John Carr - The Judas Window

'Did you mention it when you were before the magistrates?"

'No.’

'What I am endeavouring to get at is this: When did such an idea first crystallize in your mind?' ‘I don't remember.'

'What caused it to crystallize in your mind, then? Do you remember that? No? In short, can you give one good and solid reason for this whole extraordinary notion of yours?'

'Yes, I can,' shouted the witness, bedevilled out of his torpor. His face was flushed; he looked, for the first time, natural and human.

'Very well; what reason?'

‘I knew that Mary had been very friendly with Reg before we met; it was Reg who introduced me to her, at the Stonemans' -'

'Oh?' enquired Sir Walter, with rich suavity. 'Are you suggesting that you believed there had been anything improper in their relations?'

'No. Not exactly. That is -'

'Had you any reason to suspect anything improper in their relations?' 'No.'

Sir Walter tilted back his head, and seemed to be massaging his face with one hand as though to get curious ideas in order.

'Tell me, then, whether I correctly state the various suggestions you have made. Miss Hume was friendly with Captain Answell, there being nothing to which anyone could take exception. Because of this, the eminently reasonable Mr Hume conceives a violent dislike of Captain Answell and resolves suddenly to "settle his hash". He telephones to Captain Answell, but the message is intercepted by you under the mistaken impression that it is for you. You go unarmed to Mr Hume's house, where he gives you a drink of drugged whisky in the belief that you are Captain Answell. While you are unconscious, someone places Captain Answell's pistol in your pocket and (as I think you have told my learned friend) employs his time in pouring mint-extract down your throat. When you awake, your finger-prints are found on an arrow which you have not touched, and the whisky has flown back into a decanter without finger-prints. Have I correctly stated your position in the matter? Thank you. Can you reasonably expect the jury to believe it?'

There was a silence. Answell put his hands on his hips and glanced round the court. Then he spoke in a natural, off-hand tone. He said:

'So help me, by this time I don't expect anybody to believe anything. If you think everything a person does in life is governed by some reason, just try standing where I am for a while and see how you like listening to yourself.'

A sharp rebuke from the bench cut him short; but his nervousness had been conquered and the glazed fixity was gone from his eyes.

'I see,' intoned Sir Walter imperturbably. 'Do you next suggest that no reason governs any of your own actions?'

'I always thought it did.'

'Did reason govern your actions on the night of January 4th?'

'Yes. I kept my mouth shut when they were talking to me as you are now.'

It earned another reproof from the bench but Answell was making a better impression here than under chief examination. The good impression was quite irrational, for Sir Walter proceeded to tie him into such knots that probably not three people in court believed a word he said. But - after he had let H.M. down badly - there it was. I wondered whether the old man had arranged this to happen exactly as it did.

'You have told us that the reason why you refused to remove your overcoat, and spoke to one witness in a tone that has been described as savage, was because you did not wish to "look like a damned fool". Is that correct?'

'Yes.'

'Did you think that you would look more like a damned fool with your overcoat off than with it on?'

'Yes. No. I mean -'

'What precisely did you mean?'

'It was the way I felt, that's all.'

'I put it to you that the reason why you did not remove that coat was that you did not wish anyone to notice the bulge of the pistol in your hip pocket?'

'No. I never thought of that.'

'You never thought of what? Of the pistol in your pocket?'

'Yes. That is, there was no pistol in my pocket.' 'Now, I call your attention again to the statement you made to the police on the night of January 4th. Are you aware that the suggestions you have made to-day directly contradict this statement you gave to the police?'

Answell drew back, fidgeting again with his tie. 'No, I do not follow that.'

'Let me read you a few of them,' said Sir Walter, with the same unruffled heaviness.' "I went to his house," you say, "at six-ten. He greeted me with complete friendliness." You now imply that his attitude was the reverse of friendly, do you not?'

'Yes, rather.'

'Then which of these two attitudes do you wish us to believe?'

'Both of them. This is what I mean: I mean that on that night he took me for someone else, and his attitude was not friendly; but he was actually friendly enough towards myself.'

For a moment Sir Walter remained looking at the witness, and then he lowered his head as though to cool it.

'We need not stop to disentangle that; I am afraid you do not appreciate my question. Whoever he thought you were that night, was his attitude during your interview friendly?'

'No.'

'Ah, that is what I wished to find out. Then this particular assertion in your statement is false, is it not?'

'I thought it was true at the time.'

'But you have completely changed your mind since then? Very well. Again you tell us: "He said that he would drink my health, and he gave his full consent to my marriage with Miss Hume." Since you have now decided that he was unfriendly, how do you reconcile this quoting of actual words with an unfriendly attitude?'

'I misunderstood him.'

'In other words,' said the Attorney-General, spacing his words after a pause, 'what you ask the jury to believe now is a direct contradiction to several of the most essential assertions in your statement?'

'Technically, yes.'

For a full hour Sir Walter Storm gravely took the witness to pieces like a clock. He went through every bit of testimony with great care, and finally sat down after as pulverizing a result as I have ever listened to. It was expected that H.M. would re-examine, in an attempt to rehabilitate his witness. But he did not. All he said was:

'Call Mary Hume.'

A warder took Answell back to the dock, where the door was unlocked again, and he was led up into his open pen. A cup of water was brought up from the cells for him; he drank it thirstily, but he peered up with a quick start over the rim when he heard H.M. call the witness.

Where Mary Hume had been during the previous examination you could not tell. She seemed to appear in the middle of the court, as though there should be no hesitation or halt in the shuttle that moved witnesses to and from justice. Answell was already last minute's pattern. And Reginald Answell's expression changed. It was not anything so obvious as a start: only a certain awareness, as though someone had tapped him on the shoulder from behind, and he did not quite want to look round. His long-jawed good looks had a bonier quality; but he assumed a pleasant expression, and his finger tapped slowly on the water-bottle. He glanced up at the prisoner - who smiled.

Mary Hume looked momentarily at the back of Captain Reginald's head as she went up into the witness-box. With the exception of Inspector Mottram, she was (or so it seemed on the surface) the calmest person who had yet testified. She wore sables: a flamboyant display, Evelyn assured me, but she may have been feeling in that mood with defiance. And she wore no hat. Her yellow hair, parted and drawn back sleekly, emphasized the essential softness and odd sensuality of the face, dominated by those wide-spaced blue eyes. Her method of putting her hands on the edge of the box was to grasp it with both arms extended, as though she were on ah aqua-plane. In her manner there was no longer any of that hard docility I had seen before.