The Judas Window

'This piece of paper? Show it to the witness, please.'

'Yes, that's the one.'

'Did the prisoner make any objections to this?'

'Yes, a bit.' 'What did he do?' 'Nothing much.'

'I repeat, Mr Fleming, what did he do?'

'Nothing much,' said the witness in a heavy growl. 'He caught me off balance. He gave me a sort of shove with his open hand. My feet were off balance, and I went over against the wall and fell down a bit.'

'A sort of shove. I see. What was his manner when he did this: angry?'

'Yes, he was in a devil of a rage all of a sudden. We were trying to hold his arms down so we could get his prints.'

'He gave you a "sort of shove" and you "fell down a bit". In other words, he struck hard and quickly?'

'He caught me off balance.'

'Just answer the question, please. All of a sudden he struck hard and quickly. Is that so?'

'Yes, or he wouldn't have caught me off balance.'

'Very well. Now, Mr Fleming, did you examine the place on the wall of the room, shown in photograph 8, from which the arrow had been taken down?'

'Yes, I went all over it.'

'Did the small staples - the staples that held the arrow to the wall - show signs of having been wrenched out violently, as though the arrow had been suddenly jerked down?'

'Yes, they were all over the floor.'

Counsel consulted his brief. After this little brush, Fleming squared his shoulders, lifted his elbow, and put one fist on the rail of the witness-box. He took a good survey of the court, as though challenging anyone to question his answers; but his forehead was ruffled with small wrinkles. Once, I remember, he happened to look straight into my eyes from across the room. And I wondered, as you always do on these occasions, 'What's that fellow really thinking?'

Or, for that matter, you might wonder what the prisoner was really thinking. He was much more restless this afternoon than he had been this morning. Whenever a man in the dock moves in his chair, you are conscious of it; like a movement on an empty dance-floor such as the dock resembled. A shifting, an unquiet stealing of the hands, seems to come close to you. Often he would glance towards the solicitors' table - in the direction, it seemed, of the grave and cynically preoccupied Reginald Answell. The prisoner's eyes looked rather wild and worried; his big shoulders were stooped. Lollypop, H.M.'s secretary, was now at the solicitors' table, wearing her paper cuffs and poring over a typewritten sheet.

Counsel cleared his throat to resume.

'You have told us, Mr Fleming, that you are a member of several archery societies, and have been an archer for many years?'

'That's so.'

'So that you could describe yourself as something of an authority on the subject?'

'Yes, I think I could safely say that,' returned the witness, with a grave nod and a bull-frog swell of the throat.

'I want you to look at this arrow and describe it.'

Fleming seemed puzzled. 'I don't know what you want me to say, exactly. It's the standard type of men's arrow: red pinewood, twenty-eight inches long, quarter of an inch thick, iron pile or point footed with bullet-tree wood, nock made of horn -' He turned it over in his hands.

'The nock, yes. Will you explain what the nock is?'

'The nock is this little wedge-shaped piece of horn at the end of the arrow. There's a notch in it - here. That's how you fit the arrow to the bow-string. Like this.'

He illustrated with a backward gesture, and banged his hand against the post supporting the roof of the witness-box: to his evident surprise and annoyance.

'Could that arrow have been fired?'

'It could not. Out of the question.'

'You would call it definitely impossible?'

'Of course it's impossible. Besides, the fellow's fingerprints were the only marks on -'

'I must ask you not to anticipate the evidence, Mr Fleming. Why is it impossible that the arrow could have been fired?'

'Look at the nockl It's been bent over and twisted so much that you couldn't possibly fit it to a string.'

'Was the nock in this condition when you first saw it in the deceased's body?'

'Yes, it was.'

'Will you just pass that along for the inspection of the jury? Thank you. Having established that the arrow could not have been fired: in the coating of dust you tell us you observed on the arrow, did you observe anywhere - anywhere - any marks except those which you knew to be finger-prints?'

'I did not.'

'That is all.'

He sat down. While the arrow travelled among the jury, a long and rumbling throat-clearing preceded the rise of H.M. There are sounds and sounds; and this one indicated war. It struck several people, for Lollypop made a quietly fiendish sign of Warning, and for some reason held up the typewritten sheet over which she had been poring. Trouble blew into that room as palpably as a wind, but H.M.'s opening was mild enough.

'You've told us that on that Saturday night you were goin' next door to play chess with the deceased.'

'That's right.' (Fleming's truculent tone added, 'And what of it?')

'When did the deceased make an appointment with you?'

'About three o'clock in the afternoon.'

'Uh-huh. For what time that night?'

'He said to drop in about a quarter to seven, and we'd have a bit of cold dinner together, since everybody else in the house was out.'

'When Miss Jordan ran over and brought you, you've told us you were already on your way to keep that appointment?'

'Yes. I was a bit early. Better early than late.'

'Uh-huh. Now take a dekko - HURRUM- just glance at that arrow again. Look at those three feathers. I think I'm right in statin' that they're fixed edgeways to the arrow about an inch from the nock-end, and they're about two and a half inches long?'

'Yes. The size of the feather varies, but Hume preferred the biggest ones.'

'You notice that the middle feather is torn off pretty .clearly about half-way down. Was it like that when you found the body?'

Fleming looked at him suspiciously, on guard behind his red moustache.

'Yes, that's how it was.'

'You've heard the witness Dyer testify that all the feathers were intact and whole at the time the accused went into the study at 6.10?'

'I've heard it.'

'Sure. We all did. Consequently, the feather must 'a' been broken off between then and the discovery of the body?'

'Yes.'

'If the accused grabbed that arrow down off the wall and struck Hume, holdin' the arrow half-way down the shaft, how do you think the feather got torn off?'

'I don't know. In the struggle, probably. Hume made a grab at the arrow when he saw it coming -'

'He made a grab at the end of the arrow opposite the end that was threatenin' him?'

'He might have. Or it might have been torn off when the arrow was pulled off the wall, from those little staples.'

'That's another theory. The piece of feather was broken off either (1) in a struggle; or (2) when the arrow was pulled down. Uh-huh. In either case, where is it? Did you find it when you searched the room?'

'No, I did not; but a little piece of feather -'

'I'm suggestin' to you that this "little piece of feather" was an inch and a quarter long by an inch broad. A whole lot bigger than half a crown. You'd have noticed half a crown on the floor, wouldn't you?'

'Yes, but this didn't happen to be half a crown.'

'I've said it was a lot bigger. And it was painted bright blue, wasn't it?'

‘I suppose so.'

'What was the colour of the carpet?'

'I can't say I can swear to that.'

'Then I'll tell you: it was light brown. You accept that? Yes. And you agree that there was very little furniture? Uh-huh. But you made an intensive search of that room, and you still didn't find the missin' piece?' Hitherto the witness had seemed rather pleased at his own wit, set to shine, and at intervals tickling up the corners of his moustache. Now he was impatient.