Part 11 (1/2)
She considered this with a slight frown. ”Yes. But I knew what it would be. You see, I had known my father.”
”Anyway, you would have won William Rabone's confidence, if you had been able to do so, and betrayed it to his employers, if it would have resulted in his conviction for defrauding the bank?”
”Oh, yes,” she answered. ”He would have betrayed them first, would he not? That was what I intended to do.” Her lips set firmly as she added, in a low voice, as though to herself, and yet so that it could be plainly heard through the silent court: ”I would have done more than that.”
Mr. Garrison looked up from his notes to regard the witness in a keenly questioning way. Mr. Pippin allowed a slight expression of surprise to pa.s.s over a face by which his thoughts were not often shown. Mr. Richard Middleton junior murmured, ”Perhaps you did,” loudly enough to be heard by most of those on the legal benches, and by Mr. Garrison, who gave the solicitor a glance of silent but sharp rebuke.
Mr. Pippin asked: ”And will you please tell the court exactly what you would have been willing to do?”
”I mean that he couldn't have got more than he deserved, or than I should have been glad to have been him have.”
”Even to his death?”
She did not appear to observe the possible implication of her replies. She said: ”I'm not sorry he's dead, if you mean that.”
”Would it be correct to say that what you saw of him during the last few weeks did not lessen the hatred which you had felt when he was no more than the name of a man you had never met?”
”I think it made it worse. I hated him for what he had done, and I disliked him additionally for what I found him to be. I think that was how most people would feel.”
”Perhaps they would... And having these feelings, you would not be stirred to any animosity toward anyone who might kill him, nor desire to bring such a one under the penalty of the law?”
Miss Weston paused on this question. She glanced at the man in the dock, as the one to whom allusion was presumably made. Peter Entwistle did not look particularly repulsive to her. ”No,” she said. ”Not the least. I think it's a better world now he's dead.”
”Yet, having these feelings, you showed, on your own account, considerable courage, and ran into more possible danger than most young women would care to face, with no other object than to trace the murderer of the man whose death you regard as giving so little cause for regret. Can you explain that?”
”I didn't think of it in that way. I just wanted to get at the truth, as I had been doing all along.” She added: ”But if I had thought of it like that, I expect I should have done much the same. I should have thought they all belonged to the same gang, though they might have quarrelled among themselves.”
Mr. Pippin was not sure that he liked this reply, and had sufficient discretion to see that if he continued further he might fare worse. He decided to switch off as rapidly as possible to another line of attack. He asked: ”You are quite sure that you have told the court the full truth, neither more nor less, as to why you left your room immediately following William Rabone's death?”
”Yes. I am quite sure about that.”
”And the man you followed -- if there were actually such a man -- you did not see, and could not identify?”
”No. I shouldn't recognize him at all.”
”Very well. We must leave it there... Now on another matter. You have told us how Rabone forced his attentions on you at a late hour of the night -- actually at one-thirty a.m. -- and how frightened you very naturally were, especially so, if I understand rightly what had occurred, because, up to a certain point, you had given him encouragement, or, at least, some reason to expect complaisance from you.
”At that time we may suppose that Mrs. Benson was fast asleep in the bas.e.m.e.nt, three or four stories below. When you were on the top landing, or even when you were on the one outside Mr. Hammerton's door, she may have been out of hearing, but Mr. Hammerton certainly was not.
”If I understood you correctly, you threatened to call him to your a.s.sistance, but Rabone was, to use your own word, contemptuous of any interference from him, and you do not appear to have been surprised at this att.i.tude.
”May I conclude that Mr. Hammerton, or Edwards as I believe that he was known to Rabone and yourself -- or was it possibly Vaughan? -- was previously acquainted with William Rabone, and presumably under his influence?”
”No. I think that is wrong. I believe they had only met on the previous day. I have really no doubt about it.”
Mr. Garrison turned over his notes. ”I think,” he said, ”we already have Mr. Hammerton's evidence to that effect.”
Mr. Pippin said: ”Yes. That is so,” in a tone that I implied that the word of Mr. Hammerton, Edwards, or Vaughan, was of negligible value on any subject whatever. But Mr. Garrison was of a scrupulous impartiality. He was dubious about Mr. Hammerton in more ways than one, but the oath of any man is not to be lightly set aside, if there be no contrary evidence to weigh it down. He said: ”Well, go on, Mr. Pippin.”
”Then, if we are to accept the supposition that they were no more than acquaintances of a few hours -- - Will you repeat Mr. Rabone's contemptuous words, as exactly as you can recall them?”
Miss Weston had a moment of silence, as though she searched a deficient memory for words which she could not recall with the certainty that the occasion required. In fact, she remembered them without difficulty, but she had some reluctance to quote them. They must be offensive to publish, and might be harmful, to one toward whom she felt as a friend. But she reflected that, from one angle or other, the facts would certainly be revealed concerning all who had been on the scene of William Rabone's death, and that a frank answer might ultimately be best, in more ways than one. She answered: ”What he said was, as nearly as I can recollect, 'You'll get no help from that jailbird. Do you think he's going to call in the police?'”
”And you understood that singular allusion to Mr. Hammerton's past or present position?”
”Yes. I knew what he meant.”
”Although, like Mr. Rabone, you had only made his acquaintance a few hours previously?”
”Yes. Mr. Hammerton had told me what had happened.”
”You knew, in fact, that he was an escaped convict?”
”I knew he had escaped from prison.”
”And you had no thought of informing the police?”
”No. I should have thought it would have been a very mean thing to do.”
”Don't you recognize that it is the duty of every citizen to a.s.sist the officers of the law?”
”I thought Mr. Hammerton was an innocent and most unfortunate man.”
Mr. Garrrson allowed himself to smile slightly at this example of feminine logic, which Miss Weston evidently considered to be a sufficient reply. He said: ”Don't you think we are going rather far afield, Mr. Pippin? I am not sure that I should not have warned the witness that she is not bound to answer your latest questions.”
Mr. Pippin said he would leave it there, but before he could resume his examination Mr. Jellipot was on his feet.
”As representing Mr. Hammerton -- - ” he began ”I am not sure,” Mr. Garrison interrupted, ”that I can hear you in that capacity.”
”I think,” Mr. Jellipot persisted, with a gentle firmness, ”after what has been said already, that a few words of explanation may a.s.sist the court.”
Mr. Garrison looked dubious. But he was himself considerably puzzled; particularly in respect of the fact that Francis Hammerton, an escaped convict of recent notoriety, and who had stood in the dock on a charge of murder a week ago, did not appear to be in the present custody of the police. He said doubtfully: ”Well, a few words, Mr. Jellipot, if you a.s.sure me that it will a.s.sist the court.”
Mr. Jellipot had the good sense to take the permission literally, and showed that he could be brief and pointed when the occasion required.
”I only wished,” he said, ”to make Mr. Hammerton's present position clear. It is true that he was recently convicted of a criminal offence, and that he escaped from the custody of the police. He has now appealed against that conviction, and has been granted bail until the appeal can be heard.”
Mr. Garrison considered this, and felt more surprise than he permitted himself to show. He said only: ”That is quite clear. I am obliged to you, Mr. Jellipot, for your a.s.sistance... Pray continue, Mr. Pippin.”
Mr. Pippin resumed: ”You have said, Miss Weston, that William Rabone was a man you hated, as being, in your belief, ultimately responsible for your father's death. You were on the track of his supposed criminality, with the object of revenging yourself upon him. Up to the last day -- almost up to the moment when you went upstairs together, as you have told the court, to the attic rooms where he was to meet a violent death in the next hour -- you appear to have had a hope that you would be the instrument by which he would be brought to justice for the crimes which, rightly or wrongly, you believed him to have committed. But that evening that hope -- that expectation -- must have finally left your mind. You heard him express confidence that he could make terms with the bank which would be profitable to himself, or, at the worst, that they would be able to do no more than dismiss him, which he had no occasion to fear. Did you not realize, at that moment, that, unless you should take it into your own hands, and that instantly, your hope and opportunity of revenge might be gone for ever?”
Mr. Pippin's manner had altered as this last question was asked. His tone had become solemn, and tense with the accusation that it conveyed. Yet Mr. Garrison, listening carefully, recognized that it was put in a form to which no exception could be taken.