The Judas Window

H.M. snapped his fingers, and then sniffed. 'And that's all there is to it, my fat-heads. It ain't even very expensive. Our Reginald will remain under duress until he promises to be good - and serve him right I It's an awful pity the scheme didn't work. Even if he won't promise, he can't prove anything, and he is still always suspect of a leaky steeple; and Avory Hume's daughter is married. It's happened many times before, y'know. It's the respectable way of hushin' up scandal.'

We considered it, more detailed than it had come from the witness-box in the cold voice of Dr Quigley.

'Avory Hume,' I said, 'was apparently a tough proposition.'

H.M. blinked in the firelight of the old room, surprised.

'Not particularly, son. He was simply respectable. Also, he was a realist. Someone was blackmailing him. Something had to be done about it. And so he did. You heard the father's daughter talkin' in court this afternoon. I don't mind his sort. As I say, in this amusin' little spectacle of dog-eat-dog, I'm rather sorry his scheme didn't come off, and shove our cool Reginald into cooler clink while he reflects that there are ways and ways of gettin' money. But I'm an old-fashioned lawyer, Ken, and a whole canine feast ain't goin' to let 'em hang my client. Well, right there at the start, I had to dig up 'a witness who knew somethin' about the scheme. If necessary, I was prepared to bribe Tregannon himself to spill the beans -'

'Did you say bribe?'

'Sure. But I got Quigley, because the Medical Council had already been after Tregannon. There was someone who actually overheard Avory and Spencer and Tregannon cookin' up the broth; someone planted in Tregannon's nursing home, and waitin' for an opportunity to expose Tregannon. That was what I meant, a little while ago, by speakin' of the cussedness which cuts the other way.'

'But what's the line of defence now?' 'Ar!' said H.M., and scowled.

'You've practically established that there was a plot. But will Storm throw up his brief just because of that? Is there any reason why Answell still shouldn't be guilty?'

'No,' said H.M. 'That's what's got me worried.'

He pushed back his chair, lumbered up, and took a few pigeon-toed turns up and down the room.

'So what's the line of defence now?'

'The Judas window,' said H.M., peering down over his spectacles ...

'Now, now!' he went on persuasively. 'Just you look at the evidence, and take it from the beginning as I did. Now that we've established a plot, there'll be a whole heap of helpful suggestions in the way that plot was worked out. I'll give you a hint. One thing in this scheme bothered me a bit. Avory and Spencer are workin' together to nobble Reginald - very well. But, on the night of the trick, Avory manages to get everybody out of the house except the butler. The cook and the maid are out. Amelia Jordan and Dr Hume are goin' off to Sussex. But I said to myself: Here! Spencer can't be going away like that. His brother needs him. Who's goin' to come in and cluck his tongue over the bogus loony: who's goin' to examine the loony: who's goin' to swear he took no drug, if not Dr Hume? He was the essential part of the scheme; he was the pivot.'

'Unless they got Tregannon.'

'Yes; but they'd hardly have Tregannon on the premises. It would look much too fishy. And there was the answer to the other question. If Spencer himself were too conveniently hangin' about with his stethoscope, if the whole thing flowed too smoothly, an eyebrow might be raised here and there. It was the Jordan woman, in all accident, who gave the hint away when she was burblin' in court yesterday: I heard her testimony a month ago, and I spotted it then. Remember what she was to do? She was to pick up Spencer in the car - pick him up at the hospital - and they were to drive into the country afterwards. Do you recall that?'

'Yes. What of it?’

'Do you also recall,' said H.M., opening his eyes, 'what Spencer had asked her to do for him? He'd asked her to pack a suitcase for him, and bring it along to the hospital so that he wouldn't have to bother. And, burn me, I don't recall a neater trick. She intended to go to Sussex; Spencer never did. The one way in this world you can be sure you won't get what you want is to tell someone, off-hand, to pack a suitcase for you. The person does his best, and shoves in what he thinks you'll need. But something is always wrong. In this case, all Spencer needed was a pretext. She was to arrive at the hospital luggin' the suitcase. 'Ah,' said Spencer affably, 'I see you've packed it. Did you put in my silver-backed brushes?' Or it may be his dressing-gown, or his evenin' studs, or anything at all: all he's got to do is wade through the list until he finds something that's been omitted. 'You left that out?' he says. 'Good God, woman, do you think I can travel to the country without my whatever-it-is? My whatever-it-is is absolutely necessary. This is a most unfortunate nuisance' - can't you hear Spencer sayin' that? -'but I am afraid we shall have to go back to the house for it.''

H.M., patting his stomach and leering down from under lofty eyebrows, was giving such an uncanny impersonation of Spencer Hume that you could almost hear the doctor's voice. Then he broke off. He added:

'So they drive back to the house. And they arrive (accidentally but providentially) just in time to find Avory Hume overcoming a maniac who has tried to kill him. Hey?'

There was a pause.

'It's rather a neat trick, and it would have been convincing,' Evelyn admitted. 'Was the woman - Amelia Jordan - in on the scheme to nail Reginald?'

'No. Otherwise there'd 'a' been no reason for the hocus-pocus. She was to be one of the unprepared witnesses. The other two were Dyer and Fleming -'

'Fleming?'

Taking the cigar out of his mouth, H.M., with a very sour expression, sat down at the table again. 'Look here! You heard what Fleming said in the witness-box. Avory' had told him to drop in at the house about a quarter to seven. Hey? All right. With Fleming's habits, he may even suspect that Fleming'll be a few minutes early. Now concentrate on the elegant timing of the whole business, as it was M E A N T to happen.

'Avory has told the prospective loony to come to the house at six o'clock sharp; and, considerin' an errand of blackmail, he can ruddy well believe Reginald will be on time. Avory has told Amelia Jordan that she's to start off in the car (which Dyer will bring round from the garage) at soon after 6.15. Gimme a piece of paper, somebody, and a pencil. Avory Hume was awful methodical, and he worked out this piece of crooked work as methodically as he'd have worked out the terms of a mortgage. Like this:

'At 6 p.m., Reginald will arrive. He will be seen by Jordan and Dyer. Dyer takes him to the study. Then Dyer will be sent to fetch the car. Dyer will probably linger at the study door for a couple of minutes; he's been warned the visitor is not to be trusted, remember. Dyer will leave the house, say 6.5. He should be back with the car between 6.10 and 6.15. Between 6.15 and 6.20, Amelia Jordan will be drivin' away in it to the hospital.

'It's only a short drive from Grosvenor Street to Praed Street, near Paddington. Amelia Jordan arrives at the hospital, say 6.22. She will hand the suitcase to Spencer, who will discover that his whatever-it-is is missin', and they will drive back. They will arrive back between 6.27 and 6.30.

'By this time the stage is all set. Avory Hume will cut up a row, bring Dyer bangin' at the door - open the door to show the results of a frantic struggle in the study. Reginald, groggy and wild-eyed with the inertia that follows a maniacal outburst, won't be able to say much. The doctor will arrive, clucking his tongue. While the excitement is still high and handsome, Fleming will arrive and be the last witness. So.'

H.M. puffed out smoke and waved it away.

'Only it didn't work out like that,' I said. 'Someone took advantage of that scheme - and murdered the old man.'

'That's it. Now I've told you what was meant to happen. Next, to help you along, I'll show you what did happen. I'm goin' to give you a time-table for that whole evening, because it's very suggestive. Most of the official times, like the arrival of officers or the times centrin' directly round the fact of the murder, you've already heard in court. Others weren't important as direct evidence, and weren't stressed. But I've got 'em all here, taken down from the police notes; and I've got the comments I wrote opposite 'em after I'd interviewed Answell and Mary Hume. I suggest to you (gor, how I'm beginnin' to hate that expression!) that, if you study 'em with a little cerebral activity, you'll learn a good deal.'

From his inside pocket he took out a large, grubby sheet of paper, worn from much pawing-over, and spread it out carefully. It was dated over a month before. The time-schedule, in the left-hand column, had evidently been typed by Lollypop. The comments, in the other column, were scrawled in blue pencil by H.M. Thus:

Table

6.10 Answell arrives, and is taken to study.