Barlow inquired if he should make a note of the observation.
Johnson told him a home truth. Then he said:
‘We must examine the effects brought into the hospital by the…’
‘Confound it,’ roared Harding, ‘don’t say prisoner.’
‘By the lady.’
‘Yes, and you can give me the gold heart.’
‘Certainly, sir.’
With tears in his eyes, Harding looked at Miriam’s blood-stained clothes. He picked up the gold heart, and he remembered as he did so how he had questioned her about it. His heart bled for her in her pain and in her anguish. He put the heart to his lips. But as he did so, Johnson’s hand shot out.
‘Excuse me, sir.’ He took up the heart.
Barlow’s head craned forward.
‘I think this opens,’ said Johnson.
Johnson was right. The heart contained a small steel key.
In his excitement Barlow dropped his notebook.
Johnson, before handing the heart to Harding, said:
‘Excuse me, sir, but I cannot let you have this locket.’
‘Why not?’
‘I may tell you, sir, that this heart contains the key of the cupboard in which Sir Clifford Oakleigh’s body was found.’
With a limp hand, despair graven on his face, Harding gave the locket back to Johnson.
Barlow picked up his notebook.
CHAPTER XLI
AT THE POLICE-COURT
THE day after the coroner’s jury had returned a verdict of wilful murder against Miriam Clive, Harding went to the hospital.
He found Miriam still deadly pale, but a little stronger. Before he had time to speak, she put this question:
‘How long has he been dead?’
‘The medical evidence,’ he answered, ‘is that he has been dead ten days.’
A smile of satisfaction played over her face.
‘They are quite certain about that?’
‘Both the doctors agreed that there could be no doubt on the point.’
‘Then,’ she said, ‘he died three days after the accident.’
‘By Jove,’ exclaimed Harding, ‘I never thought of that.’
Here was a complete defence. Mysterious though the case was, this much was clear. If Clifford Oakleigh had lived for three days after Miriam had been taken to the hospital, where every moment of her time could, of course, be accounted for, obviously she had no hand in his murder, if murder, indeed, it was.
‘What did they think he died of, George?’
‘Heart failure.’
Again she smiled.
‘Miriam,’ he cried, ‘for heaven’s sake tell me all you know about this.’
Firmly she replied: ‘My dear George, it’s no good, I am very weak. What you must do is to go to the Home Secretary, who is a personal friend of yours, and get the warrant withdrawn.’
He shook his head.
‘I don’t think he would do that.’
But she disagreed.
‘It’s perfectly clear that I can’t be convicted. What’s the good of going on?’
Her demeanour astonished him. Her calmness seemed superhuman.
‘My dear girl,’ he said, ‘in the present state of public feeling such a course would lead to a riot. Clifford Oakleigh at the tune of his death was the most popular man in England. The mystery surrounding his death has taken hold of everybody’s imagination. Somebody has got to suffer. The whole country is crying out for a victim.’
A third time she smiled.
‘But not, of necessity, me. You see that must be so; whoever did the murder, if it was a murder, and you yourself say the medical evidence points to heart failure, they can’t convict me. A woman who has lost a leg and is lying in a critical condition in the Charing Cross Hospital can’t go about causing people to die of heart failure, can she?’
He admitted that she could not, but he added: ‘My darling, I’m afraid you’ll have to stand your trial.’
She gave a slight shrug of her shoulders against the pillow, and in a tone of contempt said:
‘It seems rather ridiculous that all the resources of civilisation should be employed to keep me alive in order that I may eventually be hanged.’
‘Why,’ he laughed, ‘there was a man once tried at the Old Bailey for murder who went under an extremely severe operation, and had a silver windpipe inserted in his throat in order that he should be hangable.’
This time she laughed. It was only the ghost of a laugh.
‘You’re rather gruesome, aren’t you?’
He pleaded guilty. But he defended himself.
‘You know, darling, you are so completely sensible that I talk to you as though you were a man.’
‘That is a high compliment.’
At this minute the nurse entered. The patient, she maintained, was overtaxing her strength.
Harding went away.
He devoted himself strenuously to the preparation of Miriam’s defence.
The point as to the dates of the death and of the motor accident escaped the notice of the Press. The public is only capable of taking an interest in one sensation at a time. The accident had been almost completely forgotten in the mystery. True, people knew that Miriam Clive had lost a leg as the result of a motor collision. Their comment was: ‘It’s a pity she wasn’t killed.’ The facts of the mystery were really very simple. An eminent doctor is found dead in a secret cupboard in a house that he has let to a beautiful woman. The servants have not seen him enter. When his will is proved it is found that he has left every penny to the beautiful woman. These were all the facts. But the public asked itself what the eminent doctor was doing in the house of the beautiful woman. This question Harding had also put to himself. But in her present condition he hesitated to put it to Miriam. Everybody was very, very sorry for Harding. Everybody regretted that his fiancé should have received a doctor, however eminent, in her house secretly. Everybody admired Harding for standing by her. It is a terrible thing to be engaged to a woman who is even suspected of murdering an eminent doctor, or indeed of murdering anybody.
Harding acquired a great deal of personal popularity through this. He moved heaven and earth to get the warrant withdrawn. But he moved heaven and earth in vain. There would have been a popular outcry if Miriam had not stood her trial.
So it was that three months later a haggard woman, a plain woman, was placed in the iron dock at Marlborough Street police-court.
The kindly, white-haired magistrate treated her, of course, with every consideration. Harding appeared for the defence. There was practically no new evidence adduced by the police. He, on his side, had received no assistance from his client. Miriam had absolutely refused to tell him anything more of the matter. She had simply insisted that her defence must be based on the medical evidence. Time after time she had reiterated this statement: ‘No jury can convict me after that evidence. If the doctors go back on it, we will consider the matter.’
But the doctors did not go back on it.
Harding rose to cross-examine them. He pretended that he desired them to antedate the death. They would not budge an inch. They would not give him a day, scarcely an hour. They were firm that the body had been dead ten days, no more and no less. Could they be wrong about it? They denied any such possibility almost indignantly. ‘Why,’ said they, ‘your own doctor entirely agrees with us.’
‘Really, really,’ said the magistrate, with that charming smile for which he was so famous, ‘are you not labouring the matter a little unnecessarily, Mr Harding? If your own doctor agrees, what is the good of going on? Here we have Professor Salt and Dr Duckworth, two of the most eminent authorities in England. You also have your own doctor, an equally respected authority. How can you get behind that?’
At this moment a cry rang through the Court.
A weedy, gaunt man rushed to the railings of the dock.
‘Sarah, Sarah!’ he cried.
Sternly the magistrate said, ‘Remove
that man.’
But Mingey gesticulated.
‘It’s my daughter, your worship. My daughter, Sarah. I’m Mingey. You remember the disappearance of Miss Mingey.’
Two constables seized the miserable man, on whom the prisoner turned dull eyes in which there was no recognition. Struggling violently, and shouting, ‘Sarah! Sarah!’ he was dragged from the Court.
‘Is there anything known about that man?’ asked the magistrate.
‘Yes,’ said Harding, ‘he used to be my clerk, but he suffers from delusions.’
The reporters were busily describing ‘Scene in Court’.
When the hubbub had subsided Harding said:
‘Your worship thinks that I am only wasting time of the Court in disputing the statement that the deceased had been dead for ten days at the time of the discovery of the body.’
‘I do,’ replied the magistrate.
‘That,’ said the Counsel for the Crown, ‘is my case,’ and sat down.
‘Now, Mr Harding, do you propose to open your defence here, because I need hardly tell you that I propose to take a certain course?’
‘Your worship has intimated the course which you intend to take.’
‘Now,’ said the magistrate, ‘with regard to the prisoner. I have considered the matter of bail. Of course, in a murder charge bail is out of the question, as a rule, but in this case, and I may tell you that I have consulted the Home Secretary about it, I shall be prepared—’
‘Oh,’ said Harding, standing up. ‘I’m not going to apply for bail.’
The magistrate looked surprised.
The barrister continued: ‘I understood that the course you intended to take would be to discharge the prisoner.’
The magistrate appeared astounded and shook his head.
‘I have no notion what could have put such an idea into your head, Mr Harding.’
‘Why, sir, the fact that you yourself stated that there could be no doubt as to the body having been dead for precisely ten days before its discovery.’
‘What bearing has that on the point?’
‘I have here,’ said Harding, calmly, ‘the house-surgeon at Charing Cross Hospital. Will you kindly go into the box?’
The doctor was sworn.
‘You are a member of the Royal College of Surgeons?’
‘Yes.’
‘You are house-surgeon at Charing Cross Hospital?’
‘Yes.’
‘On Monday, the fifteenth of June, the defendant was taken to Charing Cross Hospital suffering from the effects of a motor accident?’
‘Yes. And I amputated her leg. Her left leg.’
‘When did she leave the hospital?’
‘Not until today.’
‘Really, Mr Harding,’ interposed the magistrate, ‘we are aware of this unfortunate accident and we have every sympathy for the defendant, but it really has no bearing on the case.’
‘Pardon me, your worship, it has the greatest bearing. It is, indeed, the whole case. You will notice that the doctor said the fifteenth of June was the date of the accident. It was not, according to these two eminent experts, whose opinion you yourself stated could not be contravened, not until three days after that Sir Clifford Oakleigh died.’
The Counsel for the Crown hastily called the experts to his side.
There was a sensation in Court.
Very firmly Harding spoke.
‘Your worship, this being the state of the case, it is absolutely impossible that the defendant could have any hand in the death of Sir Clifford Oakleigh. He did not die until three days after she was admitted to the hospital.’
The magistrate seemed undecided. He glanced down at the Counsel for the Crown to see if he could afford him any assistance; he consulted with his clerk, but the clerk had no opinion to offer.
‘I submit,’ persisted Harding, ‘that in face of these facts no jury can convict.’
‘What do you say?’ the magistrate asked, turning to the Counsel for the Crown.
‘Your worship, I must leave the matter entirely in your hands. This has come as a complete surprise to us.’
In the result the magistrate discharged the prisoner.
CHAPTER XLII
THE SOLUTION
ON the release of the prisoner, public opinion underwent a change. Not a great change, but a slight modification. Nothing had been elucidated with regard to the mystery. How could the body have got into the cupboard—the cupboard of which Miss Clive alone possessed the key? How did Sir Clifford Oakleigh leave her his huge fortune? After all, she could not be a nice woman. But then the world was full of women who could not by any possibility be nice women. Besides, she had suffered terribly. She was a cripple for life. Harding was an honourable man. Harding had stood by her side in her peril. But would he marry her? If he married her, the public thought that he, as her counsel, knowing, as they assumed, all her secrets, would be providing a verdict of not guilty. Would he marry her or would he not?
One day as she lay on the sofa in Pembroke Street he called to see her. Nothing was altered in the room. The same servants were in the house.
He sat down by her side. The colour was beginning to come back to her cheeks.
‘What are you thinking of?’ she asked, patting his hand affectionately.
‘Do you really want to know?’
‘Of course I do.’
‘Well,’ he said, ‘I was thinking that you are not really a beautiful woman. That you were not, even before your illness, a beautiful woman.’
‘You’re perfectly right,’ she laughed. ‘I never was really beautiful. But the secret of being beautiful is to behave as though you are beautiful. In England if a man thinks he is an actor or an architect people will take him at his word. Perhaps we English are so stupid that they think the man must know best. As a matter of fact, I’m a very peculiar type. If I were badly dressed I should be ugly. When I am well-dressed—as I shall be at the wedding—I shall be beautiful.’
She felt an almost imperceptible movement of Harding’s hand.
‘When are we going to be married?’ she asked.
‘My dear Miriam,’ he said, ‘there can be no marriage until you have explained all the circumstances leading up to Clifford’s death.’
‘Yes,’ she answered, ‘you are entitled to ask that. I want to ask you, in your heart of hearts, do you really think I had anything to do with it?’
Somehow he felt that she was amusing herself at his expense; that she was not serious. ‘Of course,’ she added, ‘I can quite understand that you might be afraid of being found in a cupboard. And yet that would be very foolish of you. That cupboard trick is the sort of thing one doesn’t do often.’
The flippancy of her tone irritated him.
‘You forget that Clifford was my greatest friend. With regard to this tragedy I will be quite candid with you, Miriam. I have no opinion. I know nothing. But I can’t believe that you would commit a crime. I have always regarded you as the noblest of women.’
‘Thank you,’ she replied. ‘Now you must be prepared for a shock. I am going to tell you something that perhaps you won’t be able to believe, but I’m going to prove it to you. Clifford Oakleigh is not dead.’
Petulantly he snapped, ‘Oh, if you are going to talk nonsense.’
‘I’m not talking nonsense. I am Clifford Oakleigh.’
He got up from his chair in his irritation.
‘Sit down,’ she said.
There was something imperious in her voice. He sat down.
He gazed at her with half-shut eyes, wondering whether she was in complete possession of her faculties. He would marry a cripple, but he wouldn’t marry a lunatic.
‘George, you and I were at Oxford together.’
He made a movement of weariness.
She looked at him intently, and said in a low voice:
‘Her shrine is petalled like the rose
And set about…’
‘Good heavens!’ he exclaimed, staring
fixedly at her, as she repeated the other lines of the only poem he had ever been guilty of.
‘Clifford told you that,’ he persisted. ‘Why did Clifford tell you that?’
‘My dear George, you composed that wonderful piece of poetry, if, indeed, it is poetry, in a punt on the Cher with me. It was a hot afternoon. I was punting. We were just by Magdalen Bridge.’
Harding’s jaw dropped. There was something uncanny in this.
‘Clifford might have told you,’ he said.
She laughed a negative and then put a question:
‘Do you remember Muriel Holtwhistle?’
‘Vaguely.’
‘Well, I remember her pretty definitely. She was afterwards ordered out of Oxford by the Proctors.’
Memory came back to him.
‘Yes, yes.’
‘And,’ she continued, ‘you and I were both flirting with her. But she—being, as she said, literary and romantic—was awfully affected by the poem. Now, you remember that we collaborated in this work. You haven’t forgotten that. I chaffed you for having won—if I may use the expression—Muriel by our joint masterpiece.’
She paused; then she inquired:
‘Aren’t you convinced?’
‘God,’ he said. He was trying to imagine by what miracle the intellect and the memory of Clifford Oakleigh had entered the body of Miriam Clive.
‘I’m not strong yet, George. I’ll tell you the rest as shortly as I can. You know that I have always been ambitious. My success as a doctor was due more to curiosity than to love of medicine. I have always desired to get out of life all that there is in life. I believe that only a small portion of the secrets of Nature have been penetrated by men. I have cured cancer. In fact, you admit, everybody admits, that I am an unusual man. I am more than an unusual man. I have powers which are granted to very few. Indeed, I doubt if any but myself have ever been aware that they possess them. Early in life I discovered that I exercised a curious fascination over men and women. I only had to want to be liked in order to be liked. My personality was magnetic. I seemed to be able to mesmerise people into liking me. You know that with regard to popularity there is always an element of unpopularity. Many people dislike a man simply because he is popular. In my profession I employed mesmerism a great deal. I found that I could keep a person in a comatose condition for a week. Suddenly an idea occurred to me. Would it not be possible for me to transfer my own identity into a comatose man? How curious it would be to lead another man’s life. And if a man, why not a woman? We all know the sensation of loving as a man loves. I was struck by the charm of being a woman, to experience the delight of being a woman, if only for a day, a night. I would have given my soul to satisfy my curiosity. I have satisfied my curiosity. What I have done with my soul I don’t know.’
The Mayfair Mystery Page 21
