Police at the Funeral (27 page)

Marcus followed him to the doorway. ‘I say,' he said anxiously, ‘it's not a thing I advise, of course, but if you need a revolver . . .'

Campion shook his head. ‘Thanks, old boy, I have one,' he said. ‘To tell you the truth, there's only one thing I could have to make me feel really safe.'

‘And that?' inquired Marcus eagerly.

‘Suits of armour and solitary confinement for four,' said Mr Campion.

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN
of the Jury, we are here to inquire into the death of Andrew Seeley, 61 years of age, of Socrates Close, Trumpington Road, Cambridge, whose body was taken from the River Granta on 10 April last.

We have heard the evidence of various witnesses summoned to this court, and we must agree, I think, with Inspector Oates, of Scotland Yard, when he tells us that we have heard all the available evidence to help you to arrive at your decision.

We know that Andrew Seeley had been missing from his home since Sunday, 30 March, when he attended morning
service in the company of his aunt, Mrs Faraday, his niece by marriage, Miss Blount, and his three cousins, Mrs Berry, Miss Julia Faraday, and Mr William Faraday, all of the same address.

Now, the unfinished letter which has been read to you indicates quite clearly that the deceased had every intention and expectation of returning to finish it after the service. With reference to this letter, there is one point about it which may have appeared to some of you as extraordinary. The intended recipient has not been traced. But you must remember that Mr Seeley does not seem to have been a man who talked much about his friends or his personal affairs, and it is quite conceivable that he should have correspondents of whom the rest of the household knew nothing. I must say here that I am surprised and a little shocked to hear that this person, who, unless she is abroad or otherwise prevented from reading the newspapers, must have recognized herself as the one addressed in this letter, which has been widely published, should not have come forward in spite of police appeals. However, this is a small point, and we must not let it confuse us as to the main issue.

We have heard evidence to show that Andrew Seeley did not drive home with his three cousins as had apparently been his intention before entering the church. You have heard the deposition of John Christmas, stating that the deceased instructed him to drive the two ladies, Mrs Berry and Miss Julia Faraday, home in the car, as the deceased and his cousin, William Faraday, had decided to walk. He has gone on to say that these instructions astonished him, as they were contrary to custom. You will remember that you have heard that the habit was not for the car to proceed directly home, but to take a roundabout route in order to arrive at the same time as the slower horse carriage, in which Mrs Caroline Faraday chose to drive with her great-niece companion, Miss Joyce Blount. So you will see that should the two men have decided to walk straight home, they would have arrived not much later than the rest of the party.

We now come to the evidence of William Faraday, cousin of the deceased, and I ask you to consider this very carefully.

We know that the service concluded at half-past twelve.
William Faraday has told us that he accompanied his cousin as far as Coe Fen Lane, leading to Sheep's Meadows. Here, he tells us, there was a thick ground mist, a fact which has been borne out by other witnesses. He has also said that he suggested to his cousin that they should return, pointing out that the route they were taking was an extremely roundabout one. This, he says, his cousin refused to admit, and they quarrelled.

Mr Faraday then went on to tell us that he turned back alone and remembers coming out on to the road by the Leys school. There, he states, he was seized by an attack of amnesia, a complaint from which he has suffered intermittently for some time. You have heard expert evidence in support of this statement, although no one has come forward who has actually seen Mr Faraday under the influence of the malady before the date in question. However, that does not of itself make his statement untrue. Indeed, we know that he visited a very famous doctor as far back as June of last year and described his case.

Continuing William Faraday's evidence we come to some very important points. I must ask you to make particular note of the times mentioned. Mr Faraday says he remembered no more after the attack seized him until he found himself walking into the gates of his home in Trumpington Road at a time which the evidence of the rest of the family shows to have been 1.35 p.m.

There I want to leave Mr Faraday's evidence for a moment.

The next part of this tragic story which we have to consider is the discovery of the body of Andrew Seeley by two students whose evidence you have heard. You have had medical evidence which shows that the deceased met his death as the result of a bullet wound in the head. You have also heard experts who have told you that in their opinion the shot was fired at close range. The bullet taken from the body has been proved to be one discharged from a .45 revolver, the type of weapon which was used in the army during the late war, and of which there are, no doubt, many examples still unregistered in this country.

The medical evidence has also shown that the body had probably remained in the water for some considerable time. Doctor Hastings, of the Home Office, has told us that in his
opinion death took place before the body was put into the water, and that as nearly as can be ascertained, it had remained immersed for a period not less than eleven days and not more than fourteen. Now Andrew Seeley was last seen on Sunday, 30 March. This, you will see, is twelve days before the discovery of his injured body in the river.

We now come to the evidence of Stanley Waybridge, of Lady-smith Cottages, Grantchester Road, who has told us that on Sunday, 30 March last, he was just about to sit down to the midday meal which his wife had set upon the table, remarking that she was five minutes early and thus providentially fixing the time in his mind as 12.55, when he heard a shot from the direction of the river. Being naturally interested and surprised to hear such a noise on a Sunday, he went to his back door to see if he could catch a glimpse of the firer of the shot. But, he has told us, and his statement coincides with that of William Faraday, there was a thick ground mist rising to a height of five or six feet in the valley and over the river, and he saw no one. His wife called to him that his meal was becoming cold, and he returned to it, not unnaturally forgetting the entire incident until nearly a fortnight later, when the body was discovered.

Now, I must warn you that there is no proof that the shot which Stanley Waybridge and his wife heard was the same shot which killed Andrew Seeley, but you must also remember that although the police have made unremitting inquiries no one has been found who heard any other shot in that vicinity on the Sunday in question, or indeed on any of the three subsequent days. Doctor Hastings has said that the condition of the body is consistent with death having taken place at this time. I think it is safe, therefore, for us to agree that at least the probability is that this was the fatal shot which Stanley Waybridge heard at five minutes to one o'clock.

This brings us to the conclusion that if our surmise is correct, Andrew Seeley met his death somewhere in the near vicinity of the river within ten minutes of his arrival there, presuming he walked straight to that place after leaving the church. Mr Faraday has told you that in his opinion it was about ten or twelve minutes after they left church that he parted from his
cousin. Witnesses have come forward to show that these two men, William Faraday and the deceased, were seen turning into Coe Lane together at the time stated, but no one seems to have encountered either of them on the lonely footpath between the lane and the river. Nor will you, as residents of Cambridge, find anything remarkable in this. The town is empty at this time of year, and most people who had been abroad in the morning would be hurrying to their homes for luncheon and not walking in the meadows, more especially as the weather was damp and misty.

Yet there can be no doubt that Andrew Seeley encountered somebody, for here we come to what is, perhaps, the most remarkable feature of this strange and terrible history. When Andrew Seeley's body was found, it was not only wounded in the head, Ladies and Gentlemen, but it was bound. Police witnesses have shown you exactly how. It is this binding which precludes any suggestion that Mr Seeley had taken his own life, even had the half-finished letter he left behind him not been sufficient to cast a grave doubt in our minds on the likelihood of this eventuality.

Whoever accompanied or met Andrew Seeley on that Sunday afternoon bound him and afterwards brutally shot him. Now this is no sudden emotional crime. Whoever killed Andrew Seeley must have premeditated the act. The rope which bound the body has been exhibited to you, together with a portion of skylight cord brought by the police from an attic in the deceased's home, easily accessible to anyone in the household. We have heard the evidence of experts upon this subject, and we have compared the two pieces of cord ourselves. I think it is reasonable to admit that there is no difference in the texture, or the gauge, of these two pieces, when we make due allowance for the time that the one has been immersed in water.

In this long and difficult inquiry we have been confronted again and again by evidence which has pointed in one direction. But we must not blind ourselves to the fact that this evidence has in every case been purely circumstantial, and when we come to examine direct and proven fact we are faced with a wide gulf between those facts and the explanation
which the circumstantial evidence would seem to bring most naturally into our minds.

To continue with the evidence which Mr Featherstone, solicitor acting for the Faraday family, has felt it right to produce.

Mrs Finch, proprietress of ‘The Red Bull' hotel in Knox Street, has come forward and has told you positively and upon oath that William Faraday entered her establishment, betraying every symptom of the malady from which he says he suffers, at – and this is important, Ladies and Gentlemen – fifteen minutes to one on the Sunday in question, and remained there until fifteen minutes past, behaving in a way which she has described to us as absent-minded. I have questioned this witness carefully before you, and I think we must agree that she has said nothing, nor has she behaved in any way which could lead us to believe that her evidence is not reliable. Alfred Robins, the potboy employed by Mrs Finch at ‘The Red Bull' hotel, is a witness whose story corroborates his employer's in every detail. And we also have to consider the evidence of Frederick Shepherd, builder's clerk, of Grey Street, who has told us that he entered the saloon bar of ‘The Red Bull' hotel at ten minutes to one on the Sunday, to find a man at the bar whom he took to be tipsy, and with whom he had a drink. When asked if he could identify this man in the court, you will remember that he unhesitatingly picked out William Faraday.

Now I feel it is only just to interpolate here an inference, which has occurred to me, and which may also have occurred to you. The process of tying up a man, even if he has been previously stunned, or perhaps shot, and of lifting that body, is an arduous undertaking and would leave, one may legitimately suppose, signs upon the clothing and hands of anyone who had performed such an act. Moreover, the wound which the deceased sustained was of a very grievous nature, and there would be a considerable amount of blood in the vicinity of his body after it had been made. I feel that we must ask ourselves, could any man have lifted or moved such a body without becoming stained? Each of the three witnesses produced by Mr Featherstone has told you upon oath that at five minutes to one
on the Sunday Mr Faraday was immaculately dressed, and that he looked, as Mrs Finch described him, as though he came straight from church.

We now come to the question of the weapon. Mr Faraday reported to the police through his solicitor that he had at one time been the possessor of a revolver of the same calibre as that from which the fatal shot was fired. William Faraday's revolver was stored, with his old army uniform, in an unlocked trunk in the same attic from which the police have procured the window cord. The police have searched for this revolver and found it to be missing. I should like to dwell upon the point that Mr Faraday made the statement voluntarily. The trunk was kept unlocked. It was within reach of all in the household, and yet the person who removed it might have been reasonably assured that the loss would not be discovered for months, and possibly for years.

No weapon has been found. Inspector Oates has told you of the lengths to which the police, in their zeal, have gone to discover it, without success. Neither of these two revolvers, then – for it has not been shown that they are identical – has been produced.

Ladies and Gentlemen, you have now to consider your verdict. But before you retire I should like to remind you of one thing: this is not a police court. We are here only to decide in what manner this unfortunate man met his death. That is, the cause of death alone is our concern. If you find upon the evidence that he was murdered, you must say so. If you consider that you have not heard enough evidence to show either in what manner, or by whose hand, he died, then you must bring in a verdict coinciding with that view. But if you are agreed that the evidence has clearly indicated the man or woman who is responsible for this cruel and, as far as we know, motiveless crime, then it is your solemn duty to point him out. Ladies and Gentlemen of the Jury, you may retire to consider your verdict.

After a deliberation of only twenty minutes the jury brought in a verdict of ‘Wilful Murder by Person or Persons Unknown.'