Chapter XIX.The Police Have Their DoubtsWhile the representatives of the defence—official and unofficial—were pursuing their separate lines of investigation, the police had not been altogether idle. Inspector Blaikie had not been long in finding out that Thomas had been making inquiries among the servants at Liskeard House, or in drawing the conclusion that the defence would make an attempt to shift some part at least of the suspicion to other shoulders with the object of creating enough doubt to make it difficult for a jury to convict their client. He was not surprised at this, and it did not at all alarm him; for, among other things, he regarded it as sure proof that the lawyer held his own case to be weak. The inspector was quite unable to take seriously the idea that Winter was in any way implicated in the murders; and Morgan’s complicity, owing to the position of their bedrooms, was practically impossible without Winter’s. Blaikie therefore treated Thomas’s moves as being merely the necessary preparation for an attempt to throw dust into the eyes of the jury, and not in the least an endeavour to find the real murderer. There could be no doubt about it—Thomas’s tactics were, from the inspector’s standpoint, the final and conclusive proof—Walter Brooklyn had murdered Prinsep, and either he or Prinsep had murdered George Brooklyn. They had the right man under lock and key.But it is one thing to be sure that you have the right man in custody, and quite another to be sure of getting him convicted by a jury. The inspector admitted that the case against Walter Brooklyn was not conclusive. His complicity was practically proved; but there was no direct evidence that he had actually struck the blows. The evidence was circumstantial; and, in these circumstances, the inspector did not disguise from himself the fact that any attempt to shift the suspicion might at least create enough doubt to make a conviction improbable. Accordingly, while Joan and Ellery were doing their best to prove Walter Brooklyn’s innocence, Inspector Blaikie was searching, with equal vigour, for further proofs of his guilt.But he found nothing that was of material importance, so far as he could see. The sole addition to his case was the evidence of a taxi-driver, who, from his accustomed post on the rank outside the Piccadilly Theatre, had seen Walter Brooklyn pass at somewhere about half-past eleven or so; but the man could not be sure to a few minutes. This was all very well in its way, the inspector thought; but as Walter Brooklyn’s presence inside Liskeard House at about 11.30 was proved already, it could not be of much importance to prove his presence just outside at about the same time. There was, however, this to be said for the new piece of evidence. Walter Brooklyn denied the telephone message, and maintained that he had not been at Liskeard House at all. Direct evidence that he had been at the time in question within a minute’s walk of the house was certainly better than nothing.Nothing further had come to light when, on Saturday morning, Inspector Blaikie went to Superintendent Wilson with his daily report on the case, telling him first about the taxi-man’s evidence. The superintendent seemed to attach some importance to this. “Where you have to rely on circumstantial evidence,” he said, “the accumulation of details is all-important. Every little helps. Your taxi-driver may yet be an important link in the chain.”The inspector confided to his superior that the result of his reflections on the case was to make him far more doubtful than he had been of securing a conviction.“Quite so,” said the superintendent. “I thought you would realise that when you had thought it over.”The inspector replied that he saw it now, and went on to explain what he believed to be the strategy of the defence—throwing suspicion on the servants. “The trouble of it is,” he said, “that although I’m absolutely sure in my own mind that Winter had nothing whatever to do with the affair, there’s no way of proving the thing one way or the other. So far as the evidence goes, he might have done it. Of course, there’s absolutely no shred of evidence that he did; but that is not enough to prevent a clever counsel from arousing suspicion in the mind of a jury.”“Are you so sure,” said the superintendent, “that there is no shred of evidence? I mean, of course, of what the other side may be able to dress up to look like evidence. I should say that fellow Thomas is clever enough to find something that he can make serve as a cause for suspicion, if there is anything at all that will serve. For example, this Prinsep seems to have been a bit of a beast. Is there anything to show whether Winter was on good or bad terms with him? If they had quarrelled or anything of the sort, that is just the kind of fact Thomas, or his counsel, would use to good effect.”“You’re right there; but I’ve come across nothing that would suggest a quarrel. Morgan—that’s the valet chap—made no secret of disliking Prinsep very cordially; but Winter seems to be just the good, faithful family servant.”“I dare say there’s nothing to be found out in that way: but you might make a note of it, and get a few inquiries made. We want to know exactly how strong the defence is likely to be. And, by the way, I suppose you still have no doubts in your own mind that Walter Brooklyn is the murderer?” The superintendent opened his eyes, and looked at the inspector as he spoke.“None at all—at least, it seems to me practically certain. Quite as certain as the case against most men who get hanged. Do you mean that you are in doubt about it?”The superintendent made no direct reply to this. “At any rate,” he said, “the evidence is certainly not conclusive. I suppose you have no idea whether the defence will try to prove analibi.”“I don’t see how they can. According to his own story, Brooklyn was just strolling about alone all the evening. He can’t prove that, surely.”“Oh, I don’t know about that. If it were true, he might have been seen by a dozen people. And, even if it weren’t true, Thomas might be able to produce witnesses who would swear they had seen him. Thomas wouldn’t stick at that. Anyalibihe tries to produce will need very careful scrutiny.”“But we know Brooklyn was in the house at 11.30.”The superintendent smiled, and leant back in his chair. “No,” he said, “that is just where you go wrong. We don’t know it. It rests on the evidence about the telephone message. But have you considered all the possibilities about that message? The defence clearly will not admit that Walter Brooklyn sent it. We believe he did; but is it not quite possible for the defence to argue that somebody else sent that message with the deliberate intention of misleading us? And is it not also possible that Brooklyn sent it, but not from Liskeard House?”“But why should he say he was at Liskeard House if he wasn’t?”“I don’t say he wasn’t. But he may maintain that the man who took the message down made a mistake. After all, such mishaps are common enough. Or he may have been meaning to go to Liskeard House before the messenger arrived.”“I think that is ruled out any way. We have proved from inquiries at the telephone exchange that Liskeard House did ring up Brooklyn’s club at about the time stated. There was some trouble about the connection, and the operator remembers making it.”“Well, take the other possibility. May not the defence argue that some one else must have impersonated Brooklyn at the telephone, with the deliberate object of throwing suspicion upon him? The murderer, supposing him not to be Walter Brooklyn, would obviously want to get some one else suspected if he could. On that theory, all the circumstantial evidence would be false clues left by the real murderer.”“That doesn’t seem to me at all likely, if I may say so. The evidence that was left on the spot where Prinsep was killed was obviously meant to incriminate George Brooklyn. That seems to show that, when the murder was done, the murderer had no idea that George Brooklyn was dead already, if indeed he was. A criminal would hardly lay two distinct and actually inconsistent sets of clues, leading to quite different suspects.”“Not unless he was a quite exceptionally clever criminal, I grant you. But tell me this. Why should a man, who otherwise covered his traces so well, give himself away like an utter fool by that telephone conversation?”“Obviously, I should say, because the ’phone message was sent before the murder, and the murder was not premeditated. Having killed his man, Brooklyn took the only possible course by denying the conversation.”“Yes, that theory hangs together; but I’m not satisfied with it. There seems to me to be every reason to believe that the murders were most carefully thought out beforehand, and in that case the sending of the telephone message needs a lot of explanation. Then, again, we have still no indication at all of how Walter Brooklyn, or for that matter George Brooklyn, got into or out of the house.”“On that point I have absolutely failed to get any light. My first idea, of course, was duplicate keys, and the stable yard. But the yard was quite definitely bolted as well as locked by eleven o’clock. The wall could not be scaled without a long ladder, which is out of the question. The front door is quite impossible, unless three or four servants were in the plot. I suppose they must have slipped in through the theatre, although it beats me how they got in without being seen.”“May not Walter Brooklyn have come in through the stable yard before it was closed, and been in the house some time before the murders? He may have been going away when your taxi-man saw him at about 11.30.”“Even so, that doesn’t explain how he let himself out and bolted the place after him from the inside. And, in any case, George Brooklyn was still alive at 11.30, when he was seen leaving the building by the front door. He had to get back, and Prinsep, if he killed him, must have been alive too until well after 11.30.”“And you can add to that the difficulty that George Brooklyn seems to have got back into the garden after 11.30, and that, where one man could enter unseen, so could two.”The inspector scratched his chin. “The whole thing is a puzzle,” he said. “But there’s one thing I’m sure of. It’s a much worse puzzle if you don’t assume that Walter Brooklyn was the murderer.”“Still, there’s nothing so dangerous as to simplify your problem by assuming what you cannot conclusively prove to be true. If I were a juryman, I certainly could not vote for a conviction on the evidence we have at present.”“But there’s no one else who could have done it.”“Oh, yes, there is. There’s all the population of London. I grant you we have at present no reason for suspecting any one else in particular. But that may be because we don’t know enough.”“Then what do you want me to do?”“Hunt, for all you’re worth, for further evidence. Don’t shut your eyes to the possibility that Walter Brooklyn may not be the murderer. Hunt for evidence of any kind, as if you were starting the case afresh.”“And, meanwhile, Walter Brooklyn remains in custody?”“Most certainly. There is presumptive evidence that he is the guilty party. But it’s nothing like a certainty. Remember that.”The above conversation serves to show that the police, on their side, were becoming seriously worried. They had hoped that the strong presumptive evidence against Walter Brooklyn would speedily have been reinforced by further discoveries; but so far they had been disappointed. Inspector Blaikie at least was still strongly of opinion that he was guilty; but a strong opinion is not enough to convince a jury, and the inspector did not like to see the acquittal of a man he had arrested, especially as he had no other evidence pointing to some different person as the guilty person. Superintendent Wilson at least, while he could not blame the inspector for his conduct of the investigation, was growing more and more dissatisfied with the progress of the case. He had an uneasy and a growing feeling, which he had at first been unwilling to admit even to himself, that they were on the wrong tack.
While the representatives of the defence—official and unofficial—were pursuing their separate lines of investigation, the police had not been altogether idle. Inspector Blaikie had not been long in finding out that Thomas had been making inquiries among the servants at Liskeard House, or in drawing the conclusion that the defence would make an attempt to shift some part at least of the suspicion to other shoulders with the object of creating enough doubt to make it difficult for a jury to convict their client. He was not surprised at this, and it did not at all alarm him; for, among other things, he regarded it as sure proof that the lawyer held his own case to be weak. The inspector was quite unable to take seriously the idea that Winter was in any way implicated in the murders; and Morgan’s complicity, owing to the position of their bedrooms, was practically impossible without Winter’s. Blaikie therefore treated Thomas’s moves as being merely the necessary preparation for an attempt to throw dust into the eyes of the jury, and not in the least an endeavour to find the real murderer. There could be no doubt about it—Thomas’s tactics were, from the inspector’s standpoint, the final and conclusive proof—Walter Brooklyn had murdered Prinsep, and either he or Prinsep had murdered George Brooklyn. They had the right man under lock and key.
But it is one thing to be sure that you have the right man in custody, and quite another to be sure of getting him convicted by a jury. The inspector admitted that the case against Walter Brooklyn was not conclusive. His complicity was practically proved; but there was no direct evidence that he had actually struck the blows. The evidence was circumstantial; and, in these circumstances, the inspector did not disguise from himself the fact that any attempt to shift the suspicion might at least create enough doubt to make a conviction improbable. Accordingly, while Joan and Ellery were doing their best to prove Walter Brooklyn’s innocence, Inspector Blaikie was searching, with equal vigour, for further proofs of his guilt.
But he found nothing that was of material importance, so far as he could see. The sole addition to his case was the evidence of a taxi-driver, who, from his accustomed post on the rank outside the Piccadilly Theatre, had seen Walter Brooklyn pass at somewhere about half-past eleven or so; but the man could not be sure to a few minutes. This was all very well in its way, the inspector thought; but as Walter Brooklyn’s presence inside Liskeard House at about 11.30 was proved already, it could not be of much importance to prove his presence just outside at about the same time. There was, however, this to be said for the new piece of evidence. Walter Brooklyn denied the telephone message, and maintained that he had not been at Liskeard House at all. Direct evidence that he had been at the time in question within a minute’s walk of the house was certainly better than nothing.
Nothing further had come to light when, on Saturday morning, Inspector Blaikie went to Superintendent Wilson with his daily report on the case, telling him first about the taxi-man’s evidence. The superintendent seemed to attach some importance to this. “Where you have to rely on circumstantial evidence,” he said, “the accumulation of details is all-important. Every little helps. Your taxi-driver may yet be an important link in the chain.”
The inspector confided to his superior that the result of his reflections on the case was to make him far more doubtful than he had been of securing a conviction.
“Quite so,” said the superintendent. “I thought you would realise that when you had thought it over.”
The inspector replied that he saw it now, and went on to explain what he believed to be the strategy of the defence—throwing suspicion on the servants. “The trouble of it is,” he said, “that although I’m absolutely sure in my own mind that Winter had nothing whatever to do with the affair, there’s no way of proving the thing one way or the other. So far as the evidence goes, he might have done it. Of course, there’s absolutely no shred of evidence that he did; but that is not enough to prevent a clever counsel from arousing suspicion in the mind of a jury.”
“Are you so sure,” said the superintendent, “that there is no shred of evidence? I mean, of course, of what the other side may be able to dress up to look like evidence. I should say that fellow Thomas is clever enough to find something that he can make serve as a cause for suspicion, if there is anything at all that will serve. For example, this Prinsep seems to have been a bit of a beast. Is there anything to show whether Winter was on good or bad terms with him? If they had quarrelled or anything of the sort, that is just the kind of fact Thomas, or his counsel, would use to good effect.”
“You’re right there; but I’ve come across nothing that would suggest a quarrel. Morgan—that’s the valet chap—made no secret of disliking Prinsep very cordially; but Winter seems to be just the good, faithful family servant.”
“I dare say there’s nothing to be found out in that way: but you might make a note of it, and get a few inquiries made. We want to know exactly how strong the defence is likely to be. And, by the way, I suppose you still have no doubts in your own mind that Walter Brooklyn is the murderer?” The superintendent opened his eyes, and looked at the inspector as he spoke.
“None at all—at least, it seems to me practically certain. Quite as certain as the case against most men who get hanged. Do you mean that you are in doubt about it?”
The superintendent made no direct reply to this. “At any rate,” he said, “the evidence is certainly not conclusive. I suppose you have no idea whether the defence will try to prove analibi.”
“I don’t see how they can. According to his own story, Brooklyn was just strolling about alone all the evening. He can’t prove that, surely.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that. If it were true, he might have been seen by a dozen people. And, even if it weren’t true, Thomas might be able to produce witnesses who would swear they had seen him. Thomas wouldn’t stick at that. Anyalibihe tries to produce will need very careful scrutiny.”
“But we know Brooklyn was in the house at 11.30.”
The superintendent smiled, and leant back in his chair. “No,” he said, “that is just where you go wrong. We don’t know it. It rests on the evidence about the telephone message. But have you considered all the possibilities about that message? The defence clearly will not admit that Walter Brooklyn sent it. We believe he did; but is it not quite possible for the defence to argue that somebody else sent that message with the deliberate intention of misleading us? And is it not also possible that Brooklyn sent it, but not from Liskeard House?”
“But why should he say he was at Liskeard House if he wasn’t?”
“I don’t say he wasn’t. But he may maintain that the man who took the message down made a mistake. After all, such mishaps are common enough. Or he may have been meaning to go to Liskeard House before the messenger arrived.”
“I think that is ruled out any way. We have proved from inquiries at the telephone exchange that Liskeard House did ring up Brooklyn’s club at about the time stated. There was some trouble about the connection, and the operator remembers making it.”
“Well, take the other possibility. May not the defence argue that some one else must have impersonated Brooklyn at the telephone, with the deliberate object of throwing suspicion upon him? The murderer, supposing him not to be Walter Brooklyn, would obviously want to get some one else suspected if he could. On that theory, all the circumstantial evidence would be false clues left by the real murderer.”
“That doesn’t seem to me at all likely, if I may say so. The evidence that was left on the spot where Prinsep was killed was obviously meant to incriminate George Brooklyn. That seems to show that, when the murder was done, the murderer had no idea that George Brooklyn was dead already, if indeed he was. A criminal would hardly lay two distinct and actually inconsistent sets of clues, leading to quite different suspects.”
“Not unless he was a quite exceptionally clever criminal, I grant you. But tell me this. Why should a man, who otherwise covered his traces so well, give himself away like an utter fool by that telephone conversation?”
“Obviously, I should say, because the ’phone message was sent before the murder, and the murder was not premeditated. Having killed his man, Brooklyn took the only possible course by denying the conversation.”
“Yes, that theory hangs together; but I’m not satisfied with it. There seems to me to be every reason to believe that the murders were most carefully thought out beforehand, and in that case the sending of the telephone message needs a lot of explanation. Then, again, we have still no indication at all of how Walter Brooklyn, or for that matter George Brooklyn, got into or out of the house.”
“On that point I have absolutely failed to get any light. My first idea, of course, was duplicate keys, and the stable yard. But the yard was quite definitely bolted as well as locked by eleven o’clock. The wall could not be scaled without a long ladder, which is out of the question. The front door is quite impossible, unless three or four servants were in the plot. I suppose they must have slipped in through the theatre, although it beats me how they got in without being seen.”
“May not Walter Brooklyn have come in through the stable yard before it was closed, and been in the house some time before the murders? He may have been going away when your taxi-man saw him at about 11.30.”
“Even so, that doesn’t explain how he let himself out and bolted the place after him from the inside. And, in any case, George Brooklyn was still alive at 11.30, when he was seen leaving the building by the front door. He had to get back, and Prinsep, if he killed him, must have been alive too until well after 11.30.”
“And you can add to that the difficulty that George Brooklyn seems to have got back into the garden after 11.30, and that, where one man could enter unseen, so could two.”
The inspector scratched his chin. “The whole thing is a puzzle,” he said. “But there’s one thing I’m sure of. It’s a much worse puzzle if you don’t assume that Walter Brooklyn was the murderer.”
“Still, there’s nothing so dangerous as to simplify your problem by assuming what you cannot conclusively prove to be true. If I were a juryman, I certainly could not vote for a conviction on the evidence we have at present.”
“But there’s no one else who could have done it.”
“Oh, yes, there is. There’s all the population of London. I grant you we have at present no reason for suspecting any one else in particular. But that may be because we don’t know enough.”
“Then what do you want me to do?”
“Hunt, for all you’re worth, for further evidence. Don’t shut your eyes to the possibility that Walter Brooklyn may not be the murderer. Hunt for evidence of any kind, as if you were starting the case afresh.”
“And, meanwhile, Walter Brooklyn remains in custody?”
“Most certainly. There is presumptive evidence that he is the guilty party. But it’s nothing like a certainty. Remember that.”
The above conversation serves to show that the police, on their side, were becoming seriously worried. They had hoped that the strong presumptive evidence against Walter Brooklyn would speedily have been reinforced by further discoveries; but so far they had been disappointed. Inspector Blaikie at least was still strongly of opinion that he was guilty; but a strong opinion is not enough to convince a jury, and the inspector did not like to see the acquittal of a man he had arrested, especially as he had no other evidence pointing to some different person as the guilty person. Superintendent Wilson at least, while he could not blame the inspector for his conduct of the investigation, was growing more and more dissatisfied with the progress of the case. He had an uneasy and a growing feeling, which he had at first been unwilling to admit even to himself, that they were on the wrong tack.