The Ka of Gifford Hillary (55 page)

We talked on for another hour or so, and I think my insistence that the suicide letter had been forged by Ankaret eventually convinced Eddie that I was innocent; and that the events following my death must have taken more or less the pattern I had described.

Anyway, having promised to do his utmost for me, he left in a far more cheerful frame of mind than he had arrived. I, too, felt much more optimistic about my chances, for I had brought off a terrific
tour-de-force
in reconstruction, and succeeded in explaining away the almost inexplicable.

At least, I thought I had. I had yet to learn the terrifying thoroughness of a police investigation, which was utterly to destroy my house of cards; and the wrong but appalling conclusion they would come to as the result of it.

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Eddie Arnold has proved a true friend. Since that first talk we had in the prison infirmary he has worked night and day on my case. Sacrificing every other matter connected with his large and valuable practice he has been up and down between Longshot and Brixton a dozen times, interviewed scores of people, and spent many many hours with myself, with counsel and at Scotland Yard. But he has been fighting a losing battle.

The day following that on which I made my statement I was taken down to Southampton in a Black Maria, and formally charged before a magistrate. I pleaded not guilty and reserved my defence. After I had been committed for trial at Winchester Eddie accompanied me to Southampton prison and we had another long talk.

The first thing he asked me was if I were prepared to confirm absolutely definitely that it had been on the Wednesday night that Johnny had rescued me. Then he added:

‘Before you answer me I ought to tell you that Johnny Norton has been questioned and he declares categorically that it was Saturday night; or, rather, during the early hours of Sunday morning.’

I pretended surprise, and replied: ‘How very extraordinary. Worry over this wretched business must have addled his wits even more than it has mine. Anyhow, at least I am clear on that point I am prepared to take my oath that it was Wednesday.’

Eddie gave a couple of his vigorous nods. ‘I felt sure you would be. It was obvious to me that Norton could not
be right otherwise it would have been impossible for you to be down at Sir Charles’s cottage on Thursday evening.’

That, of course, was the crux of the whole matter. Whether Johnny had succeeded in getting back undetected into camp early on Sunday morning, I did not know. But I did know that if he had he would wish to continue to protect Tinegate, if that were possible. Moreover, I had told him about my Ka’s visit to Sir Charles’s cottage, so I had counted on his realising that unless I said I had been there in my physical body I should never be believed. Finally, if he had said it was Wednesday nobody could have contradicted him, because that was the night on which he had actually been in the churchyard on his abortive attempt to find out if I was still alive; and, as far as I could see at that time, it made not a ha’p’orth of difference to his own case which night he said it was.

With those points in mind I had thought it a good bet that, although I had been prevented from tipping him off, he would spontaneously corroborate my statement. That he had not done so could, I felt, probably be put down to his having failed to appreciate that once my having visited the cottage in the flesh was called into question everything else would be. It was on that account that I had no alternative but to stick to my guns. But I asked with an anxiety that I did my best to conceal:

‘Did he say anything about having consulted someone with psychic gifts on whether I was dead or alive, before he decided to go and find out for himself?’

‘No; why? Did he?’ Eddie replied.

I shook my head. ‘Not as far as I know. It was just a thought that he might have; but I think I only imagined he had in one of my nightmares. Anyhow whether he did or not is immaterial.’

Eddie’s innocent reply was, to me, far from immaterial. I knew by then that he was acting for Johnny as well as for myself, and it told me as plainly as an answer to a straight question could have done that Johnny had said nothing about my Ka. As matters stood my case seemed to me a pretty clear-cut one; but if he had brought the supernatural into it that would have upset the whole apple-cart, and I should have
found myself up to my neck in a morass of lies and contradictions. My relief that he had kept his own counsel about that can be imagined.

During the three days that followed Eddie came to see me four or five times, and on two of his visits he brought that fat, hairy, dynamic and most eminent Q.C., Sir Bindon Bullock, with him.

Sir Bindon made no secret of the fact that he did not like the case on account of my insistence that the defence should be based on the letter having been forged by Ankaret. He would have much preferred me to plead that I had beaten Evans to death during a fit of insane jeolousy, and put my trust in him to get me off with a life sentence, or perhaps only seven years. But I dug my toes in and told him to take it or leave it.

That he did take it was, I have no doubt, on account of the immense publicity he would get out of the case. On the evening of my committal for trial banner headlines had appeared in the papers—

and although the police had so far refused to issue a statement the press was rife with speculation. When my trial came on and the full story broke there could be no doubt that it would prove a
cause célèbre
, and the temptation to be well in the centre of the limelight had proved irresistible to Sir Bindon.

I was still pretty groggy; so I was being treated with every consideration, and I had been put into a single-bed cubicle, so that I could consult with my legal advisers in private. Sir Bindon’s bulk half filled the free space in the little room, and, seated on a chair which I felt might give way under his weight at any moment, he fired innumerable questions at me.

It was an exhausting business, but I stuck to my story in every particular and, I think, eventually persuaded him that it was the truth. Eddie studiously refrained from saying anything,
for the time being, which might shake the great man’s growing faith in me, but I knew that he was much more worried than he appeared to be.

He told me at one of our private sessions that there was a time when the beans would have to be spilled to counsel but for the moment he thought it best to leave well alone. Then in that, and other talks we had, he disclosed to me the many nasty hurdles which one by one would be erected against us by the prosecution.

From the servants at Longshot the police had verified the fact that Ankaret had been having an affair with Evans. Mildred had actually come upon them together in Ankaret’s bedroom, so it was supposed that matters had gone further than I thought. That did not worry me as I knew that they hadn’t; but the next item did.

They had found out about Ankaret’s previous affairs, and from someone like Desmond Chawton that I had played the part of a complacent husband. That being so, they argued, why should I have been so enraged with Evans? I had not endeavoured to beat up any of Ankaret’s other lovers, so why him? In the letter I was alleged to have written it was stated that she had confessed to flirting with him, then asked me to get rid of him. Surely, in view of her past, my normal reaction would have been to tell her that I would do so, but that she had brought his assault on herself. If so, I should have gone quite calmly to the lab with the intention only of giving him the sack; so it must have been some taunt he had flung at me while there which had caused me to go berserk and murder him.

Further doubt was cast upon my story that I had lured him down to the beach with the intention of thrashing him by the fact that as I was far the stronger it seemed unlikely that I should have come off worst in the encounter.

That might have been ill-luck; but I had said that he had thrown the chair at me, not struck me with it. The furnishings of the beach house at Longshot had been inspected. The chairs were of two kinds only; full length mattress-covered lounges—which were much too heavy and cumbersome for Evans to have picked up—and collapsible canvas and wood affairs; so it must have been to one of the latter that I had referred. Seized by a leg and wielded it could have made a moderately
dangerous weapon, but thrown defensively, almost at random and on the spur of the moment, it was so light that it could have been knocked aside; so the odds were all against its having done me serious damage.

Johnny, Silvers, Dr. Culver, the Police Surgeon and the Undertaker’s people had all been asked if they had noticed a cut, bruise or abrasion on either of my temples. None of them had.

That was a particulary nasty one.

Evans was a small man, while I was a large and heavy fellow. From the beach house to the end of the pier was a good hundred and twenty yards. Experiments with a dummy figure loaded to my weight and dragged by a man of Evans’s size had shown that such a feat was possible only by most desperate efforts and with frequent rests.

When that point was put to me I remembered, only too well, how Evans had pleaded with and finally threatened Ankaret because her help was so essential to him in carrying my body downstairs; and how they had had to use a wheelbarrow to get it down to the beach. I ought to have said in my statement to the police that I had meant to give Evans a ducking so before going for him had lured him to the end of the pier. But it was too late to think of that now.

Why, they asked too, if he had dragged my body so far across the beach and over the rough planks of the pier had my clothes not sustained the smallest tear, or my face and limbs showed any trace of bruising—and the woman who had washed my corpse had declared that there was not a blemish on it.

The police had timed their experiment with the weighted dummy and the little man, and it had taken close on an hour. That ruled out my suggestion that, hearing the noise of the quarrel, Ankaret had come down to the beach at once and arrived just in time to see Evans pushing my body off the end of the pier. If she had heard nothing, would she not have gone up to bed and waited for me to join her there? Why, anyhow, should she have gone with Evans into the laboratory? Yet, if I was right about it being she who had killed him, she must have done so.

Why had my velvet smoking jacket been found in the laboratory?
It would have been natural enough for me to take it off down by the beach house if I had intended to fight Evans. But its being found in the lab implied that I had taken it off before going for him there—and with the steel rod, instead of with my fists.

Was it really believable that Ankaret had beaten Evans to death? She had been a slender girlish woman weighing only seven stone ten. He, although small compared to myself had been a well set-up little man, and certainly no weakling. It was regarded as unlikely that she had laid him out with her first stroke as, had she done so, to inflect his other injuries she would then have had to prop him up, and it was highly improbable that her anger, however great, would have led her to such an act of vicious brutality against an unconscious body. Yet, if her first stroke had not knocked him out, surely, being so much the stronger, he would have been able to wrench the rod out of her hand overcome her.

Again, his head had received such a battering that the experts declared it impossible for a comparatively frail woman to have inflicted it unless abnormal strength had been lent her by madness. Admitting that Ankaret had possessed abnormal strength while carried away by a frenzy, was it conceivable that within an hour or so her brain would have been restored to the cold calculating calm needed to plan the letter, and her hand been under the absolute control required to forge it? The prosecution would argue that I could not have it both ways.

As my Ka had been a witness to the whole business, and this part of the theory I had advanced was an exact description of what had actually happened, it seemed hard that it should be disputed. But I had to admit that these arguments stood a good chance of being accepted by a jury.

On the question of the all-important letter I fared no better. Eddie collected from Longshot a score of Ankaret’s beautiful drawings which were line perfect copies of famous originals, but it was argued that they were no proof at all that she was capable of forging handwriting; and, as I feared might prove the case, the historical scrap-book she had shown me years ago could not be found.

With Bill the police got in before Eddie had a chance to get at him. When questioned he said that Ankaret had been
marvellous at copying anything, but he had never known her to go in for forgery. He had then hindered rather than helped by adding, with unconscious facetiousness, that as a little girl she had astonished everyone by being so good at her pothooks and hangers.

Ankaret’s brother, Roc, was found to have left England for Africa at the beginning of the month with a Film Unit; so could not be got hold of.

The handwriting experts were equally unhelpful. The Scotland Yard specialist was ready and willing to go into the box and swear that the writing was mine. Of the best half-dozen outside men to whom Eddie submitted the letter with samples of my writing only two expressed any doubt about it, and neither of those was prepared to stake their reputation by appearing for the defence and declaring in court that the letter was a forgery.

Not content with a most thorough investigation of Evans’s murder and my own presumed death, the police were also busily delving into the contradictory accounts given by Johnny and myself of his rescue of me, and the account I had given of my movement afterwards.

Apparently Johnny had succeeded in getting back undetected into the camp at Uxbridge early on Sunday morning; and, until he had been called on by the police to make a statement describing his rescue of me, no one had suspected that he had ever left it. That he had he was able to prove by his having knocked up Silvers in the middle of the night. But Silvers could only say he had collected some papers and made himself coffee in the kitchen. There was no evidence at all that I had been in the garage while he was in the house; or that it had been then that he had collected some of my clothes. He might equally well have taken them for me on the Wednesday night.