Bull was asked whether his name was Henry Thomas Bull, agreed that it was and then Bingley read out the charge. Bull pleaded Not Guilty and then the prosecuting solicitor told the story and I was called from the public gallery to bear witness to the discovery of Carbridge’s body. I took the oath, agreed to my name and to the date on which the party had been held.
‘What were you doing when you discovered the body?’
‘I was going along to have a cigarette.’
‘Were you acquainted with the layout of the premises?’
‘No, I had never been there before.’
‘What made you go down an unlighted passage?’
‘Just chance, I suppose. I was looking for a way out to the open air.’
‘And in the passage you stumbled over the body?’
‘Yes.’
‘What did you do then?’
‘I struck a match and saw that it was Carbridge.’
‘I will take you back to the previous answer. You say you were not familiar with the premises?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Yet you chose to go blundering down a totally unlighted passage?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why? You might have encountered any number of obstacles. You could see nothing in the darkness, could you?’
‘No, or I should not have stumbled over the body.’
‘Quite so. So why did you choose to go down the passage?’
I had done what I could to keep Bull’s name out of my answers, but it was clear that the solicitor knew the truth and was determined to get it out of me. I capitulated, for my own sake. I did not see the fun of being charged as Bull’s accessory through being obstructive.
‘As a matter of fact,’ I said, ‘I was following directions given me.’
‘By whom?’
‘By Bull. I ought to say that he gave them with the kindest intentions. He thought I wanted to be directed to the men’s cloakroom, which I now know is at the end of the passage.’
That was about the lot, so far as I was concerned. There were questions about how long and how well I had known Carbridge and also about the drinks we had had at the party, but over all this I had nothing to hide. The next witness was the policeman who had first been called to look at the body. According to custom, he was not questioned, but, having taken the oath, he gave a straightforward factual account of his actions, and the defending solicitor was asked whether he had any questions to put to the officer.
There were none, and the medical evidence came next. Here there was a surprise in store for all of us. Having agreed that the deceased had died of a stab wound delivered from the back, the pathologist went on to provide forensic chapter and verse. There was no doubt that Carbridge had been stabbed in the heart, after there had been a very determined attempt to strangle him. When the defending solicitor took over, his first question was: ‘Did anything about the nature of the wound surprise you?’
‘Nothing about the nature of the wound itself, but I was surprised, when I made a more detailed study of the body after it had been removed by ambulance, to discover that the weapon actually found in the wound was not, in my opinion, the weapon which had been employed to complete the murder.’
From my seat on the public benches I saw Detective-Inspector Bingley suddenly stiffen and half rise. The chairman of the bench noticed this, too, and so did the solicitor. Everybody could understand the importance of this statement: if a second weapon had been inserted in place of the murder weapon, the death need not have occurred either in the passage or, indeed, even at the hall of residence, although that it had taken place elsewhere seemed unlikely. The danger of transporting a dead man through the streets of London by daylight was incalculable and would only have been attempted by a madman.
The defending solicitor then asked the pathologist whether, for the benefit of their worships, he could produce any evidence to support his statement.
‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘I called in my colleague, Professor Antonio Corelli, the eminent pathologist who is now attached to St Hubert’s Hospital.’
‘Is the professor in court?’
‘Yes, he is.’ So Professor Antonio Corelli was called and, in such precise English that anybody would have known that he was a foreigner, backed up the statement that the murder weapon was not the weapon which had been left sticking in between the shoulders of the corpse.
‘Can you suggest what the nature of the murder weapon was?’
‘Except that it had a broader blade than the weapon which the murderer had then driven into the wound, no, I cannot. I could hazard a guess, but it might be misleading, so I shall say nothing of such speculations. What I will say is —’ He went on to give all the pathological details. As he produced chapter and verse, less and less could I see Bull going for trial. The weapon in the wound had been a small kitchen knife and marks on the end of the handle indicated that the point of the knife had been inserted in the slightly torn edges of the original aperture and then the end of the handle had been struck a shrewd blow with a hammer or other implement to drive it well into the wound. The pathologist could even add a little more. The original weapon had been double-edged. The kitchen knife was sharp only along one edge. The cook at the hall of residence was called. She testified that her tally of kitchen cutlery was complete. She added that Bull lived on the premises and had access to the kitchen, ‘as he takes his elevenses and his meals with us, nor a milder-mannered man, no matter what his previous occupation might have been, and him proud of it and anyway somebody got to do them things and a big mistake ever to have done away —’
‘Yes, yes, thank you, Mrs Geard. You may step down now.’ She was followed by the two students, Freddie and Coral, who had used the kitchen to prepare the food for the party, but they had nothing useful to tell the court. They had been in and out of the kitchen a good many times, had passed the entrance to the passage but had not been along it and had no idea that the electric lightbulb had disappeared.
The magistrates retired. When they came back, the chairman said, ‘In view of what we have heard, and taking all the circumstances into account, we find that there is insufficient evidence on which to commit this man for trial.’
‘Well!’ said Bull explosively. ‘I could have told you that without all this gas and gaiters and holding of me in custody like a common criminal. I been a man of the law meself in my time, I’d have you to know, and —’
‘Be quiet, man!’ said the chairman of the bench, ‘and think yourself lucky. I am warning you that this is a reprieve, not an acquittal. There is nothing to prevent your being rearrested at a later date, if the police produce fresh evidence against you.’
10: The Disperser of Dreams
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Once the magistrates had refused, on the evidence (if one can call it that) given at the hearing, to commit Bull for trial, the heat, of course, was on the rest of us again.
So far as Bingley was concerned, I think that, for a time at least, Bull remained the chief suspect, but I am sure I came next on the list. It still seems to me illogical that this should be so. All I had done, so far as he was aware, was that I had found the body and reported the fact. It was not as though he knew anything about what had happened at Crianlarich or the strange business of the body in the ruins on Rannoch Moor.
Todd was also being pestered. Hera rang me up when I got back from the office one evening to tell me that Todd had turned up at her flat and wanted to have a talk with me.
‘Then why didn’t he come here instead of going to your place?’ I asked.