Dead Mrs Stratton (Jumping Jenny)

CHAPTER XIV INQUEST ON A VILE BODY

THE coroner shuffled his papers. "Well, gentlemen, that being so, we'll proceed to hear the evidence. Mr. Stratton, will you . . . Mr. David Stratton I should have said. Yes. Now, Mr. Stratton, I quite realize that this is a very painful occasion for you. Very painful indeed. You may be sure that we won't trouble you more than necessary, but it is my duty to ask you a few questions. Now let me see. Yes. Perhaps the best thing would be for you to tell us exactly what led up to this distressing event, yes."

Roger held his breath. He need not have been alarmed. David gave his evidence clearly and without faltering. He spoke in much the same abrupt, almost jerky tones as those with which he had first answered the questions of Inspector Crane, but now they appeared nothing but a cloak for nervousness.

The coroner was as kind to him as possible and led him in a way which, Roger considered, might have given a suspicious superintendent of police some pain. (Ronald's call on the coroner the previous evening had been an excellent move.) After telling his story, David was asked a few questions about his own movements, but only, it seemed, with the object of finding out why he had not followed his wife out of the ballroom and whether, had he done so shortly afterwards, it would not have been possible to avert the tragedy; to which David frankly replied that his wife very often behaved in an odd way, and he had no anticipation at all that this performance in particular might have serious consequences. As for ringing up the police station later, he had learned a long time ago from Dr. Chalmers that his wife could not be held to be always strictly accountable for her actions, and being worried over her disappearance had thought it best to take this precaution; he had never done so before, because the occasion had never arisen. Altogether, Roger thought admiringly, David could not have carried greater conviction had he been innocent.

"Yes," clucked the elderly little coroner. "Quite so. This is very distressing for you, Mr. Stratton, I know, but I am bound to ask you. With regard to what you say about your wife's behaviour at times ..."

David gave instances, shortly and with obvious reluctance. Mrs. Stratton had been subject to profound fits of depression; she was accustomed occasionally, in company, to drink for effect, though it was impossible to call her a drunkard; she often lost her temper over trifles and would then rave and storm in a quite unbalanced way; she would worry for days over the most insignificant things; and so on.

When at last David was released, Roger felt that the worst was over. And evidently the police had not asked for an adjournment, so perhaps no surprises might be expected after all.

Ronald Stratton followed his brother, and he too gave nothing away. Confirming David's account of Ena's behaviour at the party and her loss of temper over their horseplay, which Ronald manfully admitted to have been mistaken with so touchy a subject, he told of the anxiety about her disappearance which had resulted in the prolonged search, and of the finding of the body. He spoke with sincerity and frankness and obviously created an excellent impression on the jury.

Questioned by the coroner, he not only agreed with David's estimate of the dead woman's mental instability, but conveyed the impression, without actually saying so, that David had been loyally minimizing this lack of balance, which in reality was a great deal more pronounced than he had suggested. He added further examples of her strange behaviour.

Celia Stratton confirmed this and added that when staying with David she had frequently been distressed to hear his wife shrieking at him in their bedroom till all hours of the morning, like a mad woman.

"Like a mad woman?" repeated the coroner deprecatingly. "You're sure that isn't too strong an expression, Miss Stratton?"

"Not in the least," Celia retorted firmly. "If you'd heard her, you'd understand. She used almost to yowl, one might say, as if she'd completely lost control of herself."

"Dear me," said the coroner sadly. "Very painful indeed."

Roger privately thought that Celia had overdone it a trifle, but there was no doubt that the idea must be getting home to the jury that Ena Stratton had been anything but normal. As Celia was about to leave the stand, the coroner added one more question: "If you realized that your sister - in - law was really so seriously unbalanced as this, I wonder you did not advise your brother to consult an alienist about her, Miss Stratton."

"But I did!" Celia retorted indignantly. "Of course I did. My elder brother and I both wanted him to do so. But he said he'd already consulted Dr. Chalmers, who had advised him that though his wife was unbalanced to some extent it couldn't be considered pronounced enough to warrant sending her to a home just yet, though that might come later."

"I see, I see," hastily agreed the coroner. "Yes, we can hear all about that from Dr. Chalmers himself, yes."

Roger smiled and blessed the ways of coroners' courts. In a court of law, governed by the rules of evidence, Celia's last statement would not have been allowed even to reach completion; and it was a useful one. But not perhaps, Roger reflected, for Dr. Chalmers, who stood a chance of getting hauled over the coals for negligence.

Roger also noticed, with considerable interest, that so far not a word had been said about chairs.

He himself was called next. Asked to do so, he described glibly enough the part he had played in the scene that followed the discovery of the body. "In consequence of a communication made to me by Mr. Williamson, I called Mr. Ronald Stratton quietly out of the next room and accompanied him up to the roof, followed by Mr. Williamson."

"Yes. Just a moment, Mr. Sheringham. What was this communication that Mr. Williamson made to you?"

"He told me that he had found Mrs. Stratton," amplified Roger, who had thought he had achieved rather nicely the official phraseology.

He continued his story. "And I should like to say, Mr. Coroner," he said unctuously, "that I take full responsibility for the cutting down of the body before the police arrived."

"Of course. Quite so. Yes. You had naturally to make certain that life was extinct. Of course. Yes, Mr. Sheringham. And then?" Roger went on. Not a word was said about chairs.

"Quite so. Your experience, of which we have all of course heard, was of great service. We can be sure that everything was done in a perfectly regular and proper manner. Yes. Now, Mr. Sheringham, you have heard the evidence that has been given regarding the state of Mrs. Stratton's mind. Did you yourself notice anything unusual in her behaviour?"

"Yes. My attention had been called to Mrs. Stratton earlier in the evening, in consequence of overhearing a remark made by Mr. Williamson to Mr. Ronald Stratton." Roger paused, provocatively.

"I think you may tell us what the remark was, Mr. Sheringham. We are not bound by the strict laws of evidence here, you know."

"Mr. Williamson said: 'Is your sister - in - law mad, Ronald?'"

Laughter in court. "Ah!" said the coroner, not without a smile himself. "Indeed. That is very interesting. We will hear from Mr. Williamson himself about that. And that caused you to observe Mrs. Stratton closely, Mr. Sheringham?"

"It did. With the result that I considered that Mr. Williamson's question, though put in a somewhat exaggerated form, was not without foundation."

"What did you see that led you to that conclusion?"

"I noticed then that Mrs. Stratton was evidently suffering from a mild form of exhibitionism. She wished to be attracting notice all the time." Roger cited the climbing on the beam and the Apache dance, a reference to which he had been anxious to make, and added a reference to his conversation with Mrs. Stratton on the roof, in the course of which she had threatened suicide.

"I'm afraid, however, that I attached no importance to this threat. I put it down as being part of her general desire to impress."

"Are you still of this opinion?"

"No, I think now that I was mistaken. Not so much from what did actually happen later, as that I believe now that Mrs. Stratton was actually more unbalanced than I suspected, and so was ready to carry her mania of being important to still greater lengths."

"You think, then, that she would even carry it to the length of suicide?"

"In sufficiently picturesque circumstances," said Roger grimly, "yes, I do."

He was allowed to stand down. Still not a word about chairs. Roger was really surprised. He had expected without fail a question or two regarding the position of the chair when the body was being cut down, or at the very least its presence, but the questions had not come. His uneasiness began to return. Were the police keeping something up their sleeves, after all, concerning that chair?

Mr. Williamson was the next witness, and Roger regarded him with an apprehensive eye. He had had no time that morning to rehearse Mr. Williamson again in his part, and beyond a hurried injunction to refer to Mrs. Lefroy if his memory failed him in any detail of the chair - wiping, had spoken no more to him about it since the previous evening. And it was quite too much to expect that Mr. Williamson also would be allowed to get away with it in silence.

Roger remembered now that Mr. Williamson's reply to this injunction had been a little curious. What had he said? Something about it being all right, he had had it out with Lilian. Roger felt still more apprehensive. What on earth had Mr. Williamson meant by that? Roger had been careless in not finding out at once. Perhaps devastatingly careless. Had Mrs. Williamson got hold of her husband and undone all the good work by informing him that he had never wiped a chair for Mrs. Lefroy at all? But how, for that matter, could Mrs. Williamson possibly know that he had not?

In the meantime Mr. Williamson's evidence had been proceeding. "How did I find the body, eh? Well, you see, we were all looking, and I wondered if anyone had looked on the roof, so I went up there. And then I found her, you see."

"But what called your attention to her? I understand that other people had already searched on the roof."

"Oh, well, I don't suppose they'd bumped into her. That's what I did, you see. I bumped into her. Eh? Yes. And she seemed a bit heavy for a straw figure - and that," said Mr. Williamson, also achieving the correct phraseology, "aroused my suspicions."

The coroner took him briefly through the resulting alarm and the attempt to render first aid, and then, reverting to the question to Ronald Stratton which Mr. Sheringham had overheard, asked Mr. Williamson what had prompted it.

"Well, I'd just been talking to her, you see," said Mr. Williamson uneasily. "I mean, she'd just been talking to me."

"And what had been the nature of the conversation?"

"Why, she'd been talking about her soul," explained Mr. Williamson, his slight diffidence giving place to indignation. "Eh? Popping down double whiskies nineteen to the dozen, and talking about her soul, and whether it wouldn't be better to put her head in a gas oven and finish it all off, What? Well!"

Under cover of the resulting laughter Roger, who was sitting between Ronald Stratton and Colin, whispered to the latter:

"That was a good touch. He couldn't have done that better if we'd rehearsed him. Carried conviction."

"Let's hope he says his real lesson as well," Colin whispered back.

The coroner, quelling the laughter indulgently, questioned Mr. Williamson further about the conversation and gently underlined the undoubted fact that Mrs. Stratton had been contemplating suicide even before the scene in the ballroom.

"He's made up his mind all right," Ronald Stratton whispered happily to Roger. "I thought he had, last night."

Then at last came the series of questions which Roger had been awaiting.

"Now tell me, Mr. Williamson. When you went back to guard the roof after the body had been taken downstairs, did anyone join you up there?"

"Yes, that's right," said Mr. Williamson affably. "Mrs. Lefroy did."

"Yes. And what happened?"

"What happened? Well, I told her, you know, and showed her the gallows, and the end of the rope, and all that."

"Yes. And then?"

"Eh? Oh, she came over queer. Is that what you mean? She felt a bit faint, I suppose. Women do sometimes," explained Mr. Williamson with kindness.

"Yes. Quite understandable. And when Mrs. Lefroy felt faint?"

"Well, she pulled up a chair or something, and I wiped it for her with my handkerchief," said Mr. Williamson bravely.

"Yes. Why did you do that?"

"Because she asked me to. Hadn't any idea I oughtn't to have done it," mumbled Mr. Williamson contritely. "Very sorry, and all that."

"It didn't occur to you that it was the chair on which Mrs. Stratton might have stood?"

"No, I'm afraid it didn't. Eh? Never occurred to me, I'm afraid. No."

"Well, perhaps you mustn't be blamed very much for that, in the circumstances, though it's a safe rule not to touch anything at all in the vicinity of any sudden death."

"Eh? Oh, I see. No. Yes, I mean."

"In any case, where was this chair when you saw Mrs. Lefroy pick it up?"

"Where was it?" repeated Mr. Williamson vaguely. "Oh, somewhere in the middle of the roof, you know."

Roger did not alter his position. Only a slight tightening of the muscles all over his body evidenced the emotion that was filling him. He felt as if the eyes of everyone in court were staring at him, and not by look or movement must he give himself away.

Colin was less sensitive. In a voice which Roger shudderingly felt must be raucously audible all over the court, he whispered: "Ach, the madman! That's just torn it." Mr. Williamson, it seemed, had not learned his lesson after all.

Mrs. Lefroy and Celia were sitting together on the other side of the court. Celia had insisted that it would be unwise for Mrs. Lefroy and Ronald to sit together. Roger now cursed the decision, for he was unable to lean across Ronald and whisper new instructions. All he could do was to try frantically to catch Mrs. Lefroy's eye.

But Mrs. Lefroy's eye refused to be caught. She was looking intently at Mr. Williamson with an expression of nothing but intelligent interest. Roger could only hope desperately that the interest was intelligent enough. If Mrs. Lefroy did not contradict Mr. Williamson's ghastly blunder, and sustain her contradiction, then everything must be up with the case for suicide.

Roger hardly heard the few questions which remained for Mr. Williamson to answer, though he did notice in a dull way that the coroner not only refrained from any sort of comment regarding the position of the chair, but asked nothing more about it at all. Roger would much rather that he had probed. Silence was too ominous. It could only mean that the coroner had been primed on the point by the police, and the inquest would be adjourned after all. And yet the odd thing was, Roger now remembered, that the superintendent had not asked Mr. Williamson anything about the position of the chair either; all he had appeared to be concerned about yesterday in the ballroom was the wiping of it. The position, which was far the more important matter, had simply not been mentioned. What the devil were the police up to?

And yet Roger in all fairness could hardly blame Mr. Williamson. It had been impossible to impress on him yesterday that the chair had been lying under the gallows, except by inference and more or less casually. But Roger had mentioned it, even if casually, so many times that he was sure it had sunk in. Well, it had not sunk in. And now everything depended on Mrs. Lefroy. She at any rate would have the intelligence to realize what, after all, had only been hinted to her, too.

"Mrs. Lefroy," called a voice from somewhere. Roger held his breath.

The coroner looked at his notes. Superintendent Jamieson, who had a chair just behind him, came forward and whispered something in his ear. The coroner nodded.

"Yes. Now, Mrs. Lefroy, will you tell me what happened after Mr. Williamson had shown you where the body had been found?"

Mrs. Lefroy had given very brief confirmation of the main events of the evening, but not having spoken once during the whole party to Ena Stratton had been unable to help in more personal matters. "Yes, certainly," she said, in a calm, clear voice, and went on to perjure herself gallantly on behalf of her fiance's brother.

"It was a great shock to me, and I felt very upset. I felt faint and wanted to sit down. There was a chair lying on the roof near, and I picked it up. I was wearing white velvet gloves, and I saw that the chair had marked them. I thought it might be smuts, on the roof. I was wearing a white satin dress, so I asked Mr. Williamson to wipe the chair for me before I sat down on it, and he did so. I understand now that the chair shouldn't have been touched, but I didn't think of that at the time."

"Yes. You heard no doubt the remark I made to Mr. Williamson on that point. It might, in a different case, be very serious indeed, you know."

"Yes, I see that now," agreed Mrs. Lefroy contritely.

"And this chair that you picked up. It was lying on its side, then?"

"Yes, it was lying on its side, on the roof."

"Whereabouts on the roof?"

"I should think," said Mrs. Lefroy brightly, "somewhere about the middle of the roof."

'Oh, my heaven!' groaned Roger inwardly to his immortal soul and buried his head in his hands.

"If you're called," whispered Roger feverishly to Colin, "say the chair was under the gallows when you came up on the roof. Never mind about the explaining. Say that!"

"I will not," Colin whispered back. "And have us all landed for perjury and heaven knows what? No, I will not."

"Mr. Nicolson!" came the voice of doom.

"But your efforts at first aid elicited no response?"

"No, none."

"No. And then?"

"I went down to keep the women in the ball - room so that they shouldn't see the body as Mr. Stratton and Mr. Sheringham carried it downstairs."

"Yes, exactly. An admirable precaution. Now when you went up to the roof, Mr. Nicolson, did you notice a chair lying there?"

"Yes."

"Where was it?"

"It was about in a line between the gallows and the door onto the roof, but perhaps rather nearer the gallows than the door."

"I see. Did anything in particular cause you to look at it, or did you just casually notice it?"

"I didn't notice it at first. I stumbled over it. That's how I remember it being there."

"Oh, indeed? You stumbled over it?"

"Yes. As a matter of fact I barked my shin on it."

"Really? Is that so? Perhaps you would show me the place? I'm a medical man myself, you know, and . . ."

"Oh, but it's nothing." Colin came round the table and solemnly pulled up his trouser leg; the coroner as solemnly examined the slight scar thus displayed.

"I see. Yes. Nothing very serious, as you say. Still, it's advisable always to treat a wound with proper care, however slight it may appear. Yes. This chair, then - how far would you estimate its distance from the gallows?"

"About twelve to fifteen feet."

At last the coroner came out in the open. "Was it too far, in your opinion, from the gallows, for Mrs. Stratton to have kicked it there when she - er - if she launched herself into eternity?"

"Yes."

"Thank you, Mr. Nicolson. That is all. Eh, what's that? What? The doctors want . . . Yes, very well, very well. I'll take the medical evidence next. Dr. ... let me see, yes, Dr. Chalmers first, please."

Colin sat down again, quite calmly, next to Roger.

"I suppose you know," Roger whispered savagely, "that you've hanged David Stratton - nothing more nor less than hanged him?"

The evidence of all three doctors was flawless. Dr. Chalmers and Dr. Mitchell both agreed that, death must have taken place very soon after Mrs. Stratton left the ballroom, perhaps within a few minutes, almost certainly not more than half an hour; Dr. Bryce had no doubt at all that the bruises on the body could have been caused, and he appeared to take it for granted that they had been caused, by the very violent Apache dance in which, he understood, Mrs. Stratton had indulged with Mr. Ronald Stratton. It was quite evident to Roger, listening moodily, that the three doctors had had a conference last night, at which the ideas he himself had been at pains to plant in the mind of Dr. Mitchell had borne unanimous fruit.

Lovely words and phrases, such as "ego - mania," "alcoholic depression," "acute melancholia," "suicidal subject," "post - mortem staining," filled the admiring courtroom.

Mrs. Stratton had been as mad as a hatter, and the doctors did not hesitate to say so. Unfortunately, however, they were equally firmly agreed that it would have been totally impossible to certify her or put her under restraint in any way except with her own consent. And mad though she had been, she had not been as mad as that. Not a single awkward note marred the excellent doctors' discourse.

But Roger found small solace in his foresight. Little good all that was now, when Williamson, Mrs. Lefroy, and Colin between them had taken his beautiful case for suicide and torn it into little shreds under his nose.

Well, he had done his best for David Stratton. The man had deserved a second chance, and Roger had given him one. Anything that happened now must be his own responsibility.

The coroner was mumbling something. ". . . one more witness, before we go on to the police evidence, with which I shall conclude this inquiry. Mrs. . . . yes, Mrs. Williamson, please."

Roger looked up. He had not expected Mrs. Williamson to be called; she had played so small a part in the proceedings. What could they want her for? Just confirmatory evidence about the party, no doubt; though goodness knew they had had enough of that, one would have thought, already.

"I do not propose to ask you any questions about the earlier part of the evening, Mrs. Williamson. I think we are quite clear on that. I want you to tell the jury just one thing: Did you go up on Mr. Stratton's roof at a certain time that night?"

"Yes."

Roger stiffened. 'My heavens!' he thought, appalled, 'she saw him do it!"

"What time was that?"

"Just after Dr. Chalmers and Dr. Mitchell had gone."

Roger looked at Colin. "What on earth . . ." he whispered. Colin shrugged his shoulders.

"Yes. That would be just about an hour after Mrs. Stratten had left the ballroom, would it not?"

"I think so, yes."

"Yes. Did you go up for any particular reason?"

"No. I just wanted to get away from people for a bit. I wanted to be alone, in the night air."

"Yes, yes. Of course. Very understandable. Now will you explain very carefully what you did on the roof, Mrs. Williamson, if you please?"

Roger and Colin again exchanged glances of surprise.

"I stood for a minute or two, enjoying the cool air; and then I climbed up the ladder onto the upper roof. I ..."

"Yes. Just one minute, please, Mrs. Williamson. I think I had better explain to you, gentlemen - we shall get it in evidence later, from Superintendent Jamieson, but I think I had better explain to you now that Mr. Stratton's roof is rather a peculiar one. Apart from the large flat portion with which we have been concerned so far, there is another and smaller flat part, formed by roofing in the space between two gables which run across the end of the large flat portion. There is a small flight of iron steps fixed close to the door out onto the roof, by which access to this upper part may be obtained; and it is that staircase to which the witness is referring. Yes, Mrs. Williamson?"

"I climbed up the staircase onto the upper roof and stood there for a moment or two, looking at the lights of London in the distance which I could just see from there. The night was so beautiful that I thought I would take a chair up there and sit for a few minutes, alone. I didn't wish to be disturbed, and I thought no one would be likely to find me up there. I went down the stairs again to get a chair, and saw one lying under the gallows. I picked it up and was on my way back to the staircase, when I heard my husband calling, so I put the chair down and went in again."

"Yes. Do you remember where you put the chair down?"

"It must have been between the gallows and the iron staircase, but I don't remember exactly where."

"The iron staircase being next to the door into the house. The point is, gentlemen, that we have to establish that the chair which we have heard from three witnesses was lying in the middle of the roof was actually the chair which Mrs. Williamson tells us she moved from underneath the gallows, and that explains why it was not in that position later. Yes, Mrs. Williamson? You say that you put the chair down. Did you put it down carefully, or did you drop it?"

"I put it down carelessly, and I heard it fall over behind me, but I didn't wait to pick it up."

"Exactly. Now we know, from the medical evidence, that Mrs. Stratton must have been dead when you picked the chair up from close beside her. You did not realize that?"

"No," said Mrs. Williamson, with an unfeigned shudder.

"You did not, in fact, know then that she was missing at all?"

"No."

"You said that the chair was lying under the gallows. Can you amplify that at all? Was it under one beam of the gallows, for instance?"

"No. So far as I remember it was just about under the middle of the triangle."

"In your opinion, could Mrs. Stratton have thrust it there, in the event of her having made use of it for the purpose of hanging herself?"

"Oh, yes; easily."

"Thank you, Mrs. Williamson. That is all."

Roger was clutching Colin's arm in a frenzied hold.

"Colin! Do you realize? It was suicide. She did do it, after all," he whispered excitedly, under the hum which accompanied Mrs. Williamson back to her seat. "We've had all our trouble for nothing."

"I never did believe it was that poor wee David," returned Colin stolidly.

The verdict never actually had been in question. The coroner's summing up was brief and kind. Missing an opportunity which would have brought joy to many of his tribe, he did not find it his duty to deliver a lecture to Ronald Stratton on the morbid compliment which that gentleman had thought fit to pay his distinguished guest, though he did feel bound to point out that the matter of suggestion on an unbalanced, impressionable mind could not be disregarded. Having got that off his chest, he proceeded to sum up the evidence in such a way as to indicate his own opinion quite unmistakably and suggest that, in such a simple case, any other opinion was impossible; as indeed, on the evidence that had been heard, it was. The mentality of the dead woman only underlined the obvious conclusion.

"After all, gentlemen," the coroner concluded, "all you have to do is to satisfy yourselves first as to whether Mrs. Stratton died from the effects of strangulation, and if so whether that was brought about entirely by her own unaided effort. If you are satisfied on those two points there is, practically speaking, only one verdict you can return."

The jury returned it.