Heaven Knows Who (23 page)

‘Was that the teaspoon left in the house afterwards?'

‘I ken naething aboot it. I had no charge of the silver at a'—Jessie had the whole charge.'

‘Where did you get that silver teaspoon?'

‘There was always a silver teaspoon in the kitchen. I sometimes have seen tablespoons there too.'

‘Do you know what has become of that silver teaspoon?'

‘I tell you, I ken naething aboot it. I took nae charge.'

‘What had you to your dinner on Saturday?'

‘I was not verra particular for ma dinner. I had a dish of ling fish that I had steeped. It served me baith Saturday and Sabbath.'

‘Had you no other teaspoon than the silver teaspoon?'

‘I had none.'

‘You didn't look for any?'

‘I did not need them.'

‘Or fork?'

‘I used a fork.'

‘What kind of fork?'

‘Just a table fork. It served the table many a time.'

In fact there was nowhere much to be got with the silver. He had not gone up to the dining-room to get some—that was the burden of his answers, and it was sufficiently consistent with his innocence. An old man, used to sitting over bowls of porridge and cups of tea in the kitchen with the servants, would probably not fuss much about his utensils. But to have acknowledged going to the dining-room—of course that would have been fatal.' Even old Mr Fleming could hardly have missed the open sideboard
and all those spaces where the familiar pieces of silver should have been. (But who, if he never visited the dining-room, put out the lighted gasolier the M'Lean girls saw?)

They were coming to the end. Mr Clark ran over one or two small points. ‘What sort of dress had you on that Friday? Had you a brown dress at that time at all? And the coat?' The old man had worn his everyday clothes, he said: a pair of ‘mixed' trousers, black waistcoat and black coat. The trousers were brownish. He had had a brown coat but he had sold it to an old-clothes man.

‘When was it sold?'

‘It might have been twa-three weeks afore this took place.'

‘To whom did you sell it?'

‘I sold it to a person named Paton, one of the tenants; along wi' some ither clothes.'

‘Is that Daniel Paton, of the Bridgegate?'

‘Yes.'

‘Did you never have a brown coat after that?'

‘No.' It had presumably never been brought to anybody's notice that Daniel Paton, the old-clothes man, had long ago declared before Jno. Gemmel that Mr Fleming had sold him his brown coat two or three years ago and at the time of the murder was in the habit of wearing a blue coat. He was subsequently to declare that what the old man now said in court was absolutely untrue. But the whole subject of Mr Fleming's wearing apparel at this time was to be allowed to fall into a curious pool of silence. No investigation as to bloodstains was ever brought forward—a solitary button in the grate, a pair of (innocent) old socks in a corner, and a description by one or two witnesses of what he had on at this time or that—and that was all. Whether or not any of his wardrobe was missing, no one seems to have enquired, or if they had, the answers did not appear.

So Mr Clark changed tack. ‘Are you quite certain that you never saw the prisoner within twelve months?'

‘Unless at the examination in the County Buildings,' said the old man, ‘yes, I am.'

‘Had you any quarrel or dispute with Jess M'Pherson?'

‘Never.'

‘Of any kind?'

‘No.'

And again. ‘You read the newspapers regularly?'

‘Yes.'

‘Do you use your spectacles when you read?'

‘I have got a pair of new ones,' said the old man.

He had got the new spectacles—yesterday.

‘Did you ever use them before?'

‘I got a present of them and have got a pair of new glasses put in.'

‘When you read, did you use spectacles—till yesterday?'

‘No. I could see weel eneuch tae read without them—at least gey weel,' admitted Mr Fleming. Was he conscious that a claim to need spectacles would have been convenient in respect of all the blood-stains he had missed seeing, during those three days spent largely in the basement?

And so once more back to Mr Rutherfurd Clark's trump card—the milk-boy. ‘Was no milk taken in till the Tuesday?'

Mr Fleming's last words in the witness box are variously reported; he said either that on the Sunday he had opened the door for milk but that none was taken on Monday; or ‘There was nae milk taken on Sunday, Monday or Tuesday. Sometimes I did not even open the door when the milk came.' (The milkman later gave evidence that he delivered milk twice daily except on Sundays; but no mention is anywhere made of a second visit on the Saturday.)

Mr Clark sat down. The Judge would look enquiringly at Mr Gifford, but Mr Gifford too had had enough of old Fleming and did not rise to re-examine. ‘Have you any question to ask?' asked his lordship of the jury; but they hadn't, either. And even Lord Deas had nothing to add, so ‘Now,' he said to Mr Fleming, ‘you may go.'

One wonders whether the old gentleman was quite so nimble as he made his way down from the box; but ‘Lord Death' doubtless beamed after him benignly as he went. Whatever we may think of Mr Fleming's showing, one thing is a matter of fact and not opinion: his lordship had made up his mind in favour of old Mr Fleming before ever he entered the court, and through thick and thin, stood by him to the end.

But it was not James Fleming who was being tried.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

The Court having adjourned for a fifteen-minute breather, Dr Ebenezer Watson followed James Fleming in the witness box. He described how John Fleming had called him in and the condition of the body as he saw it—the first expert witness to do so—lying on the bedroom floor. He had, with Dr Fleming, the police surgeon, examined the rest of the basement and noted the marks of blood in the kitchen and the trail where the body had been dragged through the lobby.

Under cross-examination, with a good deal of interruption from the judge, he was taken through the business of the key on the inside of the bedroom door; John Fleming had told him about it as they hurried back to the house. He was the only one of the doctors to have observed the ‘remarkable' bruise on the lower part of the back, and obliged by a physical demonstration on himself as to where precisely it was located. Lord Deas remarked that he couldn't very well write it down but would ‘require to draw it.' It is perhaps carping to suggest that from the description ‘the small of the back—the lower part of the backbone, near the spine' we can really pretty well place the bruise for ourselves, without any need for a picture. In Dr Watson's opinion, the bruise could have been caused by a blow from a blunt instrument or from a fall: he agreed that ‘a knock from a heavy shoe' could account for it. If a blow had caused the bruise, it must have been a violent blow, and forcibly given.…

‘Must it have been given by a person with great force?'

‘Yes.'

Lord Deas: ‘If it was given by a person at all?'

‘Surely, my lord.' (‘Surely' was a great word of Dr Watson's.)

Mr Rutherfurd Clark: ‘Were any of the wounds in the head inflicted by a flat instrument?'

Lord Deas: ‘You mean by the flat surface of an instrument?'

Mr Clark: ‘I understand that the doctor has been speaking of the wounds on the head being inflicted by the cleaver?'

Dr Watson: ‘One of the wounds on the head might be inflicted by that instrument, used laterally.'

‘Is a hammer not the more likely instrument?'

‘Quite as likely.'

‘To produce that wound?'

‘What wound?'

‘The wound behind the ear?'

‘If the wound behind the right ear, yes.'

‘Was the wound across the nose fitted to produce stupor?'

‘Not necessarily.'

‘Was it likely?'

‘I should say it was rather likely but not necessarily.'

‘Is it the wound across the bridge of the nose you speak of?'

‘Both wounds. They might not necessarily lead to stupor.'

Death, he thought, was the collective result of the wounds; none of which would have proved immediately fatal.

Dr Fleming, surgeon of police, described how he had been called to Sandyford Place and there with Dr Watson examined the body. He read out the report agreed on between himself and Dr Macleod, after their post-mortem conducted the following day (apparently on the spot; the body remained in the house for some days) on ‘the body of Jessie M'Pherson which had been found under circumstances of great suspicion in a front room in the ground floor of the above house.' Lord Deas here interjected that it was proper to state to Dr Fleming as a police surgeon that there was matter here not suitable to a medical report. Dr Fleming persevered with his reading, winding up with the eight inferences drawn by himself and Dr MacLeod, reproduced on page 72. Of these, numbers 3, 6, and 8 were to prove of particular interest: to wit, that a severe struggle had taken place before death, that all the wounds except the three on the nose and forehead had apparently been inflicted by a person standing over the victim as she lay on the ground, and that the body had been drawn by the head, with the face downwards, along the lobby from the kitchen to the bedroom.

The report was signed by Drs Fleming and Macleod, after the customary phrase, ‘This is the truth on soul and conscience.' So it doubtless was; but as it transpires on not a great deal of sense.

Mr Gifford resumed his examination. Had Dr Fleming formed any opinion as to whether the bed had been slept in?

Dr Fleming said that it would be difficult to form an opinion but he thought it highly probable that it had been slept in.

The sheet referred to in his original report—the sheet that was found rolled up under the wash-stand—appeared to have been washed but it had, notwithstanding, a large quantity of blood in the centre.

‘Did you draw any inference from that?'

‘The inference which I drew was that the sheet belonged to the bed and that it had been taken from it. I don't know whether there was any sheet on the bed or not. The impression upon my mind is that there was no sheet on the bed.'

The witness had noticed the two pillows which were ‘scattered about the bed along with the bedclothes'. There were large marks of blood on them. There seemed to be large spots of blood on the floor; and all round the table in the middle of the room—a mahogany table, four or five feet square—there were marks of blood. The body was lying between the table and the bed. There was a track, about the breadth of a body, partly blood, partly ‘just marks of streaking', between the bedroom and the kitchen. It became apparent in the course of their examination, said the witness, that the body had been dragged through from the kitchen (where evidence of a severe conflict was obtained) along the lobby to the apartment where it was found, and also that imperfect attempts had been made to obliterate traces of this removal.

Mr Gifford, for the prosecution: ‘You say that in the kitchen there was evidence of a severe conflict having taken place. What was the nature of that evidence?'

‘There were blood-stains upon the end of the jaw-box at the inner side of the kitchen door.'

‘But what led you to say that there had been a severe conflict?'

‘These marks were principally upon the flags.'

‘How did that show there had been a severe conflict?—the dragging of the body was not a sign of severe conflict; I therefore want to know what marks of a severe conflict were apparent to you, before the dragging commenced.'

‘My conclusion that there was a severe conflict was founded upon the streaks upon the kitchen floor.'

‘I again ask, what were the marks of a severe conflict before the dragging took place?'

‘There were regular marks as if caused by some rough substance.'

Lord Deas put an end to this curious exchange—in which the answers certainly appear to have had very little connection with the questions—by observing that the remark in Dr Fleming's report about ‘evidence of a severe conflict' just confirmed what he had already said as to the introduction of matter not proper to a medical report.

So that was one up to Lord Deas.

Cross-examined by Mr Clark, the police surgeon said that the blood on the mattress was on ‘the upper part of the bed'; this, if he meant the pillow end which he presumably did, might well be significant but it wasn't quite clear. The sheet was quite damp and appeared to have been washed—the sheet that was found rolled up under the wash-stand, that is—but was very much blood-stained.

‘Was there any appearance of the deceased's person having been washed?'

‘The face, neck and upper part of the chest appeared to have been washed.'

The kitchen floor had the appearance of having been washed between the sink and the lobby; and between the kitchen and the bedroom, but stopping at the bedroom door, there was a distinct appearance of the ‘pavement' having been washed.

‘When you saw these places in the kitchen and the lobby washed—were they dry or moist?'

‘The lobby was perfectly moist; it was very damp as if it had been washed recently. The kitchen was drier, but still there was a damp appearance.' (This was at half-past five on the Monday afternoon, fifty or sixty hours after the murder.)

‘When you say washed recently, what do you mean? What time do you mean?'

‘It had a damp appearance as if it had been recent.'

Lord Deas: ‘You are asked how recently. Was it an hour or a day before?'

‘It might have been a day before from appearance.'

‘Did the lobby and kitchen seem to have been done together?'

‘They had the appearance of not having been done the same day but that would depend much on the stone.'

‘Was the appearance of the two stones different?'