Crooked Wreath (13 page)

Claire played for time. “I don't think I did go out onto the terrace.” But that was unwise, for anyone could tell him that the camera and the film were plainly enough visible through the great front door, and from the drawing-room windows, too. She amended: “However, yes, I did see it. It was on the balustrade.” Anything not to seem to be making a “thing” about the camera, anything to pass it all off as a matter of course.

“And was the film in it then?”

Did Cockrill know that Edward had put the film in the camera during that twenty minutes when he had been alone, just before Brough did the paths? Would Cockrill discover that he had been alone? If one said that the film was not in its box beside the camera, it would appear that someone–and it was Edward's camera–had put it in. If one said that it had not been put in, then there would appear the more time for Edward to have gone down to the lodge. She could not make up her mind, in the brief moment allowed to her, what to say for the best, and so hesitated–and was lost. “I–I didn't
notice
it …”

“That may have been because it wasn't there,” said Mr. Bateman, and his voice implied that quite certainly the box had not been there.

Mrs. Featherstone was the next to be called. Everyone looked up astonished to see who Mrs. Featherstone could be, but were not long left in doubt, for the voice of the Turtle commenced as she left her place and made her way, with a series of strange little bobs and curtsies, to the witness stand.

“Can't 'elp it, Mum, if they calls me to be witness before the fac',” protested Mrs. Featherstone, apparently quite overawed by Bella's hat. “'Taint my fault, Mum, can't 'elp wot I sees and 'ears, Mum, and if anyone says I was listening at any doors, then that's a lie. I got to come in and tell that the dinner's ready, and I can't 'elp wot I 'ears while I goes to the door …” She mumbled on apologetically and was only frightened into silence by the presentation of the Bible and the peremptory request that she would now take the oath and wait till she was asked to tell anything she knew. The family sat back, half anxious, half relieved; what on earth could the silly old Turtle tell, now that the matter of the camera had been dealt with, that anyone could care about … And yet … But as long as it did not bear against Edward, they did not care what she said … What
could
she tell?

What the Turtle could tell at enormous length and with much graphic detail, was the history of Edward's behaviour throughout the day preceding the death of his grandfather.

The Coroner recalled Philip.

By the time Philip got to the witness box, he had made up his mind. Useless any longer to resist or deny. They must plug the matter of the camera reloaded, if it came to a show-down; meanwhile, he must do all in his power to establish the fact of Edward's sanity. If Edward were not unbalanced, he had no motive for killing his grandfather; he, of all people, could be left out of the reckoning. “I consider that my cousin is something of a neurotic,” said Philip, in substance, leaning on his crossed arms on the edge of the witness box, now quite comfortable and at home, talking to the Coroner as man to man, taking him into his confidence, an expert explaining to an expert this trifling matter of an hysterical display on the part of a normal, though perhaps rather over-sensitive boy. “But to say that he is actually mentally unbalanced is quite absurd. It's true he staged a little scene in the drawing-room before lunch on the day of my grandfather's death. My small daughter had been attracting a good deal of the limelight, and I think he subconsciously resented this. He's been rather spoilt,” said Philip, inwardly recoiling at the thought of the reckoning with Bella afterwards, “and has come to desire always to be the centre of attention. My opinion is, and was at the time, that he happened to notice that the wreath over the picture was awry and that it reminded him of his supposed little disability; that he dropped the glasses on the floor and deliberately waited for us to come in and make a fuss over him. I don't believe he'd just dropped them when we got there: I believe he'd been waiting for us. He then contrived to faint, which is easy enough for a neuropath. I pulled him round immediately with a little stimulant and a good time was had by all, especially by him!” He decided that he might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb and added: “And by his grandmama.”

“You think he could have brought on a genuine faint?”

“Good Lord, yes,” said Philip, cheerfully. “These hysterics can bring on unconsciousness with the greatest ease. But they can't bring on fugues; they can't bring on automatism. I don't believe my cousin was in an automatic trance that evening; and if he wasn't, there's no reason to suppose he might be at any other time.”

“I see,” said Mr. Bateman. His faith in the guilt of mad Edward Treviss began to waver; but it was easy enough for a doctor to get up on the stand like this and hold forth on technical matters which none of them could refute. He chewed at the corner of a nail, and polished it dry again on a bulging trouser leg. “If we could have … If you could explain … If we might have some non-technical evidence for your opinion, you know … If you could give us any reason for your belief that your cousin had not just dropped the tray when you went into the room … You were all standing talking in the hall, I understand; when you entered the room your cousin was moving forward as though he had just dropped the tray and, not knowing what he had done, was continuing with his normal procedure; in other words he was in a state of–of ‘fugue' … If you could just give us some simple explanation of your conviction that he was really acting a part?”

Something that had niggled for days at the back of Philip's mind clicked into place. He said: “Edward had not just dropped that tray! We were standing outside the door for at least five minutes, talking in the hall; there is a parquet floor in the drawing-room, and we heard not a sound of half a dozen breaking glasses and a dropped silver tray!”

Mr. Billock was puzzled and a little bothered by all this talk of hysterics and automatics and such. They had always heard in the village that Edward Treviss was a bit of a queer one, and opinion had been unanimous that he had had one of them nasty turns and done his grandpa in; but now it seemed that all that was untrue, that it had all just been a bit of play-acting. Mr. Billock didn't like it. He preferred something a bit more straightforward. If the chap was mad, he killed his grandpa; if he wasn't, then you wanted to look for someone else, someone with a proper motive, a good sound motive for doing such a thing. Money, now, that was a motive for killing, when one was sane, and pretty near the only motive, Mr. Billock was inclined to think. Well, now, who of this here lot had a money motive for the killing of Sir Richard March? Why, that Doctor March that old Brough was always ramming down their throats at The Swan; refused to have any more children, it seemed, and had a tiff with the old man about it; a wicked, unnatural thing, refusing to have a healthy family, thought Mr. Billock, unwilling father of seven. So the doctor was disinherited–and rightly, too. But the trouble was, that Doctor March had simply not been near the lodge on the night of his grandfather's death, and that was flat; much as Billock would have liked it, he could not perceive how Philip could possibly have murdered the old man. He mumbled as much to Mr. Matchstick, out of the side of his mouth. “It was the furriner,” decided Mr. Matchstick, immediately and rather unexpectedly mumbling back.

The furriner, to Matchstick and Billock and Hoskins, meant simply the one who did not belong at Swanswater; and that, loosely applied, could only mean Ellen, who was not of the family. There was something in what Matchstick said; aiding and abetting her husband in his sinful refusal to propagate the March species, and sharing naturally in his disinheritance; and, moreover, the last to see the deceased alive. Her ladyship wouldn't be sorry to see the furriner accused, thought Mr. Billock shrewdly; rather that than her crazy grandson or any of Sir Richard's own. And her ladyship, even in peacetime, spent more money at Mr. Billock's grocery store than the rest of the village put together. If they could only make it out to be the doctor's wife …

“Her and her bathing-dress,” mumbled Mr. Hoskins from the other side of him. Mr. Hoskins was obviously following a similar train of thought.

Mr. Billock had never seen Ellen's bathing-dress or he would probably have thrown her into prison without further delay, on a charge of indecent exposure. The mention of it gave him an idea, however, and a very tremendous idea it was. He struggled to release an arm, and having, with the co-operation of his immediate neighbours, unpinned it from his side, he raised it, numb with inaction, in the air. Mr. Bateman turned graciously towards him. “Yes, Mr. Foreman?”

“The jury would like to put a question to Mrs. Ellen March,” said Billock, bashfully sheltering behind anonymity.

Mr. Bateman sighed, for it was getting on for teatime, and with the elimination of Edward he had been gathering his forces about him for the open verdict, prompted by Inspector Cockrill. “Very well. Recall Mrs. March.” As Ellen bounced up to the box again, a little astonished, but curious, he nodded slightly to Billock. “What do you want to ask?”

Billock leaned forward, his fat fists doubled on the ledge of the jury box; you expected him at any moment to burst into a recital of his wares, strongly recommending you to try the tinned carrots of which, it was well known, he had a large and unsalable stock. “Excuse me, Madam; I think you told us that you walked down to the lodge, that evening before Sir Richard died, in your–pardon me!–your bathing-dress?”

Ellen was quite ready to pardon anyone for merely mentioning her bathing-dress. “Yes, I did.” She shrugged uncertainly, looking at the Coroner for guidance.

“Her ladyship and Miss Peta met you on the lawn,” said Billock, who had known Miss Peta as a long-legged little girl in a sunbonnet and pigtails. “They said it would have been impossible for you to be carrying anything in your hands without their seeing it, or to have had anything–pardon me!–anywhere about your person.”

“Well, if you mean I hadn't got any pockets in my bathing-dress, I certainly hadn't,” said Ellen, still more astonished. “There's only about half an inch of it anyway. It's a sort of kestos-and-pants thing.”

Mr. Billock shuddered. He repudiated further interest in the shameless garment. “You couldn't, for instance, have been carrying a–er–a hipper–a hyper–” he took a deep breath–“a hipper-dromic syringe?”

Laughter welled up inside Ellen like the tiny bubbles of a soda-water syphon; she pressed her lips together to prevent it from fizzing out over the top. Down in the middle of the courtroom, the family seethed with giggles as nervous hysteria found a new outlet. The Coroner frowned dreadfully. He said: “Mr. Foreman, I think we have been into this matter already.”

Mr. Billock held up a ponderous hand. “This may not seem revalent to the matter, sir, but I think you'll soon see that revalent it is.” He swooped upon Ellen as though he had found her shoplifting a bar of soap. “Now, Madam! A–er–a syringe you was not carrying; but something else you was–I think you won't deny that.”

“I was carrying Grandfather's fountain pen,” said Ellen bewildered. “That's all.”

Mr. Billock looked triumphantly round upon his brethren in the box; they stared back blankly, like a line of fat geese, each peering beyond his leader's outstretched neck. “A fountain pen! One of them with a plunger, I wouldn't be surprised.”

“I haven't the faintest idea,” said Ellen, impatiently. “It was just a green fountain pen. Rather a thick one; it held a lot of ink.”

“Of ink!” said Mr. Billock, on a rising note.

“Well, yes. What else would it hold–tea or coffee or something?”

She had played right into his hands. Cockrill made frantic signals to the Coroner but Mr. Billock swept all interruptions aside. “No, Madam! Not tea or coffee; and not ink, neither!” He paused, savouring it, looking round proudly upon the courtroom, and knew that his name would go down in the annals of Swansmere as long as The Swan flourished and a man could still get a pint of beer to toast him in. “Not tea; and not coffee; and not ink, neither. Coramine, Madam, that's what!” said Mr. Billock. The ranks of the jury closed up like a concertina as he sat down heavily in his place again.

Mr. Bateman hushed the chattering court and, with Cockie's indignant eye upon him, proceeded to sum up. He thought that–er–that the jury would find difficulty in ascribing this murder to any person in particular; that it
had
been murder, however, seemed almost certain. Doubtless the verdict so often given in such cases–murder by a person or persons unknown–would recommend itself to the jury? The jury looked stonily ahead of itself. Mr. Bateman sighed. Very well. He folded his pink hands upon his heavy breast and settled down to talk them out of it.

Sir Richard had definitely died of an overdose of coramine. The post-mortem examination failed to show whether this had been administered orally or by injection. Almost anyone might have obtained possession of the coramine from Doctor March's bag. Sir Richard had last been seen alive, by anyone outside the household, at a quarter to-seven in the evening; after a quarter to nine in the evening, it would have been impossible for anyone to have approached the lodge. He reviewed the evidence at appalling length. The seven good men and true twiddled fat thumbs.

Mr. Batemen took the suspects one by one. Mr. Edward Treviss had no sane reason for doing his grandfather harm, as far as any of them knew; and that he had not killed him in a fit of
in
sanity seemed (to Mr. Bateman) to be now obvious. Moreover, he had not been to the lodge before dinner, and though there was some conflict of evidence, or perhaps he would say un
cer
tainty in the evidence, about the camera and the time when a new film had been inserted, he thought the jury would agree with him that there was no reason to suspect the family's assertion that they had all been together during the after-dinner hours. All, that was, except Miss Claire March. Miss March stood to lose materially if Sir Richard signed the new will; but she also had not been to the lodge before dinner, and by the time she left the family after dinner, the sanding had already commenced.