The Terriford mystery

by Marie Belloc Lowndes

II

“Call Miss Prince!”

There is a look of tense excitement on almost every face in the crowded court-house when the tall, angular figure of Miss Prince steps up, composedly, into the witness-box. Even the dullest witted of the spectators present is aware by now that her evidence will be crucial, one way or the other, to the prisoner.

While she is being sworn, the man in the dock, Henry Garlett, looks at her with a long, steady, rather sad look. The sight of Miss Prince reminds him with painful vividness of his wife, of “poor Emily.”

He is the one person in Court who does not realize the fearful import of the evidence she is about to tender. For one thing, he is well aware that he has only been to the Thatched Cottage on one occasion in two years, and he does not yet understand how very difficult it is to prove a negative.

Sir Almeric Post, for the Prosecution, begins his examination of this witness in a conversational tone. It is almost as if he were calling on Miss Prince in her own house, and asking her a number of not very important questions. And she also answers in a clear, decided voice, the voice that some of the people of Terriford know only too well. It is the voice of the admonitory Miss Prince, not that of Miss Prince the eager gossip.

Briefly she admits she is the daughter of the late Dr. William Prince, that she helped her father in his dispensary, and that when there came the break-up of her home and the sale of the practice to Dr. Maclean, she thought it within her right to take with her to the Thatched Cottage what drugs were left in her father’s dispensary.

And then there comes a sharp quickening of the public interest, and even the judge leans forward. Sir Almeric puts solemnly the question:

“And among those drugs I understand that there was a considerable quantity of arsenic in a stoppered glass jar?”

“There was,” she answers in a clear voice.

“Is it also a fact that the jar, marked with the word ‘arsenic’ printed on a blue label, stood open to the view of all those who were in a position to glance up into your medicine cupboard when it was open?”

“That is so,” says Miss Prince in a lower tone.

“And now I want you to cast your mind back to last spring.”

Miss Prince makes no answer, she simply looks quietly, thoughtfully at her questioner.

“Can you do that?”

“I think so. Though of course it’s difficult for me to swear to anything that may have happened on any special day.”

“You do, however, remember a late April storm which caused the gutters of your house to overflow and which did damage to the ceiling of a servant’s bedroom on the top floor of your house?”

Miss Prince admits that she remembers the circumstance.

“Now tell us in your own words what followed.”

“I wrote to Mr. Garlett, my landlord, and asked him if he would personally come over to my house and see the damage which had been done. We had never had a lawyer’s agreement. I was an old friend, almost the oldest friend, of Mrs. Garlett. And I was well aware that at any moment the Thatched Cottage could have been let for a considerably larger sum than the rent I was paying. On the other hand, I felt that Mr. Garlett would not mind my asking him to have the gutters of the house attended to. The expense, considerable to me, would be, I felt, small to him; also I should like to say that he was known to me as an exceptionally generous man.”

There is a stir through the Court. The judge leans forward.

“Will you kindly keep to the matter in hand, madam?”

Miss Prince does not look in the least disturbed by this rebuke. She answers quietly:

“Would you prefer, my lord, that Sir Almeric should ask questions and I give answers?”

Miss Prince had once stayed in the company of Sir Almeric at a country house many years ago, and she feels quite at ease with him.

“No,” says the Judge sharply, “go on with your story. But keep to the matter in hand.”

“Mr. Garlett sent me a note saying that he would try and make time to come and see the damage.”

Another bustle in Court. “Is that note among the exhibits?” There is a hurried looking over of the papers scattered on the table where sit the Crown lawyers in pleasant amity with the prisoner’s solicitor, Mr. Toogood. Yes, the letter is here; Sir Almeric holds it up before Miss Prince.

“Is this the letter?”

“Yes, I certify that that is the letter.”

“As a matter of fact, Miss Prince, you did not actually receive a visit from Mr. Garlett. But you think it almost certain that he came in one day when you happened to be out?”

Miss Prince hesitates. “I cannot say that I consider it almost certain.”

Sir Almeric says quickly: “We have a witness who will swear that you told her you regarded it as practically certain that Mr. Garlett did visit your house to look at the gutters.”

Miss Prince for the first time shows some discomfort.

“I may have said that,” she answers in a low voice, “but now that I am speaking on oath I wish to reassert the fact that I am not certain Mr. Garlett ever came to my house. The only certain thing is that he sent in his builder, and that the gutters were cleaned out and repaired.”

“Is it or is it not a fact that your medicine cupboard was often left open—the door of it, that is, unlocked?”

Sir Almeric’s voice now takes a somewhat unpleasant edge. He had understood that Miss Prince would be a very willing witness against Henry Garlett.

“I am sorry to say that is true. The key did not work properly, and as I am constantly taking things out of my medicine cupboard, cough mixture and so on, for the village folk who come to consult me, I did get into the bad habit of leaving the cupboard door unlocked.”

“It is also a fact, is it not, Miss Prince, that you are constantly in and out of your house—in other words in and out of Terriford village?”

“That is so.”

“And during the month of April you were constantly in attendance on a dying woman who had been, or so I understand, for many years in your father’s service. Now, who looked after the house while you were out?”

“During some of the time,” says Miss Prince hesitatingly, “I only had a woman from the village to come in and do for me; therefore, the house was frequently left empty. But when that was the case one of Mr. Garlett’s gardeners was generally about the place.”

“Still, the house was often empty. Do you always lock your back door and your garden door as well when you leave home, or are they sometimes left open? Be careful, Miss Prince, as to your answer to this question.”

Miss Prince hesitates, but only for a moment. She knows only too well what her answer must be.

“I always locked the back door, that giving access to the kitchen, when I left the house empty,” she says in a low voice. “The garden door, which only communicates with the garden of the Thatched House, was generally left open.”

There follows a long pregnant silence. And then there runs a strange convulsive sigh through the Court, for the majority of those present realize that by the admission she has just made Miss Prince has gone far to sign Henry Garlett’s death warrant.

“That means,” goes on Sir Almeric in the same quiet, emotionless tone, “that any one last May could gain access to the Thatched Cottage, and of course to your medicine room, so long as he or she came through the grounds of the Thatched House? It is, is it not, a fact that this entrance to your house—I mean the garden-door entrance—is more or less concealed by an evergreen hedge?”

“That is so,” says Miss Prince.

“To resume—nothing would have been easier for Mr. Garlett than to go to your back premises, open the garden door, and go upstairs to view the damage done by the rain in the gutters?”

“It would have been quite easy for him to do so,” replies Miss Prince hesitatingly, “but to my mind it would have been a very strange thing for a gentleman to do—to come into a lady’s house without asking her leave, to go upstairs, and, if I may say so, poke about!”

A titter runs through the Court.

And then Sir Almeric observes suavely: “A strange thing to do, no doubt, but gentlemen, Miss Prince, have been known to do very strange things if they had certain objects in view.”

At that there is again “laughter in Court.”

“And now I ask you one last question: As far as you know, was Mr. Garlett aware that there was arsenic in your house?”

Miss Prince remains silent for what seems to her audience a very long time. Once or twice the judge glances down at her rather sharply, and then, just as he is about to ask her if she has understood the question put to her, she answers reluctantly, “Yes, I think Mr. Garlett was probably aware of that fact. He cut his finger very badly about two years ago, and came down to the Thatched Cottage to ask me to bind it up for him. I took him up to my medicine room, for of course I keep lint and bandages there. I remember——” and then Miss Prince stopped short.

“You remember, Miss Prince——?” says Sir Almeric encouragingly.

Miss Prince turns to the judge. “Am I compelled to answer, my lord, what it is that I remember?”

Up leaps Sir Harold Anstey, and there follows between the two great barristers a sharp interchange of words. But at last the judge decides in favour of the prosecution, and Miss Prince is instructed that she must state what it was that she remembers.

And then for the first time the witness becomes obviously very nervous. In a low voice she very hesitatingly admits:

“I remember that the door to my medicine cupboard happened that day to be wide open, and that Mr. Garlett and I had a talk about poisons. But I do not remember that we mentioned arsenic.”

Again there comes that curious stir through the Court.

“That will do, Miss Prince.”

And indeed every one feels that Miss Prince has indeed “done” for Harry Garlett.

And then Sir Harold Anstey takes the place left vacant by the Crown counsel.

“You told Sir Almeric, Miss Prince,” he begins, “that though you could cast your mind back to late April, it would be impossible for you to remember what happened on any special day at so great a distance of time. Yet during the last few minutes you have shown yourself possessed of a remarkable memory.”

“You must remember,” replies Miss Prince quickly, “that when I learned what had been the cause of my friend Mrs. Garlett’s death, I realized at once that the only place in Terriford where arsenic could have been procured was in my house.”

“You did not, however, see fit to reveal that very important fact till quite lately. Even then, you did not reveal it to the proper authorities. You told it to Dr. Maclean, thus putting him in a very painful position——”

“I deeply regret now that I did not write to the prosecution direct. But the Garletts had been my nearest neighbours and friends, and I hoped against hope that my arsenic had not been in question. I tried, in a quiet way, to find out if Mr. Garlett had ever been seen in my house, and I found that, as far as anybody knew, he never had been in my house—with the one exception when he came to see me about his cut finger—for two years or more.”

“I put it to you, Miss Prince”—Sir Harold looks at her fixedly—“that any one, by walking from the road into the grounds of the Thatched House, could obtain access to your house through the garden door?”

“That is so,” assents Miss Prince eagerly.

“Were any of your friends in the habit of using that door?”

“Yes, my friend Miss Agatha Cheale—Mrs. Garlett’s housekeeper—always came into my house that way. So of course did any servant bringing a message or a note from the Thatched House to the Thatched Cottage. But you must remember that there was the back door, used by the tradesmen each morning, also the front door. I should like to repeat my conviction that Mr. Garlett would not naturally have thought of coming into my house by the garden door. The time he came to see me after cutting his finger he came to the front door.”

Sir Harold makes a note of this fact, and it is in a pleasant voice that he asks:

“As far as you know—and I gather you had many opportunities of knowing—Mr. and Mrs. Garlett were on very good terms the one with the other?”

“Excellent terms,” says Miss Prince emphatically.

Deep in her heart she knows that her evidence has gone far to ensure a conviction for murder against Henry Garlett, and now she is anxious to give him the benefit of every doubt that has ever assailed her during the last difficult anxious weeks.

And then Sir Harold makes one of the few mistakes of his brilliant professional life.

“You are acquainted,” he says, “with Miss Jean Bower. I take it, Miss Prince, that you have a very high opinion of that young lady?”

There follows a pause—a terrible pause. It is as if all in the crowded court-house are holding their breath.

“I know very little of Miss Jean Bower,” answers Miss Prince coldly.

Alas, that gives Sir Almeric his chance when re-examining Miss Prince. And he draws out of her with infinite skill, not only that she does not think well of the unhappy girl who will so soon stand where she is standing—that is, in the witness-box—but that, on the very day which preceded Mrs. Garlett’s sudden and terrible death, she actually saw Jean Bower and Henry Garlett walking home together from the Etna China factory.

Miss Prince has proved a most damaging witness. Sir Harold looks grim, preoccupied, and what his enemies call “sour.”

To the surprise of the Court, the next witness is Mr. Garlett’s builder. He is only a short time in the witness-box and what he says is regarded on the whole as bearing against his employer. While he declares that, as far as he can remember, Mr. Garlett had said nothing to him implying that he had actually seen the gutters, he admits that Mr. Garlett had shown a remarkable knowledge of the nature and extent of the damage.

When Sir Harold re-examines, he points out to the man that the letter written by Miss Prince had given the most detailed description of the havoc the rain and storm had caused. Even so, on the whole the general impression of the Court is that the builder unwillingly believes that Mr. Garlett had been to the house and seen the damage.

Every one is tired and just a little cross by now. Whatever happens, people must eat, and it is long past one o’clock. The prisoner is taken below. Judge, jury, and lawyers leave the Court, and those spectators who are determined not to lose their places take out their little packets of sandwiches.

There is a buzz of conversation. Bets are freely offered and taken as to how long the trial will last. Only one man present bets on an acquittal. He is a widower, and takes the milk round Terriford village, and though some years younger than Elsie MacTaggart, is supposed to be “sweet” on her.