Fog of Doubt (23 page)

And this habit, this unfailing habit, members of the jury was well known to everyone, was a sort of family joke—certainly was well known to the accused; and it was the contention of the prosecution.…

Forty minutes later he concluded abruptly that he would now call witnesses to support what he had been saying (which as far as the jury were concerned was entirely unnecessary for Tedward was as good as in the condemned cell already), and wriggled his cramped leg free from its uncomfortable angle and sat down with a bump, raising his seat slightly from the bench to add: ‘I call Matilda Evans,' and sit down again.

Matilda, who always dressed in black because it made her look thinner, had gone out and bought an entire outfit of navy blue, because to wear black at Tedward's trial did sort of seem … Well, anyway, she had bought a blue frock and a blue coat and a blue hat with two white wings to it, tremendously gay. She felt frightfully fat in the blue and her new shoes seemed to echo like thunder through the hushed court as she followed the officer across the polished, linoleumed floor, round behind the dock and along the narrow pathway between the central table and the jury box. Up some polished steps, clatter, clatter, clatter, and into a little wooden box like a pulpit with a canopy. Her head felt full of Thermogene, everything swam in a blur before her; but as she lifted her eyes, trying to focus, trying to shake her mind free of its stupor in preparation for the ordeal to come, she felt the mists clear a little and there in the clearness, was a face she knew—so thin and drawn and unhappy, and yet still the strong, the reassuring one, looking across at her with a little, affectionate smile that said, ‘Go to it, love, everything'll be all right, you'll see!' Tears pricked her eyelids; she looked down again. The usher, in a black gown, thrust a prayer book into her hands and she swore by Almighty God in a very croaky voice and gave the book back to the man.

She had been through most of this once already in the magistrate's court and was familiar with the curious means to which counsel must resort in obtaining the required information from his witnesses, without asking questions that would put the answers into their mouths. ‘… And the next day—did you see someone …?' ‘… That morning—did you do something …?' She obediently volunteered, therefore, that Raoul Vernet had been her friend (she departed somewhat from the oath she had sworn a few minutes earlier, in describing the exact nature of her friendship with Raoul, but consoled her conscience with the reflection that the oath applied only to relevant facts and that this had really nothing to do with the case), and that he had rung her up on the morning of his death and said that he ‘wanted to have a talk with her'. No, they had never got around to their talk.… Well, all right, Counsel might think that was curious, but she supposed a Frenchman would have too much respect for his digestion to spoil his dinner with an unpleasant discussion. ‘You know what French people are,' said Matilda, falling into her own easy stride as the mists of unfamiliarity gradually cleared and she began to see Sir William as just a rather attractive man trying to get her to admit something she didn't want to—just like so many attractive men, all one's life!—‘they're always worrying about their ventres and things,
are
n't they?' As to why she should have expected it to be an unpleasant discussion, well, it usually was when people said in that sort of dark way that they ‘wanted to talk' to you. She glanced up at the judge, sitting austere and remote behind his great desk, just a little to the right of the black and gold sword that hangs, point up, beneath the Royal Arms, and for an instant thought that she recognised an answering gleam; excitement rose in her as she felt the old magic begin to work, knew that she had won him over, knew that so the jury would be won over, knew that for all Sir William's cleverness, while she was in the witness-box the court was ‘on her side'. Sir William saw the lift of her head and the light in her eye, and thought: I shall have to keep on the right side of this one! She was his witness but she was frankly reluctant. The man in the dock was her friend.

So they came at last to the hour of the murder. ‘Did you then—go somewhere?' ‘Yes, I went upstairs.' ‘What did you do there?' ‘Well, first I went to my—well, actually she's my grandmother-in-law, to help her to get ready for bed.…'

A couple of minutes with Gran, five minutes alone in her room, ‘doing her face', back to Gran for another five minutes or so, and then to the nursery as the clock struck half-past nine. As she went she had called down that she wouldn't be long, but there had been no reply. No, you couldn't see down to the hall from there.

‘You were upstairs in all—about how long?'

‘Between twenty and twenty-five minutes.'

‘During this time—did you hear any disturbance in the hall?'

‘No, I didn't,' said Matilda. ‘But you see …'

‘Just answer the questions, Mrs. Evans; don't elaborate.'

Matilda went slightly pink and folded her lips. Sir William thought, Now I've done it!—but I had to stop that one. Having gained the admission he wanted, however, he was a great deal too clever to press the point or even to ask a further question to make the significance clear. The defence would do that for him, they couldn't help themselves, when they came to cross-examine. ‘Later on, however, did you hear something in the hall?'

‘No,' said Matilda with an air of bland surprise;
not
elaborating.

‘You heard nothing?'

‘No,' said Matilda.

‘Well, come, you haven't lived in a world of silence from that hour to this. When did you next hear something?'

‘When I opened the door and went downstairs to the hall,' said Matilda, with a most regrettable air of sucks to you.

With nobs on, thought James Dragon, lolling back against the polished wooden bench, watching his colleague with an air of pitying surprise not lost, and not intended to be lost, upon the jury. When at last he rose to cross-examine, he came straight back to this point. ‘While you were upstairs—you heard no sounds at all from the ground floor?'

‘No, nothing, till I came out and went downstairs and found Dr. Edwards and Rosie in the hall.'

‘Did you hear them arrive?'

‘No, I didn't,' said Matilda.

‘You didn't hear the car? Or the front door opening?'

‘No, I didn't. But the window was closed while the baby was out of her cot.'

‘Earlier, you were in old Mrs. Evans room?'

‘Yes, but I didn't hear anything from there either,' said Matilda obligingly.

‘It would have been possible, then, for this man to have been killed in the hall,
at any time during the twenty-five minutes when you were upstairs
without your hearing a disturbance?'

‘Well, he was,
was
n't he?' said Matilda. She had seen something of Mr. Dragon during the nightmare of preparation for Thomas's trial, and knew just where she was with
him
.

‘Now, you looked down to the hall and—well, just describe in your own words the scene you saw there.'

It would be there for ever, petrified in her memory like a fly in amber—herself, with her hand on the banister at the turn of the stairs, the front door standing open with the grey fog curling in and, wreathed about with the fog, like a scene from the witches' heath in Macbeth, Tedward standing with Rosie close at his shoulder, her hand clutching his sleeve, both lifting their heads sharply to stare up speechlessly at her; and at their feet, the long, thin body in the too bright suit, the pointed brown shoes, toe down to the floor, the ringed blue socks; the terrible head. ‘They were standing close together.… Well, I took it for granted that they'd come in together.… No, nothing at all to suggest that she came in after him.… They both just looked horrified.…'

‘At what stage did Dr. Edwards say that the man was dead?'

‘I think it was almost the first thing. I said, “Is he dead?” and he said “I'm afraid so,” or something like that.'

‘Did he say how long he'd been dead?'

‘Well, at one stage he said that he didn't think he'd been dead very long.'

‘Dr. Edwards—the defendant—he said that? He said that the man had not been dead very long?'

‘Yes. He said, “He wasn't killed outright,”—at the time of the telephone call, I suppose he meant—“he's only been dead a minute or two.” '

‘“He's only been dead a minute or two”?'

‘Yes.'

‘In view of the case against the accused—that he had himself just killed the man, a minute before, that would seem a dangerous admission on his part?'

Counsel for the Crown turned back a page or two of his notes and scribbled in the margin; plans for his closing speech ran like a Mr. Jingle conversation, through his mind. ‘Clever move—other doctor back any minute—police surgeon too—confirm time of death—going to be known anyway—suggest it himself—get it in first.…'

‘Was any reference made to the telephone call?'

‘Yes, he said—well, I can't exactly say how it came about or what order it was all said in, but he did say that it must be nearly half an hour since Raoul Vernet had rung up and said he'd been hit, and that he must have passed out and been lying there unconscious.…'

The shorthand writer in his little box just below the witness-box was perhaps the only person in court who was not quite sorry when Matilda, with a tentative little bow to the judge, was led away to a seat tucked down on the left-hand side of the dock; heaven send him a brief, snappy one next, thought the shorthand writer, upon whose aching hand Matilda's otherwise rather charming verbosity had made excessive demands. His prayer was granted, for Thomas Evans came next and anything less chatty it would have been hard to imagine. He wore the resentful look he always assumed when he was ill at ease, and spoke in a low, grumbling voice. He was very pale and his hair, which had been brushed down ruthlessly into a sort of ordered thatch, now stood on end again with the weary passing through and through of his fingers as they waited wretchedly on the bench in the corridor outside the court. Yes, he had known the accused for a long time; they were in partnership together. Yes, he had had a sister named Rose Evans. Yes, his sister was now dead. Yes, the accused had known her for many years, since she was a child. Yes, the accused was much older than she was, twenty years older than she was.…

‘Was he fond of your sister, do you know?'

‘Yes,' said Thomas.

‘Very fond of her?'

‘Yes,' said Thomas.

‘Had you, in fact, reason to believe that he was in love with her?'

‘Yes,' said Thomas. He lifted his head and looked across the intervening space to where Tedward sat heavy and sad, staring back at him; and his look said, What can I do, old boy?—they've subpœna'ed me and got me here and I've sworn an oath to tell the truth: and that
was
the truth, wasn't it? No easy compromises for Thomas Evans; the truth was the truth.

They came to the message, the message that had been written on his pad. It had been there when he came in that evening. He hardly remembered the thing—he had copied the name and address into his book and chucked the little paper into the fire. Well, the fire had been there and he had thrown the paper
in
, that was all. No, that was not his usual procedure, but messages were usually written down on a pad, and he naturally didn't throw the
pad
into the fire each time. No, this message had not been actually on the pad, but on a small piece of paper lying on the pad. No, not very unusual: if someone took the message on the upstairs extension, they'd write it down on any handy scrap of paper and leave it by the pad. Well, all right, Counsel could think it as casual as he liked; we did not all live our lives in hourly expectation of having to produce exhibits for a murder trial.… He mumbled an apology at his lordship's intervention, but his expression said, Then tell this damn fool not to comment, and I won't either.

The court had heard from Matilda that Tedward had called at the house that morning. Could the writing on the slip of paper have been Dr. Edwards writing? ‘It could have been anybody's writing,' said Thomas. ‘It was in printed letters, the address and a couple of words of diagnosis.'

‘Is it usual to have such messages taken down in printed letters?'

‘You haven't seen my secretary's handwriting,' said Thomas.

‘Might Dr. Edwards have known of your secretary's habit of taking down these messages in printed writing?'

‘He might have.'

‘He was a constant visitor to your home?'

‘Yes.'

‘So he almost certainly did know?'

‘Yes,'said Thomas, bleakly,once again; and Sir William's Mr. Jingle ran through his head again, ‘Called at house—heard man was coming—resolution formed—note left in surgery—mallet—gun …' But they had not yet come to the mallet and the gun; he stopped jingling and applied himself to the task of extracting in monosyllables from Thomas that Tedward would have known where the mallet was kept, and in looking for the mallet might well have come across the gun. As to the fog.… Counsel had never quite made up his own mind whether or not the fog had been necessary to Tedward's plan. Matilda had admitted, grudgingly because she did not see where the question might be leading, that already that morning there had been signs that by nightfall the fog would be thick. He might as well get them all to agree to that; if he found later on that he didn't want it, he need not use it. Thomas duly admitted that he had actually remarked that morning that it ‘looked like fog'.

Really, the jury quite pitied that poor Counsellor for the Prosecution, the way the Counsellor for the Defence kept looking at him as if to say, You poor thing, can't you think of nothing better than
that?
They sat in two patient rows of six, dutifully trying to remember every single answer to every single question, and utterly fogged as to what it was all leading up to, except that of course he
done
it, but they mustn't make up their minds to that till the end. One thing, that Mr. Dragon did look so contemptuous about all this stuff about the fog. And then going for the doctor like one o'clock. Dr. Evans, you don't set up to be a weather prophet.…? When you say you thought there would be fog.…? So that you couldn't have
counted
on there being a fog, if you had happened to want a fog that night.…? In fact, all you could say was that you thought there might possibly be a fog.…?