Fog of Doubt (28 page)

‘Yes,' said Damien. ‘You see, after the murder, I swopped.'

‘After you'd got the blood on them, you mean?'

‘Yes. I—well, I sort of jumped over the—the body—when I rushed out of the hall.… I was a bit shaken, I expect,' said Damien, apologetically.

‘And you got blood on them, then?'

‘Yes. And you see, if you've got blood on your shoes, it's no use trying to wash it off or anything,' said Damien, explaining kindly to the poor bloody British police; ‘and if you get rid of them, that's no use either because people know about it and afterwards, when things happen, they begin wondering—I mean, your mother asks you where your shoes are and things like that, especially if they're new ones and these were fairly new ones. So the only way to hide them is somewhere where people will see them but won't look at them, if you see what I mean. Well, Mr. Hervey wears the same kind of shoes as I do, because it was him who recommended them to us, and when he got new ones, he took me along to his shop and I got some too; and of course there was nothing on earth to connect Mr. Hervey with the Frenchman being killed, so I thought if the police ever—ever connected
me
with it, they might come and look at my shoes, but they'd never look at Mr. Hervey's. So I just swopped with him, and I wrote my initials in his with huge ink letters. I think he must take half a size smaller than me, though; they've been hellishly tight all this time, and they've given me an awful blister. And he does seem to have been rather slopping about in mine, poor old boy.' He looked up guilelessly into Mr. Charlesworth's face.

‘Is that all?' said Mr. Granger. (‘I'll leave this to you,' he said to Charlesworth, ‘and get back to the court.')

Charlesworth nodded absently. Damien, having exhausted his spate of words, had time to look about him and take stock of their effect. ‘What about Melissa now, Inspector? What'll happen to her?'

‘That remains to be seen,' said Charlesworth, shrugging. ‘
And
what happens to you.'

‘Well, I can't help what happens to me; I don't see how I could have given her away for killing that brute of a man, and in France they wouldn't have taken any notice, they'd just call it a crime passionelle. Even Dr. Edwards and Thomas Evans, I thought would put up with it. But when she starting accusing Matilda, who runs around taking birds away from cats and mice out of mouse traps, or rather making other people do it, because she can't bear it herself, well, I couldn't let that go. What happens now?'

‘Well, first we test your story at every point.…'

‘You test it?'

‘You have a serene confidence in its being accepted,' said Charlesworth.

‘Well, damn it, it's the truth.'

‘It's an explanation, anyway.'

‘An explanation—what of?'

‘Of the fact that you have Raoul Vernet's blood on your shoes.'

‘But I tell you, it was Melissa who killed him.'

Mr. Charlesworth smiled and shrugged: ‘At this moment, no doubt, she's in there in the witness-box—saying the same thing about you.'

Damien was silent for a long time, his face like a child's face, frightened and troubled. But at last he lifted his head and squared his shoulders, and set his young mouth into an ugly sneer. ‘I see. So that's your little game.' And he gave a light laugh and held out his hands for imaginary handcuffs. ‘One more dangerous Red out of the way,' he said.

Charlesworth thought that perhaps he flattered himself a little.

An expert witness who had been waiting two days to give evidence and saw his chance of finishing to-day getting more and more remote, slipped out of court and rang up his wife and told her to send him a telegram. At the end of Melissa's protracted appearance in the box, therefore, Counsel for the Crown stood up and said that, m'lord, Dr. Brightly had received an urgent call, and if it was convenient to opposing counsel, he, for his part, would be willing to hear Dr. Brightly's evidence now and let him get away, unless his lordship had any objection; his lordship stifled the reflection that, at the rate things were going, they might as well all get into the box together and chant their evidence in unison, and replied graciously that if it suited Counsel …? Mr. Dragon raised his seat from his seat for a moment and said, perfectly, perfectly, m'lord, and sat down again. Dr. Brightly therefore droned his way into the box and Charlesworth wagged his head at Inspector Cockrill and met him outside the court and produced a cigarette. ‘If I don't have a fag, I shall go off my ruddy rocker. Look here, what did you mean by saying not to worry, you'd fix it?'

‘Well, I meant, don't worry, I'll fix it,' said Cockie.

‘Do you mean you
know?
'

‘No, I don't know,' said Cockie. ‘I only guess.'

‘Oh, well,' said Charlesworth, disappointed. A fine time to be playing guessing games! The truth was, the old boy was past his prime.

Cockie looked up from under his eyebrows with a gleam of mischievous bright brown eyes. It wouldn't be the first time he had ‘fixed it' for Mr. Charlesworth, but these young sparks would never learn. ‘You don't think I can do it?'

‘How can you, if you don't even know the person who murdered the man?'

‘I propose that the person who murdered the man shall stand up in court and tell us so himself.'

Thomas, Tedward, Damien Jones; Matilda, Melissa, old Mrs. Evans. ‘That's so likely, isn't it?'

‘Properly handled, I think it is.'

‘Thomas Evans has been discharged from the case, Dr. Edwards is about to be found Not Guilty; Melissa and the Jones boy cancel each other out, the old lady could not possibly have hit the man on the head and that's flat. And Matilda Evans …' He paused. He said, slowly: ‘I suppose there
was
n't anything in that girl's revelations?'

Cockie shrugged and smiled. ‘My dear friend Matilda is in a considerable flap about the revelations; in fact she doth protest too much, I think. But of course the more truth there was in the revelations, the less likely that she was the murderer.'

Mr. Charlesworth did not see that at all. ‘If the affaire was such,' said Cockie, ‘that she was capable of murdering him through jealousy, do you for a moment suppose that he would have confessed to her that he'd been having fun with Rosie? He was a foreigner, he was far away, he need never see her again: why should he tell her? What a fool the man would be!'

‘Well, but Rosie might tell her.'

‘She hadn't, had she?' said Cockie. ‘She'd told her the father of the child was someone else—someone, incidentally, whom Tilda could not possibly have mistaken for Raoul. And Rosie herself laughed like a drain at the bare idea that that scruffy old Raoul Vernet might have been her lover. And even if she
had
told Matilda—Raoul Vernet could have simply denied the whole thing. Rosie had had lovers enough in Geneva; he could have denied the whole thing and that's what he would have done—and what's more, he'd have denied it from afar.'

‘You don't seem to think very highly of the gentleman's sense of honour,' said Charlesworth.

‘I think very highly indeed of his sense of preservation: and therefore I say that the truer it was that he was Matilda Evans' lover, the less likely that he would have come over here and invited her to murder him.'

‘Of course she
could
have done it.'

‘It's all a question of coulds and woulds,' said Cockie. ‘Matilda could have, but she wouldn't have. Ted Edwards would have, but he couldn't have; because he quite positively did not come in ahead of Rosie, and for the rest of the time he was with her at his house, or driving the car; the old lady wouldn't have
and
she couldn't have, because, first of all Rosie had described a totally different seducer to her, and secondly she literally would not be able to lift her arms to deal such a blow; Melissa Weeks could have, but she wouldn't have, because contrary to Master Jones's beliefs, she had not been seduced and betrayed by Raoul Vernet; and Damien Jones could have but he wouldn't have because why should he? He thought it was Melissa who had been seduced, not Rosie, and he didn't know Melissa nearly well enough to run round slaying her seducers.'

‘He
says
he thought it was Melissa. How do we know that's true? It may all be a cover-up. He was in the house that morning, he could have fixed the telephone message and got the mastoid mallet and the gun.…'

‘And then waited for Melissa to ring him up and summon him round—finally getting in his bash with about half a minute to spare.'

‘But we've got nobody left,' said Charlesworth.

‘Only Thomas Evans; and you've had him and let him go.'

‘There's no evidence against him,' said Charlesworth. ‘We couldn't get him.'

‘You'll find there's no evidence against the murderer,' said Cockie. ‘But you'll get
him!
'

‘Him?'

‘Him or her; I don't mean necessarily a male.'

‘But male or female—you know? At least you can guess?'

‘I can—work it out,' said Cockie, slowly. ‘And so can you.' He would have said more, but Dr. Brightly came hurrying out through the glass swing doors, and he caught Charlesworth by the arm instead. ‘We must get back into court.'

‘There's no hurry,' said Charlesworth, puffing at his cigarette.

‘On the contrary there's a great hurry: all the hurry in the world.'

‘Yes, but tell me …'

‘I've told you,' said Cockie, crossly: honestly, these young men!

‘You've told me? You haven't said a word.'

‘I've told you that there's a hurry; this case must be decided in the next half hour, or else … Doesn't that mean anything to you?' He added impatiently: ‘My dear fellow—can't you see it? Rosie Evans told me on her deathbed that Ted Edwards could have killed Raoul Vernet.…'

‘But he couldn't,' said Charlesworth. ‘It's been proved up to the hilt that of all people concerned with this case, the one person who could not possibly have killed the chap was Edwards.'

‘Well, damn it, that's what I say,' said Cockie. ‘Then why the hell should she have told me that he could?' He shoved his companion towards the door, and at the same moment a voice murmured a name, a second voice took it up and cried it forth, a third voice echoed it louder still, voice taking up the syllables from voice like the baton in a relay race, Call Mrs. Evans,
Call Mrs. Evans
, CALL MRS. EVANS … Clad in her rusty black with her crumpled flat black hat set squarely on her head, and her old eyes bright with a desperate, and yet a sort of mischievous resolve, old Mrs. Evans trotted into court and along the narrow pathway between the benches and under the shadow of the high dock and up the steps and into the witness-box. She settled herself without haste, placing her handbag on the ledge beside her, rolling her gloves into a ball beside it, giving the neat result an approving pat; and lifted her head and flashed across at the prisoner in the dock a smile whose brilliance and tenderness lit for a moment with a special radiance, the already bright-lit court. The little chippy diamonds and sapphires sparkled on the thin old hands clasped, trembling, on the ledge of the box. Greater love hath no man, thought Mrs. Evans to herself, withdrawing the smile and turning to face the onslaught from the benches opposite, than that he lay down his life for his friend; and so stood there, waiting—the only person in the entire court who did not know that her friend was in no need of her sacrifice, that the suspect was no longer suspected, the accused no longer accused, the prisoner, in all but the formal verdict, free.

‘Raise the book in your right hand. “I swear by Almighty God …”'

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

U
P
in the crowded gallery they made way for the young man who had made such a sensation by calling out that the evidence of the curly-haired young lady had been all lies; in the benches to the left of the dock, Matilda sat with Thomas two or three places away from Melissa and exchanged with her no smallest glance of recognition; on the narrow seat beneath the jury box, Inspector Cockrill lounged with his shoulders up to his ears and his chin on his chest, in an agony of alternating hope and doubt. The usher stood patiently waiting, with one hand on the ledge of the witness-box. Mrs. Evans said regretfully that she
was
so sorry, she did hope it wouldn't muddle things up for them, but she was afraid she couldn't. Mr. Justice Rivett relieved his feelings with a somewhat over-dramatic sigh, hooked himself over the right arm of the great chair and said, ‘Can't what?'

‘Can't raise the book in my right hand, my lord,' said Gran, flashing the smile again. ‘I
am
so sorry, but you see I have this idiotic arthritis in my shoulder and I can't raise my arm at all.' She demonstrated the restricted movement of her arm. She
was
so sorry to be a nuisance.

‘If you just hold the book so that it can be seen that you are holding it, that is all that is required,' said the judge, patiently. He settled back into the chair and folded his hands across the black sash that held the untidy scarlet robe in place, and exchanged with counsel in their benches a tiny glance, half amused, half desperate; what on earth is
this
one going to get up to, said the glance.

Sir William rose to his feet, tucked up a heel against the bench behind him, gripped the edges of his black gown, one in each hand, dragging it down heavily from the shoulders, and launched upon the regulation questions that must be briefly put and, pray God, as briefly answered before they could decently wind up the case and all go home. His mind toyed pleasantly with the prospect of a free afternoon to-morrow; with the collapse of the case against the accused (no possible shadow of blame attaching to its conduct by the Attorney-General), it could not possibly linger on after midday to-morrow. Your name is Louisa Jane Evans …? (One might go out to the R.A.C. and get a game of golf…) You are the grandmother of the previous witness, Thomas Evans? (Or run down and see the children at school.…) And you live with him at his home? You remember the evening of November 23rd? Perhaps you would tell us briefly in your own words.…?