Агата Кристи: Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 53, No. 12, December 2008

Wisely, none of the peasants sought to challenge my lord’s words. He continued, but instead of asking the prisoners if they pled guilty or innocent, he turned to face the jury. “Bailiff, have the jury present its evidence.”

The bailiff pointed to the man who had first introduced himself. “Hodge, present your evidence.”

The man stepped forward more timidly this time, the weight of his responsibility bearing down upon him. “If it pleases your lordship, we have all questioned the people involved and agree that Peta and Anna killed Garrick.”

“I’m sure you did,” my lord said, his voice even more gruff than usual, “but what I want to know is how you know this. Bring forth your witnesses, and let them tell their tales.”

This procedure was a little bit out of the ordinary. Normally, in the interests of time, my lord had the jury narrate events and then asked the witnesses to affirm or deny the parts they knew about. It was the way I had prepared the jury for, and Hodge now turned to me in confusion as to what to do.

I shrugged.

“The witnesses, man,” Lord William said. He made no attempt to conceal his irritation at the delay.

“Yes, my lord, but... she’s a woman.”

“So are the defendants, in case you haven’t noticed,” my lord said. “Does this woman have a husband or father or grown son to stand by her side?”

“Of course, my lord,” Hodge turned and gestured to one of the men in the jury, who stepped forward and called out, “Teale.”

A woman about the age of the older defendant stepped forward and stood beside the man who called her.

“Just tell us what happened,” my lord prompted her.

“I was working on the evening meal,” she began. There was no hesitancy in her voice. She, at least, was not cowed by my lord’s presence and the formal proceedings. “It was early still, and I didn’t expect Edan or my sons back from the fields for quite a while yet. Then I heard screams — a man’s screams — crying out for help from Garrick’s house. So I ran next door and raised the hue and cry when I saw what had happened.”

“And what was that?” my lord asked.

Teale shuddered as if in horror of the memory, but I could see by the expression on her face that she relished the opportunity to retell her story in such a public setting.

“They were all three covered in blood,” she said, “Garrick, Peta, and Anna. Peta held the knife in her hands. Garrick wasn’t quite dead yet, but I didn’t try to save him lest they turn on me. I just backed away and raised the hue and cry and waited for the village to arrive and help me.”

And that was just about everything the village knew about what had happened to Garrick. My lord heard several more witnesses — much of the village in fact, but they added very little to that original testimony. When the others arrived the mother and daughter were sitting over Garrick’s dead body. Both women were crying. Both were soaked in the dead man’s blood. Peta still held the knife.

The first attempt to question them was interrupted by Garrick’s two brothers, who beat both women senseless with their fists. It was probably something of a miracle that they hadn’t killed the women then and there and saved the need for this trial.

My lord, however, did not appear satisfied with this testimony. A thin sheen of perspiration brightened his forehead, which suggested... what? I was troubled that I couldn’t be certain. Was he concentrating? Fevered? Worried?

“And no one can offer me a reason for this crime?” Lord William asked.

“Lord William,” Sir Gerald spoke up from beside him. “I don’t understand the difficulty. Surely it is clear these women murdered my villager.”

My lord turned to face the knight, eyes glowering at the interruption. “It certainly appears that way, Sir Gerald. But I am entrusted to administer the king’s justice, and I am troubled that this jury provides me neither a confession nor a witness to the crime. Why would this woman stab her husband? Why would this girl help kill her father?”

“Because they hated him!” someone shouted from the crowd.

There was a general murmur of approval at these words.

“Now we are getting somewhere,” my lord announced. “Why would these two women hate Garrick?”

This triggered another series of mostly worthless anonymous comments.

“Because they’re evil!”

“Women don’t need an excuse!”

“The devil works through women!”

When the crowd had quieted, the bailiff stepped forward. “If it pleases your lordship, Garrick was always known to be a bit freer with his fists at home than are most men in this village.”

“Ahhhhh,” my lord said, “so Garrick liked to hit his womenfolk, did he?”

“There’s nothing wrong with that,” one of the jurors shouted. His face was bright red with fury. “Sometimes you have to hit your women to keep them in line.”

Several of the village men nodded in agreement. The law supported them as well. Short of killing, there was very little a man could not do to his wife or children. Of course, the wife’s brothers might take an informal interest long before it came to that, but Peta didn’t appear to have any brothers living in the village. Her relations were all more distant — and apparently less interested in her and her daughter’s welfare.

“Indeed?” Lord William asked, giving the clear impression that he had never found it necessary to hit his own wife. “But I think we might all agree that, necessary discipline or not, regular beatings might be the cause of some resentment.”

“It doesn’t mean she had cause to stab him,” the juror insisted.

“Indeed?” Lord William asked again. “Do you mean to say that if one of your neighbors were to soundly thrash you, you would not feel justified in using a knife to defend yourself?”

“Well, of course I—”

The juror stopped talking and glared at Lord William.

“It’s not the same thing!” a villager shouted. Clearly the majority of the village men agreed with him. And so did the law.

“Indeed it is not,” Lord William said, “but it is instructive nonetheless. Here is my problem. We have a dead man. Two women of his family are found over the body, soaked in his blood and holding the presumed murder weapon. Yet no one saw the actual stabbing, and the women were beaten into silence before they could tell what they knew of the crime.

“I am not satisfied. If they killed Garrick I might expect them to be found over the body. But if they discovered him stabbed and bleeding to death I would expect to find them there too.”

“They were holding the bloody knife,” Hodge exclaimed.

“But is that because they stabbed him with it or because they pulled the killing weapon out of their husband and father’s back?”

The villagers were astounded, but no more so than I was. We had hung men on less testimony than we had against these women. Yet here Lord William was not only casting doubt on the evidence, he was handing the women a line of defense.

“They were found standing over the body,” Hodge reiterated.

“And only they appear to know how they came to be there,” my lord said.

“Why don’t you ask them?” Sir Gerald intervened.

“Indeed,” my lord said. “Why don’t we?”

He turned to face the two accused women. “So what do you have to say for yourselves?”

They looked at each other for a moment and then the mother stepped forward. “It is as you say, my lord. We found Garrick bleeding to death and tried to help him.”

“Oh, of course!”

Sir Gerald spat out the words in disgust, but I almost didn’t hear them for the village had erupted in outrage, and one of the dead man’s brothers leapt forward to strike the accused wife.