The Love-Story of Aliette Brunton

Smith-Assher rising to continue his examination-in-chief, and lastly to the motionless woman in the dock, knew anything of the fight for another woman's freedom, of the private quarrel between counsel for the prosecution and counsel for the defense. "May we take it, then," Henry Smith-Assher fidgeted with the tapes round his bull-neck, "that the accused's statement was entirely voluntary?" "Entirely," answered the witness, obviously honest, and as obviously convinced of the prisoner's guilt. "Thank you, sergeant, that's all I have to ask you." Henry Smith-Assher subsided; and Ronnie--his voice vibrating with suppressed nerves, but all issues save the immediate driven from his mind--rose to cross-examine. "I want you to tell me, sergeant, whether the original suggestion that the accused should make a statement came from you or from her?" "From the accused." "You cautioned her, of course?" "Yes." "Did she, at the time she made the statement, appear much upset?" "Considerably, I should say." "Ah." Ronnie---one hand spread-eagled on his brief, jingled with the other at the coins in his trouser-pocket. "Then I should not, perhaps, be putting it too strongly if I suggested that at the time she made this so-called confession the accused was in a state of hysteria?" "She was considerably upset," repeated the witness stolidly. "Was she crying?" "Well----" "Answer the question, please." "She might have been crying." "H'm." Again the coins jingled in the trouser-pocket. "Did you gather from her general demeanor that the accused was attempting to tell you the exact truth?" "Yes." "And, coming to the last words of her statement, 'I love Bob very much,' did you gather from the way accused made that statement that Robert Fielding was her lover, in the accepted sense of the word?" The uniformed witness hesitated; and Ronnie, his nerves for the moment forgotten, took advantage of the hesitation. "I want you to tell his lordship and the jury, sergeant, whether, when the accused volunteered this statement to you, the impression made on your mind was the impression that she had been guilty of adultery with her cousin, Robert Fielding." "I can't say I thought very much about it." "You can't say you thought very much about it? Exactly. Didn't you think, perhaps, as any reasoning man would think, that all the accused meant to imply was that she was very fond of her cousin?" "Yes. I suppose so." "Thank you. I'll take that answer." The next witnesses were the medical experts--Dr. Spilsbury and Dr. Wilcox. Them Ronnie did not cross-examine. But as Maggie Peterson, answering instantly to the call of her name, flounced through the glass doors and made her defiant way past the reporters' table to the box, John Cartwright--watching counsel for the defense as a trainer watches his man in the ring--saw his mouth set, his chin protrude. And John Cartwright thought, "I wonder if I was right about briefing Cavendish. I wish I knew what he was driving at with that last cross-examination. I wonder what he'll make of this witness. From the look in H. B.'s eyes, she's the crux of his case." Lucy Towers, too, seemed to realize the importance of Maggie Peterson's evidence. Again, as during Brunton's opening, aloofness went from her. She leaned forward from the dock. "You're a married woman, Mrs. Peterson?" Hector Brunton in person rose to examine the blowzy black-eyed creature who had just kissed the well-thumbed book. "I am." "And at the time when Lucy Towers shot her husband you were living at 25 Laburnum Grove?" "I was." "Could you tell us the date of the shooting?" "The fifth of July." "Were you actually in the house when the crime took place?" "I was not." The patness of the cockney woman's answers warned Ronnie that she must have been coached in her part. It seemed to him, listening to her every carefully-pronounced syllable, that a purpose, a definite, a personal, and a premeditated purpose, underlay them. "For how long before the fifth of July had you been living at Laburnum Grove?" went on Brunton. "Two years." "Had you known Mr. and Mrs. Towers for some considerable time?" "I had. And Bob Fielding." "Confine yourself to answering my questions, please. For how long had you know William Towers and his wife?" "Eighteen months. Ever since they came to live at the Grove." The K.C. paused, and looked warningly at the jury before putting his next question. "Then can you tell us, of your own knowledge, whether, during those eighteen months, the accused was on good terms with her husband?" The woman--purposely as it appeared to Ronnie--hesitated; and Brunton, leaning forward, altered his formula. "Did they, as husband and wife, get on well with one another?" "Well, I shouldn't like to say they was on the best of terms." "Were they on bad terms?" "Yuss." The voice, hitherto so careful, lapsed into slum cockney. "Yuss. She was a bad wife to Bill, was Lucy. Never did nothing for him." At that his lordship made as though to put a question, and the examiner changed his line. "Now I want to ask you: have you ever heard the dead man complain about his wife?" "Not till Bob Fielding came to live at the Grove." "But after Robert Fielding came, he did complain about her?" "Yuss, often." "Can you tell us the sort of thing he used to say?" "Yuss. He said that he could never get nothing done because she was always muckin' about with Bob." With any other examiner except Brunton, the coarse phrase would have elicited laughter from the spectators. But Brunton was taking no chances. Quickly he carried on his witness's story. "You gathered then, I take it, that William Towers was not satisfied with his wife's behavior?" "Satisfied?" The black eyes under the feathered hat glinted. "Nah. He wasn't never satisfied, with 'er. Not after Bob Fielding came to the Grove." "Would you describe William Towers as jealous of Robert Fielding?" "Nah. Not jealous, but suspicious." "Suspicious, eh? Had he, to your knowledge, any reasons for that suspicion? Have you personally, for instance, ever seen any act on the part of the accused which might give rise to suspicion in her husband's mind?" "Well----" Again it seemed to Ronnie, weighing every inflection of the cockney voice, that both the hesitant monosyllable and the answer which followed it were premeditated. "Well, I've seen her going to 'is room often enough." "Whose room?" "Bob Fielding's." Brunton paused to study his brief; and in that pause it came home to Ronnie that the whole atmosphere of the court was hostile. The domed place seemed charged with psychical electricity. He could actually feel the currents of fear and prejudice tingling between the motionless jury and the motionless figure in the dock. Looking at his client, he saw that her lips moved, as though in dumb, unavailing protest. "And these visits"--the "hanging prosecutor" did not even look up from his brief,--"were they paid by night or by day?" "She was alwus going to 'im." "By night as well as by day?" "Yuss. By night as well as by day." "What time of the night?" "All hours of the night." "You're certain on that point?" Now Brunton looked at his witness. "Yuss, certain." "Then can you give us any particular date on which you actually saw the accused woman go into Bob Fielding's room late at night?" "She went there about half-past nine on the night of July 4th." "And did you see her come out?" "Nah. She hadn't come out by the time I went to bed." "The night before the murder. Thank you, Mrs. Peterson." Brunton smiled grimly. "And now, just one more question. Has the accused ever spoken to you about her husband?" "Yuss." "When was the last time she spoke to you about him?" "On the Sunday." "What Sunday?" "The Sunday"--Maggie Peterson's voice shrilled--"before she shot 'im." "Please tell his lordship and the jury, to the best of your recollection, what she said to you." The hard eyes of the woman in the witness-box turned to the woman in the dock. For a full second they looked at one another; and Ronnie, watching, saw that it was Maggie Peterson who first turned away. "Tell his lordship and the jury," prompted Brunton. "Well"--a fraction of its certainty had gone out of the shrill voice,--"it was like this. We meets in the passage, and she says to me: 'Bill ain't fit to be no woman's 'usband. I wish to Gawd 'e was dead. I shan't never know a moment's 'appiness till he _is_ dead.'" "And had the accused previously made, in your presence, similar statements?" "Yuss. Time and again." "Thank you. That will be all." Hector Brunton sat down; but before Ronnie could rise to cross-examine, the judge had intervened. "You say," said the judge, referring to his notes, "that on the night before the crime was committed, at about half-past nine o'clock, you saw the accused go into Robert Fielding's room. Was she--to your personal knowledge--in the habit of making such visits?" "Yuss, m'lord." "You're prepared to swear that?" "Yuss, m'lord." "Very well." Deliberately, Mr. Justice Heber wrote down the answer. "Now, on the night of July 4, you're prepared to swear that you actually saw the accused"--the legal voice was stern--"go into Robert Fielding's room; and you are also prepared to swear that by the time you went to bed, she had not come out." "Yes, m'lord." "Where were you at the time you saw all this?" "I was standing in the passage----" "What passage?" "The passage between her room and mine." Mr. Justice Heber relapsed into a meditative silence; and Ronnie, looking across the thirty feet of crowded space which separated him from the hard defiant eyes of Maggie Peterson, rose nervously to his feet. "You told my learned friend"--the suave tone betrayed no hint of hostility--"that you are a married woman. Are we to understand from that that you and your husband live together?" "No." "I take it, then, that you are legally separated----" "My lord, I protest." Instantly Brunton, too, was on his feet. "My learned friend is not entitled to cross-examine----" "My lord, I submit," instantly, counsel for the defense took up the challenge, "that on the question of credibility I am entitled----" The judge allowed the question, and Brunton, muttering, subsided. Yes, admitted Maggie Peterson, she was separated from her husband. "And you told his lordship"--his first victory over the enemy made Ronnie suaver than ever--"that you occupied the room opposite to that in which the accused lived with her husband. Can I take it, from that, that you were--and still are--on friendly terms with the accused?" The witness faltered. "Well, she and me used to speak to one another when we met." "Then you neither were nor are on particularly good terms with the accused. Now, were you on friendly terms with the accused's husband?" Again the witness faltered, and Ronnie repeated his question. "I put it to you that you were not on friendly terms with Lucy Towers, but that you were very friendly with William Towers." "Not very friendly. We were just neighbors." "Just neighbors, eh?" For the first time since Maggie Peterson had entered the witness-box, Ronnie felt the atmosphere of the court favorable. The jury, and more especially the three women on the jury, had obviously taken his lucky point. He pressed it home: "You say the accused told you, some days before the crime, that she would never be happy until her husband was dead. Why should she tell you that if you and she were not on friendly terms?" "I dunno," sulkily; "she just said it." "Are you prepared to swear that those were the actual words she used?"