'No, I don't know,' he replied clearly.
Silence.
'You don't know? But there was a reason, wasn't there, why this mistake might have occurred?' Silence.
'There was a reason, wasn't there, why the deceased may have disliked Captain Answell, and wished to "settle his hash"?'
Silence.
'Was it because -?'
'No, Sir Henry,' interposed the judge into that tightening strain, 'we cannot let you lead the witness any further.'
H.M. bowed, and leaned his weight on his fists. He clearly saw that it was useless to go on with this. All sorts of speculations must have been buzzing soundlessly in the court, behind those impassive faces banked up round us. The first thing which occurred to me was that it almost certainly concerned Mary Hume. Suppose, for instance, that there had been an affair of striking proportions between Mary Hume and the penniless Captain Answell? And suppose that the practical Avory Hume meant to cut it through to the core before it spoiled a good marriage? It fitted every circumstance; and yet would the prisoner have put his neck in a rope rather than acknowledge it? This was incredible. Let us face it sensibly: it does not happen nowadays. It is carrying chivalry too far. There must be some other reason which concerned Mary Hume-but what it was none of us, I think, then guessed. When we did learn, we understood.
Presently H.M. relinquished his witness, and the formidable Sir Walter Storm rose to cross-examine. For a moment he did not speak. Then in a tone of calm and detached contempt, he threw out one question.
'Have you made up your mind whether or not you are guilty?'
There are certain tones you must not take with any., man, even when he is helpless. What nothing else could do, this did. Answell pulled up his head. Across the well of the court he looked the Attorney-General in the eye.
'That is like asking: "Have you stopped cheating at poker?"'
'It would be irrelevant to question you about your habits with cards, Mr Answell. Just oblige me by answering my questions,' said the other. 'Are you guilty or not guilty?'
'I did not do it.'
'Very well. I take it that your hearing is normally acute?' 'Yes.'
'If I say to you: "Caplon Answell," and then, "Captain Answell" - even in spite of all the unfortunate noise going on in this court - you will be able to distinguish between the two?'
At the solicitors' table Reginald Answell smiled slightly and turned his eyes round. What impression all this had made on him it was impossible to say.
'Please speak up. I take it that you do not have periodic fits of deafness?'
'No. But as it happens, I did not pay much attention at the time. I was looking at a paper. I picked up the phone with the other hand, and I did not give it close attention until I heard Mr Hume's name.'
'But you heard his name well enough?'
'Yes.'
'I have here your statement, exhibit 31. Regarding this theory that the deceased may have said "Captain Answell" rather than "Caplon Answell" - did you mention this to the police?'
'No.'
'Although you tell us that it occurred to you as early as the night of the murder?'
1 did not think seriously of it at the time.'
'What made you think more seriously of it later?'
'Well - I got to thinking it over.'
'Did you mention it when you were before the magistrates?"
'No.’
'What I am endeavouring to get at is this: When did such an idea first crystallize in your mind?' ‘I don't remember.'
'What caused it to crystallize in your mind, then? Do you remember that? No? In short, can you give one good and solid reason for this whole extraordinary notion of yours?'
'Yes, I can,' shouted the witness, bedevilled out of his torpor. His face was flushed; he looked, for the first time, natural and human.
'Very well; what reason?'
‘I knew that Mary had been very friendly with Reg before we met; it was Reg who introduced me to her, at the Stonemans' -'
'Oh?' enquired Sir Walter, with rich suavity. 'Are you suggesting that you believed there had been anything improper in their relations?'
'No. Not exactly. That is -'
'Had you any reason to suspect anything improper in their relations?' 'No.'
Sir Walter tilted back his head, and seemed to be massaging his face with one hand as though to get curious ideas in order.
'Tell me, then, whether I correctly state the various suggestions you have made. Miss Hume was friendly with Captain Answell, there being nothing to which anyone could take exception. Because of this, the eminently reasonable Mr Hume conceives a violent dislike of Captain Answell and resolves suddenly to "settle his hash". He telephones to Captain Answell, but the message is intercepted by you under the mistaken impression that it is for you. You go unarmed to Mr Hume's house, where he gives you a drink of drugged whisky in the belief that you are Captain Answell. While you are unconscious, someone places Captain Answell's pistol in your pocket and (as I think you have told my learned friend) employs his time in pouring mint-extract down your throat. When you awake, your finger-prints are found on an arrow which you have not touched, and the whisky has flown back into a decanter without finger-prints. Have I correctly stated your position in the matter? Thank you. Can you reasonably expect the jury to believe it?'
There was a silence. Answell put his hands on his hips and glanced round the court. Then he spoke in a natural, off-hand tone. He said:
'So help me, by this time I don't expect anybody to believe anything. If you think everything a person does in life is governed by some reason, just try standing where I am for a while and see how you like listening to yourself.'
A sharp rebuke from the bench cut him short; but his nervousness had been conquered and the glazed fixity was gone from his eyes.
'I see,' intoned Sir Walter imperturbably. 'Do you next suggest that no reason governs any of your own actions?'
'I always thought it did.'
'Did reason govern your actions on the night of January 4th?'
'Yes. I kept my mouth shut when they were talking to me as you are now.'
It earned another reproof from the bench but Answell was making a better impression here than under chief examination. The good impression was quite irrational, for Sir Walter proceeded to tie him into such knots that probably not three people in court believed a word he said. But - after he had let H.M. down badly - there it was. I wondered whether the old man had arranged this to happen exactly as it did.
'You have told us that the reason why you refused to remove your overcoat, and spoke to one witness in a tone that has been described as savage, was because you did not wish to "look like a damned fool". Is that correct?'
'Yes.'
'Did you think that you would look more like a damned fool with your overcoat off than with it on?'
'Yes. No. I mean -'
'What precisely did you mean?'
'It was the way I felt, that's all.'
'I put it to you that the reason why you did not remove that coat was that you did not wish anyone to notice the bulge of the pistol in your hip pocket?'
'No. I never thought of that.'
'You never thought of what? Of the pistol in your pocket?'
'Yes. That is, there was no pistol in my pocket.' 'Now, I call your attention again to the statement you made to the police on the night of January 4th. Are you aware that the suggestions you have made to-day directly contradict this statement you gave to the police?'
Answell drew back, fidgeting again with his tie. 'No, I do not follow that.'
'Let me read you a few of them,' said Sir Walter, with the same unruffled heaviness.' "I went to his house," you say, "at six-ten. He greeted me with complete friendliness." You now imply that his attitude was the reverse of friendly, do you not?'
'Yes, rather.'
'Then which of these two attitudes do you wish us to believe?'
'Both of them. This is what I mean: I mean that on
that night he took me for someone else, and his attitude was not friendly; but he was actually friendly enough towards myself.'
For a moment Sir Walter remained looking at the witness, and then he lowered his head as though to cool it.
'We need not stop to disentangle that; I am afraid you do not appreciate my question. Whoever he thought you were that night, was his attitude during your interview friendly?'
'No.'
'Ah, that is what I wished to find out. Then this particular assertion in your statement is false, is it not?'
'I thought it was true at the time.'
'But you have completely changed your mind since then? Very well. Again you tell us: "He said that he would drink my health, and he gave his full consent to my marriage with Miss Hume." Since you have now decided that he was unfriendly, how do you reconcile this quoting of actual words with an unfriendly attitude?'
'I misunderstood him.'
'In other words,' said the Attorney-General, spacing his words after a pause, 'what you ask the jury to believe now is a direct contradiction to several of the most essential assertions in your statement?'
'Technically, yes.'
For a full hour Sir Walter Storm gravely took the witness to pieces like a clock. He went through every bit of testimony with great care, and finally sat down after as pulverizing a result as I have ever listened to. It was expected that H.M. would re-examine, in an attempt to rehabilitate his witness. But he did not. All he said was:
'Call Mary Hume.'
A warder took Answell back to the dock, where the door was unlocked again, and he was led up into his open pen. A cup of water was brought up from the cells for him; he drank it thirstily, but he peered up with a quick start over the rim when he heard H.M. call the witness.
Where Mary Hume had been during the previous examination you could not tell. She seemed to appear in the middle of the court, as though there should be no hesitation or halt in the shuttle that moved witnesses to and from justice. Answell was already last minute's pattern. And Reginald Answell's expression changed. It was not anything so obvious as a start: only a certain awareness, as though someone had tapped him on the shoulder from behind, and he did not quite want to look round. His long-jawed good looks had a bonier quality; but he assumed a pleasant expression, and his finger tapped slowly on the water-bottle. He glanced up at the prisoner - who smiled.
Mary Hume looked momentarily at the back of Captain Reginald's head as she went up into the witness-box. With the exception of Inspector Mottram, she was (or so it seemed on the surface) the calmest person who had yet testified. She wore sables: a flamboyant display, Evelyn assured me, but she may have been feeling in that mood with defiance. And she wore no hat. Her yellow hair, parted and drawn back sleekly, emphasized the essential softness and odd sensuality of the face, dominated by those wide-spaced blue eyes. Her method of putting her hands on the edge of the box was to grasp it with both arms extended, as though she were on ah aqua-plane. In her manner there was no longer any of that hard docility I had seen before.
'You swear by Almighty God that the evidence you shall give -
'Yes.'
('She's frightened to death,' whispered Evelyn. I pointed out that she gave not a sign of it, but Evelyn only shook her head and nodded back again towards the witness.)
Whatever the truth might have been, her very presence there indicated thunder on the way. Even her importance seemed emphasized by the fact that she was rather small. A new interest quickened the press-box. H.M., who had difficulty in getting his own voice clear, waited until the stir of interest had died down; only the judge was unimpressed.
'Hurruml Is your name Mary Elizabeth Hume?' 'Yes.'
'You're the only child of the deceased, and you live at 12 Grosvenor Street?'
'Yes,' she answered, nodding in a somnambulistic way.
'At a Christmas house-party at Frawnend, in Sussex, did you meet the accused?'
'Yes.'
'D'ye love him, Miss Hume?'
'I love him very much,' she said, and her eyes flickered briefly. If it were possible to have a more hollow silence than had existed before, it held the court now.
'You know he's here accused of murderin' your father?'
'Of course I know it.'
'Now, ma'am - miss, I'll ask you to look at this letter I have here. It's dated, "January 3rd, nine-thirty p.m.," the evening before the day of the murder. Will you tell the jury whether you wrote it?'
'Yes, I wrote it.'
It was read aloud, and ran:
DEAR FATHER:
Jimmy has suddenly decided to come to London to-morrow morning, so I thought I had better tell you. He will take the train I usually travel by - you know it, nine o'clock here and a quarter to eleven at Victoria. I know he means to see you some time tomorrow.
Love,
MARY
PS. You will take care of that other matter, won't you?
'Do you know whether your father received this letter?'
'Yes, he did. As soon as I heard he was dead, I came to town, naturally; and I took it out of his pocket the same night - the night he died, you know.'
'What was the occasion of your writin' it?'
'On Friday evening - that Friday evening, you know - Jim suddenly decided to go up to town, to get me an engagement ring.'
'Did you try to dissuade him, to keep him from goin' to town?'
'Yes, but I could not do too much of it or he would have been suspicious.'
'Why did you try to dissuade him?'
The witness moistened her lips. 'Because his cousin, Captain Answell, you know, had gone up to London on Friday evening with the intention of seeing my father next day; and I was afraid he and Jim might meet at my father's house.'
'Did you have a reason why you didn't want them to meet at your father's?'
'Yes, yes!'
'What was the reason?'
'A little before, in the same week, you know,' replied Mary Hume, 'Captain Answell had asked me, or rather my father, to pay £5,000 hush-money.'
XII
'From a Find to a Check -
‘You mean that man there?' asked H.M., pointing with a big flipper and again ruthlessly singling him out.
It was like an inexorable spotlight. Reginald Answell's face had turned a curious colour, a muddy colour, and he sat bolt upright; you could see the rise and fall of his chest. At that moment, looking back on past events, I saw the pattern take form. He had thought he was quite safe: he and this girl were linked together in such fashion that he had thought she would not dare to betray it. She had even promised him, with remarkably well-simulated terror, that she would remain quiet. You could understand now the reason for that hard docility, the meek: 'Thanks for everything.' A scrap of their conversation came back to me. First his significant: 'Fair exchange; it's all agreed, then?' And her colourless: 'You know me, Reg,' while she contemplated this.
Three voices in the court-room spoke in quick succession.
The first was the Attorney-General's: 'Is Captain Answell on trial?'
The second was H.M.'s: 'Not yet.'
The third was the judge's: 'Proceed, Sir Henry.'
H.M. turned back to the witness, whose plump and pretty face was composed, and who was looking at the back of Reginald's head.
'So Captain Answell had asked you, or rather your father, to pay five thousand pounds blackmail?'
'Yes. He knew I hadn't got it, of course, but he felt sure he could get it out of father.'
'Uh-huh. What reason did he have for blackmailin' you?'
'I had been his mistress.'
'Yes, but there was another and stronger reason - much stronger?'
'Oh, yes.'
For the second time during that trial, the prisoner sprang to his feet and was about to speak out from the dock. He had not expected this. H.M. made a savage gesture in his direction.
'What was that other reason, Miss Hume?'
'Captain Answell had taken a lot of photogr
aphs of me.'
'What kind of photographs?'
Her voice was blurred. 'Without any clothes on, and in - certain postures.'
'I did not catch that,' said the judge. 'Will you please speak up? What did you say?'
'I said,' replied Mary Hume dearly, 'without any clothes on, and in certain postures.'
The calm inexorability of the judge made everyone in that room squirm.
'What postures?' asked Mr Justice Rankin.
H.M. intervened. 'My lord, just in order to show why the prisoner has been so blamed anxious not to talk about this, and why he's acted in certain ways, I've got one of those photographs here. Across the back of it is written: "One of the best things she ever did for me," in what I'd like the witness to identify as Captain Answell's handwriting. Then I'd like to submit it to you to suggest that it can go to the jury as bein' evidence of what we're trying to establish.'
The photograph was handed up. While the judge looked at it, there was a hush of such bursting quality that you could hear it. It was to be wondered what the witness was feeling; every eye in the room had glanced at her, just once, and had seen her in other costume - or the lack of it. Sir Walter Storm made no comment or objection. .
'You may show this to the jury,' said the judge tonelessly.
It travelled along before two lines of impassive faces. 'How many of these photographs are there?'
'A-about a dozen.'
'This one here, the one you gave me to put in evidence; is it the only one of 'em you've got?'
'Yes, Reg has the others. He promised to give me the rest if I didn't say anything in court about his trying to get hush-money out of me.'
Reginald Answell got slowly to his feet and began to make his way out of the court-room. He tried to walk with equal slowness and casualness. No one, of. course, attempted to comment or restrain him. But H.M. deliberately allowed a space while the pressure of the court was focused on him like his own camera. Chairs, people at the solicitors' table, elbows, feet, everything seemed to get in his way, and made him go faster: it was like someone bumping over rows of feet in a theatre, trying to get out without attracting attention along the line of stalls. By the time he reached the door he was running. The policeman on duty there gave him one look, and stood aside. We heard the whish of the glass door out into the hall.
The Judas Window shm-8 Page 13
