The Scandal at 23 Mount Street (An Angela Marchmont Mystery Book 9) (13 page)

Then the murmur was hushed up and proceedings began. The judge gave his usual speech to the jury, who sat up and looked even more self-conscious, after which it was thought necessary to get the legal arguments out of the way. This was all very dull, and consisted of much to-ing and fro-ing between the defence and the prosecution on matters which were of minute interest to those in the know but which caused nothing but blank incomprehension on the part of everyone else. The attention of the spectators had just begun to drift away when there was a stentorian clearing of the throat, and a voice addressed one Angela Lillian Marchmont and invited her to speak. She was accused of the murder of her husband, David Alexander Marchmont, on the night of the tenth of November or early in the morning of the eleventh of November last. How did she plead?

‘Not guilty,’ said Angela, and everybody in the public gallery shuffled in pleasurable anticipation.

The floor was then thrown open to allow the prosecution to begin its case.

‘I say, they’ve wheeled out the Attorney-General,’ whispered Freddy to Kathie. ‘Hasn’t he got anything better to do?’

Sir Benjamin Hicks-Reddington, K.C.V.O, K.C, M.P, was a man of enormous importance—not least in his own eyes. In his many years at the Bar, he had successfully prosecuted and defended some of the most famous legal cases of modern times. Any soul who found himself in the unfortunate position of having to answer to a murder charge in court invariably breathed a sigh of relief and considered himself a lucky fellow on being informed that ‘Redd’ would be defending his case, for that gentleman was blessed with a brilliant legal mind, together with a sort of genius for spotting the flaw in any argument advanced by the other side. In addition to this, he was handsome, with a rich, resonant voice, which he used to great effect in his speeches, for he was also an orator of great talent and eloquence. Fortunately for those who might baulk at the idea of so much perfection unfairly concentrated in one human being, Sir Benjamin was also an exceedingly vain man. No-one could possibly be fonder of him than he was of himself, and nothing pleased him more than to catch sight of himself in some reflective surface—be it a looking-glass, a silver knife, or even a particularly shiny vase—and pause, as it were accidentally, to admire the sight out of the corner of his eye (for he was wise enough not to make the thing
too
obvious). Vanity aside, however, there was no getting around the fact that he was a formidable adversary, and Freddy’s exclamation was prompted less by disrespect than by a stab of dismay that Angela now had a harder task ahead of her, for if it were a very good thing to have Sir Benjamin on one’s side, it was a very
bad
thing to have him acting against one.

Sir Benjamin cleared his throat and began, and soon the entire court was in thrall to that rich voice as it addressed the jury.

‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ Sir Benjamin boomed, ‘you are here today, not on behalf of any person in this court—neither the judge, nor the lawyers, nor the prisoner, nor the people in the public gallery—but on behalf of a man who cannot be here today for reasons quite outside his control. His name is—or was—David Marchmont, and he was the husband of the prisoner, Angela Marchmont, who is the woman you see before you. In the next few days, it will be your task to decide whether Mrs. Marchmont was or was not directly responsible for his death, and if the answer be yes, whether the killing was intentional or accidental. This is a weighty task that now falls upon your shoulders, and you must not shirk your duty, but instead must face it with courage, conviction and a clear head. As you bend your efforts towards the ends of justice, you must do so impartially, objectively, and without prejudice. You may, for example, have already heard of Mrs. Marchmont. There are few people in the land, I expect, who have
not
heard of her, for she has been a stalwart presence of late in the newspapers, which have dwelt much upon her exploits. There is no denying that she has gained a sound reputation as an amateur detective, and the men of Scotland Yard will be the first to admit that she has frequently given them valuable assistance, and on more than one occasion has been responsible for bringing dangerous criminals to justice. And yet despite this I tell you that you must now
forget
all you know of her; you must forget everything you have ever read about her in the popular press, for none of it is relevant to the instance at hand. The case upon which you have been called to pronounce judgment is a very simple matter, and can be summed up thus: did Angela Marchmont or did she not murder her husband? That is all you are required to decide; and how Mrs. Marchmont brought about the arrest of such-and-such a person, or what she said when such-and-such a criminal was caught, are of no interest to us at all at present. As His Lordship has quite rightly told you, you must confine yourself to the facts of the case and forget everything else.’

‘How he does go on. I wonder if he’s paid by the word,’ murmured Freddy to Kathie.

‘Now,’ went on Sir Benjamin, ‘let us begin. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, it is my intention to demonstrate to you beyond all possible doubt that Angela Marchmont did, with malice aforethought, take a gun and shoot her husband dead in the early hours of the morning on the eleventh of November, nineteen twenty-eight. I will demonstrate to you that the prisoner had every reason to kill her husband, that she had the means to kill him and that she had the opportunity to do it. Furthermore, from the witnesses I will produce you will hear that Mrs. Marchmont has no alibi for the fatal time; that is, she cannot prove that she was elsewhere at the moment her husband was shot.’ He paused to let this sink in, then threw a hand out grandly and exclaimed, ‘Let the first witness be called!’

The first witness was less impressive than might have been supposed from his introduction, being none other than Inspector Scott, who in a brisk voice described the circumstances under which the death of David Marchmont had come to his attention, and what the police had found when they arrived at Angela Marchmont’s flat at 23 Mount Street.

‘This flat is in a building with other flats, is it not?’ said Sir Benjamin. ‘Where is Mrs. Marchmont’s flat located in relation to the others?’

‘On the third, or top floor,’ said Scott. ‘There are four flats on each floor.’

‘Is the building served by a lift?’

‘Yes.’

‘What about a porter?’

‘There is a porter, but he was not there when we arrived, and I have since found out that his attendance is somewhat irregular,’ said Scott.

‘You have spoken to him, then?’

‘Yes. He was away sick on the Saturday and Sunday in question and could tell us nothing about what had happened.’

‘Very well,’ said Sir Benjamin.

There followed questions on the location and position of the body when it was found, then Sir Benjamin said:

‘Where was Mrs. Marchmont while you were conducting these investigations?’

‘She was in the flat,’ said Scott.

‘Did you question her?’

‘Yes. I asked her if she knew anything about what had happened to her husband.’

‘And what did she tell you?’

Scott related what Angela had told him. The court listened attentively.

‘And how did she appear to you? Did she seem at all upset at Mr. Marchmont’s death?’ said Sir Benjamin.

‘Not especially,’ replied Inspector Scott. ‘In fact, she didn’t seem upset at all. She was very calm all the time we were there.’

‘Did this surprise you?’

‘At first, but then she told us she had been separated from her husband for more than two years, which went some way to explaining it.’

‘Then Mr. and Mrs. Marchmont were not on good terms?’

‘That’s not what she told us. She said that they were not the best of friends, but that they were civil to one another.’

The questions then moved on to the matter of the missing door key, after which everyone was left in no doubt that Mrs. Marchmont must have admitted her husband to the flat on the night of the murder, since he had not been found in possession of a key.

Sir Benjamin now invited the defence to cross-examine. Mr. Travers was as unlike Sir Benjamin as it was possible to be, being a mere wisp of a man by comparison with the Attorney-General, and yet there was something about him that held the attention. He now rose to his feet and addressed Inspector Scott. He was very curious to know whether the police had found any sort of weapon in the flat.

‘No, we didn’t,’ said Inspector Scott. ‘We searched the place thoroughly but there was no trace of a gun.’

‘Did you ask the prisoner whether she owned a gun?’

‘We did, sir, and she admitted that she owned a revolver.’

‘Then how did she explain the fact that there was no gun in the flat?’

‘She couldn’t explain it. She said the murderer must have taken it.’

‘I see. Then there is no clue at all as to the exact nature of the weapon which was used to shoot the prisoner’s husband, is that correct?’

‘Not exactly,’ said Inspector Scott. ‘When we were searching the flat we found a bullet embedded in the wall at such an angle as to make us pretty certain that it was the one that killed David Marchmont.’

The article in question was then produced and handed to the jury, who examined it with great outward solemnity and inward excitement.

Mr. Travers continued:

‘But since we have no gun, we cannot be absolutely sure who owned the weapon that killed him, is that correct?’

Inspector Scott admitted that this was the case, and Mr. Travers sat down. He had attained his point, and had planted a doubt about the weapon in the minds of the jury. Freddy, however, happened to be looking at Sir Benjamin at that moment, and could not but remark the satisfied smile that now spread over the Attorney-General’s face.

‘Hey, hey,’ he said to himself. ‘I wonder what old Ben has up his sleeve now? He looks far too pleased with himself for it to be anything we want to hear.’

The next witness was the doctor who had first examined the body. He gave a dry little cough and repeated for the benefit of the court his view that David Marchmont had died some time between eight o’clock on the night of Saturday the tenth of November and two o’clock in the morning on Sunday the eleventh of November. He then proceeded to explain that it was never possible to be entirely certain about time of death, and went into some little detail about the temperature of the room and the state of the body when he had seen it with respect to the advancement of rigor mortis, much of which was not understood by the majority of his listeners. Still, the point had been made and the idea was firmly fixed in the mind of the jury that an alibi was needed for the period from eight o’clock until two o’clock.

The doctor’s evidence concluded with his initial opinion on first seeing the dead man that he had been shot in the head, but he was given no opportunity to expand on this for he was then hustled off to be replaced by Dr. Everett Menzies, the well-known pathologist, who had performed the post-mortem examination on David Marchmont. The court sat up with interest at this, for Dr. Menzies had in the past few years made quite a name for himself in the field of criminal pathology, and had, thanks to his scholarly research and confident manner of giving evidence in court, sent a number of murderers to the gallows and exonerated several others.

Dr. Menzies was a tall, spare man with a tendency to regard people down his nose, which gave him a particularly arrogant look. As it happened this habit, which was purely physical, was not in the least bit misleading, for it matched perfectly his personality, since Dr. Menzies had never been known to countenance the mere possibility that he might be wrong about anything, and in fact was perfectly convinced that he represented a superior form of humanity. Fortunately for him, his abilities
almost
matched his opinion of himself, and so he and the law mostly got along very well indeed, and his was invariably the first name on everybody’s lips whenever a case involving particularly tricky medical evidence presented itself.

In this case, however, the medical aspect was not particularly taxing. Dr. Menzies announced almost idly that according to his examination, David Marchmont had been killed by the passage of a projectile through his head. The bullet had entered the deceased’s skull through the right temporal bone, just grazing the occipital bone as it did so, and had emerged through the left frontal bone. Asked to put it more simply, Menzies explained that the bullet had gone in just behind the right ear towards the base of the skull, had passed diagonally through the dead man’s head and had emerged through the temple just above his left eyebrow. From the scorch marks on the entry wound, he continued, he judged that the shot had been fired at close range.

‘Do you mean that whoever killed David Marchmont shot him from behind?’ inquired Sir Benjamin.

‘Not
exactly
,’ said Menzies. ‘I should say it was more to the side and just slightly behind.’

This was a distasteful thought, and a whisper set up in the public gallery as the spectators considered the new idea that Mrs. Marchmont had not killed her husband in a fit of rage after all, but had crept up on him and quite deliberately put a bullet in his brain. Any woman might lose her head and take a gun to a troublesome husband in the heat of a row, it was agreed, but a shot almost from behind was not fair play at all.

‘Silence!’ ordered someone, and the noise died down.

The bullet was now produced again and handed to the pathologist.

‘Now, Dr. Menzies,’ said Sir Benjamin. ‘I should like to ask you about this bullet. You examined it as part of the evidence, did you not?’

‘I did,’ said Menzies.

‘I understand that you have made something of a study of ballistics in recent years,’ said Sir Benjamin, ‘and have published a number of papers on the subject, with particular reference to the characteristics of bullets which have already been fired from a gun.’

‘That is so.’

‘Thank you. You will remember that some few weeks ago you were asked to examine the bullet you have in your hand. Let the record state that the bullet in question is the one which was extracted from the wall in the prisoner’s flat. You will also remember that at the same time you were asked to examine a second bullet. Where was the second bullet from?’