Take No Farewell - Retail (44 page)

Friday 18 January 1924

Clearly I was not alone in anticipating a raising of the stakes today. The queue for the public gallery was longer and noisier than on
any
previous morning, despite last night being cold and damp. A form of cameraderie has evolved in the crowd, which I find even more appalling than the ghoulish eagerness by which it was gripped at the start of the week
.

In court, the lady of many hats celebrated the heightened atmosphere by appearing in a wide-awake creation more suitable for Ascot than the Old Bailey. Mr Justice Stillingfleet looked as if he was shaking off his cold at last. And Talbot wore a smirk of supreme confidence. Only Consuela seemed immune to the expectant mood. She has met the challenge of her captive role in these proceedings with a defiance amounting almost to indifference. Perhaps she hopes to defeat her accusers simply by ignoring them. Or perhaps to lose even a fraction of her self-control would be to lose all of it. Whatever the explanation, she sat today in the dock as she has sat every day: grave of face, austere of dress, impervious of manner
.

Sir Henry rose to conduct Gleasure’s cross-examination, his lethargy of yesterday shrugged off like an unwanted garment. Had Gleasure taken any telephone calls for his master during the afternoon of 9 September? No. Had he really urged Consuela to summon a doctor that evening? Yes. Very well, then: why had he not
insisted
on summoning one? Because it was not his place to do so. Had he, perhaps, agreed with Consuela that one was not needed? No. He had deferred to his mistress’s judgement. But surely a valet has only a master, not a mistress. Victor was conscious, after all. What had he told Gleasure to do? Mr Caswell was a man who made no concessions to illness. He had assumed he would be fully recovered by morning. He had not told Gleasure to do anything. In other words, he, like his wife, had seen no need to call a doctor? That, agreed Gleasure, was one way of putting it
.

With this modest victory under his belt, Sir Henry altered tack. Did Gleasure believe his master had been pursuing an affair with another woman? No. Did that mean he was sure he had not been? Yes. Did Gleasure believe his master was happily married? Somewhat hesitantly, yes. Did that hesitancy mean he thought the marriage was not as happy as it had once been? Yes, Gleasure supposed it did. To what did he ascribe this deterioration? It was
not
his place to speculate. Sir Henry pressed. Talbot objected. Mr Justice Stillingfleet demurred. And Gleasure reluctantly said that he thought the Caswells’ religious and racial differences had become more pronounced as they had grown older. It was an opinion that endeared him to nobody, but it sounded horribly plausible. And it ensured that Sir Henry’s first unveiled assault on the prosecution case ended inconclusively
.

But this was only the overture to the day’s proceedings, as we realized when Talbot called his last witness: Victor Caswell. Since his first appearance in court on Tuesday, he and Consuela have scarcely glanced at each other and the pattern was not broken today. Consuela stared straight ahead throughout. Victor looked only at his interlocutor. I could almost have imagined they had agreed on this arrangement beforehand, though in truth they cannot have met since Consuela’s arrest on 21 September – very nearly four months ago
.

Talbot led Victor quietly through the events of 9 September and their aftermath. They were like two men of the world discussing a regrettable political development. And with their mood the judge seemed entirely in tune. He nodded in encouragement, he almost purred with understanding. Even if I had not known all that Geoff had told me about Victor Caswell, his testimony would have disturbed me, not because of what he said but because of the way he was treated. He was an urbane English gentleman vexed by a hot-blooded and vengeful Brazilian wife. That, at all events, was what we were evidently intended to conclude. As for infidelity, his simple denial was, of course, to be accepted without reservation. And, if any member of the jury thought a husband testifying against his wife was not quite cricket, Mr Justice Stillingfleet was there to set him right. ‘The court is sympathetic to Mr Caswell’s difficult position. To give evidence in this case is obviously painful, but it is also his duty, which I am glad to see him discharging with dignity.’

Sir Henry Curtis-Bennett’s cross-examination of Victor Caswell filled the afternoon. It was a delicate and demanding encounter for both men. Neither could afford to seem discourteous, far less to
lose
their temper. Sir Henry knew he would earn a judicial rebuke – and a black mark in the jury’s minds – if he pressed too hard. Therefore, he played a cautious hand
.

Once more we reviewed the afternoon and evening of 9 September, almost, it seemed, minute by minute. Whatever was doubtful or ambiguous Sir Henry dwelt on, whatever was damaging to his client he defied Victor to emphasize. It was a skilful and well-judged performance. Yet Victor could not be persuaded to say that he had known his niece and sister-in-law might call. Nor could he be shifted from his contention that he had found Consuela alone in the drawing-room with the tea-trolley. The only issue on which he gave any ground was that of his marriage. He agreed that it had not ‘for some years’ been as happy as he had implied at the hearing. Gleasure’s assessment was probably correct. He and Consuela had grown apart as they had grown older. He even disclosed that they had slept in separate rooms since the birth of their daughter. But infidelity on his part he strenuously denied. The letters, he maintained, were completely without foundation, probably written by somebody with a grudge against him. Several candidates came to mind, but he did not wish to name them. The judge assured him that his discretion was admirable. And the judge’s intervention left Sir Henry no option but to concur and move on. Had Victor ever contemplated divorce in view of his admitted incompatibility with Consuela? If so, her religion would have been an insurmountable obstacle. All could see where such a question might lead. It was therefore no surprise when Victor insisted that he had not. Sir Henry concluded by asking him if, after sixteen years of marriage, he genuinely believed his wife was capable of murdering him. But, even then, Victor did not stumble. ‘No, sir, I don’t. But, in the light of all the evidence, what else am I to think?’ It was an impressive note to end on
.

And it brought down the curtain, we shortly discovered, on the Crown’s case. Tomorrow, Sir Henry will commence his presentation of the defence. He will have his work cut out
.

Saturday 19 January 1924

This morning, Consuela’s resolution faltered. The mask of
expressionlessness
she had worn for five days slipped and revealed the face of one who sees and knows the peril of her position. It happened as soon as she entered the dock, when, instead of staring unwaveringly ahead as the proceedings commenced, she glanced up at the public gallery. What or who she saw there I do not know. Perhaps it was just the cluster of human eagerness contained there, the greed to learn her fate, that penetrated her defences for the first time. At all events, the change in her was dreadful and moving to behold. She sat with head bowed where before she had held herself erect. There were twitches and tremors about her face. She dabbed frequently at her lips with a handkerchief and fiddled with the bow of her blouse. The years fell away and a frightened girl emerged into the spotlight of our collective gaze
.

If Sir Henry Curtis-Bennett was worried by the change in his client’s demeanour, he hid the fact well as he made his opening speech. The evidence against Mrs Caswell, he said, whilst it might seem compelling, was wholly circumstantial, and the jury would have ample opportunity to assess her character and personality, which, he felt sure they would agree, were not those of a murderess. Such was to be the burden of his defence. There was to be no forensic complexity, no legal trickery, no legerdemain. It was to be all or nothing
.

Without further ado, Sir Henry called his first witness: Hermione Caswell. Geoff had prepared me for this, but there was a gasp from others in the court who realized that Victor Caswell’s sister was about to testify in his wife’s defence. Talbot curled his lip. Mr Justice Stillingfleet manipulated his jaw as if some gristly morsel of the judicial breakfast had lodged between his molars. And Victor Caswell, I suddenly realized, was not in court
.

Hermione, his elder by ten years, is a keen-eyed spinster of sixty-five, spirited, alert, perceptive and given, it might be suspected, to mischief-making. Since she had not been among those present at Clouds Frome on 9 September, she could, of course, contribute nothing to our understanding of what had taken place there. What she could do, with Sir Henry’s encouragement, was disrupt certain notions that had imperceptibly crept into the jury’s minds. Her brother was no paragon, her sister-in-law no violent compound
of
foreign blood and pathological jealousy. She had made a study of Consuela over the years – because, she explained, she was the most exotic and interesting of her relatives – and the dominant characteristic she had noted in her was gentleness. She would not swat a fly, far less poison an innocent young girl. If – which Hermione did not believe – Consuela had poisoned the sugar, she would have intervened to prevent Rosemary consuming any
.

Talbot declined to cross-examine Hermione. He did so arrogantly, almost flippantly, hoping, I suppose, to defuse her testimony simply by ignoring it. So it was that Hermione departed with the slightly disappointed air of one who has anticipated an enjoyable scrap but been denied at the last moment. The effect she had had on the Court was difficult to assess. At best, it seems to me, she may reinforce other defence evidence. But she cannot achieve anything in its absence
.

Sir Henry’s next witness was Cathel Simpson, Consuela’s maid. She is a pretty, sullen, rather cross-grained creature, and of all the staff at Clouds Frome patently the least fitted by nature to the status of a domestic servant. She lost no time in pointing out that Victor had dismissed her from her post only a few days after Consuela’s arrest. This she seemed to attribute to her loyalty to her mistress. She had been Consuela’s maid for four years and expressed her complete satisfaction with how she had been treated by her in that time. The most significant statement she made was that she was certain neither the arsenic nor the letters had been in the drawer where they were found earlier than the day of the search. She had removed and replaced articles of underclothing at daily intervals and would have noticed anything hidden amongst them
.

Talbot’s cross-examination was cunning. He provoked Simpson into expanding on her resentment of her dismissal, then forced her to admit she had no grounds for such resentment. Victor had given her a good reference and recommended her to a reputable family in Birmingham. Since he knew his wife would be absent for a prolonged period, what else was he to do, given that he had no need of a lady’s maid himself? These exchanges, during which Simpson became impertinent enough to earn a dressing-down
from
the judge, effectively wiped out the impact of her testimony concerning the contents of the underwear drawer. They left the jury with the impression of an envious and unreliable girl quite capable of lying in order to settle a score with a former employer
.

Sir Henry did his best to retrieve the situation with his third witness: Herbert Jenkins, Hereford postmaster. Mr Jenkins was asked to scrutinize exhibits B, C and D – the anonymous letters – and give his opinion as to the authenticity of the postmarks. He said they conformed in every particular with franking practices in the Hereford sorting office, but he expressed surprise at how consistent they were. He explained that he would expect a random sample of postmarks to display differences in ink density, clarity and positioning. This was because the stamping pad was refilled with ink only when postmarks became noticeably faint and because some operatives took greater pains than others to avoid blurring or skewing the mark. It was remarkable, therefore, that three letters posted at weekly intervals seemed to have received exactly the same treatment
.

A Saturday afternoon was not perhaps the ideal time for a jury to absorb the significance of this testimony. To underline his point, however, Sir Henry recalled Danby, the butler, who explained how post was received and distributed at Clouds Frome. He or Noyce would most probably have delivered such letters to Mrs Caswell. Danby, for his part, could not remember handling any of the three, but he emphasized that he was not in the habit of studying letters addressed to members of the family. Noyce, when he was also recalled, said the same
.

There was much in this to console the defence, but it was consolation of a fragile kind. At the weekend adjournment, Sir Henry indicated that his next and final witness would be the accused herself. Once she has entered the box, the jury will surely find it difficult to concentrate on anything else, especially the finer points of Hereford postmarks. What has always seemed probable now seems certain. Consuela will be saved or condemned by her own efforts
.

I returned to Hyde Park Gardens Mews that evening in despondent mood. Nothing Imry had told me, then or on previous evenings, had given me much cause for optimism. As the crucial phase of the trial drew near, I felt more helpless than ever to influence its outcome. For as long as Imry had been able to assure me that Consuela’s nerve was intact, there had been some frail basis for hope. Now, even that was in question.

The night was cold and moonless, a steely rain falling at intervals as I made my way through the park. I had endured a week of Consuela’s ordeal and had experienced its every pang at one remove. My spirits had soared with each fleeting promise of salvation and slumped with each reverse. Of late, the reverses had seemed to come thick and fast, too numerous and severe for Sir Henry to deflect. Small wonder, then, that as I crossed Bayswater Road and entered the mews, all I could think of was the grinding succession of adverse and unavailing testimonies.