Death In Hyde Park (28 page)

 
 
 
During the luncheon interval, Charles and Savidge had repaired to a nearby coffeehouse, where over steak-and-kidney pie, they reviewed Charles’s notes of the morning and discussed the strategy for the afternoon, when the defense, presumably, would present its witnesses. Savidge remarked that the prosecution’s case had gone very much as he had expected. Sims had put forward no surprises, and if the afternoon went well, he was optimistic. “Although,” he added, “one never knows about a jury. They do strange things.” And he went on, over coffee and dessert, to relate several recent cases in which juries had done the unexpected.

Charles agreed—one never knew about a jury. And the defense hadn’t been helped by the headlines in the morning papers, announcing a new terrorist bombing threat, contained in a letter sent to the governments of both France and Great Britain. It was within two days, as well, of the first anniversary of the assassination of the American president, McKinley, and another article rehearsed that terrible event. Those members of the jury who had read the newspapers might find it difficult to separate the facts of this case from the growing national fear—and their own personal fears—of anarchy and revolution. And the situation certainly wasn’t helped by the fact that Mouffetard was French and Kopinski Russian and that both of them looked the part of Anarchists. Worse, Savidge felt that neither could be put on the stand for fear that the prosecution might trap them in a damaging admission.

Back in the courtroom for the afternoon, Charles took a seat at the defense table, where he would be more readily available for consultation on the fingerprint evidence if Savidge needed him. He turned to look at the spectator sections, which seemed to include more working-class people this afternoon. He saw no one he knew, except for a rakish dark-haired man whose face looked vaguely familiar, although he could not place it. Charlotte Conway was nowhere in evidence, although he had half-expected that she might appear, perhaps disguised. Then he saw Kate, in the second row of the spectators’ section, with Nellie Lovelace. He lifted his hand in a wave, feeling that the room—ill-lit and oppressively formal in its show of judicial authority—was somehow brightened by her presence. Odd, that, he thought. Kate could do nothing to affect the outcome of the trial, but her being there changed his feeling about what was to come, and he settled back into his seat with a greater cheerfulness. The prosecutor swept into the room with a confident step, the judge entered and took his place at the bench, and court was convened.

Sims called his final witness, who proved to be Mrs. Georgiana Battle, a green-grocer and the landlady of the Hampstead Road premises where the
Clarion
was located. Mrs. Battle—a gray-haired woman of late middle age with a smallpox-scarred face and a buxom figure nearly bursting the buttons of her rumpled navy serge—claimed to have overheard the defendants discussing the use of a bomb to kill King Edward and Queen Alexandra on Coronation Day. She had heard this conversation, she testified, through the wall that separated her shop from the newspaper.

“‘We mean to kill ’em,’ wuz wot they said,” she reported, in ringing tones. “ ‘We mean t’ blow the Royal pair t’ bits.’” She took out a dirty white handkerchief and applied it to her nose, which was liberally laced with broken red veins. “That’s wot they said, egzacly, sir, ’orrible as it is t’ ’ear.”

“I’m sure it must have indeed been horrible,” said Sims sympathetically. “But you kept your wits about you, didn’t you, Mrs. Battle. You reported the conversatioin to the police, did you not?”

“I told ’em.” Mrs. Battle nodded so emphatically that the stuffed robin on her black hat began to bob back and forth. “I sart’nly told ’em. I wud ’ate t’ think—if the King an’ Queen wuz blowed up—that I might’ve pervented it!”

“Thank you,” Sims said. “I’m sure I speak for all of us when I commend you for doing your civic duty.” He made a magnanimous gesture toward the defense counsel. “Your witness, Counselor.”

Charles frowned, thinking that Sims must be confident of success, or he would not have been quite so careless with this witness. Savidge stood, hands in his pockets. “I don’t recall your saying, Mrs. Battle,” he remarked casually, “when this conversation took place. P’rhaps you would be so good as to tell us precisely when it was.”

Mrs. Battle assumed a searching look, as if she were trying to remember. “ ‘Fraid I can’t say for sartin’. Some time b’fore the King wuz crowned.”

“I see. Do you recall when you told the police what you heard? Was it after Coronation Day?”

“Yes,” she said definitively. “After that man blew ’imself up in the park.”

“I see. So you heard this threatening conversation
before
Coronation Day, but you failed to tell the police until
after
Coronation Day?”

Mrs. Battle frowned. “I ’spose, but I—”

“Thank you. Now, then, perhaps you can tell us what these men looked like. You say there were three of them?”

“I couldn’t see wot they looked like,” she said.

“Oh? Why?”

“’Cuz I can’t see through the wall,” she said, in scornful triumph. Several spectators laughed.

“Oh, of course,” Savidge replied, in a chagrined tone. “I do apologize. I had forgotten that you were listening through the wall.” He frowned. “On reflection, however, that seems a bit odd. Do you make a regular practice of applying your ear to the back wall of your shop?”

“Well, I does it sometimes,” Mrs. Battle replied reluctantly.

“Sometimes. When you are paid to do so, perhaps?”

Mrs. Battle’s glance went to the prosecutor, sitting at the table. He tented his fingers and glanced up at the ceiling. She looked back at Savidge. “Sometimes,” she said, now very reluctantly.

“And did the police pay you on
this
occasion?”

Mrs. Battle now looked to the judge for rescue. “Does I ’ave t’ answer?” she demanded.

The judge glanced at the prosecutor, frowned, and replied, “Yes,” quite firmly. Apparently, Mrs. Battle was not deemed as important as the Yard’s other informant, and was not to be protected.

“I wuz paid,” she acknowledged sourly.

“Thank you.” Savidge smiled. “I hope you feel that you were well paid for your trouble. Were you paid in advance, or when you provided the information?”

Mrs. Battle again glanced at the judge, who nodded curtly. “When I told ’em wot I ’eard,” she said in a low voice.

“I see.” Savidge paused. “And you are certain that these three men”—with a gesture to the defendants—“are the three you heard?”

“They are.”

“Since you couldn’t see them, I suppose you recognized their voices?”

Mrs. Battle nodded. “That’s right. They’ve got an accent, not like you ’n’ me. Furr’ners, all of ’em.”

“And Mr. Gould—he was speaking with an accent?”

“Right again.”

Savidge frowned. “But I don’t believe Mr. Gould is a foreigner. He was born, I believe, here in the City, of British parents.” He looked up at the box where the defendants were seated on wooden chairs. “Mr. Gould, say something, if you please, sir.”

Gould rose and spoke the words of the Royal anthem, distinctly and in cultivated English. “God save our gracious King, long live our noble King, God save the King.” He bowed and sat down again.

A wave of laughter swept the courtroom, and Kate heard several loud guffaws. Mr. Sims looked apoplectic. The judge banged his gavel. “Order!” he exclaimed angrily. “Mr. Savidge, you are not to try that trick again. This is not a theater.”

Behind Charles, a man said, “You could have fooled me,” and went on laughing.

“I apologize to your lordship,” Savidge said with a bow. He turned to the witness. “Mr. Gould doesn’t sound like a foreigner to me, Mrs. Battle,” he said mildly. “He sounds very like a Londoner. Was his one of the
foreign
voices you heard and recognized?”

Mrs. Battle looked confused. “Well, maybe ’e wuzn’t one of ’em, then. Or maybe ’e wuz there but wuzn’t talkin’.”

“I see. It does seem to me, though, that if Mr. Gould were silent, you could not know whether he was among the men—the
three
men—you claim to have overheard. But never mind. Let us focus on the others. You must have frequent contact with them—enough to know what their voices sound like. Are you on friendly terms with Mr. Mouffetard and Mr. Kopinski?”

Mrs. Battle bristled at this suggestion that she might be affiliated with Anarchists. “I sees them most ever’ day. I’m sart’nly not
friends
with ’em.”

“And do they make a practice of engaging you in conversation?”

Mrs. Battle considered. “No, they us’ally ignores me.” She sniffed. “Hoity-toity like.”

Savidge turned away from her and spoke in a low but audible voice. “How is it, then, that you are able to identify their voices?”

Mrs. Battle leaned forward, the robin bobbing frantically. “Wot’s that ye said? Speak up, if ye please. I’m a little ’ard o’ ’earin’.”

The significance of Mrs. Battle’s response was not lost on the audience, which chuckled. Members of the jury exchanged smiles and glances. The prosecutor was sitting quite still, his lips tight, his face set.

Savidge turned. “You couldn’t hear my voice, Mrs. Battle, when it was perfectly audible to members of the jury and, I daresay, to his lordship. And yet you testify that you were able to identify voices you heard through a wall?” He stepped around to the front of the table, his expression fierce. “And that you heard the very words these voices were speaking, so that you could report the information to the police and be
paid
for it?”

Mrs. Battle reddened. “Well . . .”

“Justice may be blind,” the judge remarked sternly, “but it is not hard of hearing. You can go to jail for perjury, Mrs. Battle. And giving false information to the police is a crime.”

Mrs. Battle shrank back, her eyes growing large. “I . . .”

“Perhaps, now that you have had time to think about the matter,” Savidge said, “you are not certain that these three men are the men you might have heard through the wall.”

Mrs. Battle swallowed hard. “I . . . I guess maybe they’re not,” she said painfully. “It wuz hard t’ tell. Through the wall an’ all.”

“And perhaps,” Savidge persisted, “given your difficulty in hearing, you are now not positive that you heard anyone even mention the word
bomb.
Is that possible?”

Mrs. Battle’s pockmarked face was dully mottled. She lowered her head. “It’s possible, I ’spose,” she said in a low voice. “S’pose I might’ve misunderstood.”

“And perhaps it is even possible that you heard nothing at all through the wall?”

“I . . .” Mrs. Battle applied her handkerchief again. “Yes,” she whispered.

Savidge, his lips tight pressed together, his eyes narrowed, glanced deliberately at the jury, as if to ask,
You do understand that this witness lied, don’t you?
He turned back to the bench. “I have no more questions, my lord.”

The judge’s jaw was set, his expression angry. “The jury will disregard the testimony of this witness,” he growled. “Mr. Sims, do you have any other witnesses?”

Sims rose and shook his head, his face nearly as red as Mrs. Battle’s. “This completes the case for the prosecution, Your Honor,” he said. Charles could almost feel sorry for him—but not quite.

“The defense may proceed,” the judge said. “Call your first witness, Counsel.”

“Call Adam Gould,” Savidge said.

Adam, sworn and under Savidge’s questioning, testifed that he had been employed by the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants for five years. He was not an employee of the
Clarion,
but on the day of his arrest, he had come to the newspaper office in order to take Miss Conway to lunch. No, he was not an Anarchist, although he believed in the importance of social change. Yes, he was slightly acquainted with the man who had been killed in Hyde Park, but he knew nothing of any plot concerning bombs. He had absolutely no idea (said with great emphasis) how a ginger-beer bottle containing nitric acid came to be found in his flat.

In cross-examination, Sims inquired pointedly whether Mr. Gould’s belief in social change included the use of the strike as a means to achieve it. “Yes, sir,” Adam replied with great firmness, “as long as the strike is peaceful. I have never advocated violence.” Adam was followed to the witness box by a union leader who testified to his character and hard work and his moderate position as an advocate for change. When he was finished, Charles thought that Adam Gould, at least, had appeared in a rather good light.

“Call Mrs. Sharp,” Savidge said.

Mrs. Sharp, a tall woman with an uncompromising countenance, dressed in widow’s black, was Adam Gould’s landlady. She testified that Mr. Gould had occupied her second-floor flat for the past four years, and had always paid his rent on time. Unfortunately, however, his second-floor flat was not entirely secure, for the lock on the door was of the type that might be opened with a skeleton key. It would have been possible for some unknown person, unobserved, to have taken the back stair to the second floor and have entered the place, either to take something or to leave something.

Under the prosecutor’s cross-examination, however, Mrs. Sharp had to admit that she could not say for a fact that anyone
had
entered Mr. Gould’s flat. And when the land-lord of the rooming house in Halsey Street had testified to the same effect—that neither Mr. Mouffetard’s room nor Mr. Kopinski’s was secure from entry and that any of the boarders in the house, or anyone from the outside for that matter, might have had access to the rooms—he, too, had to admit under Mr. Sim’s severe cross-examination that he could not declare for a certainty that the rooms had been entered. Charles thought that while the testimony might have raised a question in the minds of the jury as to how the so-called bombs had turned up in the rooms, it had not gone far enough. He knew, however, that Savidge had another trick or two up his sleeve, and that it was time to go after the ginger-beer bottles.