Below Suspicion (4 page)

The Clerk of the Court rose to his cadaverous height below the judge's bench. He faced the dock across the long, crowded solicitors' table in the well of the court.

"Joyce Leslie Ellis, you are charged with the murder of Mildred Hoffman Taylor on the night of February 22nd last. Joyce Leslie Ellis, are you guilty or not guilty?"

Joyce, standing up in the dock between the two matrons, was a surprisingly vivid figure in her 'best' clothes of a brown tailored suit and yellow knitted sweater. But she did not lift her eyes.

"I—I plead not guilty" she answered.

"You may sit down," said the judge, indicating tlie chair behind her.

Mr. Justice Stoneman, whose wig might have been real hair for his wrinkled old face, seemed a small and remote figure under the scarlet robe. The jury, eleven men and one woman, were quickly sworn without a challenge from either side. Mr. Theodore Lowdnes, a short and stout man with a pontifical cough, arose to open the case for the Crown.

"May it please your lordship; members of the jury."

Mr. Lowdnes's opening speech was studiously fair, studiously moderate, as all such speeches must be. But he was knowTi as a bustler, a pusher. For all his quiet-voiced "We shall attempt to show—" and "I suggest—" he drew the picture of a woman, furiously angry and fearful of losing a bequest of five hundred pounds, who had poisoned her benefactor and then had listened without emotion to peals of help from a ringing bell.

Had Mrs. Mildred Taylor screamed out and demanded these salts? Very well! She should have that which she believed to be Nemo's salts —easily obtainable, the prosecution would demonstrate, from an unlocked cabinet in an unlocked stable.

"You will hear," continued Mr. Lowdnes, "that this poison does not act immediately. You may ask yourselves whether Mrs. Taylor, or anybody else in that position, would not have called for help. Yet the prisoner denies that she did. You may ask yourselves why the only fingerprints on the tin were those of the prisoner and of the deceased. You may ask yourselves, indeed, who else could have administered the antimony in a house described by the prisoner herself, in her statement to Divisional Detective-Inspector Wales, as being 'locked up like a fortress.' "

A faint whisper and creak, as though thoughts themselves spoke, trembled in the courtroom.

"This is nasty," muttered one of Butler's fellow-silks in the bench behind. "How's the Irishman going to meet it?"

"Dunno," muttered another. "But there ought to be fireworks before long."

There were. The fireworks began to explode during Mr. Lowdnes's examination of his fourth witness, Mrs. Ahce Griffiths. After the usual preliminary questions:

"Will you tell us, Mrs. Griffiths, where you were about a quarter to four on the afternoon of February 22nd?"

"Yes, sir. You mean when I went into Mrs. Taylor's room to see if the fire was all right?"

Mr. Lowdnes's fat face, twinkling with a pair of pince-nez, was tilted with chin up high.

"I don't want to lead you, Mrs. Griffiths. Just tell your story."

''Well, I did."

"Did what?"

"Went into the room!" said the witness.

The slight tremor of a laugh, especially from the privileged spectators in the seats of the City Lands Corporation behind counsel, hovered near. Mr. Justice Stoneman looked up, very briefly, and even the ghost-tremor died.

Mrs. Griffiths was a determined, thick-bodied httle woman in the middle forties. Though necessarily as shabbily dressed as any woman in the court, she wore a new hat with bright pink flowers. Lines of discontent drew down the comers of her mouth. She was flustered, overawed, and therefore angry.

Mr. Lowdnes regarded her imperturbably.

"Was the deceased alone at this time?"

"Yes, sir."

"What did she say to you?"

"She said Mrs. Renshaw and Dr. Bierce had been there, but they wouldn't stay to tea. She said Dr. Bierce had gone first, and then Mrs. Renshaw. She said she'd 'ad words with Mrs. Renshaw. About religion."

"About . . . Ah, I see. The deceased was a very religious woman, then?"

"Well, she always said she was. But she never went to church."

"What I am getting at is this. Did Mrs. Taylor say anything about the prisoner?"

"Well . . . yes, sir."

"Your reluctance does you credit, Mrs. Griffiths. But please speak up so that we can hear you."

"The madam called Miss Ellis a—a bad name. She said. . . ."

"What was the bad name?" interposed Mr. Justice Stoneman.

Alice Griffiths went as pink in the face as the flowers on her hat.

"She said . . . what means a streetwalker, sir."

" 'What means a streetwalker,' " repeated Mr. Lowdnes in a ruminating tone. "Anything else?"

There was an audible throat-clearing. Patrick Butler, his black gown sweeping round him like the cloak of a Regency duellist, rose to his full height.

"My lord," he said in his rich voice, "I must apologize for interrupting my learned friend. But may I ask whether my learned friend will introduce evidence to show that the prisoner was, in fact, a streetwalker?"

"My lord, I imply no such thing!" exclaimed Mr. Lowdnes. "I merely wish to show that the deceased was in a state of anger!"

"Then may I suggest, my lord, that my learned friend confine himself to literal facts? It might be confusing if I, in a state of anger, should refer to my learned friend as a ba—"

("Wow!" whispered counsel in the bench behind.)

"Your illustration is not necessary, Mr. Butler," interrupted the judge in a steely voice. "At the same time, Mr. Lowdnes, you might make your meaning clear."

"Beg-ludship's-pardon," counsel said grimly. "I shall try to do so."

Then out poured the ugly story of Mrs. Taylor's rage, of the will, of the five-hundred-pound bequest, and of Mrs. Taylor's scream: "I know a young lady who'll get no bequest now, just as soon as I ring my solicitor." Mr. Lowdnes was well satisfied.

"Now, Mrs. Griffiths, we come to the morning of Friday the 23rd. You have stated, I think, that you and your husband—as well as Emma Perkins the cook—occupied rooms over the coach-house?"

"Yes, sir."

"Will you just look at the surveyor's plan, there? Perhaps the jury will wish to consult their plans too. Thank you."

There was a long rustling as plans were unrolled.

"Was it your custom, every morning at eight o'clock, to go from the coach-house to the back door? And there be admitted by the prisoner, who unlocked the door for you?—I think you nodded?"

"Yes, sir."

"And the prisoner unlocked the door for you on the morning of February 23rd? Just as usual?"

"Yes, sir." Then the witness stiffened, and her faded blue eyes opened wide. "Oh! I almost forgot. There was something else—"

"Something else, Mrs. Griffiths?"

"Yes, sir." The pink flowers on the hat bobbed determinedly. "The key wasn't in the lock that morning."

Silence. Mr. Lowdnes blinked at her.

"Will you explain that statement, please?"

"It wasn't in the lock." She told him, simply but insistently. "The

key was a-laying on the floor in the passage, inside the door. And Miss EUis had to pick it up and put it in the lock before she could open the door."

There was a mild sensation. The judge, who had been taking down his notes in longhand and in a notebook as big as a ledger, glanced round at her.

("If Butler," muttered a voice among the whispers, "can prove somebody got into that house with another key. . . .")

"One moment," Mr. Lowdnes said sharply. He was now in the horned position of having to cross-examine his own witness. "This evidence was not mentioned to the police, I believe? Or in the magistrate's court?"

"No, sir, because nobody asked me about it!" returned the vdtness, quite obviously believing every word she said. "I thought about it since."

"Come, Mrs. Griffiths! Was the door closed and locked?"

"Yes, sir."

"Tlien how can you say the prisoner picked up the key from the floor inside? Could you see her?"

"No, sir. Maybe I shouldn't 'a' said that. But I 'card her put the key in the lock—rattling like, and moving forward till it caught hold."

"Yet you saw nothing whatever, I take it. Had you looked through the keyhole?"

For some reason Mrs. Griffiths was outraged. "No, sir, I never did in me life!"

"I put it to you," said Mr. Lowdnes, extending his finger impressively, "that what you heard, or thought you heard, was the ordinary rattle as someone turns a key in a lock?"

"Sir, it was not! Besides," added the witness, "that door was open at some time in the middle of the night. Because Bill—I mean, Mr. Griffiths—and me 'eard it banging till the latch caught and it stayed shut."

This time there was a real sensation.

And the witness's words came as a complete surprise to Patrick Butler himself.

Hitherto he had been pretending to study his brief, with a deaf and detached air. Now he was so startled that he almost betrayed it. That tale of the key being out of the door, so far as he knew, was untrue. With long and patient questioning, with insidious suggestion, he had

conjured it into Mrs. Griffith's mind—or thought he had—until she beheved it herself.

But now Alice Griffiths, an honest woman, blurted out a stor}' of the back door banging in the middle of the night. Somebody couJd have got in. Suppose his fake defence was a real defence? Suppose Joyce was not guilty after all?

He glanced at her in the dock. For the first time Joyce had raised her head, deathly pale, and was staring at Mrs. Griffiths. Then the grey eyes swung round towards Butler, and away again hastily. He was for a moment so off-balance that he did not hear question and answer until his junior, George Wilmot, plucked hastily at his sleeve.

"You tell us, Mrs. Griffiths, that this banging door woke you up in the middle of the night. What time was it?"

"Sir, I don't know! We didn't turn on the light and look at the clock."

"We?"

"My husband and me."

"Can you state an approximate time, Mrs. Griffiths?"

"Well, it might 'a' been about midnight. More or less."

"What made you think that this noise you heard was that of the back door banging?"

"Becos," retorted the witness, "I went to the window and looked out. It was blowing a gale, but there was a dancy kind of moon. I could see the door, sir. It banged again, and then stopped like as if the latch had caught. It's true! You ask Mr. Griffiths!"

The judge's voice, though soft, had the chop of a butcher's cleaver.

"You will confine yourself," he told her, "to answering counsel's questions and refraining from comment until it is asked for."

Mrs. Griffiths, terrified of this awesome little mummy-face with the red robe, attempted a curtsy in the witness-box.

"Yes, me lord. Sorry, me lord."

"At the same time," the judge continued gently. "I want to be quite clear about this. Did you mention this banging door to the police?"

"No sir, me lord."

"Why not?"

"Me lord," blurted the witness, "becos I didn't think it was important. Is it important?"

The very naivete of that question compelled belief. Patrick Butler's soul exulted. For a moment the judge looked steadily at Mrs. Griffiths,

shoulders hunched as though he were about to crawl along the top of the bench. Then he made a slight gesture.

"You may proceed, Mr. Lowdnes."

"Thank you, my lord. Putting aside for the moment this new testimony," said counsel, with a meaning glance at the jury, "you tell us it was the prisoner who unlocked the door and admitted you at eight o'clock? —Very well! Was it the prisoner who told you the tale about the key 'lying inside on the floor?' "

"No, sir!"

"It was not?" Mr. Lowdnes's voice poured with amused skepticism.

"She didn't say nothing. Just went back to her room."

"What did you do?"

"I went downstairs to the kitchen, and lit the fire, and made meself a cup of tea."

"And then?"

"Emma—Mrs. Perkins got there. And she 'ad a cup of tea. And then I got the madam's tea ready, on the silver service, and took it up to her room."

"Describe what happened then."

Framed in the oaken witness-box, with its tall supports holding up a wooden roof, Mrs. GrifEths's sturdy figure appeared to shrink.

"Well, sir, I drew back the curtains. And I was going to put the tray on the table, when I saw Mrs. T. I come over so queer that it's a mercy I didn't drop the tray. She was dead."

After a moment of silence, so that the brief words conjured up their image, Mr. Lowdnes nodded.

"Will you take the bundle of photographs, Mrs. Griffiths, and just look at the first picture in the book?"

One of the yellow-bound booklets, in which official photographs are enclosed, was handed up to the witness. Several members of the jury had also opened theirs.

"Is that how the deceased was lying when you first saw her?"

"That's it, sir. All twisted up in the bedclothes, like as if she was in pain. The dark spot is the rouge on 'er cheek."

"What did you do next?"

"I ran into the back-stairs passage, and called over the banisters to Emma."

"That is Mrs. Perkins, the cook?"

"Yes, sir. I said, 'Emma!' And she said, 'What?' And I said, 'For God's sake come up here; something awful's happened.' "

"Mrs. Perkins did come up from the basement?"

"Yes, sir. We stood on each side of the bed. I was still 'olding the tray. We thought she'd 'ad a stroke."

"You mean, that Mrs. Taylor had suffered a stroke?"

"That's it. And Emma said, 'I'll ring the bell for Miss Ellis; she ought to know.' "

"Now look at photograph number two. You will see the white cord of the bell-push, hanging down beside the deceased, and within easy reach of her hand. Was it in that position when you first saw the deceased?"

"No, sir," the witness answered promptly. "It was hanging down behind the headboard of the bed."

It would not be true to say that Mr. Theodore Lowdnes made a noise like a man hit in the stomach. He was much too dignified. But he was holding his brief in his hands; he dropped the brief on the desk in front of him, and a pink sheet of blotting-paper flew wide.