The Judas Window

The other bowed. 'As you wish, my lord, I myself was under the impression that I remained well within the rights of cross-examination ... Miss Hume: you tell us that on Friday evening, January 3rd, Captain Answell left Frawnend for London, in order to see your father on the following day?' 'Yes.'

'For the purpose of extracting blackmail money?' 'Yes.'

'Why is it, then, that he did not see your father?'

The witness opened her mouth, and stopped. Fragile as she looked, she had been holding up well until now.

'Let me make my question clearer. Several witnesses have testified here - have been pressed to do so, in fact, by my learned friend - that all day Saturday your father received no visitors, no messages, no phone calls, except those which have been indicated. Captain Answell did not come near him or attempt to communicate with him. How do you reconcile this with your statement that Captain Answell rushed off to London for the purpose you have declared?'

'I don't know.'

The other shot out his hand. 'I put it to you, Miss Hume, that on Saturday, the 4th, Captain Answell was not even in London at all.'

'But that can't be, I tell you!'

'Will you accept my suggestion, Miss Hume - which comes from the reports of police-officers who have investigated the movements of everyone connected with this affair - that on Friday evening Captain Answell left Frawnend, drove to visit friends in Rochester, and did not arrive in London until nearly midnight on Saturday?'

‘No!'

'Will you further accept my suggestion that he announced to several persons in Frawnend his intention of going to Rochester: not London?'

No reply.

'You will agree at least that if he were in Rochester he could not be in London?' 'Perhaps he lied to me.'

'Perhaps he did. Let us take another aspect of it. These photographs, you tell us, were taken a year ago?'

'About that, maybe a little more.'

'How long afterwards did you sever your relations with Captain Answell?'

'Not long; a month or so; not long.'

'And during the entire course of the time afterwards, has he ever attempted to extort money from you?'

'No.’

'Or to use these photographs as a threat in any way whatever?'

'No. But didn't you see his face when he ran out of here?'

'That is not a matter which can come to our attention, Miss Hume. However, I can conjecture why the subject might be embarrassing to him, for reasons quite apart from blackmail. Can't you?'

'Do not answer that,' said the judge, putting down his pen. 'Counsel has just informed you that the matter cannot come to your attention.'

'You have told us, then, that all this time no suggestion of blackmail was ever made by Captain Answell?'

'Yes.'

'Do you know the nature of an oath?' 'Certainly.'

'I suggest to you that this entire account of Captain Answell's blackmailing activities, and your father's alleged wish to "settle his hash", is an unfortunate fabrication from end to end?'

'No, no, no!'

Sir Walter contemplated her steadily and gently for a moment; then he shook his head, lifted his shoulders, and sat down.

If anyone expected H.M. to re-examine, that person was disappointed. With an almost weary air H.M. got up. 'In order to establish this business once and for all,' H.M. said very distinctly, 'call Dr Peter Quigley.'

I was certain that I had heard the name somewhere before, and recently, but the man who went into the witness-box was a stranger. He was a strong-featured Scotsman with a quiet manner but a voice whose every syllable was distinct. Though he could not have been more than in his early thirties, he gave the impression of being older. H.M. began in his usual off-hand manner.

'What is your full name?'

'Peter Macdonald Quigley.'

'Are you a graduate in medicine of Glasgow University, and have you a degree in scientific criminology from the University of Salzburg?'

'Yes.'

'H'm. How were you employed durin' the month of December 10th to January 10th, last?'

'I was employed as assistant to Dr John Tregannon in Dr Tregannon's private nursing-home at Thames Ditton, Surrey.'

'How did you come to be there?'

'I should explain,' answered Quigley, spacing his words, 'that I am an agent of the International Medical Council, employed in England under the Commissioners in Lunacy, for the purpose of investigating rumours or charges which cannot be substantiated - in the ordinary way - against those practising as mental specialists.'

'Is the substance of what you are goin' to tell us contained in your report to the British Medical Council; and is it approved by that body?'

'It is.'

'Were you acquainted with the deceased, Avory Hume?' ‘I was.'

'Can you tell us whether Captain Reginald Answell was attemptin' to extort blackmail money from the deceased?'

'To the best of my knowledge, he was.'

'Yes. Now, will you tell us just what you know about this matter?'

'On Friday, January 3rd, last -'

The witness's first words were drowned by the stir in the court, and by Evelyn's whisper. Here was a witness whose- credibility they could not shake. With deadly leisureliness, H.M. Was taking the Crown's case to pieces. He let them cross-examine as long as they liked; he did not re-examine; and then he went waddling on. Again there came into my head the swinging lines from the song, which H.M. had quoted, and which seemed less like a refrain than like a formula.

'From a find to a check:

from a check to a view:

from a view to a kill in the morning

'On Friday, January 3rd, last -'

XIII

'The Ink-pad is the Key'

BUT it was two o'clock in the afternoon, with the sensational testimony which had held the court beyond its morning sitting, before H.M., Evelyn and I sat again at lunch in the upper room of the Milton's Head Tavern, Wood Street. Nearly all of the pattern in this business lay before us: and yet it did not. H.M., a great Chinese image in the firelight, with a cigar stuck at an angle in his mouth, glowered and pushed his plate away.

'Well, my fat-heads. You see what happened now, don't you?'

'Most of it, yes. The links in it, no. And how the blazes did you get on to Quigley?'

'By sittin' and thinkin'. Do you know why I took up this case to begin with?'

'Of course,' said Evelyn quite sincerely. 'Because the girl came to you and burst into tears; and you like to see the young folks have a good time.'

‘I expected that,' said H.M. with dignity. 'Burn me, that's the thanks I get from anyone; that's the view you take of a strong silent man who - bah! Now listen to me, because I mean it,' and evidently he did believe in it so fiendishly that we listened. I love to be a Corrector of Cussedness. You've heard me talk a lot in the past about the blinkin' awful cussedness of things in general, and I suppose you thought that was only my way of lettin' off steam. But I meant it. Now, ordinarily, this cussedness is supposed to be funny. You can't help bein' amused even when you kick the waste-paper basket all over the room. I mean that the one morning you've got an important engagement is the one morning you miss the train. The one time you take your best girl out to dinner is the one time you call for the bill and find you've left your wallet at home. But did it ever occur to you to think how that applies to whackingly serious matters too? Just think back over your own life, and see whether most of the important things that happened to you were prompted by anybody's effort to do malice, or anybody's effort to do good, or, burn me, by anybody's effort at alclass="underline" but simply by the sinful, tearin' cussedness of things in general.'