But surely nobody would believe he had done it? Why should he? Besides, he could easily explain: he had been given a drugged drink. It was true he had not seen Hume put anything into the glass; but the whisky had been doctored somehow and by someone. He could prove it. With a flash of clearness he recalled that he had not even finished his drink. As the first black wave of nausea came over him, he had automatically put down the glass on the floor beside his chair.
He hurried over to look for it now. But the glass was gone, and he could not find it anywhere in the room. Nor was there any trace of the whisky and soda which Hume had mixed for himself.
By this time in a collected, rather abstract state of fear, he examined the sideboard. On it were a cut-glass decanter of whisky, a siphon of soda-water, and four tumblers. The decanter was full to its stopper: not a drop of soda had been drawn from the siphon: the four glasses were clean, polished, and obviously unused.
He afterwards recalled that at this point he said something aloud, but he had no notion of what it was. He said it to cover his thoughts, as though by speaking rapidly he could prevent himself from thinking. But he had to think. Time was going on: he could still hear the ticking of the watch. If the one door and the two windows were both locked on the inside, he was the only person who could have killed Hume. It was like his own favorite novels turned to a nightmare. Only, with the police of this material world, they did not believe in your innocence and they hanged you. Also, it is all very well to talk of ingenious devices by which a door is bolted on the inside by someone who is actually outside the room—but he had seen this door, and he knew better.
He went back to look at it again. It was a good heavy door of oak, fitting so tightly into the frame and against the floor that the floor was scraped where it had swung. There was not even a keyhole for any flummery: a Yale lock had been set to the door, but it was out of order and stuck fast in the “open” position of the lock. Instead the door was now secured by a long, heavy bolt so stiff from disuse that, when he gave it a tentative wrench in its socket, he found that even for him a powerful pull would be needed to move it at all.
From the bolt he found himself inspecting his own right hand. He opened the palm and studied it again: after which he went over to the light to get a better look. The fingers, the thumb, and the palm were now smudged with a grayish dust which felt gritty when he closed his hand. Where could he have got that? He knew for a certainty that he had touched nothing dusty since he had come into this room. Again he felt the bulge in his hip-pocket; an unaccustomed bulge; but he did not investigate because he was half afraid to find out what it was. Then, from the hypnotic light of the desk lamp, his eyes strayed down to the dead man.
The arrow, from hanging so long on the wall, had accumulated a coating of grayish dust: except for a thin line along the shaft where, presumably, it had hung protected against the wall. This dust was now broken and smudged in only one place. About halfway down the shaft, there were signs that someone had gripped it. When he bent down to look, even with the naked eye he could make out clear fingerprints. Answell looked back at his own hand, holding it out in front of him as though he had burnt it.
At that moment, he says, there came into his mind some faint notion of what might really have been meant by that telephone call: of Mary’s white face, and certain conversations in Sussex, and a hasty letter written overnight. But it was only a cloud or a ghost, a name that went by his ears. He lost it in Avory Hume’s study, standing over Avory Hume’s body, for there were other things to claim his attention.
No, it was not the sound of the blood beating in his own head.
It was the sound of someone knocking at the door.
I—“And True Deliverance Make—”
“ALL persons who have anything to do before my Lords the King’s Justices of Oyer and Terminer and general gaol delivery for the jurisdiction of the Central Criminal Court, draw near and give your attendance.”
“God save the King, and my Lords the King’s Justices.”
In Courtroom Number One, the “red” judge was taking his seat. Mr. Justice Bodkin was a very short plump man whose robe of scarlet slashed with black made him look even shorter and stouter. But he carried it with a swing of briskness. Under a gray tie-wig, fitting him as well as his own hair, his face was round and fresh-complexioned. His little narrow eyes, which should have been sleepy, had an alertness which gave him the air of a headmaster before a form.
To Evelyn and myself, sitting in the reserved seats behind counsel, the place had a look less of a court than of a schoolroom. Even the desks were arranged like forms. Over the court a big white-painted dome ended in a flat roof of glass, blurred with the light of a raw March morning. The walls were paneled to some height in oak. Concealed electric lights under the cornices of the paneling threw a yellow glow up over the white dome; they made the oak look light, and turned the woodwork of the rest of the court to a yellowish color. This resemblance to a schoolroom may have been caused by the brushed, business-like neatness of the place. Or it may have been the complete lack of haste or flurry, like the pendulum of a grandfather clock.
From where we sat—behind counsel—we could see of the barristers only the backs of their gowns and wigs: a few descending tiers of white wigs, with little ridges of curls like hair buttons. A school, bending towards each other and whispering. Towards our left was the big raised dock, now empty. Immediately across from us—beyond the long solicitors’ table in the well of the court—was the jury-box, with the witness-box beside it. Towards our right, the judge’s bench showed behind it a line of massive tall chairs: the Sword of State suspended vertically over the chair in the center.
Mr. Justice Bodkin bowed to the Bar, to the officers of the court, and to the jury. His bow was from the waist, like a salaam. The two clerks of the court, at the desk immediately below him, turned round and bowed in unison. Both were very tall men in wig and gown, and their deep bend together was in such sharp timing with the judge’s as to give it the effect of a movement in a Punch-and-Judy show. Then the court settled down, and the coughing began. Mr. Justice Bodkin arranged himself in the chair immediately to the left of the Sword of State: never in the center one, which is reserved for the Lord Mayor or one of the aldermen. Fitting on a pair of a shell-rimmed glasses, Mr. Justice Bodkin took up a pen and smoothed flat the pages of a large notebook. Over the glass roof of the court, March daylight strengthened and then dulled. They brought in the prisoner at the bar.
You cannot look long at the prisoner, standing in that enormous dock with a policeman on either side of him. Or at least I can’t. You feel like a ghoul. It was the first time either Evelyn or I had seen Answell. He was a decent-looking young fellow—almost anybody in court might have looked into a mirror and seen his counterpart. Despite the fact that he was well-dressed and freshly shaven, there was a certain air about him which gave the impression that he did not now particularly care a curse what happened. But he stood stiffly at attention. There were a few ghouls from the society columns sitting behind us; he did not glance in our direction. When the indictment was read over to him, he answered not guilty in a voice suddenly edged with defiance. Not an unnecessary word was spoken in the court. The judge seemed to conduct matters mostly by signs.
“I swear by Almighty God,” they were administering the oath to the jury, “that I will well and truly try, and true deliverance make, between our Sovereign Lord the King and the prisoner at the Bar, whom I have in charge, and a true verdict give according to the evidence.”
It was a schoolroom with a rope at the end of it when you left the headmaster’s study. Evelyn, who was troubled, spoke behind her hand. She had been looking down over the blank rows of black-silk backs in front of us.
“Ken, I can’t understand it. Why ever does H.M. want to go into court?
I mean, I know he’s always at loggerheads with people in the government; and he and the Home Secretary practically come to blows every time they meet; but he’s hand in gl
ove with the police. That chief inspector—what’s his name—?”
“Masters?”
“Masters, yes. He’d take H.M.’s advice before he’d take his own superiors’. Well, if H.M. can prove this chap Answell is innocent, why didn’t he just prove it to the police, and then they’d have dropped the case?”
I did not know. It was the one point on which H.M. had preserved a belligerent silence. Though the barristers in front had their backs to us now, it was easy to pick out H.M. He was sitting alone on the left of the front bench: his elbows outthrust on the desk, so that his ancient gown made him look still broader, and his wig sitting strangely on him. Towards his right on the same bench, counsel for the Crown—Sir Walter Storm, Mr. Huntley Lawton, and Mr. John Spragg—conferred together. Their whispers were inaudible. Though the desk in front of H.M. was comparatively clear, the space before counsel for the prosecution was piled with books, with the neatly printed briefs, with the yellow booklets in which official photographs are bound, and with fresh pink blotting-paper. Every back was grave. Yet under the mask of studied courtesy which marks the Old Bailey, I felt (or thought I could feel) a certain ironical amusement under those wigs, whenever an eve happened to stray towards H.M.
Evelyn felt it too, and was furious.
“But he shouldn’t have come into court,” she insisted. “He took silk before the war, but Lollypop told me herself he hasn’t accepted a brief in fifteen years, and they’ll eat him. Look at him down there, sitting like a boiled owl! And if they begin to get under his skin he won’t behave himself; you know he won’t.”
I had to admit he was not the most polished counsel who might have been selected. “It would appear that there was some commotion the last time he did appear in court. Also, I think myself it was indiscreet to begin an address to the jury with, ‘Well, my fatheads.’ But for some curious reason he won the case.”
A creaking and a muttering drone filled the court as the jury continued to be sworn. Evelyn glanced down past counsel at the long solicitors’ table in the well of the court. Every seat was filled, and the table was piled with exhibits bound into neat envelopes or packages. Two other and more curious exhibits were propped beyond, near the little cubicle where the court shorthand-reporter sat. Then Evelyn looked up at Mr. Justice Bodkin, sitting as detached as a Yogi.
“The judge looks—tough.”
“He is tough. He is also one of the most intelligent men in England.”
“Then if this fellow is guilty,” said Evelyn. She mentioned the unmentionable subject. “Do you think he did it?”
Her tone took on the furtive note with which this is mentioned by spectators. Privately, I thought Answell was either guilty or crazy or both. I was fairly sure that they would hang him. He had certainly done as much as possible to hang himself. But there was no time to reflect on this. The last of the jurors, including two women, had now been sworn without a challenge. The indictment was again read over to the prisoner. There was a throat-clearing. And Sir Walter Storm, the Attorney-General, rose to open the case for the Crown.
“May it please your Lordship, members of the jury.”
There was a silence, through which Sir Walter Storm’s rich voice rose with a curious effect of seeming to come from a gulf. The woolly top of his wig confronted us as he tilted his chin. I do not think that throughout the entire trial we saw his face more than once, when he twisted round: it was long, long-nosed, and ruddy, with an arresting eye. He was completely impersonal, and completely deadly. Often he had the air of a considerate schoolmaster questioning slightly feebleminded charges. In his course of remaining impartial, his voice took on a light and modulated enunciation like an actor’s.
“May it please your Lordship, members of the jury,” began the Attorney-General. “The charge against the prisoner, as you have heard, is murder. It is my duty to indicate to you here the course that will be followed by the evidence for the Crown. You may well believe that it is often with reluctance that a prosecutor takes up his duties. The victim of this crime was a man universally respected, for many years an official of the Capital Counties Bank; and later, I think, a member of the board of directors of that bank. The man who stands accused of having committed it is one of good family, good upbringing, and of considerable material fortune, having a great many of this world’s advantages denied to others. But the facts will be presented to you; and these facts, I shall suggest to you, can lead to no other conclusion but that Mr. Avory Hume was brutally murdered by the prisoner at the bar.
“The victim was a widower, and at the time of his death was living at number 12 Grosvenor Street with his daughter, Miss Mary Hume; his brother, Dr. Spencer Hume; and his confidential secretary, Miss Amelia Jordan. During the fortnight of December 23 to January 5, last, Miss Mary Hume was absent from this house, visiting friends in Sussex. You will hear that on the morning of December 31, last, the deceased received a letter from Miss Hume. This letter announced that Miss Hume had become engaged to be married to James Answell, the prisoner at the bar, whom she had met at the home of her friends.
“You will hear that, on receiving this news, the deceased was at first well pleased. He expressed himself in terms of the warmest approval. He wrote a letter of congratulation to Miss Hume; and conducted at least one telephone conversation with her on the subject. You might think that he had reason to be satisfied, considering the prisoner’s prospects. But I must draw your attention to the sequel. At some time between December 31 and January 4, the deceased’s attitude towards this marriage (and towards the prisoner) underwent a sudden and complete change.
“Members of the jury—when this change occurred, or why, the Crown do not attempt to say. But the Crown ask you to consider whether or not such a change had any effect on the prisoner at the bar. You will hear that on the morning of Saturday, January 4, the deceased received another letter from Miss Hume. This letter stated that the prisoner would be in London on that day. Mr. Hume lost little time in communicating with the prisoner. At 1:30 on Saturday afternoon he telephoned to the prisoner at the latter’s flat in Duke Street. The deceased’s words were overheard on this occasion by two witnesses. You will hear in what terms, and with what acerbity, he spoke to the prisoner. You will hear that, as the deceased replaced the receiver of the telephone, he said aloud, ‘My dear Answell, I’ll settle your hash, damn you.’”
Sir Walter Storm paused.
He spoke the words unemotionally, consulting his papers as though to make sure of having them right. A number of people glanced automatically at the prisoner, who was now sitting down in the dock with a warder sitting on either side of him. The prisoner, I thought, seemed to have been prepared for this.
“In the course of this telephone conversation, the deceased asked the prisoner to come to his house in Grosvenor Street at six o'clock that evening. Later, as you will hear, he told the butler that he was expecting at six a visitor who (in his own words) ‘might give some trouble, for he is not to be trusted.’
“At about 5:15 the deceased retired to his study, or office, at the rear of the house. I must explain to you that—during his long term of service with the bank—he had constructed for himself a private office at home suited to his needs. You will see that there are only three entrances to this room: a door and two windows. The door was a heavy and tight-fitting one, fastened on the inside with a bolt. There was not even a keyhole: the door being fastened on the outside with a Yale lock. Each of the windows could be covered with folding steel shutters, which, as you will hear, were of a burglarproof variety. Here the deceased had been accustomed to keep such valuable documents or letters as he had once been obliged to bring home with him. But for several years this study had not been used as a strong-room; and the deceased had not considered it necessary to lock up the room either with door or with shutters.
“Instead, he kept there only his ‘trophies.’ This, members of the jury, refers to the fact that the deceased had been a keen follower of the pastime of archery. He was a mem
ber of the Royal Toxophilite Society and of the Woodmen of Kent, societies which exist for the furtherance of this good old sport. On the wall of his study hung some prizes of the annual matches of the Woodmen of Kent. These consisted of three arrows—inscribed respectively with the dates on which they had been won, 1928, 1932, 1934—and a bronze medal presented by the Woodmen of Kent for a record number of points, or hits, in 1934.
“With this background, then, the deceased went into his study at about 5:15 on the evening of January 4. Now mark what follows! At this time the deceased called to Dyer, the butler, and instructed him to close and lock the shutters. Dyer said, ‘The shutters?’—expressing surprise, since this had not been done since the deceased had left off using the room as an office. The deceased said: ‘Do as I tell you; do you think I want Fleming to see that fool making trouble?’
“You will hear that this referred to Mr. Randolph Fleming, a fellow archery enthusiast and a friend of the deceased, who lived next door: in fact, in the house across the narrow paved passage outside the study windows. Dyer followed the deceased’s instructions, and securely barred the shutters. It is worthy of note that the two sash-windows were also locked on the inside. Dyer, making sure that everything was in order in the room, then observed on a sideboard a decanter full to the stopper of whisky, an unused siphon of soda-water, and four clean tumblers. Dyer left the room.
“At 6:10 o'clock the prisoner arrived. You will hear evidence which will enable you to decide whether he was or was not in an extremely agitated frame of mind. He then refused to remove his overcoat, and asked to be taken at once to Mr. Hume. Dyer took him to the study and then left the room, closing the door.
“At about 6:12 Dyer, who had remained in the little passage outside the door, heard the prisoner say, ‘I did not come here to kill anyone unless it becomes absolutely necessary.’ Some minutes later he heard Mr. Hume cry out, ‘Man, what is wrong with you? Have you gone mad?’ And he heard certain noises which will be described to you.”
The Judas Window Page 2
