Patricia Wentworth - The Case Is Closed

The Coroner: ‘I am afraid I must ask you to answer it. Did he tell you he was making a will in your favour?’

Bertram Everton: ‘Well, not exactly, don’t you know.’

The Coroner: ‘What did he say?’

Bertram Everton: ‘Well, if you really want to know, he said that if he’d got to choose between a smoothtongued hypocrite and a damned tomfool, he’d choose the fool, don’t you know.’

(Laughter in the Court.)

The Coroner: ‘And you took that reference to yourself?’

Bertram Everton: ‘Well, it seemed to point that way, don’t you know.’

The Coroner: ‘You took him to mean that he was about to execute a will in your favour?’

Bertram Everton: ‘Well, I didn’t think he’d do it, don’t you know. I just thought he’d had a row with Geoffrey.’

The Coroner: ‘Did he tell you so?’

Bertram Everton: ‘No – I just got the impression, don’t you know.’

Hilary’s cheeks burned with anger. If it had been a proper trial, he wouldn’t have been allowed to say those things. You can say anything in a Coroner’s court, and this Bertie creature had got across with his suggestion of a quarrel between Geoff and his uncle. From first to last there was never a shred of evidence that there had ever been such a quarrel, but from first to last the suggestion was believed by the public. They read Bertie Everton’s evidence at the inquest, and they believed that Geoffrey Grey had quarrelled with his uncle -that James Everton had found him out in something discreditable, and that that was why he had altered his will. And the jury which afterwards tried Geoffrey Grey for his uncle’s murder was drawn from that same public. Once a suggestion has entered the general atmosphere of human thought, it is very difficult to neutralise it. Bertie Everton’s unsubstantiated suggestion of a quarrel undoubtedly helped to set the black cap on the judge’s head.

Hilary turned a page. What she had been reading was partly a newspaper report and partly a transcription into type of shorthand notes. As she turned the leaf, she saw before her a photograph of Bertie Everton – ‘Mr. Bertram Everton leaving the court.’ She had seen him once at the trial of course, but that was like remembering a nightmare. Hilary looked with all her eyes, but she couldn’t make very much of what she saw. Not very tall, not very short. Irregular features and longish hair. The picture was rather blurred, and of course no photograph gave you the colouring. She remembered that Bertie Everton had red hair. He seemed to have rather a lot of it, and it was certainly much too long.

She went on reading his evidence.

He said he had taken the ten o’clock non-stop from Edinburgh to King’s Cross, arriving at half past five on the afternoon of the 15th, and after dining with James Everton he had caught the 1.5 from King’s Cross, arriving in Edinburgh at 9.36 on the morning of the 16th. He had gone straight to the Caledonian Hotel, where he had a late breakfast and then put in some arrears of sleep. He explained at considerable length that he could never sleep properly in a train. He lunched in the hotel at half past one, after which he wrote letters, one to his brother and one to the Mr. White who had been mentioned in connection with the set of Toby jugs. He had had occasion to complain about the bell in his room being out of order. He went out for a walk some time after four o’clock, and on his way out he went into the office to enquire if there had been any telephone message for him. He thought there might have been one from the man who had the jugs. On his return to the hotel he went to bed. He was still very short of sleep, and he wasn’t feeling very well. He did not go into the dining-room, because he did not want any dinner. He went straight up to his room and rang for some biscuits. He had a biscuit or two and a drink out of his flask, and went to bed. He couldn’t say what time it was – somewhere round about eight o’clock. He wasn’t noticing the time. He wasn’t feeling at all well. He only wanted to go to sleep. The next thing he knew was the chambermaid knocking on the door with his tea next morning. He had asked to be called at nine. Asked where he had been during the time that he was absent from the hotel, he replied that he couldn’t really say. He had done a bit of nosing about and a bit of walking, and he had had a drink or two.

And that was the end of Bertie Everton.

The next thing was the typed copy of a statement by Annie Robertson, a chambermaid at the Caledonian Hotel. There was nothing to show whether it had been put in at the inquest or not. It was just a statement.

Annie Robertson said Mr. Bertram Everton had been staying in the hotel for three or four days before July 16th. He might have come on the 12th, or the 11th, or the 13th. She couldn’t say for certain, but they would know in the office. He had room No. 35. She remembered Tuesday, July 16th. She remembered Mr. Everton complaining about the bell in his room. He said it was out of order, but it seemed all right. She said she would have it looked at, because Mr. Everton said sometimes it rang and sometimes it didn’t. It was about three o’clock in the afternoon when Mr. Everton complained about the bell. He was writing letters at the time. Later that evening, at about half past eight, his bell rang and she answered it. Mr. Everton told her he wanted some biscuits. He said he didn’t feel well and was going to bed. She brought him the biscuits. She thought he was the worse for drink. She brought his tea next morning, Wednesday, July 17th, at nine o’clock. He seemed all right then and quite himself.

Hilary read this statement twice. Then she read Bertie Everton’s evidence all over again. He had been out of the hotel between four o’clock and getting on for half past eight. He might have flown to Croydon and reached Putney by eight o’clock, or at least she supposed he might. But he couldn’t possibly have been back in his room at the Caledonian Hotel ordering biscuits and complaining about not feeling well by half past eight. James Everton was alive and talking to Geoff at eight o’clock. Whoever shot him, it couldn’t have been his nephew Bertie, who was ordering biscuits in Edinburgh at half past eight.

Hilary wrenched her mind regretfully away from Bertie. He would have done so beautifully, and he wouldn’t do at all.

The other nephew, Frank Everton, hadn’t been called at the inquest. Marion’s statement that he had been collecting his weekly allowance from a solicitor in Glasgow between a quarter to six and a quarter past on the evening of the 16th was borne out by another of those typewritten sheets. Mr. Robert Johnstone, of the firm of Johnstone, Johnstone and McCandlish, declared that he had been in conversation with Mr. Francis Everton, with whom he was well acquainted, between the hours of five-forty-five and six-fifteen on Tuesday, July 16th, when he had paid over to him the sum of £2 10s. od. (two pounds ten shillings), for which sum he held Mr. Francis Everton’s dated receipt.

Exit Frank Everton. With even deeper regret Hilary let him go. Bad hat, rolling stone, family ne’er-do-well, but definitely not First Murderer. Even with a private aeroplane – and what would the family skeleton be doing with a private aeroplane – he couldn’t have done it. He would need a private aerodrome – no, two private aerodromes, one at each end. She toyed with the idea of the black sheep getting into his private aeroplane at Messrs. Johnstone, Johnstone and McCandlish’s front doorstep, taxi-ing down a busy Glasgow thoroughfare, flying all out to Putney, vol-planing down into James Everton’s back garden -all without attracting the slightest attention. It was a highly tempting picture, but it belonged to an Arabian Nights entertainment – the Tale of the Tenth Calendar, or some such fantasy. It couldn’t be sufficiently materialized to deflect the finding of a court of law.