“I stood behind the door,” Pitt resumed. “When the butler was obliged to go behind the chair in order to reach Mr. Fetters’s head, I went out of the door and across the hall and in through the doorway opposite.” He stopped, allowing Juster time to react.
Now all the jurors were listening intently. No one moved. No one’s gaze wandered
“Did the butler call out after you?” Juster also chose his words with exactness.
“Not immediately,” Pitt answered. “I heard his voice from the library speaking in quite normal tones, then he seemed to realize I was not there, and came out to the landing and called me again.”
“So you deduced that he had not seen you leave?”
“Yes. I tried the experiment again, with our roles reversed. Crouched behind the chair, I could not see him leave.”
“I see.” Now there was satisfaction in Juster’s voice and he nodded very slightly. “And why did you go into the room opposite, Mr. Pitt?”
“Because the distance between the library door and the stairs is some twenty feet,” Pitt explained, seeing the stretch of landing again, the bright bars of sunlight from the end window. He could remember the red and yellow of the stained glass. “Had the butler rung the bell for assistance, I would almost certainly have met with someone coming up before I could have made my way out of the house.”
“Assuming you did not want to be seen?” Juster finished for him. “Which had you left rather ostentatiously some fifteen minutes earlier, and then returned through the side door, crept upstairs, and contrived to make murder look like an accident, you would …”
There were gasps and rustles around the room. One woman gave a muffled shriek.
Gleave was on his feet, his face scarlet. “My lord! This is outrageous! I …”
“Yes! Yes!” the judge agreed impatiently. “You know better than that, Mr. Juster. If I allow you such latitude, then I shall be obliged to do the same for Mr. Gleave, and you will not like that!”
Juster tried to look penitent, and did not remotely succeed. Pitt thought he had not tried very hard.
“Did you see anything unusual while you were in the room across the hall?” Juster enquired artlessly, turning gracefully back towards the jury. “What manner of room was it, by the way?” He raised his black eyebrows.
“A billiard room,” Pitt replied. “Yes, I saw that there was a very recent scar on the edge of the door, thin and curving upwards, just above the latch.”
“A curious place to damage a door,” Juster remarked. “Not possible while the door was closed, I should think?”
“No, only if it were open,” Pitt agreed. “Which would make playing at the table very awkward.”
Juster rested his hands on his hips. It was a curiously angular pose, and yet he looked at ease.
“So it was most likely to be caused by someone going in or coming out?”
Gleave was on his feet again, his face flushed. “As has been observed, it was awkward to play with the door open, surely that question answers itself, my lord? Someone scratched the open door with a billiard cue, precisely because, as Mr. Pitt has so astutely and uselessly pointed out, it was awkward.” He smiled broadly, showing perfect teeth.
There was complete silence in the courtroom.
Pitt glanced up at Adinett, who was sitting forward in the dock now, motionless.
Juster looked almost childlike in his innocence, except that his unusual face was not cast for such an expression. He looked up at Pitt as if he had not thought of such a thing until this instant.
“Did you enquire into that possibility, Superintendent?”
Pitt stared back at him. “I did. The housemaid who dusted and polished the room assured me that there had been no such mark there that morning, and no one had used the room since.” He hesitated. “The scar was raw wood. There was no polish in it, no wax or dirt.”
“You believed her?” Juster held up his hand, palm towards Gleave. “I apologize. Please do not answer that, Mr. Pitt. We shall ask the housemaid in due course, and the jury will decide for themselves whether she is an honest and competent person … and knows her job. Perhaps Mrs. Fetters, poor woman, can also tell us whether she was a good maid or not.”
There was a rumble of embarrassment, irritation and laughter from the court. The tension was broken. For Gleave to have spoken now would have been a waste of time, and the knowledge of that was dark in his face, heavy brows drawn down.
The judge drew in his breath, then let it out again without speaking.
“Then what did you do, Superintendent?” Juster said lightly.
“I asked the butler if Mr. Adinett had carried a stick of any description,” Pitt replied. Then, before Gleave could object, he added, “He did. The footman confirmed it.”
Juster smiled. “I see. Thank you. Now, before my honorable friend asks you, I will ask you myself. Did you find anyone who had overheard any quarrel, any harsh words or differences of opinion, between Mr. Adinett and Mr. Fetters?”
“I did ask, and no one had,” Pitt admitted, remembering ruefully how very hard he had tried. Even Mrs. Fetters, who had come to believe her husband had been murdered, could think of no instance when he and Adinett had quarreled, and no other reason at all why Adinett should have wished him harm. It was as utterly bewildering as it was horrible.
“Nevertheless, from these slender strands, you formed the professional opinion that Martin Fetters had been murdered, and by John Adinett?” Juster pressed, his eyes wide, his voice smooth. He held up long slender hands, ticking off the points. “The moving of a library armchair, three books misplaced on the shelves, a scuff mark on a carpet and a piece of fluff caught in the crack of a heel, and a fresh scratch on a billiard room door? On this you would see a man convicted of the most terrible of crimes?”
“I would see him tried for it,” Pitt corrected, feeling the color hot in his face. “Because I believe that his murder of Martin Fetters is the only explanation that fits all the facts. I believe he murdered him in a sudden quarrel and then arranged it to look like—”
“My lord!” Gleave said loudly, again on his feet, his arms held up.
“No,” the judge said steadily. “Superintendent Pitt is an expert in the matter of evidence of crime. That has been established over his twenty years in the police force.” He smiled very bleakly, a sad, wintry humor. “It is for the jury to decide for themselves whether he is an honest and competent person.”
Pitt glanced over at the jury, and saw the foreman nod his head very slightly. His face was smooth, calm, his eyes steady.
A woman in the gallery laughed and then clapped her hands over her mouth.
Gleave’s face flushed a dull purple.
Juster bowed, then waved his hand to Pitt to continue.
“To look like an accident,” Pitt finished. “I believe he then left the library, locking the door from the outside. He went downstairs, said good-bye to Mrs. Fetters and was shown out by the butler, and observed to leave by the footman also.”
The foreman of the jury glanced at the man beside him, their eyes met, and then they both returned their attention to Pitt.
Pitt went on with his description of events as he believed them.
“Adinett went outside, down the road a hundred feet or so, then came back through the side entrance to the garden. A man answering his general description was seen at exactly that time. He went in through the side door of the house, upstairs to the library again, opened it, and immediately rang the bell for the butler.”
There was utter silence in the courtroom. Every eye was on Pitt. It was almost as if everyone had held their breath.