The Judas Window

by Carter Dickson

Fleming looked at him suspiciously, on guard behind his red mustache.

  “Yes, that’s how it was.”

  “You’ve heard the witness Dyer testify that all the feathers were intact and whole at the time the accused went into that study at 6:10?”

  “I’ve heard it.”

  “Sure. We all did. Consequently, the feather must ‘a’ been broken off between then and the discovery of the body?”

  “Yes.”

  “If the accused grabbed that arrow down off the wall and struck at Hume, holdin’ the arrow halfway down the shaft, how do you think the feather got torn off?”

  “I don’t know. In the struggle, probably. Hume made a grab at the arrow when he saw it coming—”

  “He made a grab at the end of the arrow opposite the end that was threatenin’ him?”

  “He might have. Or it might have been torn off when the arrow was pulled off the wall, from those little staples.”

  “That’s another theory. The piece of feather was broken off either (1) in a struggle; or (2) when the arrow was pulled down. Uh-huh. In either case, where is it? Did you find it when you searched the room?”

  “No, I did not; but a little piece of feather—”

  “I’m suggestin’ to you that this ‘little piece of feather’ was an inch and a quarter long by an inch broad. A whole lot bigger than half-a-crown. You’d have noticed half-a-crown on the floor, wouldn’t you?”

  “Yes, but this didn’t happen to be half-a-crown.”

  “I’ve said it was a lot bigger. And it was painted bright blue, wasn’t it?”

  “I suppose so.”

  “What was the color of the carpet?”

  “I can’t say I can swear to that.”

  “Then I’ll tell you: it was light brown. You accept that? Yes. And you agree that there was very little furniture? Uh-huh. But you made an intensive search of that room, and you still didn’t find the missin’ piece?”

  Hitherto the witness had seemed rather pleased at his own wit, set to shine, and at intervals tickling up the corners of his mustache. Now he was impatient.

  “How should I know? Maybe it got lodged somewhere; maybe it’s still there. Why don’t you ask the police-inspector?”

  “I’m going to—Now let’s draw on your fund of information about archery. Take those three feathers at the end of the arrow. Have they got any kind o' useful purpose, or are they only decorative?”

  Fleming seemed surprised. “Certainly they have a purpose. They’re set at equal intervals, parallel to the line of flight; you can see that. The natural curve of the feathers gives the arrow a rotary motion in the air—zzz!—like that. Like a rifle bullet.”

  “Is one feather always a different color from the rest, like this?”

  “Yes, the guide feather; it shows you where to fit the arrow on the string.”

  “When you buy these arrows,” pursued H.M., in a rumbling and dreamy tone, while the other stared at him, “are the feathers already attached, or do you fasten on your own?”

  “As a rule they’re already attached. Naturally. But some people prefer to put on their own type of feathers.”

  “Am I right in thinkin’ that the deceased did?”

  “Yes. I don’t know how you know it; but he used a different type. Most arrows have turkey-feathers. Hume preferred goose-feathers, and put them on himself: I suppose he liked the old gray-goose-feather tradition. These are goose-feathers. Shanks, the odd-jobs’ man, usually fastened them on for him.”

  “And this little joker here: the guide feather, you call it. Am I rightly instructed when I say he used a special type of dye, of his own invention, to color the guide feather?”

  “Yes, he did. In his workshop—”

  “His workshop!” said H.M., coming to life. “His workshop. Just where was this workshop? Get the plan of the house and show us.”

  There was a general ruffling and unrolling of plans among the jury. Several of us stirred in our seats, wondering what the old man might have up the sleeve of that disreputable gown. Randolph Fleming, with a hairy red finger on the plan, looked up and frowned.

  “It’s here. It’s a little detached building in the back garden, about twenty yards from the house. I think it was intended to be a greenhouse once; but Hume didn’t care for that sort of thing. It’s partly glass.”

  H.M. nodded. “What did the deceased keep there?”

  “His archery equipment. Bows, strings, arrows, drawing-gloves; things like that. Old Shanks dyed the arrows there, too, with Hume’s own stuff.”

  “What else?”

  “If you want the whole catalogue,” retorted the witness, “I’ll give it to you. Arm-guards, waist-belts for the arrows, worsted tassels to clean the points with, a grease-pot or two for the drawing-fingers of the glove—and a few tools, of course. Hume was a good man with his hands.”

  “Nothing else?”

  “Nothing that I remember.”

  “You’re sure of that, now?”

  The witness snorted.

  “So. Now, you’ve testified that that arrow couldn’t ‘a’ been fired. I suggest to you that that statement wasn’t what you meant at all. You’ll agree that the arrow could have been projected?”

  “I don’t see what you mean. What’s the difference?”

  “What’s the difference? Looky here! You see this inkwell? Well, if I threw it at you right now, it wouldn’t be fired from a bow; but you’ll thoroughly agree that it would be projected. Wouldn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Yes. And you could take that arrow and project it at me?”

  “I could!” said the witness.

  His tone implied, “And, by God, I’d like to.” Both of them had powerful voices, which were growing steadily more audible. At this point Sir Walter Storm, the Attorney-General, rose with a clearing of the throat.

  “My lord,” said Sir Walter, in tones whose richness and calm would have rebuked a bishop, “I do not like to interrupt my learned friend. But I should only like to inquire whether my learned friend is suggesting that this arrow, which weighs perhaps three ounces, could have been thrown so as to penetrate eight inches into a human body?—I can only suggest that my learned friend appears to be confusing an arrow with an assegai, not to say a harpoon.”

  The back of H.M.’s wig began to bristle.

  Lollypop made a fierce wig-wagging gesture.

  “Me lord,” replied H.M., with a curious choking noise, “what I meant will sort of emerge in my next question to the witness.”

  “Proceed, Sir Henry.”

  H.M. got his breath. “What I mean is this,” he said to Fleming. “Could this arrow have been fired from a crossbow?”

  There was a silence. The judge put down his pen carefully. He turned his round face with the effect of a curious moon.

  “I still do not understand, Sir Henry,” interposed Mr. Justice Bodkin. “What exactly is a crossbow?”

  “I got one right here,” said H.M.

  From under his desk he dragged out a great cardboard box such as those which are used to pack suits. From this he took a heavy, deadly looking mechanism whose wood and steel shone with some degree of polish. It was not long in the stock, which was shaped like that of a dwarf rifle: sixteen inches at most. But at the head was a broad semicircle of flexible steel, to each end of which was attached a cord running back to a notched windlass, with an ivory handle, on the stock. A trigger connected with this windlass. Down the center of the flat barrel ran a groove. The crossbow, whose stock was inlaid with mother-of-pearl, should have seemed incongruous in H.M.’s hands under all those peering eyes. It was not. It suddenly looked more like a weapon of the future than a weapon of the past.

  “This one,” pursued H.M., completely unselfconscious like a child with a toy, “is the short ‘stump’ crossbow. Sixteenth-century French cavalry. Principle’s this, y’see. It’s wound up—like this.” He began to turn the handle. To the accompaniment of an ugly clicking noise, the cords began to move a
nd pull back the corners of the steel horns. “Down that groove goes a steel bolt called a quarrel. The trigger’s pressed, and releases it like a catapult. Out goes the bolt with all the weight of Toledo steel released behind it....The bolt’s shorter than an arrow. But it could fire an arrow.”

  He snapped the trigger, with some effect. Sir Walter Storm rose. The Attorney-General’s voice quieted an incipient buzz.

  “My lord,” he said gravely, “all this is very interesting—whether or not it is evidence. Does my learned friend put forward as an alternative theory that this crime was committed with the singular apparatus he has there?”

  He was a trifle amused. The judge was not.

  “Yes; I was about to ask you that, Sir Henry.”

  H.M. put down the crossbow on his desk. “No, my lord. This bow comes from the Tower of London. I was illustratin’.” He turned towards the witness again. “Did Avory Hume ever own any crossbows?”

  “As a matter of fact, he did,” replied Fleming.

  From the press box just under the jury, two men who had to make early afternoon editions got up and tiptoed out on eggshells. The witness looked irritated but interested.

  “Long time ago,” he added with a growl, “the Woodmen of Kent experimented with crossbows one year. They weren’t any good. They were cumbersome, and they hadn’t got any range compared to arrows.”

  “Uh-huh. How many crossbows did the deceased own?”

  “Two or three, I think.”

  “Was any of ‘em like this?”

  “I believe so. That was three years ago, and—”

  “Where did he keep the bows?”

  “In that shed in the back garden.”

  “But you forgot that a minute ago, didn’t you?”

  “It slipped my mind, yes. Naturally.”

  They were both bristling again. Fleming’s heavy nose and jaw seemed to come together like Punch’s.

  “Now let’s have your opinion as an expert: could that arrow have been fired from a bow like this?”

  “Not with any accuracy. It’s too long, and it would fit too loosely. You’d send the shot wild at twenty yards.”

  “Could it have been fired, I’m asking you?”

  “I suppose it could.”

  “You suppose it could? You know smackin’ well it could, don’t you?—Here, gimme that arrow and I’ll show you.”

  Sir Walter Storm was on his feet, suavely. “A demonstration will not be necessary, my lord. We accept my learned friend’s statement. We also appreciate that the witness is merely attempting to express an honest opinion under somewhat trying circumstances.”

  (“This is what I meant,” Evelyn whispered to me. “You see? They’ll bait the old bear until he can’t see the ring for blood.”)

  It was certainly the general impression that H.M. had badly mismanaged things, in addition to proving nothing. His last two questions were asked in an almost plaintive tone.

  “Never mind its accuracy at twenty yards. Would it be accurate at a very short distance—a few feet?”

  “Probably.”

  “In fact, you couldn’t miss?”

  “Not at two or three feet, no.”

  “That’s all.”

  The Attorney-General’s brief reexamination disposed of this suggestion and cut it off at the root.

  “In order to kill the deceased in the way my learned friend has suggested, the person using the crossbow must have been within two or three feet of the victim?”

  “Yes,” returned Fleming, thawing a little.

  “In other words, actually in the room?”

  “Yes.”

  “Exactly. Mr. Fleming, when you entered this locked and sealed room—”

  “Now, we’ll object to that,” said H.M., suddenly rearing up again with a wheeze and a flutter of papers.

  For the first time Sir Walter was a trifle at a loss. He turned towards H.M., and we got a look at his face. It was long and strong, dark-browed despite its slight ruddiness: a powerful face. But both he and H.M. addressed the judge as though speaking to each other through an interpreter. “My lord, what is it to which my learned friend takes exception?”

  “‘Sealed.’”

  The judge was looking at H.M. with bright and steady eyes of interest; but he spoke dryly. “The term was perhaps a little fanciful, Sir Walter.”

  “I readily withdraw it, my lord. Mr. Fleming: when you entered this unsealed room to which every possible entrance or exit was barred on the inside—”

  “Object again,” said H.M.

  “Ahem. When you entered,” said the other, his voice beginning to sound with far-off thunder in spite of himself, “this room whose door was firmly bolted on the inside, and its windows closed with locked shutters, did you find any such singular apparatus as that?”

  He pointed to the crossbow.

  “No, I did not.”

  “It is not a thing that could be readily overlooked, is it?”

  “It certainly is not,” replied the witness, with jocularity.

  “Thank you.”

  “Call Dr. Spencer Hume.”

  VII—“Standing Near the Ceiling—”

  FIVE minutes later they were still looking for Dr. Spencer Hume, and we knew that something was wrong. I saw H.M.’s big hands close, though he gave no other sign. Huntley Lawton rose.

  “My lord, the witness appears to be—er—missing.”

  “So I observe, Mr. Lawton. Do I understand that you move an adjournment until the witness shall be found?”

  A conference ensued, in which several glances were directed towards H.M. Then Sir Walter Storm got up.

  “My lord, the nature of the Crown’s case is such that we believe we can save the time of the court by dispensing with his testimony and continuing with our evidence in the ordinary course.”

  “That decision must rest with you, Sir Walter. At the same time, if the witness is under subpoena, he should be here. I think the matter should be investigated.”

  “Of course, my lord....”

  “Call Frederick John Hardcastle.”

  Frederick John Hardcastle, a police constable, testified as to the discovery of the body. While he was on duty in Grosvenor Street at 6:45 P.M., a man whom he now knew to be Dyer came out of the house and said, “Officer, come in; something terrible has happened.” As he was going into the house, a car drove up: the car contained Dr. Spencer Hume and a woman (Miss Jordan) who seemed to have fainted. In the study he found the prisoner and a man who introduced himself as Mr. Fleming. P.C. Hardcastle said to the prisoner, “How did this happen?” The prisoner replied, “I know nothing at all about it,” and would say nothing more. The witness then telephoned to his divisional police station, and remained on guard until the arrival of the inspector.

  There was no cross-examination. The prosecution then called Dr. Philip McLane Stocking.

  Dr. Stocking was a lean and bushy-haired man with a hard, narrow mouth but a curiously sentimental look about him. He got hold of the dock-rail and never let go of it. He had an untidy string-tie done into a bow, and a black suit which did not fit too well; but his hands were so clean that they looked polished.

  “Your name is Philip McLane Stocking, and you are Professor of Forensic Medicine at the University of London, and advising surgeon to C Division of the Metropolitan Police?”

  “I am.”

  “On January 4, last, were you called in to 12 Grosvenor Street, and did you arrive there at about 7:45?”

  “I did.”

  “When you arrived, what did you find in the study?”

  “I found the dead body of a man lying between the window and the desk, face upwards, and very close to the desk.” The witness had a rather thick voice, which he had difficulty in keeping clear. “Dr. Hume was present, and Mr. Fleming, and the prisoner. I said, ‘Has he been moved?’ The prisoner answered, ‘I turned him over on his back. He was lying on his left side with his face almost against the desk.’ The hands were growing cold, the upper ar
ms and the body were quite warm. Rigor mortis was setting in in the upper part of the left arm and in the neck. I judged he had been dead well over an hour.”

  “It is impossible to be more definite than that?”

  “I should say death occurred between 6 and 6:30. I cannot say closer than that.”

  “You performed a post-mortem examination of this body?”

  “Yes. Death was caused by the iron point of an arrow penetrating eight inches through the wall of the chest and piercing the heart.”

  “Was death instantaneous?”

  “Yes, it must have been absolutely instantaneous. Like that,” added the witness, suddenly snapping his fingers with the effect of a conjuring trick.

  “Could he have moved or taken a step afterwards?—What I wish to put to you,” insisted Sir Walter, extending his arm, “is whether he would have had strength enough to bolt a door or a window after being struck?”

  “It is definitely impossible. He fell almost literally in his tracks.”

  “What conclusion did you form from the nature of the wound?”

  “I formed the conclusion that the arrow had been used as a dagger, and that a powerful blow had been struck by a powerful man.”

  “Such as the prisoner?”

  “Yes,” agreed Dr. Stocking, giving a brief and sharp look at Answell.

  “What were your reasons for this conclusion?”

  “The direction of the wound. It entered high—here,” he illustrated, “and sloped down in an oblique direction to penetrate the heart.”

  “At a sharp angle, you mean? A downward stroke?”

  “Yes.”

  “What do you think of any suggestion that the arrow might have been fired at him?”

  “If you ask me for an expression of a personal opinion, I should call it so unlikely as to be almost impossible.”

  “Why?”

  “If the arrow had been fired at him, I should have expected it to have penetrated in more or less a straight line; but certainly not at any such angle as the arrow stood.”

  Sir Walter lifted two fingers. “In other words, doctor, if the arrow had been fired at him, the person who fired it must have been standing somewhere up near the ceiling—aiming downwards.”

  It seemed to me that he just refrained from adding, “like Cupid?” There were overtones in Sir Walter’s voice that piled thick ridicule without a word being said. I could have sworn that for a second a brief and fishy smile appeared on the face of one of the jury, who usually sat as though they were stuffed. The atmosphere was getting colder.