The Crimson Rooms (46 page)

“The jury will also hear evidence from the family, particularly the dead girl’s sister, that Wheeler was a jealous man who kept a close guard on his fiancée. Young Mrs. Wheeler was an attractive girl who worked in a Lyons restaurant. It is the prosecution case that Wheeler was driven by the twin urges of jealousy and greed to end his young wife’s life. Of course the defense will say that nobody in their right mind would hope to get away with such a crime. The prosecution will argue that Wheeler was not an educated man, but performed every act of his life ponderously and systematically. Perhaps the rashest thing he ever did was marry a girl so much younger than himself, and it took him six years to make up his mind even to that. The prosecution will reason that it’s quite in keeping with such a character to plan a crime meticulously, but possibly not to have a fully developed sense of its consequences.”

Warren’s first witnesses, fellow passengers on the Metropolitan Line to Chesham and a couple who had been in Chesham at about eleven-thirty on the Saturday morning, gave brief evidence that Stella and Stephen Wheeler had indeed set forth on a picnic. Only one girl, a farmer’s daughter, Elizabeth Shearman, who walked into Chesham regularly on a Saturday morning and returned by omnibus, and had met the Wheelers on the hill above the church, was subjected to cross-questioning by both Warren and Wainwright, who seemed fascinated by the details of what Stella was wearing.

Miss Shearman was a self-important girl with thick ankles and a heavy chest crushed under an overelaborate blouse. A blue cloche covered her shingled hair and she leaned on the witness box as if settling in for a cozy chat. “Pink, she was wearing pink. A pink frock. White gloves. Can’t remember what color shoes. Something light.”

“And was she carrying anything?”

“
He
was. He had a picnic basket which knocked against his legs, I noticed. He looked awkward, a bit self-conscious. She might have had a little handbag on one arm. I can’t be sure.”

“And what did she wear on her head?”

“Why, a hat of course. A little straw hat. Very pretty, but I remember thinking it wouldn’t be much use on such a hot day because it hardly had any brim.”

“Here are three hats, Miss Shearman. One of them is Stella Wheeler’s. Can you pick out her hat?”

“Why yes, it’s the one with the little straw rosette on the side. I thought it was a pretty hat. I might even have asked her where she bought it, if I’d had time to chat, except . . .”

“Except . . . ?”

“They seemed in a bit of a hurry. She was walking behind. They weren’t talking. They didn’t look happy. She’d picked a few flowers, I think.”

The prosecutor asked permission to reexamine. “She wasn’t happy, you say.”

“I’d say . . .”

Wainwright, surprisingly nimble, rose to his feet and said incredulously: “My learned friend is expecting the witness to indulge in speculation about the state of mind of someone she passed on a hillside.”

“The point came out under defense questioning,” said Warren. “Surely I’m at liberty to pursue it? Miss Shearman, could I confirm that you stated in open court that the couple didn’t look happy, that Wheeler was leading the way, and that he seemed in a hurry?”

“That’s right.”

“Hardly what you’d expect from a couple embarking on a romantic picnic.”

“With respect, Your Honor, we can’t ask our poor witness to play guessing games . . .”

The next group of witnesses were the publican of the Queen’s Head and two of his customers, all of whom gave evidence that Wheeler had entered the pub by the street door about half an hour before closing time and had drunk three pints, slowly and deliberately, without speaking to anyone but the landlord. He had seemed low-spirited and he couldn’t be drawn into conversation. When closing time was called, he’d departed.

“In what direction?”

“Couldn’t say for sure.”

Wainwright was eager to cross-question the publican about Wheeler’s so-called depressed bearing. “You must see many drinkers in your pub, Mr. Pool.”

“I do. That’s what we’re there for.” (Broad grin at the jury, a few of whom responded.)

“Some must come to drink, others to pass the time of day in congenial surroundings, some but not all for both.”

“That’s right.”

“So Mr. Wheeler was not unusual in preferring to keep himself private.”

“Not unusual, no. He did seem low, though.”

“Your Honor,” said Warren, “I would like you to rule on vague terms such as
seem low
.”

“By all means,” said the judge. “Perhaps Mr. Pool would be so kind as to describe Mr. Wheeler’s appearance that afternoon so that the jury can make up its own mind as to whether he was low or not.”

The publican, whose mouth was overcrammed with yellow teeth, was delighted to oblige. “He was dressed in a checked shirt, some kind of dark trousers, heavy boots. He looked hot and threw down his hat beside him on the bench. He sat over his beers like this, with his arms resting on the table. And he didn’t look ’round or up, just stared down at his pint.”

“One further question,” said Wainwright. “Was Mr. Wheeler carrying a lady’s hat?”

The publican gaped.

“Please answer the question, Mr. Pool.”

“No. Just his own hat.”

During the lunch recess,
I asked Wolfe to elaborate on the significance of the hat and he flashed me the kind of grin he usually reserved for asking a favor of Miss Drake. “Ladies and hats, Miss Gifford, in my not-inconsiderable experience, are inseparable. So either Stella was in such a hurry or so frightened that she left it behind when she went off with whomever it was killed her, or her murderer removed it from her head after he’d shot her and took it back to the picnic site. Wheeler certainly didn’t have it in the Queen’s Head, so the former explanation seems more plausible. But was she really so afraid of him that she would allow herself to be escorted, hatless, to a copse, so that he could kill her?”

“If she was at gunpoint?”

“It was a long walk. Nothing I’ve heard about Stella suggests an easy or compliant character. It’s the one thing about the day that doesn’t fit.”

“Then I should like to suggest an alternative sequence of events.”

Wolfe shot me a sideways look, folded his arms, stretched his legs, and bowed his head as if to say “You have my ear.” He made me nervous, because I had no idea what he thought of me or indeed anyone else. In court, his lazy good humor was unwavering whether he was dealing with a wife-beating or petty larceny, but it was impossible to judge his true opinion of either the crimes or their perpetrators. “Wheeler couldn’t remember clearly, but he thought that it was Stella who first suggested the picnic,” I said. “What if it was she who drove events, and somehow got him to leave her while he went to the pub because she had agreed to an assignation that went horribly wrong?”

Wolfe examined his thumbnail and adjusted a cuticle with his front tooth. “It seems an elaborate ploy. Wheeler was out every weekday. She had acres of time to conduct an affair. And how does that explain the hat?”

“She left in such a hurry—to meet someone—that she forgot her hat. The thing is we know she’d already behaved rashly at least once, when she was out all night that time in April. And if someone acts out of character once, don’t you think it’s likely they will do so again?”

The first witness of the afternoon
was the Amersham police officer, who had been awoken by Wheeler early on Sunday morning. The prosecution asked for his account of Wheeler’s visit to be read to the court, then asked: “Was there anything about Mr. Wheeler’s story, or indeed his demeanor, that struck you as troubling at the time?”

“I was surprised by the fact that he’d gone home at all the previous night. If my wife disappeared all of a sudden, I wouldn’t go home. Why didn’t he raise the alarm on the actual night she disappeared? That’s what I’d have done.”

Wainwright got up. “This court is surely not concerned with what the respected police officer might have done in the event of his wife’s disappearance.”

The objection was upheld.

Then came the dog walker who had discovered Stella’s shallow grave, a mousy, soft-featured woman who described her outing early on Monday morning in minute detail and wept as she said: “I was never more shocked . . . I couldn’t believe me eyes when he”—a mongrel answering to the name of Caspar—“came out with that shoe, that dainty little shoe, with stains on it. So I thought I must just take a peek, though I was already terrified. The bracken was a little crushed down, so I pushed it aside and there it was, a woman’s foot, stockinged . . .”

A clerk from Imperial Insurance, very self-important in a tight celluloid collar, gave interminable evidence about the terms and conditions of the life insurance policy, and the special arrangements that pertained to employees. He confirmed that the policy became invalid in instances of foul play or, as a matter of fact (apologetic glance at the dock), in the event of death by hanging.

By now, a quarter to four, the jury was showing signs of having been cooped up too long in a crowded room, so the judge allowed one final piece of evidence, a letter from Wheeler’s regimental CO confirming that it was regrettable but unfortunately not extraordinary that a revolver had not been returned at the end of the war, and that the number on the revolver at the crime scene matched that issued to Corporal Stephen Anthony Wheeler in January 1918.

T
hat night I woke in the small hours
and replayed the trial witness by witness. The sight of Wheeler’s defeated bulk in the dock haunted me. Breen had said on our journey home that the jury would not warm to such a passive figure, but I saw him as pitiable. It was as if to retreat like that within his own soft flesh was the only way Wheeler had of defending himself. I imagined him passing night after night during the war similarly motionless, whatever horrors exploded around him.

The next morning saw an even longer queue for the public benches and Breen reported that poor reproductions of Stella and Stephen’s wedding photograph were being circulated, tuppence each. The case was a sensation in the press, which had dubbed it the “Shot in the Heart Murder.” Breen also said, with chilling pragmatism, that the crowd had caught the whiff of a hanging and would soon be baying for blood. I was dismayed by the fatalism that seemed to have overcome my usually ebullient senior. It felt to me as if Breen & Balcombe was already distancing itself from Wheeler; there was no sign of Wolfe (Breen remarked that the entire firm couldn’t suspend its operations for the sake of this trial and Wolfe had other fish to fry). On the other hand,
my
services to the law were obviously expendable. Breen told me he preferred to have me in Aylesbury under his eye and there was always the hope I would learn something.

The first witness was Julie Leamington (née Hobhouse), who was to give evidence about her sister’s relations with Stephen. Julie was exquisitely dressed in a navy round-necked dress with a touch of white piping at collar and hip, and more than a hint of a swollen belly. Framed by the dock, she looked fragile, and her little hand rested like a flower on the Bible.