Who Killed Stella Pomeroy? (5 page)

“Yes.”

“Without telling your wife?”

“Yes.”

“Can you explain this to the jury?”

“If I had succeeded in getting a job abroad I intended to propose to my wife that we should separate on terms as favourable as I could make them.”

“Will you look at this hammer,” said the coroner, “and tell the jury whether you recognize it as belonging to you.”

“It looks very like the hammer we used for breaking coal, but I can't swear to it. It's a very common type of hammer.”

“Take it in your hand and look at the handle. It has a P scratched on it, and that is your initial.”

“Then it must be mine.”

“Had your wife any enemy who might wish to injure her?”

“Not that I know of. I think she would have told me if she had.”

“How long were you absent from the house that morning?”

“I left about half-past eight, did my shopping and was back about half-past nine.”

“Did you notice whether the house looked normal when you came back?”

“Yes, quite normal. I did not go to my wife's room because I was afraid that I might wake her. I went out and did some weeding.”

“You did not go to the bank that day?”

“No sir, I telephoned to the bank to say that I was not feeling well enough to come.”

“And yet you were well enough to weed your garden.”

“Yes, and I should have been well enough to go to the bank, but I intended to thrash out the whole question of our separation with my wife that morning as soon as she was dressed.”

The coroner held up the bloodstained coat found by Inspector Aitkin and asked, “Did this coat belong to you? Take it in your hand and look at the trademark under the collar.”

The witness examined the coat and said with emphasis, “No, that is not mine.”

“You had one like it.”

“Yes, but my wife gave it away about a fortnight ago.”

“To whom?”

“She never told me.”

“But surely she would mention a thing like that to you.”

“No, not necessarily. She had a number of actor friends who used to write her begging letters, and then she would look through my wardrobe and send some worn-out garment and forget about it until I began to hunt for it.”

“Have you the address of any of these people?”

“No, I never troubled to ask her who they were.”

The coroner told him to stand down and began his address to the jury.

“In this case,” he said, “you have heard witnesses proving that the deceased met a violent death at the hands of some person who made a clumsy attempt to let it appear that the death had been an accident. It is not at all clear that the deceased received that blow on the head while she was in the bath. It will seem to you more likely that the murderer, whoever he was, put the body into the bath after he had killed her. You have heard the evidence of the husband; you have gathered that there were serious causes of disagreement between the couple—causes so serious that the husband had resolved upon a separation. The wife was a woman of violent temper, and you have only the husband's word for it that the quarrel of the night before was not resumed in the morning, but let me now give you a word of warning.

“Whatever verdict you give in accordance with your oaths will not affect the course of justice. You have to consider whether the evidence against the husband, or any other person, would be sufficient to convict him in a court of law. You may consider the evidence to be sufficient to convince you that no one but the husband had the opportunity for committing the crime and that no one else had a sufficient motive for committing it, but it does not follow from this that it would be wise on your part to fasten the crime upon any individual when you have the alternative of bringing in a verdict of murder against some person unknown. You have to remember that the person who committed this murder must have been deluged with the blood of his victim, and yet the police have found only one garment stained with blood, and the ownership of that garment is not yet established. If you were to return a verdict of murder against the husband he would at once forfeit his liberty and perhaps be prejudiced in his defence. This might be a very grave injustice, for you must remember that the police will continue their investigations quite independently of any verdict you may return, and therefore an open verdict such as that which I suggest to you will be a far safer course for you to adopt. Gentlemen, consider your verdict.”

The jury laid their heads together and then intimated through their foreman that they would like to retire. The coroner's officer took charge of them, and they filed out.

At the back of the hall Herbert Mitchell, with his friend Jim Milsom, engaged in a whispered conversation.

“I've seen a lot of these coroner's juries,” said Milsom. “Did you notice that little rat-faced blighter trying to stampede his fellow jurymen into a verdict? He's the real cantankerous little tradesman who is the curse of his nonconformist minister, and you'll see when he lets himself go in the jury room he'll worry the life out of those sober slab-sided fellow jurymen of his into bringing in a verdict against Pomeroy just because the coroner told them not to.”

“Or because the evidence is pretty strong against him,” said Mitchell.

“Well, you wait and see. I give him ten minutes to bring those heavy-wits round to his way of thinking.”

“And if they do bring in such a verdict what's going to be done about it?”

“Well, I suppose that the coroner will have to sign a warrant committing that poor devil to prison, and it will be the devil's own job to get him out of it. There, what did I tell you—” he pointed to the clock—”the ten minutes are up and the jury are filing back into their places. Look at my rat-faced friend. He's triumphant for, you see, he feels that he's served his country by downing a paid official.”

“Gentlemen, have you considered your verdict?” asked the coroner. The foreman stood up.

“Yes sir. We find that the deceased” (the worthy man pronounced the word ‘diseased') “met her death at the hands of her husband, Miles Pomeroy.”

“I have nothing to do but to record your verdict, but I think it right to say that in reporting your verdict to the proper authority I shall record my opinion that it is against the weight of evidence.”

“What did I tell you,” said Milsom. “I've attended a dozen of these inquests, but this, I think, takes the cake. It was quite obvious from the evidence that some garment worn by the murderer was smothered in blood, and it is up to the police to find out who owned that raincoat. I don't think much of that Inspector Aitkin, do you?”

“I don't think he's a flyer,” said Mitchell. “He didn't seem to me to have covered the ground. Of course, when we reached the house that morning Pomeroy was perfectly at ease, and when he found his wife's body in the bathroom he was half demented.”

“Exactly. I'm sure that he wasn't acting. Besides, the woman was dead when we arrived, and yet Pomeroy took us into the house. If he'd been guilty all he had to do was to say that his wife wasn't well enough to receive visitors, and then plan his escape from the murder charge. There's one man at the Yard and only one, so far as I know, who would tackle this case with success, and that's a fellow named Richardson, the youngest of the superintendents. I wonder whether, if I went round there, I could get him sent down? I know the head of the C.I.D. slightly—well enough, at any rate, to get an interview with him.”

While they were talking the divisional detective inspector had come over to Pomeroy with the coroner's warrant in his hand. Beyond a strained look in Pomeroy's eyes he received the intimation that he was a prisoner quite calmly.

I
T WAS CHARACTERISTIC
of that would-be protagonist in criminology, Jim Milsom, that he should push himself to the front, dragging the more modest Mitchell with him, to volunteer his own opinion upon the bloodstained raincoat, but he was brought up against a physical as well as a moral barrier: the police seemed to ignore his presence, and they opposed a rampart of broad official backs to his approach. One cannot slap an official back in order to open diplomatic negotiations. There is nothing in life so daunting as the back of a policeman.

“We don't seem to be wanted here,” observed Milsom. “If we're to do any good we shall have to take those official backs in flank.”

“What do you mean?”

“That we go to Scotland Yard and beard the head of the C.I.D. They may, of course, take exception to our faces and push us politely down the granite steps into the street, but in that case we should be no worse off than we are now.”

Mitchell looked at his watch. “Isn't this the sacred hour of lunch, when no self-respecting civil servant is to be found in his office?”

“That's all right, I'll take you in my car to the club. We'll lunch there comfortably and give them time to return to the pursuit of the lawless. I want to catch my friend Morden before he gets himself immersed in documents.”

Jim Milsom's style of driving through the suburbs to the centre of London was a trial to his companion's nerves. He drove well and he drove boldly, yet the most pernickety of traffic officers could have found no fault with him since the needle of his speedometer never exceeded thirty in the built-up area.

“I must warn you not to expect a gargantuan feast at the Sleuths',” said Milsom. “We're a new club, run upon economical lines. But for that our membership would be small. We demand no qualification for membership; there is no detective background to the club. Any fool can call himself a Sleuth if he wants a cheap lunching place and can afford to pay the entrance fee. If he expects to hear lectures on the analysis of dust found in a coat pocket he doesn't come to us.”

They were nearing the square in which the Sleuths had established themselves. It was a square of departed grandeur, dating from the regency, where members were free to park their cars under the direction of a beery-looking ex-soldier with a walrus moustache. It was he who directed Jim Milsom to his anchorage and assured him that everything he left in the car would be quite safe.

The club cook, while not enjoying a decoration from the Association of Chefs, understood how to fry sole and roast joints.

Mitchell glanced round the room, which now was fairly full. This was plainly a young man's club: scarce one of the lunchers had been born thirty years before, and none could be pronounced a student of detective science.

At half-past two Milsom consulted his wrist watch and pronounced it time to beard the head of criminal investigation in his den. In five minutes they were climbing the granite steps of the building that had been intended for an opera house in the days of Mapleson to the little centre hall where visitors are required to inscribe their names and their business on a form. The attendant constable could give them no information as to whether Mr Morden could be seen. They sat down before the window opening upon the Embankment and composed themselves to wait.

“The mills grind slowly here,” said Milsom, “unless there is really startling information to impart. I suppose that if we had rushed in and announced that a mob carrying the red flag was marching upon the palace of Westminster we might have galvanized the machine into action; as it is we must sit here killing time until Charles Morden has digested his lunch.”

“Probably someone else has got in before us—some time-waster who won't take No for an answer,” observed Mitchell, and as if to confirm his suggestion, a messenger in plain clothes entered the hall with a ticket in his hand and looked about him. He approached the two sitting in the window.

“Mr Milsom?” he asked. “Mr Morden is sorry to have kept you waiting. If you will follow me you may see him now.”

The head of the department, whose room was on the second floor adjoining that of the commissioner, received his visitors with a weary smile of welcome. He had the appearance of a man who was grossly over-worked. He rose to shake hands, and Milsom introduced his companion Mitchell.

“We haven't come to waste your time, but only to prevent if we can a serious miscarriage of justice. Probably you have not yet heard of the case, but no doubt it will come before you in due course.” He described as shortly as possible the position of affairs that had led to the arrest of Miles Pomeroy on the coroner's warrant.

“I don't think that the case has come before me yet. I gather that you both disagree with the coroner's jury.”

“Yes, we were present in the bungalow when Pomeroy discovered the body of his wife in the bathroom, and we were all convinced that he was not acting then. Besides, why should he have taken us, three strangers, into a house where he knew that his wife was lying dead? It would have been so easy for him to say that he was not letting the house and thus to give himself several hours in which to plan his escape.”

“Or if he were a consummate actor he might have thought it a good way to prove his innocence.”

“If he was acting a part, then he would have made a fortune on the stage.”

“I'm afraid that impressions of that kind would weigh very little with a judge and jury. Quite a number of criminals discover unexpected histrionic talent when they find themselves ‘up against it.' If you've nothing but Pomeroy's looks and demeanour to go upon I think that it would be wiser to leave the question of his guilt or innocence to the police.”

“Of course you may think it presuming on our part to butt into one of your cases, but we have the excuse that we were among the first people to find the body in the bungalow, and in that way we were better qualified to judge of Pomeroy's demeanour than anyone who gave evidence at the inquest.”

“You attended the inquest?” asked Morden in some surprise.

“We did, and we formed a definite opinion that Pomeroy was innocent. That is why we have come to you. Besides, the verdict of the jury was entirely against the coroner's direction.”