"Bob didn't do it. I did it," began the confession which a sergeant, thumbing over his note-book, read out in a toneless voice. "Bob is my cousin. He lived in the same house as me and my husband, Bill. Every afternoon I used to go and clean Bob's room for him, because he couldn't do it himself, having no arms. Bill, my husband, didn't like me going to Bob's room. He was jealous of Bob. He didn't like me giving Bob money. This morning Bill told me that if I went to Bob's room again, he would do us both in. I told him I must go and help Bob, because he couldn't feed himself proper. I went to Bob's room about half-past four. I told Bob what my husband had said, and Bob laughed about it. He told me there was an old pistol in the cupboard and that if my husband came, I could pretend to shoot him. Of course Bob was joking. I got him a cup of tea. I was helping him drink the tea when my husband came in. Bill was very angry. He said he was going to thrash Bob, and then thrash me. I got very frightened, and thought of the pistol. Bill had his stick in his hand. I thought he was going to hit Bob with the stick, so I ran to the cupboard. I found the pistol and pointed it at Bill. I told him not to touch Bob. He said, 'That pistol's not loaded. You can't frighten me.' Bob said, 'Don't be a fool, Bill; it is loaded.' I thought Bill was going to strike Bob, so I pulled the trigger. I'm not sorry I killed Bill because I thought he was going to do Bob in. I love Bob very much."
"I love Bob very much." As those last words fell, heavy for all their tonelessness, on the hot hush of the crowded room, Ronald Cavendish knew--with the instinct of the born criminal lawyer--that coroner, jury, and public had already decided on their verdict. He could read condemnation, abhorrence, fear, in every eye that stared and stared at the pale forlorn creature seated motionless between her jailors. "The sailor was her lover," said those condemning eyes. "That was why she killed her rightly jealous husband." But for the armless man whose lips, as he listened, writhed in pain, those eyes held only pity.
Cartwright's voice whispered to his clerk, "You'll get a copy of that, of course," and the inquiry went on.
The police produced Bob Fielding's revolver, the blood-stained bullet, the empty cartridge-case, a plan of the room where the crime had been committed, Bob Fielding's navy record. The black-mustached solicitor called witnesses who had heard the shot, witnesses who had seen the body, one witness, even, who was prepared to swear the crime premeditated.
"More than once I've heard her say," swore Maggie Peterson, a frowzy, blowzy creature whose hands showed like collops of raw meat against her blowzy skirt, "that she wished Bill was dead. And there's others as heard her besides me."
In the case of Lucy Towers, the weak-kneed unimposing solicitor for the defense reserved his cross-examination, but for Fielding, to Ronnie's surprise, he put up a most spirited fight; and despite the prosecution's every effort to implicate the sailor as accessory to the shooting, the jury refused to give a verdict against him. "As if," decided the unimaginative jury, "armless men could fire pistols."
But Lucy Towers they found guilty of murder. "And quite rightly," said John Cartwright, as the woman--with a faint smile in the direction of her released cousin--was led from the room.
5
"All the same, mater, I'll swear that--in intention--Lucy Towers is innocent."
It was Sunday afternoon at Daffadillies, and ever since his arrival Ronnie had been harping on the same topic. But Ronnie found his womenfolk hard to convince. In their eyes, as in the eyes of the public, Fleet Street's report of the inquest, and more particularly Maggie Peterson's evidence, branded Lucy Towers irrevocably murderess.