“Ma’am,” said H.M. offhandedly, “do you believe Mr. Hume heard something bad against the accused that made him change his mind all of a sudden?”
Silence.
“I don’t know.”
“Still, though,” argued H.M., “since my learned friend has sort of eased the question in, let’s deal with it. As he said, if Mr. Hume changed his mind, it must ‘a’ been because he learned something from someone, mustn’t it?”
“I should certainly have thought so.”
“Yes. And, conversely, if he hadn’t heard anything, he wouldn’t have changed his mind?”
“I suppose not. No, certainly not.”
“Now, ma’am,” pursued H.M. in the same argumentative way, “he seemed to be in the best of spirits on Friday evening, when he arranged for you and Dr. Hume to go to Sussex next day? Hey?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Did he go out of the house that night?”
“No.”
“Receive any visitors?”
“No.”
“Did he get any letters, phone-calls, messages of any kind?”
“No. Oh, except Mary’s telephone-call in the evening. I answered the phone and talked to her for a minute or two; and then he came to the phone; but I don’t know what he said.”
“And at breakfast next mornin’, how many letters did he get?”
“Just that one, with Mary’s writing.”
“Uh-huh. Consequently, if he heard anything against the accused, he must have heard it from his own daughter?”
There was a slight stir. Sir Walter Storm made as if to rise; but instead fell to conferring with Huntley Lawton.
“Well, I—I don’t know. How can I?”
“Still, it definitely was after readin’ that letter that he seemed to show his first tearin’ antagonism towards the accused, wasn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“The whole thing seemed to start then and there?”
“From what I saw of it, I thought so.”
“Yes. Now, ma’am, suppose I told you that in that letter there wasn’t one word about the accused except the fact that he was comin’ to town?”
The witness touched her glasses. “I don’t know what I am supposed to answer.”
“Because I do tell you that, ma’am. We’ve got that letter right here, and at the proper time we’re goin’ to produce it. So if I tell you there’s nothin’ in it about the accused except the bare fact that he meant to come to town, does it alter your view of Mr. Hume’s conduct?”
Without waiting for a reply H.M. sat down.
He left a much-puzzled court. He had not upset, or tried to upset, one thing in the witness’s story; but he left a feeling that there was something in the wind. I expected Mr. Lawton to re-examine; but it was Sir Walter Storm who rose.
“Call Herbert William Dyer.”
Miss Jordan left the box, and Dyer stepped gravely into it. It was evident from the first that he would make a good and convincing witness, as he did. Dyer was a quiet man in his late fifties, his head covered with close-cut grayish hair, his manner attentive. As though making concessions both to private life and to his employment, he wore a short black coat and striped trousers: instead of a wing collar, he had an ordinary stiff one with a dark tie. The man oozed respectability, without doing so offensively. As he passed between the jury-box and the solicitors’ table, I noticed that he made a grave sign of recognition which was neither a bow nor a nod to a light-haired young man who was sitting at the table. Dyer took the oath in a quite audible voice. He stood with his chin a little tilted up, his hands hanging down easily at his sides.
Sir Walter Storm’s heavy voice contrasted with the sharp and pushing tones of Huntley Lawton.
“Your name is Herbert William Dyer, and you were for five and a half years in the service of Mr. Hume?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Before that I understand that you were for eleven years in the employ of the late Lord Senlac, and at his death you were left a legacy for faithful service?”
“That is so, sir.”
“During the War you served with the 14th Middlesex Rifles, and were awarded the D.C.M. in 1917?”
“Yes, sir.”
First of all he corroborated Miss Jordan’s story about the telephone-call to the accused. There was, he explained, a telephone extension under the stairs at the rear of the hallway. He had been instructed to ring up the Pyrenees Garage to inquire about some repairs that were being done to Mr. Hume’s car, and to make sure the car would be ready for use that evening. At about 1:30 he went to the telephone, and heard the deceased speaking on the other wire. The deceased had asked for Regent 0055, had asked to speak to the prisoner, and a voice which Dyer could identify as the prisoner’s replied, “This is he speaking.” Making sure that the connection was established, Dyer had then replaced the receiver and gone down in the direction of the drawing-room. Passing the door, he had heard the rest of the conversation described by the first witness. He had also overheard the unfortunate soliloquy.
“When did Mr. Hume next refer to this subject?”
“Almost as soon as he had finished telephoning. I went into the drawing-room, and he said, I am expecting a visitor at six o'clock this evening. He may give some trouble, for he is not to be trusted.”
“What did you say to this?”
“I said, ‘Yes, sir.’”
“And when was the next occasion on which you heard of it?”
“At about 5:15, or it may have been a few minutes later. Mr. Hume called me into his study.”
“Describe what happened.”
“He was sitting at his desk, with a chessboard and pieces in front of him, working out a chess problem. Without looking up from the board he told me to close and lock the shutters. I must have expressed surprise, without meaning to do so. He moved a piece on the board and replied, ‘Do as I tell you; do you think I want Fleming to see that young fool making trouble?’”
“Was it his custom to explain to you the reasons for his orders?”
“Never, sir,” answered the witness emphatically.
“I understand that the windows of Mr. Randolph Fleming’s dining room face those of the study across a paved passage between the two houses?”
“That is so.”
The Attorney-General made a sign. From under the witness-box there was produced the first of the two curious exhibits: the steel shutters themselves, fastened to the inside of a dummy window-frame with a sash window. Some excited whispering greeted them. They were constructed after the French style, like two small folding doors, except that there were no slits or openings in them; and across the center ran a flat steel bar with a handle. They were hoisted up for the inspection of the witness and the jury.
“We have here,” continued Sir Walter Storm imperturbably, “the pair of shutters from the window marked A in the plan. They were set up by Inspector Mottram under the direction of Mr. Dent of Messrs. Dent & Sons, Cheapside, who fitted them to the windows originally. Will you tell me if that is one of the pair of shutters you locked on Saturday evening?”
Dyer inspected the exhibit carefully, and took his time.
“Yes, sir, it is.”
“Will you now lock the shutters as you did on Saturday evening?”
The bar, which was a little stiff, snapped into its socket with a bump and clang which had a grisly effect in that legal schoolroom. Dyer dusted his hands. More than a window was locked away with the movement of that bar. Behind us the girl in the leopard-skin coat whispered conversationally:
“I say; they draw a bolt, don’t they, when the trap goes down on the gallows?”
Dyer pulled back the bar, satisfied. He dusted his hands again. “Outside these shutters, I believe,” the Attorney-General went on, “there were two sash windows?”
“There were.”
“Were these also locked on the inside?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Very well. Now tell my lord and the jury wh
at occurred after you had locked the shutters.”
“I went round to see that the room was in order.”
“At this time did you observe on the wall over the mantelpiece the three arrows which were accustomed to hang there?”
“I did.”
“Did the deceased say anything to you at this time?”
“Yes, sir. He asked me, still without looking up from the chessboard, whether we had enough to drink on hand. I saw that there was a full decanter of whisky on the sideboard, a siphon of soda-water, and four glasses.”
“Look at this decanter here, and tell me whether it is the same one you saw on the sideboard at about 5:15 on Saturday evening.”
“It is the same one,” answered the witness. “I bought it myself, at Mr. Hume’s order, from Hartley’s in Regent Street. I believe it is a very expensive cut-glass decanter.”
“Did he say anything else to you at this time?”
“He remarked that he was expecting Mr. Fleming there that night to play chess, and that we must always have a suitable amount to drink ready when Mr. Fleming came. I understood him to be speaking in the way of a joke.”
“At ten minutes past six, then, you let the prisoner in at the front door?”
Dyer’s account of this substantiated the first witness’s. Then it grew dangerous.
“I took the prisoner to Mr. Hume’s study. They did not shake hands. Mr. Hume said to me, ‘That is all: you may go; go and see whether the car is ready.’ I went out and closed the door. At that time Mr. Hume was sitting behind his desk, and the prisoner in a chair in front of it. I do not remember hearing anyone bolt the door after I had gone out. I was not exactly alarmed, but I was uneasy. Finally I went back and listened.”
It is these shorn words of the courtroom which seem to me most powerful. We seemed to see Dyer standing in the little dark passage outside the door. There was not much light in the passage even by day, he explained. At one end of it there was a door giving on the paved brick way between this house and Mr. Fleming’s, and there had formerly been a glass panel in this door; but Mr. Hume’s love of privacy had made him change that door for a solid one six months before. By night there was only the light from the main hall. Reduced to the form of a statement, Dyer’s testimony would have run like this:
“I heard the prisoner say, ‘I did not come here to kill anyone unless it becomes absolutely necessary.’ I heard little of what Mr. Hume said, because he usually spoke in a low tone. Presently Mr. Hume began talking rather sharply, but I could not make out his words. At the end of it he suddenly said, ‘Man, what is wrong with you? Have you gone mad?’ Then there was a sound which I took to be the sound of a scuffle. I tapped on the door, and called out to ask if anything was wrong. Mr. Hume called out and told me to go away: he said he could deal with this. He spoke in a voice as though he were out of breath.”
“But he had told me to go and get the car, and I did. I had to, or I should have lost my position. I put on my hat and overcoat, and went round to the Pyrenees Garage. It is about a three or four minutes’ walk. They had not quite finished repairing the car, and said they had told us they intended to be even longer. I tried to hurry back, but there was a mist and this impeded me in driving. When I got back it was about 6:32 by the grandfather clock.
“In the turning of the little passage that goes back to the study, I met Miss Jordan. She said that they were fighting, and asked me to stop them. There is not much light in the hall. Miss Jordan fell over a big suitcase belonging to Dr. Spencer Hume; and, when I said that it would be more sensible to fetch a policeman, she kicked at me. I think she was crying.
“Then she went to get Mr. Fleming, at my suggestion, while I procured a poker. All three of us went to the door. About a minute after we had knocked, the prisoner opened the door. There is absolutely no doubt that up to this time the door had been bolted on the inside.
“When the prisoner said, ‘All right; you had better come in,’ Mr. Fleming and I did so. I went at once to Mr. Hume, who was lying as he is in that photograph. The arrow you show me was protruding from his chest. I did not feel his heart, because I did not wish to get blood all over my hand; but I felt his pulse, and he was dead.
“There was no person hiding in the room. I went immediately and looked at the shutters, calling Mr. Fleming’s attention to them as I did so. The reason was that even then I could not associate a thing like this with a gentleman such as I had heard the prisoner to be. Both the shutters were still barred, and the windows locked behind them.”
Other eyes, other opera-glasses. The Attorney-General took him over confirmation of Miss Jordan’s account.
“Now, Dyer, when mention was made of bringing in the police, did the prisoner say anything?”
“He said, ‘Yes, I suppose we had better get it over with.’”
“Did you make any comment on this?”
“Yes, sir. I know I should not have spoken, but I could not help myself. He was sitting in that chair with one leg thrown over the arm of the chair as though he owned it, and lighting a cigarette. I said, ‘Are you made of stone?’”
“What reply did he make to this?”
“He replied, ‘Serves him right for drugging my whisky.’”
“What did you make of that?”
“I did not know what to make of it, sir. I looked over at the sideboard and said, ‘What whisky?’ He pointed his cigarette at me and said, ‘Now listen. When I came in here he gave me a whisky and soda. There was something in it, a drug. It knocked me out and someone came in and killed him. This is a frame-up, and you know it.’”
“Did you go over and look at the sideboard?”
For the first time the witness put his hands on the rail of the box.
“I did. The decanter of whisky was just as full as when I had left it, and the siphon of soda was also full: there was the little paper fastener still over the nozzle. The glasses gave no sign of being used.”
“Did the accused exhibit any sign or symptom which led you to think he had been under the influence of a drug?”
Dyer frowned.
“Well, sir, I cannot say as to that.” He raised eyes of candor; he violated the rules, he was instantly corrected for it, and he drove a long nail into the scaffold of James Answell. “But,” said Dyer, “I overheard your police doctor say the accused had not taken any drug at all.”
IV—“Either There Is a Window, or There Isn’t”
At SHORTLY past one o'clock, when the court adjourned for lunch, Evelyn and I went downstairs gloomily. The Old Bailey, full of those shuffling echoes which are thrown back from marble or tile, was crowded. We got into the center of a crush converging at the head of the stairs to the Central Hall.
I voiced a mutual view. “Though why the blazes we should feel so much prejudiced in his favor I don’t know, unless it’s because H.M. is defending him. Or unless it’s because he looks so absolutely right: that is, he looks as though he’d lend you a tenner if you needed it, and stand by you if you got into trouble. The trouble is, they all look guilty in the dock. If they’re calm, it’s a bad sign. If they’re wild, it’s a still worse sign. This may be due to our rooted and damnable national belief that if they weren’t guilty they probably wouldn’t be in the dock at all.”
“‘M,” said my wife, her face wearing that concentrated expression which betokens wild ideas, “I’ve been thinking...”
“It’s inadvisable.”
“Yes, I know. But do you know, Ken, while they were stringing out all that evidence, I kept thinking that nobody could possibly be as loony as that chap seems to be unless he were innocent. But then along came that business of his having taken no sleeping drug at all. If they can prove that by medical evidence...well...unless H.M. will try to prove insanity after all.”
What H.M. wished to prove was not apparent. He had subjected Dyer to a singularly long and singularly uninspired cross-examination, directed chiefly to proving that on the day of the murder Hume had been attempting to get
in touch with Answell by telephone as early as nine o'clock in the morning. H.M.’s one good point concerned the arrow with which the crime had been committed, and even this was left enigmatic. H.M. called attention to the fact that half of the blue feather attached to it had been broken off. Was that feather intact when Dyer had seen the arrow on the wall before the crime? Oh, yes. Sure? Positive. But the piece of feather was missing when they discovered the body? Yes. Did they find the other half anywhere in the room? No; they had searched as a matter of form, but they could not find it.
H.M.’s last attack was still more obscure. Were the three arrows hung flat against the wall? Not all of them, Dyer replied. The two arrows making the sides of the triangle lay flat on the wall; but the base of it, crossing the other two, had been set out on steel staples about a quarter of an inch.
“And all that,” Evelyn commented, “H.M. asked as quietly as a lamb. I tell you, Ken, it’s unnatural. He buttered up that little butler as though he were his own witness. I say, do you think we could see H.M.?”
“I doubt it. He’ll probably be having lunch at the Bar Mess.”
At this point our attention was forcibly called. Who the man was (whether he was someone attached to the courts or an outsider with a thirst for imparting information) we never learned. With an effect like a Maskylene illusion, a little man thrust himself out of the crowd and tapped me on the shoulder.
“Want to see two of the Ones in the Big Case?” he asked in a whisper. “Just ahead of you! That there on the right is Dr. Spencer Hume, and that there on the left is Reginald Answell, ‘is cousin. They’re right amongst us, and they’ll ‘ave to go downstairs together. Ss-t!”
Back went the head. By the convergence of the crowd on the big marble stairs, the two men he indicated were swept to a stiff march side by side. The bleak March light showed them not too favorably. Dr. Hume was a middle-sized, rather tubby man with graying black hair parted and combed to such nicety on his round head that it gave the effect of a wheel. He turned his head sideways for a brief look; we saw a nose radiating self-confidence, and a gravely pursed-up mouth. He carried, incongruously, a top-hat, which he was trying to prevent being squashed.
The Judas Window Page 5
