The Second Shot (22 page)

‘3:46 p.m. Mr Hillyard notes the time.

‘Do you agree to those times?’

I saw at once that I had to deal with a tricky mind, and it was necessary more than ever to keep my head. Under the pretext of asking me to agree to a timetable merely, I was being asked to agree also to a number of quite damaging insinuations. And in any case the timetable was grossly inadequate. As it happened, Sheringham had also insisted on a timetable the previous evening, and John and I had compiled one between us which was as accurate as we could make it, so that I had the points more or less at my fingers’ ends.

All this passed in a series of rapid thoughts through my mind, so that there was no pause before I answered coolly: ‘Certainly not. It contains several inaccuracies.’

‘And yet I understand that it is based chiefly on your own statements?’

‘Some of the intervals are as I estimated them. Others are quite different.’

‘Perhaps you would indicate where you disagree?’

‘Certainly. Might I see the document?’

‘With pleasure.’

I took it and glanced through it, trying to focus my attention on the details. The main inaccuracy had been quite obvious to me as I heard it read, and I was at once convinced that the timetable had been deliberately cooked to provide it. Instead of the two or three minutes which had actually elapsed between my hearing the second shot and reaching the spot where I had left Mrs Fitzwilliam, no less than seven minutes were now shown. The inference was obvious: that during these seven minutes I, having killed Eric Scott-Davies by firing the second shot, am busily occupied in making the death appear accidental. A pretty trap!

I referred to this error first. ‘I see that the second shot is given as 3:37. It certainly wasn’t so early as that.’

‘Ah! Now what time would you put it at, then?’

‘3:42,’ I replied.

‘Why 3:42?’

‘Because it could not have been more than about three minutes before Mr Hillyard joined me.’

‘During which time you ascended the path through the wood, and went down again?’

‘Exactly.’

‘You’re certain that wouldn’t have taken you longer than three minutes?’

‘Perfectly.’

‘Very well. Do you agree with the other times, as shown?’

‘No, I do not. The first shot was certainly later than two minutes after we made a move towards the house. I should put that at 3:35.I did not go down immediately, and certainly did not reach the bottom before 3:39.’

‘You seem very sure of these times, Mr Pinkerton. Did you by any chance make a note of the time of the two shots?’

I was not to be caught so easily as that. ‘No, I didn’t. But as you say, I quite realized the importance of having the times as accurate as possible, and Mr Hillyard and I, with a friend of mine, were therefore at some pains to make out a timetable last night.’

‘In preparation for this morning?’ asked the man, with what he evidently considered an unpleasant insinuation.

‘Precisely. We thought it might assist the court. I have a copy with me. Perhaps you would like it. From all our recollections the times are very much more accurate than those you mentioned.’ A distinct point, I thought, to me. It gave me confidence.

‘Thank you,’ replied Mr Gifford at once, and took the paper I was offering him. ‘Now I see that, even according to your own account, you spent at least six minutes down at the bottom. I should like you to explain in rather more detail exactly what you did during them. It is not necessary for me to add that, if it was the first shot that killed Mr Scott-Davies, you were all that time within a very few yards of his dead body, and if it was the second shot, you were within a very few yards of him when he actually died. It does not, as I say, need me to point out to you, Mr Pinkerton, the extreme importance of your evidence concerning these six minutes which you spent, as you say, down there alone.’

It was exactly the same dilemma in which the superintendent had already placed me, and in almost the same words. In spite of the thought I had devoted to the point, I could give no more convincing an answer. That is not to say that I did not do my best. ‘I had gone down, as I said, to reassure Mrs Fitzwilliam. I called out several times to whoever might be shooting – a point on which I understand Mrs Fitzwilliam can confirm me.’ I added with a little bow in the direction of the lady herself, who nodded slightly. John had already told me, the previous evening, that he would see that Mrs Fitzwilliam did confirm me on that point.

‘When I was convinced that the firer must have moved on, the second shot being so much farther away, I went back to where we had played our little drama and picked up my cigarette case and matches, which I remembered having left there. I may have dawdled. Probably I did. Then I went up the hill, as I said just now, and down again.’

‘And that is all you can tell us?’

‘Really, I don’t see what more I could possibly tell you. There
is
nothing more to tell you.’

‘No? And yet six minutes is a long time, Mr Pinkerton, when one is doing nothing. You did nothing at all for six minutes, in spite of the fact that a second shot was fired during them quite close to you?’

‘Excuse me, the shot did not sound at all close. It sounded some distance away, upstream.’

And so it went on, with the same constant attempts to trip me up, and the same insinuations slipped in alongside of correctly stated facts, till I was hard put to it to keep a level head. The direction of the two shots, the sound of them, what I had said to Superintendent Hancock and how I reconciled it with what I stated now, so on and so forth,
ad nauseam,
almost literally.

So far it was all familiar ground at any rate, so that I knew the pitfalls in my path and could avoid them. But when it came to new territory I fell, like the veriest blunderer, into the very first trap spread for me.

‘Now, Mr Pinkerton, you were all of course very interested in this little burlesque you were to perform? You were all eagerly inventing details to add to its verisimilitude?’

‘Yes,’ I said. That seemed innocent enough.

‘And did you contribute anything? Oh – I beg your pardon. Yes, I have a note here that you did, the spot of lead on the coat, to represent blood; a very lifelike touch. That was your suggestion?’

How easy to have denied it. But I did not know what was to follow. ‘Yes,’ I agreed, unthinking.

‘Quite so. You suggested putting that conspicuous touch of paint on Mr Scott-Davies’ coat. Now I believe that Mr Scott-Davies frequently took a gun with him (we shall have evidence, I think, on that point later) when he went out for a stroll at Minton Deeps, and elsewhere no doubt in the country. Is that a practice of yours, Mr Pinkerton?’

‘Certainly not.’

‘You seem very emphatic.’

‘I think my objection to taking life is well known among my friends.’

‘I see. Is it because you object to taking wild life that you do not shoot?’

‘Certainly.’

‘But you know how to handle a gun?’

I hesitated for a moment. ‘Well, I know how a gun works, of course.’

‘That was not my question. I asked if you knew how to handle a gun – a rifle, we’ll say.’

‘I never do so.’

‘You give me the impression that you are quite unconversant with firearms. Is that what you wish me to understand?’

It was foolish of me, but the fellow’s sneering tone irritated me. I know now that this was precisely what he was endeavouring to do, and I blame myself for accommodating him. I answered, shortly: ‘You may understand anything you like.’

‘Thank you. I probably shall. I understand, for instance, that’ – he turned a little more towards the jury, so that they should miss nothing of the significance –’ that when at Fernhurst school you were considered a crack shot. That you represented the school, in fact, for three years as a member of the shooting eight at Bisley, and that for two years in succession you won the school Marksman’s Cup. Is that correct?’

‘Perfectly.’ The blow had fallen.
This
was the piece of evidence they had discovered, as I had been dreading all the time. Well, it was deadly enough; and the way that impertinent little solicitor had introduced it made it sound deadlier still. I had not heard the end of that fatal inspiration concerning the red paint.

‘Perhaps you would like to explain to the jury, then, why you wished just now to convey the impression that you were quite unconversant with the use of firearms?’

I looked round the court, at Ethel’s face unbecomingly blotched with anxiety, at Armorel’s dead-white one, at Mrs Fitzwilliam’s strained expression, at Superintendent Hancock studiously regarding his boots, at the little coroner uneasily fidgeting with his pencil, at the stolid faces of the jury already quickening with a suspicion that had penetrated even to their dull minds; and I was surprised to notice how calm I felt. To tell the truth, I had completely given up hope; and that has a wonderfully tranquillizing effect.

‘I wished nothing of the kind,’ I replied coolly. ‘If you yourself gathered such an impression, you were mistaken.’

‘Perhaps you will be good enough to leave me out of it. Would you like to tell them instead, then, why you never mentioned this important fact to any of those responsible for the investigations into Mr Scott-Davies’ death?’

I turned to the coroner. ‘Sir, I must ask you to protect me against this gentleman’s manner of framing his questions. Surely it is most irregular. Why should he assume that the fact was important at all, or that I knew it was? Is he entitled to combine two questions in one like that by taking it for granted that I did
not
mention the fact? I have had to submit to these insinuations contained in questions long enough. I look to you, sir, to prevent their recurrence.’

The little coroner looked extremely uncomfortable. ‘The witness is quite right, Mr Gifford. I must agree with him that your last question was most unfair. You must, you certainly must – h’rrrrrm! – frame them more carefully.’

Mr Gifford eyed me maliciously. ‘Certainly, if the witness is becoming uneasy. We will put it in this way, Mr Pinkerton.’

But there is no need for me to continue. Every possible bad construction was put on my actions, not outright in spite of my protest but still only to be inferred. I answered calmly, but I did not seem to be answering consciously at all. A curious dreamlike fatalism had taken possession of me, in which everything seemed already predestined for the worst, and though I could hear myself from outside, as it were, replying to one damning question after another, it really did not matter in the least what I said as my fate was already settled.

Finally I gave way to this sensation by replying quietly to one of the endless questions as to why I had done this and that, and why I had not done that and the other: ‘For this reason, sir. I knew the police suspected me of having shot Mr Scott-Davies, and in such circumstances it seemed to me folly to volunteer information which could only confirm their view. I think if an unfortunate set of chances ever placed you in a similar position, sir, or any other person in this room, you would act in precisely the same way.’

That, I believe, did take the man aback for a moment. Indeed I have been given to understand that it created what the newspapers the next day described as a ‘sensation’. But I was past caring at the moment.

The fellow of course recovered himself the next instant and managed to take advantage of me. He turned to the coroner and said: ‘In his own interests, I think I had better ask this witness no further questions until he has had proper advice.’

‘I quite agree,’ said the little coroner hastily. ‘Er – thank you, Mr Pinkerton. That will do. You – er – you may stand down’.

I returned to my seat, and the shocked faces of Ethel and John, conscious that every eye was pursuing me and hearing quite audibly the expulsion of pent-up breath which followed me there. From John’s reproachful silence, and Ethel’s gasps, I gathered I had thrown away any chance I might have had of avoiding an adverse verdict, or even arrest. Well, what did it matter?

I relapsed into something approaching a conscious stupor.

Vaguely I was aware of John’s name being called, and of his rising from my side, but I retain only the dimmest impression of his actual evidence. I was, in fact, encouraging the strange torpor which had possessed me. I leaned back into it, so to speak, and let it envelop me; it was a curious but very welcome refuge from the dismal realities which confronted me. I have no doubt it was cowardice, but I think it may be regarded as a not unnatural reaction for my bruised nervous system.

I learned afterwards that John’s evidence produced nothing fresh, nor Ethel’s after him. They were both eager, over-eager perhaps, to say anything possible in my favour, but there was little opportunity. John, for instance, was forced to recount the incident of my immersion by Scott-Davies in the swimming pool, and though Ethel did her best to assure the court that my supposed attraction for Elsa Verity had no foundation beyond a pleasant liking (which cannot have been very nice for the girl, sitting there in full view of everyone, to hear) I gathered later that she felt even her own words to be carrying small conviction.

Dr Samson was next called, and confirmed our impression that the bullet had passed straight through the dead man’s heart. He was not pressed as to the estimated time of death, as the point was not in question. He was followed by Superintendent Hancock.

The superintendent’s evidence did not amount to much, I believe. He was entirely noncommittal, confining himself to facts, such as there were of them. The chief thing which impressed John, as he told us afterwards, was the fairness with which the superintendent allowed the theory of accident. He admitted frankly that, on the facts, there was very little inconsistent with the verdict of accidental death. The path of the bullet was the only thing which seemed to point definitely away from it.

One interesting point came out in this connection. The rifle lying on the ground behind Scott-Davies bore his fingerprints only. This in itself we knew already to be without necessary significance; but what did sound significant was the fact that the position of the prints indicated that Eric had both held the rifle in the usual way by the middle, and had also grasped it by the end of the barrel – in precisely the way he would have done had he really been dragging it after him. Whether this added more meaning to the fact of his prints being there at all, is not for me to say; but the court was undoubtedly interested to hear that the prints on the other gun that had fired the blank cartridge, which it had already been stated in evidence that I had produced from Eric’s limp fingers, were haphazard, and showed no holding position.