Gillespie and I (47 page)

‘Not to worry, Miss Baxter,' the advocate reassured me. ‘Our character witnesses will, of course, demonstrate that you are a kind, generous and caring person. There'll be no surprises from the prosecution, since Mr Caskie here has been good enough to make sure that all their witnesses have been “precognosed”—which, as you'll know by now, simply means “interviewed” in fancy lawyer's parlance.'

‘Parlance that has stood the test of time, for centuries,' said Caskie, quietly, with a glance at his old Geneva watch.

MacDonald looked at him for a moment, and then asked: ‘Do you think, sir, that we need concern ourselves about these anonymous letters in the paper?'

Caskie made a sour face. ‘They won't be mentioned at the trial, of course, but there's no question that they'll be in the minds of the jury.'

This response gave me little comfort. After the first letter from ‘Yours Truly' had appeared in
The North British Daily Mail
, two further pieces of correspondence had been published in the same journal. Although the author continued to remain anonymous, he clearly wished to mislead the police and public into thinking that he was, in fact, none other than Ned's brother, and that he possessed information that might throw light upon our case. A detective had been despatched to Italy in order to locate him, and persuade him to return and testify. However, after several weeks in Venice and its environs, the detective returned to Scotland, unaccompanied. Kenneth could not be found, and since, as a matter of law, the trial had to be concluded by a certain date, the Crown was obliged to prosecute the case without him.

A third letter had been published in the last week of February. It reiterated the vague allegations of the other correspondence. Alas, the whole episode had done naught but cast a vague shadow over my character.

‘And the Gillespie girl, sir?' MacDonald asked Caskie. ‘I'm keen to know your opinion—do you think they'll put her on the stand?'

He meant poor Sibyl, of course, whose name had also appeared on the list of witnesses for the prosecution. It seemed that Ned and Annie had somehow managed to keep the child at home since December and, since she was no longer officially a patient at the asylum, and therefore not classified as being mentally incompetent, she could be called upon to testify. Normally, she would have been a key witness, given that she had been present in the gardens only moments before her sister disappeared, and had (as seemed likely) spoken to the kidnapper's female accomplice. However, I was given to understand that her behaviour was still unpredictable, and thus she would be called upon to give evidence only as a last resort. Naturally, my fear was for her well-being, in that taking the stand might prove too much for her.

‘They might call her,' said Caskie, in response to MacDonald. ‘That's exactly the kind of dramatic japes to expect from Aitchison. It's a worry, right enough, as she's volatile. But my real concern, as you're aware, sir, is Belle's sister.'

We had known for some time that Christina Smith had been telling the Procurator Fiscal all sorts of ‘baloney', as our colonial cousins would now put it, primarily—and crucially, for the prosecution—that she had set up a meeting between myself and the kidnappers.

‘Aitchison's case hinges, more or less, on that one statement from her,' said MacDonald. ‘That's his masterstroke. And our best hope is to counter her allegations by demonstrating that she's not to be trusted. We know she was dismissed by the Gillespies. And one of the downstairs neighbours is more than happy to confirm that she saw Christina emerging, several times, from public houses in Woodside, while the girl was meant to be taking her turn at the wash-house.' He smiled at me, reassuringly. ‘The jury won't approve of that, Miss Baxter, and we can call the girl's character into doubt.'

‘Or so we hope,' added Caskie.

Christina Smith's allegation that she had introduced me to her sister and that German was absurd—which you may also have concluded, if you are familiar with Mr Kemp's scribblings on the subject. Of course, very little of his recent essay is true: for one thing, I hardly knew Christina. We were, by no means, friendly, and I was certainly not as intimate with her as Kemp would like to imply. I suppose that Miss Smith must now be in her seventies—younger than myself, though still advanced in years—and I can only imagine that the poor dear has lost her mind in her dotage: there can be no other explanation for the balderdash that she appears to have confided in Kemp when he visited her last summer, in Liverpool (where, it seems, she has resided for many years). At any rate, Mr Kemp ought to be ashamed of himself: bothering a doting old woman, and setting down her addled ramblings in a book, as though they were facts.

Early on Thursday morning, I was taken from my Calton-hill cell to a courtyard at the back of the gaol. There stood yet another coffin on wheels (although, this being Edinburgh, the vehicle was more highly polished, with fancier gilt-painted insignia). I was locked inside with Mrs Fee, and two policemen stood guard on the back step during our bone-shaking journey across North Bridge and up the High Street.

Such was the notoriety of our case that a huge crowd was expected in Parliament Square, where the public doors would open early, at nine o'clock. I learned later that upward of two thousand persons had thronged the plaza in front of the Court that day. The hordes had already begun to gather as early as eight o'clock and, on the approach to the High Court, the wagon reverberated like thunder. At one stage, some mad fool even leapt from a vantage point onto the roof of the van. There was a thud overhead, and then a leering face appeared in one skylight, whilst a meaty hand came groping in at the other, pulled off my hat, and grabbed at my hair. I gave a shriek, and even the impassive Fee looked startled for a second, before she jumped up and began to batter the intruder's arm with her umbrella, and then the policemen dragged him off the roof. The horses trotted on without delay until, presently, the noise of the crowd abated, the wagon jerked to a halt, the doors flew open, and Fee and I dashed into the building, through a side entrance.

Inside the Parliament House, another policeman led us to a staircase, whereupon we descended one stone step after another, going deeper and deeper into the vaults and cellars of the building. Eventually, we arrived at a strong-door with a wicket-gate and passed through, into the semi-subterranean police offices. There, I was taken into a dark, low-ceilinged room, where we were to wait, under the watchful eye of a corpulent policeman, PC Neill.

The room had a fireplace, but no window, and candles, but no gaseliers. When the door was pulled shut, the atmosphere grew stuffy in an instant. Despite my pre-trial nerves, I soon found myself growing drowsy. One could not help but imagine that the air had been trapped in that cell for centuries, and breathed, ten thousand times over, by scrofulous felons.

Mrs Fee sat, rubbing her raw pink thumbs together. Since our first encounter in Duke Street, she and I had established a tolerable relationship. I had seen a different side to her on the day that the indictment had been served upon me, back in early February. In fact, it was Fee herself who had handed it to me, in the cell. The sight of my name written down, along with those of Schlutterhose and his wife, made me realise, of a sudden, that I was now well and truly lumped together with these two miscreants, and presumed, by the Crown, to be no better than them. It was most distressing, and I am afraid to say that the moment got the better of me. Fee was extremely kind that day, although she had since made it clear that she did not intend to befriend me. That morning, as we sat in the Parliament House cell, waiting for the trial to begin, I was surprised to notice a tear on her cheek, as she pressed a bottle of smelling salts into my hands, and said, briskly: ‘You might need that.'

As for PC Neill, he barely glanced in my direction. Once, when I did manage to catch his eye, he turned away, the trace of a frown between his brows, his chinstrap biting into the soft flesh of his jaw.

A long interval passed, during which I could hear, but not see, a great deal of bustling to and fro in the offices beyond the door. Presumably, the kidnappers were amongst the arrivals, and I wondered whether they too would be ushered into this same small room. I supposed that there were other chambers in the building, where potential witnesses were being kept in seclusion. Perhaps, at that very moment, the Gillespies, and all the others, were waiting in one such room. Sadly, my stepfather had been unable to return to Scotland for the trial. Poor health meant that he was forced to remain in Switzerland for the foreseeable future: two physicians from different clinics had written to the lawyers, confirming that Mr Dalrymple was suffering from Addison's anaemia, and should not attempt to make the journey home, under any circumstances.

Of course, I should have dearly liked Ramsay to be able to speak in my defence, which we would have asked him to do, had he been able to return. And it might have been comforting simply to have the support of a patriarchal presence. But one must be philosophical. I told myself that one could not always have everything that one wanted. Indeed, that was something that Ramsay himself had drummed into me when I was small: ‘Compromise, Harriet,' he used to caution me. ‘Compromise.' And then, his other favourite saying, which was always the precursor to some form of punishment: ‘Sanctions will be brought to bear.'

At any rate, the musings of my weary mind were cut short when a key turned in the lock and the cell door swung open. My breath caught in my throat. Some person outside must have signalled to PC Neill, for he nodded, and turned to me.

‘This way, ma'am,' he said, indicating the open door.

For a second, I wondered whether my legs would support me, and I had to lean on the table in order to rise to my feet. Mrs Fee waited for me to pass ahead of her into the hallway, where a few constables stood in sober-faced attendance. PC Neill led us along a dim-lit passage, with Fee and another policeman bringing up the rear. We walked quickly, and in no time at all reached the foot of a narrow, enclosed staircase, with steep, shallow steps, whitewashed walls, and an open trapdoor at the top. From beyond the hatch came the sounds of a large assembly of people packed into a cavernous room: coughing, shuffling of feet, and the cacophony of many excited voices echoed beneath a lofty ceiling. Desperate, illogical thoughts came to me: if only I were a soprano, in the wings, about to take the stage at the end of the Overture; if only I were in the Corps de Ballet. Expecting that we would pause, and wait, at the end of the passage, I hesitated, but PC Neill pressed on at the same pace, already mounting the worn, wooden steps. Simultaneously, the turnkey put her hand in the small of my back, and thrust me upwards, towards the light and the clamour. I am no claustrophobe, but I felt trapped in that white stairwell, with Fee shoving me from the rear and Neill's boots and broad serge posterior in my face. I was unable to see past him until, all at once, he stepped aside and I emerged, blinking, from the hatch. A cold draught of air hit me in the face, along with the shocking realisation that I had ascended directly into the well of the court, like a pantomime genie.

At once, a hush fell upon the room, and a sea of inquisitive faces stared at me from all sides, and from the galleries above. I felt my knees go weak. In my panic, my vision blurred. I would, perhaps, have turned back, but with Fee barging out behind me, there was nothing for it but to be guided onto a surprisingly short and narrow platform, where Belle and Schlutterhose were already seated. Unfortunately, we had to share the same bench. To avoid the stares of spectators, I kept my head down, at first, but after a few minutes, I was able to glance at my surroundings.

Directly in front of me, and to the right, was a surprising number of advocates, all dressed in black robes. Like a parliament of rooks, they chattered to each other, in the nest of the court. The three separate groups of legal representatives were present, along with their various associates. To avoid confusion, I will not bother to itemise the names and titles of all the advocates and agents and so forth involved in the case (a list of which can be found in the
Notable British Trials
series); but allow me to simplify matters by saying that amongst these legal gentleman was the notorious prosecutor, the Advocate Depute, Mr James Aitchison: a sleek, auburn-haired figure, with piercing green eyes and surprisingly feminine hands; Mr Charles Pringle: a gentle-faced, grey-haired man, the court-appointed Poor's Roll advocate, who would defend Schlutterhose and Belle; and, appearing on my behalf, Mr Muirhead MacDonald.

For the moment, I was unable to catch MacDonald's eye, as his attention was fixed on a table at the side of the court, upon which were laid out the ‘productions', or evidence. Amongst these items were a flour sack, two hefty ledgers, various scraps of paperwork, a flat stone, and a bloodstained jacket. Beside this lay a little pair of boots and a mother-of-pearl pendant and, with a pang of my heart, I recognised these last exhibits as having belonged to Rose Gillespie. I had touched that very necklace with my own hands, and I had fastened those boots many a time. How pathetic and small her belongings looked, lying there, on the table. My vision began to mist over but then, abruptly, the Macer cried: ‘Court rise!', and everyone scrambled to their feet, including myself. The hubbub of voices ceased, as all eyes turned towards the raised platform behind the well of the court, where the judge, Lord Kinbervie, had just entered the chamber. His Lordship made an impressive figure, resplendent in his white and scarlet robes. With a nod to the assembled advocates, he took his place at the bench. His gaze flitted along the dock and paused, momentarily, on my face, but I was unable to glean anything from his expression.

As the initial formalities got underway, I took the opportunity to scan the public gallery for familiar faces. With a twinge of exasperation, I recognised Mungo Findlay, the caricaturist. He was seated in the third row, sketchbook in hand, and when I caught his eye, he saluted me, with a grin. Most other persons of my acquaintance might be called as witnesses, and were therefore forbidden to observe the proceedings until they had testified, but I knew that Mabel might be in attendance, because her name had not appeared on the witness list and thus she was free to spectate if she so desired. Here and there, amid the predominantly male crowd, I could see a few dozen ladies, but there was no sign of Mabel anywhere. Perhaps she had elected to remain with the rest of the family, in the waiting room; no doubt, she would have wanted to keep her brother company. During their empanelment, I chanced a few glances at the jury: fifteen good men of Edinburgh and true. My fate lay in their hands. Amongst their number were a coal merchant and a farmer, a commercial traveller, and a grocer, a fishmonger, a clerk, a saddler, a missionary, and a brewer. The remainder were assorted craftsmen, and all were got up in their Sunday best. I wondered how sympathetic these good gentlemen would be to a comparatively affluent female—and a Sassenach at that.