A Moment On the Edge : 100 Years of Crime Stories By Women

celebre! And then — the dramatic intervention, the witness who’d seen it all, the last-minute evidence.” He stood before her, half shame-faced, half pleading. “Rosa?”

“Why didn’t I give evidence before? They’d never even have charged you if I’d spoken at once.”

“Well, that’s the point. I must get myself arrested and tried. You’d have to say you hadn’t realized, you didn’t want to get mixed up in it. But then of course the moment you heard I was accused —”

“Even so you wouldn’t get further than the first hearing, whatever it’s called. No publicity in that.”

“You couldn’t — just be abroad for a little while, out of touch?”

She opened her mouth to say that none of it mattered, he’d never need to work again. But she held her peace. He was an actor, actors needed to work, they had to express themselves. “Leave it all to me.

I’ll handle it,” she said.

The earlier headlines were not too bad though hardly sensational and then came the long dull period before the trial opened. However, at last — the day. Himself in the dock, very pale, very handsome. The police in the witness box. “Accused stated—” A flipped-over page in a notebook. “Accused stated, ‘Oh, my God, this is awful, I must have hit out at her, I must have had a blackout, she was nag nag nag at me the whole bloody time because I wasn’t getting work, but I never meant to harm her, I swear I did not.’”

And the forensic evidence. “On the head of the poker I found a small smear of blood.” The smear had been consistent with the blood of the dead woman, with having come there at the time of her death.

Tests showed that the accused had handled the poker after the blood came there. Yes, consistent with his having attempted to remove marks of blood with the palm of his hand, missing the one small smear. The blade of the poker appeared to have been wiped — it showed no fingerprints.

In reply to defense counsel: yes, it was true that the blade of a poker would not be much handled in the ordinary way and the wiping might well have been simply the previous routine cleaning.

The doctor testified that the woman had been dead between half an hour and an hour when he saw her.

Trudi in the box for the defense: shrewd and cool. Had arrived back from the shoppings to find Mr. Gray on his knees beside the body; had had almost to lift him to his feet. Yes, he might very well have touched the poker with his hand, made bloody by his examination of the wound; his arms were all over the place as she hauled him up. She had tried to get him calm; wanted to call a doctor but did not know the number of him, and Mr. Gray seemed so dazed she could get no sense from him. And anyway, what was the hurry, said Trudi with one of her shrugs. Anybody could see that Madame was dead.

And so at last to Rosa Fox. She had with extraordinary dedication deliberately shed all aids to such doubtful charms as she possessed — stripped off the jewelry, dressed herself drably, sacrificed the cosmetics which ordinarily, to some extent at least, disguised the ravages of her age. Not for one moment could anyone suspect that here stood a woman with whom the prisoner could ever have had the slightest rapport.

Into the agreed routine. The casual acquaintance, the occasional drink together. The question of the police directly after the — accident.

Agreed she had previously insisted she had seen nothing. She had been unwell, under great private tensions, wanted only to get abroad to a health spa where she had been ever since. She hadn’t wished to become involved. Never dreamed, of course, that there could possibly be any charge against Mr. Gray, knowing as she did with absolute certainly that the thing had been entirely an accident. Because in fact she had actually seen it happen.

“From my balcony you can look straight into their room. I glanced over and saw them standing there. They seemed to be having an argument. He said something angry, she jerked away from him as though he had raised his hand against her—”

“Mrs. Fox, had he anything in his hand?”

“In his hand? Oh, the poker you mean? No, nothing, no poker or anything. And anyway, he never raised his hand.”

“He never raised his hand? You can swear to that?”

The Judge from the Bench said solemnly, “Mr. Tree, she is swearing to that. She is swearing to everything she says. She is under oath.”

“Well, I could see it all quite clearly and I certainly can swear — well, I mean I am absolutely sure he never raised his hand at all. He said something. She stepped back and then she seemed to trip and topple over backwards. I thought to myself. “Oh, she’s skidded on that rug of theirs!” I know that rug — very treacherous it is on the parquet floor. I nearly slipped on it once myself.

Well, and then I went back into my room and thought no more about it.”

“It didn’t occur to you that she might have injured herself?”

“I thought she might have banged her head or something but of course no more than that. As I say, I’d slipped there myself and been none the worse for it.” And she made a little face and admitted that if the lady had collected a couple of bruises it would have been no more than she deserved. “I think she nagged him. But of course I didn’t know them well.”

Headlines, yes. But not much really and often not even on the center pages, let alone the front page. But there was a big picture of him planned for Sunday, with an interview — celebrating, a glass of champagne raised to the neighbor whose testimony had confirmed his innocence. Not perhaps in the best of taste, the picture taken right there in front of the fireplace where his wife had died. But it wasn’t a best-of-taste newspaper and one settled for what one could get.

And the reporters withdrew; and at last they were alone in his apartment.

She held out her hands to him. “Well, Raymond?”

She looked about a hundred years old standing there before him, the sagging face devoid of its makeup, the ugly dull dress, the droopy hairdo, the mottled hands without their customary diamond flash.

She revolted him.

“Well, Rosa, you did a beautiful job.”

She did not hear the chill in his voice, or did not believe it. She said softly, “And one day soon — shall I collect my reward?”

“Reward?” he said.

“After all, my darling, I have perjured myself for you.”

“Yes, so you have, haven’t you?” he said.

Now the unpowdered skin took on a strange ashen color, and her eyes grew frightened and sick. “Raymond, what do you mean?”

“I mean that you perjured yourself, as you say; and you know, perhaps, what happens to perjurers?”

A clever woman, quick and clever. But still she insisted, “I don’t understand.”

“I need money, Rosa,” he said.

“Money? But if we were married—”

He moved aside so that she looked over his shoulder and into the mirror above the fireplace.

He said, “You? And I? Married?”

She looked long, long at her pitiful reflection. She said at last, “Is this blackmail?”

“Wasn’t it blackmail when you thought that by saving me from prison you could force me to marry you?”

“Yes,” she said. “I think perhaps it was.” And she thought to herself that now she was beaten at her own game. “If you give me away,” she said, “you’ll have to admit you murdered her.”

“In fact I didn’t murder her. I can say it happened almost exactly as you said in court.”

“Very well then,” she said swiftly, “I can change my story. Who can prove that I didn’t see you murder her?”

“I can prove that you didn’t see it. You couldn’t have been out on your balcony. The plane trees were pollinating and anyone will confirm to the police what happens if you so much as open a window when the pollen’s flying about. But when they first saw you, you showed no traces of any allergic reaction. I know, because I’d just seen you myself.

“Besides, they couldn’t touch me. I’ve been ‘put in peril,’ as they say— autre fois acquit is the legal name for it. Once acquitted I can’t be tried again for the same crime. I could shout from the housetops that I’d killed her and still be safe.”

“And live with that reputation?”