The Judas Window

'I see. Aside from the night of January 4th, when was the last time you visited that house?'

'Nearly a year ago, it may have been.'

'Uh-huh. I thought so. But didn't you hear Dyer testify yesterday that the door with the glass panel, the old door, had been removed six months ago; and they substituted an ordinary solid wooden door? If you got any doubts on the matter, look up the official surveyor's report - it's one of the exhibits here - and see what he has to say about it. What do you have to say about it?'

The witness's voice seemed to come out of a gulf. 'The - the door may have been open -'

'That's all,' said H.M. curtly. 'At the conclusion of our evidence, my lord, I'm goin' to suggest that somethin' is done about this.'

To say that the blow was a staggerer would be to put the matter mildly. A witness had come out of the void to testify to James Answell's certain guilt, and, just eight seconds later, he was caught in flat perjury. But that was not the most important point. It was as though a chemical change had affected the sympathies of the jury. For the first time I saw some of them honestly looking at the prisoner, and that is the beginning of all sympathy. The word 'frame-up' was in the air as palpably as though it had been spoken. If H.M. had expected Reginald to play a trick like that, it could have been no more effective. And the sympathy was mounting. If H.M. had expected ... ?

'Call your next witness. Sir Henry,' said the judge mildly.

'My lord - if the Attorney-General's got no objection -I'd like to ask for one of the Crown's witnesses to be recalled. It's merely for the purpose of identifyin' some articles I'd like to put in in evidence; and it could be done best by a member of the household whose knowledge of the articles has been established.'

'I have no objection, my lord,' said Sir Walter Storm, who was surreptitiously mopping his forehead with a handkerchief.

'Very well. Is the witness in court?'

'Yes, my lord. I'd like to have Herbert William Dyer recalled.'

We had not time to reflect over each new twist of this infernal business when Dyer entered the box. But the prisoner was sitting up, and his eyes were shining. The grave Dyer, as neat as yesterday if in slightly less sombre clothes, bent his grizzled forehead attentively. By this time Lollypop was busy arranging near the table a series of exhibits mysteriously swathed in brown paper. H.M.'s first move was to display a brown tweed suit with plus-fours - a golf-suit. Evelyn and I looked at each other.

'Ever see this suit before?' questioned H.M. 'Hand it up to him.'

'Yes, sir,' said Dyer, after a pause. 'It is a golf-suit belonging to Dr Spencer Hume.'

'Dr Hume not bein' within call, I presume you can identify it? So. Is that the suit you were lookin' for on the night of the murder?'

‘It is.'

'Now just feel in the right-hand coat pocket. What do you find there?'

'An ink-pad and two rubber stamps,' said Dyer, producing them.

'Is that the ink-pad you were lookin' for on the night of the murder?' 'It is.'

'Good. We got some other stuff here,' continued H.M. off-handedly: 'laundry, and a pair of Turkish slippers, and the like; but that'd be out of your province. We can get it properly identified by Miss Jordan. But tell me if you can identify this?'

This time there was produced a large oblong suitcase of black leather, having the initials stamped in gold on the flap beside the handle.

'Yes, sir,' replied Dyer, stepping back a little. 'It is undoubtedly Dr Hume's. I believe it is the one Miss Jordan packed for Dr Hume on the night of the - circumstance. Both Miss Jordan and I forgot all about it; or at least -she having been very ill afterwards; and, when she asked me what had happened to it, I could not remember. I have not seen it since.'

'Yes. But here's just one more thing that you're the one to identify. Look at this cut-glass decanter, stopper and all. You'll see it's full of whisky except for about two drinks poured out. Ever see it before?'

For a moment I thought H.M. had got hold of one of the prosecution's own exhibits. The decanter he produced was indistinguishable from the one the Crown had put in evidence. Evidently Dyer thought so too.

'It looks -' said the witness. 'It looks like the decanter which Mr Hume kept on the sideboard in the study. Like - that other -'

'It does. It was meant to. Between those two, could you swear which was which?' 'I'm afraid not, sir.'

'Take one in each hand. Can you swear that my decanter, in your right hand, is not the real one you bought from Hartley's of Regent Street; and that the first exhibit, in your left hand, ain't a copy in inferior glass?'

'I do not know, sir.'

'No more questions.'

Three witnesses then passed in rapid succession, being not more than five minutes in the box among all of them. Mr Reardon Hartley, of the firm of Hartley and Son, Regent Street, testified that what H.M. called 'my’ decanter was the original one supplied by him to Mr Hume; the prosecutor's exhibit was a copy which Avory Hume had bought on Friday afternoon, January 3rd. Mr Dennis Moreton, analytical chemist, testified to having examined the whisky in 'my' decanter, and to having discovered in. it one hundred and twenty grains of brudine, a derivative of scopolamine. Dr Ash ton Parker, Professor of Applied Criminology at the University of Manchester, gave the real evidence of the three.

‘I examined the cross-bow there, which I was told belonged to Avory Hume. In the groove down the centre of the cross-bow, evidently used for the reception of a missile - here,' said Dr Parker, indicating, 'the microscope showed flakes of what I believed to be dry paint. I judged that these flakes had been rubbed off owing to the sudden friction when some wooden missile was fired from the bow. Under analysis, the paint was ascertained to be a substance known as 'X-varnish', used exclusively by Messrs Hardigan, who sold to the deceased the arrow in question. I present an affidavit to that effect.

'The arrow here was - ah - kindly lent to me by Detective-Inspector Mottram. Here the microscope showed along the shaft of the arrow signs that flakes of paint had been chipped in an irregular line from it.

'In the teeth of the windlass on the cross-bow I found the piece of blue feather which you see there now. This I compared to the broken feather on the end of the arrow. The two pieces made up a complete feather, except for an irregular bit which was missing. I have here photomicrographs of the two pieces, enlarged ten times. The joinings in the fibre of the feather can be seen clearly, and leave no doubt in my own mind that they came from the same feather.'

'In your opinion, had the arrow been fired from this cross-bow?'

'In my opinion, it unquestionably had.'

This was hard hitting. Under cross-examination, Dr Parker acknowledged the scientific possibility of an error; it was as far as he would go.

'And I acknowledge, my lord,' said H.M. in reply to a question from the bench, 'that so far we've not shown where this cross-bow or the other articles came from, or what happened to the missin' piece of feather. We'll remedy that now. Call William Cochrane.'

('Who on earth is that?' whispered Evelyn. H.M. had said once before that you would no more cause a commotion in Balmy Rankin's court than you would cause one on a chess-board; but the curiosity of the court had now reached to as flaming a pitch as it could go. It was stimulated still more by the quietly dressed elderly man who took the oath.)

'Your full name?'

'William Rath Cochrane.'

'What's your profession, Mr Cochrane?'

'I am the manager of the Left-Luggage Department at Paddington Station - the Paddington terminus of the Great Western Railway.'

'I think we all know the process,' rumbled H.M., 'but I'll just go over it here. If you want to leave a bag or a parcel or the like for a few hours, you hand it across a counter, and you get back a written slip that allows you to claim the parcel again?'

'That is right.'

'Can you tell the date and the time of day when the parcel was handed in?'

'Oh, yes. It is on the ticket.'