Let's Choose Executors, page 11
“Thank you, doctor. Now, you have described Mrs. Randall’s symptoms in some detail to my friend. Leaving aside their distressing nature, would you have suspected poison in the normal way?”
“It certainly didn’t occur to me at first. Then I thought . . . in a farmhouse, you know . . . there might well have been an accident.”
“Yes, I see. Sheep dip, for instance, or one of the chemical sprays that are now in such common use?”
“Something like that.”
“But the symptoms you observed . . . these things would not contain digitalis in any form.” He sensed, rather than saw, that Appleton was beginning to fidget. “Could they have produced a similar reaction?”
“I am not really familiar—”
The witness was allowed to get no further. Appleton had jerked upright, almost as though he moved against his will. “My lord!”
The Judge said nothing, but turned his eyes on Counsel for the Defence with a look of courteous inquiry. Maitland said deferentially: “Dr. Firmont has been called by the prosecution as an expert, as well as a witness to matters of fact.” From his tone you might have thought him almost completely uninterested in the outcome of the protest. “I will confine myself to the latter, if your lordship would prefer that I do so.”
Halford frowned at him. “You may proceed, Mr. Maitland,” he said. Appleton bundled his gown around him and sat down again with a disconsolate air, and Antony annoyed them both by ignoring the permission and abandoning his question unanswered.
“We have established, doctor, that you had some questions in your mind about the cause of Mrs. Randall’s illness. “
“That was why I asked Miss Randall if there was anything she could have taken by accident.”
“And when she had replied, what did you do?”
“Went down to the old lady’s sitting room.”
“Both of you?”
“Yes.”
“What then?”
“Miss Randall opened her mother’s workbox, which was lying on the sofa. Just inside there was a test tube, nearly empty. I told her to close the box again, to leave everything as she found it.”
“And then?”
“She began to cry,” said the witness precisely. “But it seemed to me . . . I couldn’t see how the old lady could have taken that by accident; so I locked the sitting-room door when we left, and took the first opportunity of informing the police.”
“When all this happened the old lady was already dead?”
“I should not have left her otherwise.”
“At what time did she die?”
“Just before five-thirty A.M.”
“A short illness, compared with some that are recorded.”
“You must remember she had taken a heavy dose. And an old lady of seventy-five, even a healthy old lady, would have less resistance than a younger person.”
“What time did Miss Randall ’phone you?” The doctor looked a little taken aback by this abrupt change of subject.
“About two-thirty in the morning.”
“And you reached Ravenscroft—”
“I didn’t notice exactly. About half an hour later, I imagine.”
“Miss Randall herself let you in?”
“Yes.”
“And took you to her mother’s room? And assisted you—as you have told us—until the old lady died?”
“That is quite correct.”
“During that time, what other members of the household did you see?”
“Why . . . nobody else.”
“Did that not seem rather strange to you?”
“Not at the time.
“But upon further consideration—”
“My lord—” said Appleton, bouncing to his feet this time without any hesitation at all. Antony gave him a benign smile, and sat down again.
“Have you any further questions for the witness, Mr. Appleton?” asked Halford.
“I had not, my lord. But as the point has been raised,” said Counsel for the Prosecution, beginning to see where his incautious intervention had led him, “did you require any other assistance, doctor, than that which Miss Randall could give you?”
“There was nothing anyone could have done, and quite frankly a crowd of people can only be an embarrassment on these occasions. Miss Randall was able to provide me with everything I needed, and as we were both fully occupied, I doubt if either of us thought—”
“That is exactly what I meant to ask the witness, your lordship,” said Maitland, more in sorrow than in anger. “If my learned friend is permitted this license, perhaps I may be allowed one further question.
“If it is in order . . . certainly, Mr. Maitland.” Mr. Justice Halford was perfectly well aware that Counsel had, in fact, intervened because he didn’t altogether relish what the doctor was saying, but his protest was reasonable enough, even if he had deliberately manoeuvred to put his opponent in the wrong.
“If my friend has nothing more to interpolate into my cross-examination—” The look that accompanied those words could hardly have been more courteous, but there was no mistaking their provocative intent. “Afterward, doctor, after Mrs. Randall died—”
“Why, then, of course, the household was aroused.”
“Mr. Hugo Randall among them?”
“I did not see him until later in the day.”
“Do you know if Miss Randall had attempted to rouse any member of the household before she telephoned you?”
“My lord, this is intolerable!” Appleton broke in, before the witness could elaborate his reply. Maitland waited for the Judge’s strictures with a look of patient resignation which Halford mistrusted profoundly, and then said only, “Thank you, doctor,” before he seated himself again. It seemed to him that Firmont’s look, before he stepped down from the witness box, was surprisingly full of comprehension. He took what comfort he could from this: his junior was scowling at him, and Tommy Davenant leaned forward to say in his ear: “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“Looking for the truth,” Maitland said gently. “Can you answer the question for me: where was Hugo Randall while his grandmother was dying?”
“I never asked him,” said Davenant sulkily.
“So I noticed. Nor did the police. But I want to know, you see,” Antony told him; and again his tone had a deceptive mildness.
Vera Langhorne said gruffly: “Woman’s a scatterbrain, but better not let her see what you’re at.”
“If I knew myself—”
“Don’t you?” she asked him bluntly. “Don’t you?” But by this time Nell Randall was in the witness box, and Maitland turned his attention to Appleton’s examination.
He had noticed before the strong resemblance between Marian and Hugo Randall. Nell was as dark as her niece and nephew, but that was as far as the likeness went; and she had a charm of manner, a gentleness, which he had certainly not observed in either of the others. She was relating in a low and rather breathless voice how she had arrived home at about one o’clock on New Year’s morning, and gone straight to bed. It had been some time after two when she was aroused by a sound . . . a sort of choking, moaning sound . . . from her mother’s room, across the corridor from hers. She had run across, and found her mother half out of bed and moaning and throwing herself about as if she was in great pain. No, she wasn’t sick at that time, the vomiting had occurred previously, but she seemed to have some difficulty in getting her breath. As soon as she was a little quieter Nell had telephoned Dr. Firmont and asked him to come at once.
There was an odd little pause here, as though Appleton couldn’t quite make up his mind whether to take up the question the defence had raised with the previous witness. Maitland turned his head in time to meet a far from friendly look, and then Appleton shrugged and seated himself. Counsel for the Defence came to his feet in a leisurely way, and suddenly, unexpectedly, the crowded hall was silent.
The queer thing was, she wasn’t nervous, she returned his regard with a look as steady as his own. The breathless way of speaking was a mannerism only, not a symptom of some inner disquiet. She wasn’t nervous, but he realised as he looked at her that she was deeply unhappy. Just for a moment he felt a strong revulsion from his own part in the affair, and his thoughts seemed to spin away from the courtroom: the logical place to start is with the family . . . she needed me, I didn’t owe her a thing . . . revenge is an ugly word . . . neither shall a wicked woman have liberty . . . and Fran Gifford herself was afraid of the truth. He was aware that the Judge’s eye was on him, and that the silence had lengthened unduly. “Did you go into Chedcombe on the 30th December last?” he asked.
“The 30th? Oh . . . yes.”
“Please tell us about that visit, Miss Randall.”
“Mother wanted to go into town, so I took her.”
“When was that arranged?”
“At lunchtime.”
“When all the members of the family were present?”
“I think . . . I’m sure . . . they were all there.”
“Mr. Hugo Randall, and his brother and sister.”
“Yes.” She was eyeing him doubtfully. Appleton said, rather too loudly:
“My lord, these questions are irrelevant.”
“Irrelevant?” Maitland swung round to face his opponent, and then turned to look up at the Judge. “Irrelevant?” he said again.
“Are they not, Mr. Maitland?”
“I submit, my lord, that is for my friend to prove. I am not yet ready to address the jury on the point I have in mind.”
“If the defence are going to ask us to believe that the deceased was poisoned at lunchtime, thirty-six hours before she died—” said Appleton scornfully, and just for a moment Antony forgot that he had been doing his best to annoy the other man and felt an answering stab of anger at his tone.
“When I ask my l-learned and sceptical friend to b-believe a thing,” he said, “be sure I sh-shall be ready to p-prove it.”
The Judge smiled at him, and made a note on his pad. (Probably, thought Antony, a reminder to hold me to my promise.) “That sounds very satisfactory, Mr. Maitland. You may proceed.”
“Thank you, my lord. I was about to ask you, Miss Randall, whether Mrs. Randall gave any reason.”
“Yes, she said she wanted to see Mr. Byron. She had an appointment with him for half past three.”
“So you drove her into Chedcombe.”
“Yes. We went a little early, because she wanted to call in at the Bank.”
“Did you know the purpose of her visit to Mr. Byron?”
“She often went to see him. He was her solicitor.”
“But on this particular occasion—?”
“She didn’t say why she wanted to go.”
“You know the reason now . . . don’t you? To sign the codicil to her will.” He paused, and gave Appleton an amused look, his irritation forgotten. “Well, perhaps I should have said: you have been told that was the purpose of her visit?”
“Yes, I have been told that.”
“Did you have any inkling before of her intention?”
“Oh, no.”
“Tell me, Miss Randall, when you heard what she had done, were you surprised?”
“I—” Her eyes met his questioningly; and, oddly, he thought he read in them a sort of appeal.
“There’s no hurry,” he told her. “Take your time. I don’t suppose you’ve thought about it before, and now—”
“You don’t have to remind me,” she said. “I’ve sworn to tell the truth. Well, then. I wasn’t surprised.”
“May I ask you to be a little more precise?”
Mr. Justice Halford cleared his throat. “I am willing to give the defence a good deal of latitude,” he remarked, apparently to someone sitting among the rafters. Maitland chose to take him literally.
“I am grateful for your lordship’s forbearance.”
“We seem to be getting into the realms of conjecture, Mr. Maitland,” Halford pointed out gently.
“Yes, my lord.” He turned again to the witness. “You were out, weren’t you, on New Year’s Eve?”
“Yes, I went out at seven o’clock.” She hesitated and then, surprisingly, volunteered the answer to what would have been his next question. “I offered to stay with my mother, but she said she was expecting Fran.”
“Did she tell you why she had invited Miss Gifford?”
“No . . . she didn’t.”
There was something in her tone that he didn’t understand. He said slowly, “But you thought perhaps you knew—” and was so absorbed for the moment that Appleton’s furious protest took him completely unawares. He made his apologies in a vague way that further irritated his opponent. “How was Mrs. Randall that night? Did she seem to have anything on her mind?”
“She was . . . very much as usual.”
“Not upset in any way?”
“My mother would have said she didn’t permit circumstances to upset her.”
“Well, then, would you say she had anything on her mind?”
“If anything the—the unreliability of the legal profession. I think Mr. Byron had upset her by trying to persuade her not to change her will.”
“Nothing else?” He found the picture intriguing, but Appleton was quivering on the verge of another objection; no use rousing him again so soon.
“Nothing else,” said Nell sadly.
“Then—I am sorry to return to the subject, Miss Randall—perhaps you will tell us why you did not call on any other member of the household for help, when you found your mother so ill.”
“The servants sleep at the other end of the house. I hadn’t time—”
“There were three members of your family at home,” he reminded her. “Or hadn’t they come back from the dance?”
“They were in bed by then. Hugo would never have let Marian stay out so late.”
“But still you didn’t―”
“They’re much too young; and there was nothing they could do.” She found his eyes still on her, and added more emphatically: “There really wasn’t anything to be done.”
“Moral support?” he suggested; and smiled at her.
“Well, I’d have been glad if Hugo . . . but one of the cows was sick, you see; I knocked on his door when I went to telephone, but he wasn’t in his room.”
“Thank you, Miss Randall; that makes everything quite clear.” Maitland turned his head to look up at the Judge, but finding no encouragement in Halford’s eye, bowed slightly and sat down again.
Counsel for the Prosecution disclaimed any desire to re-examine. He sounded a little put out, but perhaps that was because he couldn’t make up his mind what the defence were trying to prove.
4
It was already late when Nell Randall left the witness box, and the court rose with some alacrity when the Judge announced the adjournment. Now that his attention was released, Antony was aware again of Miss Langhorne’s heavy breathing beside him; he spent rather longer than was necessary piling his papers together, because if she was going to tick him off about the line he was taking he felt suddenly too tired to argue the point . . . to tell her again that he was groping in the dark with no clear idea of where he was going. He’d done his best to make her understand, but it seemed she wouldn’t believe him.
But if Vera had anything to say, she wasn’t in a hurry. He became aware that Davenant was muttering something about “having a word with Nell,” and turned quickly to veto the suggestion.
“I’m sorry, I want to see our client. It won’t take long.”
“Oh, very well!” But it seemed he regretted his ungracious tone, because as he turned away he grinned suddenly and said over his shoulder: “Did you see Appleton’s face?” He did not mention the cross-examination that had just ended, so presumably all was forgiven; the thought crossed Antony’s mind that the solicitor’s reaction was one of relief, as though he had been afraid that—somehow or other—Nell Randall would give herself away.
The room which was used for interviews at the Shire Hall was no more cheerful than any of its kind, and a good deal colder than most. Vera established herself in a chair at the head of the long table; she was still silent, and Antony decided uneasily that something was brewing. Tommy Davenant came in and joined her, and said something in a low voice . . . about the Judge . . . about Appleton . . . he wasn’t really listening. His whole attention was already focused on Fran Gifford when the door opened and a wardress stood aside to let her come into the room.
She had a blind look, he thought; he wouldn’t have been surprised to see her feeling her way with hands outstretched in front of her. He pulled a chair out from the table and set it as near as possible to the tepid radiator under the window.
Fran crossed the room toward him and put an ice-cold hand into his for an instant, and smiled up at him with mechanical courtesy. Perhaps it was only the movement he had made that attracted her notice; she didn’t seem to realise that there was anyone else in the room. He said the first thing that came into his mind, and perhaps the most unexpected.
“That’s a nice dress. The colour suits you.” It was a dark, warm red, with a softly flowing line much more attractive than the one she had worn when he saw her at the prison; in the court some of the warmth seemed to have been reflected in her cheeks, but here, under the harsher light of a single, unshaded bulb, her pallor was almost ghastly.
Fran was looking at him blankly, as though the words, if she heard them at all, were meaningless. “Nell sent it to me,” she said at last (it was queer, he thought, how the rules of conventional politeness would assert themselves). And then she added, frowning: “She’s always so kind. Why did you ask her those questions?” She seemed like a sleepwalker who had been wakened too abruptly.
