Below Suspicion

by John Dickson Carr

  "No, sir!"

  "It was not?" Mr. Lowdnes's voice poured with amused skepticism.

  "She didn't say nothing. Just went back to her room."

  "What did you do?"

  "I went downstairs to the kitchen, and lit the fire, and made meself a cup of tea."

  "And then?"

  "Emma—Mrs. Perkins got there. And she 'ad a cup of tea. And then I got the madam's tea ready, on the silver service, and took it up to her room."

  "Describe what happened then."

  Framed in the oaken witness-box, with its tall supports holding up a wooden roof, Mrs. GrifEths's sturdy figure appeared to shrink.

  "Well, sir, I drew back the curtains. And I was going to put the tray on the table, when I saw Mrs. T. I come over so queer that it's a mercy I didn't drop the tray. She was dead."

  After a moment of silence, so that the brief words conjured up their image, Mr. Lowdnes nodded.

  "Will you take the bundle of photographs, Mrs. Griffiths, and just look at the first picture in the book?"

  One of the yellow-bound booklets, in which official photographs are enclosed, was handed up to the witness. Several members of the jury had also opened theirs.

  "Is that how the deceased was lying when you first saw her?"

  "That's it, sir. All twisted up in the bedclothes, like as if she was in pain. The dark spot is the rouge on 'er cheek."

  "What did you do next?"

  "I ran into the back-stairs passage, and called over the banisters to Emma."

  "That is Mrs. Perkins, the cook?"

  "Yes, sir. I said, 'Emma!' And she said, 'What?' And I said, 'For God's sake come up here; something awful's happened.' "

  "Mrs. Perkins did come up from the basement?"

  "Yes, sir. We stood on each side of the bed. I was still 'olding the tray. We thought she'd 'ad a stroke."

  "You mean, that Mrs. Taylor had suffered a stroke?"

  "That's it. And Emma said, 'I'll ring the bell for Miss Ellis; she ought to know.' "

  "Now look at photograph number two. You will see the white cord of the bell-push, hanging down beside the deceased, and within easy reach of her hand. Was it in that position when you first saw the deceased?"

  "No, sir," the witness answered promptly. "It was hanging down behind the headboard of the bed."

  It would not be true to say that Mr. Theodore Lowdnes made a noise like a man hit in the stomach. He was much too dignified. But he was holding his brief in his hands; he dropped the brief on the desk in front of him, and a pink sheet of blotting-paper flew wide.

  "And I didn't tell that to the police," Mrs. Griffiths blurted, "because they never asked me. They saw it there, and I expect they thought it was always there!"

  A sharp rebuke from the bench cut her short. Mr. Lowdnes glanced at the long solicitors' table in the well of the court, where the exhibits lay neatly ticketed. One of the men sitting there—now rigid, with the sudden consciousness of an obvious duty neglected—was Divisional Detective-Inspector Gilbert Wales.

  Mr. Lowdnes had to make a split-second decision, and he made it.

  "If the police did not question you," he remarked lightly, "no doubt they had good reason to think it unimportant. Was it easy to reach the bell-push, even in that position?"

  "Oh, yes, sir!"

  "Even though the deceased had swallowed antimony, she could quite easily have reached the bell?"

  "Oh, yes, sir! Easy!"

  "How?"

  "Well—like Emma did when Emma rang it."

  "And how was that?"

  "She stood on the bed, and reached for the bell-cord, and pulled it up o er the back of the bed. Then she rang it and kept on ringing."

  "Did the prisoner immediately reply to the summons?"

  Mrs. Griffiths hesitated, as though some emotion swelled inside her.

  "No, sir. We knew the bell was working, 'cos you could hear it all the way down in her room. I went out into the passage, to go down to 'er room and fetch 'er. But I met her coming toward me."

  "You met her in the passage?"

  The pink flowers on the hat were agitated by a violent nod.

  "Wliat did the prisoner say to you?"

  "Miss—the prisoner said, 'WTiat's the matter? Is she dead?' "

  "I see. The prisoner used the words 'Is she dead?' before you had referred in any way to the deceased?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "And, in fact, before you had spoken at all?"

  "Yes, sir."

  Joyce Ellis, in the dock, hardly seemed to breathe. Over the courtroom flowed one of those waves of feeling which are as silent as thoughts yet as palpable as the hangman's rope. All eyes were on her.

  "How should you describe her expression as the prisoner said this? Calm, or agitated, or what?"

  "She was all upset, sir."

  "What did the prisoner do?"

  "She went into the madam's room, and looked at the madam and touched her. Emma and me was crying. Miss Ellis sat down in a chair. She put her hands over her face—like this, sir—and said, 'No, no, no!' like as if she was grief-struck. Emma and me were crying again,"

  "Now, Mrs. Griffiths. Did you notice anything on the bedside table at the right hand of the deceased?"

  The witness replied that she had. Up to her for identification was handed a tin bearing the painted label. Nemo's I>rviGORATiNG Salts, surrounded by blue flowers in love-knots. Next Mrs. Griffiths identified a tumbler with sediment in it, and a teaspoon. She told the grisly story of the antimony in the stable.

  "When the prisoner was in the deceased's room, did she make any reference to this tin?"

  "I—I don't remember as she did, sir."

  "What did the prisoner say?"

  "Well, sir, all of a sudden she got as calm as she usually was, and said, 'You'd better 'phone for Dr. Bierce.' "

  "And did someone telephone?"

  "Yes, sir. Emma did."

  Mr. Theodore Lowdnes's manner grew very impressive. Putting his

  hands flat on the desk in front of him, he rested his weight there and leaned for^vard.

  "You weiQ in that room, I beheve, from the moment you discovered the body until the police anived?"

  "I never left the room for a minute; that's gospel truth."

  "Look at the Nemo's tin, Mrs. Griffiths. Did the prisoner touch or handle that tin at any time while you were there?"

  "No, sir, she didn't."

  "Then, if the prisoner's fingerprints were on the tin, she must have handled it before you discovered the deceased's bodv?"

  "On your oath, Mrs. Griffiths: did the prisoner touch that tin at any time?"

  "No, sir, she didn't!"

  Mr. Lowdnes, with his pince-nez and his ultra-refined voice, allowed a second to elapse while his eyes strayed towards the jury. Then, wrapping his black gown round him, he sat down.

  And Patrick Butler rose to cross-examine for the defence.

  JOYCE ELLIS, sitting there quietly and facing across towards the judge, felt herself already condemned to death.

  It was easy, while you were in prison awaiting trial—and they allowed you your own clothes, and newspapers, and books, and even visitors— to shut away the memory of what they might say against you. Especially after what Patrick Butler had told her.

  But the inexorable day came. And, when she found herself actually walking up that little iron staircase, through the trap and into the dock, Joyce's knees shook and she was afraid she couldn't speak when they spoke to her.

  At first her sight was blurred. This court, she thought vaguely, was like a schoolroom, the more so because nobody ever hurried or raised his voice. She felt she could have stood it better if people had shouted and stamped about as they did in the films. Ahead, and towards her left, was the jury-box. Ahead, and towards her right, were several rows of barristers—with, as she afterwards learned, certain privileged spectators sitting behind them in the seats of the City Lands Corporation.

  The first person her unsteady eyesight notic
ed, among the spectators, was an incredibly stout man in a cape, with a bandit's moustache and eyeglasses on a black ribbon. He was a stranger to Joyce. But the next person she saw was Lucia Renshaw.

  Lucia Renshaw, Mrs. Taylor's niece. Lucia Renshaw, who had paid that harmless, laughing visit on the afternoon of the . . . death.

  "What on earth," Joyce thought almost with panic, "is she doing here?"

  Joyce, at the moment, didn't feel either like or dislike for Lucia. She never had. But Lucia's presence, her face and figure and clothes, all were as vivid as those of an actress on a lighted stage.

  Lucia, her golden-yellow hair gleaming and with little curls at the back of her head, was wrapped up in a mink coat. Lucia was plump, but not too plump. Her beauty, of fair complexion and blue eyes, was so skilfully heightened by make-up that it seemed merely an effect of nature.

  And Lucia really enjoyed life, even in these drab times of cigarette-queues and frustration. She raised her thin eyebrows at Joyce, smiled, and made a pout of encouragement.

  "Don't fret, my dear!" that look said. "This charge against you is simply preposterous!" Then Lucia, with frank curiosity, began to study the court like a child at a pantomime.

  "Little innocent!" furiously thought Joyce, the clergyman's daughter.

  Joyce was roused with a start by the Clerk of the Court's voice.

  "Joyce Leslie Ellis, you are charged with the murder of Mildred Hoffman Taylor. . . ."

  Then up rose the horrible little man with the pince-nez, and began twisting facts so that Joyce grew frantic. Alice Griffiths, who followed him, held out help and cheer with one hand; after which (poor old Alice!) this same woman turned the case as black as nauseous medicine against her.

  And she wasn't guilty/ She wasn't guilty!

  When Patrick Butler got up to cross-examine, Joyce's heart seemed to stop beating. Not once had he looked in her direction; at least, when she had been watching.

  Butler looked amiably upon Mrs. Griffiths, who gave him something like a nervous smile. He looked amiably upon the jury. His voice, seeming so full of commonsense, made the tones of Mr. Lowdnes sound rather la-di-da.

  "Well, Mrs. Griffiths," he began, "we've discovered some things. Haven't we?"

  "Sir?"

  "The house wasn't really 'locked up like a fortress'—to quote my learned friend?"

  "No, sir, not a bit of it!"

  Taking as his thesis the twanging door in the middle of the night, the absence of a key in that door, Butler used vivid and picturesque questions to show that anyone—anyone with a key to fit the door—could have entered that house.

  "I don't want to detain vou, Mrs. Griffiths," he continued like an

  old friend. "But I do want to suggest that perhaps the prisoner's words 'What's wrong; is she dead?' were not exactly what you heard?"

  "It was, sir. That's gospel truth!"

  "My dear madam, I'm not in the least doubting your good faith." Butler sounded shocked, then warmly confidential. "But let me put it like this. You say Miss Ellis appeared 'upset' when you saw her then?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "But you had seen her nearly three quarters of an hour before, hadn't you? When she admitted you at the back door? —Exactly! Did she appear upset at that time?"

  "Well—no, sir."

  "No. And yet, if she had really poisoned Mrs. Taylor, she must have been just as upset at your first meeting. But she was not?"

  "Come to think of it, no!"

  "Exactly! Now you further tell us that Emma—Mrs. Perkins—rang the bell to summon Miss Ellis. Would it be true to say that she rang loudly and continuously?"

  "Oh, ah! For a minute or so."

  "Was it usual for Mrs. Taylor, in life, to ring so early in the morning for her secretary-companion?"

  "Never, sir! Not until ten o'clock."

  "Exactly. Not until an hour and a quarter after that time. So I ask you to put yourself in Miss Ellis's place. Eh?"

  Butler, despite his grave and earnest bearing, was enjoying himself hugely, without a single thought for the shivering girl in the dock.

  "Let's suppose, then," he went on, "that you are lying in bed, dozing —as Miss Ellis was. All of a sudden, more than an hour before you expect it, the bell rings violently and continuously. Wouldn't you be, to put it mildly, a bit startled?"

  "Oh, ah! I would that!"

  "And upset, Mrs. Griffiths? In the sense of being annoyed?"

  "Couldn't help but be, sir."

  Butler leaned slightly forward.

  "I put it to you, Mrs. Griffiths, that you heard the prisoner use these words: What on earth is the matter? Is she dead or something? And expressing only a very natural annoyance?"

  A whole shiver of convulsions and creaks affected the otherwise silent court. Mrs. Griffiths, her mouth open and her eyes glazed, appeared to be staring at the past.

  "Yes!" she answered at length.

  "On reflection, then, can you say that this was the prisoner's attitude and that those were the words she used?"

  "I can say it," cried the witness, "and I do say it!"

  "Finally, Mrs. Griffiths, about this unfortunate matter of the antimony tin on the bedside table." Here Mr. Butler, with a slight but majestic turn of the head, directed a brief glance of pity at Mr. Theodore Lowdnes.

  "You say," Butler pursued, "that when you first went into the deceased's bedroom you believed she had died of a stroke?"

  "Yes, sir. I couldn't think of nothing else."

  "You did not suspect that Mrs. Taylor had died of poison?"

  "No, no, no!"

  "Were you in any way suspicious of the tin on the table?"

  "No, sir. How could I be? I 'ardly noticed it, as you might say."

  "Precisely!" beamed counsel. "You hardly noticed it." He grew very grave, very earnest again. "Therefore it would not be true to say that you watched the tin, would it?"

  The witness's eyes grew more glazed. "Well! I—"

  "Let me put it in another way. To say you weren't very conscious of it, and yet at the same time you watched it, would contradict your own story?"

  Mrs. GriflBths was growing flustered.

  "Forgive me if I express myself badly," Butler soothed her. "Did you watch the tin?"

  "No, sir. Not like you're saying!"

  "At what time did Miss Ellis come into the deceased's room?"

  "It was about a quarter to nine, I think it was."

  "Very well. And at what time did the police arrive?"

  "Oh, that was much later. Maybe an hour. That Inspector didn't come until Dr. Bierce had been to see us."

  "And, all this time, you did not watch the tin. Can you swear, Mrs. Griffiths, that the prisoner never once—never once!—touched the Hn of antimony?"

  A stricken expression crossed Alice Griffiths's face. She looked round, as though for help, and saw only stony faces, except the kindly tenderness of Patrick Butler,

  "Can you swear that, Mrs. GnSiths?"

  "No, sir. I ain't even sure of it."

  "Thank you, Mrs. Griffiths. That will be all."

  And he sat down.

  Mr. Lowdnes, who had now lost his temper and was as red in the face as a peony, bounced up for a re-examination which only hardened Alice Griffiths's obstinacy. She was followed in the witness-box by William Griffiths, coachman, gardener, and odd-jobs man, who corroborated his wife about the banging door and gave further evidence about the antimony in the stable. Emma Perkins, cook—after a longer and even more adroit cross-examination by Patrick Butler—wavered and admitted that Joyce might have picked up the poison-tin.

  But there were no more fireworks until, just before the midday recess, the prosecution called Dr. Arthur Evans Bierce.

  "My name is Arthur Evans Bierce," runs his testimony in the printed record, as you may read it today. "I live at 134 Duke's Avenue, Balham. I am a doctor of medicine in general practice, and serve as part-time police-surgeon to K Division of the Metropolitan Police."

  Medical men, like
police-officers, are as a rule the canniest and most discreet of witnesses. But Dr. Bierce, though no doubt canny, was clearly prepared to speak his mind on any subject.

  A lean, bony man in his late thirties. Dr. Bierce had receding brown hair which gave him a narrow, freckled dome of skull. It dominated his long nose, his sandy eyebrows and straight mouth, even the steady brown eyes. As he stood with hands folded on the ledge of the witness-box, set at an angle between the jury-box on one side and the judge's bench on the other. Dr. Bierce radiated capability.

  "At approximately 8:55 on the morning of Friday, February 23rd, I was summoned to Mrs. Taylor's house, called 'The Priory,' by a telephone call saying that she was dead."

  Mr. Theodore Lowdnes waved a mesmeric hand, the sleeve of his black gown flapping.

  "Did the news surprise you, Dr. Bierce?"

  "Very much so."

  "You had been for some years, I believe, her personal physician?"

  "To be exact, for five years."

  'For five years. Was there anything organically wrong with her?"

  "There was not. In my opinion, she could have walked to China and carried her own suitcase. But her state of mind was not healthy."

  Mr. Lowdnes frowned. "Not healthy? Will you explain that?"

  "Mrs. Taylor, at the age of seventy, was in the habit of dyeing her

  hair, painting her face, and asking me whether I knew of any rejuvenating drug which would still make her attractive to men."

  "A harmless peccadillo, surely?"

  Dr. Bierce raised his eyebrows, sending many wrinkles up the domed freckled skull. "That depends on the point of view."

  "If someone had handed her what appeared to be a tin of Nemo's salts, do you think she would have swallowed a dose?"

  "If someone she trusted had offered it to her, I should have expected her to swallow anything."

  " 'Someone she trusted.' I see. Can you tell us whether her relations with the prisoner were, or were not, cordial?"

  "In my opinion, much too cordial. The whole house was unhealthy. I did not consider it a good atmosphere for one"—here Dr. Bierce glanced briefly towards Joyce—"with so little knowledge of the world."

  "You refer to the prisoner?"

  "I do."

  Mr. Lowdnes spoke dryly. "As a medical man. Doctor, have you heard of the vilest crimes committed by those with little knowledge of the world?"