The Witness for the Prosecution Page 7

  Jack looked about him with a confused idea of discovering a dead body upon a garden path. Yet he was still perfectly sure that the cry he had heard was real and not a product of his imagination. He looked up at the cottage windows. Everything seemed perfectly still and peaceful.

  ‘Do you want to search our house?’ asked the girl drily.

  She was so clearly sceptical that Jack’s confusion grew deeper than ever. He turned away.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘It must have come from higher up in the woods.’

  He raised his cap and retreated. Glancing back over his shoulder, he saw that the girl had calmly resumed her weeding.

  For some time he hunted through the woods, but could find no sign of anything unusual having occurred. Yet he was as positive as ever that he had really heard the cry. In the end, he gave up the search and hurried home to bolt his breakfast and catch the 8.46 by the usual narrow margin of a second or so. His conscience pricked him a little as he sat in the train. Ought he not to have immediately reported what he had heard to the police? That he had not done so was solely owing to the pansy girl’s incredulity. She had clearly suspected him of romancing—possibly the police might do the same. Was he absolutely certain that he had heard the cry?

  By now he was not nearly so positive as he had been—the natural result of trying to recapture a lost sensation. Was it some bird’s cry in the distance that he had twisted into the semblance of a woman’s voice?

  But he rejected the suggestion angrily. It was a woman’s voice, and he had heard it. He remembered looking at his watch just before the cry had come. As nearly as possible it must have been five and twenty minutes past seven when he had heard the call. That might be a fact useful to the police if—if anything should be discovered.

  Going home that evening, he scanned the evening papers anxiously to see if there were any mention of a crime having been committed. But there was nothing, and he hardly knew whether to be relieved or disappointed.

  The following morning was wet—so wet that even the most ardent golfer might have his enthusiasm damped. Jack rose at the last possible moment, gulped his breakfast, ran for the train and again eagerly scanned the papers. Still no mention of any gruesome discovery having been made. The evening papers told the same tale.

  ‘Queer,’ said Jack to himself, ‘but there it is. Probably some blinking little boys having a game together up in the woods.’

  He was out early the following morning. As he passed the cottage, he noted out of the tail of his eye that the girl was out in the garden again weeding. Evidently a habit of hers. He did a particularly good approach shot, and hoped that she had noticed it. As he teed up on the next tee, he glanced at his watch.

  ‘Just five and twenty past seven,’ he murmured. ‘I wonder—’

  The words were frozen on his lips. From behind him came the same cry which had so startled him before. A woman’s voice, in dire distress.

  ‘Murder—help! Murder!’

  Jack raced back. The pansy girl was standing by the gate. She looked startled, and Jack ran up to her triumphantly, crying out:

  ‘You heard it this time, anyway.’

  Her eyes were wide with some emotion he could not fathom but he noticed that she shrank back from him as he approached, and even glanced back at the house, as though she meditated running to it for shelter.

  She shook her head, staring at him.

  ‘I heard nothing at all,’ she said wonderingly.

  It was as though she had struck him a blow between the eyes. Her sincerity was so evident that he could not disbelieve her. Yet he couldn’t have imagined it—he couldn’t—he couldn’t—

  He heard her voice speaking gently—almost with sympathy.

  ‘You have had the shell-shock, yes?’

  In a flash he understood her look of fear, her glance back at the house. She thought that he suffered from delusions …

  And then, like a douche of cold water, came the horrible thought, was she right? Did he suffer from delusions? Obsessed by the horror of the thought, he turned and stumbled away without vouchsafing a word. The girl watched him go, sighed, shook her head, and bent down to her weeding again.

  Jack endeavoured to reason matters out with himself. ‘If I hear the damned thing again at twenty-five minutes past seven,’ he said to himself, ‘it’s clear that I’ve got hold of a hallucination of some sort. But I won’t hear it.’

  He was nervous all that day, and went to bed early determined to put the matter to the proof the following morning.

  As was perhaps natural in such a case, he remained awake half the night, and finally overslept himself. It was twenty past seven by the time he was clear of the hotel and running towards the links. He realized that he would not be able to get to the fatal spot by twenty-five past, but surely, if the voice was a hallucination pure and simple, he would hear it anywhere. He ran on, his eyes fixed on the hands of his watch.

  Twenty-five past. From far off came the echo of a woman’s voice, calling. The words could not be distinguished, but he was convinced that it was the same cry he had heard before, and that it came from the same spot, somewhere in the neighbourhood of the cottage.

  Strangely enough, that fact reassured him. It might, after all, be a hoax. Unlikely as it seemed, the girl herself might be playing a trick on him. He set his shoulders resolutely, and took out a club from his golf bag. He would play the few holes up to the cottage.

  The girl was in the garden as usual. She looked up this morning, and when he raised his cap to her, said good morning rather shyly … She looked, he thought, lovelier than ever.

  ‘Nice day, isn’t it?’ Jack called out cheerily, cursing the unavoidable banality of the observation.

  ‘Yes, indeed, it is lovely.’

  ‘Good for the garden, I expect?’

  The girl smiled a little, disclosing a fascinating dimple.

  ‘Alas, no! For my flowers the rain is needed. See, they are all dried up.’

  Jack accepted the invitation of her gesture, and came up to the low hedge dividing the garden from the course, looking over it into the garden.

  ‘They seem all right,’ he remarked awkwardly, conscious as he spoke of the girl’s slightly pitying glance running over him.

  ‘The sun is good, is it not?’ she said. ‘For the flowers one can always water them. But the sun gives strength and repairs the health. Monsieur is much better today, I can see.’

  Her encouraging tone annoyed Jack intensely.

  ‘Curse it all,’ he said to himself. ‘I believe she’s trying to cure me by suggestion.’

  ‘I’m perfectly well,’ he said irritably.

  ‘That is good then,’ returned the girl quickly and soothingly.

  Jack had the irritating feeling that she didn’t believe him.

  He played a few more holes and hurried back to breakfast. As he ate it, he was conscious, not for the first time, of the close scrutiny of a man who sat at the table next to him. He was a man of middle age, with a powerful forceful face. He had a small dark beard and very piercing grey eyes, and an ease and assurance of manner which placed him among the higher ranks of the professional classes. His name, Jack knew, was Lavington, and he had heard vague rumours as to his being a well-known medical specialist, but as Jack was not a frequenter of Harley Street, the name had conveyed little or nothing to him.

  But this morning he was very conscious of the quiet observation under which he was being kept, and it frightened him a little. Was his secret written plainly in his face for all to see? Did this man, by reason of his professional calling, know that there was something amiss in the hidden grey matter?

  Jack shivered at the thought. Was it true? Was he really going mad? Was the whole thing a hallucination, or was it a gigantic hoax?

  And suddenly a very simple way of testing the solution occurred to him. He had hitherto been alone on his round. Supposing someone else was with him? Then one out of three things might happen. The voice might be silent. They
might both hear it. Or—he only might hear it.

  That evening he proceeded to carry his plan into effect. Lavington was the man he wanted with him. They fell into conversation easily enough—the older man might have been waiting for such an opening. It was clear that for some reason or other Jack interested him. The latter was able to come quite easily and naturally to the suggestion that they might play a few holes together before breakfast. The arrangement was made for the following morning.

  They started out a little before seven. It was a perfect day, still and cloudless, but not too warm. The doctor was playing well, Jack wretchedly. His whole mind was intent on the forthcoming crisis. He kept glancing surreptitiously at his watch. They reached the seventh tee, between which and the hole the cottage was situated, about twenty past seven.

  The girl, as usual, was in the garden as they passed. She did not look up.

  Two balls lay on the green, Jack’s near the hole, the doctor’s some little distance away.

  ‘I’ve got this for it,’ said Lavington. ‘I must go for it, I suppose.’

  He bent down, judging the line he should take. Jack stood rigid, his eyes glued to his watch. It was exactly twenty-five minutes past seven.

  The ball ran swiftly along the grass, stopped on the edge of the hole, hesitated and dropped in.

  ‘Good putt,’ said Jack. His voice sounded hoarse and unlike himself … He shoved his wrist watch farther up his arm with a sigh of overwhelming relief. Nothing had happened. The spell was broken.

  ‘If you don’t mind waiting a minute,’ he said, ‘I think I’ll have a pipe.’

  They paused a while on the eighth tee. Jack filled and lit the pipe with fingers that trembled a little in spite of himself. An enormous weight seemed to have lifted from his mind.

  ‘Lord, what a good day it is,’ he remarked, staring at the prospect ahead of him with great contentment. ‘Go on, Lavington, your swipe.’

  And then it came. Just at the very instant the doctor was hitting. A woman’s voice, high and agonized.

  ‘Murder—Help! Murder!’

  The pipe fell from Jack’s nerveless hand, as he spun round in the direction of the sound, and then, remembering, gazed breathlessly at his companion.

  Lavington was looking down the course, shading his eyes.

  ‘A bit short—just cleared the bunker, though, I think.’

  He had heard nothing.

  The world seemed to spin round with Jack. He took a step or two, lurching heavily. When he recovered himself, he was lying on the short turf, and Lavington was bending over him.

  ‘There, take it easy now, take it easy.’

  ‘What did I do?’

  ‘You fainted, young man—or gave a very good try at it.’

  ‘My God!’ said Jack, and groaned.

  ‘What’s the trouble? Something on your mind?’

  ‘I’ll tell you in one minute, but I’d like to ask you something first.’

  The doctor lit his own pipe and settled himself on the bank.

  ‘Ask anything you like,’ he said comfortably.

  ‘You’ve been watching me for the last day or two. Why?’

  Lavington’s eyes twinkled a little.

  ‘That’s rather an awkward question. A cat can look at a king, you know.’

  ‘Don’t put me off. I’m in earnest. Why was it? I’ve a vital reason for asking.’

  Lavington’s face grew serious.

  ‘I’ll answer you quite honestly. I recognized in you all the signs of a man labouring under a sense of acute strain, and it intrigued me what that strain could be.’

  ‘I can tell you that easily enough,’ said Jack bitterly. ‘I’m going mad.’

  He stopped dramatically, but his statement not seeming to arouse the interest and consternation he expected, he repeated it.

  ‘I tell you I’m going mad.’

  ‘Very curious,’ murmured Lavington. ‘Very curious indeed.’

  Jack felt indignant.

  ‘I suppose that’s all it does seem to you. Doctors are so damned callous.’

  ‘Come, come, my young friend, you’re talking at random. To begin with, although I have taken my degree, I do not practise medicine. Strictly speaking, I am not a doctor—not a doctor of the body, that is.’

  Jack looked at him keenly.

  ‘Of the mind?’

  ‘Yes, in a sense, but more truly I call myself a doctor of the soul.’

  ‘Oh!’

  ‘I perceive the disparagement in your tone, and yet we must use some word to denote the active principle which can be separated and exist independently of its fleshy home, the body. You’ve got to come to terms with the soul, you know, young man, it isn’t just a religious term invented by clergymen. But we’ll call it the mind, or the subconscious self, or any term that suits you better. You took offence at my tone just now, but I can assure you that it really did strike me as very curious that such a well-balanced and perfectly normal young man as yourself should suffer from the delusion that he was going out of his mind.’

  ‘I’m out of my mind all right. Absolutely barmy.’

  ‘You will forgive me for saying so, but I don’t believe it.’

  ‘I suffer from delusions.’

  ‘After dinner?’

  ‘No, in the morning.’

  ‘Can’t be done,’ said the doctor, relighting his pipe which had gone out.

  ‘I tell you I hear things that no one else hears.’

  ‘One man in a thousand can see the moons of Jupiter. Because the other nine hundred and ninety nine can’t see them there’s no reason to doubt that the moons of Jupiter exist, and certainly no reason for calling the thousandth man a lunatic.’

  ‘The moons of Jupiter are a proved scientific fact.’

  ‘It’s quite possible that the delusions of today may be the proved scientific facts of tomorrow.’

  In spite of himself, Lavington’s matter-of-fact manner was having its effect upon Jack. He felt immeasurably soothed and cheered. The doctor looked at him attentively for a minute or two and then nodded.

  ‘That’s better,’ he said. ‘The trouble with you young fellows is that you’re so cocksure nothing can exist outside your own philosophy that you get the wind up when something occurs to jolt you out of that opinion. Let’s hear your grounds for believing that you’re going mad, and we’ll decide whether or not to lock you up afterwards.’

  As faithfully as he could, Jack narrated the whole series of occurrences.

  ‘But what I can’t understand,’ he ended, ‘is why this morning it should come at half past seven—five minutes late.’

  Lavington thought for a minute or two. Then—

  ‘What’s the time now by your watch?’ he asked.

  ‘Quarter to eight,’ replied Jack, consulting it.

  ‘That’s simple enough, then. Mine says twenty to eight. Your watch is five minutes fast. That’s a very interesting and important point—to me. In fact, it’s invaluable.’

  ‘In what way?’

  Jack was beginning to get interested.

  ‘Well, the obvious explanation is that on the first morning you did hear some such cry—may have been a joke, may not. On the following mornings, you suggestioned yourself to hear it at exactly the same time.’

  ‘I’m sure I didn’t.’

  ‘Not consciously, of course, but the subconscious plays us some funny tricks, you know. But anyway, that explanation won’t wash. If it was a case of suggestion, you would have heard the cry at twenty-five minutes past seven by your watch, and you could never have heard it when the time, as you thought, was past.’

  ‘Well, then?’

  ‘Well—it’s obvious, isn’t it? This cry for help occupies a perfectly definite place and time in space. The place is the vicinity of that cottage and the time is twenty-five minutes past seven.’

  ‘Yes, but why should I be the one to hear it? I don’t believe in ghosts and all that spook stuff—spirits rapping and all the rest of it. Wh
y should I hear the damned thing?’

  ‘Ah! that we can’t tell at present. It’s a curious thing that many of the best mediums are made out of confirmed sceptics. It isn’t the people who are interested in occult phenomena who get the manifestations. Some people see and hear things that other people don’t—we don’t know why, and nine times out of ten they don’t want to see or hear them, and are convinced that they are suffering from delusions—just as you were. It’s like electricity. Some substances are good conductors, others are non-conductors, and for a long time we didn’t know why, and had to be content just to accept the fact. Nowadays we do know why. Some day, no doubt, we shall know why you hear this thing and I and the girl don’t. Everything’s governed by natural law, you know—there’s no such thing really as the supernatural. Finding out the laws that govern so called psychic phenomena is going to be a tough job—but every little helps.’

  ‘But what am I going to do?’ asked Jack.

  Lavington chuckled.

  ‘Practical, I see. Well, my young friend, you are going to have a good breakfast and get off to the city without worrying your head further about things you don’t understand. I, on the other hand, am going to poke about, and see what I can find out about that cottage back there. That’s where the mystery centres, I dare swear.’

  Jack rose to his feet.

  ‘Right, sir. I’m on, but, I say—’

  ‘Yes?’

  Jack flushed awkwardly.

  ‘I’m sure the girl’s all right,’ he muttered.

  Lavington looked amused.

  ‘You didn’t tell me she was a pretty girl! Well, cheer up, I think the mystery started before her time.’

  Jack arrived home that evening in a perfect fever of curiosity. He was by now pinning his faith blindly to Lavington. The doctor had accepted the matter so naturally, had been so matter-of-fact and unperturbed by it, that Jack was impressed.

  He found his new friend waiting for him in the hall when he came down for dinner, and the doctor suggested that they should dine together at the same table.

  ‘Any news, sir?’ asked Jack anxiously.

  ‘I’ve collected the life history of Heather Cottage all right. It was tenanted first by an old gardener and his wife. The old man died, and the old woman went to her daughter. Then a builder got hold of it, and modernized it with great success, selling it to a city gentleman who used it for weekends. About a year ago, he sold it to some people called Turner—Mr and Mrs Turner. They seem to have been rather a curious couple from all I can make out. He was an Englishman, his wife was popularly supposed to be partly Russian, and was a very handsome exotic-looking woman. They lived very quietly, seeing no one, and hardly ever going outside the cottage garden. The local rumour goes that they were afraid of something—but I don’t think we ought to rely on that.