If Winter Comes Part 51

III

"They pushed off the case with the obvious witnesses--police, doctor, and so on. Then the thing hardened down. Then Sabre saw what was coming at him--saw it at a clap and never had remotely dreamt of it; saw it like a tiger coming down the street to devour him; saw it like the lid of h.e.l.l slowly slipping away before his eyes. Saw it! I was watching him. He saw it; and things--age, greyness, lasting and immovable calamity--I don't know what--frightful things--came down on his face like the dust of ashes settling on a polished surface.

"You see, what this Humpo fiend was laying out for was, first that Sabre was the father of the girl's child, second that he'd deliberately put the poison in her way, and brutally told her he was done with her, and gone off and left her so that she should do what she had done and he be rid of her. Yes. Yes, old man. And he'd got a case! By the living Jingo, he'd got such a case as a Crown prosecutor only dreams about after a good dinner and three parts of a bottle of port. There wasn't a thing, there wasn't an action or a deed or a thought that Sabre had done for months and months past but bricked him in like bricking a man into a wall, but tied him down like tying a man in a chair with four fathoms of rope. By the living Jingo, there wasn't a thing.

"Listen. Just listen and see for yourself. Worked off the police evidence and the doctor, d'you see? Then--'Mr. Bright!' Old man comes up into the box. Stands there ma.s.sive, bowed with grief, chest heaving, voice coming out of it like an organ in the Dead March. Stands there like Lear over the body of Cordelia. Stands there like the father of Virginia thinking of Appius Claudius.

"Like this, his evidence went: Was father of the deceased woman (as they called her). Was employed as foreman at Fortune, East and Sabre's. Had seen the body and identified it. So on, so on.

"Then Humpo gets on to him. Was his daughter the sort of girl to meditate taking her life?--'Never! Never!' Great rending cry that went down to your marrow.

"Touching the trouble that befell her, the birth of her child--had she ever betrayed signs of loose character while living beneath his roof?--'Never! Never!'

"How came she first to leave his house? Was any particular individual instrumental in obtaining for her work which first took her from beneath his roof?--'There! There!' Clenched fist and half his body over the box towards Sabre.

"'Look here!' bursts out old Sabre. 'Look here--!'

"They shut him up.

"'Answer the question, please, Mr. Bright.'--'Mr. Sabre led to her first going from me. Mr. Sabre!'

"Had this Mr. Sabre first approached him in the matter or had he solicited Mr. Sabre's help?--'He came to me! He came to me! Without rhyme, or reason, or cause, or need, or hint, or suggestion he came to me!'

"Was the situation thus obtained for the girl nearer her father's house or nearer Mr. Sabre's?--'Not a quarter of an hour, not ten minutes, from Mr. Sabre's house.'

"Had the witness any knowledge as to whether this man Sabre was a frequent visitor at the place of the girl's situation?--'Constantly, constantly, night after night he was there!'

"'Was he, indeed?' says Humpo, mightily interested. 'Was he, indeed?

There were perhaps great friends of his own standing there, one or two men chums, no doubt?'--'No one! No one!' cries the old man. 'No one but an old invalid lady, nigh bedridden, past seventy, and my daughter, my daughter, my Effie.'

"That was all very well, all very well, says Humpo. Mr. Bright's word was of course accepted, but had the witness any outside proof of the frequency of these visits to this bedridden old lady old enough to be the man Sabre's grandmother? Had the witness recently been shown a diary kept by Mr. Twyning at that period?--'Yes! Yes!'

"And it contained frequent reference to Sabre's mention in the office of these visits?--'Yes! Yes!'

"Did one entry reveal the fact that on one occasion this Sabre spent an entire night there?

"'Look here--' bursts out old Sabre. 'Look here--'

"Can't get any farther. Buddha on the throne shuts him up if he could have got any farther. 'Yes,' groans old Bright out of his heaving chest.

'Yes. A night there.'

"And on the very next day, the very next day, did this man Sabre rush off and enlist?--'Yes. Yes.'

"Viewed in light of the subsequent events, did that sudden burst of patriotism bear any particular interpretation?--'Running away from it,'

heaves the old man. 'Running away from it.'

"'Look here--' from Sabre again. 'Look here--' Same result.

"So this Humpo chap went on, piling it up from old Bright like that, old man; and all the time getting deeper and getting worse, of course. Sabre getting the girl into his own house after the old lady's death removes the girl from the neighbourhood; curious suddenness of the girl's dismissal during Sabre's leave; girl going straight to Sabre immediately able to walk after birth of child, and so on. Blacker and blacker, worse and worse.

"And then Humpo ends, 'A final question, Mr. Bright, and I can release you from the painful, the pitiable ordeal it has been my sad duty to inflict upon you. A final question: 'Have you in your own mind suspicions of the ident.i.ty of this unhappy woman's betrayer?' Old man cannot speak for emotion. Only nods, hands at his breast like a prophet about to tear his raiment. Only nods.

"'Do you see him in this court?'

"Old man hurls out his arms towards Sabre. Shouts, 'There! There!'

"Warm-hearted and excellent Iscariot leaps up and leads him tottering from the box; court seethes and groans with emotion; Humpo wipes his streaming face, Sabre stammers out, 'Look here--Look here--' Case goes on."

IV

"Next witness. Chemist. Funny little chap with two pairs of spectacles, one on his forehead and one on his nose. From Alton. Remembers distinctly sale of oxalic acid (produced) on Friday before the Sat.u.r.day of the girl's death. Remembers distinctly the purchaser, could identify him. Does he see him in court? Yes, there he is. Points at Sabre.

Anything odd about purchaser's manner? Couldn't say exactly odd.

Remembered he sat down while making the purchase. Ah, sat down, did he?

Was it usual for customers to sit down when making a trifling purchase?

No, not in his shop it wasn't usual. Ah, it struck him then as peculiar, this sitting down? As if perhaps the purchaser was under a strain? No, not for that reason--customers didn't as a rule sit in his shop, because he didn't as a rule have a chair in front of the counter for them to sit on. Court howls with laughter in relief from tension. Humpo says sternly, 'This is no laughing matter, sir. Stand down, sir.' Glares after him as he goes to his seat. Jury glares. Buddha glares. General impression that little chemist has been trying to s.h.i.+eld Sabre.

"Next witness. Chap I'd seen serve the divorce papers on Sabre at Brighton. Solicitor's clerk. Humpo handles him very impressively--also very carefully. Informs him no need to tell the court on what business he went down to Sabre's house on the fatal Sat.u.r.day. 'Sufficient,' says Humpo, 'that it was legal business of a deeply grave nature implicating the deceased and the man Sabre?' Witness agrees. Court nearly chokes itself whispering conjectures. 'And you saw the deceased but not the man Sabre?' Witness agrees again. Goes on, led by Humpo, to state that he served certain papers on the deceased. That she looked noticeably unhappy, frightened, lonely, deserted, when she opened the door to him.

Had great difficulty in obtaining from her the whereabouts of the man Sabre. At first refused to tell. No, didn't actually say she had been told not to tell; but, yes, certainly gave that impression. Extracted from her at last that he was probably at Brighton. Couldn't get anything more definite out of her.

"'Look here--', cries Sabre. 'Look here--look here, she didn't know!'

"'I am not surprised,' says Humpo, 'I am not at all surprised.' Court laughs cynically. 'You have interrupted us a great deal,' says Humpo.

'It is time we saw if you will be equally informative in the witness box.'

"Some one bawls, 'Next witness. Mark Sabre.'

"Court draws an enormous breath and gets itself ready for butchery to make a Tidborough holiday."

CHAPTER VI

I

Hapgood went on:

"I'm telling you, old man, that after the coroner had done with him, and after this Humpo, with his viprous forefinger, and his retriever tongue, and his perspiration streaming down his face, and Twyning tugging him down by the coat and putting him on the trail afresh--after the coroner, and after this Humpo like that, had been on to him for a bit, Sabre absolutely couldn't speak. He was like he had a constriction in his throat. There was nothing he could say but begin all his sentences with, 'Look here--Look here--'; and nine times out of ten incapable of anything to follow it up with.

"He was distraught. He was speechless. He was clean crazed.

"At the very beginning, with the coroner, he wouldn't use the word 'the deceased.' Insisted on keeping calling her Effie. Coroner kept pulling him up over it, and about the twentieth time pulled him up hard.

"Poor chap threw out his arms like he was throwing the word away and then hammered on the ledge. 'I _won't_ say deceased. I _won't_ call her the deceased. Vile word. Horrible word. Obscene, beastly, hateful word.

I won't call her it. Why should I call her the deceased?'