Benjamin Farjeon - Great Porter Square - A Mystery. Volume 1

Witness: Three hours and more.

Mr. White Lush: Was the candle you left burning on your kitchen table when you fell into a doze alight when you awoke?

Witness: It were, sir, and it burnt blue.

Mr. White Lush: What do you mean by that?

Witness: I don’t know, sir. It burnt blue. There was something mysterious about it.

Magistrate: Perhaps the witness smelt sulphur also.

Mr. White Lush: Did you smell sulphur?

Witness: Not as I’m aware on, sir.

Mr. White Lush: When you awoke, was it a natural awaking, or were you suddenly aroused?

Witness: I were suddenly woke, and I was all of a tremble.

Mr. White Lush: You were frightened by something?

Witness: I were, sir, and I were not.

Mr. White Lush: I do not understand you. Was there anybody or anything in the room besides yourself?

Witness: I didn’t see nothink – not even a mouse.

Mr. White Lush: Then what were you frightened at?

Witness: It were a fancy, perhaps – or a dream that I couldn’t remember; and all at once I ’eerd a scream.

Mr. White Lush: From what direction?

Witness: From the next house, No. 119.

Mr. White Lush: You heard a scream proceeding from 119, the house in which the murder was committed?

Witness: As near as I can remember, sir.

Mr. White Lush: That is not what I want. You possess the usual number of senses, I suppose?

Witness: I defy anybody to say anything to the contrairy.

Mr. White Lush: You look like a sensible woman. (Here the witness made an elaborate curtsey to Mr. White Lush, which occasioned much laughter.) Your hearing is good?

Witness: It air, sir. Mrs. Beale was saying to me only yesterday morning, ‘Mrs. Preedy,’ says she —

Mr. White Lush: Never mind what Mrs. Beale was saying to you. Listen to what I am saying to you. On the occasion we are speaking of, you heard a scream?

Witness (after a long pause, during which she seemed to be mentally asking questions of herself): I think I may wenture to say, sir, I did.

Mr. White Lush: Ah, that is more satisfactory. Now, Mrs. Preedy, attend to me.

Witness: I’m a-doing of it, sir.

Mr. White Lush: Thank you. Did the scream proceed from a man or a woman?

Witness (with energy): I couldn’t tell you, sir, if you went down on your bended knees.

Mr. White Lush: Reflect a little; take time. You have heard hundreds of men’s and women’s voices —

Witness: Thousands, sir.

Mr. White Lush: And a woman of your discernment must have perceived a difference between them. Women’s tones are soft and dulcet; men’s, gruffer and more resonant. It is important we should know whether it was a man’s or a woman’s voice you heard?

Witness: It ain’t possible for me to say, sir.

Mr. White Lush: Is that really the only answer you can give?

Witness: I’d give you another if I could, sir. It’s true I’ve ’eerd thousands of men’s and women’s voices, but I’ve not been in the ’abit of ’aving thousands of men and women screaming at me.

Mr. White Lush: Was it a loud scream?

Witness: There was a brick wall between us, and it must ’ave been a loud scream, or I couldn’t have ’eerd it.

Mr. White Lush: What followed?

Witness: Music. Almost on the top of the scream, as a body might say, I ’eerd music.

Mr. White Lush: What instrument was being played upon?

Witness: The pianner, sir. I ’eerd the pianner playing.

Mr. White Lush: That is to say you heard a man or woman playing the piano?

Witness: I wouldn’t swear, sir.

Mr. White Lush: Or a child?

Witness: I wouldn’t swear, sir.

Mr. White Lush: But you have sworn. You say that you heard the sound of a piano?

Witness: I did ’ear it, sir. The pianner was playing.

Mr. White Lush: A piano can’t play of itself. You heard a man, or a woman, or a child, playing the piano?

Witness: Wild ’orses sha’n’t tear it from me, sir. It might ’ave been a spirit.

Mr. White Lush: What do you say to a cat?

Witness: No, sir, it ain’t reasonable.

Mr. White Lush: You stick to the spirit, then?

Witness: It might ’ave been.

Mr. White Lush: You believe in spirits?

Witness: I do, sir.

Mr. White Lush: Out of a bottle? (Laughter.)

Magistrate: The witness has the bottle-imp in her mind, perhaps? (Renewed laughter.)

Mr. White Lush: Very likely. (To witness): Did the spirit you heard playing come out of a bottle?

Witness (with dignity): I am not in the habit of making a beast of myself.

Mr. White Lush: But a little drop now and then, eh, Mrs. Preedy?

Witness: As a medicine, sir, only as a medicine. I suffer a martyrdom from spasms. (Laughter.)

Mr. White Lush: A common complaint, Mrs. Preedy. I suffer from them myself.

Witness: You look like it, sir. (Screams of laughter.)

Mr. White Lush: For how long a time did the music continue?

Witness: For five or six minutes, perhaps.

Mr. White Lush: Are you sure it did not last for a longer time – or a shorter?

Witness: No, sir, I am not sure. I was in that state that everythink seemed mixed up.

Mr. White Lush: The music might have lasted for half-an-hour?

Witness: It might, sir.

Mr. White Lush: Or for only a minute?

Witness: Yes, sir.

Mr. White Lush: When the music stopped, what occurred?

Witness: If you was to feed me on bread and water for the next twenty years I couldn’t tell you.

Mr. White Lush: Why couldn’t you tell me?

Witness: Because I don’t know whether I was standing on my ’ead or my ’eels. (Roars of laughter.)

Mr. White Lush: Nonsense, Mrs. Preedy, you do know.

Witness: Beggin’ your pardon, sir, I do not know. I ought to know whether I don’t know.

Mr. White Lush: Are you standing on your head or your heels at the present moment?

Witness did not reply.

Magistrate: Do you mean to tell the court seriously that you are not aware whether, at the time referred to, you were standing on your head or your heels?

Witness: I wouldn’t swear to it, my lordship, one way or another.

Mr. White Lush: What did you do when the music stopped?

Witness: I flopped.

Mr. White Lush: Did you flop on your head or your heels?

Witness: I couldn’t take it upon myself to say, sir.

Mr. White Lush: And this is all you know of the murder?

Witness: If you was to keep me ’ere for a month, sir, you couldn’t get nothink else out of me.

Mr. White Lush: I have done with you.

Mr. Goldberry: I shall not detain you long, Mrs. Preedy. Look attentively at the prisoner. Do you know him?

Witness: No, sir.

Mr. Goldberry: Have you ever seen him in Great Porter Square?

Witness: Neither there or nowheres else. This is the first time I ever set eyes on ’im.

Mr. Goldberry: You swear that, positively.

Witness: If it were the last word I ever spoke, it’s the truth.

Mr. Goldberry: That will do.

Mrs. Preedy left the witness box in a state of great agitation, amid the tittering of the spectators.

Mr. Goldberry, addressing the Bench, said that he saw in the Court three of the constables who had been instrumental in arresting the prisoner, one being the officer who had first observed the prisoner in Great Porter Square. It was well known that the prisoner had declined to put a single question to one of the witnesses called on behalf of the Treasury. He asked to be allowed to exercise the privilege of cross-examining these constables, and he promised to occupy the court but a very short time.

No objection being raised, Police-constable Richards entered the witness box.

Mr. Goldberry: Before you helped to arrest the prisoner in Great Porter Square, had you ever seen him before?

Witness: It’s hard to say.