The Attic Murder by S. Fowler Wright (read me like a book txt) 📕

THE prisoner entered the witness-box with a blue-coated constable at his side. He took the oath with easy confidence. He gave his name as Peter Musgrave Entwistle. His address as 13 Vincent Street, N.W.1. His occupation, artist.

A hundred curious eyes, fixed intently upon him as he faced the court, observed a man unusually tall, with a long narrow face, in which sandy brows were highly arched over grey vigilant eyes. He had a fresh complexion, and a pleasantly ingratiating manner, better adapted, perhaps, to impress a jury favourably than the more criminally-experienced lawyers by whom he was now surrounded.

Mr. Huddleston’s examination was of a pointed and unexpected brevity.

“Mr. Entwistle, you are aware that you are accused of the murder of William Rabone. Did you know this man at all?”

The prisoner smiled slightly, as though at a suggestion that could be easily put aside. “So far as I am aware, I never met, nor even heard of him in my life.”

“Did you, on the night of the fourth inst., or at any other time, ever enter the attic floor of number seventeen Vincent Street through one of the windows in the roof?”

“Never at any time.”

“Were you at home in your rooms at thirteen Vincent Street on the night in question — that of the fourth inst.?”

“No. I was away. I got back about five-thirty a.m.”

“Do you know anything whatever of William Rabone’s death?”

“Absolutely nothing more than I have read in the newspapers. I did not hear of it till I read it in the afternoon editions. It didn’t enter my head that I could be in any way concerned, he being an utter stranger to me.”

“Do you recognize this razor?” The weapon with which the fatal wounds had been inflicted was handed up to the witness.

“So far as I am aware, I have never seen it before.”

“Have you, or have you ever had a razor of similar pattern?”

“I have always used a safety-razor. I never in my life possessed one of any other kind.”

“Do you swear that you had no part in, nor any knowledge of William Rabone’s death, of which you were not even aware until you read the report in the daily press.

“I do.”

“That is all, thank you.”

Mr. Huddleston sat down with a smile for Mr. Dunkover which said as plainly as words: “Your witness now! Question him at your own risk,” which Mr. Dunkover, uneasily conscious that there was a very probable guile in the method of an examination which left him so much to elucidate, must proceed to do.

“You are,” he commenced, “as I have been given to understand, a gentleman of some means?”

“I have a moderate income.”

“A considerable capital?”

The witness looked annoyed. The questions were not those which he had been expecting to have to meet. He said: “My uncle left me some money when he died about five years ago.”

“How much?”

“About three thousand pounds. But it has increased since then. I have been fortunate in my investments.”

“Well, that is what I suggested at first. You are a gentleman of substantial means. Will you tell the court why you occupy rooms which are particularly suitable for getting on to the roof, but which are not otherwise of a particularly desirable character?”

“I am an artist. I find that attic rooms have the best lights.”

“Do you recognize it to be a singular coincidence that William Rabone, who was not an artist, had a similar preference for attic rooms?”

“There has been evidence that people visited him during the night.”

“But it was not you?”

“It was certainly not I.”

“You do not doubt that he was visited in such ways?”

“Why should I? We all heard what the young lady said.”

“Nor that she followed the man by whom the murder was surely committed back to the window of your own rooms?”

“How can I tell? I was away. She may have made a mistake in the dark. I should think it would be easy to do.”

“And you say that you were away. We will come to that in a moment. You have never used your own windows for such purposes? Never been out on the roofs during the night?”

“Oh yes, I have. Several times.”

The reply, and the almost jaunty tone in which it was given, were so unexpected that they checked for a moment even Mr. Dunkover’s experienced advocacy, and he was not ready with the following question. He recovered himself quickly, to say: “You are often out on the roofs during the night! May I ask for what purpose you go, and to what address?”

“I didn’t say often. I said I had been out several times. I go to number eleven Vincent Street, to visit my wife.”

Mr. Dunkover paused again. He had an unquiet conviction that where he had thought that he was leading the witness, Peter Entwistle had really been leading him, and that it would need exceptional caution on his part to avoid falling into further pitfalls. But he could not leave that answer unchallenged and unexplained. He asked: “Does your wife also occupy attic rooms farther along the roof?”

“No. She sometimes stays at number eleven. On those occasions she has a room on the third floor, which another lady underlets to her when she is away.”

“And on those occasions you visit her by way of the roof? Can you explain the reasons for this singular method of matrimonial intercourse?”

Mr. Garrison interposed. “I do not wish to embarrass your cross-examination, Mr. Dunkover, but it appears to me that if Entwistle can establish the fact of his having been at number eleven Vincent Street between midnight and three a.m. of the fifth inst., that is all that he should be asked to do. If he has witnesses of satisfactory character who can testify to that, there must be an end to the present charge.”

Mr. Huddleston rose to say that in addition to Mrs. Entwistle’s own evidence he had that of Mrs. Musgrave, and of two independent witnesses.

“Mrs. Musgrave?” Mr. Garrison asked.

“I am instructed that Peter Musgrave is my client’s true name. He added Entwistle to conform to that of an uncle who brought him up — in fact, the one from whom he inherited the small fortune which he has mentioned.”

“Then I will confine myself,” Mr. Dunkover began, “to asking — - ” But the witness interrupted him to say that he would prefer to explain.

He said that he had met and married his wife during a holiday in Cumberland in the previous summer. When on holiday he had always used the name of Musgrave, and that was the only one by which he was known to her.

The marriage was secret, and, as he had no suitable home to which to bring her in London, it had been decided that she should remain with an aunt with whom she had been residing previously, until he could realize his investments, which he was now doing, so that they could then go abroad together.

Some months ago, he heard that a lady at No. 11 Vincent Street wished to let her rooms while she was away on holiday, and he had suggested that his wife should write for them. By a mutually convenient arrangement, she had occupied these rooms on that and subsequent occasions, of which this was the third, and he had visited her without risk of observation, except by the two lodgers on the top floor of No. 11, who let him in, being friends on whose discretion he could rely.

There was little risk of oversight from the attic windows of No. 12, which, unlike most of that row of rather squalid apartment-houses, was occupied by a small family who used its top floor for the storage of lumber only.

Having heard this explanation, Mr. Dunkover decided discreetly to accept it without demur. Its credibility must depend upon the demeanour of the witnesses who were still to come.

There was one other matter on which to test Mr. Entwistle’s integrity, or the fertility of his imagination.

“Could you tell the court,” Mr. Wendover asked, “how or where you were occupied during the three days preceding that on which you were arrested here?”

“I went away because I didn’t like being watched.”

“You became conscious that you were under the observation of the police?”

“It wasn’t easy to miss.”

“But if your conscience were void of offence?”

“Some people might like it. I don’t.”

“And that is all the explanation you have to give?”

“Well, I’m free to go where I like. I didn’t have to throw up a job.”

Mr. Garrison gave the witness one of his keenly questioning glances as these questions were asked and answered. A moment before he had said to himself that the man was innocent, and that Inspector Combridge had been barking under the wrong tree.

But it was evident that the questions were unwelcome, and the answers were unconvincing. The witness’s irritation was not lessened as Mr. Dunkover went on to ask: “And if, as you say, William Rabone was a stranger to you, and his murder of no concern, will you explain what was the attraction which drew you to this court a week ago, when another man was charged with complicity in the same offence, and in spite of the fact, as you have admitted, that you were hiding from the surveillance of the police?”

“I came because — - ” He checked the unfinished sentence to say lamely: “A court’s a public place, isn’t it? I just happened to look in!”

“That is the explanation you have to offer. You just happened to look in!”

With this sarcastic echo of the witness’s words, Mr. Dunkover sat down, feeling it to be a better termination than he had expected to reach, and Mr. Huddleston showed his consciousness of an awkward corner by allowing his client to leave the box without endeavouring to remove the impression his answers made. He called Mrs. Jean Musgrave, and a small, fair-haired ineffectual girl, who had been sitting tearfully at the back of the court, came forward and entered the witness-box.