John Carr - The Judas Window

Drug still working. Brudine?

How did Hume get rid of original syphon? Original decanter too? Answell says nothing put into glass; must have been in decanter?

N.B. - No hocus-pocus about locks. Door inch-and-a-half thick; big heavy knob and panels; tight-fitting frame; no keyhole. Shutters have bar; no slits; windows also locked.

Gobble gobble.

Phooey.

6.39. Fleming sends Amelia Jordan to get Dr Hume. Fleming wants to take Answell's finger-prints. Dyer says there is ink-pad in Spencer Hume's suit.

Why? Officious busybody?

6.39-6.45. Dyer cannot find ink-pad or suit. Remembers old Ink-pad in desk in study. Answell objects to having his finger-prints taken; knocks Fleming across room, finally seems to become dispirited and agrees.

Was that desk searched? (N.B. It was, I find.) Then where is missing piece of

feather?

6.45. Dyer goes out into street and calls Police-Constable Hardcastle.

At this point Evelyn interposed. 'I say I Does this mean, in actual times, that it was only nine minutes between the time they went into the room and the time Dyer went out to get the policeman? By the way they talked in court, it sounded much longer, somehow.'

H.M. grunted sourly. 'Sure. It always sounds longer, because they've got so much to tell. But there's the actual record, as you could 'a' worked it out for yourselves.'

'The one thing that's most puzzling here,' I insisted, 'is why so much rumpus in general is being kicked up on the subject of ink-pads. Ink-pads would seem to have nothing to do with the case. What difference does it make whether Fleming did or didn't take Answell's fingerprints? The police could always do it, and match them with the ones on the arrow. Yet even the prosecution made a point of bringing it up and hammering it home.'

Exhaling a cloud of smoke, H.M. leaned back with rich satisfaction and closed one eye to avoid getting smoke in it.

'Sure, they did, Ken. But they weren't concerned with ink-pads. What they wanted to hammer was that, when Fleming tried to get Answell's finger-prints, Answell - far from bein' torpid - flared out murderously and threw Fleming clear across the room. Same kind of attack as he launched on the deceased, d'ye see? But I'm glad they brought it up; if they hadn't, I should have. Because I am most definitely interested in one particular ink-pad. It's pretty well the key to the whole business. You see that, don't you?'

XIV

Time-table for Archers

THAT argument, up in the little low-raftered room at the 'Milton's Head', while we waited for the afternoon session of the court, will always remain a kind of vignette as vivid as anything in the case. The firelight shone on rows of pewter tankards, and on H.M.'s enormous shoes, and on his glasses, and on a face wreathed with fantastic jollity. Evelyn sat with her legs crossed, leaning forward with her chin in her hand; and her hazel eyes had that amused annoyance which H.M. inspires in every woman.

' You know perfectly well we don't,' she said.' Now don't sit there chortling and rocking and making faces like Tony Weller thinking what he'd like to do to Stiggins. You know, at times you can be the most utterly exasperating man who ever - ee!

Why do you take such pleasure in mystifying people? If only Mr Masters were here, the party would be complete, wouldn't it?'

'I don't take pleasure in it, dammit 1 ' grumbled H.M., and quite seriously believed this. 'It's only that people take such unholy joy in doin' me in the eye, that I got to get a bit of my own back.' He was soothing. 'You stick to business, here. Read the rest of the time-table. I'm merely askin' you: if Jim Answell isn't the murderer, who is?'

'No, thanks,' said Evelyn. 'I've been had like that before. And much too often. You did it in France, and you did it in Devon. You parade out a list of suspects, and we take our choice; and then it always turns out that you've got someone else altogether. I dare say in this case you'll show the murder was really committed by Sir Walter Storm or the judge. No, thanks.'

'Meanin' what?' enquired H.M., looking at her over his spectacles.

'Meaning this. You've called our attention to his timetable, and that's a most awfully suspicious sign. You seem to concentrate attention on people who were actually lurking about the place at the time of the murder. But what about the others?'

'What others?'

'There are at least three others, I mean Reginald Answell, and even Mary Hume herself, and Dr Hume. For instance, the Attorney-General "put it to" the Hume girl to-day that Reginald wasn't in London at all: he was in Rochester: and didn't reach London until nearly midnight. You didn't contradict him - at least, you didn't re-examine the witness. Well, where was he? We know he was at the house at some time on the night of the murder, even if it was late: I heard him say so himself, when he was going down the stairs at the Old Bailey. Mary Hume was also there, also late. Finally, there's the doctor, who's missing now. First you rather indicate that Dr Hume has got an alibi; and last night, Ken tells me, he writes a letter swearing he actually saw the murder committed. How do you propose to straighten out all that?'

'If you'd only read the rest of your time-table -' howled H.M., and then grew, reflective. 'Some of it's worryin' me,' he admitted. 'You knew, did you, that there's a court order out to arrest Spencer? When we knew he'd run off, Balmy Rankin wouldn't let that pass. If they ketch him, Balmy'll commit him to clink for deliberate contempt of court in a murder case. I thought Walt Storm rather too easily decided to dispense with that witness, when he should 'a' moved an adjournment. Walt must have known he'd done a bunk. But so did Balmy. Burn me, I wonder ... never mind. Have you got any ideas, Ken?*

My position was simple. 'Not having much sense of social justice, I don't care so much who killed him as how it was done. I'm like Masters: "Never mind the motive: let's hear about the mechanics." There are three alternatives: (1) Answell really did stab him after all; (2) Hume killed himself, either by accident or suicide; (3) there's an unknown murderer and an unknown method. H.M., will you answer a couple of straight questions, without technical evasions or double meanings?'

His face smoothed itself out.

'Sure, son. Fire away.'

'According to you, the real murderer made his entrance by means of the Judas window. Is that straight?' 'Yes.'

'And the murder was committed with a cross-bow. Is that your argument?' 'That's right.'

'Why? I mean, why a cross-bow?'

H.M. considered. 'It was the most logical thing, Ken: it was the only weapon that fitted the crime. Also, it was much the easiest weapon to use.'

'The easiest weapon? That whacking big clumsy thing-you showed us?'

'Easy,' said H.M. sharply. 'Not in the least big, son. Very broad, yes; remember that; but not long. You saw it yourself: it was the short "stump" crossbow. And easy? At a very short distance, you heard Fleming admit himself, not even an amateur could miss.'

'I was coming to that. From what distance was the arrow fired?'

H.M. regarded us over his spectacles with a kind of sour whimsicality. 'The court-room manner is gettin' infectious. I feel like a medical man said at one trial: "This is like a college examination under oath." That, Ken, is the one thing I can't tell you within a couple of inches, since you want me to be so goddam precise. But, just in case I'm accused of evasion, I'll tell you this - not much more than three feet, at the very longest. Satisfied?'

'Not quite. What was Hume's position when the arrow was fired?'

'The murderer was talkin' to him. Hume had been by the desk, bendin' over to look at something. As he bent forward, the murderer casually pulled the trigger of the cross-bow: hence the rummy angle of the arrow, which was shot in rather a straight line. Walt Storm made an awful lot of fun of that, but it's the strict truth.'