Death at Gallows Green (34 page)

“Ah, but Mistress Oliver,” the coroner objected, “if you were, as you say, bound and gagged and locked into the shed, how was it that you were able to see this black-whiskered man with whom the deceased argued?”

“I saw them out the crack,” Betsy said.

“A large crack or a small?”

“A duck-size crack, sir,” Betsy said, holding up her hands to demonstrate. A titter ran through the crowd. “The hole Jemima came and went through, you see.”

“Ah, yes,” the coroner said, and hid a smile. “Since you were able to witness this argument through this duck-size crack, p'rhaps you can tell us more about the gentleman with whom the deceased argued. He had black whiskers, you say?”

“Yes, sir,” Betsy said. “And a limp. You see, sir—”

“Ah, a limp,” said Harry Hodson, with the air of a man who was finally getting somewhere. “What else can you tell me of this black-whiskered man who limped?”

The crowd at the bar began to stir. Betsy glanced in the direction of the commotion and bit her lip.

The coroner leaned forward. “Don't be afraid, my child. Simply tell me what you saw.”

“Yes, sir. Well, sir, he limped because he'd got a wooden leg.”

“A wooden leg!” the coroner exclaimed, over the sudden noise of the crowd. He banged his gavel hard. “Silence!” he roared. “There will be order in this court!”

The crowd quieted somewhat, except for the group at the bar, where there seemed to be some kind of stir.

“Mistress Oliver,” the coroner said, “please stand on your chair and look out over the courtroom. Tell me if you see that man.”

The wispy clerk came around the table and gave Betsy his hand. Obediently, she climbed up on her chair, looked out over the crowd, and then suddenly pointed. “There he is,” she exclaimed, “over by the bar! The man in the blue uniform.”

“That's ridiculous!” the man shouted furiously. “She's lying ! She's only a child—she's not to be believed!”

Confusion rumbled like thunder in the courtroom. “Let the record show,” the coroner bellowed to the clerk over the din, “that the witness has identified Dudley Pell, chief constable of the Essex Constabulary.”

F
or Charles, to whom none of this was a surprise, the proceedings had taken on the quality of a stage drama. For the audience, tense with anticipation, the scene was fraught with the excitement of unexpected revelation. For the players, who had not been given a playbook but only the vaguest suggestion of what might unfold, there was uncertainty and great uneasiness. And for the directors and producers of the drama—Charles, Edward, Inspector Wainwright, and Harry Hodson—there was a great anxiety about what would be revealed, and whether the revelation would be of such strength that it would sweep events to their desired conclusion.

From his vantage point against the wall, Charles saw Wainwright, whose face wore a look of exquisite torture, instruct one of his constables to move through the melee and block the exit. Sergeant Battle, his jaw slack in utter astonishment and consternation, took two reluctant steps toward Chief Constable Pell and stopped, hands hanging in trembling helplessness. At Wainwright's whispered urging, he managed two more steps but seemed quite unable to raise his arms. The publican's fat wife, about to put a tray of washed glasses on the shelf behind the bar, gave a shriek of dismay and dropped the tray with a resounding crash.

The chief constable failed to notice the smaller dramas around him. He was too caught up in his own outraged innocence. “It's a falsehood!” he cried, gesturing with his fist “The child is lying!”

Betsy stared at him. “I may be only a little girl,” she said with enormous dignity, “but I know what I saw.”

Beside Charles, Edward gave a muted cheer. “That's my girl!” he exulted under his breath. With the assistance of the clerk, Betsy climbed down from the chair and returned to her seat. As she sat down, her mother gathered her into her arms and pulled her close. For all her composure, Betsy buried her face against her mother and burst into tears.

Harry Hodson pointed his gavel at the chief constable and fixed him with a stony look.

“While your emotions are understandable in view of the serious accusation against you, I will tolerate no further outbursts. In due course, you shall be permitted, although not required, to testify before this inquest. Until that time, you will remain silent. Inspector Wainwright, confine the accused.”

Wainwright nodded with a great sadness to Sergeant Battle. Battle, whose intention seemed to have been stiffened by the coroner's words, grasped Pell's arms. Another uniformed constable materialized out of the crowd to assist him.

“Get your hands off me!” Pell shouted, struggling against their hold. “I refuse to testify. It's absurd to require an officer of the law to demean himself by answering such a spurious accusation!”

The courtroom erupted into another noisy babble. The coroner pounded his gavel. ‟Order! There will be order, or I will clear this court of spectators.” The room gradually became quiet as the two constables pinned the chief constable's arms behind him. Hodson scowled at Pell..

“This inquest is not a trial, so you will not be required to give evidence which might incriminate you. But you will be required to remain silent. Sergeant, do your duty!”

The sergeant and the constable maneuvered Pell, still resisting, to the seat between Napthen and Brock, which had been vacated by P.C. Bradley. The coroner shifted his bulk in his chair and faced the wide-eyed members of the jury, who coughed and fidgeted and moved their feet under his stem glance, shifting their astonished gaze from the prisoner to the coroner and back again.

Harry Hodson spoke with a ponderous solemnity, as if he were a headmaster speaking to a lower-form classroom. ‟Gentlemen, you have just heard a female child of tender years lay a most serious charge against a respected member of the community. In view of the standing and reputation of the accused, you may feel this accusation to be incredible and wish to discount it immediately.”

He paused and pushed his lips in and out several times, as if he were considering what he had just said. Then he leaned forward and his tone became more stem. “However, it is my duty to remind you that you must hear it, and hear it without bias or prejudice.”

“But she's a child!” Pell shouted. He would have jumped up, but Sergeant Battle, who was standing behind him, placed his hands on the chief constable's shoulders and brought him down again. Under the coroner's imperative glance, Pell subsided. Hodson continued his remarks to the jury.

“It is the tradition of the law, gentlemen, that guilt is established by the witness of a responsible individual or by the confession of the accused. However, not all crimes are committed in the presence of a witness, and not all accused persons are inclined to incriminate themselves. The crime must then be proven, if proven at all, by other evidence. This evidence—this
proof
—must be of such a persuasive nature that it leads a reasonable man to but one conclusion. To this end, gentlemen, I call the next witness.” The coroner turned to the clerk. “Summon Sir Charles Sheridan.”

Charles pushed himself away from the wall, picked up his portfolio and leather satchel, and was swom. He seated himself in the witness chair.

The coroner adjusted his gold-rimmed glasses on his short nose and peered over them at Charles. “Sir Charles Sheridan, it is my understanding that you are an accomplished practitioner of the art of photography, and that you in fact received your knighthood for this skill.”

“That is correct, sir.”

“I further understand that you employ photography to record detailed scientific observations of antiquities and fossils, and that you have used these photographs to support your findings in learned papers presented to and favorably received by the Royal Academy.”

“Yes, this is also true.”

“And were you summoned to the place where the body of Russell Tod was discovered, shortly after the event, to assist Constable Laken in the investigation and to document the scene with your camera?”

“I was.”

Harry Hodson settled back in his chair. “Tell us, then,” he said, “what you observed and what you concluded from your observations.”

“I took a number of photographs of Tod's body and of the scene of the crime.” Charles reached into his portfolio and took them out. “These are the enlargements showing the body and the scene.”

The coroner examined each print in turn, then handed it to the clerk, who dispatched it to the jurors. They handled the photographs with as much gingerly distaste as if they had been the dead man himself, then returned them to the clerk, who placed them once again before the coroner.

“And what, if anything,” said the coroner when the last photograph was returned, “did you find remarkable about the body?”

“As the police surgeon indicated in his testimony,” Charles said, “there was a depression in the area of the left temple. The skin was heavily bruised but not broken.” Charles picked up a photograph and pointed to the wound, much enlarged. “The depression appears to have been created by a blow from a blunt object no larger than one inch in diameter.”

“Such an injury would be consistent with a blow from the butt of a handle of some type of implement?”

“Quite so,” Charles replied. “As there was no such implement at the scene, I concluded that it had been removed. The fatal blow would seem, therefore, to have been inflicted intentionally—or, at the least, the fatality intentionally concealed.”

Harry Hodson's “I see” was judicious. “And did you find anything remarkable about the scene of the crime?”

“There was a small quantity of blood at the victim's mouth and nose and on the ground beneath his head. Since I surmised, and the police surgeon has confirmed, that the injury was almost instantly fatal, I concluded that the victim was struck and died at the scene.” Charles glanced at Pell, who had arranged his face into a supremely contemptuous disregard, giving no hint that he was attending to the testimony.

“I see,” Hodson said again. “Was there anything else?”

“Yes,” Charles said. “Around the body there were a number of shoeprints impressed in the soft earth which was fortunately of a consistency that captured them in fine detail.” He took up another photograph and pointed. “Among these shoe prints, there were a series of deep, round indentations which I took to be the heel prints of a woman's boot. You can see them here.” He pointed again. “And here.” He passed the photograph to the coroner, who examined it. “Upon reflection, however, I decided that this view was incorrect.”

The coroner regarded him thoughtfully. “And what led you to this judgment, sir?”

“I made casts of all the impressions using calcium sulfate—plaster of Paris.” Charles glanced at the jury to assess their understanding. Seeing a few puzzled looks and wanting to be sure they understood, he added, “Plaster of Paris is a powdery compound, which upon the addition of water becomes quite hard. It can be used to capture a negative impression of any surface onto which the fluid compound has been poured.”

“And you have brought these casts with you?”

“Yes.” Charles took the casts out of his satchel and set them on the table. This part of his testimony was complicated and he had been concerned about making it as straightforward as possible, knowing that juries often rejected scientific evidence simply because they did not understand it.

“There are five pairs of casts, three of which belong to the persons who visited the scene after the body's discovery: myself, Constable Laken, and Miss Ardleigh.” Charles set them to one side. “I am confident of this identification because I made casts of the shoes themselves for the purposes of comparison,” he added. “I can produce these if you wish.”

“Enter the three identified pairs in evidence,” the coroner said to the clerk, who numbered each in order with India ink. “You may provide the matching casts to the clerk after this hearing,” he told Charles. “Please continue with your explanation.”

Charles picked up another pair of casts. “These two prints belong to the victim and are matched by the casts of the shoes he was wearing.” He set them down and picked up another pair, one in the shape of a shoe sole, the other oddly shaped, something like the heel of a boot or the leg of a stool protruding from a circular base of white plaster. “That leaves us with these two, which remain unidentified.”

“Enter the victim's shoe prints, the unidentified shoe print, and the unidentified object,” the coroner directed the clerk, who numbered them as he had the others. “Go on, sir.”

“Once the casts were made, I studied, paired, and typed all the impressions, seeking a left and a right example of each. As I did so, however, I realized that the unidentified right shoeprint had, as it were, no mate. Each time it appeared, it was associated with this impression, which I originally took to be the heel print of a woman's boot or shoe.”

“And your conclusions from this examination, sir?”

Charles paused. The courtroom had gone perfectly still, and the entire crowd seemed to have left off breathing. Pell's arms were folded across his chest, his gaze unwaveringly fixed upon some point over the coroner's right shoulder, disdain written on his features.

“I believe,” Charles said, “that these impressions were in fact made by a man with a shoe on the right foot and a wooden stump in place of the left.”

The taut stillness erupted into a loud buzzing chatter. Above it came a piercing “The copper's got a wooden leg!” from the publican's fat wife, followed by the publican's frantic shushing. The coroner picked up his gavel and used it violently, at last achieving a measure of quiet. He glared around the room as if ready to execute every spectator, then turned to Charles.