Michael Kurland - Victorian Villainy

“And then what did you do, sergeant?”

“After sending Constable Gough off to Beachamshire to notify the police surgeon, I thoroughly examined the premises to see whether I could ascertain what had occurred on the, ah, premises.”

“And what were your conclusions?”

“The deceased was identified to me as Mrs. Andrea Maples, wife of Professor Maples, who lived in the main house on the same property. She was dressed-”

“Yes, yes, sergeant,” Sir George interrupted. “We’ve heard how she was dressed. Please go on.”

“Very good, sir. She had been dead for some time when I examined her. I would put her death at between seven and ten hours previous, based on my experience. Which placed the time of her death at sometime around midnight.”

“And on what do you base that conclusion?”

“The blood around the body was pretty well congealed, but not completely in the deeper pools, and the body appeared to be fairly well along into rigor mortis at that time.

“Very observant, sergeant. And what else did you notice?”

“The murder weapon was lying near the body. It was a hard wood walking stick with a ducks-head handle. It had some of the victim’s blood on it, and a clump of the victim’s hair was affixed to the duck’s head in the beak area. The stick was identified by one of the bicyclists who was still present as being the property of Professor Maples, husband of the victim.”

“And what did you do then?”

“I proceeded over to the main house to question Professor Maples, who was just sitting down to breakfast when I arrived. I told him of his wife’s death, and he affected to be quite disturbed at the news. I then asked him to produce his walking stick, and he spend some time affecting to look for it. I then placed him under arrest and sent Constable Parfry for a carriage to take the professor to the station house.”

“Here, now!” a short, squat juror with a walrus moustache that covered his face from below his nose to below his chin, shifted in his seat and leaned belligerently forward. “What made you arrest the professor at that there moment? It seems to me that whoever the Maples woman was having an assigerna… — was meeting at this here cottage in the middle of the night was more likely to have done her in.”

“Now, now, we’ll get to that,” the coroner said, fixing the fractious juror with a stern eye. “I’m trying to lay out the facts of the case in an orderly manner. We’ll get to that soon enough.”

The next witness was the police surgeon, who testified that the decedent had met her death as a result of multiple blunt-force blows to the head and shoulders. He couldn’t say just which blow killed her, any one of several could have. And, yes, the duck-headed cane presented in evidence could have been the murder weapon.

Sir George nodded. So much for those who wanted information out of its proper order. Now…

Professor Maples was called next. The audience looked expectant. He testified that he had last seen his wife at about nine o’clock on the night she was killed. After which he had gone to bed, and, as he had been asleep, had not been aware of her absence.

“You did not note that she was missing when you awoke, or when you went down to breakfast?” Sir George asked.

“I assumed she had gone out early,” Maples replied. “She went out early on occasion. I certainly didn’t consider foul play. One doesn’t, you know.”

Professor Maples was excused, and the audience looked disappointed.

An acne-laden young man named Cramper was called up next. He was, he explained, employed at the local public house, the Red Garter, as a sort of general assistant. On the night of the murder he had been worked unusually late, shifting barrels of ale from one side of the cellar to the other. “It were on account of the rats,” he explained.

Sir George, wisely, did not pursue that answer any further. “What time was it when you started for home?” he asked.

“Must have been going on for midnight, one side or ‘nother.”

Sir George stared expectantly at Cramper, and Cramper stared back complacently at Sir George.

“Well?” the coroner said finally.

“Well? Oh, what happened whilst I walked home. Well, I saw someone emerging from the old Wilstone cottage.”

“That’s the cottage where the murder took place?” Sir George prompted.

“Aye, that’s the one aright. Used to be a gent named Wilstone lived there. Still comes back from time to time, I believe.”

“Ah!” said Sir George. “And this person you saw coming from the, ah, old Wilstone cottage?”

“Happens I know the gent. Name of Faulting. He teaches jumping and squatting, or some such, over by the college field building.”

There was a murmur from the audience, which Sir George quashed with a look.

“And you could see clearly who the gentleman was, even though it was the middle of the night?”

“Ever so clearly. Aye, sir.”

“And how was that?”

“Well, there were lights on in the house, and his face were all lit up by them lights.”

“Well,” Sir George said, looking first at the jury and then at the audience. “We will be calling Mr. Faulting next, to verify Mr. Cramper’s story. And he will, gentlemen and, er, ladies. He will. Now, what else did you see, Mr. Cramper?”

“You mean in the house?”

“That’s right. In the house.”

“Well, I saw the lady in question-the lady who got herself killed.”

“You saw Mrs. Maples in the house?”

“Aye, that’s so. She were at the door, saying goodbye to this Faulting gent.”

“So she was alive and well at that time?”

“Aye. That she were.”

The jury foreman leaned forward. “And how were she dressed?” he called out, and then stared defiantly at the coroner, who had turned to glare at him.

“It were only for a few seconds that I saw her before she closed the door,” Cramper replied. “She were wearing something white, I didn’t much notice what.”

“Yes, thank you,” you’re excused,” Sir George said.

Mr. Faulting was called next, and he crept up to the witness chair like a man who knew he was having a bad dream, but didn’t know how to get out of it. He admitted having been Andrea Maples’ night visitor. He was not very happy about it, and most of his answers were mumbles, despite Sir George’s constant admonitions to speak up. Andrea had, he informed the coroner’s court, invited him to meet her in the cottage at ten o’clock.

“What about her husband?” the coroner demanded.

“I asked her that,” Faulting said. “She laughed. She told me that he wouldn’t object; that I was free to ask him if I liked. I, uh, I didn’t speak with him.”

“No,” the coroner said, “I don’t imagine you did.”

Faulting was the last witness. The coroner reminded the jury that they were not to accuse any person of a crime, even if they thought there had been a crime; that was a job for the criminal courts. They were merely to determine cause of death. After a brief consultation, the jury returned a verdict of unlawful death.

“Thank you,” Sir George said. “You have done your duty. I assume,” he said, looking over at Sergeant Meeks, “that there is no need for me to suggest a course of action to the police.”

“No, sir,” Meeks told him. “Professor Maples will be bound over for trial at the assizes.”

Sir George nodded. “Quite right,” he said.

“Bah!” Holmes said to me in an undertone.

“You disagree?” I asked.

“I can think of a dozen ways Faulting could have pulled that trick,” he said. “That young man-Cramper-didn’t see Andrea Maples in the doorway, he saw a flash of something white.”

“Perhaps,” I said.