“Here, now!” a short, squat juror with a walrus moustache that covered his face from below his nose to below his chin, shifted in his seat and leaned belligerently forward. “What made you arrest the professor at that there moment? It seems to me that whoever the Maples woman was having an assigerna… — was meeting at this here cottage in the middle of the night was more likely to have done her in.”
“Now, now, we’ll get to that,” the coroner said, fixing the fractious juror with a stern eye. “I’m trying to lay out the facts of the case in an orderly manner. We’ll get to that soon enough.”
The next witness was the police surgeon, who testified that the decedent had met her death as a result of multiple blunt-force blows to the head and shoulders. He couldn’t say just which blow killed her, any one of several could have. And, yes, the duck-headed cane presented in evidence could have been the murder weapon.
Sir George nodded. So much for those who wanted information out of its proper order. Now…
Professor Maples was called next. The audience looked expectant. He testified that he had last seen his wife at about nine o’clock on the night she was killed. After which he had gone to bed, and, as he had been asleep, had not been aware of her absence.
“You did not note that she was missing when you awoke, or when you went down to breakfast?” Sir George asked.
“I assumed she had gone out early,” Maples replied. “She went out early on occasion. I certainly didn’t consider foul play. One doesn’t, you know.”
Professor Maples was excused, and the audience looked disappointed.
An acne-laden young man named Cramper was called up next. He was, he explained, employed at the local public house, the Red Garter, as a sort of general assistant. On the night of the murder he had been worked unusually late, shifting barrels of ale from one side of the cellar to the other. “It were on account of the rats,” he explained.
Sir George, wisely, did not pursue that answer any further. “What time was it when you started for home?” he asked.
“Must have been going on for midnight, one side or ‘nother.”
Sir George stared expectantly at Cramper, and Cramper stared back complacently at Sir George.
“Well?” the coroner said finally.
“Well? Oh, what happened whilst I walked home. Well, I saw someone emerging from the old Wilstone cottage.”
“That’s the cottage where the murder took place?” Sir George prompted.
“Aye, that’s the one aright. Used to be a gent named Wilstone lived there. Still comes back from time to time, I believe.”
“Ah!” said Sir George. “And this person you saw coming from the, ah, old Wilstone cottage?”
“Happens I know the gent. Name of Faulting. He teaches jumping and squatting, or some such, over by the college field building.”
There was a murmur from the audience, which Sir George quashed with a look.
“And you could see clearly who the gentleman was, even though it was the middle of the night?”
“Ever so clearly. Aye, sir.”
“And how was that?”
“Well, there were lights on in the house, and his face were all lit up by them lights.”
“Well,” Sir George said, looking first at the jury and then at the audience. “We will be calling Mr. Faulting next, to verify Mr. Cramper’s story. And he will, gentlemen and, er, ladies. He will. Now, what else did you see, Mr. Cramper?”
“You mean in the house?”
“That’s right. In the house.”
“Well, I saw the lady in question-the lady who got herself killed.”
“You saw Mrs. Maples in the house?”
“Aye, that’s so. She were at the door, saying goodbye to this Faulting gent.”
“So she was alive and well at that time?”
“Aye. That she were.”
The jury foreman leaned forward. “And how were she dressed?” he called out, and then stared defiantly at the coroner, who had turned to glare at him.
“It were only for a few seconds that I saw her before she closed the door,” Cramper replied. “She were wearing something white, I didn’t much notice what.”
“Yes, thank you,” you’re excused,” Sir George said.
Mr. Faulting was called next, and he crept up to the witness chair like a man who knew he was having a bad dream, but didn’t know how to get out of it. He admitted having been Andrea Maples’ night visitor. He was not very happy about it, and most of his answers were mumbles, despite Sir George’s constant admonitions to speak up. Andrea had, he informed the coroner’s court, invited him to meet her in the cottage at ten o’clock.
“What about her husband?” the coroner demanded.
“I asked her that,” Faulting said. “She laughed. She told me that he wouldn’t object; that I was free to ask him if I liked. I, uh, I didn’t speak with him.”
“No,” the coroner said, “I don’t imagine you did.”
Faulting was the last witness. The coroner reminded the jury that they were not to accuse any person of a crime, even if they thought there had been a crime; that was a job for the criminal courts. They were merely to determine cause of death. After a brief consultation, the jury returned a verdict of unlawful death.
“Thank you,” Sir George said. “You have done your duty. I assume,” he said, looking over at Sergeant Meeks, “that there is no need for me to suggest a course of action to the police.”
“No, sir,” Meeks told him. “Professor Maples will be bound over for trial at the assizes.”
Sir George nodded. “Quite right,” he said.
“Bah!” Holmes said to me in an undertone.
“You disagree?” I asked.
“I can think of a dozen ways Faulting could have pulled that trick,” he said. “That young man-Cramper-didn’t see Andrea Maples in the doorway, he saw a flash of something white.”
“Perhaps,” I said.
“Bah!” Holmes repeated.
When we left the building Miss Lucy came over to Holmes and pulled him away, talking to him in an earnest undertone. I walked slowly back to my rooms, trying to decide what to do. I disliked interfering with the authorities in their attempted search for justice, and I probably couldn’t prove what I knew to be true, but could I stand by and allow an innocent man to be convicted of murder? And Maples would surely be convicted if he came to trial. There was no real evidence against him, but he had the appearance of guilt, and that’s enough to convince nine juries out of ten.
About two hours later Holmes came over, his eyes shining. “Miss Lucy is a fine woman,” he told me.
“Really?” I said.
“We talked for a while about her sister. That is, she tried to talk about Andrea, but she kept breaking down and crying before she could finish a thought.”
“Not surprising,” I said.
“She asked me if I thought Professor Maples was guilty,” Holmes told me. “I said I was convinced he was not. She asked me if I thought he would be convicted if he came to trial. I thought I’d better be honest. I told her it seemed likely.”
“You told her true,” I commented.
“She is convinced of his innocence, even though it is her own sister who was killed. Many-most-people would allow emotion to override logic. And she wants to help him. She said, ‘Then I know what I must do,’ and she went off to see about hiring a lawyer.”
“She said that?” I asked.
“She did.”
“Holmes, think carefully. Did she say she was going to hire a lawyer?”
Holmes was momentarily startled at my question. “Well, let’s see. She said she knew what she must do, and I said he’s going to need the best lawyer and the best barrister around to clear himself of this, for all that we know he is not guilty.”
“And?”
“And then she said she would not allow him to be convicted. And she-well-she kissed me on the cheek, and she said, “Goodbye, Mr. Holmes, you have been a good friend.’ And she hurried off.”
“How long ago did she leave you?”
“Possibly an hour, perhaps a bit longer.”
I jumped to my feet. “Come, Holmes,” I said, “we must stop her.”