The Judas Window

by Carter Dickson

  “Meanin’ what?” inquired H.M., looking at her over his spectacles.

  “Meaning this. You’ve called our attention to this timetable, and that’s a most awfully suspicious sign. You seem to concentrate attention on people who were actually lurking about the place at the time of the murder. But what about the others?”

  “What others?”

  “There are at least three others. I mean Reginald Answell, and even Mary Hume herself, and Dr. Hume. For instance, the Attorney-General ‘put it to’ the Hume girl today that Reginald wasn’t in London at all: he was in Rochester: and didn’t reach London until nearly midnight. You didn’t contradict him—at least, you didn’t re-examine the witness. Well, where was he? We know he was at that house at some time on the night of the murder, even if it was late: I heard him say so himself, when he was going down the stairs at the Old Bailey. Mary Hume was also there, also late. Finally, there’s the doctor, who’s missing now. First you rather indicate that Dr. Hume has got an alibi; and last night, Ken tells me, he writes a letter swearing he actually saw the murder committed. How do you propose to straighten out all that?”

  “If you’d only read the rest of your timetable—” howled H.M., and then grew reflective. “Some of it’s worryin’ me,” he admitted. “You knew, did you, that there’s a court order out to arrest Spencer? When we knew he’d run off, Balmy Bodkin wouldn’t let that pass. If they ketch him, Balmy’ll commit him to clink for deliberate contempt of court in a murder case. I thought Walt Storm rather too easily decided to dispense with that witness, when he should ‘a’ moved an adjournment. Walt must have known he’d done a bunk. But so did Balmy. Burn me, I wonder...never mind. Have you got any ideas, Ken?”

  My position was simple. “Not having much sense of social justice, I don’t care so much who killed him as how it was done. I’m like Masters: ‘Never mind the motive; let’s hear about the mechanics.’ There are three alternatives: (1) Answell really did stab him after all; (2) Hume killed himself, either by accident or suicide; (3) there’s an unknown murderer and an unknown method. H.M., will you answer a couple of straight questions, without technical evasions or double-meanings?”

  His face smoothed itself out.

  “Sure, son. Fire away.”

  “According to you, the real murderer made his entrance by means of the Judas window. Is that straight?”

  “Yes.”

  “And the murder was committed with a crossbow. Is that your argument?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Why? I mean, why a crossbow?”

  H.M. considered. “It was the logical thing, Ken; it was the only weapon that fitted the crime. Also, it was much the easiest weapon to use.”

  “The easiest weapon? That whacking big clumsy thing you showed us?”

  “Easy,” said H.M. sharply. “Not in the least big, son. Very broad, yes; remember that; but not long. You saw it yourself: it was the short ‘stump’ crossbow. And easy? At a very short distance, you heard Fleming admit himself, not even an amateur could miss.”

  “I was coming to that. From what distance was the arrow fired?”

  H.M. regarded us over his spectacles with a kind of sour whimsicality. “The courtroom manner is gettin’ infectious. I feel like a medical man said at one trial, ‘This is like a college examination under oath.’ That, Ken, is the one thing I can’t tell you within a couple of inches, since you want me to be so goddamn precise. But, just in case I’m accused of evasion, I’ll tell you this—not much more than three feet, at the very longest. Satisfied?”

  “Not quite. What was Hume’s position when the arrow was fired?”

  “The murderer was talkin’ to him. Hume had been by the desk, bendin’ over to look at something. As he bent forward, the murderer casually pulled the trigger of the crossbow: hence the rummy angle of the arrow, which was shot in rather a straight line.—Walt Storm made an awful lot of fun of that, but it’s the strict truth.”

  “Bending over to look at something?”

  “That’s right.”

  Evelyn and I looked at each other. H.M., nibbling at the stump of his cigar, pushed the timetable across to me.

  “Now that you’ve got that off your chest, why not pay a bit of attention to matters just as relevant? Spencer Hume, for instance. He’s a gap in the proceedings, because he didn’t testify in court. Not that he did much of importance when he got back to the house; but what he did is interestin’. Y’know, Spencer must have got one hell of a shock when he learned it really was Jim Answell they’d caught, and not Reginald.”

  “Did he know either of the cousins by sight?”

  “Yes,” said H.M., with another odd look. “He knew both of them; and he was the only one in the whole flamin’ case who did.

  TABLE

  COMMENT

  6.46. Spencer Hume arrives in Grosvenor Street.

  Uncle Spencer, vide police statements, has got an absolutely watertight alibi. From 5.10 to 6.40 he was walking wards of hospital. At 6.40 he went downstairs and waited in foyer. Finally went out on steps. At 6.43 (fast driving), A. Jordan whizzed up in car and told him to come quickly and take wheel, saying Avory was dead and Mary’s fiancé was loopy. Uncle Spencer is -u-t. Gobble gobble.

  6.46—6.50. P.C. Hardcastle tries to question Answell; then telephones to police-station.

  6.46-6.50. Spencer Hume takes Amelia Jordan upstairs: doctor necessary.

  6.51-6.55. Spencer Hume goes to study. In presence of Fleming and Dyer, Answell says, “You are a doctor; for God’s sake tell them I have been doped.” Spencer says, “I can find no sign of it.”

  Why didn’t Spencer own up to truth about drugged drink? Too dangerous?

  6.55. Inspector Mottram and Sergeant Raye arrive.

  6.55-7.45. First examination of Answell by Inspector Mottram; other witnesses questioned; study is searched by Inspector Mottram and Sergeant Raye.

  First time study is searched by police.

  No dust in thin vertical line down shaft of arrow. Very rummy; projected?

  Feather torn in half completely; couldn’t be done in struggle; powerful clean break—caught somewhere. Mechanism? Projected? What kind of mechanism? Find out what there might be in archer’s house.

  (Later). J. Shanks, odd-jobsman for three houses, reports crossbow missing from box in shed in backgarden.

  Crossbow missing.

  Golf-suit missing.

  1 + 1 = Equo ne credite, coppers.

  7.45. Divisional police-surgeon, Dr. Stocking, arrives.

  7.45-8.10. Examination of body.

  Note position of body.

  Direction of wound? Does not fit. Maybe!

  8.15. Spencer Hume telephones to Mary Hume at Frawnend.

  Had dinner out, but arrived back in time to get message.

  8.10-9.40. Further questioning and search of house. Answell collapses.

  9.42. Answell’s cousin Reginald telephoned to.

  Reginald had just arrived at flat, motoring from Rochester. Known to have left Rochester about 5.15; says he had early dinner at hotel along way, and took a long time about it; was rather drunk on arriving back. Cannot remember name of hotel or village.

  9.55. Reginald Answell arrives in Grosvenor Street.

  10.10. Answell removed to police-station, Reginald going along.

  10.35. Mary Hume, taking first train, arrives back.

  10.50. Body removed to mortuary; at this time two letters, formerly in dead man’s pocket, are discovered missing.

  Mary had pinched them; why?

  12.15 Answell’s final statement taken at police-station, missing.

  Conclusions: from times and facts given above, there is no doubt as to identity of real murderer. Gobble gobble gobble.

  “That’s fairly sweeping,” I commented, and looked hard at him. “Is this supposed to tell us anything? And, by the way, what is the reason for the persistent recurrence of this ‘gobble gobble’ business?”

  “Oh, I dunno. That’s how I felt a
t the time,” said H.M. apologetically. “It showed I was touchin’ the fringes of the truth.”

  Evelyn glanced down the list again. “Well, unless this is a bit of faking on your part, there’s someone else you can practically eliminate—I mean Reginald. You say he’s proved to have left Rochester at 5:15. Rochester’s about thirty-three miles from London, isn’t it? Yes. So, while it’s theoretically possible to drive thirty-three miles in an hour, with all the traffic—and central traffic at that—I don’t see how he could have got to Grosvenor Street in time to commit the murder. And you’ve already eliminated Dr. Hume.”

  “Eliminated Spencer?” demanded H.M. “Oh, no, my wench. Not a bit of it.”

  “But you yourself admit he’s got a watertight alibi.”

  “Oh, alibis!” roared H.M., shaking his fist. He got up and began to waddle about the room, growling. “The Red Widow murderer had a fine alibi, didn’t he? The feller who did the dirty in that peacock-feather business also had a pretty good one. But that’s not what’s really botherin’ me. What bothers me is that infernal letter Uncle Spencer wrote to the Hume gal last night—swearin’ he actually saw the murder done, and that Answell did it after all. Why did he write that? If he lied, why the blazes should he lie? The most insidious bit in it is the suggestion that Answell might be quite sincere about swearin’ he’s innocent: that he killed Hume and simply doesn’t remember it. Oh, my eye! Did you ever hear anyone advance the theory that that was the way Dickens intended to finish Ed-win Drood?—Jasper bein’ the murderer, but not rememberin’ it: hence the opium-smoking? It’s the same idea Wilkie Collins used in The Moonstone for pinchin’ the jewel, so I shouldn’t be surprised. If my whole great big beautiful theory cracks up on a point like that...but it can’t! Burn me, it’s not reasonable; or what about the feather? The first person I suspected was Uncle Spencer—”

  “You suspected him just because he had an alibi?” I asked.

  “It’s no good talkin’ to you,” said H.M. wearily. “You won’t see the difficulties. I thought that if he didn’t actually commit the murder, he arranged it—”

  A new possibility appeared.

  “I remember reading about another of these cases,” I said; “but it’s so long ago that I can’t remember whether it was a real happening or a story. A man was found apparently murdered in a room high up in a tower by the edge of the sea. His chest had been blown in with a shotgun, and the weapon was missing. The only clew was a fishing rod in the room. Unfortunately, the door of the tower had been under observation, and no one was seen to go in or out. The only window was a small one up a smooth wall above the sea. Who killed him, and what had happened to the weapon?...The secret was fairly simple. It was suicide. He had propped up the shotgun, facing him, in the window. He stood some feet away and touched the hair-trigger with the fishing rod. The kick of the gun when it exploded carried it backwards off the window-ledge into the sea: hence it was supposed to be murder and his family collected the insurance. Do you mean that there might have been some device in Avory Hume’s study, which he accidentally touched, and it discharged the arrow at him? Or what the devil do you mean?”

  “It can’t be that,” Evelyn protested. “If this isn’t more mystification, we’re to believe that the murderer was actually talking to Hume at the time.”

  “That’s right,” admitted H.M.

  “All the same,” I said, “it seems that we’re straying away from the most important point. No matter who committed the murder, what was the motive? You can’t tell me, for instance, that Answell would grab an arrow and stab Hume simply because he believed his future father-in-law had put knockout-drops in a glass of whisky. Unless, of course, he’s as mad as they wanted to make out Reginald was. But there’s been remarkably little talk about motive in this case. Who else had a shadow of a motive to kill Hume?”

  “Ain’t you forgettin’ the will?” asked H.M., lifting dull eyes.

  “What will?”

  “You heard all about it in court. Avory Hume was mad to have a grandson, like most self-made men. Perpetuate the line, and so on. He was goin’ to make a will leaving everything in trust—everything, mind—for that hypothetical grandson.”

  “Did he make the will?”

  “No. He didn’t have time. So I thought it might be interestin’ to go to Somerset House and put down my shilling and get a look at the original will, the one that’s been admitted to probate now. Well, the girl is the chief legatee, of course; but everybody else gets a neat slice of the old man’s money; he wasn’t even cautious over things like that. Even poor old Dyer got a cut, and there was a sizable bequest of £3,500 to build a new ward-house for the Woodmen of Kent, to be delivered to the Secretary and used at his own discretion...”

  “So the Woodmen of Kent got together and marched up to London and skewered him with an arrow? Rubbish, H.M.! That’s not worthy of you.”

  “I was only throwin’ out suggestions,” returned H.M. with surprising meekness. He peered up from under wrinkled brows. “Just to see if anything could possibly stir up your gray matter. You’d never be able to construct a defense, Ken: you can’t take a hint out of the evidence, and go straight to where you’d probably find a witness. For instance! Suppose I thought it was pretty vital to get hold of Uncle Spencer: even if I didn’t shove him into the witness-box, suppose I thought it was very necessary to have a little talk with him? How would I go about puttin’ my hands on him?”

  “God knows. That’s one of Masters’s favorite jobs of routine. If the police can’t find him, I don’t see how you can. He got a good head start, remember. He could be in Palestine by now.”

  A knock at the door roused H.M. out of his apparent torpor. He dropped the stump of his cigar into the plate, and squared himself.

  “Come in,” said H.M. “He could be,” H.M. added, “but he’s not.”

  The door was opened with some caution. And Dr. Spencer Hume, impeccably dressed, with a bowler hat in one hand and a rolled umbrella hanging from the crook of his arm, came into the room.

  XV—“The Shape of the Judas Window”

  IF THE gilded figure of Justice on the dome of the Old Bailey had slid down from the cupola and appeared here, it could have caused no more pronounced effect. But Dr. Hume did not today seem so bland and banal. He looked ill. Though his dark hair was as neatly brushed into place as before, his high color had gone and his little, sensitive eyes were uneasy. When he saw Evelyn and me sitting in the firelight, he shied badly.

  “It’s all right, son,” H.M. assured him. H.M. was sitting back at the table, one hand shading his eyes. The doctor’s glance had gone instinctively towards the window, in the direction of the great building where he was wanted. “These are friends of mine. One of ‘em I think you met yesterday. Just sit down and smoke a cigar. There’s a very old artillery proverb, ‘The closer the target, the safer you are.’ Bein’ right smack up against the eye of Balmy Bodkin, you’re all right. You could get in the queue outside the public gallery entrance, and go up in the gallery among the spectators, and you could sit right up over Balmy’s head without his knowin’ you were anywhere closer than China.”

  “I—ah—am aware of that,” replied Spencer, with traces of a bitter smile. He sat very straight in the chair, and his tubby figure had an odd dignity. He did not accept H.M.’s offer of a cigar, but sat with his hands flat on his knees. “As a matter of strict record, I have been sitting in the public gallery all morning.”

  “Uh-huh. I was pretty sure I saw you there,” observed H.M. casually. The other went a little more white. “It’s not a new trick. Charlie Peace did it at the trial of young Habron for the murder of the man Peace really killed. Honestly, you’ve got more guts than I thought you had.”

  “But you didn’t—speak up?”

  “I hate rows in court,” sniffed H.M., inspecting his fingers. “It disturbs the nice soothin’ atmosphere, and the feelin’ of intellectual balance. Still, that’s beside the point. I gather you got my message last
night.”

  Dr. Hume put his hat on the floor, and leaned the umbrella carefully against the side of the chair.

  “The point is that you have got me here,” he retorted, but without heat. “Now will you answer one question? How did you know where to find me?”

  “I didn’t,” said H.M. “But I had to try the most likely places. You’d done a bunk. But you had time to write a very long, very careful, and very weighty letter to your niece; and people who got to depend on the rush of airplanes or boat-trains don’t usually have time for that. You knew they’d be after you, and that contempt of court is a criminal offense. There’s only one excuse for it—extreme illness. I thought you’d probably run straight to your friend Tregannon, and gone to earth among the bedclothes and the icecaps in his nursin’ home. You can probably produce a certificate now, showin’ how ruddy unwell you were yesterday. I’ve said a good many times that this tracing business is only a glorified version of the old chestnut about the idiot boy findin’ the lost horse: ‘I just thought where I’d have gone if I had been a horse; and I went there; and he had.’ I sent you a message there, and you had.”

  “Rather a queer kind of message,” said Spencer, looking hard at him. “Yes. That’s why it’s time we got down to business. I thought there was one person at least you wouldn’t want to see hanged.”

  “You mean myself?”