Читать книгу The Maze - Julian Symons - Страница 14

WHAT is your full name?

Sidney Foljambe Harrison.

Will you please take the oath?

I swear by Almighty God that what I shall say in evidence in this Court shall be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

You were, I believe, private secretary to the deceased?

Private and confidential secretary. I was secretary to Mr Brunton for a considerable period, over which he and I got to know each other, if I may say so, extremely well. I was fully conversant with Mr Brunton’s—

One moment, Mr Harrison. I should be glad if, at this stage of your evidence, you would confine yourself to answering my questions.

Certainly, certainly. I have no wish to be of anything but assistance.

Quite! … Perhaps you would tell me, Mr Harrison, how long you held the position of secretary to the deceased?

I was private and confidential secretary to Mr Maxwell Brunton for eleven months. That is, to be precise, Mr Coroner, I should have completed my year upon the fifth of next month. If I may say so, the eleven months were—

Thank you. Will you please inform the Court of the time at which you last saw your employer alive?

Certainly I will. Let me see … I was with the rest of the household—excepting, of course, the servants—in the drawing-room after dinner. We had all been in the room for the whole of the time since dinner … There had been bridge—

One moment.—Do I understand you to say, Mr Harrison, that everyone in the house was in the drawing-room after dinner, excepting the servants?

No, no, no! Everyone with the exception of Mr Maxwell Brunton himself.

Thank you. Please continue.

At 11 p.m. exactly—I happened to just have looked at my watch—Mr Maxwell Brunton, who had retired to his study (to work, he said) immediately after dinner, came down and joined the party. He chatted a few moments and then bade everyone good-night, saying that he would be working late and telling me, incidentally, that he would not require my services. When he left the drawing-room—the last time I saw him alive—the time would be, I should say, about five minutes past eleven; perhaps a little more.

Now, Mr Harrison, will you please describe to the Court your discovery of Mr Brunton’s body?

Yes. At 2.30 a.m. on Friday morning it suddenly occurred to me that there was an important engagement which I had omitted to note on Mr Brunton’s desk pad. I was at that time, of course, in my bedroom, but I was not in bed. I was studying, as I commonly do, until the very early hours. I do not believe in putting things off, and so I decided to go along to the study and remedy my error without delay.

My bedroom is on the same floor: that is, the second. I accordingly walked softly along the passage, being very careful to make no noise at so late an hour. I did not switch on the passage light, as I know my way so well. I was therefore in the dark, and I saw, as I approached, a light beneath the study door. I assumed that Mr Brunton might be engaged and so knocked upon the door before entering. No reply came to my first knock or to my second. Not wishing to disturb the house, I did not knock again but softly turned the handle. I then made the shocking discovery.

The body, as the sergeant described, was lying on the hearth-rug. The head was pointing toward the window, and the feet toward the door. I was, as you may imagine, horrified and aghast, but I flatter myself that I wasted no time. It needed no expert eye to see that Mr Brunton was dead. I went quietly out of the study, shutting the door behind me; ran as fast as my legs would carry me back to the stairs and up to the top floor and waked Jennings the butler. In a few words I told him what had happened and sent him out for a policeman. The disturbance had apparently wakened Mrs Brunton, for as I came downstairs after Jennings she was on the landing. I had to break the news to her, and she insisted that I should rouse—er—bring to her her son and daughter, Mr Adrian Brunton and Mrs Bayford. I called Mr Adrian Brunton. Mrs Bayford, taking matters into her own hands, called Mr Hargreaves, who was staying in the house. Sarah Jennings, wakened when I called her husband, came downstairs. Mr Adrian Brunton and Mrs Brunton wished to go at once to the study, but I managed to dissuade them from taking this step until after the police had arrived. I was seconded in this by Mr Hargreaves.

We all went downstairs to the hall. All the members of the household, that is to say with the exception of the kitchenmaid, Mrs Brunton’s maid and Miss Lamort, the third visitor. We had not been downstairs more than a moment when Jennings came back with the sergeant. After that events transpired as he told you in his evidence.

I trust, Mr Coroner, that I have been clear in my statement. I try always to make a habit of orderly and incisive thinking.

Yes, yes, quite. Now, Mr Harrison, one or two questions …

At your service, Mr Coroner.

When you were describing just now how at Mrs Brunton’s request you fetched her son and daughter, you started to use the word ‘rouse’ and then apparently changed your mind.

Exactly, Mr Coroner. I felt, as I said it, that perhaps ‘rouse’ was not the correct word. It might imply that Mrs Bayford and Mr Adrian Brunton were asleep, whereas in fact they were not.

Did you enter their rooms?

Mr Brunton’s, yes. I gave one tap at the door and entered rather unceremoniously. Mr Brunton was kneeling upon the window seat looking out of the window. He had a dressing-gown on but had only substituted this, I saw, for his dinner jacket.

What did he do when you came in? Can you tell the Court his reaction to your entry and your bad news?

Certainly. When I went in—as I have said, rather unceremoniously, I fear—Mr Brunton got up and turned round to face me. Before I could speak he said: ‘What the hell do you want?’ I should perhaps explain that Mr Brunton has always seemed—for what reason I am sure I cannot think—to dislike me.

Did he seem excited when he said this?

A difficult question, Mr Coroner. Mr Adrian Brunton is a young man of—er—mercurial temperament. He is normally excitable. It certainly did not strike me that there was anything unusual—for him—in his reception of me, though naturally I resented his incivility.

You say Mr Brunton was looking out of his window? If my recollection of the plan is correct, this would mean that he was looking out over the gardens to Rajah Square—

That is correct. Mr Adrian Brunton’s room is at the back of the house; that is, the northern side—

Please let me conclude my question before answering, Mr Harrison. I was about to ask you if you gathered from Mr Adrian Brunton’s position as you entered the room any indication of whether he was merely idly looking out into the gardens or looking out for, or at, any particular object?

I am afraid it is impossible for me to say. No sooner had I entered the room than he was off the window seat and had turned to face me.

Thank you. Please proceed. You were about to tell the Court in answer to my question what Mr Brunton’s reaction was to your bad news?

He seemed dazed. In fact, for a moment I wondered whether he had heard me. I said ‘Don’t you understand, Mr Brunton? Your father is dead—has been killed! …’

Yes, Mr Harrison? Please don’t hesitate. What then?

I suppose that in this Court I must repeat the exact words which were used. After I had told him a second time Mr Brunton caught me by the shoulder and shook me violently. He said: ‘You bloody little bastard! That’s a lie!’ I managed not to allow my very natural resentment to overcome my good sense. I managed to make Mr Brunton understand that I was in deadly earnest. He then put out his arm and brushed me aside. I followed him out into the corridor. He had opened the study door, which of course was just at his right as he came out of his own room, and was standing on the threshold, staring. I said: ‘Mr Brunton! Mr Brunton! We must leave things as they are until the Police come.’ He muttered some oath or other which I did not catch and I think was going into the study, but at that moment he heard Mrs Brunton’s voice calling him from the other end of the corridor. She was just outside Mrs Bayford’s room. He turned and ran back. I followed.

As I passed the stairhead Mrs Bayford came out of her room. I think she was following her mother. She was fully dressed, but not in the gown which she had worn at dinner. I remember she had in her hand a fountain pen, because I offered to take it from her and put it down. She had obviously already heard the news. She stared at me as though I were not there. I repeated my offer, but she turned away without a word and began speaking with her brother.

So you are not in a position, Mr Harrison, to tell us Mrs Bayford’s immediate reaction to her father’s death?

No, sir. As I was breaking the dreadful news to Mr Adrian Brunton, Mrs Brunton must have been with her daughter.

I see. Now, you say that when you did see Mrs Bayford—when she came out of her room—and you and Mr Brunton and Mrs Brunton were standing in the corridor, she seemed dazed when you spoke to her?

I did not use the word ‘dazed,’ Mr Coroner. Mrs Bayford certainly was not in a normal state, for, as a rule, she is a lady of most charming manner, and, as I have explained, she did not seem to hear my offer of assistance. But although she was not herself, I do not think it would be right for me to use the word ‘dazed.’ She seemed in a way peculiarly alert. It was she, for instance, who called Mr Hargreaves, outside whose room we all were standing at the moment. She rapped on the door, and it was immediately opened. Mr Hargreaves was in pyjamas and a dressing-gown. From his appearance I should say that he had been in bed. The terrible situation was explained to him, and it was after that that we—

One moment, Mr Harrison, one moment! Please tell the Court who it was who conveyed the news to Mr Hargreaves.

Mrs Bayford. I can remember her exact words, I think, Mr Coroner. She laid her hand on Mr Hargreaves’s arm, and she said: ‘Oh, Jack dear! A frightful thing has happened … Father—Father—’ and then she seemed to break down for a moment. Mr Hargreaves caught her hands, and he said: ‘Claire! Claire! What’s this?’ or some words like that. And then Mrs Bayford seemed to take command of herself again. She said, ‘Father’s dead. He’s been … he’s been killed.’ And it was after that that we all—

One moment, Mr Harrison! It’s very important that the Court should appreciate the relationship in which the persons staying at the house stood to each other. It is also very important that you should tell us, as much as you can, of each person’s reaction on their hearing the news. Will you please tell us, first, of Mr Hargreaves’s demeanour when Mrs Bayford had explained the tragedy to him, and secondly, what you know of the relationship between these two. I understood you to say that Mrs Bayford called Mr Hargreaves ‘Jack dear,’ and that he in return used her Christian name.

To take your first question, Mr Coroner, Mr Hargreaves, on hearing the dreadful news, seemed—and quite naturally—utterly astonished. He made some ejaculation—‘Good God!’ I think it was—but when this astonishment had passed he seemed mostly concerned with the effect of the tragedy upon Mrs Bayford.

In answer to your second question, Mr Coroner, I can only say that, not being a member of the family, and, as Mr Brunton’s secretary, naturally not being in the confidence of any of the rest of the family, I can only give you my own, as it were, casual impressions. I have always understood that Mr Hargreaves is an old friend of Mrs Bayford; and this visit was the first time I had ever come into personal contact with Mr Hargreaves, but I had frequently heard mention of him. I have always understood that Mr Hargreaves and Mrs Bayford knew each other from childhood right up to the time when Mrs Bayford married, two years ago, but that after that Mr Hargreaves went abroad. I believe he only returned a little while ago.

I see. You cannot tell us, I suppose, whether there had ever been any talk of a marriage between Mrs Bayford and Mr Hargreaves?

I have no information upon that point, Mr Coroner. Such matters are not any business of mine, and I am afraid that I make a strict rule of never prying into matters which do not concern me.

Most commendable, I’m sure! Can you tell the Court anything of the relations between Mr Hargreaves and the rest of the family?

There, sir, I may be of a little more use. Three days before his death Mr Maxwell Brunton referred in my presence to the forthcoming visit of Mr Hargreaves. He came into the study where I was working on his letters and asked me to cancel an appointment he had made for dinner on the Thursday night. From the way in which he worded his directions I gathered that he was not looking forward with any degree of pleasure to Mr Hargreaves’s visit. So far as the other members of the family are—

Just one moment, Mr Harrison! Can you remember the exact words used by Mr Maxwell Brunton in regard to Mr Hargreaves on this occasion you have just told us of?

Mr Brunton made no direct reference to Mr Hargreaves personally, but he said—I’m afraid I cannot remember the exact words—something like this: ‘That’ll be young Hargreaves’s first night here. Blast it!’ And then later, discussing some appointment for the Saturday he said again: ‘Hargreaves will still be here. Damn it!’ or some words like that … What I am trying to show, Mr Coroner, is that while Mr Brunton did not make any ill-natured reference to Mr Hargreaves personally, he did seem to find the forthcoming visit of Mr Hargreaves far from—how shall I put it?—far more awkward than he would have a visit of any other person. He was not a man who was given to being put out merely by the presence of an extra person in the house.

I see … Have you any further questions, gentlemen, that you would like me to put to this witness at this stage? … I beg your pardon? … Perhaps, sir, if you would get the foreman to put the question formally …

Mr Coroner, a member of the jury wishes me to ask whether the witness has any comment to offer on the evidence of the police sergeant or any addition to that evidence in regard to the other guest, Miss Lamort, and her collapse on hearing the news of deceased’s death.

I see. Mr Harrison, you heard the foreman, I think. Perhaps you would give a reply to that question.

I have nothing to add, sir, to the police sergeant’s remarks. I went, as described by the police sergeant, with him to wake Miss Lamort. As he stated, when we told her the news she seemed extremely agitated. During the very few moments she took to attire herself I kept hearing her mutter—we had not quite closed the door—‘My God! My God!’ This was said in a kind of moaning voice, very distressing to hear. When Miss Lamort came downstairs and rushed to Mrs Brunton for comfort, she seemed to collapse completely. She seemed terribly upset. She seemed not to take the news of the calamity nearly so stoically as the members of Mr Brunton’s family. I should perhaps add that throughout the whole of the following day she was confined to her room, during which time she was, so the servants inform me, unable to take any food. I went once or twice myself past her room on that day, and each time I could hear her moaning and muttering words which I could not catch, as I was, of course, merely passing her door about my business … There is no doubt that the tragedy affected her very, very deeply.

I see. Thank you, Mr Harrison. I was going to ask you to stand down just before the jury put that last question to you. Looking down my notes, however, I find there is one further question which I myself wish to put. I’m sorry to keep you so long.

Not at all! Not at all! I am here to do my duty.

Quite! Quite! The last question is this: Was it your habit, as confidential private secretary to Mr Brunton, always to knock at the study door if you thought he was inside the study?

Certainly not, sir! The study was my place of work, and anyhow, if I may say so, it is only household servants who are required to knock at such doors before entering.

And yet, Mr Harrison, during your evidence you made the following statement: you had just said that on your way to the study on Thursday night, or, rather, Friday morning, you saw a light beneath the study door, and then you added, ‘I assumed that Mr Brunton was engaged and so knocked at the door before entering.’ Will you please explain this seeming contradiction to what you have just told the Court?

You put me in a truly embarrassing position, Mr Coroner. I come up here and strive to the best of my ability to give my evidence simply, concisely and above all, truthfully—

Quite, quite! Will you please answer the question? Is the Court to take it that you assume that your employer would not like you to go in at such a time as that without knocking?

If you insist upon my answering that question, Mr Coroner, yes.

You are here to answer questions, Mr Harrison. Will you please now tell the Court the reason for supposing that Mr Brunton would like warning of your entry?

I must answer that question?

Of course. May I suggest, Mr Harrison, that you do not waste our time and your own? So far you have shown no disinclination either to answer questions or to add your own quota to your answers. May I suggest that you continue in this manner?

Very well, sir. Since you insist—since you insist, I say—upon an answer to this question of yours, I am in duty bound to give you an answer. I knocked upon Mr Brunton’s study door because I thought Mr Brunton might not be alone.

And yet, although your errand to the study was only a question of making a diary entry which you had forgotten, you did not, when you saw the light and thought that Mr Brunton might be engaged, go away again without making your presence known?

Really, Mr Coroner, I must take leave to know my own business best! I gave every satisfaction to Mr Brunton—the length of my sojourn with him is enough guarantee of that. I trust that I know my position and what, in that position, I may or may not do. I thought Mr Brunton might be engaged, but, equally, it was possible that he was only, as he very often was until very early hours, reading or writing.

Quite! Quite! Who, Mr Harrison, did you think might be engaged with Mr Brunton? His son? His wife? His daughter?

I am afraid, Mr Coroner, that such conjectures did not enter my head. I am a man who makes a practice of never concerning himself unduly with the private affairs of others, especially those of the employer to whom he owes loyalty.

You had no idea, then, Mr Harrison, of who might be with Mr Brunton? You did not, for instance, listen a moment to see … Please do not misunderstand me. I am not making a suggestion of eavesdropping. You did not, I suppose, listen for a moment to hear if there were voices, or whether you could distinguish those voices?

Most emphatically not, sir!

Thank you.

I would like to say at this juncture—

Please do not trouble, Mr Harrison. I think I can now ask you to stand down—that is, of course, unless any member of the jury has any further questions which he wishes to put to you … I beg your pardon? … Please speak up …

Mr Harrison, I’m not sure whether you heard the question of the jury. They wish to know whether, when you knocked, you expected the person who might be engaged with Mr Brunton to be a man or a woman?

Really, Mr Coroner! I am afraid I am not familiar with this kind of procedure, but I cannot think that it is customary or permissible to—

Mr Harrison, I wish you would get it into your head that this is a court of inquiry. The object of the inquiry is to ascertain how Mr Maxwell Brunton met his death. Petty private feelings and even the ordinary social shibboleths are out of place. When, as a witness, you are asked a question, it is your duty to answer that question as succinctly as you can. I will repeat it in another form: When you knocked on the study door because you thought Mr Maxwell Brunton was ‘engaged,’ did any thought cross your mind as to the sex of his possible companion? Now, please, Mr Harrison, we don’t want your opinion; we want your answer.

Yes, Mr Coroner. I thought that Mr Brunton might have—might have—er—a lady with him.

What lady? Mrs Brunton? Please confine yourself solely to answering my question.

No, not Mrs Brunton. Mrs Brunton is—er—Mrs Brunton hardly ever went into the study.

Who then?

I cannot say, Mr Coroner.

Do you mean ‘can not’ or ‘will not’?

I am not in the habit, Mr Coroner, of using a word in its wrong place. If I say ‘cannot,’ I mean I am unable.

So you intend to inform the Court, first, that you did not think this possible visitor of Mr Brunton’s could be Mrs Brunton, and, second, that it might be any other person of the female sex?

. . . . . .

Come, come, Mr Harrison! Please give us your answer!

As you insist, Mr Coroner, yes.

Do you mean to tell the Court that you thought it possible that a woman other than one of those in the house could be with Mr Brunton?

Good heavens, no! What are you suggesting?

Please spare us your indignation, Mr Harrison. If you did not think, then, that this possible visitor could be a woman from outside, and yet you thought that it was a woman, will you please tell the Court which female member of the household you thought most likely—

Really, Mr Coroner, I cannot—

Please, Mr Harrison! You must remember, sir, if you are at all uncomfortable, that, really, you have brought this upon yourself. Please give an answer to my question. I gather from the general trend of your evidence that the possible woman was not Mrs Brunton nor Mrs Bayford. That leaves us, I think, with Miss Lamort and the servants, Mrs Jennings, Jeannette Bokay, and Violet Burrage—

Really, Mr Coroner! I must emphatically state at this point that any conjectures I may have had on the subject did not go so far as the identity of the possible person.

You are certain of that, Mr Harrison?

Positive, sir! Positive!

Very well, Mr Harrison. We will now cease, I hope, to embarrass you. You were Mr Brunton’s confidential secretary. You must therefore have had manifold opportunities for observing Mr Brunton’s temperament, character, and ways. That is so?

Obviously, sir.

Very well, then! Perhaps you would tell the Court whether you had noticed anything unusual in Mr Maxwell Brunton’s demeanour at any time, say, within the month preceding his death.

Emphatically, no, Mr Coroner. Mr Brunton was always a volatile personality. He was, if you take my meaning, gay one moment and dour the next. But I knew him very well, and a more generous, more understanding or more considerate employer one could not wish for. I was with Mr Brunton for a considerable period …

Yes, yes! Please will you confine yourself to answering the question? Are we to understand that you had noticed nothing unusual in Mr Brunton’s behaviour at any time immediately prior to his death?

You are, sir.

There was no depression, then? No fear, no private or public trouble which Mr Brunton told you about or which you got to know of in any way?

Until the day of his death, no, sir. And, I suppose, really nothing outstanding upon that day. You have cautioned me, Mr Coroner, because you appear to think that I give unduly long and inapposite answers, and therefore I had better perhaps confine myself to stating that—

Come, come! Please! Are we to gather that there was some unusual depression on the part of Mr Brunton on the day of his death, or some unusual and unpleasant happening?

I was striving, Mr Coroner, to answer your question to the best of my ability. I do not want to exaggerate any of the matters or to minimise them. I simply seek to do my duty. On the day of his death Mr Brunton was worried. I am afraid that I am cognisant of the cause of this worry—perhaps I should use the plural because it was worries and not worry. On that day it came to my knowledge that Mr Brunton had various—er—how shall I put it?—disagreements with members of his family. Nothing serious, of course, and really, if you had not asked such specific questions, I should not have thought these things worth mentioning.

With whom were these disagreements, Mr Harrison?

Perhaps, Mr Coroner, ‘disagreements’ was too strong a word, and really, you know, I cannot see that mere family breezes, shall I say, can have—

Mr Harrison! What you can or cannot see is no doubt interesting. The Court, however, merely wishes for facts. With whom, to your knowledge, did Mr Brunton, upon the day preceding the morning of his death, have these disagreements?

There was one small disagreement, Mr Coroner, with Mrs Brunton, and another with Mr Adrian Brunton.

When did the disagreement with Mrs Brunton take place?

It was hardly a disagreement—I beg your pardon, Mr Coroner—I will confine myself to facts. At about eleven o’clock in the morning Mrs Brunton—a most unusual thing for her—came to the study. She stated that she wished to speak to Mr Brunton privately, and of course I immediately left the room. As I did so Mr Brunton called after me, ‘We must get that McGuinness affair settled, Harrison. Come back in ten minutes.’ I returned after ten minutes. Mrs Brunton, as I got to the door, was just coming out of it. I noticed that she had—that she had been shedding a few tears. Mr Brunton was walking up and down with his hands behind his back. He was—a trick of his when disturbed—muttering indistinguishably to himself. However, immediately he caught sight of me he became his old self, and we proceeded with our work.

That was the first little affair. The second—Mr Adrian Brunton’s—took place in the afternoon. I had been out for my constitutional, and I came back as usual about three-thirty. I had understood that Mr Brunton was not to be at home that afternoon, and naturally I went, after I had put up my hat and stick, straight to the study. As I drew near the door I became aware that Mr Brunton had not gone out after all. I heard his voice raised, apparently in anger. I hesitated a moment, not quite knowing whether I should go forward or tactfully retire. As I was, in fact, retiring, I heard another voice which I knew for Mr Adrian Brunton’s. That, too, was raised. It was even louder than Mr Brunton’s. It was uttering violent remarks of some description. Of course, I beat a very hasty retreat in order that I should not even inadvertently overhear anything not intended for my ears.

I see. Then you can give the Court no idea, Mr Harrison, of what either of the disputants were saying?

No idea whatever, Mr Coroner. As I came to the door and heard Mr Maxwell Brunton speaking, I did catch the words ‘not if you and your mother and that little—er, ahem!—bitch came to me on your bended knees,’ and then, as I was hastily retiring, I caught one or two words of Mr Adrian Brunton. He seemed to be—he is, I fear, as excitable or even more so than his father—using many violent epithets. The only remark of his which I clearly caught—you must remember, sir, that I was endeavouring not to hear, rather than to hear—the only remark which I clearly caught was something like ‘Bloody nice sort of father! You can have all your little bits, but when it comes to your son wanting to settle down …’ After that, Mr Coroner, I heard nothing. I was, you must understand—

Yes. Yes. Quite! You’re sure of these speeches, Mr Harrison?

Certainly, sir. I never say anything of which I am not sure.

I see. I asked you because they seemed rather lengthy to have been heard during this very brief sojourn of yours outside the study door. Nevertheless, I take it that you would swear to them?

Most emphatically, sir—and I must say that I fail to—

Shall we leave it at that, Mr Harrison? I would now like to ask you whether such family disturbances were usual in the Brunton household?

I find that a very difficult question to answer, sir. You must understand that not being a member of the family and being one who makes a point of never, shall we say, prying into other people’s affairs, and especially his employer’s—

I was asking you, Mr Harrison, whether such quarrels were usual in the Brunton household, to your knowledge.

So far as I am concerned, Mr Coroner, they were neither more usual nor more unusual than in any other household with which I have ever been associated. Mr Adrian Brunton, of course, has inherited his father’s volatile temperament, and they certainly were quite frequently at loggerheads about this and that. Mrs Brunton and Mr Maxwell Brunton were, however, an ideal pair. I think this occasion was the only one upon which I have noticed that there had been even any slight trouble between them. Mr Brunton, of course, was a man of very great energy, both mentally and physically, and he was always so busy with both his City work and his writing work and his numerous—er—hobbies, that he really seemed to see very little of Mrs Brunton, but I must say, however, that his manner toward her always showed respect and affection.

Very well. Gentlemen, if you have no further questions to ask this witness at the present stage …? Personally, I recommend that we should proceed to take the evidence of the other witnesses. Mr Harrison will be available if we need him later. Is that agreed? … Thank you, Mr Harrison. You may stand down. We may want you later.

Call Arthur Waterloo Jennings.