When they lifted him to his feet and guided him out of the house and down the path and into the doctor’s carriage, the words kept repeating in his mind, ‘You are an unlucky swine, aren’t you?’ And just before he passed out altogether on the doctor’s table he asked himself why she had said that because he had always been lucky. He supposed it was because no two people saw the same things in the same way.
Twenty
The first day of the inquest was over, and they returned to the house, each and every one slightly bemused at the happenings in the court.
On both sides of the river it had been prophesied a foregone conclusion. The newspapers, too, had been of that opinion. When the incident happened it made front page reporting for two days; it was also the main topic of conversation in every inn and hotel: There he was again, that Freddie Musgrave in the news. And here and there it was recalled that it was odd but he had always been mixed up in shady business right from the time he had been a runner not the size of two penn’orth of copper. Then of course he had got in with Maggie Hewitt, and you couldn’t say that Maggie’s business was as straight as a die, now could you? She didn’t just exchange money for those foreigners on the boats, there was underhand stuff slipping backwards and forwards there, if you asked them. There was that business, too, not five minutes ago, of his being brought up in court and just saved from standing trial for pinching jewels from that Mr Gallagher, then murdering him. He had been cleared at the last minute, oh yes, but only up to a point for he had known all along that Maggie Hewitt had done it. Hadn’t he stood and watched her? That was likely why she had sort of befriended him. He had probably blackmailed her in a sort of way because he was always a sharp young ’un.
And so the discussions went on. But what did they think about the day’s do?
And yes, that’s what they were saying in the sitting room, each one of them, What did they think about today’s do?
Freddie was sitting between his mother and Belle on the couch, and John asked, ‘Could a blow to the jaw kill a man as he said? Do you think it could, Freddie?’
‘Well—’ Freddie let out a long sigh before he answered, ‘His jaw was broken and the doctor confirmed a blow to a certain point along there could kill a man.’
‘But he had shot you beforehand, fully intending to kill you.’ Jinny’s voice was loud. ‘You’ve only got one ear, lad; you’ll always only have one ear. Your man pointed that out and said if he had gone just the slightest fraction further you wouldn’t be here now to tell the tale. He meant to kill you, not once but twice. Look what happened to the second bullet. It seems to me daft, it really does.’ Her head wagging now, she looked at John, then towards Nancy who was seated at the opposite side of the fire, then went on, ‘If the blow had killed him it was in self-defence; so why couldn’t they finish the day?’
Freddie put his hand on her knee and patted it slowly as he said, ‘Because it’s a case, Ma, and that’s how justice works, at least so I’m told. My solicitor man said to me, they’ve got to put up a front, and’—he gave a derisive laugh—‘he was what was known as a gentleman and that old gizzard of a woman is rich and influential.’
‘Eeh! I thought I would die when I saw them helping her into the court. She’s like nothing I’ve ever seen before on this earth.’ Jinny now leant forward and looked at Belle. ‘Does she do up like that every day?’
‘Yes, Jinny. Yes, she does, and at night too.’
‘My God! It must take her all her time to put the paint on.’
‘She doesn’t put it on,’ said Belle flatly; ‘her maid does, and washes her, and dresses her, and practically feeds her. But she is quite capable of doing all those things for herself. She toddled into court today, but the last time I saw her she marched out of the bedroom like a soldier.’
They all looked at Belle now. Her face was as it had been once: the scars on her body had faded and so she felt no pain except in her mind; Birkstead was dead and yet he haunted her: whenever she looked at the hearth she saw him lying there, his eyes wide, staring at her, and the intervening weeks since that night had not erased his presence from her mind. She doubted if time ever would.
Like everyone else, she too thought that the verdict at the inquest would be a foregone conclusion. And it must be, it must. So why were they going to allow his grandmama to speak tomorrow? What evidence could she give; she hadn’t been there. And oh, how that woman hated her. When, with Miss Cummings on one side and Mr Grant on the other, they had helped her into the courtroom she had stopped and glared at her. And everyone in that packed place had noticed it.
Freddie squeezed her hand now, saying, ‘Look, let’s forget about it until the morning at least. What about a drink, eh Ma? And not tea, or cocoa, or coffee.’
Pulling herself up from the couch, Jinny said, ‘I hadn’t any of those in mind meself.’
John, now bending forward towards Freddie, asked him, ‘Who was the pockmarked woman you were talking to?’
‘Oh, that was Connie. She used to be one of Gallagher’s servants. I told you about them, you know.’
‘Aye, but you didn’t say that she looked like that. Poor soul.’
Yes, poor soul, but she was a good poor soul. She had said to him, ‘Freddie, if you want me, I’ll get up on that stand and tell them of the things that he did when he was four, that was before the old dame took him away. There was the instance with the cat and the curling tongs. We had to put the cat down.’ And he had answered her, ‘Thanks, Connie. If things get into a tight corner, I don’t see how they can, but you never know with that lot, I’ll be glad to call on you.’ She had patted his arm and said, ‘You’ll be all right, lad. It’s a foregone conclusion.’
That saying, ‘It’s a foregone conclusion’. Everybody was so sure. And he had been, until he had got on that stand today. My God! How that man twisted things. And his voice had been so soft, so kindly, but so insistent in repeating and repeating a simple question: When he was pushed against the wall by the man in question and he had struck out with his fist, what had happened then? Three times he told him what had happened; at least what he thought had happened. He thought that Birkstead had come at him, but then had seemed to fall on him, and they both went down to the floor. And that’s all he remembered for some minutes.
But did he think the man in question had collapsed from the blow he had delivered? Or did he think he was about to attack him again?
He didn’t know, it all happened so quickly.
But did he struggle any more with the man in question when he fell against him?
No, not as far as he could remember. They both fell, as he said, to the floor. And it must have been he himself had passed out for a moment when his arm snapped. And what was more, he had then added somewhat angrily, he was losing a great deal of blood which must have made him feel weak. In consequence, things weren’t clear in his mind.
He had then been reprimanded by the coroner because he had almost bawled at the old girl’s barrister, saying, what was clear in his mind was that the man in question, as he was called, was out to kill him. His first bullet had found its target but hadn’t finished him, so then he had tried again. Could anything be more clear than that?
When he was almost yelling the last words the coroner had cried, ‘You will kindly answer the questions put to you as briefly as possible. You will have time enough later to give a description of your feelings.’
Whose side were these people on? Birkstead had been out to kill him, wasn’t it evident to them all? Why were they keeping on? His solicitor had been against his allowing himself to be questioned, saying that the case against him in the first place was too complicated, being that it was suggesting he had arranged the abduction of his ward, Birkstead’s wife. So it could be suggested the shooting was instigated by the act of the abduction. This, of course, was what had to be decided: whether Birkstead had died from the blow inflicted by the perpetrator of the abduction or by accidentally falling on a spike on the end of a steel fender.
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So what if it was decided that Birkstead had died from the blow he delivered him, and what if they tried to prove that he had a hand in abducting his ward from her husband? Would they exonerate Birkstead for aiming to kill him?
He could give himself no answer because he had lost faith in justice. And, as his solicitor had pointed out, he still had to face a charge of being an accessory to the murder of Gallagher, which might have been understandable in the boy that he was when he witnessed the act, but not in the man that had withheld this knowledge.
John and Nancy had left the room with their mother, and now he turned to Belle and, putting his arm about her, drew her head onto his shoulder, saying, ‘This time tomorrow night it should be all over.’
‘What if it isn’t, Freddie? I wasn’t fearful this morning for the outcome, but now I am.’
‘Well, if it isn’t, it isn’t. That’s all about it. I don’t think they can hang me nor put me away for life. I don’t think they can put me away at all.’ He now looked away from her towards the fire and stopped himself from adding, At least that’s what I thought this morning, but, like you, I’m not so sure now.
‘Freddie. I love you so and I can’t bear the thought of…’
‘Now be quiet. There’s no thoughts to bear on that point, just let’s not think about it. I tell you what, I’ve decided I need a holiday and you certainly do. So, tomorrow night we will sit here and plan where we are going. But of course,’ he lifted her chin up towards him, ‘that is after…the wedding ceremony.’
She drew herself gently from him, but held on to his hand and in a low voice she said, ‘It’s the first time you have mentioned marriage. You have said you loved me, oh many times, but you have never said we would be married.’
‘Well now I’m saying it. I didn’t intend to until after all this business was over and you were really free, and me too. Oh yes, and me too. But now I say, Miss Belle Hewitt, would you like to be Freddie Musgrave’s wife? But mind’—he smiled—‘just if you’d like to be.’
‘Freddie. Oh, Freddie don’t joke about it. I dream about being Freddie Musgrave’s wife. I long to be Freddie Musgrave’s wife. And if I can’t be Freddie Musgrave’s wife I won’t be anyone’s wife again. Oh, no, never again. But, Freddie, you…you won’t be getting the girl that I once was. The girl that just a short while ago used to prance around this house, because I know I will never feel young again. I’m not yet twenty, but youth seems to have left me. I feel old inside myself as if in a matter of weeks I had run the whole gamut of life and it had left me empty except for my love for you. But it’s a different love, I must tell you this, quite a different love. It’s no longer gay, and joyful…’
When the words seemed to stick in her throat he drew her gently into his arms and said, ‘I can promise you one thing and you’ve got to believe me, this feeling will pass. You’ll be young and gay again, I’ll see to it, and respected and looked up to, I promise you that too. Oh yes, you will, don’t shake your head. Once this is over we’ll start a new life, a really new life. Just trust me.’
It was two o’clock the following afternoon when those last words of Freddie’s returned to Belle’s mind and she said to herself, ‘You will be respected and looked up to,’ because now the court was all ears listening to that dreadful old woman evading the barrister’s questions and gabbling on: ‘My grandson had a dreadful time with her. He was so patient. But what will a husband do when another man is flaunted to his face. The night he smacked her was because she deliberately bragged about her affection for the fellow Musgrave. That he smacked her face, yes, he admitted to me, but the flagellation, that is all nonsense. She did that to herself. I ask you, a woman who would allow pictures to be taken of her naked body to expose weals is not a proper person. And if she is capable of doing that she is capable, in the mind of any decent person, of preparing herself for those pictures to be taken. She did this in order to blacken my grandson.’
The barrister was looking downwards, the coroner was looking at his desk, that was until the voice, high-pitched now, almost at a scream, rang through the court and denying the frailty of the stance and looks: ‘She’s killed my beloved boy! He was all I had in the world. She dares to blacken him and say he’s of unsound mind. She’s a whore, a whore, consorting from a child with her supposed guardian.’
The coroner called, ‘Order! Order!’ then motioned to her barrister to get rid of his witness. But the witness was now gripping the front rail of the box and was addressing him pointedly: ‘You have got to jail him for life, for life. That blow killed my darling grandson. You must do this. You see, I knew your father, I dined with him a number of times. I recall him very well because he never waited for his port…’
She was being helped forcibly out, but still she went on, ‘He had it with his meal. Couldn’t wait till after dinner. Very odd. Very odd.’
Freddie’s solicitor, sitting on the bench to his left, leaned across and said, ‘I should imagine it wasn’t only from his paternal side that the mania came, if you ask me.’
Two more people were questioned and both by Freddie’s barrister. The first was a Mr James Fuller. He was asked his relationship with Mrs Birkstead and her grandson. He was Mrs Birkstead’s nephew and thus her grandson’s first cousin once removed.
What did he know of the deceased?
What he knew of the deceased caught the whole attention of the court. He went through his association with him from when, at ten years old, his grandmother took him from the ancestral home to live in The Towers, a house situated on the outskirts of South Shields. Then in later years when it was obvious he was about to have one of his spasms his aunt would call upon him to accompany Birkstead to Havensford, which to his mind was a private asylum. Sometimes he would stay for only a week or two, but other times his stay might go into months.
The barrister now asked him if, to his knowledge, Birkstead was ever certified? And the answer was, No; his grandmother did everything in her power to prevent this. He went on to say that he had for some time now washed his hands of both of them and his aunt had engaged a man of good quality to act as a sort of warder while posing as a friend. They lived together in a small house in the city.
The barrister thanked Mr Fuller; then the next man was called. His name, he said, was Malcolm Villiers.
The barrister now said, ‘You call yourself a doctor. Are you a doctor?’
‘Not in the medical sense of the word. I deal in herbs and natural medicine.’
‘Do you own a house that is run as a private asylum?’
‘I own a house,’ the man said, ‘but it is not run as a private asylum, but for guests suffering from nerves.’
The barrister now asked if he kept a record of the number of times guests visited him to be cured of their nerves; and after hesitating, he said he kept such a record.
Then how many times had Mr Marcel Birkstead been on such visits to his house?
He wasn’t quite sure.
‘Come, come. You were asked to have this information ready. How many times, I repeat, did Mr Birkstead visit you?’
‘Thirty-two.’
‘Thirty-two visits for nerves! Over what period of time?’
‘Eleven years.’
‘And during any one of these periods did you have to restrain him?’
The man stared down at the barrister; then after a moment he replied, ‘Not restrained, just treatment with herbs.’
‘What was the longest period he stayed with you?’
‘Nine months.’
The barrister now turned from the box and, looking at the coroner and then the jury, he repeated, ‘Nine months for treatment with herbs.’ He then turned to the man again and, smiling gently, said, ‘That will be all.’…
Freddie had his eyes now fixed on the coroner. He was summing up and if his last words had been, ‘I sentence you to ten years imprisonment,’ it couldn’t have had a greater effect than when he finished, ‘I am recommending to the jury that there is no case t
o answer here and to return a verdict of death by misadventure. You, Frederick Musgrave, acted entirely in self-defence, therefore you can leave this court without any feeling of guilt.’
He rose, the clerks and the usher rose, the court rose, then the family were around him. But he could make no answer to their relieved greetings, not even to Belle, for he felt he could be violently sick at any moment.
In the hallway he was surrounded by reporters and well-wishers. People he didn’t know wanted to shake his hand: was he not famous? or infamous? whichever way you looked at it. By! With the way things had gone in there, with that old girl’s barrister, he could have been brought up for murder.
His solicitor and barrister managed to extricate him from the crowd and his family and lead him into a small room. And there his solicitor did not congratulate him on the verdict, but reminded him: ‘You know, you’ll be appearing in Newcastle again in three days’ time; and I don’t know if things will run so smoothly then for you, because, let me tell you, there are some disappointed officials in that courtroom. They were hoping this was just the beginning of your case. You were fortunate to get Mr Owen.’
Knowing that his man’s bill would be large enough already, Freddie chipped him: ‘Well, don’t tell me you were one of them,’ at which the barrister put his head back and laughed: ‘It sounded so, didn’t it?’ he said.
Freddie looked at the man, this important man, the man who had the power to sway a case one way or the other and at this moment he looked so ordinary and sounded so ordinary, more so than the solicitor, and his voice and words were reassuring when he said, ‘Don’t worry about the other business. They can’t do anything. I’ve learned of all the ins and outs of the case.’ He laughed again now, saying, ‘By! You’ve had some experiences, haven’t you? Have you ever thought of trying your hand at writing a book?’
The Harrogate Secret (aka The Secret) Page 40
