I crawled about a bit, and tried to be as cat-like as possible, but got my hands and trousers pretty filthy, and lost my footing once, and slithered quite a long way down the tiles, my foot coming to rest in the guttering. Then I descended, and we charged in to check William’s notebook.
There was not enough difference for him to be able to tick any one of us as being more like Gatty than the others. Burt weighed thirteen stone nine, Gatty a mere ten one, and I went about eleven twelve.
“She couldn’t know it was not her lover trying to find out whether the coast was clear,” I said.
“As long as you’re satisfied,” said Mrs. Bradley. She thanked Burt, and signed to me to take the other two away. I didn’t like the idea of that. If Burt had murdered Cora, as I was beginning to feel sure he had, it certainly was not the game to leave a frail little old woman alone with him while they discussed the thing. So, urging the others on, I waited, out of earshot, it is true, but prepared for Burt if he started anything. He didn’t start anything, of course, and, after about ten minutes’ conversation with him, Mrs. Bradley came away. He waved to us with grim geniality from his gate as we started to descend the hill.
“Any proof?” I asked.
“Proof?” said Mrs. Bradley.
“That Burt killed Cora,” I said.
“Oh, no. Did you expect any? He didn’t kill her, you know,” said Mrs. Bradley.
“Well, he’s fearfully callous about it,” I said.
“Yes. I should be more suspicious, perhaps, if he were more obviously upset,” said Mrs. Bradley, drily. “Wouldn’t you?”
It was a new idea to me. I turned it over in my mind as we descended the hill.
“Did you see the negro servant chopping wood?” asked Mrs. Bradley.
“Yes,” I said. “A fine-looking fellow, isn’t he?”
“Yes,” replied Mrs. Bradley. She said no more until we arrived at the gates of the Manor House. “What is the feeling about coloured people in Saltmarsh, I wonder?” she said. “Don’t go asking questions about it round the village. I don’t want the poor man ill-treated on the assumption that he is the murderer. I must try and find out—” she paused. “You couldn’t get Mr. Coutts to preach a sermon about it, I suppose, could you?” she said. “Then I should have something to work on, and people wouldn’t connect my remarks with the murders.”
Old Coutts, who is always grateful for tips, gladly embodied the point of his Sunday evening remarks. I agree with Mrs. Coutts. You really can’t call his Sunday evening efforts preaching a sermon. I went into the Mornington Arms on the Monday evening, and the bar hummed with discussion. The general conclusion seemed to be that negroes were all right and one could treat them as brother Christians, but—The stumbling block seemed to be the colour bar in marriage. Nobody was in favour of marrying a negro woman, and the idea that their daughters might marry negro husbands caused more foaming at the mouth than the beer which most of the protagonists were imbibing pretty freely. True to my unspoken promise, I asked no questions, but merely carried on the vicar’s arguments as the discussion came my way.
“Well?” said Mrs. Bradley. I told her the general feeling.
“And now what about Cora?” I asked.
“Ah, that’s up a different street,” replied Mrs. Bradley. She was thoughtful for a moment, and then she said suddenly:
“Meg’s funeral was on the Friday, wasn’t it?”
“On the Friday. Yes,” I replied.
“I said he minimised the risk of discovery,” said Mrs. Bradley, as though talking to herself, “but he took a fearful chance between the Tuesday and the Thursday, didn’t he?”
“Did he?” I asked. She cackled.
“Spill the news,” I said. She cackled again.
“I’m wondering how to do it,” she said. “I am not a vindictive woman,” she went on, “and I don’t believe in hanging. Sometimes I wish I did. Sometimes I would give anything to be able to see no more than one single point of view. And sometimes I wish I believed in hell, Noel, my dear.”
She ended all with a screech that the Bottomless Pit could scarcely hope to equal. A most extraordinary woman.
CHAPTER XIII
bats in the jury box
« ^ »
The trial of Robert Candy for the murder of Margaret Tosstick began on October 20th, which happened to be a Tuesday, and ended at mid-day on the following Saturday. I obtained leave from old Coutts to stay in the town until the trial was ended, and promised to write every day and let him know how things were going. It was eleven weeks and a day since the murder of Meg Tosstick, and exactly eleven weeks since the murder of Cora McCanley. As we had expected, Bob was accused of murdering both mother and child, and he pleaded not guilty on both counts. The inquest on the exhumed body of Cora McCanley, which had been held on the day following the exhumation, had resulted in a verdict of murder by person or persons unknown, although a small but rowdy school of thought, not in our own village of Saltmarsh, but in Much and Little Hartley and the purlieus of Lower Bossingbury, were of the strong opinion that poor Bob was the culprit here as well, and had all three murders to his account. Even Mrs. Gatty, now happily restored to normal and the proud president of the new Saltmarsh and District Amateur Dramatic and Operatic Society, told me that once you began thinking over Bob’s ancestry, you didn’t know where you were. There was a lot of truth in it, of course, but fortunately Bob had an alibi for that Tuesday, which even the police now considered must have been the day of Cora McCanley’s death. He had been employed all day at the vicarage getting the garden into some sort of order, for the bishop was expected, I remember, and Mrs. Coutts had a feeling that he would accept an invitation to stay for two or three days. I presume that news of the murder choked him off, for he never came at all. Anyway, that was Bob’s alibi, and it lasted until opening time at the Mornington Arms on that Tuesday evening. After six-thirty the whole of the Mornington Arms’ staff were prepared to swear to Bob, especially as he even shared a bedroom with the other barman, Peachey, who lay awake that night with a poisoned finger, poor fellow.
I had often attended Petty Sessions, of course, but never a big trial.
I was horribly nervous. What if they should find Bob guilty? It would be perfectly beastly to think of his hanging—perfectly beastly. I studied Sir Ferdinand Lestrange. I am a fair lip-reader. I could see him quoting Horace to his junior. You know the bit, I expect. His junior replied with a bit of—well, Terence, I think. Burt would have appreciated it, anyhow.
The jury were a leery-looking lot, and included five women. Just as well, I thought. Women are so much more practical than men. I felt certain that these good ladies would be able to devise a better fate for poor Bob than standing him over a beastly trap door with a noose round his neck.
I wasn’t listening much. I was trying to think what the judge would look like in a black cap… But he wasn’t going to put on the black cap in this case… I began to take in what the counsel for the prosecution was saying. He was a big, florid man, and he had a curiously soft and yet perfectly audible voice, and his words dripped, like honey and venom mixed, into the minds of his hearers. I began to think Bob must have done it. Still, I comforted myself with the thought that when Sir Ferdinand got up, I should be equally certain that Bob had not. I was not deceived, of course. Sir Ferdinand was wonderful. Of course, the whole thing struck me as being a kind of cricket match between counsel, with the judge as keeper of the score and the jury as umpires. And a frightfully confusing business,the umpiring was, I should think. I did not take down the thing in shorthand, but it seemed to me that the great stunt was to confuse the witnesses and get them to contradict themselves. Old Lowry, fat as ever, quite as chinful and even more hairless, was the chief witness for the defence. His evidence, elicited by Sir Ferdinand, was to the effect that no living man would have had time to get up those three dozen bottles of beer, transport them to the jug and bottle department and go upstairs and strangle Meg Tosstick within the time limit sworn to by three independent witnesses (who were produced in due course), Charles Peachey, Mabel Pusey and the saloon barmaid, Susan Gait. A plan of the Mornington Arms, showing the route from the cellar under the garage to the doorway of the jug and bottle department with the distances clearly marked in feet and inches, was passed to the jury. Then the prosecution dealt with Lowry, and tried to force him to declare the minimum of time ever taken