Death Has Deep Roots (8 page)

“What do you do in the Société de Lorraine?”

“We help Frenchmen,” said Madame Delboise. “Englishmen, too, sometimes,” she added, “when they are themselves engaged in helping Frenchmen.”

“I see,” said Nap. “Principally you find them jobs and homes.”

“Principally, but by no means solely. We are prepared to offer them any help in our power.”

“And is this all part of the service?”

Madame Delboise contrived to look puzzled.

“Escorting me across the Channel.”

“Escorting – but he flatters himself. I go to Paris, on a visit to my child who is at school. I take this route because – since we are being frank – it costs the least. And you?”

“I’m on my way—” Nap changed his mind at the last moment, and cobbled the sentence awkwardly—“I’m on my way to Paris, too.”

“Not to Angers?”

“Not immediately. I have first to visit the Sûreté’, to make myself known to your police.”

“Indeed! You are acquainted with officials of the Sûreté?”

“I know one of them. A man called Bren. I met him two or three years ago – he was helping the English police in some trouble we were having. A friend of mine called McCann was in that, too.”

“What sort of trouble? Or may you not say?”

“I don’t think there’s anything very hush-hush about it,” said Nap. “It was a sort of two-way smuggling business, gold sovereigns one way and jewelry the other.”

“I see.” Madame Delboise sounded thoughtful. “And Major McCann was involved in that, too. Do you know Monsieur Bren well?”

“Well enough to call him a friend. I think he will help me if he can.”

“Friends are always helpful,” said Madame Delboise. “Would it be an irregularity if I were to offer to buy you a drink?”

“Thank you no. I think I’ll have a turn round the deck.”

“I trust that the motion—”

“Nothing of the sort,” said Nap indignantly. “The motion is of the calmest. I thought I would like a little fresh air.”

He took up on deck with him one more little problem. He was wondering why Madame Delboise should have known enough to refer to McCann as “Major McCann.” Some of his friends still called him that, but Angus himself had not used the title since the war.

The night was darker. The moon had gone. Behind the ship the wake was barely visible on the black sea. Ahead, the lights of Dieppe were already in sight.

The Clerk: Victoria Lamartine, is that your name?

The Prisoner: Yes.

The Clerk: You stand charged upon this indictment with the murder of Eric Paulton Thoseby, a Major in His Majesty’s Army, upon the fourteenth of March of this year. Are you guilty or not guilty?

The Prisoner: Not guilty, sir.

The Clerk: The Prisoner at the Bar, Victoria Lamartine, stands charged upon this indictment with the murder of Eric Paulton Thoseby. To this indictment she has pleaded not guilty and puts herself upon her country, which country you are. It is your duty to hearken to the evidence and to determine whether she is guilty or not.

“Members of the Jury,” said Mr. Claudian Summers in his clear, uninflected, Oxford common-room voice, “I shall direct your attention first to the events which took place on the night of Wednesday the fourteenth of March of this year in a small residential hotel called the Family Hotel, comprising Numbers 41 and 43 Pearlyman Street, near Euston Station.

“Now, I do not mean to imply that this was the beginning of the story. It was not. A good deal must have happened in the past to bring about the events of that night. The roots of this tree are longer than its branches. Nevertheless, I think it is as well to emphasize at the outset of the case that, although we may often have to turn to the past to explain the motives of the actors and the reasons for their actions, yet it is with their actions on this one particular night, at this one particular place, that you and I are actually concerned, because on that night, at that place, Major Eric Thoseby was killed.

“He was killed, as you will hear, with a knife, by an upward left-handed blow above the top of the stomach, a blow which passed through the liver and the heart wall and caused almost instantaneous death. It will be your duty to say who struck that blow.

“There has never been any suggestion of accident or suicide and I will not, therefore, waste your time with fanciful speculations about such possibilities. This was a deliberate blow, delivered with intention and, I may add, with considerable skill. Who struck it?”

Mr. Claudian Summers paused. He did not look at the jury. Nor did he look at the prisoner. He scarcely seemed to be looking at anyone in the court. His eye was turned inward, down the long intricate perspective of his argument, a needle-etched landscape in black and white, comprehended in its entirety in his own capacious mind.

“First of all,” he said, “I will try to give you an idea of the sort of place where these things happened. The Family Hotel is in Pearlyman Street, near Euston. You must not suppose from its position that it is what is often referred to as a Station Hotel – you will know the sort of hotel I mean – where passengers stay for one night or perhaps two when they arrive by train in London or are waiting to catch a train on their way home from London. On the contrary, the Family Hotel, as run by Monsieur Sainte, who came here from France in 1946, appears to have been a quiet, well-conducted residential hotel. All of the people who were there on the night of the fourteenth – except Major Thoseby himself – had been there for some weeks, and two of them were living there on what you might almost call a ‘residential’ basis – a Colonel Trevor Alwright and a Mrs. Roper. Both of them were present on that night and both will be giving evidence before you, here, in these proceedings. Apart from the guests there was the permanent staff of the hotel. This was not large. Monsieur Sainte himself ran the business and acted as manager. The prisoner, Mademoiselle Lamartine, was employed as receptionist and hotel assistant – that is to say she worked in and about the residential and sleeping part of the hotel, but was not called upon to do any waiting at table – that was done by a waitress who, like the cook, came daily and slept out. Neither the cook nor the waitress was in the hotel at the time of the murder, and we shall not be troubling you with their testimony. Finally, there was the night – waiter, porter and general factotum, Ercolo Camino, whom you will hear, since his evidence, though indirect, is of great corroborative importance at a number of points.

“That was the stage on which this drama was enacted. This was the cast. I will now run briefly through the course of events, reminding you first that the facts which I shall set out are not simply
my
version or
my
opinion of what happened. They will be supported in every material particular by the evidence of witnesses who will be called before you at a later stage in the proceedings. If I make any statement which is
not
so supported I feel confident that eminent counsel for the defence will be the first to draw your attention to my oversight.”

Mr. Summers inclined his head graciously toward Mr. Macrea, who remained, however, unmoved.

‘The events of the evening, so far as they are material, start with the arrival at the hotel of Major Thoseby at about half-past eight. He had reserved a room by telephone. He had explained that he was busy at the War Office, attending a conference, and that he did not know when he would reach the hotel. He might be in time for dinner, or he might not be there until ten, or even eleven o’clock. He did not know. In fact, he arrived in time for a late dinner. After dinner, he had, as you will hear, a few words with Monsieur Sainte, in his office, and then retired to his room saying that he had a lot of writing work to get through, notes on the conference he had been attending, and so on.

“His reason for coming to the hotel is known. It is not, in fact, in dispute. He had come to see the prisoner.”

Mr. Summers, for the first time, allowed his eyes to rest for a second on the figure in the dock.

“He had come at the prisoner’s own earnest solicitation. The prisoner – and again this is not disputed – had for more than three years been trying to arrange an occasion to meet Major Thoseby. Her long search had been successful a few weeks prior to these happenings. She had got into touch with him through the good offices of a French organisation known as the Society of Lorraine. She had renewed her pressure on Major Thoseby to come and see her. He had at last consented to do so. It was his suggestion that he should stay for that one night at the hotel. He explained, in conversation with Monsieur Sainte, that his time was limited. He was in London on a visit of five or six days from Germany and much of his time was necessarily taken up with official business. He suggested, therefore, that he should book a room for that one night and could then, conveniently, have his discussion with Mademoiselle Lamartine either that evening, when he arrived, or, if he should arrive too late, then on the following morning. That was the arrangement, duly explained by Monsieur Sainte to the prisoner.

“This brings us to the first question on which there is a conflict of evidence.

“Why was the prisoner not there to meet Major Thoseby when he arrived? She was eagerly anxious for the meeting. She had made long, persistent and, at last, successful attempts to bring it about. Yet, when Major Thoseby did arrive she was out.

“I draw your attention to the point because you may think it significant. On the other hand, you may just think that it is one of those occasions on which real life is not quite so tidy as fiction. Anyway, the prisoner says that Monsieur Sainte did not make it clear that Major Thoseby could be arriving before ‘between ten and eleven.’ Wednesday was, by custom, her weekly night out. She was in the habit of having a meal at one of the restaurants in the Soho area where cooking in the French style is a speciality, and then of going to one or other of the cinemas near Oxford Circus which show French or other foreign films. This was her program and, in her account of the matter, she says that since she was not expecting Major Thoseby until ten-thirty, she saw no reason to depart from it. In any event, it is not disputed that she did arrive back at the hotel at almost exactly half-past ten.

“However, I have allowed myself to go ahead of the strict chronology of this account. Major Thoseby, as I said, arrived at the hotel at half-past eight. He had his evening meal, spoke to Monsieur Sainte for a few minutes, and then retired upstairs to his room. His room was on the first floor, and was one of four rooms, two on either side of a short passage, which made up the annex at the back of the hotel. Perhaps I might be allowed to put in one exhibit at this unusually early stage – I will have the draftsman sworn in due course – I have had a large-scale plan prepared and it might assist us all if it was in front of us.”

“If the defence has no objection,” said Mr. Justice Arbuthnot.

“Anything,” said Mr. Macrea with ferocious good humour, “which can in any way assist in disentangling the prosecution’s story must have my wholehearted support.”

A large-scale plan, ready set up on a blackboard, was wheeled forward into the well of the court and Mr. Summers, after some maneuvering, arranged it so that the jury and the judge could both see it.

He then armed himself with a short pointer and took his stand beside the board, whilst Mr. Macrea said something to his learned junior, Mr. Lovibond, in which the word “mortarboard” was audible, at which Mr. Lovibond laughed unrestrainedly.

“When you consider the events of the next two hours,” said Mr. Summers, “the time, that is to say, between about half-past nine and half-past eleven, some of you may perhaps be reminded of a certain type of detective novel. I have no doubt that a number of you read this very popular form of literature – as I do myself – and will be well acquainted with what used to be known as a ‘sealed box’ mystery. I mean that type of mystery where a body is found in a locked room with no windows, or in a strong room or in some other inaccessible place, and the question which has to be answered is not only who was the murderer, but how did the murderer get at his victim and how did he get away again. I do not suppose that such types of crime are as familiar in everyday life as they are between the covers of books, but if you look at this plan
[1]
you will see that there is here an element of what you might call control. And that control is exercised – as might be expected in an hotel – by the reception desk. A person in this desk is in a position to note at once who goes up and who comes down those stairs. And those stairs are the only means of access to Major Thoseby’s room.

“When I say the only means of access I do not mean, of course, the only physical means of access. It would be possible to climb up by ladder from the street below or to descend by rope from the roof above. It is always within the bounds of possibility that there may have been a concealed trap door in the floor of one of the rooms.” Mr. Summers presented the jury with a wintry smile. “All I can say on that score is that the police, who have made their usual painstaking examination of the building, have failed to discover any hidden trap doors, nor has any witness yet come forward – and the streets at the back and front of the hotel were by no means deserted at that hour – to say that they observed any persons climbing up ladders or down ropes.

“I think, therefore, that you are safe in assuming that this flight of stairs was the only method of approach to Major Thoseby’s room. This flight of stairs was closely commanded by the reception desk, and the desk itself—” Mr. Summers demonstrated with his pointer—“was under observation from the lounge, the door of which was usually kept open. In this way we have a cross check. The closed box to which I referred just now really was closed – not by locks, and bars, and bolts – but by human observation. You will hear one of the guests, Colonel Trevor Alwright, state that he was in the lounge from eight o’clock that evening until about half-past ten, and that during that time, as he was able to observe, the waiter, Camino, was at the reception desk. The only times, in fact, when Camino left the desk were when Colonel Alwright asked him to fetch a drink for him. Mrs. Roper, another guest, was in the lounge until ten o’clock. She then went up to her room – duly observed by Camino in the reception desk. She herself left the lounge only once, to have a word with Monsieur Sainte in his office and will confirm Colonel Alwright’s observations that Camino did not leave the reception desk during this period. This was the situation, then, between half-past nine and half-past ten. At half-past ten, the prisoner returned from her evening out. It was in accordance with normal arrangements that she would be back by half-past ten to take over Camino’s duty at the reception desk. This was to release the waiter, who had other things to see to. He had to prepare the breakfast trays, bank the fires and do a number of other jobs in and around the kitchen – jobs which usually took him the best part of an hour – before he could go to bed himself.