CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

When the court reassembled, Mr. Dunkover announced at once that he did not propose to ask Miss Weston any further questions, and in the absence of Mr. Huddleston, who had not returned to the court, Mr. Augustus Pippin rose to cross-examine the witness.

Mr. Pippin was not an advocate of aggressive manner. He would seldom attempt to browbeat or bully when exerting his forensic skill to expose the mendacities in which those of the other side are supposed to revel.

He had a friendly ingratiating style of address, such as would have been called fatherly in an older man. He would discuss a witness’s evidence with him in an intimate, confidential manner, as though uniting with him to bring into clearer light the facts distorted by the blundering questions of the previous advocate.

He was entitled, by the etiquette of the occasion, to undertake the questioning of at least one of the less-important witnesses, but it was a compliment to his reputation that Mr. Huddleston entrusted him with Miss Weston’s cross-examination. He had actually hesitated between doing this and surrendering Francis Hammerton to his junior’s seductive ministrations. But he was undecided as to the expediency of recalling Francis to the box, and he may have thought that Mr. Pippin’s methods would be particularly well adapted to procure Miss Weston’s undoing, if there should have been more or less than truth’s simplicity in her fluent narrative of a night’s adventures.

“Miss Weston,” Mr. Pippin began, with a friendly glance, approaching admiration, at a young lady on whom it was easy to smile, “I think you told us that you were in Mrs. Benson’s house about two months?”

“Yes. It was about nine weeks.”

“And you have explained very clearly the degree of intimacy (if you will permit the word) which had developed between yourself and Mr. Rabone during that time, before which he was, as I understand—in fact, he must have been—an absolute stranger to you?”

“Yes. So far as I know I had never seen him before.”

“That was obvious, because, had you been previously acquainted, you would not have entered the house under an assumed name. You did so, as you have told the court, under that of Mary Jones. Would you please explain why?”

“I think I chose it because it was an easy one to remember.”

“Yes. I suppose it is. But why change it at all?”

“I believe it is quite usual to do so when engaged in such enquiries.”

“Possibly so. It is a matter on which I am not well informed. But what I am anxious to know is why it should have been done on this occasion.”

“It may have obvious advantages.”

“Yes. But it must have disadvantages also, which are at least equally obvious. You might be met by someone to whom you were known, who would use your true name in a disconcerting way. Or you might use or sign it yourself by inadvertence, so that the imposture would be disclosed. May I take it that it has been your habit to use an assumed name when engaged in such investigations?”

“It was the first time that I had had occasion to do so.”

“You mean that it is the first time that you have been engaged in work of this kind?”

“Yes.”

“How long have you been in the employment of the Texall Enquiry Agency?”

“About three months.”

“And previously?”

“I had no previous employment.”

“You are, perhaps, a young lady of private means?”

“I have a small income.”

“And yet you engaged in this somewhat unusual and even, to some ways of thinking, repellent occupation. Do you mind saying why?”

“Well, it was something to do.”

As Mr. Pippin asked these questions, his expression had been friendly, his tone casual. He had not appeared to notice that there had been increasing hesitation, if not actual evasion, in the brief replies he received, but it was clear to all who watched and listened that Miss Weston was replying with reluctance, and with a growing impatience hardly controlled.

Her last answer found Mr. Pippin in pleasant agreement.

“Yes,” he said. “So it was. But it is not always easy, even for young ladies of, if I may say so, exceptional abilities and attractions, to get such positions without previous experience. How did you first get in touch with the Texall Agency?”

“I was introduced by Sir Reginald Crowe—by the London & Northern Bank.”

Mr. Pippin paused for a moment, in an atmosphere which had become tensely silent with the instinctive realization that they were on the edge of one of those dramatic episodes in which a witness, giving evidence which may have been equally unexpected both to prosecution and defence, will sometimes confuse the issue for both alike, or destroy the very foundations on which they have united to build. His examination to this point had illustrated the soundness of Inspector Combridge’s maxim that if you are content to go on a step at a time you may be surprised by the distance which you progress. He had commenced with a convenient opening from which he had intended to pass rapidly to a further and more promising line of attack, but he had perceived at once, with the sense, half instinct, half reason, of the practised advocate, that there was something held in the reserve of the witness’s mind which it might be profitable to probe.

Now his tone became slightly expostulatory, as though in good-humoured protest at the defects of a woman’s logic: “You were introduced by the London & Northern Bank! Shall we say that you were introduced for the explicit purpose of making William Rabone’s acquaintance? And do you still say that you had no special reason to change your name?”

In a long moment of silence, and with visible effort, Miss Weston controlled herself to reply: “Whatever reason I may have had, it has not the remotest connection with the murder concerning which I am giving evidence, and I would prefer not to reply.”

“I am sorry, Miss Weston, but I must still ask you to do so.”

“I think it should be sufficient when I say that it has nothing to do with the present case.”

“It is a matter on which you may not be the best judge.”

Mr. Garrison interposed. “The questions appear to be quite simple, Miss Weston, and I must instruct you that it is your duty to answer them. It is very difficult to see why you should object to do so. I will repeat them for you. Did you enter the employment of the Texall Enquiry Agency with the direct purpose of being appointed to watch William Rabone? And why did you think it necessary for this purpose to change your name?”

It might be noticed by those who watched closely that Miss Weston’s hands, which had been pressed tightly upon the rail of the witness-box, relaxed their tension, and her voice lost its previous tone of restraint, as she replied.

“Very well. If you insist, I must tell you. I did it I because I knew that Mr. Rabone was responsible for my father’s death.”

Mr. Pippin contrived to look several things at the same time. He was surprised, shocked, sympathetic, anxious for more. Inwardly, he was in excellent spirits, finding that he was reaping a fruitful crop from what he had expected to be lean if not barren ground. He began: “Perhaps, Miss Weston, you would—” But Mr. Garrison interrupted him.

“I will deal with this, if you please. Miss Weston, I am sure you realize the gravity of the allegation you have just made. Will you tell me what ground you have for charging William Rabone with responsibility for your father’s death?”

“My father was chief accountant at the head office of the London & Northern Bank. He shot himself two years ago, after he had been transferred to a less responsible position.”

“And how does that support the imputation against the man with whose murder—if such it were—we are now dealing?”

“The bank was the victim of certain forgeries of a very cunning kind, which required an inside knowledge such as my father had. He said that there was only one other man except himself who could have given the information by which those frauds were successfully carried out. That was Mr. Rabone. My father said to me, time after time, that he was sure Rabone was guilty, but that he had no proof, and that was not a thing which he could say, when there was equal suspicion against himself.

“He was never the same man after that incident, though he received a letter from the directors assuring him of their continued confidence. His health broke down, and that was, as I have since been assured, the only reason that he was transferred to a position of less responsibility. But he took it the wrong way, and he committed suicide two days later.”

Mr. Garrison considered this explanation. He addressed Mr. Pippin: “You will see that Miss Weston felt that if it could be shown that Rabone was an unfaithful servant to the bank, it would clear any shadow of suspicion from her father’s name. It is a matter which may or may not be relevant to the present case. At present, it seems to me to be somewhat remote. Perhaps that will be all, Mr. Pippin?”

It was a plain hint that, in the magistrate’s opinion, the cross-examination should not be continued; but Mr. Pippin had been consulting hurriedly with Mr. Huddleston (who had re-entered the court a few minutes earlier), and he now rose to say that there were a few further questions which he felt it necessary to ask. “I have,” he said, “my client’s interests to consider.”

“That,” Mr. Garrison agreed, “is the paramount consideration. Go on, Mr. Pippin.”

Mr. Pippin turned to the witness: “You have told the court, Miss Weston, that you accounted William Rabone responsible for your father’s death, and having that conviction in your mind—whether it were well-founded or not—you were willing to be the instrument of his ruin?”

“I wanted to get the truth.”

“Yes.... Whatever it might be?”

She considered this with a slight frown. “Yes. But I knew what it would be. You see, I had known my father.”

“Anyway, you would have won William Rabone’s confidence, if you had been able to do so, and betrayed it to his employers, if it would have resulted in his conviction for defrauding the bank?”

“Oh, yes,” she answered. “He would have betrayed them first, would he not? That was what I intended to do.” Her lips set firmly as she added, in a low voice, as though to herself, and yet so that it could be plainly heard through the silent court: “I would have done more than that.”

Mr. Garrison looked up from his notes to regard the witness in a keenly questioning way. Mr. Pippin allowed a slight expression of surprise to pass over a face by which his thoughts were not often shown. Mr. Richard Middleton Junior murmured, “Perhaps you did,” loudly enough to be heard by most of those on the legal benches, and by Mr. Garrison, who gave the solicitor a glance of silent but sharp rebuke.

Mr. Pippin asked: “And will you please tell the court exactly what you would have been willing to do?”

“I mean that he couldn’t have got more than he deserved, or than I should have been glad to have been him have.”

“Even to his death?”

She did not appear to observe the possible implication of her replies. She said: “I’m not sorry he’s dead, if you mean that.”

“Would it be correct to say that what you saw of him during the last few weeks did not lessen the hatred which you had felt when he was no more than the name of a man you had never met?”

“I think it made it worse. I hated him for what he had done, and I disliked him additionally for what I found him to be. I think that was how most people would feel.”

“Perhaps they would.... And having these feelings, you would not be stirred to any animosity toward anyone who might kill him, nor desire to bring such a one under the penalty of the law?”

Miss Weston paused on this question. She glanced at the man in the dock, as the one to whom allusion was presumably made. Peter Entwistle did not look particularly repulsive to her. “No,” she said. “Not the least. I think it’s a better world now he’s dead.”

“Yet, having these feelings, you showed, on your own account, considerable courage, and ran into more possible danger than most young women would care to face, with no other object than to trace the murderer of the man whose death you regard as giving so little cause for regret. Can you explain that?”

“I didn’t think of it in that way. I just wanted to get at the truth, as I had been doing all along.” She added: “But if I had thought of it like that, I expect I should have done much the same. I should have thought they all belonged to the same gang, though they might have quarrelled among themselves.”

Mr. Pippin was not sure that he liked this reply, and had sufficient discretion to see that if he continued further he might fare worse. He decided to switch off as rapidly as possible to another line of attack. He asked: “You are quite sure that you have told the court the full truth, neither more nor less, as to why you left your room immediately following William Rabone’s death?”

“Yes. I am quite sure about that.”

“And the man you followed—if there were actually such a man—you did not see, and could not identify?”

“No. I shouldn’t recognize him at all.”

“Very well. We must leave it there.... Now on another matter. You have told us how Rabone forced his attentions on you at a late hour of the night—actually at 1:30 a.m.—and how frightened you very naturally were, especially so, if I understand rightly what had occurred, because, up to a certain point, you had given him encouragement, or, at least, some reason to expect complaisance from you.

“At that time we may suppose that Mrs. Benson was fast asleep in the basement, three or four stories below. When you were on the top landing, or even when you were on the one outside Mr. Hammerton’s door, she may have been out of hearing, but Mr. Hammerton certainly was not.

“If I understood you correctly, you threatened to call him to your assistance, but Rabone was, to use your own word, contemptuous of any interference from him, and you do not appear to have been surprised at this attitude.

“May I conclude that Mr. Hammerton, or Edwards as I believe that he was known to Rabone and yourself—or was it possibly Vaughan?—was previously acquainted with William Rabone, and presumably under his influence?”

“No, I think that is wrong. I believe they had only met on the previous day. I have really no doubt about it.”

Mr. Garrison turned over his notes. “I think,” he said, “we already have Mr. Hammerton’s evidence to that effect.”

Mr. Pippin said: “Yes. That is so,” in a tone that I implied that the word of Mr. Hammerton, Edwards, or Vaughan, was of negligible value on any subject whatever. But Mr. Garrison was of a scrupulous impartiality. He was dubious about Mr. Hammerton in more ways than one, but the oath of any man is not to be lightly set aside, if there be no contrary evidence to weigh it down. He said: “Well, go on, Mr. Pippin.”

“Then, if we are to accept the supposition that they were no more than acquaintances of a few hours, will you repeat Mr. Rabone’s contemptuous words, as exactly as you can recall them?”

Miss Weston had a moment of silence, as though she searched a deficient memory for words which she could not recall with the certainty that the occasion required. In fact, she remembered them without difficulty, but she had some reluctance to quote them. They must be offensive to publish, and might be harmful, to one toward whom she felt as a friend. But she reflected that, from one angle or other, the facts would certainly be revealed concerning all who had been on the scene of William Rabone’s death, and that a frank answer might ultimately be best, in more ways than one. She answered: “What he said was, as nearly as I can recollect, ‘You’ll get no help from that jailbird. Do you think he’s going to call in the police?’”

“And you understood that singular allusion to Mr. Hammerton’s past or present position?”

“Yes. I knew what he meant.”

“Although, like Mr. Rabone, you had only made his acquaintance a few hours previously?”

“Yes. Mr. Hammerton had told me what had happened.”

“You knew, in fact, that he was an escaped convict?”

“I knew he had escaped from prison.”

“And you had no thought of informing the police?”

“No. I should have thought it would have been a very mean thing to do.”

“Don’t you recognize that it is the duty of every citizen to assist the officers of the law?”

“I thought Mr. Hammerton was an innocent and most unfortunate man.”

Mr. Garrison allowed himself to smile slightly at this example of feminine logic, which Miss Weston evidently considered to be a sufficient reply. He said: “Don’t you think we are going rather far afield, Mr. Pippin? I am not sure that I should not have warned the witness that she is not bound to answer your latest questions.”

Mr. Pippin said he would leave it there, but before he could resume his examination Mr. Jellipot was on his feet.

“As representing Mr. Hammerton—” he began

“I am not sure,” Mr. Garrison interrupted, “that I can hear you in that capacity.”

“I think,” Mr. Jellipot persisted, with a gentle firmness, “after what has been said already, that a few words of explanation may assist the court.”

Mr. Garrison looked dubious. But he was himself considerably puzzled; particularly in respect of the fact that Francis Hammerton, an escaped convict of recent notoriety, and who had stood in the dock on a charge of murder a week ago, did not appear to be in the present custody of the police. He said doubtfully: “Well, a few words, Mr. Jellipot, if you assure me that it will assist the court.”

Mr. Jellipot had the good sense to take the permission literally, and showed that he could be brief and pointed when the occasion required.

“I only wished,” he said, “to make Mr. Hammerton’s present position clear. It is true that he was recently convicted of a criminal offence, and that he escaped from the custody of the police. He has now appealed against that conviction, and has been granted bail until the appeal can be heard.”

Mr. Garrison considered this, and felt more surprise than he permitted himself to show. He said only: “That is quite clear. I am obliged to you, Mr. Jellipot, for your assistance.... Pray continue, Mr. Pippin.”

Mr. Pippin resumed: “You have said, Miss Weston, that William Rabone was a man you hated, as being, in your belief, ultimately responsible for your father’s death. You were on the track of his supposed criminality, with the object of revenging yourself upon him. Up to the last day—almost up to the moment when you went upstairs together, as you have told the court, to the attic rooms where he was to meet a violent death in the next hour—you appear to have had a hope that you would be the instrument by which he would be brought to justice for the crimes which, rightly or wrongly, you believed him to have committed. But that evening that hope—that expectation—must have finally left your mind. You heard him express confidence that he could make terms with the bank which would be profitable to himself, or, at the worst, that they would be able to do no more than dismiss him, which he had no occasion to fear. Did you not realize, at that moment, that, unless you should take it into your own hands, and that instantly, your hope and opportunity of revenge might be gone for ever?”

Mr. Pippin’s manner had altered as this last question was asked. His tone had become solemn, and tense with the accusation that it conveyed. Yet Mr. Garrison, listening carefully, recognized that it was put in a form to which no exception could be taken.

Miss Weston considered it for a moment, as though not instantly grasping whatever meaning it had. Then she gave Mr. Pippin a straight glance, as she said without apparent resentment: “What you want me to say is that I killed him myself, which is untrue.”

“I want you to answer the question, which I will repeat if necessary.”

“There is no need to do that. The answer is that I didn’t think about it in that way at all.”

“Very well. That is your answer. You didn’t think about it in that way at all!”

Mr. Pippin sat down, and Mr. Garrison looked at Mr. Dunkover to ask: “Do you wish to re-examine the witness?”

Mr. Dunkover shook his head, and Mr. Garrison said: “Then we will adjourn at this point.” He continued to address Mr. Dunkover when he asked: “I wonder how far you can help me as to how much further time this case is likely to need.”

Mr. Dunkover said that he had one more witness to call. He did not anticipate that he would be long in the box. So far as he was concerned, the case might be over by noon tomorrow.

Mr. Huddleston rose at once. “When the prosecution have completed their case, unless they have some very different evidence from any which we have yet heard, I shall ask you to discharge Mr. Entwistle forthwith. Should you decide against me at that stage, I shall put my client into the box, and shall have at least three other witnesses to call. I anticipate being able to satisfy you of Mr. Entwistle’s absolute innocence.”

Mr. Garrison’s face was expressionless as he replied: “Thank you, Mr. Huddleston. That was all that I wished to know.”