The Judas Window

'Yes, rather.'

'Then which of these two attitudes do you wish us to believe?'

'Both of them. This is what I mean: I mean that on that night he took me for someone else, and his attitude was not friendly; but he was actually friendly enough towards myself.'

For a moment Sir Walter remained looking at the witness, and then he lowered his head as though to cool it.

'We need not stop to disentangle that; I am afraid you do not appreciate my question. Whoever he thought you were that night, was his attitude during your interview friendly?'

'No.'

'Ah, that is what I wished to find out. Then this particular assertion in your statement is false, is it not?'

'I thought it was true at the time.'

'But you have completely changed your mind since then? Very well. Again you tell us: "He said that he would drink my health, and he gave his full consent to my marriage with Miss Hume." Since you have now decided that he was unfriendly, how do you reconcile this quoting of actual words with an unfriendly attitude?'

'I misunderstood him.'

'In other words,' said the Attorney-General, spacing his words after a pause, 'what you ask the jury to believe now is a direct contradiction to several of the most essential assertions in your statement?'

'Technically, yes.'

For a full hour Sir Walter Storm gravely took the witness to pieces like a clock. He went through every bit of testimony with great care, and finally sat down after as pulverizing a result as I have ever listened to. It was expected that H.M. would re-examine, in an attempt to rehabilitate his witness. But he did not. All he said was:

'Call Mary Hume.'

A warder took Answell back to the dock, where the door was unlocked again, and he was led up into his open pen. A cup of water was brought up from the cells for him; he drank it thirstily, but he peered up with a quick start over the rim when he heard H.M. call the witness.

Where Mary Hume had been during the previous examination you could not tell. She seemed to appear in the middle of the court, as though there should be no hesitation or halt in the shuttle that moved witnesses to and from justice. Answell was already last minute's pattern. And Reginald Answell's expression changed. It was not anything so obvious as a start: only a certain awareness, as though someone had tapped him on the shoulder from behind, and he did not quite want to look round. His long-jawed good looks had a bonier quality; but he assumed a pleasant expression, and his finger tapped slowly on the water-bottle. He glanced up at the prisoner - who smiled.

Mary Hume looked momentarily at the back of Captain Reginald's head as she went up into the witness-box. With the exception of Inspector Mottram, she was (or so it seemed on the surface) the calmest person who had yet testified. She wore sables: a flamboyant display, Evelyn assured me, but she may have been feeling in that mood with defiance. And she wore no hat. Her yellow hair, parted and drawn back sleekly, emphasized the essential softness and odd sensuality of the face, dominated by those wide-spaced blue eyes. Her method of putting her hands on the edge of the box was to grasp it with both arms extended, as though she were on ah aqua-plane. In her manner there was no longer any of that hard docility I had seen before.

'You swear by Almighty God that the evidence you shall give -

'Yes.'

('She's frightened to death,' whispered Evelyn. I pointed out that she gave not a sign of it, but Evelyn only shook her head and nodded back again towards the witness.)

Whatever the truth might have been, her very presence there indicated thunder on the way. Even her importance seemed emphasized by the fact that she was rather small. A new interest quickened the press-box. H.M., who had difficulty in getting his own voice clear, waited until the stir of interest had died down; only the judge was unimpressed.

'Hurruml Is your name Mary Elizabeth Hume?' 'Yes.'

'You're the only child of the deceased, and you live at 12 Grosvenor Street?'

'Yes,' she answered, nodding in a somnambulistic way.

'At a Christmas house-party at Frawnend, in Sussex, did you meet the accused?'

'Yes.'

'D'ye love him, Miss Hume?'

'I love him very much,' she said, and her eyes flickered briefly. If it were possible to have a more hollow silence than had existed before, it held the court now.

'You know he's here accused of murderin' your father?'

'Of course I know it.'

'Now, ma'am - miss, I'll ask you to look at this letter I have here. It's dated, "January 3rd, nine-thirty p.m.," the evening before the day of the murder. Will you tell the jury whether you wrote it?'

'Yes, I wrote it.'

It was read aloud, and ran:

DEAR FATHER:

Jimmy has suddenly decided to come to London to-morrow morning, so I thought I had better tell you. He will take the train I usually travel by - you know it, nine o'clock here and a quarter to eleven at Victoria. I know he means to see you some time tomorrow.

Love,

MARY

PS. You will take care of that other matter, won't you?

'Do you know whether your father received this letter?'

'Yes, he did. As soon as I heard he was dead, I came to town, naturally; and I took it out of his pocket the same night - the night he died, you know.'

'What was the occasion of your writin' it?'

'On Friday evening - that Friday evening, you know - Jim suddenly decided to go up to town, to get me an engagement ring.'

'Did you try to dissuade him, to keep him from goin' to town?'

'Yes, but I could not do too much of it or he would have been suspicious.'

'Why did you try to dissuade him?'

The witness moistened her lips. 'Because his cousin, Captain Answell, you know, had gone up to London on Friday evening with the intention of seeing my father next day; and I was afraid he and Jim might meet at my father's house.'

'Did you have a reason why you didn't want them to meet at your father's?'

'Yes, yes!'

'What was the reason?'

'A little before, in the same week, you know,' replied Mary Hume, 'Captain Answell had asked me, or rather my father, to pay £5,000 hush-money.'

XII

'From a Find to a Check -

‘You mean that man there?' asked H.M., pointing with a big flipper and again ruthlessly singling him out.

It was like an inexorable spotlight. Reginald Answell's face had turned a curious colour, a muddy colour, and he sat bolt upright; you could see the rise and fall of his chest. At that moment, looking back on past events, I saw the pattern take form. He had thought he was quite safe: he and this girl were linked together in such fashion that he had thought she would not dare to betray it. She had even promised him, with remarkably well-simulated terror, that she would remain quiet. You could understand now the reason for that hard docility, the meek: 'Thanks for everything.' A scrap of their conversation came back to me. First his significant: 'Fair exchange; it's all agreed, then?' And her colourless: 'You know me, Reg,' while she contemplated this.

Three voices in the court-room spoke in quick succession.

The first was the Attorney-General's: 'Is Captain Answell on trial?'

The second was H.M.'s: 'Not yet.'

The third was the judge's: 'Proceed, Sir Henry.'

H.M. turned back to the witness, whose plump and pretty face was composed, and who was looking at the back of Reginald's head.

'So Captain Answell had asked you, or rather your father, to pay five thousand pounds blackmail?'

'Yes. He knew I hadn't got it, of course, but he felt sure he could get it out of father.'

'Uh-huh. What reason did he have for blackmailin' you?'