The excitement at this point was intense and the Coroner had to enforce silence.
Mike’s lank form seemed to be leaning back upon the air and his drawl became more pronounced.
‘That is so,’ he said.
‘Will you describe exactly what you did upon that occasion? It is all written down, I know, but I should like to hear it from you again.’
Mike complied. He described how he had left the flat on Sunday night, had gone into the darkened office, taken the key from its usual place, opened the strong-room and taken the folder which John had needed from its shelf, and had come away, locking the door behind him.
The Coroner seemed puzzled and he took the young man through the story again and again. Finally Mike’s evidence was interrupted while Miss Curley and Miss Marchant were called to describe the exact place in which the body was found.
When the Coroner returned to Mike again his tone was peremptory.
‘Can you offer any explanation why you did not see the body of your cousin on Sunday night?’ he said.
‘I’m sorry, I can’t. It wasn’t there. Or, if it was, I didn’t see it.’
Mike’s exasperation was not unmixed with defiance. The Coroner dismissed the matter for the time being and went back to the Thursday night.
‘Mr Wedgwood,’ he said, ‘will you tell us what you did from three o’clock in the afternoon of Thursday the twenty-eighth until you answered the telephone at nine o’clock and went out to a picture palace with Mrs Brande?’
Mike stiffened slightly and when he spoke his tone was defensive.
‘I worked in my office all the afternoon,’ he said slowly. ‘My secretary was there the whole time. I left about half-past five, intending to go to a cocktail-party, and because it was slightly foggy and I was early I decided to walk. The house I intended to visit was in Manchester Square, but before I reached it I changed my mind and decided that I would go on walking.’
He paused. The Coroner was looking at him and the seven pairs of eyes from the jury benches watched him narrowly.
‘Yes?’ said the Coroner.
‘Well, I went on walking,’ said Mike lamely. ‘I had various things on my mind and I wanted to think them out. I went on walking until about half-past eight. Then I got on a bus and came home.’
The Coroner’s pen traced idle designs on the blotting paper in front of him.
‘Half-past five till half-past eight,’ he said. ‘That’s three hours. It’s a long time to walk on a foggy winter night, Mr Wedgwood. Can you tell us where you went, exactly?’
‘Yes. I went down to the far end of Westbourne Grove. I walked down Holborn, Oxford Street, Edgware Road, Praed Street, and Bishop’s Road. Then I turned back and I went up one of those long terraces to the Park, I cut through from Lancaster Gate to Hyde Park Corner and came up Piccadilly. I went up Shaftesbury Avenue, Charing Cross Road and I took a bus to St Giles’s Circus. It’s a long way and I was not walking fast.’
‘Did you stop anywhere? Speak to anyone?’
‘No. I don’t think so.’
‘Well, can you tell us, Mr Wedgwood, why you went to Westbourne Grove? Had you any purpose in going there?’
A faint smile passed over the man’s expressive face.
‘Yes, I had vaguely. I meant to visit a shop there. There’s a little second-hand jeweller’s and curio shop about half-way down on the right-hand side. I don’t know the name of it. When I got there it was shut. It was Thursday anyway – I’d forgotten that.’
The Coroner was inclined to be impatient.
‘You must see that this is a very unsatisfactory story,’ he said testily. ‘You say you walked nearly four miles to visit a shop and found it shut. Had you any particular purpose in going to that shop?’
‘No, not really. I mean, nothing urgent.’ Mike seemed unduly embarrassed. ‘I thought I might find something of interest there. I have done so before.’
‘Some piece of jewellery?’
‘Well, yes.’
‘I see.’ The Coroner paused significantly. ‘Well then, when you found the shop was shut you walked back for no other reason than that you wished to walk?’
‘That is so.’
‘And it was cold and slightly foggy – not a pleasant night for walking?’
‘No, it wasn’t. But I didn’t really mind about that. I had things on my mind and wanted to work them out.’
‘Those things, I see, Mr Wedgwood, were private affairs which have no bearing on this case?’
‘They were business matters,’ said Mike briefly and unconvincingly.
‘When you returned home to Horsecollar Yard what did you do?’
‘I went down through my own flat, out of the back door, through the gate in the wall to the garage behind the office and started my car.’
The court gasped.
‘Why did you do that?’
‘The fog had cleared a little and I thought it would probably be quite bright in the country. I thought I would go out somewhere by myself for a run round.’
‘You were tired of walking?’ observed the Coroner dryly.
‘Yes, I was.’
‘According to your evidence, Mr Wedgwood, you had nothing to eat all this time …’
‘No. I wasn’t hungry. I just wanted to be by myself.’
‘And so you started up the car?’
‘Yes. I always do that. I let her run for a little while, five or ten minutes at the outside, before I take her out into the traffic in the cold weather. I find she runs much more easily.’
‘And then?’
‘Then I remembered that the key of the yard gates was in my coat in the flat. I went up to get it. While I was there Mrs Brande rang up and explained that Paul had not returned and I suggested that we should go out somewhere. As it was too late for a theatre we went to a film. Before I went up to fetch Mrs Brande I returned to the garage and switched off my car engine. I estimate it had been running seven minutes.’
‘I see.’ The Coroner cleared his throat. ‘Now there are just one or two questions I want to ask you concerning this statement. When Mrs Brande told you that her husband had not returned and that he was two hours late for an appointment, weren’t you alarmed? Didn’t you wonder what had happened to him?’
‘No. Paul was like that. He was a most erratic person. Neither Gina – I mean Mrs Brande – nor we at the office ever knew when he was going to turn up.’
The Coroner wrote.
‘But on the Sunday, Mr Wedgwood, when you were having tea – with others – at Mrs Brande’s flat, didn’t you wonder then what had happened to your cousin?’
‘I did. I thought he had stayed away rather a long time, but I wasn’t worried. As I say, my cousin was unreliable.’
‘Well then, one other point. You say you were getting your car out, intending to crawl through the fog until you got to the open country, because you wanted to be by yourself. And yet as soon as Mrs Brande phoned you you suggested you should take her out to see a film. How do you explain that?’
Mike shrugged. ‘I don’t explain it,’ he said. ‘I’m just telling you what happened.’
‘Mr Wedgwood, is there a love affair between you and Mrs Brande?’
‘Certainly not.’
‘You have never at any time treated her in any way other than as your cousin’s wife?’
‘Never.’
‘You realize you are on oath?’
‘I do.’
‘Very well. Will you stand down, please.’
Much to everybody’s astonishment, including her own, the next witness was Mrs Austin.
She swept forward, a fine belligerent figure, skirts and streamers flying, and after climbing into position turned and surveyed the court, Coroner and police with self-possessed hostility.
She gave her name as Mrs Dorothy Austin; her age (which was unasked) as forty-two; and an address in Somers Town.
‘I’ve been visiting my lady, Mrs Brande, for nearly four years now,’ she explained, �
��and if anybody knows her I do.’
The Coroner looked up and smiled.
‘We will stick to your statement as much as possible, Mrs Austin,’ he murmured. ‘You say here that you were in the habit of arriving at Mrs Branded flat at eight o’clock every morning, that you stayed until twelve and returned again to cook and wash up after the evening meal if necessary.’
Mrs Austin concurred.
‘I don’t see anything wrong in that,’ she said.
‘No, no, of course not. Now, during your visits to the flat you have had an opportunity of studying your employer and her husband. Would you say their married life was a happy one?’
‘No, I wouldn’t,’ said Mrs Austin vehemently. ‘If my husband had treated me as Mr Brande treated my lady I’d have left him long ago. It was only her sweet nature that made her put up with him as long as she did.’
From the back of the court Gina looked at the woman imploringly, but there was no way of stopping that well-meaning tongue or forcing a little enlightenment into that short-sighted mind. Mrs Austin imagined herself a counsel for the defence and already saw her name large in the newspapers as the champion of the down-trodden wife.
Pleasant, sturdy Sergeant Pillow looked down his nose. When he had taken her statement it had seemed to him almost a pity that she should have been so very much ‘in the mood,’ but after all the truth was the truth and the more easily it came out the better for everyone.
The Coroner had hardly any need to speak at all. Mrs Austin not only remembered her statement but was quite willing to amplify it.
‘They never came to blows – I will say that for them,’ she said, ‘but I often think it’s a pity they didn’t. The way he neglected her! Half the time he wasn’t there at all and the other half he didn’t notice she was there. No one could blame her if she went out a bit with Mr Mike. A lady’s got to have someone to take her about. She can’t sit up like a sparrow on a house-top, not going anywhere. It’s more than human nature can stand.’
The Coroner interrupted the flow.
‘Mrs Austin,’ he said, ‘you say that you rarely stayed at the flat later than nine o’clock in the evening and never arrived there before eight o’clock in the morning. You are therefore not in a position to say whether, in the absence of Mr Brande, Mr Wedgwood ever stayed in the flat at night?’
‘Well, of all the minds!’ she began indignantly, but was silenced by the Coroner.
‘You must answer me “Yes” or “No.” Did you ever know for a certainty that in the absence of Mr Brande Mr Wedgwood had stayed in the Brandes’ flat overnight?’
‘No,’ said Mrs Austin, choked by the constraint put upon her. ‘But if he had I wouldn’t have blamed him – or her, and that’s the truth.’
‘That’ll do,’ said the Coroner. ‘Now you were in the room, I understand, when Mr Wedgwood came to tell Mrs Brande that her husband was dead. I want you to describe that scene a little more fully than it is set down here. You admitted Mr Wedgwood to the flat at about ten o’clock on Monday morning, the first of February. Do you remember that?’
‘As clearly as the night my husband died,’ said Mrs Austin a little unnecessarily.
‘Very well. Now before Mr Wedgwood arrived you saw your mistress?’
‘Of course I did. I’d been running in and out of her room all the morning.’
‘At that time Mr Brande had been missing for three days and four nights. Did Mrs Brande seem worried?’
Mrs Austin considered.
‘Not exactly worried. I think she was relieved to be without him. One of us passed the remark that it was strange he hadn’t come in.’
‘It did not occur to you that any harm might have befallen him?’
A ray of recollection flickered over Mrs Austin’s broad face.
‘Now I come to think of it, I did say when I brought in her morning tea, “I see the master’s not back. I wonder if he’s been runned over.”’
‘Ah. And what did Mrs Brande say to that?’
‘Oh, she turned over on her side and said, “No such luck,” or something like that.’
Anyone of a more sensitive nature than the worthy Mrs Austin must have noticed the tremendous sensation she was providing. The Coroner picked her up.
‘When you say things like this, you must realize what they mean,’ he said severely. ‘Did Mrs Brande use the actual words “No such luck” in reply to your suggestion that her husband had been run over and killed?’
Mrs Austin looked abashed.
‘I think her actual words were, “No, there’s no escape that way.” I took it to mean “No such luck.”’
‘You’re sure of these words, Mrs Austin? Are you – yes or no?’
‘Yes, I am. “No, there’s no escape that way” – that’s what she said.’
‘And after that no mention of Mr Brande was made?’
‘No.’
‘You say you remember Mr Wedgwood coming to the flat at ten o’clock that morning very distinctly. Will you describe it, please?’
‘There was a ring at the bell,’ said Mrs Austin dramatically. ‘I was just going to make some coffee, but I popped off my apron and opened the door. There stood Mr Mike, white as a sheet, his hands twitching, his eyes starting out of his head. I knew at once something was up.’
‘Not unnaturally.’ The Coroner opened his mouth to say the words, but thought better of them. Instead he wrote down ‘seemed greatly agitated’ and put a further question.
‘I see that you took Mr Wedgwood into the room where your mistress was kneeling by the fire in pyjamas. Do you remember what she said?’
‘Yes. She said, “Mike, my pet, I’m glad to see you,” and asked him if he’d have some coffee. Her face lit up – she looked quite different.’
‘Then you went out of the room?’
‘Yes, to make the coffee.’
‘And when you came back, what did you see then?’
‘They were clinging together,’ said Mrs Austin, with sentimental relish. ‘Clinging together on the hearthrug like a couple of children. Of course, when they heard me they sprung apart – as was only natural, me being an older person – and my lady said, “My husband’s dead, Mrs Austin.” “No!” I said. “Yes,” she said. I give her some coffee quick. Then we all had some coffee and Mr Wedgwood told us that they was bringing the body up. I made him come out and give me all the details so I should know what to get ready. As soon as he could he slipped back to her.’
‘Then you can’t tell us any more about the conversation which took place between them after the death had been discovered,’ said the Coroner firmly. ‘Can you tell us what effect the news had upon your mistress? Did she seem surprised?’
‘Surprised? She was horrified! I never saw such a change in anyone in all my life. One moment she was a bright laughing girl, not a care in the world except Mr Brande’s neglect and mental cruelty to her, and the next she was a drawn haggard woman, as you might say.’
‘Yes, but was she surprised?’
‘She was thunderstruck, if you ask me,’ said Mrs Austin.
Mr Scruby, who jumped up some little time before and had only just succeeded in catching the Coroner’s eye, begged to be allowed to put a question.
‘When you say your mistress was in pyjamas, Mrs Austin,’ he said, ‘do you mean her night clothes?’
The woman stared at him. ‘No, I don’t,’ she said. ‘It’s a new fashion. Little serge romper suits. Ladies wear them in the morning about the house. Very nice and respectable, they are, something after the style of a naval uniform.’
‘Thank you.’ Mr Scruby sat down amid a titter of laughter and Mrs Austin’s appearance in the limelight came to an end.
She went back to her seat bursting with pride.
‘I showed ’em,’ she said, sitting down beside Gina. ‘They didn’t get much change out of me – nosey parkers!’
Gina said nothing.
The last witness was so well known to the whole of the Barnabas group th
at they stared at him in astonishment in this new setting. He was a little wizened person, very spruce and smart, but so nervous that he was almost incoherent. He gave his name as William Robert Dyke and explained that he was the janitor in charge of Twenty-one and Twenty-three, Horsecollar Yard, and had been in the employment of Messrs Barnabas, Limited, for twenty years.
He identified the piece of rubber tubing reluctantly as part of an old shower-bath attachment which he had saved some years before when it had been thrown out of Mike’s flat during a spring-cleaning. Thinking that it might come in useful at some time or other, he had hung it over a large nail on the wall of the cupboard next to the furnace at Number Twenty-one, where a great deal of other odds and ends were stored. The cupboard had no door and its contents were easily visible to anyone and everyone who passed in and out of the building by the basement garden exit.
On the morning of Friday, the twenty-ninth, the day after the deceased had disappeared, he had noticed it lying upon the floor beside the other rubbish and had picked it up. He thought it looked a little dirty, but had not examined it carefully, simply replacing it upon its nail and forgetting it until the Coroner’s Officer questioned him about it on the following Monday morning.
And there, with astonishing abruptness, the larger part of the inquiry came to an end.
Gina sat quite still. She did not want to look about her. Miss Curley tried to catch her eye, to give her a timidly reassuring nod, but the younger woman did not stir nor did she ever raise her eyes from her white-gloved hands folded tightly in her lap.
John and Mr Scruby were conversing animatedly in whispers while Mr Campion leant back in his seat, his arms folded, and an even more vacuous expression than usual upon his face.
Outside the later editions of the evening papers were being unfolded at windy street corners by excited youths. Home news was scarce and the ‘Strong-Room Mystery Inquest’ was a god-send.
Much had been made of the morning’s disclosures and a photograph of Gina and Mrs Austin leaving the court appeared on the front page of each paper.
Flowers For the Judge Page 11
