The Judas Window

body? -1 can only suggest that my learned friend appears to be confusing an arrow with an assegai, not to say a harpoon.'

The back of H.M.'s wig began to bristle.

Lollypop made a fierce wig-wagging gesture.

'Me lord,' replied H.M., with a curious choking noise, 'what I meant will sort of emerge in my next question to the witness.'

'Proceed, Sir Henry.'

H.M. got his breath. 'What I mean is this,' he said to Fleming. 'Could this arrow have been fired from a crossbow?’

There was a silence. The judge put down his pen carefully. He turned his round face with the effect of a curious moon.

'I still do not understand, Sir Henry,' interposed Mr Justice Rankin. 'What exactly is a cross-bow?'

T got one right here,' said H.M.

From under his desk he dragged out a great cardboard box such as those which are used to pack suits. From this he took a heavy, deadly-looking mechanism whose wood and steel shone with some degree of polish. It was not long in the stock, which was shaped like that of a dwarf rifle: sixteen inches at most. But at the head was a broad semi-circle of flexible steel, to each end of which was attached a cord running back to a notched windlass, with an ivory handle, on the stock. A trigger connected with this windlass. Down the centre of the flat barrel ran a groove. The cross-bow, whose stock was inlaid with mother-of-pearl, should have seemed incongruous in H.M.'s hands under all those peering eyes. It was not. It suddenly looked more like a weapon of the future than a weapon of the past.

'This one,' pursued H.M., completely unselfconscious like a child with a toy, 'is the short 'stump' cross-bow. Sixteenth-century French cavalry. Principle's this, y'see. It's wound up - like this.' He began to turn the handle. To the accompaniment of an ugly clicking noise, the cords began to move and pull back the corners of the steel horns. 'Down that groove goes a steel bolt called a quarrel. The trigger's pressed, and releases it like a catapult. Out goes the bolt with all the weight of Toledo steel released behind it... The bolt's shorter than an arrow. But it could fire an arrow.'

He snapped the trigger, with some effect. Sir Walter Storm rose. The Attorney-General's voice quieted an incipient buzz.

'My lord,' he said gravely, 'all this is very interesting -whether or not it is evidence. Does my learned friend put forward as an alternative theory that this crime was committed with the singular apparatus he has there?'

He was a trifle amused. The judge was not.

'Yes; I was about to ask you that, Sir Henry.'

H.M. put down the cross-bow on his desk. 'No, my lord. This bow comes from the Tower of London. I was illustratin'.' He turned towards the witness again. 'Did Avory Hume ever own any cross-bows?'

'As a matter of fact, he did,' replied Fleming.

From the press box just under the jury, two men who had to make early afternoon editions got up and tiptoed out on egg-shells. The witness looked irritated but interested.

'Long time ago,' he added with a growl. 'The Woodmen of Kent experimented with cross-bows one year. They weren't any good. They were cumbersome, and they hadn't got any range compared to arrows.'

'Uh-huh. How many cross-bows did the deceased own?'

'Two or three, I think.'

'Was any of 'em like this?'

‘I believe so. That was three years ago, and -'

'Where did he keep the bows?'

'In that shed in the back garden.'

'But you forgot that a minute ago, didn't you?'

'It slipped my mind, yes. Naturally.'

They were both bristling again. Fleming's heavy nose and jaw seemed to come together like Punch's.

'Now let's have your opinion as an expert: could that arrow have been fired from a bow like this?'

'Not with any accuracy. It's too long, and it would fit too loosely. You'd send the shot wild at twenty yards.'

'Could it have been fired, I'm asking you?'

‘I suppose it could.'

'You SUPPOSE it could? You know smackin' well it could, don't you? Here, gimme that arrow and I'll show you.'

Sir Walter Storm was on his feet, suavely. 'A demonstration will not be necessary, my lord. We accept my learned friend's statement. We also appreciate that the witness is merely attempting to express an honest opinion under somewhat trying circumstances.'

('This is what I meant,' Evelyn whispered to me. 'You see? They'll bait the old bear until he can't see the ring for blood.')

It was certainly the general impression that H.M. had badly mismanaged things, in addition to proving nothing. His last two questions were asked in an almost plaintive tone.

'Never mind its accuracy at twenty yards. Would it be accurate at a very short distance - a few feet?' 'Probably.'

'In fact, you couldn't miss?' 'Not at two or three feet, no.' 'That's all.’

The Attorney-General's brief re-examination disposed of this suggestion and cut it off at the root

'In order to kill the deceased in the way my learned friend has suggested, the person using the cross-bow must have been within two or three feet of the victim?'

'Yes,' returned Fleming, thawing a little.

'In other words, actually in the room?'

'Yes.'

'Exactly. Mr Fleming, when you entered this locked and sealed room -'

'Now, we'll object to that,' said H.M., suddenly rearing up again with a wheeze and a flutter of papers.

For the first time Sir Walter was a trifle at a loss. He turned towards H.M., and we got a look at his face. It was long and strong, dark-browed despite its slight ruddiness: a powerful face. But both he and H.M. addressed the judge as though speaking to each other through an interpreter.

'My lord, what is it to which my learned friend takes exception?'

''Sealed.'

The judge was looking at H.M. with bright and steady eyes of interest; but he spoke dryly. 'The term was perhaps a little fanciful, Sir Walter.'

'I readily withdraw it, my lord. Mr Fleming: when you entered this unsealed room to which every possible entrance or exit was barred on the inside -'

'Object again,' said H.M.

'Ahem. When you entered,' said the other, his voice beginning to sound with 'far-off thunder in spite of himself, 'this room whose door was firmly bolted on the inside, and its windows closed with locked shutters, did you find any such singular apparatus as that?'

He pointed to the cross-bow.

'No, I did not'

'It is not a thing that could be readily overlooked, is it?'

'It certainly is not,' replied the witness, with jocularity.

'Thank you.'

'Call Dr Spencer Hume.'

VII

'Standing Near the Ceiling -

FIVE minutes later they were still looking for Dr Spencer Hume, and we knew that something was wrong. I saw H.M.'s big hands close, though he gave no other sign. Huntley Lawton rose.

'My lord, the witness appears to be - er - missing. We -ah-'

'So I observe, Mr Lawton. What is the position? Do I understand that you move an adjournment until the