Читать книгу Great Porter Square: A Mystery. Volume 1 - Farjeon Benjamin Leopold - Страница 3

THE Evening Moon was an enterprising little paper, which gave all the news of the day in a fashion so entertaining that it was a success from its first appearance. Between noon and night a dozen editions were published, and were hawked about the streets by regiments of ragged boys and girls (irregular infantry), whose vivacity and impudence added to the circulation, if they did not to the dignity, of the journal. Beneath the heading of the paper was a representation of the moon with the man in it looking at a spade – to which was tacked the legend: “What do you call this?” “A spade.” “Then I shall call it a spade.” Despite this declaration it delighted in word-painting, and its reports of police-court proceedings, highly coloured in many instances and unwarrantably but agreeably spiced with romance, were read with avidity. The Evening Moon of the 19th of August contained the following report of the police-court proceedings in

THE GREAT PORTER SQUARE MYSTERY

“The inquiry into the awful and mysterious murder in Great Porter Square was resumed this morning at the Martin Street Police Court, before the resident magistrate, Mr. Reardon. The accused person, Antony Cowlrick, who presented a woe-begone appearance, was brought up in charge of the warders. The case has been adjourned four times, and this was the fifth appearance of Antony Cowlrick in the dock. The police preserve a strict silence with regard to him – a silence against which we protest. Arrested upon suspicion, without warrant, and without, so far we can learn, a shadow of evidence against him, nothing but injustice and wrong can accrue from the course pursued by the Scotland Yard officials. Antony Cowlrick is unmistakably a poor and miserable man. All that was found upon him when he was arrested were a stale crust of bread and a piece of hard cheese, which he had thrust into his pocket as he was flying from the pursuit of an enterprising constable. His very name – the name he gave at the lock-up on the night of his arrest – may be false, and, if our information is correct, the police have been unable to discover a single person who is acquainted with, or can give any information concerning him. The rumour that Antony Cowlrick is not quite right in his mind certainly receives some confirmation from his haggard and wandering looks; a more wretched and forlorn man has seldom been seen in a magistrate’s court, suggestive as such a place is of misery and degradation. He was carefully guarded, and a strict watch was kept upon his movements, the theory of the police being that he is a dangerous and cunning character, whose sullen demeanour is assumed to defeat the ends of justice. Mr. White Lush, on the part of the Treasury, conducted the inquiry. The interest taken by the public in the case is still unabated, and the court – if a close, abominably-ventilated room fourteen feet square can be so denominated – was crowded to excess.

On the calling of the case, the magistrate inquired if the accused man was still undefended, and the police replied that no one appeared for him. The answer was scarcely given when Mr. Goldberry (of the firm of Goldberry, Entwistle, and Pugh), rose and said that he was there to represent the accused.

Magistrate: Have you been instructed?

Mr. Goldberry: No, your worship. A couple of hours ago I endeavoured to confer with the prisoner, but the police refused me permission to see him.

Inspector Fleming explained that when Mr. Goldberry sought an interview with the prisoner, the prisoner was asked whether he wished to see him; his answer was that he wished to see no one.

Mr. Goldberry: Still, it cannot but be to the prejudice of the prisoner that he should be unrepresented, and I am here to watch the case in his interest.

Magistrate: Perhaps you had better confer with him now.

A few minutes were allowed for this purpose, at the end of which Mr. Goldberry said, although it was impossible to obtain anything like satisfaction from the accused, that he did not object to the appearance of a solicitor on his behalf. “He seems,” added Mr. Goldberry, “to be singularly unmindful as to what becomes of him.”

Magistrate: The case can proceed.

Mr. White Lush: Call Mrs. Preedy.

The witness presented herself, and was sworn.

Mr. White Lush: Your name is Anna Maria Preedy?

Witness: Yes, sir.

Mr. White Lush: You are a widow?

Witness: Yes, sir, worse luck. ’Is name was James, poor dear!

Mr. White Lush: You live at No. 118, Great Porter Square?

Witness: Yes, sir.

Mr. White Lush: How long have you occupied your house?

Witness: Four and twenty year, come Michaelmas.

Mr. White Lush: What kind of a house is yours?

Witness (with spirit): I defy you or any gentleman to say anythink agin its character.

Mr. White Lush: You keep a lodging-house?

Witness: I’m none the worse for that, I suppose?

Mr. White Lush: Answer my question. You keep a lodging-house?

Witness: I do, sir.

Mr. White Lush: Do you remember the night of the 9th of last month?

Witness: I’ve got reason to.

Mr. White Lush: What reason?

Witness: Two of my lodgers run away without paying their rent.

Mr. White Lush: That circumstance fixes the night in your mind?

Witness: It’d fix it in yours if you kep’ a lodging-house. (Laughter.)

Mr. White Lush: No doubt. There were other circumstances, independent of the running away of your lodgers, which serve to fix that night in your mind?

Witness: There was, sir.

Mr. White Lush: The night was Wednesday?

Witness: It were, sir.

Mr. White Lush: How and at what time did you become aware that your lodgers had run away?

Witness: When the last post come in. I got a letter, and the turn it gave me —

Mr. White Lush: That is immaterial. Have you the letter with you?

Witness: The way the perlice ’as been naggin’ at me for that letter —

Mr. White Lush: Have you the letter with you?

Witness: It’s lost, sir.

Mr. White Lush: Let me impress upon you that this letter might be an important link in the case. It is right and proper that the police should be anxious about it. Do you swear positively that you have lost it?

Witness: I do, sir.

Mr. White Lush: How did it happen?

Witness: It were a fortnight after the body was found in No. 119. I ’ad the letter in my ’and, and was lookin’ at it. I laid it down on the kitchen table, and went to answer the street door. When I come back the letter was gone.

Mr. White Lush: Was any person in the kitchen when you left it?

Witness: Not as I am aware on, sir. There was a ’igh wind on, and I left the kitchen door open, and when I come back I noticed a blaze in the fire, as though a bit of paper had been blown into it.

Mr. White Lush: Then your presumption is that the letter is burnt?

Witness: It air, sir.

Mr. White Lush: You have searched for it since?

Witness: I’ve ’unted ’igh and low, sir, without ever settin’ eyes on it.