Gory Dew (Mrs. Bradley) Page 13

  “Thank you, Doctor,” said Mapp. “And did you form any opinion as to the nature of the comparatively heavy object to which you refer?”

  “I cannot be specific. The nature of the wound suggests a rounded object with, possibly, a reinforced base.”

  “Could it have been a boot?”

  “Not unless it was of a very heavy type—an Army boot, say, or the kind worn by mountaineers, but, even so . . .”

  “It couldn’t have been inflicted by a kick from someone wearing boxing boots, then?” put in Lestrange.

  “Hardly. In fact, I would definitely say that it could not.”

  “Have you ever seen and handled boxing boots, Doctor?” asked Mapp.

  “Good heavens, yes! They are extremely light and very pliable footwear. Unless the victim had a congenital aneurysm before he was attacked, a kick, however violent, from a boxing boot, could hardly kill him.”

  “It would be of great help, then, Doctor, if you could in any way suggest the nature of the instrument by which the deceased met his death. Could it have been the result of a fall? He was found, as you know, in a stone-quarry.”

  “It was not, in my opinion, the result of a fall. In such a case I should have expected a significantly shaped depressed fracture of the vault of the skull, indicating the nature of the object on which he struck his head when he fell. I should also have expected, considering the position of the wound, that he would have broken an outflung arm, as well as fracturing his skull, and this was not the case.”

  “But you are not prepared to hazard an opinion as to the nature of the object which struck him or by which he was attacked?”

  “An opinion—no.”

  “Then could I suggest—it is, of course, clearly understood that you commit yourself to nothing—could I suggest a bottle, probably a full one?”

  “A bottle?”

  “A bottle, Doctor. It is, as I said, merely a suggestion, and such a tentative one that I have been careful not to mention it sooner.”

  “I suppose it could have been a bottle, yes, but—”

  “Thank you, Doctor. You are satisfied as to the time of death, of course?”

  “When I examined the body, it had been dead for approximately forty-eight hours, possibly a little more.”

  “And you examined it on the second of March, so the ‘little more’ sounds likely. Thank you again, Doctor.”

  Then Smetton was called. He agreed with Mapp that, as landlord of an inn, he must have a considerable number of bottles of various shapes and sizes among his stock.

  “How often do you check them?” Mapp enquired.

  “Once a month in the off season, like it would be between October and April, sir.”

  “When did you last do any stocktaking?”

  “Feb. twenty-seven.”

  “The day on which your guests departed (somewhat unexpectedly, I believe) for London?”

  “That’s right, sir. I thought to have put the stocktaking off until the following week, sir, thinking we were too busy, with four them stopping in the house . . .”

  “And then, of course, you were expecting the lady,” put in young Lestrange, “and had been making preparations to receive her.”

  “The lady? What lady?” demanded Mapp, taken unawares.

  “A friend of Mr. Gorinsky’s, so I was told.”

  “Oh, well, that has nothing to do with this court,” said Mapp, very hastily indeed.

  “All the same, what really made you change your mind about the stocktaking?” pursued Lestrange, giving the witness a very sharp glance.

  “I hardly know, sir.” Smetton looked distressfully at Mapp.

  “It couldn’t have been because you wanted to be sure you were not any bottles short, of course?” went on Lestrange.

  “Well, sir,” said the witness, “in fairness to the four gents, I did want to be quite sure, if you see what I mean, sir.”

  “Quite. And were you a bottle short?”

  “There was a Dubonnet I couldn’t account for,” confessed the witness. “It was easy enough to check, because, until I get the summer trade, which is mostly tourists, sir, I don’t stock Dubonnet, there being no call for it locally, so I knew I had only three bottles in stock, and when I come to check, there was only two.”

  “And what did you think about that?”

  “Couldn’t make nothing of it, sir. None of the gents ever touched the stuff, as far as I was aware. Mr. Gorinsky drank whisky—Scotch, sir—Mr. Gracechurchstreet, he preferred Bourbon, which I get in for American visitors, that and Canadian rye, and Mr. Maverick, he liked the Irish blend, so, except for the Scotch, which I always stock, I had got in the Bourbon and the Irish whiskey specially for the two gents, and I could account for what was left. The other two, Mr. Scouse and Mr. Biddle, they were beer drinkers, and the young fellow over there, he didn’t have hardly nothing but bitter lemon or barley water, on account of keeping his weight down. My other regulars was beer drinkers, too, so I can’t make out, not for the life of me I can’t, what become of that bottle of Dubonnet.”

  “Not your wife, I suppose . . . ?” suggested Lestrange.

  “Guinness was hers, sir, half of Guinness mid-morning and again in the evening, and her cousin, as worked for us, the same. Never took nothing else, except it might be a port and lemon of a Sunday night, but that was only very occasional.”

  “Did you search for the missing bottle, or ask any questions about it?”

  “I had a good look round, and I double-checked my lists, sir. As for asking any questions, well, it wouldn’t be for the best, sir, customers taking offence, if you see what I mean, sir.”

  “Customers, I take it, would not include the lad Holley? Now, Mr. Smetton, perhaps you would give us your version of what happened at the Swan Revived on the morning of February twenty-seventh and subsequently,” said Mapp.

  “Yes, sir. The party had breakfast as usual, well not quite as usual, now I come to think, because Mr. Gorinsky wasn’t down, so I thought maybe he was upstairs with the lady—”

  “Never mind the lady, Mr. Smetton. What happened after breakfast?”

  “Well, sir, Mr. Gorinsky come in by the side door and joined the others in the sitting-room we give them, and then, after about an hour, they all went up to the ballroom, which they had the use of as a gym, and I heard their feet pounding about, as usual, and then I heard a fracas.”

  “Did you go and investigate?”

  “Not me, sir, no. It were no business of mine, as I could see. There was shouting and rampaging, and then Mr. Maverick, he come pounding down the stairs and calls for brandy.”

  “I understand that Mr. Maverick—known to this court as Clancy—was not in residence at the inn.”

  “That’s right, sir. Him and Mr. Gracechurchstreet was stopping somewhere in Morchester, though as to exactly where I never enquired, it being none of my business. They used to drop in every morning to have a drink and watch young Dave at work. They come in regular just as soon as I opened, and went off again at half twelve.”

  “So, when the disturbance began, they were both in the gymnasium, but they had not been at breakfast?” said young Lestrange.

  “That’s right, sir.”

  “Did Mr. Clancy say why the brandy was needed?” asked Mapp, not relishing the interruption but obtaining no support from the Bench.

  “He said: ‘That young fool has been and gone and done it’—or words to that effect, sir. I said, ‘Done what?’ He said as how that Dave had tooken umbrage—or words to that effect—and had knocked Mr. Gorinsky cold. So I poured out a stiffish brandy and give it to him in a big glass so he wouldn’t spill none going up the stairs—him having what you might call an unsteady sort of a hand, sir, what with the shock, and up he goes, and then I heard another sort of fracas which I thought was on the stairs up to the attics, and then mother—that’s to say, my missus, Mrs. Smetton, sir—come out of the kitchen into the bar and says to me to know what’s going on. ‘Sounds like that lot are murd
ering each other,’ she said.”

  “Did she use those actual words? ‘Murdering one another’?”

  “That she did, sir. Then she says ‘Aren’t you going to do anything about it? This is a respectable house, and you know I never wanted them here in the first place,’ she said. So I said, ‘Look, love, it’s not up to me to interfere. I don’t want to get mixed up,’ I said. ‘Best leave them to sort it out for themselves. It’s that boy,’ I said. ‘I been watching him some days now,’ I said, ‘and he’s brooding. That’s what he’s doing—brooding. You can’t trust these teenagers nowadays,’ I said, ‘Drink and dope and sex and ton-up motor-bikes,’ I said. ‘They don’t know what they’re doing half the time.’ ”

  “So you took no part in the affair. What did you do?”

  “Stopped in the bar, sir, same as usual. Then, after a bit, I heard a car drive off. ‘That’s Mr. Maverick’s little bus,’ I says to myself. Then the next thing I know, Mr. Gracechurchstreet, he comes into the bar and says, ‘Plans has been changed,’ he says. ‘We’ve had a sudden call to London. Mr. Gorinsky is still very shaky,’ he says, ‘but he’s gone off ahead of us to sort things out, and we’re to pay the bill and follow immediate.’ ”

  “ ‘But what about the next fortnight?’ I says. ‘I’ve had you living here at great inconvenience,’ I says, ‘and you’re due to stay another fortnight. I’ve got it all down in the book,’ I says. Well, he turned very nasty at that, and the others, Maverick and Scouse, they come down the stairs and all three on ’em my side of the counter and looking like starting something if I made any objections, so I charged ’em what they owed me and added on the Dubonnet, which they never queried, and called it a day. Then they went out the saloon bar door with Biddle and the lad Holley and I heard the big car drive off, and that’s as much as I know.”

  “So you saw Smith, Clancy, and Scouse leave with Holley and Biddle, but not Gorinsky. Is that right?” asked Lestrange.

  “On account of the back stairs, sir, which lead to the side door into the yard and the car park. I took it Mr. Gorinsky had slipped out that way, it being the quickest way to where Mr. Maverick used to leave his car, though what he would want with it—”

  “Your wife and her cousin, where were they?”

  “In the kitchen, getting dinner ready, sir.”

  “Ah, yes. Which way does the kitchen window face?”

  “Towards the yard, sir.”

  “The yard which was used by your guests as a car-park?”

  “Yes, sir, that’s right.”

  “So when Mr. Gorinsky drove off in Mr. Maverick’s car, one or both of the ladies could have seen him?”

  “If they’d happened to look out of the window.”

  “Isn’t it natural to glance out of a window when you hear a car start up?”

  “It would depend on what you were doing at the moment, I suppose, sir.”

  “Very true. Now you said earlier on in your evidence that Mr. Gorinsky was not at breakfast with the others, and that that was not usual. You then said that you thought he might be upstairs with the lady whom my learned colleague dismissed so summarily from the scene.”

  “That’s right, sir.”

  “Later on you said that after breakfast Mr. Gorinsky came in by the side door.”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you actually see him come in?”

  “No, sir, not to say I actually seen him.”

  “What makes you think he did come in that way, then?”

  “Well, sir, the only other door as he could have used was the door what leads into the bar, sir, and I know he never used that, because I was in the bar from breakfast time onwards and I would be bound to have seen him come in.”

  “In other words, you cannot say, of your own knowledge, that Mr. Gorinsky did go out early that morning, and was out while the others were breakfasting?”

  “Well, no, sir, but when the lady wasn’t at breakfast neither, nor was she nor Gorinsky upstairs when Daffy took up the early tea, I concluded as how Mr. Gorinsky had drove the lady to the station and that’s how she come to be missing, and him not joining the rest of ’em at the table.”

  “You say ‘drove the lady to the station’. Did you hear the car drive off, then, before breakfast?”

  “Not as I recollect, sir.”

  “Or come back?”

  “No, sir, but I might not have heard either, being as I was in the bar.”

  “Quite so. And neither your wife nor her cousin mentioned anything about it?”

  “No, sir, not as I remember. I don’t pay all that attention to women’s chatter.”

  “Perhaps you are wise. Let us leave the point. It is immaterial, so we will return to the time when you claim you did hear Mr. Maverick’s car drive off. Are you quite certain about this?”

  “Why—why, yes, sir. It was some little time after I heard the fracas upstairs.”

  “And Mr. Gorinsky was driving?”

  “Well, he must have been, sir, else how did he get to the stone quarries?”

  “Ah, that is the point, is it not? You see, Mr. Smetton, if we could be sure that he was driving, we could also be sure that he was alive when he left your inn. On the other hand, if he was not driving, it is possible that his murderer was conveying his body to the quarry where it was found, and that the murderer could not have been the defendant because he was locked in his room at the time.”

  “But Gorinsky was driving! He must have been, sir!”

  “Why are you so certain?” It was clear that the witness was anything but certain. Moreover, the inspector was turning purple. Lestrange pursued his advantage. “You heard what you term ‘the fracas’ upstairs?”

  “Yes.”

  “You testify in support of Mr. Maverick’s evidence that he came down to the bar for brandy?”

  “Yes.”

  “You agree that you heard my client, Mr. Holley, being forced upstairs to his room?”

  “Well, it sounded like that.”

  “And you have heard other witnesses agree that he was locked up there until the party, with the exception of Mr. Gorinsky, left your inn?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you can bring no evidence to refute that?”

  “Nobody asked me, but, anyway, no, I can’t.”

  “So I repeat that if Mr. Gorinsky was driven off or drove himself away from the inn in Mr. Maverick’s car, and my client was locked in his room when this happened and was then in the company of others until the party reached London, he could not have had any hand in Gorinsky’s death, could he? And,” went on Lestrange, without giving the witness time to collect his thoughts, “that brings us back to the lady whom you declare on oath that you allowed into the inn at or about midnight. I submit, Your Worship,” said Lestrange, addressing the Bench, “that this lady could have driven Gorinsky, dead or alive, to the stone-quarry, and that she could then have taken the car to London where it was found.”

  “That’s if there ever was such a lady,” said Mapp. “Personally, I think she’s a myth.”

  “Then how do you think the body got into the stone-quarry and the car to a London suburb?” retorted Lestrange.

  “The inspector’s evidence covered that, I thought.”

  “I think, perhaps, we had better adjourn for lunch,” said the chairman. “The court will be in session again at a quarter-past two precisely.”

  The lady, however, remained a bone of contention. The recalled witnesses denied, with stolid obstinacy, that she had ever arrived at the inn. Scouse went so far as to admit that he and Gorinsky had gone to Morchester station to meet her train, but claimed that she had not materialized. Gracechurchstreet and Maverick could not testify one way or the other, since they had not been staying at the inn, and Dave and Harry claimed to have been in bed by the time Scouse and Gorinsky had returned from the station. Smetton, pressed hard, began to hedge.

  “Well, how many persons did you admit to your premises that night?” asked Lestrange.

>   “Well, actually, two, sir. I thought at first that one was the lady, and that she come in with Scouse while Gorinsky was putting the car away, but, come to think of it, there wasn’t a light at the side door—I let ’em in by the side door as it leads to the back stairs, sir—so I suppose I must have made a mistake.”

  “My information is that you told a witness, whom I may call later, that one of them was a lady. Did you speak to them?”

  “I just said, ‘Oh, here you are, then. The room is all ready.’ And Scouse said, ‘Good work, matey. Just leave the door. We’ll shoot the bolts.’ ”

  “I suggest that what Scouse really said was, ‘Gorinsky is putting the car away. He’ll shoot the bolts when he comes in,’ ” said Lestrange.

  “The so-called lady did not speak to you? You didn’t hear a woman’s voice?” asked Mapp, thinking it well to intervene.

  “No, sir, I never heard her speak.”

  “Well, it doesn’t sound very satisfactory,” remarked the magistrate. “Had you been to bed before you let them in?”

  “Yes, and asleep, sir.”

  “But you knew they would have to be admitted?”

  “Well, no, sir, me not knowing quite when to expect them, and asking them particular not to hammer on the side door to wake my wife up, her being a very light sleeper, I’d left the door on the latch.”

  “But you did think that Scouse was accompanied by a woman, and that he asked you to leave the door unbolted for Gorinsky, didn’t you?” said Lestrange.

  “I believe I did say that at one point, sir, but I was a bit mazed with sleep, I daresay, and I could be mistook, I suppose, either way. I haven’t much recollection, thinking nothing of it at the time.”

  “Mr. Scouse seems quite clear that he was with Mr. Gorinsky at the side door when you opened it, and that you retired and went back up the stairs, leaving the two of them to follow,” said Mapp, “and you now agree that, being suddenly aroused from slumber, as you were, and expecting a lady, as you were, you rather hazily thought that she had arrived, but realized afterwards that you had been mistaken?”