Saltmarsh Murders

standing him over a beastly trap door with a noose round his neck.

I wasn’t listening much. I was trying to think what the judge would look like in a black cap… But he wasn’t going to put on the black cap in this case… I began to take in what the counsel for the prosecution was saying. He was a big, florid man, and he had a curiously soft and yet perfectly audible voice, and his words dripped, like honey and venom mixed, into the minds of his hearers. I began to think Bob must have done it. Still, I comforted myself with the thought that when Sir Ferdinand got up, I should be equally certain that Bob had not. I was not deceived, of course. Sir Ferdinand was wonderful. Of course, the whole thing struck me as being a kind of cricket match between counsel, with the judge as keeper of the score and the jury as umpires. And a frightfully confusing business,the umpiring was, I should think. I did not take down the thing in shorthand, but it seemed to me that the great stunt was to confuse the witnesses and get them to contradict themselves. Old Lowry, fat as ever, quite as chinful and even more hairless, was the chief witness for the defence. His evidence, elicited by Sir Ferdinand, was to the effect that no living man would have had time to get up those three dozen bottles of beer, transport them to the jug and bottle department and go upstairs and strangle Meg Tosstick within the time limit sworn to by three independent witnesses (who were produced in due course), Charles Peachey, Mabel Pusey and the saloon barmaid, Susan Gait. A plan of the Mornington Arms, showing the route from the cellar under the garage to the doorway of the jug and bottle department with the distances clearly marked in feet and inches, was passed to the jury. Then the prosecution dealt with Lowry, and tried to force him to declare the minimum of time ever taken

(a) by Candy and the knife and boots together to bring up beer,

(b) by Candy alone,

(c) by Peachey and the knife and boots,

(d) by Peachey alone, and elicited the somewhat moot point that he had never timed any of the above by watch, clock, stop-watch, or other mechanical device, and so could not possibly swear that a quarter of an hour was not sufficient time for Candy to have dealt with the bottles and committed the murder. The prosecution further discovered that the barmaid, Mabel Pusey, could not swear that fifteen minutes was the exact time taken by Candy. She was compelled, under rigorous cross-examination, to admit that the time Candy was absent from the bar might have been twenty minutes. On the other hand again, she protested, it might just as easily have been twelve. This voluntary cry-from-the-heart did not suit the prosecution, I suppose, and Mabel was allowed to stand down. Poor girl! She was considerably flustered, but had done what she could for Bob. “If Bob gets off all right, he ought to marry Mabel,” I thought to myself. Another bit of Lowry’s evidence was an account of the affection which Bob undoubtedly had had for the dead girl. As the prosecution were putting jealousy and thwarted love as the motive for the crime, however, this went about fifty-fifty with the jury, I suppose, but Sir Ferdinand evidently thought it was worth while to bung it in, even if the prosecution could score off it. As a matter of fact, he made a rather nice thing of it in his closing speech. I suppose these counsel have to be looking ahead the whole time. Fearfully wearing, of course.

Motive and opportunity were the prosecution’s main lines of attack, and they scored pretty heavily, I should say. There was also a nasty bit when the prosecuting counsel, leaning forward, asked Bob what the row was about between himself and the Lowrys on the Sunday night before the Bank Holiday and the murder. Mrs. Bradley and I had both hoped that Ferdinand would not put Bob in the box, but I suppose it looks bad if the prisoner does not make his statement, and Sir Ferdinand was out for a dyed-in-the-wool, no-stain-on-the-character-of-my- unfortunate-and-much-maligned client decision. So he risked it. Bob, glowering (which was a pity with so many women on the jury), replied that the quarrel was a private matter. The prosecuting counsel, with a nasty smile, pressed the point. Bob suddenly met his eye squarely and replied:

“I were complaining about the food.”

“You were complaining about the food, were you?” asked the counsel. The jury wrote this down.

“I were,” repeated Bob, stolidly. His grim expression lightened. “Hadn’t been so bad for years.”

“I understood that you asked permission to visit the girl Tosstick in her bedroom, and that you became angry when the permission was refused,” said the prosecution counsel, silkily.

“Maybe you’re right,” said Bob. “It’s the food I remember best.”

“Pore feller,” said a woman, rather audibly. Thus encouraged, I suppose, Bob stuck to the food and nothing would budge him. Sir Ferdinand began to look happier. His junior read the note that he scribbled and grinned meaningly at the jury.

The matter of the baby was gone into next. It was a pity, I think, from the point of view of the prosecution, that they had been compelled to accept the theory that Bob had murdered the baby, because they could not get very far with it. The Lowrys had explained that, by the wish of the girl-mother, nobody had set eyes on the baby except herself and Mrs. Lowry. Mrs. Lowry explained that not even her husband had seen the baby. No, the child was not deformed… Luckily for Bob, the jury, one and all, were looking at Mrs. Lowry as she gave her evidence, and not at him. If ever a poor wretch on trial for his life looked thoroughly guilty, it was Bob Candy. He glowered, and seemed to be swearing to himself. He looked evil enough to have murdered a dozen babies.

Sir Ferdinand rose to make hay. He wanted to know what had become of the body of the baby. He wanted to know how and when it had been proved that the baby had been murdered at all, apart from whether the prosecution could prove that the accused man had murdered it. Might it not have been claimed by its natural father? Had any attempt been made by the prosecution to discover whether it was living with its natural father? Had any attempt been made—here there was what is known as a sensation in court—had any attempt been made to prove that the baby had ever been born at all?

A doctor who had been present at the post-mortem was able to assure Sir Ferdinand that the deceased girl had certainly been delivered of a child. Pressed by Sir Ferdinand, he admitted that it was beyond him to declare whether the baby had been born alive or dead.

The judge, in his summing-up, rather stressed the baby. He was noted for his leniency to murderers of the working class type, I believe. The point that, while the body of the mother had been found lying in the bed where she had been done to death, whereas no trace of the baby could be found, was in favour of the prisoner. He was accused of murdering mother and child. Of course, the jury must use their judgment and decide whether the prisoner was guilty of both murders or only of one, or of neither of the murders. If they believed that the baby had not been murdered, but was either born dead or had been taken by the father or by some other interested person, they could say so. They must weigh up the motive imputed to the prisoner and see whether, in their opinion, it was sufficiently strong to cause him to take the life of the girl he had intended to marry. They must weigh up the opportunity and remember that all-important time-limit they had heard learned counsel discussing so ably. They were to ask themselves whether any other person might have had a stronger motive or a more favourable opportunity for committing the murders for which the prisoner at the bar had been charged. (Well, of course, they had heard nothing about old Coutts, or Mrs. Coutts, so that wasn’t too simple for them! But still, really and truly, it seemed to me that the judge said everything except actually to put the words “Not Guilty” into their mouths.)

Mrs. Bradley was seated beside me in the court on that last exciting Saturday morning. As soon as the jury had