‘Take your time, Mrs Tooth.’
‘He said: “What a sight you look.”’
‘And then?’
‘I suppose I started crying.’
‘And he?’
‘He told me to shut up. And so I did. I think I did, sir. I tried to. I asked him to let me have some money. He said that I’d had as much money as I was ever going to get out of him – as if I’d ever had anything out of him!’ cried Mrs Tooth, between deep, shuddering sobs.
‘There, there, my dear Mrs Tooth. You must drink your tea and be calm. Everything depends on your being calm. Now.’
‘I said I’d go to his firm. I told him I was ill. I told him I’d go to his firm in the City. Then he hit me, sir.’
‘Where?’
‘In the face – a slap. I started to cry again. He hit me again, and he laughed at me.’
‘He hit you in the face again?’
‘Yes, with his hand.’
‘This is very painful to you, Mrs Tooth, but we must have everything clear. Your hand was wounded. How did you hurt your hand?’
‘All of a sudden … I didn’t want to keep on living. I was so miserable –I was so miserable – I was——’
Sumner Concord waited. In a little while Martha Tooth could speak again.
‘You hurt your hand.’
‘I wanted to kill myself. There was a knife, or something. I picked it up. I meant to stick it in myself. But Sid was quick as lightning.’
There was a ring of pride in her voice, at which Sumner Concord shuddered, although he had heard it before.
‘What happened then?’ he asked.
‘He hit me again and knocked me over.’
‘You fell?’
‘Against the bed, sir. Then Sid hit me some more and told me to get out. He said: “I hate the sight of you, get out of my sight,” he said.’
‘Above all, be calm, Mrs Tooth. What happened after that?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘After he hit you the last time – think.’
‘I don’t know, sir.’
‘You got up?’
‘I can’t remember.’
‘You can’t remember. Do you remember going out of the room?’
‘I sort of remember going out of the room.’
‘You got back to your home?’
‘Yes.’
‘You remember that?’
‘Yes, sir. I know, because I washed my face in cold water, and moved quietly so as not to wake the children up.’
‘That, of course, was quite reasonable. That would account for the blood in the water in the wash-bowl.’
‘I dare say.’
‘Your throat was bruised, Mrs. Tooth. Did your husband try to strangle you?’
‘He got hold of me to keep me quiet, I should think, sir.’
‘Before you picked up this knife, or whatever it was? Or after?’
‘I couldn’t say. I don’t know. I don’t care.’
‘I suggest that you picked up this sharp instrument, knife, scissors, or whatever it may have been, after your husband took you by the throat.’
‘Very likely,’ said Martha Tooth, drearily, ‘I don’t know. I don’t care.’
‘You must pull yourself together, Mrs Tooth. How can I help you if you will not help yourself? You picked up this knife, or pair of scissors, after your husband began to strangle you with his hands. Is that so?’
‘I should think so.’
‘He was an extremely powerful man, I think?’
‘My Sid? Sid was as strong as a bull, sir.’
‘Yes. Now can you give me a list of the places – rooms, flats, houses, hotels, any places – in which you and your husband lived together from the date of your marriage until the date of your separation?’
‘Yes, I think I could, sir.’
‘You lived together for several years, didn’t you?’
‘Nearly seven years, off and on.’
‘He ill-treated you from the start?’
Martha Tooth laughed. ‘He beat me the first time two days after we were married,’ she said.
‘However, you managed to keep this matter secret?’
‘Oh, everybody knew.’
‘Hush, hush, Mrs Tooth. Everything depends upon your self-control! He can’t hurt you now.’
‘I’m not crying because of that …’ Martha Tooth bit her sleeve and pressed the fingers of her free hand into her eyes. Still, tears came out between her fingers.
‘Why are you crying, then?’
‘You’re so good to me!’
‘You must be calm,’ said Sumner Concord, in a cold, hard voice.
She stopped crying. ‘Everybody knew how he treated me,’ she said.
‘You must try and remember everyone who might make a statement concerning the manner in which your husband treated you, Mrs Tooth. You must try and remember. Is that quite clear?’
‘Yes, sir, but I’m afraid. I’m afraid of being in the court. They’ll make me swear black is white. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to say. I don’t——’
Sumner Concord stopped her with a gentle, but imperious gesture, and said: ‘Mrs Tooth, you mustn’t persuade yourself that there is anything to be afraid of. You will be given a perfectly fair trial. The clerk of the court will say to you: “Martha Tooth, you are charged with the murder of Sidney Tooth on the 7th May of this year. Are you guilty or not guilty?” And you will say: “Not guilty.” This I believe to be the truth. I believe that you are not guilty of the murder of your husband. I believe that, desperate with grief and pain and terror, you picked up the scissors intending to kill yourself, and not to kill your husband.’
Martha Tooth stared at him in blank astonishment and said: ‘Me, pick up a pair of scissors to kill Sid? I shouldn’t have dared to raise a hand to Sid.’
‘Just so. He had you by the throat, Mrs Tooth. He was shaking you. Your head was spinning. You struck out wildly, blindly, Mrs Tooth, and it happened that the point of that sharp pair of scissors struck him in the soft part of his neck and penetrated the subclavian artery. You had not the slightest intention of hurting him in any way,’ said Sumner Concord, holding her with his keen, calm, hypnotic eyes. ‘What happened after that, Mrs Tooth?’
‘I don’t know what happened,’ she cried. ‘As he let go of my neck, I ran away from him, that’s all I know.’
‘Exactly. You ran away blindly, neither knowing or caring where you were going. Is that not so? And later they found you wringing your ice-cold hands and crying, while the children lay asleep in your poor furnished room. Is that not so?’
‘My hands were ice-cold,’ said Martha Tooth in a wondering undertone. ‘How did you know my hands were ice-cold?’
Sumner Concord smiled sadly and with pity. ‘Be calm, my dear lady, be calm.’
‘But how did you know my hands were ice-cold?’
‘They frequently are in such cases,’ said Sumner Concord. ‘And now you must eat your meals and rest and get your poor nerves in order again, Mrs Tooth. You are to banish this matter from your mind until it is necessary for us to talk about it again. You are to leave everything in my hands. I believe that you have been telling me the truth, and in that case I give you my word of honour that I believe that no great harm can come to you. Now you must rest.’
‘I don’t care what happens to me, sir, but the children – what about the children?’ asked Martha Tooth, twisting her wet handkerchief in her skinny, little chapped hands.
‘Put your mind at rest, they are being well looked after, I promise you.’
A shocking thought seemed suddenly to strike her and she gasped: ‘They can send me to prison for years. And then what would happen to them?’
Rising, and laying large, gentle hands on her shoulders, Sumner Concord replied: ‘Even if you had known that you were striking your husband, you would have been striking him without premeditation, and in self-defence, because in the hands of this crazy drunken brute you were in peril of your life, and if there is any justice in the world, you need not necessarily go to prison at all.’