Black Widow

by S. Fowler Wright

  But if these thoughts, or the assimilated result of their previous digestion, were in the background of Mr. Wheeler’s mind, they were not sufficiently dominant to distract his attention from the practical problems with which he was now concerned.

  “I suppose nothing,” he said, “is quite fair. That is the price we pay for the gamble of life, without which it might be too dull to endure. And if absolute justice could be obtained, I suppose some of us might hesitate as to whether it were exactly what we require.”

  “Yes,” she said frankly, considering this with the little puzzled frown that her habit was at such times, “I think we might.”

  “And what we have to consider now is the verdict at which we should aim tomorrow.”

  “Need I consider that?”

  “No, it is my business rather than yours. But I should like you to understand: when you gave evidence before, you expressed a belief that Sir Daniel had committed suicide, and I have heard you argue since in the same way. There are three possible verdicts that might be brought in tomorrow. It might be suicide, or murder by someone definitely stated, either living or dead, or by some person unknown. Apart from that (but it’s not likely in this case), the jury might say that Sir Daniel died from a bullet wound, but that there was not sufficient evidence to show how it happened.”

  “You mean it might have been an accident?”

  “I mean that a jury might say that there is not sufficient evidence to enable them to solve a puzzle, and leave it there. That, like the much more probable verdict of murder against some person unknown, would leave it for the police to continue their investigations. The probabilities are a verdict of suicide, or that he was murdered by Gerard, either of which would be likely to be the end of the matter.”

  “Or,” she said steadily, “they may say that he was murdered by me.”

  “No. I don’t think we need consider that now. Not unless the Coroner’s got some surprise to spring on us, which I don’t anticipate. They’re far more likely to say that Gerard did it, and that he has pleaded guilty by ending his own life; or if they feel that this isn’t quite sure, they’d never be unanimous in putting it aside to accuse you. It would be a doubt, at the worst, and then they’d agree on ‘some person unknown,’ and leave it for the police to carry on or drop it, as they may decide.”

  “You think that’s what it may be?”

  “No, I think a verdict against Gerard’s far the more probable.”

  “But,” she hesitated, frowning again, “I don’t think we should try for that. Neither of us”—she looked straightly at the lawyer as she said this—“believes it was. It doesn’t seem right.”

  “It’s a bit late to think of that now.”

  “Yes, perhaps it is, but why not suicide, as I’ve always said?”

  “Well, for one thing, it’s likely to be a much more difficult verdict to get, even if the Coroner would support it, which might be too much to ask. And, for another, it means a loss of thirty thousand pounds in insurance money to the estate.”

  “I shouldn’t alter for that.”

  “No,” he said. “You’re one to stick to your guns. But I think you must leave this to me. What we want before all is to get the enquiry closed. It’s a position where we may have to let matters go on to their natural end.”

  “I am sure,” she said, making no further protest, “you will do what is best. I don’t think there’s much you can’t. Was it you that got Redwin to clear off as he did?”

  “No. I have never met the man since he was turned out from here, or had any communication with him. It must have been someone else. It was a mere chance that your letter didn’t reach me too late. I don’t often go into the office on Saturday morning, but it just happened I did.”

  “Yes,” she said in a smiling incredulity at the form his denial took. “I thought it must have reached you on Saturday. But I didn’t know that the man had gone—not till Monday night—nor what mischief he might have been trying to do.”

  “I am afraid you must have had some needless anxiety. Most people would have kept themselves better informed. But it was the wiser way to remain aloof, and show no concern.”

  “Yes, so I thought. And I had enough worry from—well, on Monday, without thinking of him.”

  “I have no doubt you had,” he agreed, and seemed about to add something further, when the telephone rang.

  “I expect,” she said, “this is for you. Would you mind?” At which he rose and went over to the instrument to take the call.

  “Yes,” she heard, “Mr. Wheeler speaking. Thanks. Yes, we’ve had that from Mr. Leadbeater. Yes, of course she’ll be there. So shall I, needless to say. Same jury? So I thought. Much the best way. I want to catch the three-seven back, if I possibly can. Yes, so I thought. Thanks.” He rang off.

  He came back to the table very cheerfully. “It’s the finale tomorrow,” he said, “and the curtain’s going to be rung down. We should not halloo till we’re out of the wood, but I think we can see the light through the trees now.”

  “I shall be very glad,” she said, “when it is.” Which was not hard to believe. “You’ll stay the night now you’re here?”

  But he said no to that. He was really busy, and must get back. He felt that he had done all that was needed here.

  Adelaide Denton went to lie down when he had gone, after telling Pauline that she was not to be disturbed. She wanted a quiet hour to think over the ordeal—the final one, she supposed—that was before her tomorrow. She must be clear in her replies, and, above all, she must be ready so that she would not hesitate at the wrong time. So Mr. Wheeler had guessed—had guessed part of the truth, if not all.

  She remembered how she had hesitated over that question about the drawer. It had puzzled her because she could not see what implications it might have, and was afraid lest she might give the wrong reply. She had not tried to remember whether it had been open or shut. (It had been shut, of course. She had known that. She had shut it herself.) She had tried to think what the point of the question might be, so that she could answer accordingly. And the whole point had been to see whether she would hesitate in that way. People would call her a criminal if they knew. She supposed Mr. Wheeler thought of her thus, though it seemed to make no difference to him. But that might be because he was professionally engaged.

  It was strange how different the truth was from that which was represented in books. She had read of murderers—of Bill Sykes, of Eugene Aram, and others—and of the tortures of remorse and mental anguish that they endured, making them, even without the retribution of men, like pariahs among their kind. But she felt nothing of that. In fact, she felt much as she had done before all this trouble had occurred. Lonely, yes. Worried, yes. There were thoughts that would try to force themselves on her mind at times, which must be put down with a firm will. There were panics of sudden fear.

  But she felt no fundamental change in herself. Nothing that would make it seem less monstrous that she should be put in gaol than it would have been if Daniel had been alive today. (And how furious he would have been at the thought that anyone bearing his name should be treated in such a manner!) It was being found out that had been her one fear from the first, and she had not feared that overmuch in her normal moods. At the very worst, it could never be really proved, and there would be thousands to take her side. But tomorrow would be the end of that ugly fear.

  In the privacy of her locked room, she opened the little safe where her jewels lay, and took out a book. It had a lock, to which the key had been attached by a few inches of red tape when it was bought, as it still was. (That was so like Gerard’s futility, to buy a book with a lock and leave the key dangling beside it.) She turned over the pages to read certain of the latest entries, and to consider what implications they would bear, if it should fall into other hands. Curiously enough, they were so worded that they would help her rather than not.

  But to have let the diary be found would have been a needless and foolish risk all the
same. It would lead to more questions, more talk, and talk is a dangerous thing. It is always hard to tell where it may lead, or what hidden pitfalls may be fatal to those who think it an open road. She had got it from Gerard’s room the first night that he disappeared. She had gone over everything in the earliest daylight hours (not wishing that a light should be observed there during the night). She had not (she thought) been foolish enough to attempt its destruction. Books (she had read) are not easily burned completely.

  If it were found (but how should it be, in her safe?), she would say that, of course, she had not destroyed it. Why should she, having nothing to fear? She had simply removed it, knowing that Gerard would not wish it to fall into strangers’ hands. (Or, perhaps, in her anxiety to find what had happened to him, she had searched for its concluding entries, which had, in fact, been of no avail, except to show the distracted state of his mind.)

  But when the inquest should be over, she would destroy it, burning it thoroughly, page by page. It would be morbid to get into a habit of taking it out and reading it when alone. (It did contain some very curious things. Things you would never have expected from Gerard.) But morbidity must be overcome. She would—perhaps she would—destroy the letters also, which it was really foolish, wildly foolish, to keep, as she had told Mr. Wheeler, in that half-admission, that she had already done. But to do that would need resolution of a much harder kind.

  CHAPTER XXIX.

  The Coroner, in the law’s phrase, sat on the body of Gerard Denton, and the jury, who knew as much about the case as anyone else (except Lady Denton and, perhaps, Mr. Wheeler), before they entered the box, listened to the somewhat perfunctory evidence of how it was found, the injuries it had received, and the condition of the path from which it had fallen. They stirred to a quickened interest when Lady Adelaide Denton was called, and entered the witness box. She was quietly dressed, though not in black; for Sir Daniel, as was generally known, did not approve of that ugly convention, and had, indeed, expressly forbidden it in his will. She was rather pale but quite self-controlled, and looked as beautiful as she always did.

  She was an important witness, being the last person, so far as was known, who had seen Gerard Denton alive, and having gone some distance with him on his fatal walk; but what she had to say could be soon told, and Mr. Duckworth, an elderly medical man, more at home with the injuries from which his subjects died than the legal and psychological questions which their exits raised, treated her gently, and with a disregard for the laws of evidence and the rules of examination which it is the high prerogative of all Coroners to exercise.

  This method, joined to her own instinct of economy in untruth, gave her an easy passage, and supplied the jury with a vivid and accurate realization of the emotional atmosphere of the house from which Gerard Denton had gone out to die.

  She had known, she said, that he had been asked to attend at the police station that evening.

  “Did you know the purpose of that visit?” the Coroner asked.

  “It was to make some alterations in a statement which he had signed previously.”

  “About Sir Daniel’s death?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did he appear alarmed at this prospect, or unwilling to face the ordeal?”

  “He was a good deal upset.” She added, after a second’s pause, as though in explanation, or it might be in defence of the dead man: “Gerard got upset rather easily.”

  “Did he say or do anything to give you the idea that he might be intending to take his own life?”

  “No,” she said; and then, surprisingly: “And I don’t believe that he was.”

  Mr. Duckworth looked puzzled as he took down this answer. He even began a word of protest, which got no further than: “But…,” when she added: “I mean, he hadn’t any such intention during the day.”

  “You mean he might have acted on a sudden impulse?”

  She considered this. “It would be a more likely thing. If he ever made his mind up about anything, he always changed it in half an hour.”

  Mr. Wheeler, genuinely puzzled as to the events which had ended in Gerard Denton’s death, and not at all sure that Lady Denton was telling all, or nearly all, that she knew, had a moment of admiration. “If it were deliberate acting,” he thought, “it would be genius. She says she doesn’t believe he intended suicide, and yet convinces the jury both of the sincerity of her own evidence, and of the impulsive instability which makes it plausible that he did.” He saw that she was invincible because she was speaking truth, and truth is always the most potent weapon with which to sustain a lie.

  But the Coroner was going on with his quietly leading, suggesting questions, taking her out on the final walk. “And this visit to the police station was still the sole topic of conversation?”

  “Yes.”

  “And how far did you go with him?”

  “Not very far. We stopped once or twice, and then went on when he started talking about it again. It may have been to the top of the hill. He said he couldn’t stand any more hanging about the house. He’d walk on to Loudwater, and come back by the lower road in time for the interview at seven, and I said that was too far for me, and if I’d got to go back alone I wouldn’t go any further. But I thought it might be the best thing he could do, in the mood he was in.”

  The examination was soon over after that, and it was not long before the Coroner was summing up, in a brief and rather perfunctory way, as one who went through a necessary preamble to reach a verdict already sure.

  He explained shortly what the jury had to decide: the cause and manner of death. Beyond that they had no concern. There might be other matters concerning the dead man which he would have to ask them to consider later in another connection, but not now. Was it murder? There was no evidence to suggest it. There was no sign of a struggle. Was it accident? If so, what had led him of the road to that desolate and lonely spot? Was it suicide?

  They had heard of the evident emotional stress under which he was labouring. There were people, even when absolutely innocent, who had a morbid horror of everything pertaining, however remotely, to the processes of the criminal law; and they had heard—he was not inviting them to go outside the proper scope of this enquiry—but they had heard that the accuracy of a state­ment which he made, in regard to a recent tragedy which must be in all their minds, had been seriously challenged, and he had been given an opportunity of altering his evidence, which he appeared to be fearful to do. It might seem that suicide—possibly on a sudden unpre­meditated impulse—was very clearly indicated. But it was for them to decide.

  The jury returned a verdict of “suicide while of unsound mind” without leaving the box.

  It was then three minutes to twelve, and the adjourned inquest on Sir Daniel Denton was held immediately.

  The Coroner, after a few preliminary remarks, including an injunction to the jury to put out of their minds anything that they had heard at the previous inquest, which it would be obviously impossible for them to do, promptly put Chief Inspector Pinkey into the box, from whom they heard an account of the bribery of the boy, and of the explanation, which might or might not be true, which Gerard Denton subsequently gave, including his admission that there had been angry words between himself and his brother at that last interview, which he had endeavoured to conceal.

  He went on to say that, after these admissions, he had given him an interval of several days in which to consider what amended statement, if any, he would prefer to substitute for that which he had acknowledged to be untrue, and how, the second appointment not being kept, he had gone, in company with Superintendent Trackfield, to Bywater Grange, and there learnt from Lady Denton how he had left the house in the earlier evening. Briefly, but sufficiently, he narrated the later details of the finding of the body of the missing man, which had been given more fully at the previous inquest.

  There was a moment’s pause as Inspector Pinkey left the witness box, during which many eyes were turned upon Tommy, sitting apprehensiv
ely on a bench at the rear of the court, his usual cheerful grin effectually suspended as he waited to hear the summons which would oblige him to repeat his story—or, rather, one of his stories—in that strange and awful publicity.

  But the Coroner and Inspector Pinkey had exchanged a few words on that subject already, and had agreed—the idea had been gently suggested by the Inspector—that he was an utterly unreliable witness, and that no useful purpose would now be served by putting on the records what might be no more than a varied lie. The Inspector had decided that it would be best to obtain such a verdict from the jury as would finally close the case, and the amended version of Tommy’s narrative, if it should endure cross-examination unshaken, could only confuse the minds of the jurymen with a useless doubt.

  Mr. Duckworth had agreed, though with some hesitation, that, so far as he was concerned, Tommy should not be called. The boy had supported Gerard Denton in an account, which they had subsequently admitted to be untrue, he having been paid to lie. He had then, from whatever motive, truly or not, supported an amended narrative which was alike in so far that it appeared to clear Gerard from suspicion of his brother’s death. But when Gerard had been invited to embody this second account in a written statement, he had avoided the appointment, and it had become an officially recorded 7fact that he had preferred the desperate alternative of suicide. What reliance could now be placed on anything that the boy might say?

  But Mr. Duckworth saw that a demand for his evidence to be taken might come from Mr. Wheeler, either in the interests of Lady Denton or of the reputation of the dead man, whom he had also legally represented, and, if such a demand were made, he did not feel that it could be refused. Now he looked interrogatively at Mr. Wheeler, who shook his head in reply. That astute gentleman saw that nothing could be gained by any evidence that Tommy would be likely to give, and some risks that he would be glad to avoid.