The Judas Window

'Nobody but Captain Answell himself. Why don't you ask him?'

Mr Justice Rankin intervened. 'The witness's remark, though out of order,' he said with some asperity, 'would seem pertinent. Is Captain Answell in court? Considering that a part of the evidence depends on information that he may be able to give ...'

H.M. surged up with a sort of ferocious affability. 'My lord, Captain Answell is goin' to appear as a witness for the defence. You needn't trouble to send for him. He's been under subpoena for a long, long time; and we'll see that he is here, though I'm not sure he'll be a very willin' witness for his own side.'

('What on earth is all this?' Evelyn asked in a whisper. 'You heard the fellow say himself he wasn't to be called as a witness. He must have known he'd be subpoenaed! What is happening?')

It was undoubtedly some trick on H.M.'s part: H.M. being determined to be the old maestro if it choked him. Beyond that nothing was known.

'I have no more questions to ask this witness,' said Sir Walter Storm abruptly.

'Call Joseph George Shanks,' said H.M.

While Grabell was going out of the box, and Joseph George Shanks was going into it, a consultation went on among the counsel for the Crown. The prosecution was in a strange and horned position. They must fight this through. That James Answell had been the victim of a mistake: that Hume had planned a trap for Reginald: even that Hume had stolen the pistol: was now being pushed towards a certainty. But these were details which did not, for everything that was said, in the least demonstrate the innocence of the prisoner. I remembered the words in the summing-up of a great jurist at anothercause celebre: 'Members of the jury, there is some circumstantial evidence which is as good and conclusive as the evidence of eye-witnesses ... If I might give you an illustration: supposing you have a room with one door, and a closed window, and a passage leading from that door. A man comes up the passage, goes through the door into the room, and finds another man standing with a pistol, and on the floor a dead man: the circumstantial evidence there would be almost conclusive, if not conclusive.'

We had just such a situation here. The prisoner had still been found in a locked room. The circumstantial evidence of the fact was still conclusive. No doubt had been cast on the central point, which was the only real point at issue. However damaged the case for the prosecution had become, Sir Walter Storm must finish this course.

I was recalled by H.M.'s voice.

'Your name's Joseph George Shanks, and you were odd-jobs man at number 12 Grosvenor Street?'

'Yessir,' said the witness. He was a little, broad man, so much like a dwarfed model of John Bull that his Sunday-best clothes sat oddly on him. Two polished knives of white collar stabbed his neck: they seemed to keep his voice light from the effort of keeping his neck high.

'How long did you work there?'

'Ah,' said the other, considering. 'Six years, more or less, I should think.'

'What were your duties, mostly?'

'Mostly keeping Mr Hume's archery things in order; any repairs to 'em; things like that.'

'Take a look at this arrow, which was used to kill the deceased' - the witness carefully wiped his hands on the seat of his Sunday trousers before accepting it - 'and tell the jury whether you've seen it before.'

'You-bet-I-have, sir. I fastened the feathers on. I remember this one. Dye's a mite dark for the kind I meant.'

'You often fastened the deceased's special kind of feathers to the arrows? And dyed the guide-feather? Mr Fleming told us that yesterday.'

'I did that, sir.'

'Now, supposin' I showed you a little piece of feather,' pursued H.M. with argumentative persuasiveness, 'and I asked you to tell me definitely whether it was the piece of feather missing from the middle, there ... could you do that?'

'If it was off this feather, I could, sir. Besides, it 'ud fit.'

'It would. But - just to take a different sort of question for a minute - you worked in that little workshop or shed in the back garden, didn't you?'

'I'm sure I didn't mean to press you, sir,' said the witness generously. 'What was that? Ah. Yes, I did.'

'Did he keep any cross-bows there?'

The stir of creaking that went through the room affected Shanks with a pleasant sense of importance. He relaxed, and leaned his elbows on the rail of the box. Evidently some stern eye was watching over his conduct from the spectators' gallery lover our heads; for he seemed to become sensible of the impropriety of his posture, and straightened up hastily.

'He did, sir. Three of them. Fine nasty-looking things.'

'Where'd he keep 'em?'

'In a big box, sir, like a big tool-box with a handle. Under the carpenter's bench.' The witness blinked with a painful effort at concentration.

'Tell me: did you go down to that shed on the morning of Sunday, January 5th, the day after the murder?'

'Yes, sir. I know it was Sunday, but even so, considering -'

'Did you notice anything different in the shed?'

'I did, sir. Somebody'd been at that tool-box, or what I call a tool-box. It's directly under the bench, you see, sir; and there's shavings and dust (falls on it, like a coating, you see, sir; and so if you loo'k at it you can tell right away, without thinking anything of it, if someone has been at it.'

'Did you look in the box?'

'Yes, sir, of course. And one of the cross-bows were not there.'

'What'd you do when you found this out?'

'Well, sir, of course I spoke to Miss Mary about it; but she said not to bother about such things, considering; and so I didn't.'

'Could you identify that cross bow, if you saw it again?' 'I could, sir.'

From his own hidden lair (which he kept jealously guarded) H.M. made a gesture to Lollypop. There was produced a weapon very similar in appearance to the cross-bow H.M. had used yesterday for the purposes of illustration. It was perhaps not quite so long, and had a broader head; steel studs were set in a line down the stock, and there was a little silver plate let into it.

'Is this, the cross-bow?' said; H.M.

'That's it; yes, sir. Here's even Mr Hume's name engraved on the little plate.'

'Look at the drum of the windlass there, where you'll see the teeth. Just tell me if there's somethin' caught in there - ah, you got itl Take it out. Hold it over so the jury can see. What is it?' j

'It's a bit of feather, sir, blue feather.'

Sir Walter' Storm was on 'his feet. He was not amused now; only grave, heavy and polite.

'My lord, are we to assume that this is being suggested as the mysterious piece of feather about which so many questions have been asked?’

'Only a part of it, milord,' grunted H.M. 'If it's examined, we'll see that there's still a little bit of it missin’. Not much. Only a piece about a quarter by half an inch square. But enough. That, we're suggestin', is the second piece. There are three of them. One's yet to come.' After the amenities, he turned back to the witness. 'Could you say definitely whether or not the piece you've got in your hand came off that broken guide-feather on the arrow?'

'I think I could, sir,' said the witness, and blinked.

'Just look at it, then, and tell us.'

While Shanks screwed up his eyes and hunched his shoulders over it, therewas a sound of shuffling or sliding in court. People were frying surreptitiously to rise and get a look. The prisoner, his face sharper now and less muddled, was also staring at it; but he seemed as puzzled as anyone else.

'Ah, this is right, sir,' declared Shanks. 'It come off here.'

'You're sure of that, now? I mean, one part of a broken feather might be deceptive, mightn't it? Even if it's a goose-feather, and even if it's got a special kind of dye on it, can you still identify it as comin' from that particular arrow?'

'This one I can; yes, indeed, yes. I put on this dye myself. I put it on with a brush, like paint. That's what I