In the Mayor's Parlour
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But this time it was not the Coroner who put questions to the witness. There had been some whispering between him, Hawthwaite and Meeking, the barrister who represented the police authorities, and it was Meeking who turned to the girl and began to get her information from her by means of bland, suavely-expressed, half-suggesting interrogatories. Winifred Wilson; twenty years of age; housemaid at Dr. Wellesley's—been in the doctor's employ about fourteen months.
"Did you give certain information to the police recently?" inquired Meeking, going straight to his point as soon as these preliminaries were over. "Information bearing on the matter now being inquired into?"
"Yes, sir," replied the witness in a low voice.
"Was it relating to something that you saw, in Dr. Wellesley's house, on the evening on which Mr. Wallingford was found dead in the Mayor's Parlour?"
"Yes, sir."
"What was it that you saw?"
The girl hesitated. Evidently on the verge of a fresh outburst of tears, she compressed her nether lip, looking fixedly at the ledge of the witness-box.
"Don't be afraid," said Meeking. "We only want the truth—tell that, and you've nothing to be afraid of, nor to reproach yourself with. Now what did you see?"
The girl's answer came in a whisper.
"I saw Dr. Wellesley!"
"You saw your master, Dr. Wellesley. Where did you see Dr. Wellesley?"
"On the hall staircase, sir."
"On the hall staircase. That, I suppose, is the main staircase of the house? Very well. Now where were you?"
"Up on the top landing, sir."
"What were you doing there?"
"I'd just come out of my room, sir—I'd been getting dressed to go out."
"And how came you to see your master?"
"I heard a door open on the landing below, sir, and I just looked over the banister to see who it was."
"Who was it?"
"Dr. Wellesley, sir."
"Dr. Wellesley. What was he doing?"
"He'd just come out of the drawing-room door, sir."
"Are you sure he'd come out of that particular door?"
"Well, sir, I saw him close it behind him."
"What happened then?"
"He stood for a minute, sir, on the landing."
"Doing anything?"
"No, sir—just standing."
"And what then?"
"He went downstairs, sir."
"And disappeared?"
"He went towards the surgery, sir."
"How was the staircase lighted when you saw all this?"
"Well, sir, there was a light in the hall, at the foot of the staircase, and there was another on the drawing-room floor landing."
"Then you could see Dr. Wellesley quite clearly?"
"Yes, sir."
"How was he dressed?"
"He'd his surgery jacket on, sir—a white linen jacket."
"You saw Dr. Wellesley quite clearly, wearing a white linen jacket, and coming out of the drawing-room door. Now I want to ask you about the drawing-room. Is there another room, a small room, opening out of Dr. Wellesley's drawing-room?"
"Yes, sir."
"How big is it?"
"Well, sir, it's a little room. Not very big, sir."
"What is it used for? What is there in it now?"
"Nothing much, sir. Some book-cases and a desk and a chair or two."
"Is there a door on its farther side—the next side to the Moot Hall?"
"Yes, sir."
"Have you ever seen it open?"
"No, sir, never."
"You don't know where it gives access to?"
"No, sir."
"Might be a cupboard door, eh?"
"I always thought it was a cupboard door, sir."
"Very good. Now I want you to be very particular about answering my next question. What time was it when you saw Dr. Wellesley come out of his drawing-room?"
"It would be just about a quarter to eight, sir."
"Are you quite sure about that?"
"Quite sure, sir!"
"Did anything fix the time on your mind?"
"Yes, sir—at least, I heard the clocks strike the quarter just after. The Moot Hall clock, sir, and the parish church."
"You're sure it was a quarter to eight o'clock that you heard?"
"Yes, sir, quite sure."
"Why are you quite sure?"
The witness reddened a little and looked shyly aside.
"Well, sir, I'd got to meet somebody, outside the house, at a quarter to eight o'clock," she murmured.
"I see! Did you meet him?"
"Yes, sir."
"Punctually?"
"I might have been a minute late, sir. The clocks had done striking."
"Very good. And just before they began to strike you saw Dr. Wellesley come out of his drawing-room door?"
"Yes, sir."
Meeking suddenly dropped back into his seat and began to shuffle his papers. The Coroner glanced at Cotman—and Cotman, with a cynical smile, got to his feet and confronted the witness.
"Was it your young man that you went out to meet at a quarter to eight o'clock that evening?" he asked.
"Yes, sir," admitted the girl.
"What's his name?"
"Joe Green, sir."
"Did you tell Joe Green that you'd just seen Dr. Wellesley come out of his drawing-room?"
"No, sir!"
"Why not?"
"Because I didn't think anything of it, sir."
"You didn't think anything of it? And pray when did you begin to think something of it?"
"Well, sir, it was—it was when the police began asking questions."
"And of whom did they ask questions?"
"Me and the other servants, sir."
"Dr. Wellesley's servants?"
"Yes, sir."
"How many servants has Dr. Wellesley?"
"Four, sir—and a boy."
"So the police came asking questions, did they? About Dr. Wellesley? What about him?"
"Well, sir, it was about what we knew of Dr. Wellesley's movements on that evening, sir—where he was from half-past seven to eight o'clock. Then I remembered, sir."
"And told the police?"
"No, sir—not then. I said nothing to anybody—at first."
"But you did later on. Now, to whom?"
The witness here began to show more signs of tearfulness.
"Don't cry!" said Cotman. "Whom did you first mention this to?"
"Well, sir, it was to Mrs. Lane. I got so upset about it that I told her."
"Who is Mrs. Lane?"
"She's the lady that looks after the Girls' Friendly Society, sir."
"Are you a member of that?"
"Yes, sir."
"So you went and told Mrs. Lane all about it?"
"Yes, sir."
"What did Mrs. Lane say?"
"She said I must tell Mr. Hawthwaite, sir."
"Did she take you to Mr. Hawthwaite?"
"Yes, sir."
"And you told him all that you have told us now?"
"Yes, sir—Mrs. Lane said I must."
"You didn't want to, eh?"
Here the girl burst into tears, and Cotman turned to the Coroner.
"I have no further questions to put to this witness, sir," he said, "but I would make a respectful suggestion to yourself. That is, that my client, Dr. Wellesley, should be called at once. We know now that the police have been secretly working up a case against Dr. Wellesley—in fact, I am very much surprised that, ignoring these proceedings altogether, they have not gone to the length of arresting him! Perhaps that's a card which Superintendent Hawthwaite still keeps up his sleeve. I may tell him, on behalf of my client, that he's quite welcome to arrest Dr. Wellesley and bring him before the magistrates whenever he likes! But as Dr. Wellesley's name has been very freely mentioned this morning I think it will be only fair, sir, that he should be allowed to go into that box at once, where he will give evidence on oath–"
"If Dr. Wellesley elects to go into the box," interrupted the Coroner, "I shall, of course, warn him in the usual way, Mr. Cotman. He is not bound to give any evidence that might incriminate himself, but no doubt you have already made him aware of that."
"Dr. Wellesley is very well aware of it, sir," replied Cotman. "I ask that he should be allowed to give evidence at once."
"Let Dr. Wellesley be called, then," said the Coroner. "That course, perhaps, will be best."
Brent inspected Wellesley closely as he stepped into the witness-box. He was a well set-up, handsome man, noted in the town for his correct and fashionable attire, and he made a distinguished figure as the centre-point of these somewhat sordid surroundings. That he was indignant was very obvious; he answered the preliminary questions impatiently; there was impatience, too, in his manner as after taking the oath he turned to the Coroner; it seemed to Brent that Wellesley's notion was that the point-blank denial of a man of honour was enough to dispose of any charge.
This time the Coroner went to work himself, quietly and confidentially.
"Dr. Wellesley," he began, leaning over his desk, "I need not warn you in the way I mentioned just now: I'm sure you quite understand the position. Now, as you have been in Court all the morning, you have heard the evidence that has already offered itself. As regards the evidence given by your assistant, Dr. Carstairs, as to your movements and absence from the surgery between 7.30 and 7.49—is that correct?"
Wellesley drew himself to his full height, and spoke with emphasis:
"Absolutely!"
"And the evidence of the young woman, your housemaid? Is she correct in what she told us?"
"Quite!"
The Coroner looked down at his papers, his spectacled eyes wandering about them as if in search of something. Suddenly he looked up.
"There's this matter of the handkerchief, or portion of a handkerchief," he said. "Picked up, we are told, from the hearth in the Mayor's Parlour, where the rest of it had been burned. Did you hear Mrs. Marriner's evidence about that, Dr. Wellesley?"
"I did!"
"Is what she said, or suggested, correct? Is the handkerchief yours?"
"I have never seen the handkerchief, or, rather, the remains of it. I heard that some portion of a handkerchief, charred and blood-stained, was found on the hearth in the Mayor's Parlour, and that it had been handed over to Superintendent Hawthwaite, but I have not had it shown to me."
The Coroner glanced at Hawthwaite, who since the opening of the Court had sat near Meeking, occasionally exchanging whispered remarks.
"Let Dr. Wellesley see that fragment," he said.
All eyes were fixed on the witness as he took the piece of charred and faintly stained stuff in his hands and examined it. Everybody knew that the stain was from the blood of the murdered man; the same thought was in everybody's mind—was that stain now being critically inspected by the actual murderer?
Wellesley suddenly looked up; at the same time he handed back the fragment to the policeman who had passed it to him.
"To the best of my belief," he said, turning to the Coroner, "that is certainly part of a handkerchief of mine. The handkerchief is one of a dozen which I bought in Paris about a year ago."
A murmur ran round the crowded court at this candid avowal; as it died away the Coroner again spoke:
"Had you missed this handkerchief?"
"I had not. I have a drawer in my dressing-room full of handkerchiefs—several dozens of them. But—from the texture—I am positive that that is mine."
"Very well," said the Coroner. "Now about the evidence of Mr. Walkershaw. Did you know of the door between your house and the Moot Hall?"
"Yes! So did the late Mayor. As a matter of fact, he and I, some time ago, had it put to rights. We both used it; I, to go into the Moot Hall; he, to come and see me."
"There was no secrecy about it, then?"
"Not between Wallingford and myself at any rate."
The Coroner took off his spectacles and leaned back in his chair—sure sign that he had done. And Meeking rose, cool, level-voiced.
"Dr. Wellesley, I think you heard the evidence of Mrs. Saumarez?"
But before Dr. Wellesley could make answer, the other doctors present in the Court-room were suddenly called into action. As the barrister pronounced her name, Mrs. Saumarez collapsed in her seat, fainting.
CHAPTER XIII
A WOMAN INTERVENES
In the midst of the commotion that followed and while Mrs. Saumarez, attended by the doctors, was being carried out of the Court-room, Tansley, at Brent's elbow, drew in his breath with a sharp sibilant sound that came near being a whistle. Brent turned from the withdrawing figures to look at him questioningly.
"Well?" he said.
"Queer!" muttered Tansley. "Why should she faint? I wonder–"
"What?" demanded Brent as the solicitor paused.
"I'm wondering if she and Wellesley know anything that they're keeping to themselves," said Tansley. "She was obviously nervous and frightened when she was in that box just now."
"She's a nervous, highly-strung woman—so I should say, from what bit I've seen of her," remarked Brent. "Excitable!"
"Well, he's cool enough," said Tansley, nodding towards the witness-box. "Hasn't turned a hair! Meeking'll get nothing out of him!"
The barrister was again addressing himself to Wellesley, who, after one glance at Mrs. Saumarez as she fainted, had continued, erect and defiant, facing the Court.
"You heard Mrs. Saumarez's evidence just now, Dr. Wellesley?" asked Meeking quietly.
"I did!"
"Was it correct?"
"I am not going to discuss it!"
"Nor answer any questions arising out of it?"
"I am not!"
"Perhaps you will answer some questions of mine. Was there any jealousy existing between you and the late John Wallingford, of which Mrs. Saumarez was the cause?"
Wellesley hesitated, taking a full minute for evident consideration.
"I will answer that to a certain extent," he replied at last. "At the time of his death, no! None!"
"Had there been previously?"
"At one time—yes. It was over."
"You and he were good friends?"
"Absolutely! Both in private and public—I mean in public affairs. I was in complete touch and sympathy with him as regards his public work."
"Now, Dr. Wellesley, I think that for your own sake you ought to give us some information on one or two points. Mrs. Saumarez said on oath that you asked her to marry you, two or three times. She also said that the late Mayor asked her too. Now–"
Wellesley suddenly brought down his hand on the ledge of the witness-box.
"I have already told you, sir, that I am not going to discuss my affairs with Mrs. Saumarez nor with the late Mayor in relation to Mrs. Saumarez!" he exclaimed with some show of anger. "They are private and have nothing to do with this inquiry. I shall not answer any question relating to them."
"In that case, Dr. Wellesley, you will lay yourself open to whatever conclusions the jury chooses to make," said Meeking. "We have already heard Mrs. Saumarez say—what she did say. But, as you won't answer, I will pass to another matter. You have already told us that the evidence of your assistant, Dr. Carstairs, is correct as to your movements between half-past seven and eleven minutes to eight, or, rather, as to your absence from the surgery during those nineteen minutes. You adhere to that?"
"Certainly! Carstairs is quite correct."
"Very well. Where were you during that time—nineteen minutes?"
"For the most part of the time, in my drawing-room."
"What do you mean by most part of the time?"
"Well, I should say three parts of it."
"And the other part?"
"Spent in letting a caller in and letting the caller out."
"By your front door?"
"No; by a side door—a private door."
"You took this caller to your drawing-room?"
"Yes."
"For a private interview?"
"Precisely."
Meeking allowed a minute to elapse, during which he affected to look at his papers. Suddenly he turned full on his witness.
"Who was the caller?"
Wellesley drew his tall figure still more erect.
"I refuse to say!"
"Why?"
"Because I am not going to drag in the name of my caller! The business my caller came upon was of a very private and confidential nature, and I am not going to break my rule of professional silence. I shall not give the name."
Meeking again paused. Finally, with a glance at the Coroner, he turned to his witness and began to speak more earnestly.
"Let me put this to you," he said. "Consider calmly, if you please, what we have heard already, from previous witnesses, and what you yourself have admitted. Mrs. Saumarez has sworn that you and the late Mayor were rivals for her hand and that there was jealousy between you. You admit that Mrs. Marriner is correct in identifying the burnt and blood-stained fragment of handkerchief found in the Mayor's Parlour after the murder as your property; you also acknowledge the existence of a door communicating between your house and the Moot Hall. You further admit that you were away from your surgery for nineteen minutes at the very time the murder was committed—according to the medical evidence—and that you were in your drawing-room from an inner room of which the door I have just referred to opens. Now I suggest to you, Dr. Wellesley, that you should give us the name of the person who was with you in your drawing-room?"
Wellesley, who, during this exordium, had steadily watched his questioner, shook his head more decidedly than before.
"No!" he answered promptly. "I shall not say who my caller was."
Meeking spread out his hands in a gesture of helplessness. He turned to the Coroner who, for the last few minutes, had shown signs of being ill at ease, and had frequently shaken his head at Wellesley's point-blank refusals.
"I don't know if it is any use appealing to you, sir," said Meeking. "The witness–"
The Coroner leaned towards Wellesley, his whole attitude conciliatory and inviting.
"I really think that it would be better, doctor, if you could find it in your way to answer Mr. Meeking's question–"
"I have answered it, sir," interrupted Wellesley. "My answer is—no!"
"Yes, yes, but I don't want the jury to get any false impressions—to draw any wrong conclusions," said the Coroner a little testily. "I feel sure that in your own interest–"
"I am not thinking of my own interest," declared Wellesley. "Once again—I shall not give the name of my caller."
There was a further pause, during which Meeking and the Coroner exchanged glances. Then Meeking suddenly turned again to the witness-box.
"Was your caller a man or a woman?" he asked.
"That I shan't say!" answered Wellesley steadily.
"Who admitted him—or her?"
"I did."
"How—by what door of your house?"
"By the side-door in Piper's Passage."
"Did any of your servants see the caller?"
"No."
"How came that about? You have several servants."
"My caller came to that door by arrangement with myself at a certain time—7.30—was admitted by me, and taken straight up to my drawing-room by a side staircase. My caller left, when the interview was over, by the same way."
"The interview, then, was a secret one?"
"Precisely! Secret; private; confidential."
"And you flatly refuse to give us the caller's name?"
"Flatly!"
Meeking hesitated a moment. Then, with a sudden gesture, as though he washed his hands of the whole episode, he dropped back into his seat, bundled his papers together, and made some evidently cynical remark to Hawthwaite who sat near to him. But Hawthwaite made no response: he was watching the Coroner, and in answer to a questioning glance he shook his head.
"No more evidence," whispered Tansley to Brent, as Wellesley, dismissed, stepped down from the witness-box. "Whew! this is a queer business, and our non-responsive medical friend may come to rue his obstinacy. I wonder what old Seagrave will make of it? He'll have to sum it all up now."
The Coroner was already turning to the jury. He began with his notes of the first day's proceedings and spent some time over them, but eventually he told his listeners that all that had transpired in the opening stages of the inquiry faded into comparative insignificance when viewed in the light of the evidence they had heard that morning. He analysed that evidence with the acumen of the cute old lawyer that everybody knew him to be, and at last got to what the sharper intellects amongst his hearers felt, with him, to be the crux of the situation—was there jealousy of an appreciable nature between Wallingford and Wellesley in respect of Mrs. Saumarez? If there was—and he brushed aside, rather cavalierly, Wellesley's denial that it existed at the time of Wallingford's death, estimating lightly that denial in face of the fact that the cause was still there, and that Wellesley had admitted that it had existed, at one time—then the evidence as they had it clearly showed that between 7.30 and 7.49 on the evening of the late Mayor's death, Wellesley had ready and easy means of access to the Mayor's Parlour. Something might have occurred which had revivified the old jealousy—there might have been a sudden scene, a quarrel, high words: it was a pity, a thousand pities, that Dr. Wellesley refused to give the name of the person who, according to his story, was with him during the nineteen minutes' interval which–
"Going dead against him!" whispered Tansley to Brent. "The old chap's taken Meeking's job out of his hands. Good thing this is a coroner's court—if a judge said as much as Seagrave's saying to an assize jury, Gad! Wellesley would hang! Look at these jurymen! They're half dead-certain that Wellesley's guilty already!"
"Well?" muttered Brent. "I'm not so far off that stage myself. Why didn't he speak out, and be done with it. There's been more in that love affair than I guessed at, Tansley—that's where it is! The woman's anxious enough anyway—look at her!"
Mrs. Saumarez had come back into court. She was pale enough and eager enough—and it seemed to Brent that she was almost holding her breath as the old Coroner, in his slow, carefully-measured accents and phrases, went on piling up the damning conclusions that might be drawn against Wellesley.
"You must not allow yourselves to forget, gentlemen," he was saying, "that Dr. Wellesley's assertion that he was busy with a caller during the fateful nineteen minutes is wholly uncorroborated. There are several—four or five, I think—domestic servants in his establishment, and there was also his assistant in the house, and there were patients going in and out of the surgery, but no one has been brought forward to prove that he was engaged with a visitor in his drawing-room. Now you are only concerned with the evidence that has been put before you, and I am bound to tell you that there is no evidence that Dr. Wellesley had any caller–"
A woman's voice suddenly rang out, clear and sharp, from a point of the audience immediately facing the Coroner.
"He had! I was the caller!"
In the excitement of the moment Tansley sprang to his feet, stared, sank back again.
"Good God!" he exclaimed. "Mrs. Mallett! Who'd have thought it!"
Brent, too, got up and looked. He saw a handsome, determined-looking woman standing amidst the closely-packed spectators. Mallett sat by her side; he was evidently struck dumb with sudden amazement and was staring open-mouthed at her; on the other side, two or three men and women, evidently friends, were expostulating with the interrupter. But Mrs. Mallett was oblivious of her husband's wonder and her friends' entreaties; confronting the Coroner she spoke again.
"Mr. Seagrave, I am the person who called on Dr. Wellesley!" she said in a loud, clear voice. "I was there all the time you're discussing, and if you'll let me give evidence you shall have it on my oath. I am not going to sit here and hear an innocent man traduced for lack of a word of mine."
The Coroner, who looked none too well pleased at this interruption, motioned Mrs. Mallett to come forward. He waved aside impatiently a protest from Wellesley, who seemed to be begging this voluntary witness to go back to her seat and say nothing, and, as Mrs. Mallett entered the witness-box, turned to Meeking.
"Perhaps you'll be good enough to examine this witness," he said a little irritably. "These irregular interruptions! But let her say what she has to say."
Mrs. Mallett, in Brent's opinion, looked precisely the sort of lady to have her say, and to have it right out. She was calm enough now, and when she had taken the oath and told her questioner formally who she was, she faced him with equanimity. Meeking, somewhat uncertain of his ground, took his cue from the witness's dramatic intervention.
"Mrs. Mallett, did you call on Dr. Wellesley at 7.30 on the evening in question—the evening on which Mr. Wallingford met his death?"
"I did."
"By arrangement?"