The Witness on the Roof (32 page)

Gregory was not an attractive-looking person as he stood in the box. He was unshaven; the ill-fitting black coat and grey trousers that had been destined for his wedding looked creased and dusty. His small ferret eyes were strained and bloodshot; they wandered uneasily round the court from the hostile countenances of the crowd behind to the magistrate sitting impassive on the bench, then rested for a few seconds on the bent head of the woman in the dock.

He gave his name and age and occupation in an inaudible growl in response to the counsel's questions. Then, while Mr. Harvey Wilberforce momentarily consulted his notes, Gregory hunched up his shoulders and protruded his lower jaw. Seen thus, there was something particularly repellent in his expression. More than one of those present felt a touch of sympathy for the unfortunate prisoner.

“In May, 1897, you were in the employ of Sir Robert Brunton as a stableman, I believe?” Mr. Harvey Wilberforce went on, his dulcet tones in curious contrast with the witness's gruff, surly voice.

Gregory nodded.

“That is right.”

“Sir Robert Brunton was in town for the season of 1897, I think, residing in Hinton Square, while you, in accordance with your duties, were lodged in the mews behind Grove Street?

Again Gregory nodded.

“Yes, sir.”

“Can you carry your mind back to May 11th, 1897?”

This time there was a noticeable hesitation before Gregory answered.

“Yes, Sir.”

Harvey Wilberforce's tone altered.

“Please give us your account of what took place in your own words,” he said curtly.

Gregory looked round the court again as though seeking inspiration.

“I was having a pipe at the end of the Mews,” he said slowly, “when I see Cissie Shirley—De Lavelle, as she liked to call herself—come round the corner from Hinton Square and go into No. 18. I knew Mrs. Perks, the caretaker there, was her sister, and, as I was anxious to see Cissie, as soon as I had had a wash and a change I slipped round and went in after her. She was sitting talking to her sister, the door of the room open a little way, for it was a hot afternoon.”

“Please explain to the court the exact position in which you yourself stood to the prisoner,” said Mr. Harvey Wilberforce.

Gregory fidgeted from one foot to the other.

“I was a fool, I suppose—I was in love with her. I had been in love with her ever since I used to go and see Evelyn Spencer—her as was called Marie De Lavelle—when she was play-acting with Cissie.”

He paused.

“You were in love with the prisoner,” said Mr. Harvey Wilberforce, “and therefore, when you saw her going into No. 18, Grove Street, you thought it was a favourable opportunity for an interview, I understand. Go on please, Mr. Gregory.”

“I—I went in,” Gregory stammered. “Cissie, she wasn't ill-pleased to see me, for it seems she had lost sight of Evelyn—Marie De Lavelle—and was anxious to see her again. I had been sitting with them—Mrs. Perks and Cissie—for the best part of an hour maybe, when who should I see come into the hall and go up the stairs but the very girl we were talking about—Marie herself? She was all in white and carried a black handbag. ‘Why, there she is!' I cried out, too surprised like to remember that maybe it would have been better for me not to ha' spoke. Cissie jumped up, but Mrs. Perks was before her. ‘Why, that is a lady as comes here sometimes to see Mr. Wingrove!' she says. ‘Wingrove!” I said, and laughed. ‘I see him the other day. I don't know why he should call himself Wingrove; it is Mr. Basil Wilton.'”

“How did you know that?” Mr. Harvey Wilberforce questioned.

Mr. Gregory moistened his dry lips.

“I knowed Mr. Basil Wilton well enough by sight. He used to be always about with the De Lavelles when they were singing at the halls. 'Twas Cissie that was his fancy then, but after a while he cooled off with her and took up Marie. That was the cause of the De Lavelle girls parting. Cissie was that jealous over Basil Wilton that Marie wouldn't stand it!”

“You knew this, and yet you told the prisoner that Wingrove was really Basil Wilton, and that Miss Evelyn Spencer—or Marie De Lavelle, as she called herself professionally—had gone up to his rooms. That was scarcely judicious,” Mr. Harvey Wilberforce commented. “Go on, Mr. Gregory. Tell us what happened next.”

“Next!” James Gregory repeated vaguely, looking at the rail his hands were clasping as if to gather inspiration from that. “Well, Cissie, she jumped up as if she was shot!” he proceeded. “Basil Wilton!” she cries out, and she runs off upstairs as hard as she could go. Maria Perks and me, we waited a bit; then the thought came to me it would be as well to go and see what they were doing. We went upstairs the back way. The door of the flat was shut, but we listened, and soon we found they were quarrelling. I heard what Evelyn Spencer was saying. ‘I am his wife,' she says, very cold and proudlike, ‘and you—you were never anything to him but—' Before she could finish there was the sound of a shot, and then silence. We beat at the door, me and Maria Perks, when we come to ourselves as it were, and Cissie opened it. ‘Oh, it is you!' says she. ‘I've done for her!' There was Evie, lying on the hearth-rug—dead, and the pistol on the ground by the door where Cissie had throwed it.”

There was a hushed silence in the court, which was broken only by what sounded like a cry of relief coming from the place where Joan was seated.

“Go on, Mr. Gregory,” said Mr. Harvey Wilberforce.

“We went over and looked at Evie, but there was nothing to be done for her,” Gregory went on. “‘They will hang me,' she says, ‘but she won't never be able to call herself Basil Wilton's wife again!' Mrs. Perks she cried and wept, but presently we persuaded Cissie to come downstairs again to the sitting-room. Cissie caught up the handbag—it was open. Evie had been taking out some paper to show she was speaking the truth about being Basil Wilton's wife, and we took it down, along of us. Then, when we had been downstairs a bit, it comes to us that perhaps, after all, Evie mightn't be dead, and I found I'd left my tobacco pouch upstairs so I went back. When I got near Mr. Wilton's rooms I heard somebody moving about. The door was shut, but I'd got Mrs. Perks's pass key, and I opened the door and got into the bedroom. The door into the studio wasn't quite closed. I pushed it a little further open; then I see a man—Mr. Paul Wilton he was then—moving about, burning photos and things, and last of all putting a pistol in Evie's hand. “I couldn't make out what he was doing it for, but it wasn't no business of mine. I went downstairs, again and told them what I'd seen; and we began to think what we could do to get Cissie away. She was pretty frightened then, and she promised to marry me if I could keep a still tongue about what had happened. I helped her, like a fool, and when she was safe, or thought she was, she wouldn't marry me. Wouldn't even let me know where she was!”

Gregory stopped and wiped the perspiration from his brow.

“That is all, sir.”

“One minute, Mr. Gregory!” Mr. Harvey Wilberforce looked at his notes. “‘Can you identify the man you saw putting the pistol in the dead girl's hand?”

Gregory looked round the court.

“There he is,” he said, pointing to Lord Warchester, “though he wore a beard in those days.”

Mr. Wilberforce nodded.

“How long had you known that Mrs. Perks and the woman you knew as Cécile De Lavelle were sisters?”

Gregory considered.

“It would maybe be a matter of six weeks. I met Cissie coming out one day, and she told me.”

“Did Miss Evelyn Spencer know of the relationship?”

“I should say not.” Gregory passed one hand over his face reflectively. “She would never have let Mr. Wilton come there if she had known, for they were fearful jealous of one another, them two De Lavelle girls.”

“I see! That is all for to-day, Mr. Gregory.”

Mr. Harvey Wilberforce resumed his seat, and Mr. Roy Denman rose.

“I do not propose to cross-question this witness, your worship, as by my advice my client is reserving her defence. It is impossible for us to go into this evidence on such short notice, so utterly unprepared was my client for the nature of the charge the witness was about to make.” He sat down.

‘‘Call Maria Perks!” ordered Mr. Harvey Wilberforce; and once again every head in the court was turned towards the witness-box as Mrs. Perks, in her best Sunday bonnet, a fearsome erection covered with bugles and black hearse-like feathers, was marshalled into the box.

The widow was shaking and trembling with fright.

Her evidence, was in the main merely a recapitulation of Gregory's. It was evident that she was a most unwilling witness; the answers to his questions seemed to be dragged out of her by Mr. Harvey Wilberforce. Nevertheless, it was impossible to withhold a meed of sympathy from the woman when the spectators remembered that the poor cowering creature in the dock against whom those same answers were telling so terribly was the sister of the weeping witness.

Septimus Lockyer glanced at Warchester.

“This is very painful,” he whispered. “Those two”—with a jerk of his head towards Joan and Mrs. Trewhistle—“ought not to stay!”

Warchester shrugged his shoulders.

“I should have said it was a most unsuitable place for them to come to at all, but I can do nothing.”

Septimus Lockyer made his way towards his nieces.

“It will be over directly—adjourned till Friday. You had better come with me now. There is such a crowd that it may be difficult later.”

They rose at once, and with some difficulty Mr. Lockyer made a way for them to the side door.

“Well,” said Mrs. Trewhistle. “I did not expect it to be nice; but I did not think it would be so bad as this!” She turned on hearing footsteps on the stone corridor. Warchester had left the court behind them. She stopped. “Oh, Paul!”

The other two went on; Joan did not heed her cousin's exclamation. She looked up at her uncle, her eyes piteously dilated.

“Did she murder my sister, Uncle Septimus? Did she—that woman—murder my sister Evie?”

Septimus Lockyer looked down at the white face from which the enshrouding veil was thrown back. As he marked the traces of tension and of strain his heart grew very pitiful; he guessed something of the ordeal through which the girl had passed.

“I think there can be no possible doubt of that, Joan,” he answered gravely.

Joan put out her hand and caught at his arm; her limbs felt strangely dull and heavy. By contrast the solid, stone, walls of the passage seemed to be whirling round in the air.

“She—she murdered Evelyn!” she gasped. “And, you know, Uncle Septimus—you know, I thought it was Paul!”

L
ADY
Warchester's knees trembled as she got out of the motor and went into the house. She glanced up timidly at her husband, whose face was stern and melancholy. Septimus Lockyer had parted from them at the door of the police-court, and Warchester had escorted his wife and her cousin, Mrs. Trewhistle, home. Both husband and wife had been glad of Cynthia's presence; it was a relief not to be alone in the car.

When inside, Joan allowed Mrs. Trewhistle to go upstairs alone. She herself lingered on the great bearskin before the hall fire and waited for her husband.

“Paul,” she said, a new timidity in her voice, “Paul,” with a little catch in her throat, “Paul, can you ever forgive me?”

He made no motion to take the hand she half held out.

“Certainly!” he returned with disconcerting promptness. “There is nothing to forgive, as a matter of fact. I have no doubt with your beliefs the majority of wives would have acted precisely as you did.”

The arresting coldness of his tone seemed to freeze the blood in Joan's heart; for the moment she was incapable of speech. Only her eyes—her large, flaunting eyes—as they fixed themselves on his, sought vainly to express the anguish and the shame that were struggling to find voice within her.

But Warchester would not meet them, would not read their mute appeal.

“Will you excuse me?” he said politely. “There are letters that must be answered.”

Joan bent her head silently as she turned towards the stairs. The burning words of love and sorrow that were in her heart remained unspoken, frozen by Warchester's tone and look. She made her way to her room too worn and spent to do more than submit in silence to her maid's ministrations. When at last she had been arrayed in a comfortable tea-gown, and her shining hair had been loosely brushed back as in the old days Warchester had best loved to see it, she lay down on her couch before the fire, feeling too utterly stunned, too weary almost to think. They had had no luncheon, and Treherne brought her a tray of
pâté de foie
sandwiches and a glass of champagne, but Joan turned from them almost with disgust.

She was staring into the fire with wide-open, miserable eyes when Cynthia entered the room with her usual air of bustle. She glanced at the tray.

“Good gracious, my dear Joan, do you mean to say you have had no lunch? Those
pâté de foie
sandwiches are excellent. Try one!” She picked one up and bit it with an air of relish. “So Warchester is going off by the boat train to Dublin to-night.”

“No! “Joan sat up among the cushions. “I didn't know. I mean—” catching Cynthia's look of surprise. “No doubt he told me, but I have been so busy lately, I have forgotten.”

“He is going to see that man who is organizing an expedition to find the North Pole or the South Pole, I forget which. Warchester said that if this wretched girl's trial came off in time he thought he should join him,” Cynthia went on, helping herself to another sandwich. “I shouldn't let him, Joan. I am sure if Reggie wanted to find the North Pole—what is it, Treherne?” as the maid tapped at the door.