard. Miss Silence came in and said, ‘What is it, Cousin Honoria?’ and Mrs. Maquisten said something about being deceived. I should like to get that a little clearer if we can. Can you give us her exact words?”

  “I don’t know that I can. She was choking with anger. It was something about being deceived.”

  “Was it ‘I have been deceived’?”

  “Yes—something like that.”

  “Miss Brayle, I am very anxious to get this clear. Did Mrs. Maquisten use these words, ‘I have been deceived’? Please think very carefully before you answer. Did she say, ‘I have been deceived’?”

  “Yes, she did.”

  “Will you swear that she said those words?”

  “Yes.”

  “She didn’t say, ‘You have deceived me, Carey’?”

  “I didn’t hear her say that.”

  “But you heard her say, ‘I have been deceived’?”

  “Yes.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Mr. Mordaunt was in good spirits at the end of the day. Hugo Vane had not been able to shake Magda Brayle as to the number of tabloids in the bottle, but Mr. Mordaunt considered that he had got home to the jury with the impression that Nurse Brayle was a deliberate eavesdropper, and that she had a definite bias against Carey Silence.

  “Nine of them men. Men don’t like a woman running another woman down, especially when there doesn’t seem to be any reason for it—looks like spite. I don’t think they liked it. Don’t think they cottoned to Miss Magda Brayle. What’s at the back of it? Why has she got her knife into Miss Silence? She has, you know. I’d like to know why.”

  Jeff Stewart raised his eyebrows. “Just plain jealousy, I should say. Mrs. Maquisten didn’t like her, and did like Carey.”

  Mr. Mordaunt pricked up his ears.

  “Oh—Mrs. Maquisten didn’t like her?”

  “No one liked her much.”

  “Why did she keep her?”

  Jeff shrugged.

  “Don’t make too much of it. I don’t say she disliked her, or that any of them did. Magda just didn’t mix. A bit of a cold fish, I should say, and they were a friendly crowd.” His face darkened as he added, “They were very friendly to me.”

  “But not to Miss Brayle?”

  “Magda wasn’t friendly. But I don’t mind betting she’d resent their being friendly to Carey, and she’d resent Mrs. Maquisten making a lot of her and giving her things.”

  Mr. Mordaunt nodded, then looked slily sideways.

  “When you said they were such a friendly lot—were you including Miss King?”

  Jeff’s smile felt stiff these days. He had the feeling himself it must creak. He said, “Oh, Honor King doesn’t count.”

  They went on talking about the case, and all the time his heart and mind cried out to Carey. She hadn’t looked at him once all through the long, difficult day. She had looked at the judge. She had looked every now and again at Sir Wilbury, at Hugo Vane, at Magda Brayle, but for the most part she had looked down at the bare hands lying in her lap. She had not looked once at the jury, and she had never looked at him.

  He found her changed. The dazed air had gone. She was pale, but she no longer seemed as if she might slip away at any moment into a swoon. She seemed stronger. Her eyes when she lifted them were a clear deep blue. She didn’t look ill any more. She didn’t e
ven look as if she were under a heavy strain. She was quiet and withdrawn. He felt an uprush of confidence and hope, because it didn’t seem possible to him that twelve ordinary, normal people could be made to believe that Carey would harm anyone.

  He began to think about the jury—not as a jury, but as individuals. Three of them were women. A rather hatchet-faced spinster with a militant eye and the air of having sat diligently on committees since the beginning of the century. Well, you never knew how it would take that sort. Some of them were all for a fellow woman—some of them weren’t. He found her unpredictable. The little faded blond was much easier. He knew her kind—line of least resistance—slide and let slide. God! To think of Carey’s life in those inefficient hands! The third woman cheered him a good bit. She looked the sort of stout, comfortable person who has brought up a family and made a good job of it. Her heavy face was set in lines of kindness and common sense. Of the men, the foreman had a handsome, forcible face. Mordaunt supplied the information that he was a builder and contractor. He looked as if he would be fond of his own way. He probably had a meek, adoring wife, and children whom he ruled with benevolent despotism. For the rest, there was a little rabbit of a man with a twitching nose, a bovine man with an air of impenetrable stupidity, a man with a long neck and an abnormally active Adam’s apple, a rather wild-looking person with red hair and a swivel eye, a man with retired government servant stamped all over him, a man with a ginger moustache, a man with a beard, and a man with a bald head. There they were all day today, and there they would be all day tomorrow, making up their minds whether Carey was to live or die. And there wasn’t anything he could do.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  “Call Ernest Hood!”

  As Mr. Hood stepped up into the box and took the oath, Carey was thinking that you could get used to anything. Today was not so dreadful as yesterday. She knew what the court was going to look like before she came into it. The judge was a familiar figure, Sir Wilbury no longer an ogre of her imagination, but a big, good-looking man with a fine voice. She looked for the first time at the jury, and found them reassuringly commonplace—the kind of people you saw in a cinema or in church, just everyday men and women. The nightmare sense of distortion lessened. The scene became just a court of law, a place where people were trying to bring the truth to light. She turned her head a little, and met Jeff Stewart’s look. Across the crowded court it said, “Carey, I’m here. Carey, I love you.” Her colour rose, her eyes dazzled. She had to look away.

  Under the guidance of Sir Wilbury, Ernest Hood was explaining himself. He was Mr. Aylwin’s head clerk. At about 3.0 o’clock on the afternoon of Monday November 16th he was called to the telephone. Miss Silence said that Mrs. Maquisten wished him to come round to 13, Maitland Square immediately, and to bring with him the will which she had executed about a week previously.

  “Was this the will which has been proved and admitted in evidence?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is Miss Silence a beneficiary under this will?”

  “She is.”

  “To what extent?”

  “Fifty thousand pounds, and jewellery which has been valued for probate at ten thousand.”

  “Did you go round to Maitland Square?”

  “Yes, I got there about half past three.”

  “Did you take the will with you?”

  “No—it was locked in the safe. Mr. Aylwin was in Scotland, and he had the key.”

  “Will you describe your interview with Mrs. Maquisten.”

  Mr. Hood passed a hand over his dark receding hair. Since it was already as smooth as Brylcream and brushing could make it, the movement may be taken to have been a nervous one. His light hazel eyes were fixed on Sir Wilbury’s face. His manner was one of zealous attention. When he spoke his voice was weak and throaty. He coughed once or twice as if to clear it and murmured an excuse. But when he really got going he was quite audible. Like everyone else who saw Honoria Maquisten that afternoon, he described her as being very angry, very excited.

  “She began the interview by asking if I had brought the will, and when I said ‘No,’ she was in a great state of anger about Mr. Aylwin being away and having taken the key of the safe. I had told Miss Silence on the telephone that I should not be able to bring the will, and I heard her pass the information on, but Mrs. Maquisten behaved as if she had expected me to bring the will—she was really quite abusive.”

  “Did she give any explanation of why she wished to make a new will?”

  “Yes—she said over and over again and with great emphasis that she had been deceived, and that no one need imagine that she could be deceived with impunity. She said, ‘If you had brought the will as I desired you, I would have had you burn it so that I might be sure it would be out of harm’s way.’ I said that Mr. Aylwin would be back in a day or two, and she said, ‘Anything may happen in a day or two,’ and that she would dictate a new will now and sign it tomorrow—she would dictate the provisions now, and I was to have the will ready to sign at a quarter to two next day. She said, ‘I’ll have them all here—Robert, Nora, Dennis, Honor, and Carey. They shall all hear what I’ve got to say, and they shall all know my reasons for what I’m going to do. I’ll have everything out in front of them.’ Then she told me to take her instructions for the new will. She had a copy of the old one in her hands. She dictated a good part of the will from that. Bequests to charities and legacies to the staff were unchanged.”

  “Can you indicate the nature of the changes she did propose to make?”

  “Yes. In the previous will the bulk of the estate was divided more or less equally between five legatees. The jewellery was also divided between these legatees, though not in equal proportions.”

  “Who were these five legatees?”

  “They were Mr. Robert Maquisten, Mr. Dennis Harland, Mrs. Nora Hull, Miss Honor King, and Miss Carey Silence.”

  “How were these people related to Mrs. Maquisten?”

  “Mr. Robert Maquisten and Miss King are the nephew and niece of Mrs. Maquisten’s husband, the late Mr. James Maquisten. Mr. Harland and Mrs. Hull are her own nephew and niece. Miss Silence is the granddaughter of a first cousin.”

  “But in the will admitted to probate her share is an equal one?”

  “Her money share is an equal one. As far as the jewellery went, she was to receive by far the most valuable portion.”

  “That is under this old will—the will admitted to probate. What disposition of her property did Mrs. Maquisten propose in the instructions you took down on the afternoon of November 16th?”

  Mr. Hood swallowed, cleared his throat, and said,

  “She instructed me that the division of her property and of the jewellery would fall into four portions, not five as in the previous will.”

  “What did you understand by that?”

  Mr. Hood gazed at him earnestly and replied,

  “I understood that she was cutting someone out of her will.”

  Sir Wilbury picked up his gown with a swish.

  “And pray, what form did her instructions take?”

  Mr. Hood looked very unhappy.

  “She dictated provisions for bequests dividing her property into four, with blanks left for the insertion of the names of the legatees. I don’t know if I make myself clear.”

  “You mean that the amounts of the legacies were to be filled in, but the names of the legatees were to be left blank?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And when were these blanks to be filled in?”

  “Next day, at a quarter to two. She said she would fill them in in the presence of the legatees, and then affix her signature to the will. She told me to arrange for two witnesses, whom she named, to be in attendance.”

  Sir Wilbury raised his voice a little.

  “Mrs. Maquisten named two persons who were to witness her signature. Did she name the person she was cutting out of her will?”

  “No one was named.” There was a quite perceptible stress up
on the verb.

  “What do you mean by that, Mr. Hood?”

  “I mean that I knew who it was”—a shade of defiance in the tone, a jerky emphasis.

  “Will you tell us how you could know that.”

  “Mrs. Maquisten made it quite clear.”

  “Will you tell us what she said.”

  Mr. Hood gulped and cleared his throat.

  “She said she had been deceived, and that she ought to have known, because Ellen had warned her.”

  “That is Ellen Bridling, her maid?”

  “Yes. She said, ‘Ellen warned me, but I didn’t take any notice.’ I said, ‘Well, it’s not too late, Mrs. Maquisten,’ and she said, ‘Old friends are best. Ellen’s faithful—she warned me. Up with the rocket and down with the stick was what she said, but I wouldn’t listen.’ Then she said that I was one of the steady-going ones, and it wouldn’t ever happen to me. And she asked me, ‘How would you like to be a rocket? A stranger for a week, an heiress for a week, and then down with the stick and a stranger again.’ Well, I couldn’t help knowing who she meant.”

  “Were those words applicable to one of the five legatees in the will which has been admitted to probate?”

  “Yes.”

  “To which of them?”

  “To Miss Silence.”

  “In what respect?”

  “She was a stranger when she came to the house. After she had been there a week Mrs. Maquisten made a will under which she benefited very considerably, and in another week Mrs. Maquisten was altering her will again and cutting somebody out.”

  “Will you repeat the exact words used by Mrs. Maquisten.”

  Mr. Hood repeated them.

  “She said, ‘A stranger for a week, an heiress for a week, and then down with the stick and a stranger again.’”

  Sir Wilbury’s voice was low and impressive.

  “Was there any doubt in your mind as to the identity of the person referred to in these words?”