The Case Is Closed

CHAPTER FIVE

Bertie Everton was called.

The Coroner: ‘You are Bertram Everton?’

Bertram Everton: ‘Oh, yes, certainly.’

The Coroner: ‘You are a nephew of the deceased?’

Bertram Everton: ‘Oh, yes.’

The Coroner: ‘When did you see him last?’

Bertram Everton: ‘Well, you know, I dined with him the very night before it happened. Most extraordinary thing, you know, because we weren’t in the way of seeing one another what you might call constantly. But there it is – ’

The Coroner: ‘Do you mean that you were not on good terms with your uncle?’

Bertram Everton: ‘Oh, well, I don’t know that I should go as far as that, you know. Just happier apart and all that sort of thing.’

The Coroner: ‘Was there any quarrel between you?’

Bertram Everton: ‘Not at all. I don’t quarrel with people, you know.’

The Coroner: ‘You disagreed perhaps?’

Bertram Everton: ‘Just about life and that sort of thing. My uncle was a business man. Earnest, hard-working fellows business men. Personally I collect china. We didn’t see eye to eye about it at all.’

The Coroner: ‘But you dined with him on the evening of Monday the fifteenth?’

Bertram Everton: ‘Yes – as I told you.’

The Coroner: ‘You had been staying in Scotland?’

Bertram Everton: ‘In Edinburgh.’

The Coroner: ‘You came all the way down from Scotland to dine with an uncle with whom you were not on particularly friendly terms?’

Bertram Everton: ‘Oh, come -that’s a bit rough! It wasn’t quite like that.’

The Coroner: ‘Perhaps you will tell us what it was like, Mr. Everton.’

Bertram Everton: ‘Well, it was this way. I collect china, and when I’m in a place like Edinburgh I go nosing about, you know. You don’t always find anything, but sometimes you do, and you might find something, and you never know, don’t you know? Well, I didn’t find anything I wanted for myself, but there’s a fellow I know in town who collects jugs -name of White.’

The Coroner: ‘Is this relevant, Mr. Everton?’

Bertram Everton: ‘Well, I shouldn’t have said it was, but you seemed to want to know, don’t you know.’

The Coroner: ‘Perhaps you will tell us as shortly as possible why you came down from Edinburgh to see your uncle.’

Bertram Everton: ‘Well, that’s just the point, you know – I didn’t really come down to see my uncle. I came down to see this fellow who collects jugs -did I tell you his name was White? – because, you see, I’d come across a set of jugs in the Toby style featuring all the generals in what’s usually called the World War, don’t you know -the only set ever made, and very interesting and all that if that’s the sort of thing you’re interested in, don’t you know? And the fellow that’s got them wants to sell them to the Castle Museum, so I thought my fellow had better get an offer in quickly, you know, and I came down to see him, don’t you know?’

The Coroner: ‘And did you see him?’’

Bertram Everton: ‘Well, I didn’t, don’t you know. He’d flown over to Paris, on the spur of the moment, as you might say, so I rang up Uncle James and suggested dining with him.’

The Coroner: ‘You said just now you were better apart. What made you suggest dining with him on this occasion?’

Bertram Everton: ‘Well, there I was, at a loose end as you might say. A free meal, a little family chit-chat, and all that sort of thing, don’t you know.’

The Coroner: ‘Had you any special business that you wished to discuss with the deceased?’

Bertram Everton: ‘Well, there was the matter of my brother’s allowance, don’t you know. He was by way of giving him an allowance, and there seemed to be a sort of idea that it would brighten the landscape if he could be induced to make it a bit larger, so I said I would see what could be done – if I got a chance and all that sort of thing.’

The Coroner: ‘Well, you dined with your uncle. Did you discuss the question of your brother’s allowance with him?’

Bertram Everton: ‘Well, it wasn’t what I should have called a discussion. I said, “In the matter of old Frank’s allowance, Uncle James – ” And he said – I suppose I’ve got to repeat all this?’

The Coroner: ‘If it has any bearing on the question of why he altered his will.’

Bertram Everton: ‘Well, I suppose you might say that it had, because he damned poor old Frank to me, don’t you know, and said he’d better hurry up and find himself a job, because if anything happened to him – that’s my uncle – poor old Frank would find he’d been left without a penny, because he – my uncle, you know – was damn well going to alter his will and cut out all the damned sucking-up hypocrites who thought they were going to make a good thing out of him and were going to find out their mistake before they were twenty-four hours older. Well, that did take me a bit aback, don’t you know, and I said, “Draw it mild, Uncle! Poor old Frank’s worst enemy couldn’t say he was a hypocrite.” And he gave me a most unpleasant sort of look and said, “I wasn’t talking about your brother Frank.” ’

The Coroner: ‘In fact he told you he was going to alter his will?’

Bertram Everton: ‘Well, it seemed to kind of point that way, don’t you know?’

The Coroner: ‘Did he tell you he was going to alter it in your favour?

The witness hesitated.

The Coroner: ‘I must ask you to answer that question.’

Bertram Everton: ‘Well, it’s really very awkward answering that sort of question, don’t you know.’

The Coroner: ‘I am afraid I must ask you to answer it. Did he tell you he was making a will in your favour?’

Bertram Everton: ‘Well, not exactly, don’t you know.’

The Coroner: ‘What did he say?’

Bertram Everton: ‘Well, if you really want to know, he said that if he’d got to choose between a smoothtongued hypocrite and a damned tomfool, he’d choose the fool, don’t you know.’

(Laughter in the Court.)

The Coroner: ‘And you took that reference to yourself?’

Bertram Everton: ‘Well, it seemed to point that way, don’t you know.’

The Coroner: ‘You took him to mean that he was about to execute a will in your favour?’

Bertram Everton: ‘Well, I didn’t think he’d do it, don’t you know. I just thought he’d had a row with Geoffrey.’

The Coroner: ‘Did he tell you so?’

Bertram Everton: ‘No – I just got the impression, don’t you know.’

Hilary’s cheeks burned with anger. If it had been a proper trial, he wouldn’t have been allowed to say those things. You can say anything in a Coroner’s court, and this Bertie creature had got across with his suggestion of a quarrel between Geoff and his uncle. From first to last there was never a shred of evidence that there had ever been such a quarrel, but from first to last the suggestion was believed by the public. They read Bertie Everton’s evidence at the inquest, and they believed that Geoffrey Grey had quarrelled with his uncle -that James Everton had found him out in something discreditable, and that that was why he had altered his will. And the jury which afterwards tried Geoffrey Grey for his uncle’s murder was drawn from that same public. Once a suggestion has entered the general atmosphere of human thought, it is very difficult to neutralise it. Bertie Everton’s unsubstantiated suggestion of a quarrel undoubtedly helped to set the black cap on the judge’s head.

Hilary turned a page. What she had been reading was partly a newspaper report and partly a transcription into type of shorthand notes. As she turned the leaf, she saw before her a photograph of Bertie Everton – ‘Mr. Bertram Everton leaving the court.’ She had seen him once at the trial of course, but that was like remembering a nightmare. Hilary looked with all her eyes, but she couldn’t make very much of what she saw. Not very tall, not very short. Irregular features and longish hair. The picture was rather blurred, and of course no photograph gave you the colouring. She remembered that Bertie Everton had red hair. He seemed to have rather a lot of it, and it was certainly much too long.

She went on reading his evidence.

He said he had taken the ten o’clock non-stop from Edinburgh to King’s Cross, arriving at half past five on the afternoon of the 15th, and after dining with James Everton he had caught the 1.5 from King’s Cross, arriving in Edinburgh at 9.36 on the morning of the 16th. He had gone straight to the Caledonian Hotel, where he had a late breakfast and then put in some arrears of sleep. He explained at considerable length that he could never sleep properly in a train. He lunched in the hotel at half past one, after which he wrote letters, one to his brother and one to the Mr. White who had been mentioned in connection with the set of Toby jugs. He had had occasion to complain about the bell in his room being out of order. He went out for a walk some time after four o’clock, and on his way out he went into the office to enquire if there had been any telephone message for him. He thought there might have been one from the man who had the jugs. On his return to the hotel he went to bed. He was still very short of sleep, and he wasn’t feeling very well. He did not go into the dining-room, because he did not want any dinner. He went straight up to his room and rang for some biscuits. He had a biscuit or two and a drink out of his flask, and went to bed. He couldn’t say what time it was – somewhere round about eight o’clock. He wasn’t noticing the time. He wasn’t feeling at all well. He only wanted to go to sleep. The next thing he knew was the chambermaid knocking on the door with his tea next morning. He had asked to be called at nine. Asked where he had been during the time that he was absent from the hotel, he replied that he couldn’t really say. He had done a bit of nosing about and a bit of walking, and he had had a drink or two.

And that was the end of Bertie Everton.

The next thing was the typed copy of a statement by Annie Robertson, a chambermaid at the Caledonian Hotel. There was nothing to show whether it had been put in at the inquest or not. It was just a statement.

Annie Robertson said Mr. Bertram Everton had been staying in the hotel for three or four days before July 16th. He might have come on the 12th, or the 11th, or the 13th. She couldn’t say for certain, but they would know in the office. He had room No. 35. She remembered Tuesday, July 16th. She remembered Mr. Everton complaining about the bell in his room. He said it was out of order, but it seemed all right. She said she would have it looked at, because Mr. Everton said sometimes it rang and sometimes it didn’t. It was about three o’clock in the afternoon when Mr. Everton complained about the bell. He was writing letters at the time. Later that evening, at about half past eight, his bell rang and she answered it. Mr. Everton told her he wanted some biscuits. He said he didn’t feel well and was going to bed. She brought him the biscuits. She thought he was the worse for drink. She brought his tea next morning, Wednesday, July 17th, at nine o’clock. He seemed all right then and quite himself.

Hilary read this statement twice. Then she read Bertie Everton’s evidence all over again. He had been out of the hotel between four o’clock and getting on for half past eight. He might have flown to Croydon and reached Putney by eight o’clock, or at least she supposed he might. But he couldn’t possibly have been back in his room at the Caledonian Hotel ordering biscuits and complaining about not feeling well by half past eight. James Everton was alive and talking to Geoff at eight o’clock. Whoever shot him, it couldn’t have been his nephew Bertie, who was ordering biscuits in Edinburgh at half past eight.

Hilary wrenched her mind regretfully away from Bertie. He would have done so beautifully, and he wouldn’t do at all.

The other nephew, Frank Everton, hadn’t been called at the inquest. Marion’s statement that he had been collecting his weekly allowance from a solicitor in Glasgow between a quarter to six and a quarter past on the evening of the 16th was borne out by another of those typewritten sheets. Mr. Robert Johnstone, of the firm of Johnstone, Johnstone and McCandlish, declared that he had been in conversation with Mr. Francis Everton, with whom he was well acquainted, between the hours of five-forty-five and six-fifteen on Tuesday, July 16th, when he had paid over to him the sum of £2 10s. od. (two pounds ten shillings), for which sum he held Mr. Francis Everton’s dated receipt.

Exit Frank Everton. With even deeper regret Hilary let him go. Bad hat, rolling stone, family ne’er-do-well, but definitely not First Murderer. Even with a private aeroplane – and what would the family skeleton be doing with a private aeroplane – he couldn’t have done it. He would need a private aerodrome – no, two private aerodromes, one at each end. She toyed with the idea of the black sheep getting into his private aeroplane at Messrs. Johnstone, Johnstone and McCandlish’s front doorstep, taxi-ing down a busy Glasgow thoroughfare, flying all out to Putney, vol-planing down into James Everton’s back garden -all without attracting the slightest attention. It was a highly tempting picture, but it belonged to an Arabian Nights entertainment – the Tale of the Tenth Calendar, or some such fantasy. It couldn’t be sufficiently materialized to deflect the finding of a court of law.

It all came down to the Mercers again. If Geoff was speaking the truth, then the Mercers were lying. Of course Geoff was speaking the truth. She believed in Geoff with all her heart. If he said James Everton was dead when he arrived at twenty minutes past eight, then he was dead, and Mrs. Mercer’s evidence about the quarrel and the shot was a lie. She couldn’t have heard Geoff quarrelling with his uncle, and she couldn’t have heard the shot when she said she heard it if Mr. Everton was already dead when Geoff arrived. No, Mrs. Mercer was telling lies, and that was why she had come over all gasping and frightened in the train – she’d got a bad conscience and it wouldn’t let her alone because of what she’d done to Marion and Geoff.

But why had she done it?

That was quite easy. Mercer must have shot his master, and Mrs. Mercer had lied to save his neck. It was frightfully wicked of her, but it was the sort of wickedness you could understand. She had lied to save her husband, and in saving him she had damned Geoffrey.

She had certainly done that very completely. Hilary had a feeling that she needn’t have done it quite so completely. The very badness of her conscience had made the thing worse. How could you help believing the evidence of a woman who seemed so heartbroken at having to give it? Well, that was the explanation – Alfred Mercer had shot James Everton, and Mrs. Mercer had lied to cover it up.

She turned the next page, and there, staring her in the face, was the evidence of Mrs. Thompson. She had forgotten all about Mrs. Thompson. It wasn’t only Bertie and Frank Everton who had alibis-beautiful watertight alibis – the Mercers had one, too. Mrs. Thompson exonerated them. There was a picture of her which might almost have been a picture of Mrs. Grundy – large, solemn, massive, and as solid as the British Constitution. She was the housekeeper from next door, Sir John Blakeney’s housekeeper and twenty-five years in his service. She was supping by invitation with the Mercers, Sir John being away from home. She was in the kitchen from half past seven until the alarm was given. During all that time Mercer was in the pantry cleaning his silver, or else in the kitchen with her and Mrs. Mercer. The house was an old-fashioned one, and the pantry opened out of the kitchen. She could swear he never went through into the house until the alarm was given. He ran through the kitchen then, and seeing something was wrong, she went after him into the hall, where she saw the study door standing open, and Mrs. Mercer crying, and Mr. Grey with a pistol in his hand.

The Coroner: ‘Did you hear the shot?’

Mrs. Thompson: ‘No sir – I’m very deaf, sir.’

The Coroner: ‘Did you hear Mrs. Mercer scream?’

Mrs. Thompson: ‘No, sir, I wouldn’t hear anything like that, not with two doors shut between.’

The Coroner: ‘There were two doors between the kitchen and the hall?’

Mrs. Thompson: ‘Yes, sir – the kitchen door and the baize door.’

The Coroner: ‘Mrs. Mercer had been with you in the kitchen?’

Mrs. Thompson: ‘Yes, sir.’

The Coroner: ‘She says she went upstairs to turn down Mr. Everton’s bed. How long had she been gone when the alarm was given?’

Mrs. Thompson: ‘I should say it was the best part of five minutes, sir – not any longer.’

The Coroner: ‘There is a point which I would like to have cleared up. Is Alfred Mercer in the court? I would like to recall him for a moment.’

Alfred Mercer recalled.

The Coroner: ‘In all this evidence there has been no mention of Mr. Everton’s dinner hour. What was his dinner hour?’

Mercer: ‘Eight to half past, sir.’

The Coroner: ‘You mean that the hour varied from day to day?’

Mercer: ‘Yes, sir. If it was a fine evening he didn’t like to come in from the garden.’

The Coroner: ‘On this particular evening had he dined?’

Mercer: ‘No, sir. It was ordered for half past eight.’

The Coroner: ‘I would like to recall Mrs. Mercer.’

Mrs. Mercer recalled.

The Coroner: ‘On July 16th Mr. Everton had ordered his dinner for half past eight?’

Mrs. Mercer: ‘Yes, sir.’

The Coroner: ‘You are the cook?’

Mrs. Mercer: ‘Yes, sir.’

The Coroner: ‘Dinner was ordered for half past eight, yet at a quarter-past eight you went upstairs to turn down his bed. Isn’t that a little unusual?’

Mrs. Mercer: ‘Yes, sir. Everything was cold, sir.’

The Coroner: ‘You mean you had no cooking to do?’

Mrs. Mercer: ‘No, sir. Everything was ready in the dining-room except for my pudding, which I was keeping on the ice.’

The Coroner: ‘I see. Thank you, Mrs. Mercer, that will do. Now, Mrs. Thompson, let us get this quite clear. You have sworn that Alfred Mercer was in the kitchen or in the pantry between half past seven and twenty minutes past eight, which was the time that the alarm was given as near as we can fix it?’

Mrs. Thompson: ‘Yes, sir.’

The Coroner: ‘I have here a plan of the house. It bears out your statement that there is no way out of the pantry except through the kitchen. The pantry window, I am told, is barred, so that there would be no egress that way. You swear that you did not leave the kitchen yourself between seven-thirty and eight-twenty?’

Mrs. Thompson: ‘Yes, sir.’

The Coroner: ‘You swear that Alfred Mercer did not pass through the kitchen during that time?’

Mrs. Thompson: ‘He come into the kitchen, sir. Me being so deaf, he had to come right up to me before I could hear what he said, but he never went through anywhere except back to his pantry.’

The Coroner: ‘I see – you were talking?’

Mrs. Thompson: ‘Yes, sir.’

The Coroner: ‘And Mrs. Mercer was there all the time until she went to turn down the bed?’

Mrs. Thompson: ‘I think she went through to the dining-room once, sir.’

The Coroner: ‘What time was that?’

Mrs. Thompson: ‘Somewhere about eight o’clock, sir.’

The Coroner: ‘How long was she away?’

Mrs. Thompson: ‘Not above a few minutes, sir.’

The Coroner: ‘Did she seem as usual?’

Mrs Thompson: ‘Well, no sir, I can’t say she did. Shocking bad she was with toothache, poor thing. That’s what Mercer come in to talk to me about – said he couldn’t get her to go to the dentist. “And what’s the sense,” he said, “crying your eyes out with pain instead of taking and having it out?” ’

The Coroner: ‘I see. And Mrs. Mercer was crying with her toothache?’

Mrs. Thompson: ‘All the time, poor thing.’

That finished with Mrs. Thompson.