When Last I Died

Bella Foxley nevertheless remained the high spot, as Caroline called it, of the proceedings. There was a 'sensation in court,' for instance, when in reply to questions the prisoner at last admitted that she had known of the presence of two boys in the haunted house, and agreed that the phenomena were fraudulent. She persisted in maintaining, however, that she had had nothing whatever to do with introducing the boys into the house, and declared that they were there at the invitation of those relatives of her own in whose name the house had been rented.

'You helped these boys to escape?' the enquirer persisted.

'No.'

'Do you deny that you helped them to file through the window bars of their sleeping quarters?'

'I deny it absolutely.'

'Do you deny that you supplied them with the files?'

'Yes, I deny that, too.'

'How do you think the boys got in touch with your relatives?'

'I mentioned that two boys had escaped from the Institution and were at large.'

'I suggest that your relatives knew from you how to get hold of these boys.'

'No, not from me.'

'From whom, then?'

'I don't know,'

'I suggest that you know perfectly well.'

'I'm sure I don't. It seems to have been coincidence.'

The judge intervened at this point to remind the prisoner that she was on oath, 'like any other witness.'

'When you knew that the boys were in the house, did you take any steps to inform the police that you knew where they could be found?' the prosecuting counsel continued.

'No.'

'Why not?'

'I believe in the idea of live and let live.' '

'But you knew why these boys had been sent to the Institution?'

'Well, yes, more or less.'

'What do you mean by that?'

'I mean I knew they were supposed to have done something wrong.'

'Something so wrong that one of them, at least, was a potential danger to the community.'

'I didn't know that. We were never told the reason—not any particular reason, I mean—why any boy was at the Institution.'

'Even so, did you not believe it to be your duty, as a citizen, to inform the police as to the whereabouts of the boys?'

'No.'

'Would you call yourself an anti-social person?'

'No. I'm unsociable, but I liked the boys.'

'When you had made up your mind not to hand the boys over to the police, did you set about organizing their activities so as to benefit yourself and your relations?'

'No.'

'You didn't help to exploit these boys for gain?'

'Certainly not. As I explained before (this had been during her statement to her counsel) I had no reason to want to make money, either with or without the help of the boys. I had plenty of money. The boys were amused at playing the poltergeist tricks, and it was such a change to see them laughing and happy.'

'But when their laughter and happiness grew too dangerous, you battened them down in that cellar with frogs, newts and all kinds of slimy and disgusting creatures, and left them there in the dark and the wet to starve.'

'I never did that! I swear it! This is all a mistake. I am not the person who ought to be accused.'

'When did the boys become a nuisance?'

'Never. I did not find them a nuisance. I had very little to do with them. I was at the Institution most of the time they were at the house.'

Counsel had led up to this point very well, Mrs. Bradley thought. The next part of the argument did not take her by surprise, but it seemed to flummox the prisoner. Pointing at her (one of the few histrionic or dramatic gestures he made during the trial) Counsel for the Prosecution said clearly :

'You were not at the house during most of the time that the boys were there?'

'No.'

'You were still at the Institution?'

'Yes, certainly.'

'Will you tell the court the amount of your salary at the Institution?'

'I—let me see—I think I was getting about a hundred and sixty.'

'And your board and lodging, of course?'

'Yes, except during holiday periods.'

'Quite so. When did you begin to receive your legacy?'

'About—on—let me think. It would have been—I think I had the first payment towards the end of February.'

'Towards the end of the February?'

'Yes, I believe that's right.'

'And the boys escaped from the Institution on January twenty-third, according to the records kept by the Warden.'

'Yes, I suppose that would be right.'

'It is right. We can call witnesses to prove it, if necessary. Now, tell me: did you know, when those boys escaped—that is to say, on January twenty-third—that your aunt was going to die and leave you all this money?'

'No! No, of course I didn't!'

So she did not, even now, perceive the trap, thought Mrs. Bradley.

'Well, then, I suggest that perhaps your financial position, at the time that these boys escaped and found their way to this house which your relatives had rented, was not quite as assured and as satisfactory as you would have the court to believe?'

'Yes, but—No, I know it wasn't, but, don't you see ——'

'I am afraid we do see,' responded the learned gentleman, with a satisfied smile. 'We see that your protestations that you did not need to exploit the mischief-making powers of the boys for your own gain are not, in the light of your own evidence, either acceptable or true, and I forbear to enlarge upon the point, which is, I am convinced, perfectly comprehended by the jury, but it was a very odd coincidence indeed that these boys, with no help from you, should have managed to find their way, not only to your relatives, but into a house where their services could be utilized in such a gainful way to their employers.'

'I know all that. I agree,' said Bella Foxley desperately, 'but I didn't kill the boys! I didn't shut them up! There are those who know far more about that than I do!'

Counsel for the Defence cited the 'long arm of coincidence' in his closing speech. He insisted that coincidence was an everyday happening. He begged the jury to remember strange coincidences in their own lives and to attempt to explain them away in the light of ordinary reason. His client did not deny, he said, the presence of the boys at the house; she did not deny the purpose for which their services had been used. But the faking of spiritualist miracles was not murder, nor was it in any sense akin to murder, and it was for murder that his client was being tried, the murder of these boys she had befriended.

She had a long and honourable record in the Institution of which they had heard so much. She had a reputation, even, for kindness. One of the witnesses for the prosecution had been, himself, a boy at the Institution, and, in spite of the fact that his evidence had been given against the prisoner, he had had to agree that she had been a kind woman, bringing into the lives of these poor boys—victims of our social system rather than sinners in their own right!—something of a mother's care and love.

Was it likely, was it probable, in fact, was it possible at all, that such a woman could have done the deed attributed to her by the prosecution ?

'Not a bad effort,' said Ferdinand. 'Really not bad at all. I'm prepared to lay you a monkey to sixpence that that jury will let her off. The missing link is vital. You can't put the job on to Bella without something better than that wretched hysteria-patient of yours, and that's that. After all, Crodders ain't so far wrong about coincidences, and the jury, curse them for superstitious fatheads, know it.'

Mrs. Bradley agreed.

'We have to allow for the fact that there are three women on the jury, though,' she added, 'and we have yet to hear the summing-up.'

'Yes. Shouldn't think Nolly would be particularly prejudiced in her favour,' Ferdinand agreed, more cheerfully. 'After all, he must remember her former trial, even if-the jury don't, but he can't manufacture evidence, much as he might like to. He can only throw his weight about, and he's always scrupulously fair. No, I take it that the priceless Bella will drive off amid cheers come this time to-morrow. Cousin Muriel has dished us. She had the whole thing in her hands, and she chucked it clean away. She and the Naval rating, between 'em, ought to have cooked Bella's goose, but it's all over now, I fancy, bar the enthusiasm of an exhilarated populace.'

Chapter Ten

REACTIONS OF AN ELDERLY PSYCHOLOGIST

Strength stoops unto the grave, Worms feed on Hector brave: Swords may not fight with fate: Earth still holds ope her gate. Come, come, the bells do cry: I am sick, I must die.

· · · · ·

Wit with his wantonness Tasteth death's bitterness; Hell's executioner Hath no ears for to hear What vain art can reply; I am sick, I must die.

· · · · ·

NASHE.

MR. JUSTICE KNOWLES commenced his summing- up by emphasizing to the jury the point at issue in the trial. The question for them to settle was whether or not the prisoner had, by her wilful act, murdered, by starving them to death, two boys named respectively Frederick Pegwell and Richard Kectleborough.

That two boys had died of starvation (an even more sinister report by the medical witnesses was not referred to) and had been buried beneath the floor in the cellar or crypt of