The Judas Window

by Carter Dickson

  Mary Hume looked momentarily at the back of Captain Reginald’s head as she went up into the witness-box. With the exception of Inspector Mottram, she was (or so it seemed on the surface) the calmest person who had yet testified. She wore sables: a flamboyant display, Evelyn assured me, but she may have been feeling in that mood with defiance. And she wore no hat. Her yellow hair, parted and drawn back sleekly, emphasized the essential softness and odd sensuality of the face, dominated by those wide-spaced blue eyes. Her method of putting her hands on the edge of the box was to grasp it with both arms extended, as though she were on an aquaplane. In her manner there was no longer any of that hard docility I had seen before.

  “You swear by Almighty God that the evidence you shall give—”

  “Yes.”

  (“She’s frightened to death,” whispered Evelyn. I pointed out that she gave no sign of it, but Evelyn only shook her head and nodded back again towards the witness.)

  Whatever the truth might have been, her very presence there indicated thunder on the way. Even her importance seemed emphasized by the fact that she was rather small. A new interest quickened the press-box. H.M., who had difficulty in getting his own voice clear, waited until the stir of interest had died down; only the judge was unimpressed.

  “Hurrum! Is your name Mary Elizabeth Hume?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re the only child of the deceased, and you live at 12 Grosvenor Street?”

  “Yes,” she answered, nodding in a somnambulistic way.

  “At a Christmas houseparty at Frawnend, in Sussex, did you meet the accused?”

  “Yes.”

  “D’ye love him, Miss Hume?”

  “I love him very much,” she said, and her eyes flickered briefly. If it were possible to have a more hollow silence than had existed before, it held the court now.

  “You know he’s here accused of murderin’ your father?”

  “Of course I know it.”

  “Now, ma’am—miss, I’ll ask you to look at this letter I have here. It’s dated, ‘January 3, 9:30 P.M.,’ the evening before the day of the murder. Will you tell the jury whether you wrote it?”

  “Yes, I wrote it.”

  It was read aloud, and ran:

  DEAR FATHER:

  “Jimmy has suddenly decided to come to London tomorrow morning, so I thought I had better tell you. He will take the train I usually travel by—you know it, nine o'clock here and a quarter to eleven at Victoria. I know he means to see you some time tomorrow.”

  Love,

  MARY.

  “P.S. You will take care of that other matter, won’t you?”

  “Do you know whether your father received this letter?”

  “Yes, he did. As soon as I heard he was dead, I came to town, naturally; and I took it out of his pocket the same night—the night he died, you know.”

  “What was the occasion of your writin’ it?”

  “On Friday evening—that Friday evening, you know—Jim suddenly decided to go up to town, to get me an engagement ring.”

  “Did you try to dissuade him, to keep him from goin’ to town?”

  “Yes, but I could not do too much of it or he would have been suspicious.”

  “Why did you try to dissuade him?”

  The witness moistened her lips. “Because his cousin, Captain Answell, you know, had gone up to London on Friday evening with the intention of seeing my father next day; and I was afraid he and Jim might meet at my father’s house.”

  “Did you have a reason why you didn’t want them to meet at your father’s?”

  “Yes, yes!”

  “What was the reason?”

  “A little before, in the same week, you know,” replied Mary Hume, “Captain Answell had asked me, or rather my father, to pay five thousand pounds hush-money.”

  XII—“From a Find to a Check—”

  “YOU mean that man there?” asked H.M., pointing with a big flipper and again ruthlessly singling him out.

  It was like an inexorable spotlight. Reginald Answell’s face had turned a curious color, a muddy color, and he sat bolt upright; you could see the rise and fall of his chest. At that moment, looking back on past events, I saw the pattern take form. He had thought he was quite safe: he and this girl were linked together in such fashion that he had thought she would not dare to betray it. She had even promised him, with remarkably well simulated terror, that she would remain quiet. You could understand now the reason for that hard docility, the meek, “Thanks for everything.” A scrap of their conversation came back to me. First his significant “Fair exchange; it’s all agreed, then?” And her colorless, “You know me, Reg,” while she contemplated this.

  Three voices in the courtroom spoke in quick succession.

  The first was the Attorney-General’s: “Is Captain Answell on trial?”

  The second was H.M.’s: “Not yet.”

  The third was the judge’s: “Proceed, Sir Henry.”

  H.M. turned back to the witness, whose plump and pretty face was composed, and who was looking at the back of Reginald’s head.

  “So Captain Answell had asked you, or rather your father, to pay five thousand pounds blackmail?”

  “Yes. He knew I hadn’t got it, of course, but he felt sure he could get it out of father.”

  “Uh-huh. What reason did he have for blackmailin’ you?”

  “I had been his mistress.”

  “Yes, but was there another and stronger reason—much stronger?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  For the second time during that trial, the prisoner sprang to his feet and was about to speak out from the dock. He had not expected this. H.M. made a savage gesture in his direction.

  “What was that other reason, Miss Hume?”

  “Captain Answell had taken a lot of photographs of me.”

  “What kind o' photographs?”

  Her voice was blurred. “Without any clothes on, and in—certain postures.”

  “I did not catch that,” said the judge. “Will you please speak up? What did you say?”

  “I said,” replied Mary Hume clearly, “without any clothes on, and in certain postures.”

  The calm inexorability of the judge made everyone in that room squirm.

  “What postures?” asked Mr. Justice Bodkin.

  H.M. intervened. “My lord, just in order to show why the prisoner has been so blamed anxious not to talk about this, and why he’s acted in certain ways, I’ve got one of those photographs here. Across the back of it is written, ‘One of the best things she ever did for me,’ in what I’d like the witness to identify as Captain Answell’s handwriting. Then I’d like to submit it to you to suggest that it can go to the jury as bein’ evidence of what we’re trying to establish.”

  The photograph was handed up. While the judge looked at it, there was a hush of such bursting quality that you could hear it. It was to be wondered what the witness was feeling; every eye in the room had glanced at her, just once, and had seen her in other costume—or the lack of it. Sir Walter Storm made no comment or objection.

  “You may show this to the jury,” said the judge tonelessly.

  It traveled along before two lines of impassive faces.

  “How many of these photographs are there?”

  “A-about a dozen.”

  “This one here, the one you gave me to put in evidence: is it the only one of ‘em you’ve got?”

  “Yes, Reg has the others. He promised to give me the rest if I didn’t say anything in court about his trying to get hush-money out of me.”

  Reginald Answell got slowly to his feet and began to make his way out of the courtroom. He tried to walk with equal slowness and casualness. No one, of course, attempted to comment or restrain him. But H.M. deliberately allowed a space while the pressure of the court was focused on him like his own camera. Chairs, people at the solicitors’ table, elbows, feet, everything seemed to get in his way, and made him go faster: it was like someone bumping ove
r rows of feet in a theater, trying to get out without attracting attention along a line of stalls. By the time he reached the door he was running. The policeman on duty there gave him one look, and stood aside. We heard the whish of the glass door out into the hall.

  “So,” observed H.M. in a heavy tone. “Let’s take up the story of those pictures. When were they taken?”

  Again she moistened her lips. “A-about a year ago.”

  “Had you broken off your relations with Captain Answell before you met the prisoner?”

  “Oh, my God, ages before.”

  “Did you ask for the photographs?”

  “Yes, but he just laughed and said they would do no harm.”

  “What’d Captain Answell do when he heard you were engaged to the prisoner?”

  “He took me aside, and congratulated me. He said it was a really excellent thing, and he approved of it.”

  “What else?”

  “He said that if I didn’t pay him five thousand he would show the photographs to Jim. He said he didn’t see why he should not get something out of this when everyone else seemed to have so much money.”

  “This was durin’ the week of December 28-January 4?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Now just go on, if you can, Miss Hume.”

  “I said he must be c-completely crazy, and he knew I hadn’t got five thousand pennies, and never would have them. He said yes, but my father would be willing to pay through the nose. He—he said that my father’s one big dream in life was to make a good and wealthy marriage for me, and—”

  “And—?”

  “—and had got to the point where my father—well, despaired of ever doing it—”

  “Steady, ma’am; stop a bit. Had you ever done anything like this before?”

  “No, no, no! I’m only telling you what Reg—what Captain Answell said to me. He said my father would not let five thousand pounds stand in the way of my getting a good catch like Jim Answell.”

  H.M. studied her. “Your father was a pretty inflexible man, wasn’t he?”

  “He was that.”

  “When he wanted something, he got it?”

  “Yes, always.”

  “Did your father know anything about these photographs?”

  Her wide-spaced blue eyes opened as though she could not understand the stupidity that put such questions, even if they had to be asked for the sake of clearness in a court of law.

  “No, no, of course he didn’t. Telling him was nearly as bad as—”

  “But you did tell him, didn’t you?”

  “Yes, it had to be done, so I did,” replied the witness, summing herself up.

  “Explain how that happened, will you?”

  “Well, Reg—Captain Answell said he would give me a few days to rake up the money. On—yes, it was on the Wednesday, I wrote to him and said I had to see him about something horribly urgent and important in connection with my marriage. I knew that would bring him. I couldn’t leave the houseparty without any explanation, especially as Jim was throwing money right and left to celebrate, and all the local charities were coming to thank us. So I asked my father if he would come down on Thursday morning and meet me in a village near Frawnend...”

  “Yes; that’s right; go on.”

  “I met him at an inn called The Blue Boar, I think it was, on the road to Chichester. I expected him to flare up, but he didn’t. He just listened to me. He walked up and down the room a couple of times, with his hands behind his back, and then he said that five thousand pounds was absolutely ridiculous. He said he might have been willing to pay something smaller, but he had had a few reverses lately; and in fact he had been looking forward a bit to Jim’s money. I said maybe Captain Answell would come down in the price. He said, ‘We won’t bother with paying him money; just you leave him to me, and I’ll settle his hash.’”

  “Oho? ‘Just you leave him to me, and I’ll settle his hash.’ What was he like when he said this? How’d he act?”

  “He was as white as a sheet, and I think if he had had Reg there he would have killed him.”

  “H’m, yes. So,” observed H.M., jerking his thumb, “the idea of your father settling Captain Answell’s hash, and even giving him drugged whisky, don’t sound so almighty foolish as it did when my learned friend was discussin’ it, eh?” He hurried on before anyone could object to unscrupulous comment. “Did he tell you how he meant to settle Captain Answell’s hash?”

  “He said he was going back to London, and he wanted a few hours to think. He said to let him know if Reg made any move in the meantime.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Oh, yes; he asked me to try to find out where Reg kept the photographs.”

  “Did you try?”

  “Yes, and I was horribly poor at it. I—that’s what brought everything on. He just looked at me and laughed, and said, ‘So that’s the trick, is it? Now just for that, my little lady, I’m going straight to London and see your father.’”

  “This was on Friday, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I telephoned my father early Friday evening—”

  “That’s the call we’ve heard about?”

  “Yes. To warn him, and ask him what he was going to do.”

  H.M. made mesmeric passes of some intensity. “I want you to tell us what he said then; every word, as far as you can remember.”

  “I’ll try. He said to me, ‘Good; it’s all arranged. I will get in touch with him tomorrow morning, and invite him here, and I promise you he will not bother us again.’”

  She spoke with extraordinary intensity, so that H.M. allowed a space for the words to sink into the minds of the jury. Then he repeated them.

  “Did he tell you what he meant to do about settlin’ Captain Answell’s hash?”

  “No; I asked him, but he would not tell me. The only other thing he said was to ask where he could be certain of finding Reg, and I said at Jim’s flat. He said, ‘Yes, I thought so; I have already been there.’”

  “He said that he had already been there.” H.M. raised his voice. “Did he say anything about pinchin’ Captain Answell’s automatic pistol out of the flat?”

  The effect of this was broken by the judge’s interruption.

  “The witness has already told you, Sir Henry, that she heard nothing more.”

  H.M., well satisfied, patted his wig. “And then, on top of all this,” he went on, “your fiance all of a sudden decided to go to London as well, and you were afraid somethin’ would blow up?”

  “Yes, I was half crazy.”

  “That’s why you wrote to your father on Friday night, after the phone-call?”

  “Yes.”

  “Does this postscript here, ‘You will take care of that other matter, won’t you?’—does that refer to the effective settling of Captain Answell’s hash?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “One more little point,” pursued H.M., with a long and rumbling sniff. “A witness has testified here about the rather odd way your father acted when he got that letter at the breakfast table on Saturday morning. He walked to the window, and he announced in a grim kind o' tone that your fiance was cormin’ to town that day—and meant to see him. The witness said, ‘Oh, then we will not go to Sussex after all; we will invite him to dinner,’ or words to that effect. The deceased said that those other two would go to Sussex as arranged. He also said, ‘We will not invite him to dinner, or anywhere else.’” H.M. slapped his hand on the table. What he meant was, then, that they wouldn’t invite him to dinner in case the two cousins ran into each other?”

  Sir Walter Storm stirred out of his immobility.

  “My lord, for the last time I must protest against this constant attempt to question witnesses about things they did not see or words they did not hear, particularly since it is always done in the form of a leading question.”

  “Do not answer that,” said Mr. Justice Bodkin.

&n
bsp; “In your opinion,” said H.M., after the customary form of sardonic apology, “in your opinion, from the things you have seen and the things you have heard, doesn’t what you’ve just told us show what really did happen on the night of the murder?”

  “Yes.”

  “Would a woman have the nerve to go through with what you’ve just told us today, unless she believed absolutely that this man is innocent?

  He pretended to listen for an answer, and then sat down with a whack that shook the bench.

  There was some whispering behind us, around, beyond, a sound in long grasses which you knew centered in only one thing. Mary Hume must have known it as well; she was drawing patterns with her finger on the edge of the ledge, and looking down. But from time to time she would glance up, briefly, while the Attorney-General was taking some while before beginning his cross-examination. Her pretty face was growing dull red; and, as though unconsciously, she would draw her sables closer round her. How long this mental narcotic would sustain her you could not tell. She had badly damaged many parts of the prosecution’s case: you realized that much of Answell’s apparent stumbling and foolish testimony must be the solid truth: and it was clear the jury thought so too. But the whispering grew like noise in a forest. Someone inquired plaintively if they were not going to show us the photograph. I noticed that the space reserved for newspapermen was now completely empty, though I could not remember having seen any of them hurry out. It was a matter for headlines and speculations in every British home.

  “Hold on to your hat; here we go,” whispered Evelyn fiercely, and Sir Walter Storm got up to cross-examine.

  Nothing could have exceeded the sympathy and consideration of the Attorney-General’s manner. His voice was quietly persuasive.