John Carr - The Judas Window

The statement made by the prisoner, as the inspector quoted it, was much the same as that which had been read by the Attorney-General in his opening speech. As Mottram repeated it in dispassionate tones, it sounded even balder and thinner. When it came to the part about the drugging of the whisky, Sir Walter intervened.

'The prisoner told you that the deceased had given him a glass of whisky-and-soda; that he had drunk over half of it, and then put the glass down on the floor?'

'Yes, by his chair.'

'I think, Inspector Mottram, that you are a teetotaller?' 'Yes.'

'And,' said counsel very gently, 'was there any smell of whisky on the prisoner's breath?' 'None whatever.'

The thing was so simple, so obvious, that I believe the Crown had been reserving it for a bombshell. It certainly had that effect, for it was a practical and everyday point which came home to the jury.

'Go on, Inspector.'

'When he had finished making this statement, I said to him: "You realize that what you tell me cannot possibly be true?" He replied: "It is a frame-up, Inspector; I swear to God it is a frame-up; but I cannot see how they can all be crooked, or why they should have it in for me, anyway." '

'What did you understand him to mean by this?'

'I understood that he referred to the other people in the house. He made no difficulty in talking to me; I should describe him as friendly and almost eager. But he ap-eared to have strong suspicions of every member of the household, or friend of the family, who came near him. I then said to him: "If you acknowledge that the door was bolted on the inside, and the windows were also locked, how can anyone else have done what you say?"'

'What did he say to this?'

The witness looked mildly bothered. 'He began speaking about detective stories, and ways of bolting doors or locking windows from the outside - with bits of string or wire, and things like that.'

'Are you a reader of detective fiction, Inspector?'

'Yes, sir.'

'Do you know of any such methods as he referred to?'

"Well, sir, I have heard of one or two; and, with a whole lot of luck, they might be practical.' Inspector Mottram looked hesitant and then a little apologetic. 'But none of them could possibly apply in this case.'

At counsel's signal, the exhibit of the dummy shutters was again brought forward, and this time the door as well: a solid piece of oak attached to a practical frame.

'I understand that the same evening you removed the shutters and the door, assisted by Detective-Sergeant Raye, and took them to the police-station for purposes of experiment?'

‘I did.'

'Will you tell us why no such method could apply here?'

It was the old story; but it stood up solid and unbreakable as the Old Bailey itself when Mottram explained.

'After you had questioned him about the door and the windows, Inspector, what did you do?'

'I asked him if he would object to being searched. I observed, when he stood up - he had been sitting down most of the time - a kind of bulge on his right hip under the overcoat.'

'What did he say?'

'He said: "It won't be necessary; I know what you want." And he opened his overcoat, and reached into his hip pocket, and gave it to me.'

'Gave what to you?'

'A '38-calibre automatic pistol, fully loaded,' said the witness.

VIII

'The Old Bear Was Not Blind'

A -38-CALIBRE Webley-Scott automatic was handed up for inspection and identification. Someone behind us began softly to hum: 'O Who Will O'er the Downs with Me?' to words which sounded like: 'O Who Said He was Inn-o-cent?' The atmosphere of scepticism was now so heavy that you could feel it in people's very gravity. At the moment I happened to be looking at Reginald Answell, and for the first time an exhibit seemed to interest the prisoner's cousin. He looked up briefly; but his saturnine good looks betrayed nothing except a certain superciliousness. He fell again to playing with the water-carafe on the solicitors' table.

'Is this the pistol he had in his pocket?' pursued Sir Walter Storm. 'Yes. Did the prisoner explain how he happened to come for a peaceful discussion of his prospective marriage with a weapon like that in his pocket?'

'He denied that he had brought it. He said that someone must have put it there while he was unconscious.'

'Someone must have put it there while he was unconscious. I see. Could he identify the weapon?'

'The accused said to me: "I know it very well. It belongs to my cousin Reginald. When he is not in the East he always stays at my flat, and I believe that the last time I saw the pistol was a month ago, in the drawer of the sitting-room table. I have not seen it since."'

After lengthy and convincing testimony had been made as to an examination of the room, the witness was taken to a summing-up.

'What conclusion did you form, from this, as to the way in which the crime had been committed?

'From the way in which the arrow had been pulled down from the wall, I concluded that it had been dragged from right to left, by a hand holding the arrow in the position where the finger-prints are. This would have put the person who pulled it down on the side of the room a little towards the sideboard. Under these circumstances, I concluded that the deceased had run round the desk, on the left-hand side towards the front of it, in order to get away from his assailant -'

'In other words, to put the desk between himself and his assailant?'

'Yes, like that,' agreed Inspector Mottram, making a boxed motion with his hands, and moving them to illustrate. 'I concluded that the assailant had then run round the front of the desk. There was then a struggle, with the deceased standing in a position very close to the desk and facing the sideboard. In this struggle the missing piece of feather was broken off, and the deceased also acquired the cut on his hand. The victim was then struck. He fell down beside the desk, getting the dust on his hand when he - he pawed at the carpet just before he died. That is how I believed it to happen.'

'Or might he have seized at the arrow, and caught at the shaft to get dust on his hands? What I mean is that there was a part of the arrow you could not test for fingerprints, since it was buried in the deceased's body?'

'Yes.'

'The dust on the hands may have come from there?' 'Quite possibly.'

'Finally, Inspector. I believe you are a qualified fingerprint expert, and were trained for this branch of the service?'

'Yes, that is so.'

'Did you take a record of the prisoner's finger-prints: first in Grosvenor Street, using the pad of violet ink provided there, and later at the district police-station?'

'I did.’

'Did you compare these with the finger-prints on the shaft of the arrow?' 'I did.'

'Please identify these photographs, showing the various sets of prints, and explain the points of agreement to the jury ... Thank you. Were the prints on the arrow made by the prisoner? 'They were.'

'Were any finger-prints found in the room other than those of the deceased and the prisoner?' 'No.'

'Were any finger-prints found on the decanter of whisky, the syphon, or the four glasses?' 'No.'

'Where else were finger-prints of the prisoner found?'

'On the chair in which he was sitting, on the desk - and on the bolt of the door.'

After a few more questions relating to the final arrest of Answell, the examination was finished. It had been, in its way, a tightening and summing-up of the whole case. If H.M. had any attack to launch, now was the time to launch it. The clock on the wall up over our heads must be crawling on; for it was growing dark outside, and a few whips of rain struck the glass roof. The white-and-oak of the court-room acquired a harder brilliance from its lights. H.M. got up, spread out his hands on the desk, and asked the following abrupt question: