A Deadly Marriage

by Roderic Jeffries

  “Of course I didn’t.”

  “You had absolutely no idea he was going to be there?”

  “How could I have? I didn’t even know if he was still alive.”

  “Were you at that time still residing at Frogsfeet Hall?”

  “No.”

  “Then why had you gone there?”

  When she answered, there was a note of triumph to her voice. Counsel thought he had cornered her, but the man wasn’t half as clever as he believed himself. “To get my pearl ear-rings which I’d lost.”

  Gretnor looked a little put out. “Oh! You’d lost them?”

  “I’d lost them and searched everywhere and couldn’t find them.”

  “So you went to Frogsfeet Hall to see if they were there?”

  “That’s right and even you can’t find anything wrong with that!”

  “Who looked for them at Frogsfeet Hall?”

  “David. He went up to my bedroom to see if they were in the secret compartment of the dressing-table.”

  “Then you were alone in the sitting-room for some little time?”

  “What if I was?”

  “Did he find your pearl ear-rings?”

  “No.”

  “Did you ever find them?”

  “No.”

  Gretnor’s voice didn’t vary in tone as he said: “Then where did the ones come from that you’re wearing now?” She reached up and touched the ear-rings. She was plainly shocked as she realised she had dangerously underestimated Gretnor’s ability and that far from her having shown him what was what, he had tricked her into an untenable position. She struggled to find a way out. “These?”

  “Those.”

  “I bought these some other time.”

  “From where?”

  “My jewellers in London.”

  “Then they will be able to substantiate your story?”

  “How...how d’you mean?”

  “They will be able to confirm this purchase by you?”

  “How can I tell?”

  “You can tell, can’t you, because you know perfectly well that they cannot substantiate your story? Tell me, Mrs. Plesence, are the pearl ear-rings you are wearing not the ones given to you by your first husband?”

  “They are not.”

  “The ones you claimed to have lost in order to find a reason for going to Frogsfeet Hall?”

  “That’s not true.”

  “The ones you asked David Plesence to search for in your old bedroom in order to be alone in the sitting-room of Frogsfeet Hall before George Cabbot — Gual Larraga — arrived?”

  “It’s a filthy lie.”

  “David Plesence will testify they are the same earrings.”

  “He’s lying.”

  “And if we call your London jewellers on to this stand to tell us if they have ever had them to clean or for attention and if they identify them?”

  “They’re lying,” she shouted, frightened, blindly angry, careless of what she was saying.

  “Everybody is lying but you?”

  “Yes.”

  “I suppose you wouldn’t agree that it’s far more likely everyone else is telling the truth and it is you who are lying?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “Let us move on, then. At about seven o’clock on the evening of May the thirtieth, George Cabbot called at Frogsfeet Hall. You knew him as Gual Larraga.”

  “I didn’t know him.”

  “But surely you were previously married to him?”

  “I mean...I mean I didn’t know he was calling.”

  “Then you must have been exceedingly surprised to see him?”

  “I...Well, I...”

  “The fact is, isn’t it, you didn’t show any surprise at all?”

  “I didn’t want to upset David.”

  “How could you have upset him?”

  “If he’d known who Gual really was.”

  “Why should that have upset him? You and he were separated, you were suing for judicial separation and he wanted a divorce. Had he known who Cabbot really was, he’d have been a very long way from being upset, wouldn’t he? Especially if he’d been told about the validity of the first marriage?”

  “I couldn’t think straight. It was all so sudden.”

  “So sudden, yet you didn’t show the slightest surprise at coming face to face with your first husband?”

  “You don’t understand.”

  “On the contrary, I do understand as, I feel certain, do the jury.” Gretnor was silent for several seconds. “Mrs. Plesence, after the drinks had been poured out, who asked for the celery straws?”

  “I can’t remember.”

  “You’re quite certain you can’t?”

  “Yes.”

  “David Plesence will say it was you.”

  “Of course he will. He’ll say anything.”

  “Let’s examine the facts to discover what was most likely. Did David Plesence ever eat these straws?”

  “No.”

  “Did George Gabbot know about them?”

  “How should I know?”

  “I suggest we can be quite certain he did not. So really it could only have been you who asked for them. You got the tin out of the cocktail cabinet, didn’t you?”

  “No.”

  “You handed the tin to George Cabbot?”

  “No.”

  “Do you like celery straws?”

  “Yes.”

  “Very much indeed? So much that you always eat a great number whenever you have any?”

  “No.”

  “Not? But when you spoke to the police after the death of George Cabbot and you were trying to point out that the poisoner must be your husband, did you not tell the police that you invariably ate a great number — thereby, of course, attempting to add further fuel to your allegations?”

  “I can’t remember.”

  “Luckily for us, the police can. How many straws did you eat that evening?”

  “One.”

  “Why no more?”

  She looked at him with hatred. “Because I didn’t want any more.”

  “Don’t you think it’s an odd coincidence that the only time you do not eat a great number of these straws is when some of them are poisoned?”

  “I didn’t know. I tell you, I didn’t know.”

  “Didn’t you? Did you not inject poison into four of the celery straws, knowing your husband would not eat any, with the intention of getting Cabbot to eat one and frighten him into remaining silent? Didn’t you also mark those that were safe to eat in order to be able to eat one yourself and to allay any possible suspicion?”

  “It’s a filthy lie.”

  “Very well. Let us move on. Before the death of Cabbot, you were suing for a judicial separation. After his death, you sued for a divorce. What caused that change?”

  “I was frightened.”

  “Of what?”

  “That David would kill me like he’d killed Gual.”

  “Isn’t the truth the contrary to this? That you were frightened that unless you got a divorce and the maintenance that would follow immediately, the truth might leak out and defeat you? I put it to you that you believed that unless you obtained a divorce at once, you stood a chance of losing the maintenance you so desperately wanted, maintenance for a marriage that was no marriage?”

  “No,” she shouted.

  Gretnor hitched up his gown, then turned over a page in his note-book. “Did you know Mrs. Cabbot?”

  She showed her relief at the change in the line of questioning. “No.”

  “You’d never met her?”

  “Never.”

  “You are on oath. Let me repeat the question so that we can be quite clear in this matter. Had you at any time, anywhere, ever met Mrs. Cabbot before her death?”

  “Of course I hadn’t. I didn’t know she existed. I didn’t know Gual was in the country until I saw him at Frogsfeet Hall.”

  “You could have met Mrs. Cabbot after that time.”

>   “I never met her. Never. D’you understand, I never met her.”

  Charlton stood up. “My Lord, is this evidence relevant? We are concerned with the death of George Cabbot or Gual Larraga and there is no evidence...”

  The judge spoke slowly. “Mr. Charlton, in the strictest sense, this evidence is not relevant. Nevertheless, for the moment I am going to allow it.”

  Gretnor waited until certain the judge had finished. “Mrs. Plesence, we have it on record that you never met Mrs. Cabbot. Will you now tell the court whether you own a diamond necklace of considerable value?”

  “Do you? Surely that is a simple enough question?”

  “Yes, I do own one.”

  “How did you come by it?”

  “My first husband gave it to me.”

  “I would presume, then, that you are sentimentally attached to it?”

  “Of course I am.”

  “Is it insured?”

  “Yes.”

  “For how much?”

  “Five thousand pounds.”

  “It’s a valuable necklace. Have you ever claimed on this insurance?”

  “No.”

  “It’s never been lost or stolen?”

  “No.”

  “Where is it now?”

  “What?”

  “Where is that diamond necklace now?”

  “I’ve still got it.”

  “Can you prove that? Can you, if ordered, produce the necklace to this court?”

  She was frightened. The lines in her face were deeply etched and she was looking old and very raddled, a painted mockery of a woman.

  The judge spoke. “Are you still in possession of this diamond necklace?”

  She did not answer. The judge wrote in his note-book. “What has happened to that necklace, Mrs. Plesence?” asked Gretnor.

  “I...I’ve just remembered.”

  “You’ve just remembered what?”

  “You’ve confused me. I haven’t got the necklace any longer.”

  “What’s happened to it?”

  “I...I sold it.”

  “Where?”

  “In London.”

  “Why did you sell it?”

  “Because I was so desperately short of money. David didn’t give me enough to live on.”

  “How much did you sell it for?”

  “I...I can’t just remember.”

  “What jewellers did you sell it to?”

  “It was just a jewellers. I don’t remember shops’ names.”

  “Not even the name of the shop where you sold something worth five thousand pounds and of the greatest sentimental value?”

  “I just don’t remember.”

  “Then I don’t suppose you can give us the date of this sale?”

  “No.”

  “But it was you who personally took it to London and sold it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Would it interest you to know that your diamond necklace was sold to jewellers called Porter and Robinson, in Frenchley Street?”

  “That...that name sounds familiar.”

  “And does the figure of a thousand guineas also sound familiar?”

  She said nothing.

  “And are you further familiar with the fact that it was sold to the jewellers not by you but by Mrs. Cabbot?” There was a rising murmur of excitement, hastily stilled by the ushers. Catalina tried to speak, but seemed unable to do so. Her face had gone grey.

  “Well, Mrs. Plesence?”

  She shook her head.

  “How did Mrs. Cabbot come to sell it?”

  “I...I don’t...”

  “How did she come to have possession of it? Was she blackmailing you? Did you have to give it to her because she, knowing the sentimental value it would have for you quite apart from its monetary value, made you give it to her as an act of revenge for the death of her husband?” Frantically, Catalina tried to find an explanation. “I wasn’t blackmailed. I gave it to her when her husband died. I gave her the necklace and told her to sell it and keep the money.”

  “But did you not only a few moments ago assure this court, on oath, not once but several times, that you had never in your life met Mrs. Cabbot?”

  “Madre de Dios!” she whispered. She closed her eyes. Gretnor’s voice rose slightly. “You have lied to this court: you have lied again and again, deliberately and calculatingly. Almost every word you’ve spoken has been a lie. Only one person in this case needs to lie, to lie again, and to go on lying. That is the murderer.” He paused. His cross-examination had been carefully planned and brilliantly executed, taking into account her character as much as the known facts. He had let her believe in her own cleverness long enough to trap her into lies: he had gone outside the facts of the first case — when he had covered enough ground to make it likely the judge would allow this irregularity — and used the facts of the second murder to prove she was a liar. Now, he had to take the final gamble, he had to try and break her when she was in a state of mental shock and confusion. “It was you who slashed Mrs. Cabbot to death in a wild frenzy because she was blackmailing you to a state of poverty: real poverty, the kind you’ve always dreaded. You used that carving knife again and again...”

  “No!” she shouted.

  “How hard did she struggle when you gripped her windpipe to stop her shouting for help? Can you still feel the struggle in your fingers? Can you still hear her choking? Can you still see the blood cascading out of her neck?” She moaned.

  Gretnor held up some photographs. “These are the photographs of the dead woman, showing her wounds, showing the look of terror on her face as she died. Look at them, remind yourself of how she died...”

  “No,” screamed Catalina. “She mocked me. You’ve got to understand. She mocked me. She called me old and ugly and swore she’d beggar me.” Tears rolled down her face.

  Gretnor lowered the photographs. They were of the celery straws, carefully laid out on a plain sheet of paper and looking like a row of soldiers, standing to attention.

  “Members of the jury,” said the judge, near the end of his summing up, “you will never forget that this is the trial of David Plesence for the murder of George Cabbot and so the details of any other case are not relevant, except in so far as they affect the worth of a witness’s evidence.

  “You have to decide, amongst other things, whether you consider it was the accused who put the poison in the celery straws. To answer this, you will, of course, ask yourselves who had the opportunity to insert the poison and I would remind you of the episode concerning the pearl ear-rings. The accused was absent from the sitting-room at Frogsfeet Hall for several minutes, during which time another person was alone in that room. You have heard that the accused was absent, searching for ear-rings that you may well believe never were lost...”

  The foreman of the jury answered the Clerk of the court. “Not guilty,” he said.

  The late sunshine threw long shadows. Frogsfeet Hall looked serene, beautiful, and permanent. Overhead, swallows performed their amazing acrobatics: across by one of the hedges, a late brood of pheasants moved in a zig-zag, faithfully matching each step of the leading hen: a carrion crow sat in a tree and cawed, looking sleekly evil, the killer he was: an aeroplane, carrying cargo, went overhead, its turbo-jets whining.

  In the sitting-room, Patricia gripped David’s hand. “I...I can’t understand that the nightmare’s over. I keep thinking everything will dissolve and you’ll be back in prison.”

  “I know. It doesn’t seem real to me to be able to do what I want, when I want.”

  “I prayed for you, over and over again. D’you know something, darling?”

  “Tell me.”

  “If they’d imprisoned you, I don’t think I could have stood life.”

  He released his hand, then put it round her waist and drew her close to him.

  “Catalina isn’t sane, is she?” said Patricia.

  “She loves money and youth too much. When one was threatened and she suddenly realis
ed the other had gone, she stopped being able to think straight.”

  “It’s...it’s horrible knowing what she did and what she so nearly did.”

  He stared through the window at the countryside, not separated from him by iron bars. “Gretnor told me something that makes the whole thing more tragic and more futile.”

  “What?”

  “Catalina was desperate to stop my learning that our marriage was invalid because she believed that no marriage, no divorce, no maintenance. But the awful irony is that that’s not necessarily true. The courts sometimes award maintenance even when a marriage is void right from the beginning. The murders were unnecessary.”

  Patricia shivered.

  “Let’s forget it all. Let’s go out and give ourselves a hell of a night out. Then to-morrow...” He paused.

  “Well?”

  He smiled at her with a warmth that reached deep inside her. “Let's see how one goes about getting married quickly. Some of our friends are rather conventional and we don’t want to shock them too much, do we?”

  “Is that the only reason for getting married?”

  He kissed her.

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