Silence in Court

by Patricia Wentworth

  He gave a sort of groan.

  “Well, that’s Ellen. Then there’s Hood. Any reason why Hood should lie?”

  The hand on his arm gave a jerking pull. Nora said,

  “If he thought it was Honor he might.”

  “What!”

  “But it couldn’t be Honor—it simply couldn’t. Ellen saw the stuff at twenty past eight, and it was all right then. Honor simply wasn’t alone one moment after that. She couldn’t have done it. And anyhow she wouldn’t. She’s one of the most tiresome and irritating people who ever lived, but she wouldn’t poison anyone. She’s the sort that goes flop, not the sort that does something about it.”

  Jeff pulled his arm away. His hand came down on Nora’s shoulder.

  “What’s that got to do with Hood? What’s Honor got to do with him?”

  She stared, round-eyed and a little frightened in the dusk.

  “Didn’t you know? It was the family joke. He’d been sucking up to her for months, ever since he got out of the Army. Den used to tease her—we all did. I thought you knew.”

  The words came out in little rushes, too many of them and too fast.

  Jeff held her.

  “Do you mean there was something between them? Is that what you mean?”

  She gave a shaky nod, and then hurried to explain it away.

  “I don’t suppose there was anything in it really. Den was rather a beast, I thought. She’d never had anyone before. Even if it was only Ernest Hood it was something. They used to go to the cinema—I expect they held hands. I don’t suppose it got any farther than that. She got no end of a kick out of it. You see, if you’ve never had anything, a little goes a long way. She used to say she’d been out with Daphne Smyth.”

  “Hood was fond of her? Fond enough to perjure himself?”

  The half-frightened look in Nora’s eyes changed to a sparkle. She made a face and said,

  “I think he was passionately fond of what he thought she was going to get from Aunt Honoria.” And then the fright was back again. She was pulling at his coat and saying, “Jeff, don’t look like that! They couldn’t have done it—neither of them could. Do you suppose Den and I would have held our tongues and let Carey be tried if there had been the slightest, faintest chance of putting it on that awful Ernest Hood? But he simply couldn’t have had anything to do with it. He went away at four o’clock, hours and hours before that damned sleeping-draught was mixed, and more than an hour before Honor came home. And he was back in the office before she left her parcel-packing place, because Den found out. And she came straight home here when she left, so they didn’t meet or anything. So we thought, ‘What’s the good of dragging her in when she couldn’t possibly have anything to do with it?’”

  “Did Molly and Mrs. Deeping know about Hood and Honor?”

  “I expect so. I told you it was a family joke. But they wouldn’t say anything unless they were asked, and of course the police didn’t ask because they didn’t know there was anything to ask about.”

  “Carey—did Carey know?”

  “Of course.”

  “And she didn’t say?” His voice strained on the words.

  “She wouldn’t drag Honor in just for nothing at all. It was quite bad enough without that.” He felt her shoulder jerk pettishly under his hand. “Jeff, we’ll collect a crowd if we go on standing here.”

  The hand lifted. He swung round and began to walk again. No words for a long time—thoughts pounding in him—the blood pounding in his ears, against his temples. Just how much did it matter, all this stuff they had kept back? Would it have saved Carey? Would it have helped her? Was it too late to help her now? He didn’t know. He would have to see Mordaunt. Hood with his eye on the legacy which Honor King expected—which Honor King had now got away with. A very substantial legacy. Hood might do a good deal to get his hands on fifty thousand pounds.… Suppose that letter had been to tell Honoria Maquisten that Ernest Hood, her solicitor’s clerk, was making up to Honor King. Her immediate reaction might very well have been to keep that fifty thousand out of Hood’s hands for good and all by cutting Honor out of her will. If that was the case and Hood knew it, their interview on that Monday afternoon must have been a fairly sultry one. It would have pleased Honoria Maquisten to make him the instrument of his own humiliation and disappointment, and when it came to saying what had happened—well, he couldn’t possibly afford to make it public. He would lie, would suggest Carey Silence as the object of Honoria Maquisten’s anger, would just stop short of naming her outright. Because of course there was the writer of the letter to be reckoned with. He must have felt tolerably sure that the person who wrote it wouldn’t show up. And that meant he knew who the writer was.… That didn’t matter—not now—not here. Assume Ernest Hood had lied about his interview with Honoria Maquisten. Assume he lied when he said he thought all that about going up with the rocket and coming down with the stick referred to Carey. Because that was one of the things that had always stuck in his throat. That phrase rang true. It wasn’t only that Honoria Maquisten might have used it; he had never been able to get away from the conviction that she had used it. Well, so she might have done. But the rocket would have been Ernest Hood, and not Carey Silence. With the sputter and flash of an actual firework the question which had raised a laugh in court shot through his mind and illumined it—“How would you like to be a rocket, Mr. Hood?” Or perhaps what Honoria Maquisten had really said was, “How do you like being a rocket?”…

  The illumination died. His mind was dark again—quite dark. Because there was no way by which Ernest Hood could have contrived Honoria Maquisten’s death. If all these assumptions were true, he might most ardently have desired it, but it could have got no further than that. If she died before she could alter her will and disinherit Honor King—well, that was just his luck. If he lied afterwards to bolster up that luck, it was as far as you could push it. There simply wasn’t one shred of evidence to connect him with the death itself.

  Unless—A pin-point pricked the dark. He looked down at Nora, who had been wondering if he was ever going to speak again, and said,

  “Did Hood know Ellen Bridling? What sort of terms were they on?”

  Her voice sounded surprised. She said quickly,

  “Terms? Why none at all, I should think. I suppose she may have seen him when he came to the house.”

  “Why?”

  “I—don’t—know—” The words came out with a heavy weight on them, slow and widely spaced.

  Nora tilted her head to look up.

  “Why, Jeff, what are you thinking of? You must be crazy! Do you think Ernest Hood came out of Aunt Honoria’s room, bumped into Ellen in the passage, and said, ‘Just poison Mrs. Maquisten for me, will you’.”

  He stared down at her.

  “It sounds a bit sudden when you put it that way.”

  Nora stamped her foot.

  “It’s crazy! I tell you Ellen didn’t know him—not to speak of. And she loved Aunt Honoria. She was all broken up when she died. You’re crazy.”

  He nodded.

  “I expect I am. But I don’t think I’ll come any farther with you. I’m going to see Mordaunt.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  After all, he couldn’t see Mordaunt. He wasn’t in his office, and he wasn’t at his house. They were expecting him back, but they didn’t know when.

  He went on walking until the dusk turned to dark. By the time the last of the light was gone a cold rain was falling, and after that the wind swept the sky clear and the stars came pricking through.

  He came back again to Mordaunt’s house, and found him not too pleased to be pursued, but thawing into hospitality.

  “Better dine with me now you’re here.”

  “No, thanks—I didn’t come for that. There’s something—”

  Mr. Mordaunt shook his head. He smiled, but he was determined. “If you don’t want to eat, I do. I’m not talking shop until we’ve fed. Come through and meet my wife.”

>   A nightmare meal, but it did him good. Everything very well cooked. Mordaunt full of pride, introducing his comfortable, placid wife as “Our chef. Didn’t know how to cook a potato six months ago, and look at her now!” They had soup, meat, and vegetables fried in batter, and a cheese flan. Mordaunt produced bottled beer, and they waited on themselves. Afterwards Mrs. Mordaunt would wash up.

  She brought them some excellent coffee to the study and left them. Jeff plunged into his crazy tale. When it was finished he got a shake of the head.

  “Nothing doing, I’m afraid. If we’d known a bit earlier, Vane might have made a pass or two at Hood when he cross-examined him, but there’s nothing we can rake up now. We ought to have known of course—Miss Silence ought to have told us. You say she knew?”

  “Nora says so.”

  Mordaunt’s eyebrows went up.

  “What can you do if your client won’t help you? It might have been used to shake Hood’s credit. It would have shown that he had a substantial interest in turning suspicion on Miss Silence. I’ll have to see Vane, but I don’t know that there’s anything to be done about it now. But we might be able to use it if there was an appeal.”

  The word crashed into Jeff’s mind like a stone through breaking glass. After a minute he said, “It’s as bad as that, is it?”

  Mordaunt put down his coffee-cup.

  “No, no, my dear fellow, I didn’t mean that at all—you’ve taken me up all wrong. As a matter of fact I thought she did very well today. Very important for the prisoner to make a good impression in the box. Juries are only supposed to go by the evidence, but of course they don’t. Equally, of course, it’s quite arguable that the way the accused gives his evidence is inseparable from the evidence itself. Commonest example—counsel always asks accused, ‘Did you do it?’ Fifty ways of answering that. At least fifty ways of saying, ‘No, I didn’t,’ and quite half of them negative or damaging. I thought Miss Silence did pretty well over that. Some of them drop their eyes, drop their voices. Make it a virtual admission of guilt. She spoke up, and she looked Vane straight in the face. Of course she’ll get a stiff cross-examination tomorrow.”

  He broke off to fill his cup again. As he set the coffee-pot down, the telephone bell rang sharply. He stretched out his hand, picked up the receiver, and inclined his ear. From where he sat Jeff Stewart heard a voice rustle in the telephone—“Is that Mr. Mordaunt? Can I speak to Mr. Mordaunt?”

  “Mordaunt speaking.”

  The rustling began again—a woman’s voice, insubstantial, bodiless. But he could hear what she said.

  “Mr. Mordaunt, you won’t know my name—it is Janet Gwent. I have just returned from the Middle East. I expected to be away a good deal longer. I have only just heard of the Maquisten trial, and I want to talk to you. Mr. Aylwin tells me you are the solicitor for the defence. You see, I have been out of England since November 17th, but on the afternoon of the 16th I left a letter for Mrs. Maquisten at 13 Maitland Square.”

  The receiver jerked in Mr. Mordaunt’s hand. He said,

  “What!” And then, “Do you mind saying that again?”

  The voice said it again.

  “I left a letter for Mrs. Maquisten at 13 Maitland Square at just after two o’clock on Monday November 16th.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  Tuesday morning. Carey in the box again, but no longer under the cheerful, friendly guidance of Hugo Vane. The time she had dreaded so much that she had really never let herself think about it had come. As Sir Wilbury Fossett got up to cross-examine her she had a moment of panic in which she saw him as she had seen him on the first day of the trial—a skilled, implacable enemy, armed at every point, wholly bent on destroying her. He had every weapon, and every art in using them. She held herself against the panic by saying to herself over and over, “I’ve only got to tell the truth.” She turned to him with a grave, attentive look which was not without dignity, and the questions began. Everything she had said and done and thought, everything she hadn’t said and done and thought, everything that the prosecution wanted to prove about those words and thoughts and actions, came at her in the questions, sometimes rapped out sharply, sometimes sliding in to take her by surprise, sometimes fired at her point-blank to terrify and break her down.

  “When you came to stay with Mrs. Maquisten, what was your financial position?”

  “I hadn’t very much money.”

  “Indeed? Now, I wonder what you would call very much—these things are relative. Had you a banking account?”

  “No.”

  “No banking account. Perhaps you had money in the Post Office?”

  “No.”

  “In National Savings Certificates or one of the other government loans?”

  “No.”

  “You had no savings of any kind?”

  “I didn’t get a very high salary. I’m afraid I didn’t save any of it.”

  “You had no savings. What money had you when you entered Mrs. Maquisten’s household?”

  Carey’s head lifted. She said in a young, proud voice,

  “I had thirty shillings. Afterwards Mrs. Maquisten gave me five pounds to go shopping with. It was very kind of her.”

  “And that was all the money you had?”

  “That was all the money I had.” Courteous agreement in her voice, nothing more.

  “Thirty shillings, and—how much had you left out of the five pounds by November 16th?”

  “I had three pounds left altogether.”

  “Three pounds between you and destitution if you had been suddenly turned out of the house next day.”

  “There was no question of my being suddenly turned out of the house.”

  “If there had been, three pounds would not have gone very far, would it? Would it, Miss Silence?”

  “I didn’t have to think about that.”

  “Because another way out had occurred to you? Because you knew that when that next day came Mrs. Maquisten would not be there to cut you out of her will or send you out of her house?”

  “No.”

  “Then why didn’t you have to think about it?”

  “Because there was no need. I didn’t think of having to leave. There wasn’t any quarrel.”

  “Mrs. Maquisten wasn’t angry with you?” His voice expressed the liveliest surprise.

  “Only when I didn’t want to telephone to Mr. Aylwin.”

  “You heard Nurse Brayle’s evidence?”

  “Yes.”

  “She stated that Mrs. Maquisten was shouting at you in a great state of excitement and anger. That was so, was it not?”

  “She was excited and angry, but not with me except when I wanted to wait until she was quieter before ringing up Mr. Aylwin.”

  The questions went on and on. Pressure to make her admit that Honoria Maquisten’s anger had been directed against Carey Silence—

  “You knew that you would benefit under Mrs. Maquisten’s will?”

  “Yes—she told us all.”

  “You knew that she proposed to alter that will—to cut out one of the legatees? Which of them?” His voice rang on the words.

  “She didn’t say.”

  “She shouted at you in her anger and excitement? She said that she had been deceived—that she was altering her will to cut the deceiver out—and in all that anger and excitement she didn’t tell you who it was?”

  “No—she didn’t tell me.”

  “So you came out of her room quite happy?”

  “No.”

  “Dear me, how surprising! You were not happy! But you wouldn’t be if you knew you were going to be cut out of a legacy of fifty thousand pounds—would you?”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “You knew that Mr. Aylwin’s head clerk was on his way to take instructions for that altered will?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you were not at all happy?”

  Carey said in a grave, quiet tone,

  “I was unhappy about Cousin Honoria. I wa
s afraid she would make herself ill.”

  “That was very altruistic! You had no thoughts to spare for your own predicament?”

  “There was no predicament.”

  “Oh, come, Miss Silence—you are not as dull as that! If you, had lost Mrs. Maquisten’s favour and your legacy, and stood in danger of being sent packing—wouldn’t that constitute a predicament?”

  “There was no predicament, because none of those things were true.”

  “But if they had been true, there would have been a predicament?”

  “Yes.”

  “If they had been true, Miss Silence—what would you have done?”

  “I don’t know—I never had to think about it.”

  “Will you swear that you did not think about it—that no picture came up in your mind of what you would do if you were turned out penniless? No, I am forgetting—you had three pounds.” His voice rolled on the words. “You had three pounds—you had no near relatives—and you were not strong enough to get a job. Can you swear that you did not think of these things?”

  “Not after I came to Mrs. Maquisten’s.”

  “Ah—you had thought about them, then! I thought so! When you were in hospital perhaps?”

  “Yes.”

  “You had been troubled and anxious about the future?”

  “Only whilst I was ill.”

  “You were still not strong during that fortnight in November?”

  “I was getting stronger.”

  Sir Wilbury leaned towards her, his hands on the skirts of his gown, his voice on a confidential note.

  “Miss Silence—what would you have done if Mrs. Maquisten had turned you out?”

  “There was no question of her turning me out.”

  “But if there had been, what would you have done?”

  “I suppose I should have tried to get a job.”

  He repeated her words in a measured manner.

  “You would have tried to get a job.” And then quick and sharp, “Then you were not going to marry Mr. Jefferson Stewart?”