Читать книгу The Case Of Miss Elliott - Baroness Orczy - Страница 5

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“As for the next day,” continued the man in the corner after a slight pause, “I can assure you that there was not a square foot of standing room in the coroner’s court for the adjourned inquest. It was timed for eleven a.m., and at six o’clock on that cold winter’s morning the pavement outside the court was already crowded. As for me, I always manage to get a front seat, and I did on that occasion, too. I fancy that I was the first among the general public to note Dr Stapylton as he entered the room accompanied by his solicitor, and by Dr Kinnaird, with whom he was chatting very cheerfully and pleasantly.

“Mind you, I am a great admirer of the medical profession, and I think a clever and successful doctor usually has a most delightful air about him— the consciousness of great and good work done with profit to himself— which is quite unique and quite admirable.

“Dr Stapylton had that air even to a greater extent than his colleague, and from the affectionate way in which Dr Kinnaird finally shook him by the hand, it was quite clear that the respected chief of the Convalescent Home, at any rate, refused to harbour any suspicion of the integrity of its Treasurer.

“Well, I must not weary you by dwelling on the unimportant details of this momentous inquest. Constable Fiske, who was asked to identify the gentleman in evening dress whom he had seen with the deceased at a few minutes before twelve, failed to recognize Dr Stapylton very positively: pressed very closely, he finally refused to swear either way. Against that, Dr Earnshaw repeated, clearly and categorically, looking his colleague straight in the face the while, the damnatory evidence he had given the day before.

“‘I saw Dr Stapylton, I spoke to him, and he spoke to me,’ he repeated most emphatically.

“Everyone in that court was watching Dr Stapylton’s face, which wore an air of supreme nonchalance, even of contempt, but certainly neither of guilt nor of fear.

“Of course, by that time I had fully made up my mind as to where the hitch lay in this extraordinary mystery; but no one else had, and everyone held their breath as Dr Stapylton quietly stepped into the box, and after a few preliminary questions the coroner asked him very abruptly:

“‘You were in the company of the deceased a few minutes before she died, Dr Stapylton?’

“‘Pardon me,’ replied the latter quietly, ‘I last saw Miss Elliott alive on Saturday afternoon, just before I went home from my work.’

“This calm reply, delivered without a tremor, positively made everyone gasp. For the moment coroner and jury were alike staggered.

“‘But we have two witnesses here who saw you in the company of the deceased within a few minutes of twelve o’clock on the Sunday night!’ the coroner managed to gasp out at last.

“‘Pardon me,’ again interposed the doctor, ‘these witnesses were mistaken.’

“‘Mistaken!’

“I think everyone would have shouted out the word in boundless astonishment had they dared to do so.

“‘Dr Earnshaw was mistaken,’ reiterated Dr Stapylton quietly. ‘He neither saw me nor did he speak to me.’

“‘You can substantiate that, of course?’ queried the coroner.

“‘Pardon me,’ once more said the doctor, with utmost calm, ‘it is surely Dr Earnshaw who should substantiate his statement.’

“‘There is Constable Fiske’s corroborative evidence for that,’ retorted the coroner, somewhat nettled.

“‘Hardly, I think. You see, the constable states that he saw a gentleman in evening dress, etc., talking to the deceased at a minute or two before twelve o’clock, and that when he heard the clock of St Mary Magdalen chime the hour of midnight he was just walking away from the footbridge. Now, just as that very church clock was chiming that hour, I was stepping into a cab at the corner of Harrow Road, not a hundred yards in front of Constable Fiske.’

“‘You swear to that?’ queried the coroner in amazement.

“‘I can easily prove it,’ said Dr Stapylton. ‘The cabman who drove me from there to my club is here and can corroborate my statement.’

“And amidst boundless excitement, John Smith, a hansom-cab driver, stated that he was hailed in the Harrow Road by the last witness, who told him to drive to the Royal Clinical Club, in Mardon Street. Just as he started off, St Mary Magdalen’s Church, close by, struck the hour of midnight.

“At that very moment, if you remember, Constable Fiske had just crossed the footbridge, and was walking towards the Harrow Road, and he was quite sure (for he was closely questioned afterwards) that no one overtook him from behind. Now there would be no way of getting from one side of the canal to the other at this point except over that footbridge; the nearest bridge is fully two hundred yards further down the Blomfield Road. The girl was alive a minute before the constable crossed the footbridge, and it would have been absolutely impossible for anyone to have murdered a girl, placed the knife in her hand, run a couple of hundred yards to the next bridge and another three hundred to the corner of Harrow Road, all in the space of three minutes.

“This alibi, therefore, absolutely cleared Dr Stapylton from any suspicion of having murdered Miss Elliott. And yet, looking on that man as he sat there, calm, cool and contemptuous, no one could have had the slightest doubt but that he was lying— lying when he said he had not seen Miss Elliott that evening; lying when he denied Dr Earnshaw’s statement; lying when he professed himself ignorant of the poor girl’s fate.

“Dr Earnshaw repeated his statement with the same emphasis, but it was one man’s word against another’s, and as Dr Stapylton was so glaringly innocent of the actual murder, there seemed no valid reason at all why he should have denied having seen her that night, and the point was allowed to drop. As for Nurse Dawson’s story of his alleged quarrel with Miss Elliott on the Saturday night, Dr Stapylton again had a simple and logical explanation.

“‘People who listen at keyholes,’ he said quietly, ‘are apt to hear only fragments of conversation, and often mistake ordinary loud voices for quarrels. As a matter of fact, Miss Elliott and I were discussing the dismissal of certain nurses from the Home, whom she deemed incompetent. Nurse Dawson was among that number. She desired their immediate dismissal, and I tried to pacify her. That was the subject of my conversation with the deceased lady. I can swear to every word of it.’”