Beyond this place (34 page)

"Did you mention the exact day to the authorities?"

There was a pause. Rocca lowered his head.

"I don't remember. . . ."

"In the light of the medical evidence, this date, which showed that Mathry had known Spurling for only seven weeks, was of the utmost significance. Were you not questioned about it at headquarters?"

"I don't remember."

"Try to refresh your memory."

"No." Rocca shook his head persistently. "I don't remember. They wasn't much interested . . . didn't seem to think it was important."

"I see. It was not important to prove that the most odious slur,

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the most damning link in all the evidence against Mathry was, in point of time, an absolute impossibility. That will do, thank you."

As Rocca left the box, Grahame gazed mildly toward the bench.

"My lords, my next witness is Louisa Burt."

Permission being granted, one of the court attendants went into an adjoining anteroom and, a moment later, returned with Burt.

She came in jauntily enough, with only a glint of uneasiness in the corner of her eye, and having taken her place on the stand, she preened herself, then gazed round the court with that affected air which Paul knew so well. She had not seen him, nor did she once glance in the direction of Mathry who, from the instant she entered, glared at her with blazing hatred.

"You are Louisa Burt?" When she had taken the oath Grahame addressed her in his most courteous manner.

"Yes, sir. At least I was." She bridled consciously. "As you probly know, I just recently got married."

"May we congratulate you. We are indebted to you for your appearance here, especially at such a time."

"I must say it was a supprise when we was detained at the boat. But I'm only too willing to oblige, sir."

"Thank you. I can assure you that vou have not been summoned without due cause. You realise, I am sure, that the evidence which you gave at the trial fifteen years ago was of vital importance and was, indeed, probably instrumental in securing the conviction of the prisoner."

"I done my best, sir," Burt answered modestly. "More nor that I cannot say."

"Now, the night of the murder was, I believe, dark and rainy."

'Tes, sir. I remember it like it was yesterday."

"And the fugitive who came from 52 Ushaw Terrace was running very fast."

"He was indeed, sir."

"So fast, indeed, that he flashed past you in a second."

"I suppose he did, sir." Burt spoke thoughtfully.

"Yet you obtained a very clear and complete picture of this man. He wore, you said, a fawn waterproof, a check cap, and

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brown boots. Tell us now, how, in an instant, and in the darkness, did you secure so comprehensive a description?"

"Well, you see, sir," Burt answered with confidence, "he run under the street lamp. And the light shone full on him."

"The time being twenty minutes to eight."

"Exactly, sir. I left the laundry with my frient at half-past seven, and it's less than a ten-minute walk to number 52."

"So you are absolutely certain of the time?"

"I'll take my oath, sir. In fact I've already took it."

"In that case, how could you have observed the fugitive by lamp light? In the district of Eldon, under a municipal ordinance in force in 1921 the street lighting was not turned on until eight p.m."

For the first time Burt appeared taken aback and, in a furtive fashion, her eyes sought out Dale, who sat in the well of the court deliberately averting his gaze from the witness box.

"It seemed like the lamp was on, sir," Burt asserted, at last. "I took it all in very quick, it just burned itself into my brain."

"Then why does this burned-in description differ materially from the final deposition which you signed after repeated questionings at the police station?"

Burt hung her head sulkily, and was completely silent.

"Could it be that you received certain promptings from the voice of authority?"

"I object, my lords," the Attorney-General started up violently, "to that unwarranted and unpardonable imputation."

"Let us leave it, then," Grahame agreed, reasonably. "If I am right, you said the running man was clean-shaven."

'Tes," Burt replied after some delay.

"You made that outright statement, it was published in the press and, unless you were to be completely discredited, it could not be retracted." Grahame paused. "Yet Mathry, the man whom you identified at Liverpool as being the fugitive, had a moustache which, in fact, he had worn for the previous six years."

"I can't help that," Burt retorted sullenly. "On second thoughts it seemed like he had the moustache. I told you I done my best."

"Of course," replied Grahame soothingly. "That is becoming increasingly evident. Well, we will leave those trifles of the unlit

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lamp, the moustache, the altered description of the clothing, and pass to an even more singular matter."

There was a strained silence. Burt's composure had gone. She kept searching for some encouragement from Sprott, then from the Chief Constable, and when both grimly refused to look at her, her gaze circled the court in desperation. Suddenly she saw Paul. She started. Her eyes widened and a livid colour spread over her pale, plump cheeks.

"It is," Grahame continued, "the question of your association with Edward Collins. Were you very friendly with Edward?"

Burt burst into tears. She clutched at the ledge of the box in front of her.

"I feel bad," she whimpered. "I can't go on. I need to lie down. I'm just recently a bride."

The Lord Chief Justice frowned, suppressing the faint titter which expressed the tension of the court.

"Are you ill?" he queried.

"Yes, sir, yes, your lordship, I must have a rest."

"My lords," Grahame said reasonably, "with your permission, I am quite agreeable that the witness should be accorded some respite. But I must recall her thereafter, with reference to another matter of the utmost importance, upon which I wish to lead proof."

After consultation, the judges consented. As Burt was assisted from the witness stand, the Lord Chief Justice viewed the courtroom clock which showed five minutes to four o'clock. Whereupon, in a curt voice, he adjourned the inquiry until the following morning.

CHAPTER XVI

IMMEDIATELY their lordships rose, Sprott, who had been on edge, awaiting the closure, made his way swiftly from the court, through his deserted robing room, and out by the private side entrance. He was determined not to be harried by reporters or

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detained in idle conversation, and had ordered his car for four o'clock. It was there, and as he hurried across the pavement towards it the accumulated aggravation of his mood was lightened by a throb of pleasure, when he perceived that his wife was in the back seat. He flung himself into the shelter of the car, and having ordered Banks to drive home, he turned the handle which raised the glass partition, lay back on the soft grey upholstery, and took her hand.

The day had been torture to his domineering spirit. Gra-hame's address, in particular, had put him on the rack. Moreover, his professional instinct warned him there was worse to come. He winced at the thought of Burt, and what Grahame might draw from her tomorrow. Closing his eyes, for a moment, he was content to rest in silence. Then he said:

"It was like you to come, Catharine. I knew I could depend on you."

She made no answer.

Half raising his jaded lids, he noticed that she seemed unusually pale and that, instead of an afternoon silk frock, she wore a plain tweed coat with a soft felt hat pulled down over her eyes. Presently, she withdrew her hand.

He sat up.

"It went not badly, considering." He spoke to reassure himself, as well as her. "Of course, Grahame was sensational — as we expected. He dug into the muck and slung it at us all — the cheap hound."

"Don't, Matt."

He bent towards her in surprised inquiry.

"What's the matter?"

She averted her white face and, with her slender neck arched against the light, gazed through the wide window of the car. At last, she said:

"I don't think Mr. Grahame is cheap."

"What!"

"I think he's honest and sincere."

His florid face grew brick red.

"You wouldn't say that if you had heard him today."

"I did hear him." She turned from the window, supporting one

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cheek with her long, delicate fingers and, for the first time, looked at him with her pained and shadowed eyes. "I was in the gallery, in the back seat. I had to go. I went to support you, to sustain you with my love, to hear you cleared of those vile insinuations. And instead . . ."

Startled, he stared at her, while the blood left his face. That she should have been there, to hear everything — it was the last thing he had wanted.

"You should have kept away." He spoke angrily. "I told you to. That court was no place for a woman. Didn't I explain it all beforehand. Every public official has to swallow a dose of bitter medicine once in a lifetime. But that's no reason why his wife should watch him take it."

"I had to go," she repeated in a lifeless voice. "Something made me do so."

There was a pause. He curbed his temper. He loved her.

"Well, never mind." He attempted to regain possession of her hand. "It will soon be over. They'll throw some kind of sop to this Mathry creature. Then it will all be finished and forgotten."

"Will it, Matt?" she answered, with that same strange apathy.

Her manner, the tone of her voice, struck him like a blow. He could have cursed out loud, but at that moment they swung oft Park Quadrant into the driveway and drew up at the front portico of their home. Catharine immediately hurried into the house.

"Shall you want the car again tonight, sir?" Banks asked him as he stepped out.

"No, damn it," Sprott answered viciously.

Was there a strange glint in the man's obsequious eye? The prosecutor could not tell. In any case, he did not care. He hurried in after his wife and caught up with her in the inner hall.

"Wait, Catharine," he cried. "I must talk to you."

She paused listlessly, her head drooping upon her soft and slender breast. Wrung by her attitude, by her extraordinary pallor, he hesitated, and instead of importuning her, he asked:

"Where are the children?"

"I sent them to Mother's. I thought you would wish them to miss the publicity of this . . . calamity."

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He knew that she had acted wisely, that he himself had sanctioned this step, nevertheless, he longed for the warm and affectionate greeting of his daughters. After a brief silence, he stole a look at her.

"This isn't a very gay homecoming for a man who's been badgered all day. Can't we cheer up, Catharine, and have some dinner together?"

"I have ordered dinner for you, Matt. But you must excuse me. I don't feel well."

Again, the blood rushed into his face, he glared at her with a red, dejected eye.

"What the devil's wrong with you?"

She answered brokenly:

"Can't you guess?"

"No, I can't. And I see no reason why in my own house I should be treated like a leper."

She placed one hand on the balustrade of the staircase and half turned away.

"Forgive me, Matt. I must go and lie down."

"No," he almost shouted. "Not before you give me some explanation."

There was a long pause; then, still supporting herself upon the banister with one foot on the lowest step, she lifted her head and gazed at him, like a wounded bird.

"I thought . . . you might have understood . . . what a shock this has been to me. All these years when I overheard people running you down . . . saying things against you ... I simply laughed. I refused to believe it. I was your wife. I trusted you. But now . . . now I see . . . something of what they meant. Today, in court, Grahame was not throwing mud at you. He was telling the truth, Matt. You sentenced a man to death, and to worse than death, for your own ambition, simply to get yourself on." She passed her thin hand in anguish over her forehead. "Oh, how could you? How could you? It was horrible, just to look at that poor wretch and see what he had suffered."

"Catharine," he exclaimed, coming nearer to her, "you don't know what you are saying. It's my duty to secure a conviction."

"No, no," she cried. "It's your duty to see justice done."

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"But, my dear," he persisted, thickly, "I am the instrument of justice. When a criminal is clearly guilty I am compelled to bring him to book."

"Even at the cost of suppressing evidence?"

"Presentation of the prisoner's case is incumbent on his counsel."

"While you employ every means to entrap and condemn him. You are . . . you are what they call the devil's advocate."

"Catharine! Because you are overwrought, you must not be unreasonable. You saw today what Mathry is."

"I saw what he had become. And with it all, he did not look like a murderer. He looked ... he looked as though someone had murdered him."

"Don't be hysterical," he said harshlv. "He has not been exonerated yet."

"But he will be," she whispered.

"That remains to be seen."

Although her lips trembled, she gave him a long intense look.

"Matt, you know — have you not always known? — that he is innocent."

At that word "innocent," which he had heard so often from the dock, but which, now, uttered by his wife, assumed a terrifying significance, a sudden sweep of emotion flooded over him, a strange commingling of anger and desire, a wish to hurt, yet to console her, and through it all, an abject longing to lay his head upon her breast and weep. He came close to her and tried to put his arm about her waist, but with a nervous spasm she recoiled.

"Don't touch me."

The exclamation froze him; and in her face, ravaged as it was by grief and suffering, there was something he had never seen before, a look, almost of hostility, and what was worse, of fear. He watched her as she turned and went slowly up the stairs.