John Carr - The Judas Window

For some time there had been in my mind a very vivid memory, of voices rising above the sound of feet shuffling down the stairs of the Old Bailey. Reginald Answell and Dr Hume were descending together; and between them there was a thick hypocrisy for the common good, with an edge of malice showing through. Reginald Answell had made the thrust, as though casually: 'There is insanity in our family, you know. Nothing much. Only like a touch of the tar-brush a few generations back -'

'But enough for the purpose,' continued H.M. 'Oh, quite enough. I wonder what those two chaps were thinking about then? Each of them knowin' the truth; but both

of them ruddy well goin' to keep their mouths shut. In any case, let's go on. There's insanity in Reginald's family. And Avory Hume's brother is a doctor. And a very rummy kind of drug must have been required for the purpose.

And one of Spencer Hume's closest pals is a Dr Tregannon, a mental specialist, who's got a private nursing home. And it takes two doctors to certify -'

'And so, as we know, they were going to lock Reginald up as a lunatic,' I said. H.M. wrinkled his forehead.

'Well, there at the start, I was only considerin' the evidence,' he pointed out, putting the cigar in his mouth and sucking at it in the fashion of a child sucking a peppermint-stick. 'But it looked probable that Avory and Spencer Hume had arranged just that game. Let's see how I the hocus-pocus would have worked out. It's true they made a howlin' error and got Jim instead of Reginald. But did that affect the details as we found 'em? Let's see.

'Reginald is to be invited to the house. Why might he, with insanity in his family, be presumed to go off his rocker? That's easy. He was known to be pretty well tied up with Mary Hume; even Jim Answell knew that.'

'Did he know about the photographs?' enquired Evelyn, with interest.

'Ho ho,' said H.M. 'The photographs. No, he didn't know it at the time; he knew it afterwards, in clink -because I told him. It caused me an awful lot of trouble. Jim Answell is no posturin' young hero who'd walk fat-headedly to the rope rather than let it be known his gal had been havin’ an affair with another man. But that wasn't it. When it came to the question of the pictures, he couldn't - literally and physically couldn't - say all that in court, to be blurted out across the world. He couldn't do it to save his life. Could you?'

'I don't know,' I admitted, with visions which must have risen up before Answell. 'The more you think about it the more devilish it sounds.'

'She could, though,' said H.M. with great glee. 'That's why I like her: she's a perfectly sincere and natural gal. A nosegay also goes to the judge. When Balmy Rankin made that remark about this not bein' a court of morals - burn me, I almost got up and handed him a box of cigars. Thirty years I've been waitin' for a red judge to acknowledge the facts of life without comment; and I told you I had great faith in Balmy. But stop interruptin' me, dammit I I was telling you about the trick to nobble Our Reginald.

'Where was I? Ah, I got it. Well, it was known Reginald and Mary Hume were tied up together. It was also known he had no money at all, and that Avory Hume had squashed to earth any possibility of marriage. And then his rich cousin James gets engaged to her. And Reginald comes to see the old man - and goes berserk.

'You see the plan Avory had? High words are overheard. Presently witnesses (unprepared witnesses) come chasin' in. They find Reginald with his own gun in his

pocket - suggestin' violence. They find his finger-prints stamped on an arrow which has been so obviously (so blinkin' obviously) ripped down from the wall - suggest-in’ violence of a more than sane kind. They find his hair rumpled, his tie pulled out. They find Avory Hume with all the marks of a struggle on him. And what does Reginald himself say to all this, lookin' wild and a little stupid as though he don't know where he is? He says he's been given a drug, and all this is a frame-up. But here's a medical man to swear there's been no drug taken, and the spotless decanter full of whisky on the sideboard. Short of actually showin' the chap with straws stuck in his hair, I don't see what more could have been arranged.

'Well, I thought to myself, what'll' be the watchword when he's found? It'll be: "Sh-h! Hush! Keep it dark! This thing has got to be kept very quiet, known only to a few witnesses to prove it's genuine." It mustn't be known that the poor feller has lost his reason. The Commissioners in Lunacy mustn't hear of it. Does the chap keep babblin' something about Mary Hume, and some photographs, and a frame-up? All the more reason why such slanderous ravings mustn't be repeated, mustn't even be breathed by a lunatic. Why not take him to Dr Tregannon's nursing home under the charge of Spencer Hume? Even Jim Answell, when it's necessary to break the sad news to him, will hush it up as fierce as anybody. On the eve of his own wedding, he won't want it blared forth that a first-cousin of his had to be taken away under escort.

'Of course, the doctors in charge of the case will also take charge of his personal belongings: clothes, keys and the like. Wherever he's got those photographs stowed away, they'll be found and burnt in pretty quick time.' H.M. snapped his fingers, and then sniffed. 'And that's all there is to it, my fat-heads. It ain't even very expensive. Our Reginald will remain under duress until he promises to be good - and serve him right I It's an awful pity the scheme didn't work. Even if he won't promise, he can't prove anything, and he is still always suspect of a leaky steeple; and Avory Hume's daughter is married. It's happened many times before, y'know. It's the respectable way of hushin' up scandal.'

We considered it, more detailed than it had come from the witness-box in the cold voice of Dr Quigley.

'Avory Hume,' I said, 'was apparently a tough proposition.'

H.M. blinked in the firelight of the old room, surprised.

'Not particularly, son. He was simply respectable. Also, he was a realist. Someone was blackmailing him. Something had to be done about it. And so he did. You heard the father's daughter talkin' in court this afternoon. I don't mind his sort. As I say, in this amusin' little spectacle of dog-eat-dog, I'm rather sorry his scheme didn't come off, and shove our cool Reginald into cooler clink while he reflects that there are ways and ways of gettin' money. But I'm an old-fashioned lawyer, Ken, and a whole canine feast ain't goin' to let 'em hang my client. Well, right there at the start, I had to dig up 'a witness who knew somethin' about the scheme. If necessary, I was prepared to bribe Tregannon himself to spill the beans -'

'Did you say bribe?'

'Sure. But I got Quigley, because the Medical Council had already been after Tregannon. There was someone who actually overheard Avory and Spencer and Tregannon cookin' up the broth; someone planted in Tregannon's nursing home, and waitin' for an opportunity to expose Tregannon. That was what I meant, a little while ago, by speakin' of the cussedness which cuts the other way.'

'But what's the line of defence now?' 'Ar!' said H.M., and scowled.

'You've practically established that there was a plot. But will Storm throw up his brief just because of that? Is there any reason why Answell still shouldn't be guilty?'

'No,' said H.M. 'That's what's got me worried.'

He pushed back his chair, lumbered up, and took a few pigeon-toed turns up and down the room.

'So what's the line of defence now?'

'The Judas window,' said H.M., peering down over his spectacles ...

'Now, now!' he went on persuasively. 'Just you look at the evidence, and take it from the beginning as I did. Now that we've established a plot, there'll be a whole heap of helpful suggestions in the way that plot was worked out. I'll give you a hint. One thing in this scheme bothered me a bit. Avory and Spencer are workin' together to nobble Reginald - very well. But, on the night of the trick, Avory manages to get everybody out of the house except the butler. The cook and the maid are out. Amelia Jordan and Dr Hume are goin' off to Sussex. But I said to myself: Here! Spencer can't be going away like that. His brother needs him. Who's goin' to come in and cluck his tongue over the bogus loony: who's goin' to examine the loony: who's goin' to swear he took no drug, if not Dr Hume? He was the essential part of the scheme; he was the pivot.'