The Heart of a Woman
Page 25
CHAPTER XXV
THE FOG WAS DENSE, I COULDN'T RIGHTLY SEE
The curtain went up on the first act of the play. It was not perhapsso interesting from the outset as the audience would have wished, andthe fashionable portion thereof showed its impatience by sundrycoughings and whisperings, which had to be peremptorily checked nowand again by a loud:
"Silence, there!" and a threat to clear the court.
The medical officer was giving his testimony at great length as to thecause of death. Technical terms were used in plenty, and puzzled theelegant ladies who had come here to be amused. The jury listenedattentively, and the coroner--himself a medical man--asked severalvery pertinent questions:
"The thrust," he asked of Doctor Blair, who was medical officer of thedistrict, "through the neck was effected by means of a long narrowinstrument, with two sharp edges, a dagger in fact?"
"A dagger or a stiletto or a skewer," replied the doctor. "Any sharp,two-edged instrument would cause a wound like the one in the neck ofthe deceased."
"Was death instantaneous?"
"Almost so."
He explained at some length the intricacies of the human throat atthe points where the murderer's weapon had entered the neck of hisvictim. Louisa listened attentively. Every moment she expected to seethe coroner's hand wandering to the piece of green baize in front ofhim, and then drawing it away disclosing a snake-wood stick withsilver ferrule stained, and showing the rise of the dagger, sheathedwithin the body of the stick. Every moment she expected to hear thequery:
"Is this the instrument which dealt the blow?"
But this apparently was not to be just yet. The opaque veil of greenbaize was not to be lifted; that certain long Something was not to berevealed, the Something that would condemn Luke irrevocably,absolutely, to disgrace and to death.
Only one of the members of the jury--Louisa understood that he was theforeman--asked a simple question:
"Would," he said, "the witness explain whether in his opinion the--theunknown murderer--the--I mean----"
He floundered a little in the phrase, having realized that in hisofficial capacity he must keep an open mind--and in that open mind ofan English juryman there could for the present dwell no certainty thata murderer--an unknown murderer--did exist.
They were all here--he and the others and the coroner--in order tofind out if there had been a murder committed or not.
The coroner, one elbow on the table, one large hand holding firmly thesomewhat fleshy chin, looked at the juryman somewhat contemptuously.
"You mean?" he queried with an obvious effort at patience.
"I mean," resumed the man more firmly, "in this present instance,would a certain medical or anatomical knowledge be necessary in orderto strike--er--or to thrust--so precisely--just on the right spot tocause immediate death?"
With amiable condescension the coroner put the query to the witness inmore concise words.
"No, no," replied the doctor quickly, now that he had understood thequestion, "the thrust argues no special anatomical knowledge. Mostlaymen would know that if you pierce the throat from ear to earsuffocation is bound to ensue. It was easily enough done."
"When the deceased's head was turned away?" asked the coroner.
"Why, yes--to look out on the fog, perhaps; or at a passer-by. Itwould be fairly easy if the would-be murderer was quick and determinedand the victim unsuspecting."
And Doctor Blair, with long tapering fingers, pointed toward his ownthroat, giving illustration of how easily the deed might be done.
"Given the requisite weapon of course."
After a few more courteous questions of a technical kind, the firstwitness was dismissed--only momentarily, for he would be requiredagain--when the green baize would be lifted from the hidden Somethingwhich lay there ready to hand, and the medical man be asked topronounce finally whether indeed the dagger stick was the requisiteweapon for the deed which had been so easy of accomplishment.
The chauffeur who had driven the taxicab was the next witness called.A thick-set man, in dark blue Melton coat and peaked cap, he cameforward with that swinging gait which betrayed the ex-coachman.
He gave his evidence well and to the point. He had been hailed on thenight in question by two gentlemen in evening dress. It was inShaftesbury Avenue, just opposite the Lyric Theatre, and a littlewhile after he had heard St. Martin's Church clock strike nineo'clock. "The fog was so dense," he added, "you could not see yourhand before your eyes."
He had just put down at the Apollo and had crossed over to the left,going down toward Piccadilly, when the two swells hailed him from thecurb. He couldn't rightly see them, because of the fog, but he noticedthat both wore high hats and the collars of their overcoats wareturned up to their ears. He hardly saw their faces, but he noticedthat one of them carried a walking stick.
"Or it might 'ave been a umbrella," he added after a moment'shesitation, "I couldn't rightly say."
"You must have seen the faces of your fares," argued the coroner, "ifyou saw that one of them carried a walking stick--or an umbrella. Youmust have seen something of their faces," he reiterated moreemphatically.
"I didn't," retorted the man gruffly. "Was you out in that there fog,sir? If you was, you'd know 'ow you couldn't see your 'and before youreyes. I saw the point of the stick--or the umbrella, I couldn'trightly say which--only because one of them gents waved it at me when'e was 'ailing me--that's 'ow I seed the point."
The coroner allowed the question of identification to drop: clearlynothing would be got out of the man. The gentlemen, he declared,entered the cab, and then one of them gave directions to him, puttinghis head out of the right hand window.
"I didn't turn to look at 'im," he said bluntly. "I could 'ear 'isvoice plain enough--so why should I take a look at 'im? 'Ow did I knowthere was a goin' to be murder done in my cab, and me wanted to saywhat the murderer looked like?"
He looked round the room defiantly, as if expecting applause for thisdisplay of sound common-sense, opposed to the coroner's tiresomeofficialism.
"And what directions," asked the latter, "did the gentleman give you?"
"To go along Piccadilly," replied the witness, "till 'e told me tostop."
"And when did he tell you to stop?"
"By the railings of Green Park, just by 'Yde Park Corner. One of 'emputs 'is 'ead out of the window and calls to me to pull up."
"Which you did?"
"Which I did, and one of 'em gets out and standin' on the curb 'eleans back to the interior of the cab and says: S'long--see youto-morrow,' and then 'e says to me: 'No. 1 Cromwell Road,' anddisappears in the fog."
"Surely you saw him then?"
"No. The fog was like pea soup there, though it looked clearer onKnightsbridge away. And 'e got out left side of course. I was up on mybox right 'and side--a long way from 'im. I could see a man standin'there, but not 'is face. 'Is 'at was pulled down right over 'is eyes,and 'is coat collar up to 'is ears."
"Had he his stick--or umbrella--with him then?"
"Yes. With 'is 'ands in 'is pockets, and the tip pointing upward, likea soldier's bayonet."
"You saw that and not his face?" once more insisted the coroner,making a final effort to draw some more definite statement out of theman. It would help justice so much if only this witness were lessobstinate! No one would believe that he really saw nothing of the faceof the man who had twice spoken to him. He may not have seen itclearly, not the upper part of the face perhaps, but surely he saw themouth that had actually framed the words!
But the chauffeur was obstinate. He was not going to swear away thelife of a man whom he had not rightly seen, only through a fog asthick as pea soup: this was the fortress behind which after awhile heentrenched himself.
In vain did the coroner, pleased at having gained this slightadvantage, try to draw him further, explaining to him with the quietpatience of a man moved by official ambition that, far fromjeopardizing the life of any man, he might be saving that of aninnocent one,
falsely accused through circumstantial evidence. In vaindid he press and argue, the man was obstinate. After a very long whileonly, and when the coroner had almost given up arguing andcross-examining, he admitted that he did think that the gentleman whodirected him to No. 1 Cromwell Road had a moustache.
"But, mind," he added hurriedly, "I won't swear to it, for I didn'trightly see--the fog was that dense in the park. And 'e wasn't thesame as the one 'oo told me to go along Piccadilly until 'e stoppedme. The dead man done that."
"How do you know," came as a quick retort from the coroner, "since youdeclare you could not see the faces?"
"The first gent 'oo spoke to me," replied the chauffeur somewhatsullenly now, "'ad no 'air on 'is face; the second one I think'ad--but I can't rightly say. I wouldn't swear to neither. And I won'tswear," he reiterated with gruff emphasis.
A sigh went round the room, a tremor of excitement, the palpitation ofmany hearts, and in-drawing of many breaths. No one spoke. No oneframed the thought that was uppermost in the mind of every one of theinterested spectators of this strange and un-understandable drama. Thedead man who lay in the mortuary chamber was clean-shaved, but Luke deMountford wore a moustache.
Lady Ducies' feathers nodded in the direction of the literary countesswho went by the name of Maria Annunziata and the latter made hastynotes in her diminutive book.
But Louisa leaned slightly forward so as to catch fuller sight ofLuke, and she encountered his eyes fixed steadily upon her.
After that the driver of the cab concluded his evidence more rapidly.There was little more there than what every one had already learnedfrom the newspapers. The second pulling up in Cromwell Road this time:the silent fare, the descent from the box, the discovery of thehuddled figure in the far corner of the cab, the call for the police.
People listened with less attention; thoughts were busy with thecontemplation of a picture: two men, one clean-shaved--the dead man ofcourse--and the other wearing a moustache. The first link in the chainof evidence against the assassin had been forged and was ready to berivetted to the next.
The crowd in the body of the court could only obtain a view of thetop of Luke de Mountford's head. It was smooth and fair, of thatEnglish fairness of tint which is golden when the light catches it.And the group of elegantly dressed women who came here to-day in orderto experience an altogether novel sensation shuddered with delightfulexcitement as they thought of Black Maria, and handcuffs, and crowdsof police officers in blue. A jumble of impressions ran riot infrivolous and irresponsible minds, foremost amongst which was one thatthe public was not longer allowed to witness a final scene on thegallows.