Crooked Wreath (12 page)

8

B
ELLA PREPARED
for the inquest next day in her favourite role of Grande Dame; a rather pathetic attempt to continue the part she supposed Serafita to have played in the social life of the locality. The family recognized it with groans of mortification the moment she appeared in the hall in the hat with the cock's feathers, an imposing affair of shiny black straw and a meaningless tangle of net.

“Darling,
not
your Marshall and Snelgrove!”

“It's black,” protested Bella.

“Yes, but, Bella, it has the worst effect on you, it'll absolutely wreck your chances with the jury …”

Bella ignored them. The hat made her feel good, it buoyed up her self-respect, it put her before herself and the world as what she surely was–a handsome elderly lady in a secure position in the County, backed up by Sir Richard March's name and Sir Richard March's wealth and family and beautiful country home. She started off down the drive, planting her feet firmly in their rather horrid new black shoes, Peta and Claire protesting on either side of her, Philip and Ellen and Edward trailing behind. A press photographer ran backwards before them and she assumed an expression of dignified reproach, bending the cock's feather slightly forward in token of mourning. “Noblesse obleege,” she said to Peta, who showed every sign of wishing to butt the photographer in his receding middle.

“I wish it wouldn't obleege you to wear that hat; no wonder he wants to photograph us.”

They marched wretchedly into the village hall where a jury of seven was already wedged tightly into the makeshift jury box, their heads and shoulders sticking out over the top like toy wooden soldiers, not yet unpacked. Bella declared her intention to cease traffic from that day forth with Billock the grocer, Hoskins the butcher, and Matchstick, the man who sharpened the Swanswater knives. “Not Matchstick!” implored Peta and Claire on either side of her. “We shall never again get a knife-sharpener with such a heavenly name!” (To be sitting here at an inquest on Grandfather's body, stared at by all these people, suspected perhaps of murdering him!)

Billock in the jury box stirred uneasily, seriously incommoding his all too contiguous neighbours. “We shall lose the 'Ouse, you'll see! That Meakin and 'is police!” He glared angrily at the unfortunate sergeant held responsible for their presence in this position of trust. The Public of Swansmere, jabbing its thumbs into the lumbar regions of its neighbours, shuffled slowly into a couple of inadequate benches at the back of the hall, several of the older women bobbing involuntarily at sight of the Hat. “'Artnoon, m'Lady!”

“Good afternoon,” said Bella stonily, noblesse alone restraining her from throwing her parasol at them.

Little men in shiny blue or grey suits busied themselves about the Coroner's desk with pencils and pens. A photographer climbed upon a table presumably to take some more shots at an original angle, of the Hat. “The widow was imposing in black,” scribbled such youths as the popular press had been able to spare from the slightly more absorbing topic of the war; on second thoughts, however, “imposing” seemed open to misunderstanding, and they scored it out and chewed at the tops of their already mutilated pens.

Mr. Bateman, the Coroner, was a solicitor from Heronsford, and was somewhat new to the job. He looked like a sly hippopotamus, a squat, heavy man with a thick neck and narrow, cunning, pale blue eyes. His hands were small and pink and dreadfully well manicured; he polished incessantly at his little, shining nails. At his entry, the Coroner's officer gave an inarticulate shout, and they both sat down with a bump.

Cockrill had decided to let Mr. Bateman have his head. He felt that alone he was helpless against the united will of the family trying–obviously–to protect Edward Treviss from the consequences of his innocent crime. He wondered if they realized for a moment what it was that they were doing; if they believed for a moment that this was really murder, or if in their efforts to shield the boy, they were not really shielding themselves from the brutal recognition of the truth. Well, now he would have them up on the witness stand, in a public place, and see if the efforts of Mr. Bateman could wring anything out of them. Accordingly, he informed that gentleman that the police had complete confidence in his discretion and would not ask for any particular reticences or evasions; if Mr. Bateman saw fit to lead the jury gently to an open verdict, of course, that would suit very well …

Mr. Bateman led Claire through the story of the finding of the body. She gave it simply enough, but it was obvious that she was intensely conscious of the interest of the crowd. She walked back to her place, tossing her head a little, and as Peta said, “making mouths.” (“She can't help it; she's just self-conscious, that's all. She can't help showing off.”) Peta herself showed off dreadfully: but her showing off took the form of little breathlessnesses and hand flutterings and gabblings which rather attracted than alienated sympathy. “My dears, it's too awful,” said Claire, scraping past them to her place. “Everybody staring at you–your mind goes an absolute blank.”

Philip, having described the appearance of the body and his first diagnosis, bore with equanimity what Peta would have called a Straight Talk from Mr. Bateman on the subject of the medical bag, left open and accessible in the drawing-room. “It's all a question of familiarity. You do things in your own house that you wouldn't dream of doing outside. At home, my bag's kept on a chair just inside my surgery ready to be snatched up at a moment's notice, on my way out. I don't go about with it chained to me.”

“Surely you keep it locked?”

“The lock's bust,” said Philip briefly.

“There is such a thing as having a lock repaired.”

“There's such a thing as the war being on and not being able to get things done for weeks or months. I can't spare my bag long enough; I can't do without it.”

“So you are content, Doctor March, to leave lethal doses of deadly poison about the house, for anyone to pick up and use as they will?”

Philip refused to be ruffled. “Yesterday those were healing drugs; something goes wrong and suddenly they're deadly poisons. A car is a lethal weapon if you knock somebody down with it and kill them; but you don't go into fifty fits if you leave your car outside the house and it's stolen.”

Argument with Doctor March appeared to be turning out an unprofitable investment. Mr. Bateman dismissed him and called Inspector Cockrill. Cockie had changed his fine white panama for a black bowler which, however, he had carried all the morning in his hand, to the great sorrow of his colleagues who did not for a moment believe that it belonged to him. He placed it tenderly on the ledge of the witness box, and automatically fished for tobacco, but controlled himself in time. He paid handsome tribute to the assistance offered him by the family in his investigations and to the fact that they had called him in from the first moment that suspicion had been aroused. Bella and the grandchildren looked down guiltily into their laps. Poor Cockie! If he only knew!

The lodge had been photographed, fingerprinted and closely examined for possible clues. “The only things of interest were a glass on the desk bearing no fingerprints except those of Sir Richard, and containing a few diluted drops of coramine; the pen in Sir Richard's hand, which bore no prints but his own–he was clutching it when he died; and the extension telephone, up to the house, which also only bore Sir Richard's prints. I was able to confirm to a great extent the movements of the people who visited Sir Richard on the evening that he died. The pen was brought down to the house by Mrs. Ellen March; the last person known to have used the telephone was Miss Peta March; and the glass was said to have been standing on a high shelf in the kitchen. Miss Peta March will be telling you about that in her evidence,” suggested Cockie, insinuatingly. His men had very thoroughly searched the house and grounds but as yet had found no sign of the missing draft of the will, or of the stolen strychnine and syringe. It was his opinion that someone had them hidden and was moving them about. The search continued. In his opinion the evidence of the footprints showed clearly that no one had been to the lodge after the paths had been sanded. Sir Richard had last been seen alive by Mr. Briggs, clerk to Mr. Stephen Garde, at a quarter to seven; that is to say, last seen by anyone outside the household, amended Cockie with somewhat heavy significance. The evidence of Brough, the gardener, had confirmed the visit of Mr. Briggs. Doubtless the jury would be hearing from them both …

But the jury could hardly wait to hear Miss Peta March on the subject of the glass from the high kitchen shelf. Packed tightly in their box, they turned like a hydra-headed monster to watch her fluttering progress to the stand. “Well, yes, the glass was in the kitchen. I went in there to rinse my hands under the tap and I noticed it. I supposed it had got left over from the last time Grandfather slept at the lodge; there was nothing else in the kitchen, not even a towel to dry my hands on.”

“Why did you not wash your hands in the bathroom where there was apparently soap and a towel?” asked Mr. Bateman, craftily, polishing away at his nails like mad.

It seemed so feeble to say that one just couldn't think
why
one hadn't; that one had drifted into the empty kitchen and turned on the tap and thought no more about it. “My hands weren't very dirty; only a little bit dusty. This is the sort of thing one does every day, only it isn't significant until something like this happens.” It was like Philip and the medical bag.

“And you didn't touch the glass?”

“No,” said Peta, surprised. “Why should I?”

“That will no doubt be for the jury to decide,” said Mr. Bateman, very grand. He examined the little pink nails. “There was no towel or cloth in the kitchen?”

“No, nothing,” said Peta. “It was absolutely bare; no curtains or anything. I had to dry my hands on the seat of my pants–well, my bathing-dress pants, you know, which was horrid because they were still damp themselves, from the swimming pool.”

Mr. Billock, Mr. Hoskins, and Mr. Matchstick looked down their noses while their minds cuddled greedily about the vision of Peta in her bathing-dress. A fine, well-developed wench for all she looked so slim. Mr. Bateman had a dear little friend in a tobacconist's at Heronsford who was often what he called “kind to him,” so he was less susceptible to disturbance of this kind. Nevertheless, he did pause for a moment or two before continuing. “Could you, if you had wanted to, Miss March, have–er–interfered with this glass?”

“Interfered with it?” said Peta, startled. “How ever can one interfere with a glass? If you mean could I have taken it down from the shelf, yes, I suppose I could, though I'd probably have had to stand on my toes to reach up to it. It's a pretty high shelf. I suppose the glass had been put up there some time, out of the way.”

Back among the family, Ellen and Claire were united for a moment in a paroxysm of hysterical giggling because “interfered” always made them think of newspaper accounts of girls who were found stabbed, strangled, mutilated, and naked, but not, the paper solemnly informed its readers, “interfered with,” and as Peta said, it did really sound peculiar when applied to a glass. Bella shushed them nervously and they gulped and were silent. Hostility descended upon them again like a shroud. Up in the witness box, Peta glanced over at them with a tiny, understanding gleam. “Was there any chair or other piece of furniture which you might have stepped on to reach the glass?” asked Mr. Bateman, steadily pursuing his course.

“No, there wasn't; and perhaps it'll save us all time if I add that I couldn't have climbed up on the sink or anywhere, because the shelf is at the end of the kitchen, against a blank wall. Though why it should matter as I've already told you I could have reached it by standing on my toes, I can't imagine,” said Peta, growing impatient. After all it was only oily old Bateman from Heronsford, and Billock and Hoskins and Matchstick and all that lot … She winked largely at Ellen, crossing with her on her way back to her place.

Ellen gave her evidence with her usual air of considering everything very silly and wishing people would get on with it. Mr. Bateman, however, starting on the nails of his left hand, brought her up short. “On your way back to the house, Mrs. March, from the lodge that evening–did you happen to see a camera–Mr. Edward Treviss's camera, I believe–on the balustrade of the front terrace?”

Damn Cockie! By what tortuous route had he learned the significance of the camera, by what cunning mathematical calculation had he juggled with two and two and arrived at four? The servants, probably, The Turtle or Mrs. Brough, had mentioned the camera lying out there with its new film in the yellow carton; had noticed it again the next morning, with the little box empty; perhaps had even watched from an upper window Philip's experiments in timing, on the morning of the murder. Ellen's little hands trembled, linked before her on the edge of the box; she knew that in the body of the court room, “the family” were trembling, too, waiting with painful eagerness to hear what she would say. She tried to make her voice casual. “A camera? Well, I don't know … Yes, I believe there was one there.”

“And a film with it? A film in a yellow carton?”

“I don't know. I don't think I noticed.” She caught the Coroner's ironical glance, his significant lifting of the eyebrows for the benefit of the jury. “Oh, well, yes, a
film
,” said Ellen, as though she now realized what they had been talking about all this time.

The pink fingertips turned over a sheaf of neat notes. “Recall Miss Claire March.” To Claire, very much frightened and worried now, he asked in his soft, insinuating voice: “When you went out onto the terrace, as we have heard, at twenty minutes to nine–was the camera there then?”