The Burden of Proof

by Roderic Jeffries

  “You will, then, come to a conclusion as to whether the accused did, or did not, give the pills in question to the accused. If you decide he did, you will go on to say whether you believe him to be guilty of murder.

  “In this country, members of the jury, juries have for many years been loath to convict a man for murder when the facts of the case prove no immediate action on his part. If several people go forth to commit a felony and each knows that one of their number is armed, and if they are surprised in their felony and the armed man shoots and kills the interrupter, all those men are — always provided certain states of mind are established — guilty of murder, even though only one man actually offered physical violence, and no reluctance on the part of the jury can alter this. The law has, however, come to recognise this reluctance and we find now that although all are guilty of murder, only the one who fires the shot is guilty of capital murder. In the same way, the accused in this court is on a charge of murder even though by the common usage of the word and if all the prosecution charges are believed by you, you may not think of the offense as murder. I have to instruct you, however, that if you believe the accused gave the pills to the deceased and at the time of giving them he knew what effect they could have, he was guilty of murder in the eyes of the law.

  “By the Offenses Against the Person Act of eighteen sixty-one, it is an offense to cause a woman to take any poison or noxious thing with intent to procure an abortion. The giving of the poison to a woman who takes it later and not in the presence of the giver has been held to be a causing to take within the meaning of this section. If the woman dies as a result of this felonious act, the giver is guilty of either murder or manslaughter. He is guilty of murder if, as a reasonable man, he must have known that death or grievous bodily harm was likely to result from the woman’s taking the poison.

  “You have heard Doctor Franch testify that he warned the prisoner death was likely to result from any attempted abortion, and you have heard the prisoner admit that Doctor Franch told him this. You will probably decide that in the light of such clear evidence there can be no doubt…”

  *

  The jury had been out for three hours and the life of the courtroom had slowed to a halt. Most of the public had become bored and had gone home; the reporters had drawn lots to see who waited around for the verdict, and the unlucky loser was outside in the corridor smoking himself into an early grave; the clerk had rested his head on his arms, which were on the table in front of him, and he was apparently asleep; counsel were in the robing room.

  An usher hurried into court and went up to the clerk. “Jury’s coming back,” he whispered. The clerk shook his head and then, bleary-eyed, sat upright.

  Counsel reappeared, the solitary newspaperman tramped across to his seat and slumped down in it, three members of the public — including an old tramp who’d come in for the warmth — once more took an interest in what was going on. Roger reappeared in the dock with his ever-attendant policeman at his side. The judge entered and the court rose and the jury filed back into their benches.

  Roger stared at the jury and there was churning water in his stomach and he wondered frantically if he were about to be taken short and what the hell he would do if he were? He’d once read that if the jury looked directly at the prisoner as they returned to court, the verdict was not guilty. Some of the men and one of the women had looked at him, the others hadn’t. What the bloody hell did that mean?

  “We’d like to ask a question,” said the foreman, and he tried to find something to do with his hands.

  Roger wanted to curse out loud. Anti-climax. No decision. Only a jury who were having trouble in declaring one of their fellow humans a murderer.

  “What is the question?” said the judge.

  “We’d like to know, my Lord, how much reliance to place in the evidence of the manager of the cinema — ”

  The judge cut short the other’s words. “The question of how much reliance you place in his evidence is something that you, and you alone, must decide. I cannot dictate to you on such a point. To reach your decision, you must use your common sense gained as men and women of the world, and to this native common sense you must graft the impressions gained by you when you saw Mr. Quincy in the witness box. You will remember that the witness admitted in cross-examination that the police had suggested the day in question was Saturday, and this probably weighed quite heavily with him either consciously or subconsciously, so that…” The judge spoke for some time. Finally, he said, “Would you like the evidence of the witness to be read out to you so that you may refresh your memories?”

  The foreman turned and looked at his fellow jurors. They regarded him in silence and without expression, unwilling to accept any of the responsibility for the decision. The foreman said, “I don’t think that’s necessary, my Lord.”

  “Very well. Is there any other assistance you need?”

  “No thank you, my Lord.”

  The jury retired.

  *

  “It’s the waiting that gets ’em,” said the jolly policeman.

  Roger stared at him with hatred, yet with a desire that he should keep on talking because when he shut the cell door Roger would be on his own.

  The policeman played with the key to the padlock. “One time, the jury went out just after eleven in the morning and didn’t come back until that night. Charge of grievous, it was, and in those days there was the cat and nine waiting, and the judge was one of the mean ’uns. The bloke what did it was supposed to be as tough as they came, but he went round and round the cell, couldn’t keep still, couldn’t eat. I was keeping watch on him and when he started to laugh hisself sick, I called the doctor. Doc went in, looked him over, and said if there was any more row he’d order calming injections that hurt something chronic. Bloke shut up shop immediately. Still, there’s a lot more you can do if you’re a doctor than just a poor ruddy policeman.” He looked around the cell to see all was in order, then stepped out.

  “What happened to him?” asked Roger.

  “Him? Can’t remember now.”

  The cell door slammed shut.

  *

  “They’re coming back in.”

  Once again, the court came to life.

  The foreman said, “My Lord, I’m afraid we’re in difficulty.”

  “What is it?” asked the judge wearily.

  “It doesn’t seem as if we’re ever going to agree.”

  “Are you quite certain?”

  The foreman shifted his weight from one foot to another. “We can’t agree at the moment.”

  The judge looked at the clock on the wall, then back again at the foreman. “As you must know, your verdict has to be unanimous, and even a minority of one is sufficient to render it impossible for you to deliver a verdict. Therefore, when juries fail to agree the judge has a right to discharge them, but this right must only be exercised when there is clearly no alternative. In the present case, I suggest you go back and further deliberate to make quite certain there is no chance of your ever agreeing.”

  The foreman almost shrugged his shoulders. “We’ll go back and talk it over again, my Lord.”

  The jury retired.

  Yorker made his way out of the courtroom and spoke to a policeman who was standing in the corridor. “Where’s the best place to spend the night, apart from the Duke’s Head, which I’ve met before?”

  “I’d try the Bridge Hotel, sir, if I was you. They say it’s very nice there.”

  “Where’s the nearest telephone?”

  “Down there, sir, first right and there’s a call box staring you in the face.”

  Yorker hurried along the corridor. Now what in the hell was he going to do about the case his clerk had accepted for the next day? Could his junior hold the fort for a while?

  *

  The jury returned.

  “Have you reached your verdict?” asked the clerk of the court.

  “We have.”

  Roger closed his eyes. He heard a
mumble of words that said the verdict was the verdict of them all. Then the words “Not Guilty.”

  Chapter 18

  Yorker, Pattern, and Yerby stood in a group at the end of the corridor outside the main entrance to the courtroom. Yorker had removed his wig and he held it in his left hand, together with the brief. He rubbed his eyebrows and they seemed to sprout more furiously than ever. Pattern was smoking a cigarette and looking at his watch as he tried to make out whether it was worth catching the milk train to London in order to meet his girlfriend the next day. Yerby, with only a half-hour drive to his own hearth and bed, seemed the most tired of all and was continually yawning.

  Yorker said, “I’ll sign the brief now and that’ll save my good-for-nothing clerk having to send it to you.” He held the brief against the wall — his wig dangled from it and looked rather like a scalp — and wrote on the front ‘Not Guilty’. He signed below the verdict and added the date.

  “How was that for a verdict you didn’t expect?” asked Pattern.

  “Didn’t expect? My dear Jeremy, I have a reasonable appreciation of my own immense capabilities! Let’s just whisper it that I wouldn’t have been too, too surprised if the verdict had gone the other way.”

  “What d’you reckon did the trick?” asked Yerby.

  “If you want my honest opinion, three things. The police tried too hard, they charged murder, and time ran short. Juries are funny things, damn funny, but at least their peculiarities are generally favourable to the accused. In the present case, it didn’t take the jury long to realise there’d been more than a touch of vindictiveness to the police’s investigations because the dead girl’s father was a retired policeman. I watered and fertilised that thought and they, thank goodness, were presented with Quincy. I’ll bet a fortune that Canon was shown which photograph to choose, but he’s the kind of man that wouldn’t make an admission in a month of Sundays. But Quincy was so loudly certain of himself he was all wind, and all that was needed was to know the best point at which to ram home the needle. When Quincy began to break, the jury learned just how much pressure the police must have been applying, and that’s the thought that stuck in their minds when they were considering their verdict and not the rather obvious truth that it didn’t matter a hoot whether the meeting was on Friday or Saturday. Hell, no one claimed the pills could only have been handed over on Saturday!

  “If the police had rested content with a charge under section fifty-eight — and the penalty’s the same in practice — they’d have gained their verdict of guilty. But murder’s something quite different, it’s a crime on its own that still bears the ring of the noose, and juries won’t convict on a murder charge unless they’ve no option. If you want to be really ironical, I suppose you could say that Ventnor’s damned lucky she was the daughter of a policeman.”

  Yerby whistled a few bars from the opening of the Emperor Concerto. “You talked about time running short. Did that count for much?” he asked.

  “The more a jury’s pressed, the more the members step backward from too harsh a decision because they’re determined to be fair to the prisoner. I’ve seen it happen several times… I’ve been talking a hell of a long time at no extra fee. Give me a cigarette, Jeremy, and then let’s make for our beds.”

  Yerby pulled out a pack of cigarettes from his pocket in an attempt to forestall Pattern, and as he did so he half turned. He saw Roger, his sister, and Elizabeth Wheeldon. “Hullo,” he said.

  Yorker and Pattern swung around.

  “I’ve come to say thanks.” Roger’s words only half concealed his emotions.

  “I’m very glad it’s all ended as it has,” replied Yorker.

  “Would you all do me a favour and come and have dinner with us soon?”

  Yorker answered. “Next time I’m down this way, I’ll most certainly accept with pleasure.”

  “We’ll kill the fatted calf,” said Patricia. Her eyes were bright, too bright. A nervous tic was hammering at the twisted part of her mouth.

  “Please don’t make it too fat,” said Yerby, and he smiled. “My wife’s put me on a vicious diet and if I value my life I stick to it.”

  “She’ll come as well, won’t she?” said Patricia quickly.

  “It’s very kind of you and I’m sure she’ll be delighted. But you’ve now made absolutely certain I have to stick to that diet!”

  “I… I didn’t think you’d ever get me off it,” said Roger suddenly.

  “We guarantee the old firm,” answered Pattern. “Anytime, any trouble, we’re at your disposal.”

  A policeman walked up to them. “Sorry, sirs, and all that, but we’re closing shop and if you stay on much longer you’ll have to spend the night in this magnificent building, the cornerstone of which was laid by his worship, the first mayor of Winscon, in eighteen hundred and eighty-four.”

  “We’d better run,” said Yorker. “A whole night in this jungle of Victoriana would send anyone except a budding Betjeman into a fatal decline.”

  Roger shook hands with them and thanked them again. “Who the hell did give her the pills?” he blurted out suddenly.

  “Who?” repeated Yorker quietly.

  *

  They walked out onto the pavement and Roger stopped and stared up at the sky. It was something very wonderful because it wasn’t framed by steel bars. He could sense that in next to no time it would become no more than the sky, but in the meantime he wanted to gain all the quiet ecstasy he could from the conscious enjoyment of what it meant.

  “Please let’s move,” said Elizabeth, “I’m getting cold.”

  He linked his arm with hers. “We’ll crack our last remaining bottle of champagne and listen to the bubbles exploding.”

  “Roger, I’m shivering. We must move.”

  They crossed the road and entered the car park where the Lotus, apart from a wreck that had been abandoned, was the only car present.

  “Someone will have to sit in the back,” said Elizabeth, as she searched her bag for the keys. “There’s supposed to be room if you sit sideways.”

  “I’ll do it,” said Roger. “I’ve lost more than a stone through being at panic stations for so long so I’d fit into a mousetrap… If you’d thought about it, you could have brought the Victor to take us all back. Or did you reckon there’d only be the two of you going back?” He laughed. The world was a humorous place.

  After Elizabeth had unlocked the door, he climbed into the back ‘occasional’ seat. As they drove out of the car park, he began to sing in a voice that had once been described as sounding like a worn 78 playing at 33⅓.

  Elizabeth drove hard and the journey to Reton Park Hall was made in just under a half-hour.

  He stepped out of the car, stretched to ease his cramped muscles, and stared at the blackness that was the house. They’d tried their bloody damnedest to take it from him, but they’d failed. “Good night,” said Elizabeth.

  He swung around. “Good what? Don’t rush, Elizabeth. I know it’s been a hell of a time and we all feel as if we’d been wrung out in a mangle, but we must celebrate.”

  “I’d rather not if you don’t mind, Roger.”

  “Just for five minutes and promise no more. You can’t possibly refuse.”

  “I’ve a filthy headache and I must get to bed.”

  “I’m sorry — why didn’t you say?” He bent down and leaned forward until he could kiss her. She seemed to hesitate for a second, then their lips met for a moment. She drew back. “Good night, Roger.”

  “Sleep hard and well and get rid of that head… Thank God for you and Patricia.”

  She switched on the car’s headlights and then drove off.

  Roger watched the lights retreat up the drive, stop, then swing into the road. When he spoke to Patricia his voice expressed puzzlement. “Not quite the emotional reunion I’d thought about.”

  “Can’t you understand the terrible strain she’s been under?” snapped Patricia. “Hoping, despairing, praying. She’s like a coiled spring
and if she let go too quickly she’d break up emotionally.”

  “You’re probably right as usual. Still, one drink — ”

  “Would have been one drink too many.”

  “Always practical, aren’t you, Pat?”