“If it was off this feather, I could, sir. Besides, it ‘ud fit.”
“It would. But—just to take a different sort of question for a minute—you worked in that little workshop or shed in the back garden, didn’t you?”
“I’m sure I didn’t mean to press you, sir,” said the witness generously. “What was that? Ah. Yes, I did.”
“Did he keep any crossbows there?”
The stir of creaking that went through the room affected Shanks with a pleasant sense of importance. He relaxed, and leaned his elbows on the rail of the box. Evidently some stem eye was watching over his conduct from the spectators’ gallery over our heads; for he seemed to become sensible of the impropriety of his posture, and straightened up hastily.
“He did, sir. Three of them. Fine nasty-looking things.”
“Where’d he keep ‘em?”
“In a big box, sir, like a big toolbox with a handle. Under the carpenter’s bench.” The witness blinked with a painful effort at concentration.
“Tell me: did you go down to that shed on the morning of Sunday, January 5, the day after the murder?”
“Yes, sir. I know it was Sunday, but even so, considering—”
“Did you notice anything different in the shed?”
“I did, sir. Somebody’d been at that toolbox, or what I call a toolbox. It’s directly under the bench, you see, sir; and there’s shavings and dust falls on it, like a coating, you see, sir; and so if you look at it you can tell right away, without thinking anything of it, if someone has been at it.”
“Did you look in the box?”
“Yes, sir, of course. And one of the crossbows was not there.”
“What’d you do when you found this out?”
“Well, sir, of course I spoke to Miss Mary about it; but she said not to bother about such things, considering; and so I didn’t.”
“Could you identify that crossbow, if you saw it again?”
“I could, sir.”
From his own hidden lair (which he kept jealously guarded), H.M. made a gesture to Lollypop. There was produced a weapon very similar in appearance to the crossbow H.M. had used yesterday for the purposes of illustration. It was perhaps not quite so long, and had a broader head; steel studs were set in a line down the stock, and there was a little silver plate let into it.
“Is this the crossbow?” said H.M.
“That’s it; yes, sir. Here’s even Mr. Hume’s name engraved on the little plate.”
“Look at the drum of the windlass there, where you’ll see the teeth. Just tell me if there’s somethin’ caught in there—ah, you got it! Take it out. Hold it over so the jury can see. What is it?”
“It’s a bit of feather, sir, blue feather.”
Sir Walter Storm was on his feet. He was not amused now; only grave, heavy, and polite.
“My lord, are we to assume that this is being suggested as the mysterious piece of feather about which so many questions have been asked?”
“Only a part of it, melord,” grunted H.M. “If it’s examined, we’ll see that there’s still a little bit of it missin’. Not much. Only a piece about a quarter by half an inch square. But enough. That, we’re suggestin’, is the second piece. There are three of them. One’s yet to come.” After the amenities, he turned back to the witness. “Could you say definitely whether or not the piece you’ve got in your hand came off that broken guide feather on the arrow?”
“I think I could, sir,” said the witness, and blinked.
“Just look at it, then, and tell us.”
While Shanks screwed up his eyes and hunched his shoulders over it, there was a sound of shuffling or sliding in court. People were trying surreptitiously to rise and get a look. The prisoner, his face sharper now and less muddled, was also staring at it; but he seemed as puzzled as anyone else.
“Ah, this is right, sir,” declared Shanks. “It comes off here.”
“You’re sure of that, now? I mean, one part of a broken feather might be deceptive, mightn’t it? Even if it’s a goose-feather, and even if it’s got a special kind of dye on it, can you still identify it as comin’ from that particular arrow?”
“This one I can; yes, indeed, yes. I put on this dye myself. I put it on with a brush, like paint. That’s what I meant by saying it fitted. There’s a slip in the paint here that makes a lighter mark in the blue like a question-mark. You can see the upper part of the question-mark, but the little dot and part of the tail I don’t see....”
“Would you swear,” said H.M. very gently, “would you swear that the part of feather you see stickin’ in that crossbow came from the feather on the arrow in front of you?”
“I would indeed, sir.”
“For the moment,” said H.M., “that’s all.”
The Attorney-General got up with a suavity in which there was some impatience. His eye evidently made Shanks nervous.
“The arrow you have there bears the date 1934, I think. Does that mean you prepared the arrow, or dyed it, in 1934?”
“Yes, sir. About the spring, it would be.”
“Have you ever seen it since, close enough to examine it? What I mean is this: After winning the annual wardmote in 1934, Mr. Hume hung that arrow on the wall of his study?”
“Yes, sir.”
“During all that time since, have you ever been close enough to examine it since?”
“No, sir, not until that gentleman,” he nodded towards H.M., “asked me to look at it a month ago.”
“Oh! But from 1934 until then you had not actually looked at the arrow?”
“That’s so, sir.”
“During that time you must, I presume, have handled and prepared a good many arrows for Mr. Hume?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Hundreds, should you say?”
“Well, sir, I shouldn’t quite like to go so far as that.”
“Just try to give an approximate number. Would it be fair to say that you had handled or prepared over a hundred arrows?”
“Yes, sir, it might be that. They use an awful lot.”
“I see. They use an awful lot. Do you tell us, then, that out of over a hundred arrows, over a space of years, you can infallibly identify one arrow on which you put dye in 1934? I remind you that you are upon oath.”
At this tremendous reminder, the witness cast an eye up at the public gallery as though for support. “Well, sir, you see, it’s my job—”
“Please answer the question. Out of over a hundred arrows, over a space of years, can you infallibly identify one on which you put dye in 1934?”
“I shouldn’t like to say, sir, may I go to he—may I be—that is, to say everything should happen to me—”
“Very well,” said the Attorney-General, who had got his effect. “Now—”
“But I’m sure of it just the same, mind!”
“Though you cannot swear to it. I see. Now,” continued the other, picking up some flimsy typewritten sheets, “I have here a copy of the prisoner’s statement to the police. (Please hand this across to the witness.) Will you take that statement, Mr. Shanks, and read out the first paragraph for us?” Shanks, startled, took the paper with an automatic gesture. First he blinked at it in the same doubtful way he had shown before. Then he began to fumble in his pockets, without apparent result while the delay he was giving the court evidently preyed worse and worse on his mind, until such a gigantic pause upset him completely.
“I can’t seem to find my specs, sir. I’m afraid that without my specs—”
“Do I understand,” said the other, who had rightly interpreted that blinking of the eyes, “that without your spectacles you cannot read the statement?” “It’s not exactly to say I can’t, sir; but—”
“Yet you can identify an arrow on which you put dye in 1934?” asked Sir Walter Storm—and sat down.
This time H.M. did roar up for reexamination, girded for war. But his questions were short.
“How many times did Avory Hume win the annual competition
s?”
“Three times, sir.”
“The arrow was a special prize on those occasions, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, sir.”
“So it wasn’t just ‘one out of over a hundred,’ was it? It was a special thing, a keepsake?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Did he show you the arrow, and call your attention to it, after he’d won the first-shot competition?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Ha,” said H.M., lifting his robe in order to hitch up his trousers. “That will do. No, not that way out, son; that’s the judge’s bench; the warder’ll show you.” He waited until Shanks had been taken away, and then he got up again.
“Call Reginald Answell,” said H.M.
XVII—“At the Opening of the Window—”
REGINALD ANSWELL was not exactly under escort: when the warder took charge of him, and led him to the box, he seemed a free man. But just behind him I saw a familiar figure whose name eluded me until I remembered Sergeant-Major Carstairs, who guards the entrance to H.M.’s lair at Whitehall. On the sergeant-major’s face was the sinister look of a benevolent captor.
Again you could hear the rustle of the wind in trees of scandal; every eye immediately tried to find Mary Hume as well, but she was not in court. Reginald’s long and bony face was a little pale, but very determined. I remember thinking then that he looked a tricky customer, and had better be handled as such—whatever H.M. had in mind. But this may have been due to a surge of dislike caused by the slight (manufactured) wave in his dark-yellow hair, or the cool glaze of self-possession on his features: the latter more than the former. He took the oath in a clear, pleasant voice.
H.M. seemed to draw a deep breath. It was to be wondered, in view of the wiles that lay beneath the surface, whether H.M. would find himself cross-examining his own witness.
“Your name is Reginald Wentworth Answell; you have no residence, but when you’re in London you live at D’Orsay Chambers, Duke Street?”
“Yes.”
“I want you to understand,” said H.M., folding his arms, “that you’re not obliged to answer any question which will incriminate you—about any activities.” He paused. “This question, however, won’t incriminate you. When the police talked to you about your general movements on the evenin’ of January 4, did you tell ‘em the whole truth?”
“The whole truth, no.”
“Are you ready to tell the truth now, under oath?”
“I am,” said Reginald with great apparent sincerity. His eyes flickered; there is no other way to describe it.
“Were you in London early in the evenin’ on January 4th?”
“I was. I drove from Rochester, and arrived at D’Orsay Chambers a few minutes past six o'clock.”
It was possible that H.M. stiffened a little, and an odd air of tensity began to grow again. H.M. tilted his head on one side.
“So-? I understood it was ten minutes past six o'clock. Wasn’t it?”
“I am sorry. It was a little earlier than that. I distinctly remember the clock in the dashboard of my car.”
“Had you intended to see the deceased that night?”
“Yes. Socially.”
“When you got to D’Orsay Chambers, did you see the witness Horace Grabell?”
“I did.”
“Did he tell you about the deceased’s visit to your flat on Friday?”
“He did.”
“Did he tell you the deceased had taken your pistol, and gone away with it?”
“He did.”
“And what did you do then?”
“I could not understand it, but I did not like it. So I thought I had better not see Mr. Hume after all. I went away. I—drove round a bit, and—and before long I left town. I—did not return until later.”
H.M. sat down rather quickly. There had been a curious intonation in that “before long”; H.M. had seemed to catch it, for we all did. And Sir Walter Storm was very quick to rise.
“You tell us, Captain Answell,” began the Attorney-General, “that you ‘drove round a bit,’ and ‘before long’ you left town. How long?”
“Half an hour or a little more, perhaps.”
“Half an hour? As long as that?”
“Yes. I wanted to think.”
“Where did you drive?”
Silence.
“Where did you drive, Captain Answell? I must repeat my question.”
“I drove to Mr. Hume’s house in Grosvenor Street,” answered the witness.
For a second the implications of this did not penetrate into our minds. Even the Attorney-General, whatever his thoughts might have been, hesitated before he went on. The witness’s air of pale candor was that of the “engaging” Reginald Answell I had seen yesterday.
“You drove to Mr. Hume’s house, you say?”
“Yes. I hoped you would not ask that.” He looked briefly towards the prisoner, who was staring at him. “I told them I could do him no good. I understood I was not to be called as a witness.”
“You understand that it is your business to tell the truth? Very well. Why did you go to Mr. Hume’s house?”
“I don’t know, exactly. I thought it was a queer show, a very queer show. I did not intend to go in; I only intended to cruise past, wondering what was—was up.”
“At what time did you arrive at the house?” demanded the Attorney-General. Even Sir Walter Storm could not keep his voice quite level, in wondering himself what was up.
“At ten minutes past six.”
The judge looked up quickly. “One moment, Sir Walter.” He turned his little eyes on the witness. “If you arrived there at ten minutes past six, that must have been at the same time as the prisoner?”
“Yes, my lord. As a matter of fact, I saw him go in.”
There are, I suppose, no degrees of a man’s being motionless. Yet I had never seen H.M. convey such a mere impression of absolute stillness as he did then. He was sitting with a pencil in his hand, enormous under his black gown; and he did not even seem to breathe. In the dock, James Answell’s chair suddenly scraped. The prisoner made a curious, wild gesture, like a boy beginning to put up his hand in a classroom, and then he checked himself.
“What did you do then?” asked the Attorney-General.
“I did not know what to do. I wondered what was happening, and why Jim was there. He had not spoken about coming here when I saw him last at Frawnend. I wondered if it concerned me, as having been a suitor of Miss Hume’s. For what I did,” said the witness, drawing himself up, “I do not apologize. Any human being would have done the same. I knew that there was an open passage leading down between Mr. Hume’s house and the house next door—”
Sir Walter Storm (be it recorded) seemed forced to clear his throat. He was not now like a man either cross-examining or examining, but one trying to get at the truth.
“Had you ever been to the house before, Captain Answell?”
“Yes, several times, although I had never met Mr. Hume. I had been there with Miss Hume. Mr. Hume did not approve of our acquaintanceship.”
“Go on, please.”
“I—I—”
“You hear what counsel tells you,” said the judge, looking at him steadily.
“Continue your story.”
“I had heard a great deal of Mr. Hume’s ‘study’ from Miss Hume. I knew that if he entertained Jim anywhere, it would be there. I walked down the passage beside the house—with no motive in mind, I swear, except to get near them. Some way down the passage, on the right-hand side, I found a short flight of steps leading up to a glass-paneled door with a lace curtain over it. The door looks into the little passage outside Mr. Hume’s study. As I looked through the curtain, I saw the butler—who was taking Jim there—knock on the study door.”
The change in the air was as though a draft had begun to blow and scatter papers on counsel’s table.
“What did you do then?”
“I—waited.”
“Waited?”
/> “Outside the door. I did not know quite what to do.”
“How long did you wait?”
“From about ten or twelve minutes past six, until a little later than half-past six, when they broke in.”
“And you,” demanded Sir Walter, pointing, “you, like others, have made no mention of this to anyone until this moment?”
“No. Do you think I wanted them to hang my cousin?”
“That is not a proper reply,” snapped the judge.
“I beg your Lordship’s pardon. I—put it that I was afraid of the interpretation which would be placed on it.”
Sir Walter lowered his head a moment. “What did you see while you were outside the glass-paneled door?”
“I saw Dyer come out about fifteen minutes past six. I saw Miss Jordan come down about half-past six, and knock at the door. I saw Dyer return then, and heard her call out to Dyer that they were fighting. And the rest of—”
“One moment. Between six-fifteen, when Dyer left the study, and six-thirty, when Miss Jordan came downstairs, did you see anyone approach the study door?”
“I did not.”
“You had a good view of it?”
“Yes, the little passage has no light; but there was a light in the main hall.”
“From where you were standing outside that door—hand the witness up a plan—could you see the windows of the room?”
“Yes. They were immediately to my left, as you can see.”
“Did anyone approach those windows at any time?”
“No.”
“Could anyone have approached those windows without your knowledge?”
“No. I am sorry. I suppose I incur penalties for not telling this—”
I make a pause here, for there was a similar kind of blankness in the room. We have heard much of last-minute witnesses for the defense. This one, though called for the defense, was a last-minute witness for the prosecution who put the rope firmly round the prisoner’s neck. James Answell’s face was a color it had not been at any time during the trial; and he was staring at his cousin in a vague and puzzled way.
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