Reëntering the crowded court, Ronnie saw that Brunton was already seated. The K.C., turning from conference with his junior, darted one look at his opponent; that same look, compound of fear and obstinacy, of injured pride and determination for revenge, of the weak man who knows himself in the wrong and means to persist in his wrong-doing, which Ronnie had noted on the day when he pleaded for Aliette's freedom.
Forcibly the personal issue obtruded on Ronnie's mind; and he could not help speculating, as Mr. Justice Heber took his seat, whether that ermined figure, whose gleaming spectacles turned this way and that, to the police-sergeant reëntering the box, to the jury, to Henry Smith-Assher rising to continue his examination-in-chief, and lastly to the motionless woman in the dock, knew anything of the fight for another woman's freedom, of the private quarrel between counsel for the prosecution and counsel for the defense.
"May we take it, then," Henry Smith-Assher fidgeted with the tapes round his bull-neck, "that the accused's statement was entirely voluntary?"
"Entirely," answered the witness, obviously honest, and as obviously convinced of the prisoner's guilt.
"Thank you, sergeant, that's all I have to ask you."
Henry Smith-Assher subsided; and Ronnie--his voice vibrating with suppressed nerves, but all issues save the immediate driven from his mind--rose to cross-examine.
"I want you to tell me, sergeant, whether the original suggestion that the accused should make a statement came from you or from her?"
"From the accused."
"You cautioned her, of course?"
"Yes."
"Did she, at the time she made the statement, appear much upset?"
"Considerably, I should say."
"Ah." Ronnie---one hand spread-eagled on his brief, jingled with the other at the coins in his trouser-pocket. "Then I should not, perhaps, be putting it too strongly if I suggested that at the time she made this so-called confession the accused was in a state of hysteria?"
"She was considerably upset," repeated the witness stolidly.
"Was she crying?"
"Well----"
"Answer the question, please."
"She might have been crying."
"H'm." Again the coins jingled in the trouser-pocket. "Did you gather from her general demeanor that the accused was attempting to tell you the exact truth?"
"Yes."
"And, coming to the last words of her statement, 'I love Bob very much,' did you gather from the way accused made that statement that Robert Fielding was her lover, in the accepted sense of the word?"
The uniformed witness hesitated; and Ronnie, his nerves for the moment forgotten, took advantage of the hesitation. "I want you to tell his lordship and the jury, sergeant, whether, when the accused volunteered this statement to you, the impression made on your mind was the impression that she had been guilty of adultery with her cousin, Robert Fielding."
"I can't say I thought very much about it."
"You can't say you thought very much about it? Exactly. Didn't you think, perhaps, as any reasoning man would think, that all the accused meant to imply was that she was very fond of her cousin?"
"Yes. I suppose so."
"Thank you. I'll take that answer."
The next witnesses were the medical experts--Dr. Spilsbury and Dr. Wilcox. Them Ronnie did not cross-examine. But as Maggie Peterson, answering instantly to the call of her name, flounced through the glass doors and made her defiant way past the reporters' table to the box, John Cartwright--watching counsel for the defense as a trainer watches his man in the ring--saw his mouth set, his chin protrude. And John Cartwright thought, "I wonder if I was right about briefing Cavendish. I wish I knew what he was driving at with that last cross-examination. I wonder what he'll make of this witness. From the look in H. B.'s eyes, she's the crux of his case."
Lucy Towers, too, seemed to realize the importance of Maggie Peterson's evidence. Again, as during Brunton's opening, aloofness went from her. She leaned forward from the dock.
"You're a married woman, Mrs. Peterson?" Hector Brunton in person rose to examine the blowzy black-eyed creature who had just kissed the well-thumbed book.
"I am."
"And at the time when Lucy Towers shot her husband you were living at 25 Laburnum Grove?"
"I was."
"Could you tell us the date of the shooting?"
"The fifth of July."
"Were you actually in the house when the crime took place?"
"I was not." The patness of the cockney woman's answers warned Ronnie that she must have been coached in her part. It seemed to him, listening to her every carefully-pronounced syllable, that a purpose, a definite, a personal, and a premeditated purpose, underlay them.
"For how long before the fifth of July had you been living at Laburnum Grove?" went on Brunton.
"Two years."
"Had you known Mr. and Mrs. Towers for some considerable time?"
"I had. And Bob Fielding."
"Confine yourself to answering my questions, please. For how long had you know William Towers and his wife?"
"Eighteen months. Ever since they came to live at the Grove."
The K.C. paused, and looked warningly at the jury before putting his next question. "Then can you tell us, of your own knowledge, whether, during those eighteen months, the accused was on good terms with her husband?"
The woman--purposely as it appeared to Ronnie--hesitated; and Brunton, leaning forward, altered his formula. "Did they, as husband and wife, get on well with one another?"
"Well, I shouldn't like to say they was on the best of terms."
"Were they on bad terms?"
"Yuss." The voice, hitherto so careful, lapsed into slum cockney. "Yuss. She was a bad wife to Bill, was Lucy. Never did nothing for him."
At that his lordship made as though to put a question, and the examiner changed his line. "Now I want to ask you: have you ever heard the dead man complain about his wife?"
"Not till Bob Fielding came to live at the Grove."
"But after Robert Fielding came, he did complain about her?"
"Yuss, often."
"Can you tell us the sort of thing he used to say?"
"Yuss. He said that he could never get nothing done because she was always muckin' about with Bob."
With any other examiner except Brunton, the coarse phrase would have elicited laughter from the spectators. But Brunton was taking no chances. Quickly he carried on his witness's story.
"You gathered then, I take it, that William Towers was not satisfied with his wife's behavior?"
"Satisfied?" The black eyes under the feathered hat glinted. "Nah. He wasn't never satisfied, with 'er. Not after Bob Fielding came to the Grove."
"Would you describe William Towers as jealous of Robert Fielding?"
"Nah. Not jealous, but suspicious."
"Suspicious, eh? Had he, to your knowledge, any reasons for that suspicion? Have you personally, for instance, ever seen any act on the part of the accused which might give rise to suspicion in her husband's mind?"
"Well----" Again it seemed to Ronnie, weighing every inflection of the cockney voice, that both the hesitant monosyllable and the answer which followed it were premeditated. "Well, I've seen her going to 'is room often enough."
"Whose room?"
"Bob Fielding's."
Brunton paused to study his brief; and in that pause it came home to Ronnie that the whole atmosphere of the court was hostile. The domed place seemed charged with psychical electricity. He could actually feel the currents of fear and prejudice tingling between the motionless jury and the motionless figure in the dock. Looking at his client, he saw that her lips moved, as though in dumb, unavailing protest.
"And these visits"--the "hanging prosecutor" did not even look up from his brief,--"were they paid by night or by day?"
"She was alwus going to 'im."
"By night as well as by day?"
"Yuss. By night as well as by day."
"What time of the night?"
"All hours of the night."
"You're certain on that point?" Now Brunton looked at his witness.
"Yuss, certain."
"Then can you give us any particular date on which you actually saw the accused woman go into Bob Fielding's room late at night?"
"She went there about half-past nine on the night of July 4th."
"And did you see her come out?"
"Nah. She hadn't come out by the time I went to bed."
"The night before the murder. Thank you, Mrs. Peterson." Brunton smiled grimly. "And now, just one more question. Has the accused ever spoken to you about her husband?"
"Yuss."
"When was the last time she spoke to you about him?"
"On the Sunday."
"What Sunday?"
"The Sunday"--Maggie Peterson's voice shrilled--"before she shot 'im."
"Please tell his lordship and the jury, to the best of your recollection, what she said to you."
The hard eyes of the woman in the witness-box turned to the woman in the dock. For a full second they looked at one another; and Ronnie, watching, saw that it was Maggie Peterson who first turned away.
"Tell his lordship and the jury," prompted Brunton.
"Well"--a fraction of its certainty had gone out of the shrill voice,--"it was like this. We meets in the passage, and she says to me: 'Bill ain't fit to be no woman's 'usband. I wish to Gawd 'e was dead. I shan't never know a moment's 'appiness till heisdead.'"
"And had the accused previously made, in your presence, similar statements?"
"Yuss. Time and again."
"Thank you. That will be all."
Hector Brunton sat down; but before Ronnie could rise to cross-examine, the judge had intervened.
"You say," said the judge, referring to his notes, "that on the night before the crime was committed, at about half-past nine o'clock, you saw the accused go into Robert Fielding's room. Was she--to your personal knowledge--in the habit of making such visits?"
"Yuss, m'lord."
"You're prepared to swear that?"
"Yuss, m'lord."
"Very well." Deliberately, Mr. Justice Heber wrote down the answer. "Now, on the night of July 4, you're prepared to swear that you actually saw the accused"--the legal voice was stern--"go into Robert Fielding's room; and you are also prepared to swear that by the time you went to bed, she had not come out."
"Yes, m'lord."
"Where were you at the time you saw all this?"
"I was standing in the passage----"
"What passage?"
"The passage between her room and mine."
Mr. Justice Heber relapsed into a meditative silence; and Ronnie, looking across the thirty feet of crowded space which separated him from the hard defiant eyes of Maggie Peterson, rose nervously to his feet.
"You told my learned friend"--the suave tone betrayed no hint of hostility--"that you are a married woman. Are we to understand from that that you and your husband live together?"
"No."
"I take it, then, that you are legally separated----"
"My lord, I protest." Instantly Brunton, too, was on his feet. "My learned friend is not entitled to cross-examine----"
"My lord, I submit," instantly, counsel for the defense took up the challenge, "that on the question of credibility I am entitled----"
The judge allowed the question, and Brunton, muttering, subsided.
Yes, admitted Maggie Peterson, she was separated from her husband.
"And you told his lordship"--his first victory over the enemy made Ronnie suaver than ever--"that you occupied the room opposite to that in which the accused lived with her husband. Can I take it, from that, that you were--and still are--on friendly terms with the accused?"
The witness faltered. "Well, she and me used to speak to one another when we met."
"Then you neither were nor are on particularly good terms with the accused. Now, were you on friendly terms with the accused's husband?"
Again the witness faltered, and Ronnie repeated his question. "I put it to you that you were not on friendly terms with Lucy Towers, but that you were very friendly with William Towers."
"Not very friendly. We were just neighbors."
"Just neighbors, eh?" For the first time since Maggie Peterson had entered the witness-box, Ronnie felt the atmosphere of the court favorable. The jury, and more especially the three women on the jury, had obviously taken his lucky point. He pressed it home: "You say the accused told you, some days before the crime, that she would never be happy until her husband was dead. Why should she tell you that if you and she were not on friendly terms?"
"I dunno," sulkily; "she just said it."
"Are you prepared to swear that those were the actual words she used?"
"Yuss," defiantly, "I am."
"Then if I put Mrs. Towers in the witness-box, if she denies on oath that she made any such statement to you, she will be guilty of perjury?"
"Well----"
"I want an answer to my question. If Mrs. Towers denies, on oath, that she made any such statement, will she or you be guilty of perjury?"
"Well," the red hands shifted on the rail of the witness-box, "I wouldn't care to say she used those actual words. But that was what she meant."
"You realize that what you are saying is of very grave importance?"
"Yuss."
"But you abide by what you have told us about the conversation between you and the accused?"
"Yuss."
Question and answer went on; till Maggie Peterson, gazing angrily at her interrogator, saw a black-coated figure move to his side.
"What the devil----" Ronnie, feeling a twitch at his gown, turned to see Bunce, all agog with excitement.
"Chap at the back of the court, sir, says you're to look at this before you ask any more questions."
Benjamin Bunce, having delivered himself of his message and a scrap of soiled paper, slipped away. Ronnie, taking no further notice of the interruption, continued his attempts to shake Maggie Peterson's evidence. But the witness had grown sullen. His suavity elicited only monosyllables. He felt the jury wearying, growing hostile once more--felt himself outwitted--felt it useless to continue the struggle.
Then, just as he was preparing to sit down, his left hand, fidgeting with his notes, touched the scrap of paper which Bunce had laid among them; and glancing down, he saw: "M. P. is a bloody liar. I can tell you something about what she was doing on the fourth of July."
Ronnie looked round for his clerk, but his clerk had disappeared. The ermined figure on the bench was growing bored.
"If you have no further questions to ask this witness----" began the ermined figure.
Maggie Peterson grinned. And suddenly Ronnie knew panic. Either he must close his cross-examination; or risk a shot in the dark. For a second he made as though to sit down; then, seeing some emotion almost akin to reproach flit across the pale face of his client, he took his risk.
"You told both my learned friend and his lordship that at half-past nine o'clock on the fourth of July--I want you to be very careful of the date, please--you saw the accused go into Robert Fielding's room. You are still prepared to swear, on your oath, that that statement is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?"
"Yuss"--shrilly, but there was a trace of fear in the shrill.
"And supposing--mind you, I'm only supposing--that a witness were to come forward and say that, on the night in question, you could not possibly have seen any such thing, that witness would not be telling the truth?"
"What do yer mean?"
"I should have thought it was sufficiently obvious," said Ronnie gravely; and repeating his question knew, by the very look on the witness's face, that his shot in the dark had found its mark.
"I've told yer all I know," retorted Maggie Peterson stubbornly.
"Possibly more." Ronnie, warming to a subdued chuckle from Spillcroft, ventured one more question. "Tell me, please, what you didafteryou had--as you say--watched the accused woman go into her cousin's room?"
"Went to bed, of course."
"Then you were in bed by a quarter to ten?"
"I suppose so."
"Not later than ten o'clock, anyway?"
"No."
"Thank you." Ronnie turned to the judge. "That is all I have to ask this witness, m' lord."
To the woman in the box, it seemed that her ordeal was over; to the jury, that the bulk of her evidence remained unshaken. But Brunton--reëxamining at length--was obviously suspicious of a trap. He kept on glancing at Ronnie as though to find out what had prompted those last questions; and Ronnie, as though hiding some secret, kept on refusing to meet the glance.
"I shall adjourn till ten o'clock to-morrow," said his lord-ship--reëxamination concluded.
Sweeping his scornful way out of court, the "hanging prosecutor" deigned yet another glance at his enemy. But his enemy's eyes did not look up: they were still glued to that little scrap of paper which he had spread out on his brief.
Walking back alone to the "ridiculous flat," Ronald Cavendish was oppressed with a sense of his own inefficiency. Even though his intuitive suspicions about Maggie Peterson's honesty had been to a very large extent confirmed by that piece of paper, the author of that piece of paper could not be found. Bunce, bullied to remember who had given him the document, thought it was "a common-looking kind of fellow." Cartwright, told, had said skeptically, "Those sort of things always happen in murder-trials. I'd forget it if I were you." But Ronnie could not forget.
Halting under the light of a street-lamp, he drew the paper from his pocketbook and reread it for the twentieth time. If only he could succeed in discrediting the Peterson woman. Yet, even if he did succeed in discrediting Maggie Peterson, in nullifying her evidence as to motive, Brunton--according to his opening--had other witnesses.
Walking on, he bought an evening paper. The paper reported Brunton's speech verbatim. Curse Brunton! What an orator the man was. Listening to him, one could hardly imagine Lucy Towers anything but the murderous adulteress.
Caroline Staley had prepared the usual faultless dinner; but her master ate hardly anything. In his mind, he went over Maggie Peterson's evidence, weighing it word by word. Obviously the woman hated Lucy Towers; obviously, almost obviously, she had had some sort of relations, probably immoral relations, with the dead man. But how the devil could one prove that? Even proved, how did it advance matters? If only Bunce hadn't been such an infernal fool. If only Brunton weren't such an infernally fine orator. Curse Brunton!
Half a bottle of claret and a cigar only added to Ronnie's depression. Alone in the drawing-room where he and Aliette had so often sat together, he felt as though, failing Lucy Towers, he would fail his own woman; as though the fate of Lucy and the fate of Aliette were one fate; as though, by not saving the one from Brunton's hideous cleverness, he would never rescue the other from Brunton's hideous obduracy.
Brunton! The man's face traced itself, bewigged, implacable, relentless, in every up-curling puff of Ronnie's cigar-smoke. Behind that face hovered the faces of the jury. And the jury stood for public opinion; public opinion solid on Brunton's side. In his fight against Lucy Towers, as in his fight against his wife, Brunton had the world's judgment in his favor: yet both women--"both," repeated conviction--were innocent, at least in intent, of anti-social crime.
A hell of a lot "intent" mattered to Hector Brunton!
If only Hector Brunton were dead! If only for Aliette's sake, for Lucy's sake, he, Ronald Cavendish, could kill Brunton as William Towers had been killed! Surely that killing would be not murder, but justice. For more than a year Brunton, moved only by blind vanity, had been striving to compass the ruin of a woman against whom his only grudge was that she had denied herself to him. Now, moved by the same blind motive, he was striving to compass the ruin and the death of Lucy Towers. Between those two women and the tyrant who oppressed them stood but one man. Himself--Ronald Cavendish. Surely the killing of Brunton would be no murder!
The little mood of madness passed. Resolutely Ronnie put the personal issue out of mind. Resolutely he fetched his papers from his dressing-room and set himself to study the reports of the trial before the magistrate. If only he could discredit Brunton's evidence on the question of adultery, surely there was a chance, just the shadow of a chance, to secure the coveted verdict, justifiable homicide.
"But I'd need to be an orator for that," he thought; and all night, tossing sleepless, visions flickered across the taut screen-board of his brain. Alternately he saw Aliette, Lucy, his mother--sad faces, each oppressed, each pleading for deliverance.
Yet next morning, as he emerged from Temple Station and made his way along the Embankment to his chambers, Ronald Cavendish's self-confidence returned. And the self-confidence increased fourfold when Bunce, rather shamefaced, handed him yet another scrap of paper.
"Found this in our letter-box, sir," said Bunce.
Deciphered, the sprawly disguised handwriting read: "I seed her in the Red Lion, Hill Street, with Bill T. Time 10:15 pip emma. She's a bitch. I ought to know. I married her."
This time even John Cartwright thought the information of value. "Though I don't see how you can use it," he said dubiously. "Unless Standon's people can find this fellow Peterson for us."
"I sha'n't need Peterson," decided Ronnie, as their car swung them down Holborn. "He probably has his own reasons for keeping out of the way. A witness from the public-house will be enough. Will you send some one down at once? The fourth of July, luckily, is American Independence day. Some one's sure to remember if Towers was there on that particular night, and who was with him."
The solicitor, dropping his passenger at the Old Bailey, drove off hurriedly.
Public interest in the case had not diminished overnight. Already the early street crowd numbered hundreds. On the great staircase, on the wide landing, folks seethed and jostled. The packed court-room itself--as the dignified figures of Mr. Justice Heber and his accompanying big-wigs took their seats---was a lake of straining faces.
Immediately Brunton rose to examine his next witness; a tall black-mustached, black-haired type with flashy rings and a flashy tie-pin, who answered to the name of John Hodges.
He was a book-maker, John Hodges told the court. He had known Bill Towers for many years--long before he married. He had often heard the dead man speak of his wife. The dead man had been very fond of his wife; but the affection, according to Hodges, had not been reciprocated.
Question and answer flowed on. But to Ronnie, waiting anxiously for Cartwright's return, it seemed as though Brunton must be ill. Twice the harsh voice missed the sequence of its questions. Twice Henry Smith-Assher had need to prompt his leader. And twice, as the examination neared its ending, the gray eyes under the "hanging prosecutor's" gray horsehair deserted their witness to stare, fascinated, at the woman in the dock. Lucy Towers, it seemed to Brunton, stared back at him with his wife's own brown unfathomable pupils.
"You've known the accused ever since she married the deceased?" he asked his witness. "Has she ever spoken to you about her husband?"
"Only once."
"Can you remember what she said?"
"Yes. She said that she wished she'd never married him."
"When was that?"
"Some time in June."
"Can't you fix the exact date?"
"No, not the exact date. It was somewhere about the end of June, I think."
"Thank you." Heavily Hector Brunton sat down. All night the face of the woman in the dock had haunted him. And now, now the still, small voice of conscience was whispering again. "Cruel," whispered the voice; "cruel." But the sight of Cavendish, rising to cross-examine, silenced the voice of conscience, brought back the suspicion that Cavendish held some card, some trump-card, up his sleeve. And "Even if he gets the charge reduced to manslaughter," thought Brunton, "she'll do time. She won't be able to trouble me for years. Say seven years."
"Mr. Hodges"--Ronnie's voice recalled his enemy to the actualities,--"when the accused made this statement to you, were there any other people present?"
"Yes."
"Will you please tell his lordship and the jury who else was present."
"Bill Towers, of course."
"Why 'of course'?"
"Well, naturally he wouldn't leave another man alone with his wife."
"He was jealous of her, eh?"
"Jealous!" The rings flashed. "I should just about say he was jealous."
"Ah!"--Ronnie's coins jingled--"and did this jealous husband make any comment on his wife's remark?"
"No."
"Wasn't that rather curious? Now tell me, did you gather, from the way you allege the accused spoke, that she meant her statement seriously?"
"I thought she was serious."
"Oh, you did, did you? Please tell me something else. Are you prepared to inform his lordship and the jury that your impression at the time was that it was the accused's intention to kill her husband if ever she got the chance?"
"Well, I shouldn't like to go so far as, to say that."
"Naturally not. Now listen." Ronnie leaned forward; and his gaze traveled towards the jury. "I put it to you that the remark was meant as a joke."
"Well, not exactly a joke."
"Come, come, Mr. Hodges," said Ronnie, and his tone was a shade less suave than his words, "you're a man of the world. You must have realized at the time whether the accused was speaking seriously or not.'
"I thought she was serious." The book-maker, though obviously flustered, stuck to his guns.
"Very well. We'll leave it at that. The accused told you, in her husband's presence, that she wished she'd never married him. Her husband, apparently, didn't take any notice of the remark. But you thought it was serious. Not very convincing--but still----"
Ronnie's question trailed off into a sarcastic silence. Looking sideways at Brunton, he could see that Brunton was troubled; Brunton kept talking to Smith-Assher, kept fidgeting with his gown and tapes, with the pencils and paper in front of him. The sight gave Ronnie confidence. He continued his cross-examination.
"You told my learned friend that, although William Towers was very fond of his wife, his affection was not reciprocated. How did you know that? Didshetell you?"
"No."
"Did William Towers tell you?"
"No."
"Then who did tell you?"
"Well, it was common gossip."
"Gossip!" Ronnie jumped on the word. "Where?"
"Oh, all over the place."
"Ah!" Counsel for the defense jingled two thoughtful coins. "I'm afraid I don't know Brixton very well, Mr. Hodges. Tell me, please, when you say all over the place, do you include," more jingling in the trouser-pocket, "a certain public-house called--'The Red Lion'?"
"Well----" the witness hesitated.
"Let me put my point clearly. Do you know, in Brixton, a public-house called 'The Red Lion'?"
"Yes."
"How far is that public-house from 25 Laburnum Grove?"
"About half a mile."
"Shall we say about ten minutes' walk?"
"Yes. That's about it."
Obviously the judge was puzzled. "Mr. Cavendish," he intervened, "I'm afraid I don't quite follow."
"M' lord," every syllable of Ronnie's fell with its distinct emphasis, "the point is of vital importance in connection with the evidence of a previous witness." And he went on swiftly to ask the book-maker, "Do you know a woman called Maggie Peterson?"
"Oh, yes." The white teeth under the black mustache parted in a grin. "Oh, yes, I know her quite well."
"Mrs. Peterson told us in her evidence that she was a friend of the deceased. Is that true?"
"Oh, yes, they were quite friendly."
"Very friendly?"
"Yes."
"Ah!" Ronnie, glancing covertly at the jury, saw a little ripple of excitement pass over the stolid faces of the men. Behind him, among the barristers, he could hear excited breathing. "Now, just one more question, Mr. Hodges, and then I have finished with you. Have you ever seen Mrs. Peterson in company with William Towers at 'The Red Lion'?"
"M' lord"--Brunton, scruples and caution thrown to the winds, leaped upright,--"I protest at this attempt to cast aspersions----" But Mr. Justice Heber, who had now taken Ronnie's point, allowed the question; and John Hodges, reluctantly, answered it with a "Yes."
The K.C.'s attempt, in reëxamination, to prove the disinterestedness of the book-maker, added to Ronnie's elation. If only Cartwright succeeded in securing that evidence----
But Brunton's examination of the next witness pricked the bubble of his opponent's momentary elation. The "hanging prosecutor" was fighting again, fighting as he had never battled in his life, for a conviction. The gray eyes no longer dared look at the dock; the woman in the dock, thought Brunton, was the woman who had wronged him, the creature he must destroy.
"I swear to speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth," said James Travers, a big blond seafaring man whose square-shouldered bulk almost filled the witness-box. And he spoke the truth according to his lights. A story deadly enough, even without Brunton's prompting. He and Bob Fielding had been shipmates during the war. Bob Fielding had often spoken to him about his cousin Lucy. Bob Fielding made no secret of the fact that he was in love with his cousin; "that he'd have cut off his right hand rather than that she should marry Bill Towers." Further, James Travers had visited Bob Fielding about three days before the commission of the crime.
"Did he, on that visit, speak to you about the deceased?" asked Brunton.
"Yes."
"What did he say?"
"He said that Bill Towers ought to be shot."
"Did he say anything about Mrs. Towers?"
"Yes, he said that she ought to have some one to look after her."
"Did he say she ought to have something to look after herself with?"
Despite Ronnie's protest at the leading question, his lordship allowed it; and James Travers answered, "Yes."
"And what happened then?"
"He showed me a pistol."
"A pistol!" Brunton signaled to the clerk of the court, and the clerk handed up a revolver to the witness. "Is that the pistol?"
"Yes."
"Was this weapon loaded when you last saw it?"
"It was."
"Did Fielding make any remark about it?"
"Yes. He said: 'That'll cook Bill's goose for him.'"
Once more the atmosphere of the court grew hostile. Watching the jury, Bonnie could see that his enemy had almost turned them. Impassivity settled like a mask on the faces of the nine men. The two spinsters gazed awe-struck at the big weapon in the seafarer's big hand. Even the red-hatted matron, whom he had decided a moment since definitely favorable, shook her head twice as though in new doubt. Then, turning from the jury-box to the dock, Ronnie was aware of his client's eyes. The eyes--Aliette's very own---looked pitiful. Imagination told him that they were afraid, that at last the woman realized her danger. He tried to signal to her; but she took no notice of his signal.
"That will be enough, I think," gloated Brunton; and, nervously, Ronnie started his task of cross-examination.
"You've known Robert Fielding for some time?"
"About seven years."
"Is he, in your opinion, a violent man? The kind of man who would commit a murder?"
"No."
"Or," Ronnie's nervous voice dropped two full tones, "the sort of man who would incite some one else to commit murder?"
"No."
"When Robert Fielding told you that he was in love with his cousin--that was a good many years ago, wasn't it?--did you understand that there was anything guilty in that love? That his cousin was his mistress?"
"No. I did not." The sailor's eyes--blue as the barrister's own--kindled.
"As far as you know, had misconduct taken place between Robert Fielding and his cousin?"
"I don't know anything about that."
"Was Lucy Towers in the room during any part of your conversation with Robert Fielding?"
"No."
"Has Robert Fielding ever suggested to you,sincehis cousin's marriage, that he would like to get her away from her husband?"
"No." The witness hesitated. "Not exactly."
"What do you mean by 'not exactly'?"
"Well, it didn't seem to me that Bob'd be exactly sorry if anything happened to Towers."
Brunton chuckled audibly. The chuckle enraged Ronnie. For a question or two he fenced aimlessly with his witness's honesty. Then suddenly he decided to try and turn that very honesty against his opponent.
"Tell me," he said suavely, "did you gather from the way in which Robert Fielding habitually spoke of him that the dead man, William Towers, was of a very violent disposition?"
"Well, more or less I suppose I did."
"And would it be too much if I suggested to you that it was solely because of her husband's violent disposition that Robert Fielding thought his cousin should have either some one to protect her, or some means of protecting herself? That he had that particular thought in his mind, and that thought only, when he showed you this revolver?"
The sailor seemed to find some difficulty in understanding the suggestions; and even after Ronnie had repeated them piecemeal, he refused, sailor-like, to commit himself.
Nervously, the cross-examination went on. "Now about this revolver: did you gather that Robert Fielding had only just bought it, or that he had had it in his possession for some considerable time? It's an old-fashioned navy revolver, isn't it?"
"Yes."
"He must have had it some time--ever since he left the service, probably?"
"Probably."
"He didn't, at any rate, tell you he'd just bought the weapon?"
"No."
"Coming back to the question of Towers, did Fielding tell you anything about his habits?"
"Not that I remember."
"He didn't by any chance mention," Ronnie referred to a note at the back of his brief, "that William Towers was addicted to drink?"
"No. He only said he ought to be shot."
Seating himself, Ronnie was conscious of partial failure. The sailor-man's innate distrust of lawyers had taken the edge off his questions. Brunton, infinitely experienced, limited his reëxamination to the main points: Robert Fielding had admitted himself in love with his cousin; Robert Fielding had said that William Towers ought to be shot.
Ronnie's hands, as he made his notes, trembled on the smooth foolscap. The mute figure in the dock was a reproach. Cartwright had failed him. Brunton's "That, members of the jury, is the case for the Crown," seemed to carry the unworded sting, "And let my learned enemy refute it if he can."
And then, just as Lucy Towers was being marched down to the cells, came Cartwright, his eyes twinkling behind his rimless eye-glasses. "I've got him outside," whispered Cartwright, "and I daren't leave him alone. It's too damned important. Here's your proof." He disappeared through the swing-doors with the crowd; and Ronnie, looking at the scribbled document, read:
"Bert Bishop will state: I am the licensee of the Red Lion Tavern, Hill Street, Brixton. I remember the fourth of July last year, because it was American Independence day, and I have some American customers. On the fourth of July I had difficulty in turning them out at closing-time. I have known Maggie Peterson for two years. I knew the dead man, William Towers. Maggie Peterson and William Towers were at the Red Lion that night. They came in about eight o'clock, and did not leave till a quarter past ten."
Ronnie, shaking off Spillcroft, spent the luncheon adjournment alone. His bouts with the last witnesses, followed by the shock of Bert Bishop's proof, had rattled him. As he was leaving the court, the doorkeeper handed him another shock--a telegram. Opening it, he read, to his relief: "All love and all success.Julia." But the growing crowd in the street, the multiplying posters, the comments which reached his ears as he made his hasty way towards Holborn, rattled him still further.
His luck only added to his fears. Had it not been for the two anonymous notes, Maggie Peterson's evidence would have stood unchallenged. Now he could smash that evidence. But even now---even if the jury believedhisside of the case sufficiently to discount Brunton's plea of premeditation--even if Bob Fielding and Lucy came well through the ordeal of Brunton's cross-questions--how, how the devil could he hope, unless some miracle gave his halting oratory genius, to secure a complete acquittal?
Lunching alone in the crowded grill-room of the South-Eastern & Chatham Hotel, Ronnie's thoughts went back to other days. He saw himself soldier again, and remembered the particular type of moral courage, of self-control, necessary for the winning of battles. That moral courage, that self-control must be his again if he would win this fight against Brunton. "This is my chance," he thought. "My one chance of downing the brute. I mustn't muff it."
Gradually solitude restored his balance. Gradually, his mind reconcentrated. Weeks of thought crystallized to short sentences. Lucy, Lucy Towers must be saved. Nothing but that mattered. The personal issue dwindled to unimportance.
Walking back to the court, he found that he could think, even of his enemy, logically.
But when, a few minutes later, Ronald Cavendish, rising to open the defense of Lucy Towers, saw Hector Brunton bowed over his brief, nothing of him visible except a patch of gray wig, the hump of a black back, and one gentlemanly hand clutched round the gold pencil-case--then, for a moment, logic failed; and only the fear-stricken eyes of the woman in the dock, only his personal enmity for the man keyed him to the struggle.
"M' lord, members of the jury," he began, and there was no attempt at oratory in his beginning, "it will be no part of my case to prove to you that Lucy Towers did not shoot her husband. She did shoot him. She shot him exactly as counsel for the Crown has proved to you. But when the Crown asks you to find my client guilty of wilful murder, when my learned friend brings what he is pleased to call evidence in support of malice and of premeditation; then I join issue with him. My submission to you is that there was, in what my client did, neither malice nor premeditation.
"Yet even if my learned friend fails--as it seems to me he must fail--to convince you of premeditation, that failure will not furnish me with sufficient grounds on which to ask you for my client's complete exoneration. Only on one ground can I ask you, as I intend to ask you, for your verdict of not guilty; and that ground, members of the jury, is justifiable or excusable homicide.
"Excusable homicide!" For a full ten minutes, the voice, grave, low, meditative, calm as the voice of the judge himself, dealt with the legal aspect of excusability; and all the while Hector Brunton listened, motionless. But suddenly, as Ronnie's tone changed to the tone of the pleader, the "hanging prosecutor" shifted on his seat; and savagely he stared at his enemy.
"Those, members of the jury, are some of the grounds on which our law excuses the killing of one human being by another. But there are other grounds, grounds which not only excuse but justify. It is such justification, the fullest possible justification, which I purpose to plead. My learned friend, you may have noticed, was very careful to avoid any reference to the character or disposition of my client's husband. I, on the contrary, intend to deal with that point rather fully."
Already the very quietness, the very certainty of that opening had impressed the court; and as, still quietly, yet with a hint of mounting passion behind it, the speech went on; as, point by point, counsel for the defense traversed the statements of counsel for the Crown, it seemed, even to the obtuse Spillcroft, as though the capital charge against Lucy Towers might fail.
"While as for the minor charge," continued Ronnie, "the charge of manslaughter--of which, as his lordship will tell you, even though it is not pleaded on the indictment, it will be open to you to find my client guilty--on that charge, too, I intend to ask you for the completest acquittal."
Brunton's stare relaxed. He hunched himself once more over his notes. And abruptly instinct, the instinct of the born advocate, warned Ronnie that he had spoken long enough. He glanced at the clock, at the jury. The jury--and especially the three women--were losing interest. Those women wanted neither argument nor oratory. They wanted drama. They were waiting, as spectators in a theater, for him to put Lucy Towers in the witness-box. So, abruptly, he regalvanized their interest.
"Members of the jury, my learned friend who leads for the Crown has been at great pains to convince you, out of the mouths of his witnesses, that Lucy Towers is both murderess and adulteress. I propose to afford him yet another opportunity of convincing you--by putting both my client and her cousin in the witness-box."
At that, the whole court stiffened to attention, and even the judge, who seemed to have been dozing throughout the speech, leaned forward. "Isn't he even going to deal with the evidence for the prosecution?" thought the judge.
But Ronnie purposely played his highest card last.
"Nevertheless, before you hear my client's story from her own lips, I must ask you to weigh very carefully certain evidence which the Crown has thought fit to call against her. With the testimony of John Hodges and of James Travers, honest testimony, let us hope, I shall deal at a later stage of these proceedings. But the evidence of Maggie Peterson calls for different treatment. Because Maggie Peterson has lied--and lied deliberately!
"Lied--and lied deliberately." Now, as passion mounted and mounted, kindling the quiet voice to rage, Brunton's head twitched from his brief, and his eyes, the cold gray eyes under the gray wig, glanced fearfully about the packed court-room.
"Because, on the night of July 4, the night when Maggie Peterson swears that she saw my client making her way to Robert Fielding's room, Maggie Peterson was not at 25 Laburnum Grove at all."
Ronnie paused, letting his every word sink home. Rain, pattering suddenly on the glass dome above, seemed to emphasize the silence below. Then passionately the speech ended. "My lord, members of the jury, I ask for no mercy. I ask only for justice. I ask you to remember, even while you are listening to my client's testimony, that the main evidence against her, the evidence of this woman Peterson is, from beginning to end, one tissue of deliberate lies, of the most wilful and corrupt perjury, as I shall prove to you out of the mouth of a competent witness, the landlord of the Red Lion Tavern, who will testify to you beyond the shadow of a doubt that from eight o'clock till after ten on the night of July 4, Maggie Peterson never left his establishment; who will testify, moreover, that Maggie Peterson's companion on the night in question was none other than my unfortunate client's husband, William Towers himself."
And on that, satisfied with the utter hush which followed, Ronald Cavendish put his client in the box.
There are seconds in every man's life when the conviction of his own wrong-doing shatters the edifice of conceit and flings illusion headlong.
Such a second came to Hector Brunton, K.C., as he watched Lucy Towers step down from the side of the dock and make her way past the packed benches to the witness-box. With her--he could feel--went a wave, a great wave of human sympathy, the wave against which he, Hector Brunton, had been swimming for more than a year.
Paralyzed he watched her--watched her take the oath, kiss the book. His mind was a torment, a torment of conscience. Conscience howled: "You knew! You knew all the time that your principal witness was lying. You knew! You knew all the time that this woman was no adulteress. She's innocent, innocent, Hector Brunton; as innocent in intention as that other woman you've been hounding."
Cavendish's voice, the voice of his enemy, broke the spell.
"Mrs. Towers, while the oath you have just sworn is still fresh in your mind, I want you to answer this question. Have you ever, at any time in your life, been guilty of immorality with your cousin, Robert Fielding?"
"Never." The answer, so diffident yet so definite, might have been Aliette's; and to Ronnie, his brain still throbbing from its own unaccustomed eloquence, it seemed, just for a fraction of a second, as though the woman he defended were indeed his own.
"Various witnesses for the Crown have stated that you were on bad terms with your husband. Are those statements true?"
"I did my best to get on with him." The brown eyes never flinched. "But he was a cruel man, especially when he was in drink."
"Nevertheless, you were faithful to him?"
"Yes. Always."
"You heard Mrs. Peterson's evidence? She said," Ronnie referred to his notes, "that at half-past nine o'clock on the night of July 4, she saw you go into Robert Fielding's room. Have you any comment to make on that evidence?"
"It's a lie. I never visited him at night. Only by day."
"At half-past nine on the night of July 4, where were you?"
"I was in my own room, washing up the supper things."
"Was your husband with you?"
"No."
"Where was he?"
"I don't know."
"One other point about Mrs. Peterson's evidence. She told us, if you remember, that you made a statement: that you said to her that you would never be happy till your husband was dead. What have you to say about that statement?"
"It's another lie." The lips pursed, stubbornly--it seemed to Brunton--as his wife's own. "An absolute lie."
"One moment, please!" Mr. Justice Heber--every syllable of his question audible as the tinkle of glass--intervened. "I should like to be clear on this point, Mrs. Towers. The witness to whom your counsel refers made the following statements: that at half-past nine o'clock on the night of July 4 she saw you enter Robert Fielding's room; that you were in the habit of making such visits, and that she was standing in the passage between your room and hers when she saw you. Do I understand you positively to deny all three of those statements?"
"Yes, m'lord."
"And the witness in question further stated that you said to her: 'Bill isn't fit to be any woman's husband. I wish to God he was dead.' What have you to say to that?"
The woman in the witness-box did not hesitate. Deliberately her eyes met the judge's. Deliberately she answered his question: "My lord, I may have said that Bill wasn't fit to be any woman's husband. But I never said," the shy voice rose, "either to Maggie Peterson or to any one else, that I wished he was dead."
"She never said"--word for word Mr. Justice Heber wrote down his answer--"that she wished her husband was dead."
But Hector Brunton--bent over his brief--could not write. For now, not only conscience, but all his years spent in separating truth from falsehood, all the experience of a legal lifetime, told him of Lucy's innocence.
Again his enemy's voice broke the spell: "You heard the evidence of John Hodges. He said that you told him somewhere about the end of last June that you wished you had never married your husband. Have you anything you would like to say in answer to that?"
"Bill was there at the time. I only meant it for a joke."
"And now, before I ask you to tell his lordship and the jury, in your own words, what happened on the afternoon of July 5, I want you, if you can, to give me some idea of the feelings you entertained, before that date, for your husband."
It was a daring, an unpremeditated, though not a leading question; and, even as he put it, Ronnie perceived its danger. Suppose the woman in the witness-box, the little dignified woman whose hands rested so quietly on the rail, whose whole attitude indicated nothing but the intensest desire to speak truth, should speak too much truth, should destroy--with one fatal word--the house of protection he was building about her? But neither the heart nor the truth in Lucy Towers failed.
"It wouldn't be right"--the hands on the rail did not move--"for me to pretend that I cared for Bill. He made my life an absolute hell. He drank and he used to knock me about. Many's the time I've wished he was dead. But I never thought of killing him."
"Ah." Ronnie paused in his examination--one of those long, indefinable pauses which have more value than speech. Now--feeling the jury with him--he was no longer haunted by thought of his own inefficiency, no longer afraid of Brunton. Not Brunton's self could shake such a witness. Already, the first faint foretaste of victory quickened his pulse. His questions grew more and more daring.
"You said, in your statement at the police-station: 'My husband didn't like me going to Bob's room. He was jealous of Bob.' Can you give us any further details about that?"
"Details!" Lucy, her eyes downcast, appeared to be considering the question. She shot a glance at Brunton. Then, quietly, she said, "Bill was always being jealous of some man or other--the same as Mr. Hodges said. But he hadn't got any reason to be jealous. I told him so, when he said I wasn't to go to Bob's room that afternoon. Me and Bob has always been pals--since we were kiddies. But if it hadn't been for Bob having no arms, I wouldn't have disobeyed Bill and gone to him.''
"I see. And can you tell me, coming to the afternoon of July 5, what your husband said when you threatened to disobey him--when you told him," Ronnie referred to his brief, "'I must go and help Bob because he can't feed himself'?"
"Bill said," the words were tremulous: "'If you don't stop here I'll come over and do in the pair of you.'"
"And what happened after that!"
"I just went to Bob's room."
"And did you say anything to your cousin about your husband's threats?"
"No."
"Can you tell me why you didn't?"
"Because"--unconsciously, the woman scored yet another point--"because I didn't want Bob to see I was frightened."
"And now"--Ronnie craned forward in his mounting excitement--"and now, Mrs. Towers, I want you to describe to his lordship and the jury, in your own words, exactly what happened in Robert Fielding's room on the afternoon of July 5."
"I made Bob his tea, and I was helping him eat it when Bill came in," began the woman.
No sounds save the scratch of reporters' pencils, the occasional tap of a boot-sole on the bare floor-boards, and the suppressed breathing of her tense audience interrupted the story Lucy Towers told her counsel and the court--a story so utterly resembling, yet so utterly differing from the toneless confession which the "hanging prosecutor" had read out the day before, a story so redolent of life and truth and certainty that, listening to it, it seemed as if one could actually see the dead man standing at the doorway of that bare tenement room, see the lifted stick in his hand, and hear his harsh, grim voice.
"Bill said, 'I'll do you in. I'll do you both in, damn you.' He had his stick in Ms hand. He lifted his stick. I was frightened. I thought he meant to kill Bob. I thought he meant to kill both of us. I remembered the pistol. I ran to the cupboard. I pulled out the pistol. I pointed it at him. Bob said, 'Look out, Bill. The gun's loaded.' Bill said, 'You can't frighten me.' I thought he was going to kill Bob, so I fired.
"So I fired." The little story ended to the indescribable, unbearable silence of men and women whose emotions are near to breaking-point. Through that unbearable silence, Ronnie's next question cut like a razor through taut string.
"You say that your husband carried a stick. Can you describe that stick?"
"It was a heavy stick."
"Can't you tell me any more about it?"
"Yes; it had a bit of lead in the handle."
"Was he holding the stick by the handle?"
"No. By the other end."
"And you thought he meant to kill your cousin with that loaded stick?"
"Yes. I felt sure of it. That was why I shot him."
Ronnie paused again, making sure that his point should sink home in the minds of the jury. Then, picking up his copy of the confession, he put his last questions: "I have here the statement which you made at the time of your arrest. You say, 'I'm not sorry I killed my husband.' Why did you say that?"
"Because I wasn't sorry--then."
"But you are sorry now?"
"Yes. I didn't mean to kill him. I don't know why I said that. I didn't quite know what I was saying."
"And there was one other thing you said. You said, 'I love Bob very much.' Is that true?"
"Yes." Lucy Towers answered fearlessly. "I do love him, but not in the way"--her eyes, which had scarcely left Ronnie's since the examination began, turned for a moment to Hector Brunton, huddled in his seat--"not in the way thathetried to make out."
"Thank you, Mrs. Towers. That's all I have to ask," finished Ronald Cavendish; and, seating himself, waited for Hector Brunton's onslaught.
But the onslaught tarried. Almost it seemed as if Hector Brunton were going to leave that cross-examination, on which the whole case hung, to his junior. For now Hector Brunton heard, louder than the whisper of conscience, the very whisper of God. "Thou art the man," whispered God; "thouart the murderer."
The "hanging prosecutor" looked at the woman in the dock, and his courage failed before the accusing glance of her. The "hanging prosecutor" looked at the judge, at the massed spectators; and his heart quailed before the doubting glances of them. Then the "hanging prosecutor" looked at his enemy; and rage, the rage of the lusting male, took him by the throat. God's whisper forgotten, man's duty forgotten, all save this one last chance of vengeance forgotten; he rose, heavy as the wounded bull, to his ungainly feet. His brain, the cold sure-functioning legal brain, had not yet failed. He still knew his strength. But a red mist blinded his eyes, and through that red mist he saw, not Lucy Towers but Aliette; Aliette, whom every cheated fiber of his body yearned to torture--and, torturing, possess.
"You admit that you shot your husband?" The words--grim, bitter, devil-prompted--grated in Brunton's throat.
"Yes."
"You admit that you said, just after you had shot him, that you were not sorry for the deed?"
"That's written down."
"Answer my question, please. Do you admit that you said, just after your husband's death at your hands, that you were not sorry you had killed him?"
"That's written down," repeated Lucy Towers stubbornly. And the stubbornness sent a chill through the red mist; a chill that pierced to Hector Brunton's very marrow. Thus--thus stubborn and unwrithing--thus clear-eyed and contemptuous, had this same woman outfaced him, long and long ago in the bright, miserable drawing-room at Lancaster Gate.
"You have admitted"--there was a singing in the K.C.'s ears; he could hardly hear his own voice--"that you love your cousin, Robert Fielding. I put it to you that you are Robert Fielding's mistress."
"No."
"I put it to you that you went to Robert Fielding's room nightly."
"It's a lie."
"I put it to you that ever since Robert Fielding came to live at 25 Laburnum Grove you have been in the habit of misconducting yourself with him."
"It's a lie."
"I put it to you"--God! if only he could make her writhe; if only he could see one stab of pain twitch those cheeks--"that you love Robert Fielding."
"Not in the way you're trying to make out."
"I put it to you that it was because of your love for Robert Fielding that you shot your husband."
"No."
"Then why did you shoot him?"
"My lord,"--Cavendish's voice--"I protest. This is outrageous."
"I'm afraid, Mr. Cavendish,"--Heber's voice--"I must allow the question."
"Why did you shoot your husband?" Brunton heard his own voice, very faint through the buzz at his ears.
"I have already told you"--he heard Aliette's voice--"I killed him because I thought he was going to kill Bob."
"You meant to kill him, then?"
Again his enemy's protest. Again the judge's doubtful, "I feel I must allow the question." Again Aliette's stubborn reply:
"No. I never meant to kill him. I didn't think about that. I only wanted to save Bob."
Momentarily the red mist cleared from Brunton's sight. He knew this woman for Lucy Towers--Lucy Towers against whom, despite the flaws in the evidence, he had advised prosecution for wilful murder; knew himself doomed to failure with her--as he had always been doomed to failure with Aliette; knew that, against the sheer rock of truth in the one, as against the rock of sheer truth in the other, the spray of his lawless hate must beat in vain.
Then the red mist thickened, thickened and thickened, again before Brunton's smarting eyes. Rage kindled in his bowels, kindled from bowels to brain, burning away self-control. He was aware only of Cavendish--of Cavendish, utterly cold, utterly legal--of Cavendish protesting for his witness, protecting his witness--of Cavendish's will, thrusting bar after cold steel bar between himself and the woman.
The singing was still in Brunton's ears; and now it grew dark in court, so that the face of the woman faded from his sight; and now it grew light in court, so that the face of the woman showed itself to him as a white contemptuous sneer under the electrics; but still, blindly, he tortured her with his questions.
At last he heard his own voice clearly once again, "You deny, then, that you are an adulteress?"; heard her answer, "Yes. I deny that absolutely"; heard, as a murderer hearing his own sentence, Mr. Justice Heber's, "If that finishes your cross-examination, Mr. Brunton, I shall adjourn until ten o'clock tomorrow"; heard, as a murderer hears the tramp of feet outside his cell, Cavendish's quiet, "With your lordship's permission, there is one witness, one most important witness, whom I should like to call before the court adjourns"; listened, powerless to cross-examine, while the witness of Cartwright's finding tore Maggie Peterson's testimony in pieces.