In the Mayor's Parlour

Chapter 11

THE NINETEEN MINUTES' INTERVAL

Carstairs, a red-haired, blue-eyed, stolid-faced young Scotsman, stepped into the witness-box with the air of a man who is being forced against his will to the performance of some distasteful obligation. Everybody looked wonderingly at him; he was a comparative stranger in the town, and the unimaginative folk amongst the spectators were already cudgelling their brains for an explanation of his presence. But Brent, after a glance at Carstairs, transferred his attention to Carstairs's principal, at whom he had already looked once or twice during Mrs. Saumarez's brief occupancy of the witness-box. Wellesley, sitting in a corner seat a little to the rear of the solicitor's table, had manifested some signs of surprise and annoyance while Mrs. Saumarez was being questioned; now he showed blank wonder at hearing his assistant called. He looked from Carstairs to the Coroner, and from the Coroner to Hawthwaite, and suddenly, while Carstairs was taking the oath, he slipped from his seat, approached Cotman, a local solicitor, who sat listening, close by Tansley, and began to talk to him in hurried undertones. Tansley nudged Brent's elbow.

"Wellesley's tumbled to it!" he whispered. "The police suspect--him!"

"Good heavens!" muttered Brent, utterly unprepared for this suggestion. "You really think--that?"

"Dead sure!" asserted Tansley. "That's the theory! What's this red-headed chap called for, else? You listen!"

Brent was listening, keenly enough. The witness was giving an account of himself. Robert Carstairs, qualified medical practitioner--qualifications specified--at present assistant to Dr. Wellesley; been with him three months.

"Dr. Carstairs," began the Coroner, "do you remember the evening on which the late Mayor, Mr. Wallingford, was found dead in the Mayor's Parlour?"

"I do!" replied Carstairs bluntly.

"Where were you on that evening?"

"In the surgery."

"What are your surgery hours at Dr. Wellesley's?"

"Nine to ten of a morning; seven to nine of an evening."

"Was Dr. Wellesley with you in the surgery on that particular evening?"

"He was--some of the time."

"Not all the time?"

"No."

"What part of the time was he there, with you?"

"He was there, with me, from seven o'clock until half-past seven."

"Attending to patients, I suppose?"

"There were patients--three or four."

"Do you remember who they were?"

"Not particularly. Their names will be in the book."

"Just ordinary callers?"

"Just that."

"You say Dr. Wellesley was there until half-past seven. What happened then?"

"He went out of the surgery."

"Do you mean out of the house?"

"I mean what I say. Out of the surgery."

"Where is the surgery situated?"

"At the back of the house; behind the dining-room. There's a way into it from St. Lawrence Lane. That's the way the patients come in."

"Did Dr. Wellesley go out that way, or did he go into the house?"

"I don't know where he went. All I know is--he went, leaving me there."

"Didn't say where he was going?"

"He didn't say anything."

"Was he dressed for going out?"

"No--he was wearing a white linen jacket. Such as we always wear at surgery hours."

"And that was at half-past seven?"

"Half-past seven precisely."

"How do you fix the time?"

"There's a big, old-fashioned clock in the surgery. Just as Dr. Wellesley went out I heard the Moot Hall clock chime half-past seven, and then the chimes of St. Hathelswide's Church. I noticed that our clock was a couple of minutes slow, and I put it right."

"When did you next see Dr. Wellesley?"

"At just eleven minutes to eight."

"Where?"

"In the surgery."

"He came back there?"

"Yes."

"How do you fix that precise time--eleven minutes to eight?"

"Because he'd arranged to see a patient in Meadow Gate at ten minutes to eight. I glanced at the clock as he came in, saw what time it was, and reminded him of the appointment."

"Did he go to keep it?"

"He did."

"Was he still wearing the white linen jacket when he came back to you?"

"Yes. He took it off, then put on his coat and hat and went out again."

"According to what you say he was out of the surgery, wearing that white linen jacket, exactly nineteen minutes. Did he say anything to you when he came back at eleven minutes to eight of where he had been or what he had been doing during the interval between 7.30 and 7.49?"

"He said nothing."

"You concluded that he had been in the house?"

"I concluded nothing. I never even thought about it. But I certainly shouldn't have thought that he would go out into the street in his surgery jacket."

"Well, Dr. Wellesley went out at 7.50 to see this patient in Meadow Gate. Did anything unusual happen after that--in the surgery, I mean?"

"Nothing, until a little after eight. Then a policeman came for Dr. Wellesley, saying that the Mayor had been found dead in his Parlour, and that it looked like murder. I sent him to find Dr. Wellesley in Meadow Gate, told him where he was."

"You didn't go to the Moot Hall yourself?"

"No; there were patients in the surgery."

The Coroner paused in his questioning, glanced at his papers, and then nodded to the witness as an intimation that he had nothing further to ask him. And Carstairs was about to step down from the box, when Cotman, the solicitor to whom Wellesley had been whispering, rose quickly from his seat and turned towards the Coroner.

"Before this witness leaves the box, sir," he said, "I should like to ask him two or three questions. I am instructed by Dr. Wellesley to appear for him. Dr. Wellesley, since you resumed this inquest, sir, learns with surprise and--yes, I will say disgust--for strong word though it is, it is strictly applicable!--that all unknown to him the police hold him suspect, and are endeavouring to fasten the crime of murder on him. In fact, sir, I cannot sufficiently express my condemnation of the methods which have evidently been resorted to, in underhand fashion----"

The Coroner waved a deprecating hand.

"Yes, yes!" he said. "But we are here, Mr. Cotman, to hold a full inquiry into the circumstances of the death of the late Mayor, and the police, or anybody else, as you know very well, are fully entitled to pursue any course they choose in the effort to get at the truth. Just as you are entitled to ask any questions of any witness, to be sure. You wish to question the present witness?"

"I shall exercise my right to question this and any other witness, sir," replied Cotman. He turned to Carstairs, who had lingered in the witness-box during this exchange between coroner and solicitor. "Dr. Carstairs," he continued, "you say that after being away from his surgery for nineteen minutes on the evening of Mr. Wallingford's death, Dr. Wellesley came back to you there?"

"Yes," answered Carstairs. "That's so."

"Was anyone with you in the surgery when he returned?"

"No, no one."

"You were alone with him, until he went out again to the appointment in Meadow Gate?"

"Yes, quite alone."

"So you had abundant opportunity of observing him. Did he seem at all excited, flurried, did you notice anything unusual in his manner?"

"I didn't. He was just himself."

"Quite calm and normal?"

"Oh, quite!"

"Didn't give you the impression that he'd just been going through any particularly moving or trying episode--such as murdering a fellow-creature?"

"He didn't," replied Carstairs, without the ghost of a smile. "He was--just as usual."

"When did you see him next, after he went out to keep the appointment in Meadow Gate?"

"About half-past eight, or a little later."

"Where?"

"At the mortuary. He sent for me. I went to the mortuary, and found him there with Dr. Barber. They were making an examination of the dead man and wanted my help."

"Was Dr. Wellesley excited or upset then?"

"He was not. He seemed to me--I'm speaking professionally, mind you--remarkably cool."

Cotman suddenly sat down, and turned to his client with a smile on his lips. Evidently he made some cynical remark to Wellesley, for Wellesley smiled too.

"Smart chap, Cotman!" whispered Tansley to Brent. "That bit of cross-exam'll tell with the jury. And now, what next?"

Bunning, recalled from the previous sitting, came next--merely to repeat that the Mayor went up to his parlour at twenty-five minutes past seven, and that he and Mr. Brent found his Worship dead just after eight o'clock. Following him came Dr. Barber, who testified that when he first saw Wallingford's dead body, just about a quarter-past eight, he came to the conclusion that death had taken place about forty-five minutes previously, perhaps a little less. And from him Cotman drew evidence that Wellesley, in the examination at the mortuary, was normal, calm, collected, and, added Dr. Barber, of his own will, greatly annoyed and horrified at the murder.

Brent was beginning to get sick of this new development: to him it seemed idle and purposeless. He whispered as much to Tansley. But Tansley shook his head.

"Can't say that," he replied. "Where was Wellesley during that nineteen minutes' absence from the surgery? He'll have to explain that anyway. But they'll have more evidence than what we've heard. Hello! here's Walkershaw, the Borough Surveyor! What are they going to get out of him, I wonder?"

Brent watched an official-looking person make his way to the witness-box. He was armed with a quantity of rolls of drawing-paper, and a clerk accompanied him whose duty, it presently appeared, was to act as a living easel and hold up these things, diagrams and outlines, while his principal explained them. Presently the eager audience found itself listening to what was neither more nor less than a lecture on the architecture of Hathelsborough Moot Hall and its immediately adjacent buildings--and then Brent began to see the drift of the Borough Surveyor's evidence.

The whole block of masonry between Copper Alley and Piper's Passage, testified Walkershaw, illustrating his observations by pointing to the large diagram held on high by his clerk, was extremely ancient. In it there were three separate buildings--separate, that was, in their use, but all joining on to each other. First, next to Copper Alley, which ran out of Meadow Gate, came the big house long used as a bank. Then came the Moot Hall itself. Next, between the Moot Hall and Piper's Passage, which was a narrow entry between River Gate and St. Lawrence Lane, stood Dr. Wellesley's house. Until comparatively recent times Dr. Wellesley's house had been the official residence of the Mayor of Hathelsborough. And between it and the Moot Hall there was a definite means of communication: in short, a private door.

There was a general pricking of ears upon this announcement, and Tansley indulged in a low whistle: he saw the significance of Walkershaw's statement.

"Another link in the chain, Brent!" he muttered. "'Pon my word, they're putting it together rather cleverly: nineteen minutes' absence? door between his house and the Moot Hall? Come!"

Brent made no comment. He was closely following the Borough Surveyor as that worthy pointed out on his plans and diagrams the means of communication between the Moot Hall and the old dwelling-place at its side. In former days, said Walkershaw, some Mayor of Hathelsborough had caused a door to be made in a certain small room in the house; that door opened on a passage in the Moot Hall which led to the corridor wherein the Mayor's Parlour was situated. It had no doubt been used by many occupants of the Mayoral chair during their term of office. Of late, however, nobody seemed to have known of it; but he himself having examined it, for the purposes of this inquiry, during the last day or two, had found that it showed unmistakable signs of recent usage. In fact, the lock and bolts had quite recently been oiled.

The evidence of this witness came to a dramatic end in the shape of a question from the Coroner:

"How long would it take, then, for any person to pass from Dr. Wellesley's house to the Mayor's Parlour in the Moot Hall?"

"One minute," replied Walkershaw promptly. "If anything--less."

Cotman, who had been whispering with his client during the Borough Surveyor's evidence, asked no questions, and presently the interest of the court shifted to a little shrewd-faced, self-possessed woman who tripped into the witness-box and admitted cheerfully that she was Mrs. Marriner, proprietor of Marriner's Laundry, and that she washed for several of the best families in Hathelsborough. The fragment of handkerchief which had been found in the Mayor's Parlour was handed to her for inspection, and the Coroner asked her if she could say definitely if she knew whose it was. There was considerable doubt and scepticism in his voice as he put the question; but Mrs. Marriner showed herself the incarnation of sure and positive conviction.

"Yes, sir," she answered. "It's Dr. Wellesley's."

"You must wash a great many handkerchiefs at your laundry, Mrs. Marriner," observed the Coroner. "How can you be sure about one--about that one?"

"I'm sure enough about that one, sir, because it's one of a dozen that's gone through my hands many a time!" asserted Mrs. Marriner. "There's nobody in the town, sir, leastways not amongst my customers--and I wash for all the very best people, sir--that has any handkerchiefs like them, except Dr. Wellesley. They're the very finest French cambric. That there is a piece of one of the doctor's best handkerchiefs, sir, as sure as I'm in this here box--which I wish I wasn't!"

The Coroner asked nothing further; he was still plainly impatient about the handkerchief evidence, if not wholly sceptical, and he waved Mrs. Marriner away. But Cotman stopped her.

"I suppose, Mrs. Marriner, that mistakes are sometimes made when you and your assistants send home the clean clothes?" he suggested. "Things get in the wrong baskets, eh?"

"Well, not often--at my place, sir," replied Mrs. Marriner. "We're very particular."

"Still--sometimes, you know?"

"Oh, I'll not say that they don't, sometimes, sir," admitted Mrs. Marriner. "We're all of us human creatures, as you're very well aware, sir."

"This particular handkerchief may have got into a wrong basket?" urged Cotman. "It's--possible?"

"Oh, it's possible, sir," said Mrs. Marriner. "Mistakes will happen, sir."

Mrs. Marriner disappeared amongst the crowd, and a new witness took her place. She, too, was a woman, and a young and pretty one--and in a tearful and nervous condition. Tansley glanced at her and turned, with a significant glance, to Brent.

"Great Scott!" he whispered. "Wellesley's housemaid!"