Trial and Error (33 page)

“I think,” Mr Chitterwick opened it cautiously, “that I may be on the track of a piece of evidence which might go a long way to establish your innocence. I've asked for this visit because I want you to clear up one or two points which will help me.”

“What piece of evidence?” Palmer asked in a subdued voice and not very hopefully.

“It concerns a wrist watch. The wrist watch that Miss Norwood gave you.”

“Miss Norwood never—”

“Please listen to me,” said Mr Chitterwick earnestly, “and don't commit yourself to statements that you may regret later. I have already ascertained that Miss Norwood did give you a wrist watch and your wife—your
wife,
mind you—tells me that it had the letters ‘V from J' very rudely scratched inside the cover, possibly with a pin. There is no mistaking it, you see. Now, that is our premise, so kindly don't try to deny it. You understand?” And Mr Chitterwick beamed at the young man with a mixture of friendliness, cunning and warning.

The young man smiled slowly. “I'm not sure, but I think I do.”

“Excellent.” Mr Chitterwick sighed with relief. “I'm sure you do. At any rate, you understand enough not to attempt to deny what I'm telling you. Your wife already knows, you see. Yes, indeed. Well now, let me reconstruct. You quarrelled that evening with Miss Norwood. You left the garden in a temper. Possibly you determined to have no more to do with her; with her or hers. It occurred to you that you were wearing a wrist watch she had given you. You were in such a rage that even this was an offence. You took the watch off and hurled it into the front garden of one of the houses you were passing. Yes, yes, I know all that; don't interrupt me, please. The point is this:
where
did you hurl it?”

“I'm not sure,” said Palmer doubtfully.

“Well, I've been at some pains to trace out your route. You passed, I take it, from Riverside Road into Harringay Road, didn't you?”

“Yes.”

“And thence into Persimmon Road?”

“I did,” said Palmer with a glance at the warder.

“And in Persimmon Road you would have taken a bus. Therefore you must have thrown that watch into a garden in either Riverside Road or Harringay Road. Can you remember which? . . . No, of course not,” said Mr Chitterwick hurriedly. “You were extremely upset. You hardly knew what you were doing. Otherwise you would hardly have forgotten all about this watch incident. Or perhaps it did not strike you as important. Never mind. The importance is, you see, that the watch might have struck some hard object when you hurled it and have been broken in its fall. Now do you understand? Assuming that it showed the correct time, it would establish absolutely the exact moment at which you passed that particular spot. If you are innocent, it will be before nine o'clock. If you are guilty, it will be after that hour. You understand now?”

“Perfectly,” said Palmer, and he added a slight grin.

Mr Chitterwick deprecated the grin. This was difficult and delicate work.

“Then are you willing to take the risk?” Mr Chitterwick was acutely aware that the warder was listening to every word.

“What risk?”

“Of the watch being found. It may still be there, you see.”

“Oh yes. I'm willing.”

“Because if found and if it is broken when found, you expect it to indicate your innocence?”

“It must do so, because I am innocent.”

Mr Chitterwick took another breath of relief. “That is excellent. This is most important information about the watch. I can't think why you never remembered it before. Still, you've told me now and it isn't too late. I'll have a search put in hand at once, under proper safeguards.”

“Yes, do,” said Palmer with a slight smile. “I shall be very grateful. It may turn out lucky that I remembered at last. But you know I was almost in a daze that evening.”

“Of course, of course,” beamed Mr Chitterwick. “Most satisfactory. Exactly. Er—your wife sent her love, yes, and expects you home very soon now. Quite so.”

He turned to the warder and intimated that he was ready to go, calling on Mr Todhunter on the way.

12

That very same afternoon Mr Chitterwick, Sir Ernest Prettiboy (determined as usual to be left out of nothing), a detective sergeant and a detective constable began a search of the front gardens in Riverside Road and Harringay Road. The search began at a quarter past two, and by five o'clock it was completed, in a rough, preliminary way. No wrist watch had come to view.

“He says he threw it into a front garden,” said Mr Chitterwick, obviously much distressed. “He's quite sure he did.”

“Yes, but where?” asked Sir Ernest acutely.

“He can't remember. He says he was in a kind of daze. Well, we may have missed it. On the other hand . . .”

“Yes?”

“Well, he says he took a bus in Persimmon Road. The bus stop, we can see, is a hundred yards ahead of this corner. The houses here have front gardens too.

“Quite possible,” agreed Sir Ernest. “Eh, Sergeant? It's worth having a try in Persimmon Road too?”

“If you think it advisable, sir,” agreed the sergeant without enthusiasm.

It was in the third garden from the corner that the watch was found, under the winter leaves, very dirty and grimed and its strap covered with mildew. That it was the watch they were looking for was not in question, for inside the front cover was the faintly scratched inscription “V from J.” It was the sergeant himself who found it, and Mr Chitterwick was vehement in his praise of such brilliant sleuthing.

The hands of the watch stood at two minutes to nine.

“You were right, sir,” said the sergeant to Mr Chitterwick with respect. “This about lets Mr Palmer out, and that's a fact. Pity it didn't turn up earlier.”

“It would have saved many people a great deal of trouble, expense and unhappiness,” pronounced Sir Ernest.

Mr Chitterwick said nothing. He was not sure that Sir Ernest was right.

13

As was only fair, Mr Chitterwick was given the privilege of breaking the news to Mr Todhunter the next morning. He was further able to pass on an item of news which he had had from Sir Ernest before leaving home.

Mr Todhunter took the news calmly. “What a damned fool not to have remembered before!” he observed disgustedly. “I might still have been in Japan instead of this bloody hole.”

For all his primness in some respects Mr Todhunter was singularly addicted to the use of this foolish adjective.

“And I have it from Sir Ernest,” bubbled Mr Chitterwick, “that Palmer's release can now be only a matter of hours. You haven't seen the papers this morning. They have the whole story. I—er—thought it only right to ensure that they should have it. And they've done it justice. No government could possibly stand out against such a storm.”

“Well, thank goodness I can have a bit of peace at last,” mumbled Mr Todhunter acidly. He relented. “You've done very well, Chitterwick,” he added kindly.

Mr Chitterwick looked like a spaniel who has been patted on the head. The ecstatic writhing of his plump little body on its chair was exactly like an attempt to wag a tail.

14

That afternoon Palmer was released, unconditionally. A statement to this effect issued by the Home Office added handsomely that new evidence had completely dispelled any doubts that may have remained concerning his complicity in the crime. (Only one obscure periodical bothered to point out subsequently that the new evidence did nothing of the sort and might have been a cunning plant on Palmer's part to prove the alibi; and in any case nobody cared.)

That same evening the home secretary bowed to the storm and resigned. In a short statement in the House the prime minister, who had quite approved his colleague's firmness in private, administered a final public kick to that colleague's retreating posterior.

When told the news, Mr Todhunter showed no emotion.

“Serves him right,” he pronounced judgment. “The man was a bloody fool.”

15

In this way Mr Todhunter's last week on earth was a peaceful one. Outside, the agitation for his reprieve had lost impetus and the government, sensing as much, were able to put up a good show of iron determination.

Inside, Mr Todhunter expressed a wish to see no more visitors and said a final and grateful farewell to Sir Ernest, Mr Chitterwick and young Mr Fuller. At last he was able to take things easily, and he meant to do so.

What happened to him now did not matter. Availing himself therefore of the earlier permission, he even got up once or twice to walk in his dressing gown and pyjamas very slowly round the exercise yard in the April sunshine on the arm of a warder. On these occasions no other convict of course was in sight. Mr Todhunter was incommunicado.

He spent many hours writing and was able to complete the series of articles he had planned in the dock upon a trial, sentence and condemned cell from the prisoner's own point of view, and only regretted that he was unable to include an account of an execution from the same unusual angle. There were plenty of interesting and pithy comments to be made upon the working of the British judicial system, and altogether Mr Todhunter felt that he had done an important job not too badly. A note from Ferrers to tell him of the world-wide interest which was being caused by the publication of these articles in the
London Review
made Mr Todhunter cackle with pleasure.

For the rest, he spent his time mostly in chatting with his warders. It amused him that everything he told them even remotely concerning the crime had to be written down by one or the other of them in a notebook; but in return, when Fox was out of the way, Birchman continued to tell him interesting anecdotes about previous distinguished inhabitants of the cell. Both Mr Todhunter and Birchman were sorry that their acquaintance had necessarily to be such a short one.

As the time for the execution drew on Mr Todhunter was touched to see what an object of solicitude he had become. The governor would stay and chat in the friendliest manner, the chaplain was ready to come at any minute and stay as long as wanted, the doctor was determinedly cheerful.

“Does an execution bother you much?” Mr Todhunter asked the governor one day, and received an affirmative reply as emphatic as it was unofficial.

“Loathe 'em! Horrible. Perfectly barbarous, in most cases, though they are sometimes justified. But it's a ghastly responsibility for us officials. It upsets the prisoners, worries the staff. . . . . I dread them. Never sleep for a couple of nights beforehand.”

“Please,” said Mr Todhunter, distressed, “don't bother on my account. I used to suffer from insomnia myself. I should be most disturbed to hear that I'd cost anyone a night's sleep.”

16

On the morning on which he was to die Mr Todhunter woke soon after seven o'clock. He had slept well and, observing his own reactions, was interested to find that he felt quite calm except for a certain mild excitement of anticipation. Mr. Todhunter had in fact by this time arrived at the conclusion that he did not mind dying. In fact he rather looked forward to it. The idea of imminent death had been with him so long that it would be a relief to get the preliminary of dying over and done with. Also, death seemed such a magnificent rest, and Mr Todhunter had grown very tired of his inefficient body. (Mr Todhunter's doctor would have been delighted had he known what his patient had at last come to feel.)

He attended with his usual interest to the last ceremonies; but when the chaplain, hearing that he was awake, hurried over, Mr Todhunter asked him sincerely to keep off the subject of religion. He was ready to die, he was at peace with all men; and that, considered Mr Todhunter, was enough.

He asked in a thoughtful way after the hangman, who, as Mr Todhunter knew, had passed the night in the prison, and expressed the hope that he had slept well. He also remarked that he was disappointed not to have been told when that gruesome official was taking his usual surreptitious peep at him on the previous evening for the purpose of estimating the amount of drop required, for he would have been pleased to stand up and offer him every facility for making a correct guess.

The doctor, who paid a visit to the cell just before eight o'clock, secretly marvelled that his patient was standing the strain so well. He could hardly believe it when Mr Todhunter assured him that he was feeling no strain at all.

By his own special request the warders in charge of him on the last tour of duty were Birchman and Fox. They were a great deal more upset than Mr Todhunter himself.

At breakfast, when he ate his bacon and eggs and drank two cups of excellent coffee, Mr Todhunter remarked with mild surprise:

“The condemned man partook of a hearty breakfast. Dear, dear. So one really does. Well, why not? I enjoyed that very much.”

After it he asked for and was given a cigarette, which he smoked with relish, his first for many months.

“They say one loses the taste,” he remarked to Fox. “It's not true. This cigarette is exceedingly pleasant.”

Soon after eight the governor came, very ill at ease.

“All right, Todhunter?”

“Perfectly, thank you. I'm not,” said Mr Todhunter with a sudden cackle, “going to collapse with nerves, if that's what you mean.”

“You can have a glass of brandy—er—later, if you want one, you know.”

“My doctor's forbidden me spirits,” regretted Mr Todhunter and cackled again. “It might prove fatal, you know, and then you'd be responsible.”

The governor tried to smile, but it was not a very successful effort. He waved the warders out of the cell.

“Now look here, we all hate this—well, I can't say as much as you do, I'm afraid, but you know how we feel. And I just want to tell you that you must look on it more as an operation than—than anything else. It's absolutely painless, and once the executioner comes in it's only a matter of seconds. I'm sure you'll be brave, and . . . oh, damn it, you know what I mean.”