Cyril Hare - Untimely Death aka He Should Have Died Hereafter

“I shall not grant an adjournment.”

“As your lordship pleases.”

Turning to Mrs. Gorman, he said, “The answer to your question, madam, as you may have gathered, is that the sex of your child may make a considerable difference. When is it expected, by the way?”

“The third week in June, my lord.”

“You have not so very long to wait, then. If it is a boy, the property is yours so long as he lives, and yours for good should he survive to the age of twelve.”

“Thank you, my lord. And now that is settled, may I go away?”

“But nothing is settled. I still have to try this case.”

“I don’t see what there is to try.”

“Don’t you understand? Whether you have a son or another daughter, this property is yours already, under your husband’s will, unless the Plaintiff, Mr. Dick Gorman, can prove that your husband died on Saturday, the 9th of September and not on Tuesday, the 12th.”

“He needn’t bother to prove that,” said Mrs. Gorman sadly. “Jack died on Saturday, the morning he left me. I’ve known it all along.”

“The Death Certificate before me certifies that he died on Tuesday, and that remains the date of his death until the contrary is proved. I have to hear the evidence.”

“He died on Saturday,” Mrs. Gorman repeated, and for the first time there was passion in her voice. “And how he died no one will tell me, though there’s someone here knows well enough, I think. And Gilbert, that had lain a-dying for months, lingered on till Sunday. That’s how it was. The gentleman said right when he told you the coroner and all were deceived, my lord. But I was deceived, too. My Jack was hidden away till after Gilbert was dead, and then brought out to be found again with his wounds all fresh as though he had only just died. It’s that I can’t get out of my mind-my husband’s poor body shut up in a butcher’s cold store like the carcase of a sheep or a steer, so that his daughters would get what wasn’t rightly theirs. It doesn’t seem possible, but there’s those will do anything for money. And that’s the truth, my lord. Ask my father if it’s not the truth!”

Edna Gorman’s voice trailed away into a silence that lasted just long enough to give Pettigrew time to wonder what was the appropriate Chancery reaction to these very untypical Chancery proceedings. Then Mr. Justice Pomeroy supplied the answer. He raised his heavy-lidded eyes towards the time-piece on the wall, heaved himself out of his chair and observed to the assembled company, now respectfully upstanding, “Two o’clock.” The morning had gone; it was time to be thinking of lunch.

In the corridor outside the court, Pettigrew felt his arm being taken in a firm but friendly grip. He looked round, and saw that it was Manktelow.

“I’m not sure that I want to talk to you,” said Pettigrew.

“Don’t be silly. Of course you do. You’re my witness.”

“What you mean is, that you want to talk to me.”

“You will find that it comes to exactly the same thing. You will be lunching in hall. So shall I. You will sit at the same table you have used since you were called. So shall I. I shall come and sit next to you and you will have no escape. You had better accept your fate quietly.”

Pettigrew surrendered. Manktelow, after all, was a man and a brother. Chancery had long since claimed him for her own, but he was none the less a Templar of the same Inn as Pettigrew. They had lunched together, with intervals for two world wars and other interruptions, fairly regularly for over forty years. Since Pettigrew retired from practice after the second war, they had neither met nor corresponded, but this did not prevent them from taking up their acquaintance exactly where they had left it. They walked together to the robing-room, and it seemed odd and unnatural that only one of them should have a wig and gown to leave behind there. Together they strolled across the Strand, in the wake of a judge for whom a policeman was holding up the traffic. It was all deliciously like old times. Then they went into hall.

“Hall” to Pettigrew meant a lofty stone building in Victorian Gothic, panelled with highly varnished wood, adorned with the escutcheons of by-gone celebrities and nonentities, and populated by large statues representing the nineteenth-century’s idea of medieval Knights Templar. Aesthetes had condemned it; Hitler had destroyed it; Pettigrew missed it very much. The familiar table was still in the same place, with the familiar faces around it. He noticed that one or two strangers had contrived not only to get themselves called to the Bar, but to insinuate themselves among his friends, but he was prepared for a reasonable amount of change in ten years. What he was not prepared for was the babel of sound that assailed his ears as he entered the shining, new, handsome building that was now “hall”. Everybody seemed to be shouting at the top of his voice. The clatter of knives and forks was deafening. The feet of the waiters hurrying across the floor thundered like charging cavalry.

“What’s happened to everyone?” Pettigrew bellowed to Manktelow. “I can’t hear myself speak.”

“Didn’t you know?” His voice came to Pettigrew with difficulty through the hubbub. “It’s something they call acoustics. Apparently this sort of floor and this kind of ceiling put together in a room this shape are guaranteed to produce this result. It’s a very interesting scientific demonstration. You’re jolly lucky to have heard it. They’ll do something to the place soon and spoil it.”

Pettigrew shook his head mournfully.

“I thought you wanted to talk,” he said.

“Yes I do. Eat up quickly and we’ll have time for a stroll round the garden.”

“What exactly are you going to say?” Manktelow asked as they walked across the great lawn.

“Hasn’t Mallett told you? Simply that I saw what appeared to be the body of a man on Bolter’s Tussock on the afternoon of Saturday the whatever-it-was, and when I came back later it wasn’t there.”

“What appeared to be?”

“That’s as far as I shall go.”

“H’m. I shall be producing a photograph of the body that certainly was there on the Tuesday morning. Do you think you will be able to identify it?”

“I might and I might not. But you’re not telling me that that’s the only evidence you’ve got to connect the two?”

“No, it’s not.”

“I thought not,” said Pettigrew.

“Why didn’t you tell the police what you had seen?” Manktelow asked.

“That’s cross-examination. If Twentyman asks me that, I suppose I shall have to answer, but I’m damned if I tell you.”

They turned under the plane trees overlooking the Embankment and started to walk back over the grass.

“You don’t seem to be interested in the case,” observed Manktelow reproachfully, after they had gone some way in silence.

“On the contrary, I am very much interested, and I badly want to know, but I don’t suppose you can tell me. Who or what killed Jack Gorman? Have you any ideas?”

“Good lord, no! The question never even crossed my mind.”

“It’s an interesting question, all the same, you know.”

“I dare say it is,” said Manktelow impatiently. “For those who care for such things. But it’s not my case. Not the case you’re giving evidence in. Aren’t you interested in that?”

“Dash it all, I’ve already heard you open it in court at some considerable length, and you and Mrs. Gorman between you have really told me all I need to know about it. Incidentally, unless we walk up, we shan’t be there on time. It’s getting late.” They quickened their pace as they left the garden and began to thread the Temple courts.