London Belongs to Me

by Norman Collins

  6

  There was one piece of finesse in Mr Justice Plymme’s summing‐up which escaped even the Law Quarterly. And that was the timing. Without hurrying himself or resorting to any unnecessary padding, Mr Justice Plymme arrived at his conclusion at exactly five minutes to one – five minutes, that is, before his invariable lunch‐hour. And in those five minutes he was able to answer the two foolish questions of the juryman. Punctually to one minute he seated himself at his table in the judge’s room, poured himself out a glass of light claret and began dissecting the wing of cold chicken that he had ordered. Mr Justice Plymme never ate red meat.

  On the floor below, the jurymen were settling themselves down to something considerably more substantial. To‐day’s menu was steak‐and‐kidney pudding, boiled potatoes and cabbage, and an apple‐turnover. It was all brought over from a near‐by restaurant. A waitress and a boy had made no fewer than three separate journeys with it all. Bottled beer arrived independently from the House opposite. And the jurors, all twelve of them, sat down to their food in a small room with a green dado and closed windows.

  Because they were busy men, the jury wasted no time and discussed the case right through lunch. Not that there was very much to discuss. For outside the court, the foreman was a different human being altogether – dogmatic, obstinate and overbearing. He spoke as one who had lived practically all his life in law courts and knew the Criminal Evidence Act, 1898, by heart.

  ‘It’s as plain as a pikestaff,’ he said uncontradictably, pausing only when he actually wanted to swallow. ‘The judge said so himself. Either he killed her or he didn’t, and if he killed her in those circumstances it’s murder. Well, she’s dead, isn’t she? So far as I’m concerned that’s all there is to it.’

  He had finished the steak‐and‐kidney pudding by now and looked up beamingly to see the effect of his logic. It seemed to have convinced ten of his companions but to have left the eleventh unmoved. A prim, stubborn little man with pince‐nez glasses, the eleventh evidently had humanitarian misgivings.

  ‘It’s a big responsibility,’ he said. ‘Suppose he didn’t mean to do it.’ ‘Then he shouldn’t have tried,’ replied the foreman. ‘He ought to have thought of that before.’

  ‘But suppose he only meant to stun her?’

  ‘If a person commits an act on another person,’ the foreman intoned, ‘and if the person – the other person that is – dies because of what the first person has done to the other person then the first person, the person who started it all, is guilty.’

  He sat back, a smile on his face, pleased with his performance. ‘That isn’t what the judge said,’ the vague, wispish man complained. ‘Then what did he say?’ the corn‐chandler demanded.

  ‘He said only if the first person was standing on Beachy Head. He said he could hit the other person as hard as he liked in his own drawing‐room and it would only be common assault. I heard him distinctly.’

  ‘Well, a moving car’s the same thing.’

  ‘Same thing as what?’

  ‘Same thing as Beachy Head.’

  ‘Who says so?’

  The corn‐chandler undid his waistcoat and cleared a little space on the table in front of him. He gave a little cough.

  ‘Don’t let’s fall out about small things,’ he said in a quieter, more engaging tone. ‘Cases like this sometimes go on for weeks and weeks if that happens. Locked up in here until it’s over. Let’s be reasonable men.’

  ‘That’s what I am being,’ the wispish man interrupted him. ‘You said a car was the same thing…’

  ‘Please!’ The foreman lifted his hand and cleared his throat again. ‘It’s not our job to find fault with each other. It’s our job to find the prisoner guilty. Now did he do it? Hands up those who say yes.’

  Eight hands went up. Then nine. Then, very flutteringly, a tenth. Only the little wispish man remained as he was.

  The foreman looked at him fiercely. ‘Well, did he?’

  ‘Did he do what?’

  ‘Kill her.’

  ‘That’s what I’m not sure about.’

  The foreman put down his spoon and fork and sat back in his chair.

  ‘Would any one else like to be foreman?’ he asked.

  No one, not even the vague wispish man, volunteered.

  ‘No, you just go on as you are,’ he said. ‘It’s your job to convince us.’

  ‘Well, would the young lady be alive to‐day if he hadn’t hit her on the head?’ the foreman inquired.

  The vague, wispish man pondered.

  ‘Perhaps she was attacking him,’ he suggested. ‘Perhaps it was self‐defence. You can’t call self‐defence murder.’

  ‘Nobody’s said anything about self‐defence,’ the foreman retorted. ‘Yes, they have,’ the vague, wispish man replied.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Me.’

  ‘We’re not here to discuss what you said; we’re here to discuss what the judge said.’

  ‘It isn’t the judge we’re trying.’

  ‘And it isn’t you either.’

  It was generally felt that the foreman had scored a victory this time. And what was more the other ten were growing a little tired of the vague, wispish juror. He was prolonging things and raising difficulties – a kind of born unleader of men.

  ‘Tell us again what the judge said,’ he challenged the foreman. ‘If there are two people and one of them does something…’ ‘Which one?’ the vague, wispish one asked.

  ‘Either one,’ the foreman replied. ‘And because of what he does the other one dies, it’s murder.’

  ‘What about soldiers and surgeons?’ the vague, wispish man asked. ‘They kill people and nobody calls them murderers.’

  But that was too much. The vague, wispish man had betrayed himself. He was a crank. And, from then on, the foreman had everything his own way. As soon as the vague, wispish man opened his mouth to raise further objections there was somebody to stop him.

  ‘Then we’re agreed, are we?’ asked the foreman at last. It was a quarter‐past three already and he was feeling tired. ‘Hands up those who say “yes.”’

  ‘Not if he’s going to be hanged, we’re not. Or at least I’m not.’ It was the eleventh hand – the fluttering one – that had spoken.

  The foreman squared his shoulders and glared at his fellow juror. ‘So far as I’m aware, the Secretary of State doesn’t need any advice on inclemency from us. That’s not what we’re here for. As soon as I see all hands go up we’ll talk about mercy. Not before. Now, is the prisoner guilty? Just that, leaving out being hanged for the moment.’

  Eleven hands went up, and the foreman began rubbing his own together.

  ‘That’s fine,’ he said. ‘Capital. And now what about a recommendation to mercy? How about it?’

  Eleven hands went up again.

  ‘A strong one,’ suggested the vague, wispish man who felt that somehow he had been coerced into departing from his principles.

  ‘Hear! Hear!’ replied the woman juror.

  ‘Well, that’s that,’ said the corn‐chandler. ‘Guilty. With a strong recommendation to mercy. It couldn’t have been anything else in the circumstances.’

  7

  Mr Justice Plymme was dozing in his chair when his clerk knocked on the door to say that the jury had considered their verdict and were ready. He kept the man waiting while he sat up and straightened his tie.

  He was almost pathetically tiny and frail as he stood up in his dark lounge suit, waiting to be robed. His face under the curling silver hair was like that of a small, tired child. The clerk removed the scarlet robe from its hanger in the corner cupboard and held it ready for him. Mr Justice Plymme vanished into it. Then the starched cravat was produced and placed round his neck. Finally, the horsehair wig was taken off its block on the writing‐desk and, as it was lowered on to his head, the miracle was complete. The little old man was a judge again.

  During all this time, he had not stirred. Or spoken. The real trouble
was that he was not yet properly awake. At least, only half awake. It was a disability which had been growing on him lately – this failure to spring immediately to life when roused. Even in his procession to the court he was still sleep‐walking. He mounted the bench, still in the same half‐dazed, half‐awake condition, and folded his hands in front of him as though praying. Already the clerk of the court was addressing the foreman of the jury. The foreman was standing politely to attention, holding his lapels.

  ‘Do you find the accused guilty or not guilty?’ the clerk asked.

  The reply was exactly what Mr Justice Plymme had expected. So exactly, in fact, that his hand was already reaching out instinctively for the small square of black cloth that lay there ready.

  ‘This,’ he reflected sadly, thinking how old it made him, ‘is the twenty‐seventh time I have done this thing. Here and at Assizes. Twenty‐seven times. No wonder the strain is telling on me…’

  The clerk turned towards Percy.

  ‘Prisoner at the bar,’ he asked, ‘have you anything to say why the Court should not give you judgment according to law?’

  So it had come – Percy’s big moment. But he wasn’t up to it. Simply wasn’t up to it. He gave a gulp almost as though he were about to cry.

  ‘Only that I’m innocent. I never meant to.’

  That also was exactly what Mr Justice Plymme had expected him to say. Really one murder trial was very like another. He placed the black cap carefully on his head and adjusted it. And as he did so he became grim and terrible for all his pink‐and‐whiteness.

  ‘You have been found guilty of that crime for which the law appoints one sentence and one sentence only. It is that sentence which I now pronounce upon you. The sentence of the Court upon you is, that you be taken from this place to a lawful prison and thence to a place of execution, and that you be there hanged by the neck until you be dead; and that your body be afterwards buried within the precincts of the prison in which you shall have been confined before your execution. And may the Lord have mercy on your soul.’

  Then Mr Justice Plymme removed his black cap and turned towards the jury.

  ‘Gentlemen, I thank you,’ he said, almost as if he were apologising. ‘You are exempt from jury service for ten years.’

  8

  But what about Percy? What about him? Hasn’t he got any feelings in the matter? Doesn’t he count for anything any more?

  Oh, yes, he’s still the centre of attention in the prisoner’s room behind the court. He’s a very special person now and they’re taking every care of him. Mr Barks is allowed to see him, but only in the presence of two warders. Percy might be royalty from the way they’re guarding him.

  Mr Barks is somehow not quite the same aggressive, cocksure Mr Barks who came into the court yesterday morning. He looks tired. Even his dapper bow‐tie is drooping. Altogether his appearance does credit to his feelings. But appearances after all can be most deceptive. Actually, he is thinking of Mr Veesey Blaize, and wondering if he realises that professionally he is finished. Thinking of Mr Veesey Blaize’s failure and his own arrears of County Court work. Nice steady profitable work with no fireworks. Five cases a morning and three more in the afternoon. No wonder that Mr Barks looks worn.

  But Percy is still too much dazed to notice how he looks. Too dazed, and too angry. He feels that, somehow or other, he has been tricked. Tricked by Mr Barks and by Mr Veesey Blaize and by Mr Wassall and by the judge. And, going further back, tricked by Them in general and by the plainclothes lodger in particular. At the present moment, he sees himself at the end, the very end, of a long road of deception and double‐dealing. It was for stealing a car that They first had him, wasn’t it? And look at him now. Where is he?

  It was the judge in particular who was against him. He could see that now. And he understood why Mr Justice Plymme had avoided his eye when he had tried to smile across at him.

  Not that this was going to be the end of it. Not by a long chalk. He was going to get even with him somehow. It wouldn’t be easy, shut up inside like he was. But he’d do it. He’d get Mr Barks and Mr Veesey Blaize to complain to the chief magistrate. He’d get even with him somehow. Then just as he has clenched his fists from thinking about it, he bursts out crying.

  ‘I didn’t mean to kill her,’ he bursts out. ‘I swear I didn’t. Why won’t they believe me? Why won’t they?’

  One of the warders tells him to take things easy, and Mr Barks looks uncomfortable again.

  Then a new fear – only it’s the old fear, really, all polished and brought up‐to‐date suddenly – strikes him.

  ‘They aren’t going to… to…’ – the word is slurred over because he is crying so much – ‘for something I didn’t mean, are They?’

  Mr Barks begins fumbling with his brief‐case.

  ‘This is only the first stage,’ he says. ‘Court of Criminal Appeal comes next. Very important. Fix up early conference with Mr Veesey Blaize. Clear case of misdirection. Be hearing from me.’

  ‘You mean it’ll be all right?’ Percy asks.

  ‘Strong case,’ Mr Barks answers. ‘Very strong case. Jury prejudiced. Talk all about that later.’

  With that, Mr Barks leaves him. But those last few minutes had been as good as a tonic to Percy. He takes out his pocket‐comb and runs it through his hair. He isn’t such a fool as They took him for. He knows what’s what. He’d spotted straightaway that the judge wasn’t being fair, hadn’t he?

  Then one of the warders touches him on the shoulder and Percy follows him.

  Chapter LI

  1

  On the evening of the verdict it was a very subdued household that reassembled in Dulcimer Street. If the verdict had been anything else – say manslaughter for instance – they would probably have foregathered and all gone home together. All except Mr Puddy that is: he would anyhow have had to go off to take care of that warehouse of his.

  But, as it was, they separated immediately and by instinct. Mrs Josser took Mr Josser’s arm and allowed herself to be led away from the court weeping. Mrs Vizzard who felt faint had to stay behind for a few minutes drinking water out of a thick glass that the usher brought her; and Mr Squales remained with her holding her hand and wondering how much longer he could manage without a cigarette. Connie, revolt and lèsemajesté seething inside her, went across the road and had a couple.

  The Jossers made a particularly sad and broken couple. They didn’t say very much. Practically the whole of their conversation was a remark of Mr Josser’s that he made over and over again for no reason except that he couldn’t stay silent for ever.

  ‘This is terrible, Mother,’ he repeated. ‘We’ve got to do something.’

  And whether because of this so frequent reminder, or whether because of its futility, Mrs Josser went to pieces as soon as she got home. She had to be put to bed, and Mr Josser gloomily prepared a makeshift sort of meal on a tray. They shared it together in the bedroom, Mr Josser still remarking at intervals that it was terrible and that they’d got to do something. He didn’t add what, because he didn’t know.

  Then Mrs Josser spoke. The hot tea had brought her round a bit and the practical side of her nature had risen to the top once more.

  ‘I didn’t ought to be here,’ she said suddenly. ‘I ought to be round at the infirmary. Someone’s got to tell Clarice.’

  Mr Josser admired his wife for that remark. It wasn’t a pleasant duty that she was suggesting. And he acknowledged that there was no one better to perform it. Nevertheless he resisted it.

  ‘You don’t go there to‐night,’ he told her. ‘You’re in no fit state.’ Then, as an afterthought, he added, ‘It’s Mr Barks’ place really. He’s the solicitor.’

  But that last remark was wrong for a woman of Mrs Josser’s disposition.

  ‘If I thought that she’d hear of it through that man,’ she replied, ‘I’d get out of this bed here and now.’

  ‘That’s all right,’ Mr Josser answered soothingly. ‘He won’t do
anything to‐night.’

  ‘He might write,’ Mrs Josser pointed out.

  ‘Not him,’ said Mr Josser. ‘He’s far too busy appealing.’

  But Mrs Josser was not interested in the law. A woman, her interests lay exclusively among mankind.

  ‘It’d almost be better,’ she said at length, ‘if she didn’t live to see it.’

  Mr Josser shook his head gravely.

  ‘This is terrible, Mother,’ he said. ‘We’ve got to do something.’ He paused. ‘It’s just as well they didn’t send her away, isn’t it? Then you couldn’t have seen her so easy.’

  2

  They wouldn’t let Mrs Josser in at first because Friday morning wasn’t a regular visiting‐time. Mysteries apparently took place in the mornings which the uninitiated were not supposed to witness. And even when the Sister heard the object of Mrs Josser’s visit, she wasn’t by any means persuaded that it was a good thing at all. She behaved as though by keeping this distressed agitated woman away from the quiet afflicted one she was somehow performing an act of kindness and compassion. Then Mrs Josser said tartly that in any case the solicitor would be writing, and it would be worse that way. So the Sister let her in. But still disapprovingly.

  ‘It’s a great pity this,’ she said disapprovingly. ‘It may set her back again.’

  Set her back again: Mrs Josser’s heart sank at the words. They could mean only one thing – that Mrs Boon was recovering. Any hope of a quiet release from it all was apparently being denied to her. And, when she got to the bedside, Mrs Josser found that she was right. Mrs Boon was obstinately and astonishingly better. She was sitting up a little and had seen Mrs Josser from the far end of the ward.