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"Your father did not die on a trip to South America. He was trying to get there when the police arrested him."
Of all things that he had expected this was the last. His heart missed a beat, then bounded into his throat.
"For what?" he faltered.
"For murder."
There was a mortal stillness in the little room. Murder. The petrifying word echoed and re-echoed down the rolling convolutions of his brain. He felt limp. A cold perspiration broke all over his body. His question came in a trembling whisper.
"Then ... he was hanged."
She shook her head, her pupils filmed with hatred.
"Better for us if he had been. He was sentenced to death . . . reprieved at the last minute ... he is a life convict in Stone-heath Prison."
It was too much for her. Her head drooped sideways, she swayed and fell forward in her chair.
CHAPTER III
PASTOR Fleming's house stood in the busy heart of Belfast near the Northern Station — an ugly, narrow dwelling painted slate-grey, like the chapel, which it adjoined. Although he felt physically exhausted, fit only to hide in some dark corner, a gnawing urgency had driven Paul to trudge through the wet streets, flaring with lights and rowdy with Saturday-night revellers, to see the minister. His mother, recovered from her fainting attack, had retired to bed. He could not rest until he knew more; until he knew everything.
In answer to his knock the hall light was turned up and Ella Fleming admitted him.
"It's you, Paul. Come along in."
She showed him to the parlour, a low-ceilinged room, with dark
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red curtains and horsehair furnishings, warmed by a small coal fire.
"Father is busy with a parishioner. He won't be long." She forced a small, suitable smile. "It's turned damp outside. I'll make you some cocoa."
Ella's panacea lor most ills was a cup of cocoa — a true parochial gesture — yet, though he had no wish for the innocuous beverage, he was too spent to refuse. Was it his imagination which saw in her too inconsequential manner, her slightly tightened lips, an awareness of his predicament? He sat down in a deadened fashion, while she brought a tray from the kitchen, stirred the sugar in with the cocoa and poured the hot water.
She was two years older than he, yet with her trim narrow-waisted figure and pale complexion, she had a somewhat girlish air. Her eyes, of a greyish green, were large and expressive — her best feature. Usually they were shining and soulful, but on occasion they could fill with tears, and spark with temper too. Always attentive to her appearance, she wore tonight a neat dark accordion-pleated skirt, black stockings, and a loose, white, freshly laundered blouse, cut round at the neck.
He accepted and drank the cocoa in silence. Once or twice she lifted her eyes and looked at him questioningly over the knitting; she had taken up. She was naturally talkative, with a flow of bright conversation, and keeping house for her widowed father had given her a certain social assurance. But when he failed to respond to a few desultory remarks, her well-marked brows drew together, she seemed to resign herself to silence.
Presently there came the sound of voices in the passage followed by the click of the front door. Ella rose at once.
"I'll tell Father you're here."
She went out of the room and a moment later the minister, Emmanuel Fleming, appeared. He was a man of about fiftv, with thick shoulders and big clumsy hands. He wore dark trousers, heavy workman's boots and a black alpaca jacket turning whitish at the seams. His beard, clipped to a point, was iron grev, but his wide light blue eyes gave him the look of a child.
He immediately came forward, grasped Paul's hand with extra
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warmth, then with meaningful affection took him by the arm.
"You're here, my boy. I'm very glad. Come along and we'll have a little chat."
He led Paul to his study, a small austere room at the back of the house, uncarpeted, the bare boards stained, sparsely furnished with a yellow oak roll-top desk, some bent wood chairs, and a glazed bookcase. A presentation green marble clock, a hideous affair, supported by gilt angels, weighed down the flimsy mantelpiece, which was edged with a velvet ball fringe. Having seated his visitor, the pastor took his place slowly at the desk. He hesitated for some time, then began, in a tone of affection and sympathy.
"My dear boy, this has been a frightful shock to you. But the great thing to remember is that it is God's will. With His help you'll get over it."
Paul swallowed dryly.
"I can't get over it till I know something about it. I must know."
"It's a sad and sordid story, my boy." The minister answered gravely. "Had we not better leave it buried in the past?"
"No, I want to hear it. I must hear it or I'll never stop imagining ..." His voice broke.
There was a silence. Pastor Fleming rested his elbow on the desk, shading his eyes with his big hand, as though engaged in inward prayer for help. He was an earnest and well-meaning man who had laboured long and unsparingly "in the vineyard of the Lord." But he was limited in many ways and often, with great despondency, saw his best efforts and intentions go astray. He was a lonely soul and knew many moods of self-reproach. Even his love for his daughter became an accusation to him — for he realized her imperfections, her pettiness, her vanities, yet was too fond of her to correct them. It was his tragedy that he longed to be a saint, a true disciple who would heal by his touch, make his flock radiant with the word of God, which he himself felt so deeply. He wanted to soar. But alas, his tongue was clumsy, his feet were bogged — he was earth-bound. Now, when he began to speak, his tone was troubled, his grave, pedantic phrases seemed measured by the sombre beat of the clock.
"Twenty-two years ago, in Tynecastle, I married Rees Mathry
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to Hannah Burgess. Hannah I had known for some years, she was one of the dearest of my flock. Rees I did not know, but he was a well-mannered, engaging young man, of Welsh extraction, and I liked and trusted him. He had an excellent position as the Northern counties' representative for a big wholesale firm of confectioners. I had every reason to believe them happy, especially when a son was born to them. It was I, dear boy, who christened you Paul Mathry."
He paused, as though weighing his words with the utmost care.
"I will not deny that there were occasional slight rifts in the harmony of the home. Your mother was strictly religious — a true Christian — your father, to put it charitably, held more liberal views and this naturally produced a clash. Your mother, for instance, was firmly set against the use of wine and tobacco in the house — a prejudice your father could never fully understand. Again, your father's work took him away from home for at least one week every month, which had, perhaps, an unsettling influence upon him. Also he made friends, many friends I may say — for he was a handsome, likeable fellow — of whom one could not always approve and who consorted with him in pool rooms, saloon bars, and other unsavory haunts. Still, 1 had nothing serious against him until the terrible events of the year 1921."
He sighed and, removing his hand from his brow, pressed his thick fingertips together, his eyes pained and remote, as though they looked back sadly across the years.
"In January of '21 the firm which employed your father made some staff changes, in consequence of which your parents moved with you to the Midlands. For that matter, a few months previously, I myself had been transferred to this parish in Belfast, but I still kept closely in touch with your mother by correspondence. And I must confess that your life in Wortley was, from the first, unsettled. Your father seems to have resented his removal to a district which appeared to offer him less scope. Wortley. although surrounded by a pleasant countryside, is a grey unprepossessing city and your mother never liked it. They could not find a suitable house and occupied a succession of furnished rooms. Suddenly, in September, to be precise, on the ninth of that month,
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your father announced that he had reached the end of his patience. He proposed to throw up his job and emigrate straight away to the Argentine — there would be a better chance for all of you in the new world. He booked three passages on the liner Eastern Star due to sail on the fifteenth of September. On the thirteenth he sent you and your mother to Liverpool in advance, to await him at the Great Central Hotel. Late on the night of the fourteenth he left Wortley by train to join you. But he did not join you. At two in the morning, when he reached the Central Station the police were on that platform. After a violent struggle, he was arrested and lodged in Canon Street Jail. Dear God, I can still remember the stunning shock of it — the charge was wilful murder."
There was a long, tense pause. Paul, hunched in his chair, like a hypnotised figure, scarcely breathed until the minister resumed.
"On the night of September eighth, a particularly horrible and sordid crime had been perpetrated. Mona Spurling, an attractive young woman of twenty-six, employed in a florist's shop in the vicinity of Leonard Square, was brutally done to death in the flat which she occupied at 52 Ushaw Terrace in Eldon, a near suburb of Wortley. The time of the crime was quite definite, for it occurred between eight o'clock and ten minutes past that hour. Returning from her work at seven-thirty, Miss Spurling had apparently partaken of a light meal, and had then changed into the flimsy negligee in which she was found. At eight o'clock a couple named Prusty in the flat below heard sounds of unusual violence coming through their ceiling, and urged by his wife, Albert Prusty went up to investigate. He knocked loudly on the door of the flat above but received no answer. He was standing on the landing in some perplexity when a young vanman named Edward Collins came up the stairway to deliver a package of laundry. Just as Collins joined him the door opened, a man came from the Spurling apartment, brushed past them, and dashed down the stairs. They hastened into the sitting room, where they found Miss Spurling, her head almost severed from her body, stretched on the hearthrug in a pool of her own blood.
"Immediately, Mr. Prusty ran for the nearest doctor in the neighbourhood. He came at once, quite uselessly, since Miss
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Spurling was already dead. The police were sent for, the local police surgeon, and a detective-inspector by the name of Swann. At first it seemed that the murderer had left no traces, but within a few hours three clues came to light. Inspector Swann discovered in the bureau a pencil-sketched picture post card posted only a week before from Sheffield, which bore the following words: Absence makes the heart grow fonder. Won't you meet me for supper at Drury's when I return? It was signed Bon-bon.
"Also he found a note, charred, partly destroyed, and unsigned, but bearing the date stamp of September eighth, which said: 7 must see you tonight. Finally, lying on the hearthrug beside the body was a peculiar money bag, of the type known as a jug-purse, made from a soft and unusually fine leather, caught at the neck by a metal ring. It contained some ten pounds in silver and notes. Promptly, from particulars given by Edward Collins and Albert Prusty, a description was issued of the wanted man, offering a large reward for information leading to his apprehension.
"On the following day a local laundrywornan came to the police station with one of her ironers, a girl of seventeen, named Louisa Burt. It appeared that Louisa, a cousin of Edward Collins, the laundry vanman, had accompanied him to Ushaw Terrace on the night of the crime, and while waiting in the alley-way — she was averse to climbing the stairs — had been bumped into and almost knocked down by a man running out of No. 52. In her deposition she gave a description of this individual. The police had now three witnesses who had seen the murderer."
Pastor Fleming broke off and turned upon the young man his troubled, guileless gaze.
"It is not pleasant to touch on certain matters, Paul, but they are, alas, only too relevant to this tragic history. In a word, Mona Spurling was not a moral woman — she knew many men in a loose way and of these one in particular was her regular associate. No one knew who the man was, but the other assistants in the flower shop affirmed that Mona had recently seemed worried and low-spirited, that she had been overheard at the telephone in conversations of an angry and recriminatory nature, using such phrases as: 'You are responsible,' and Tf you leave me now I'll give the whole show away.' Finally, the post-mortem examina-
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tion of the body revealed the unhappy fact that the murdered woman was pregnant. The motive was now established: clearly the woman had been done to death by the man accountable for her condition. Perhaps he was already tired of her. When threatened with exposure, he had written to make an assignation, and had killed her.
"Armed with this evidence the police brought their full resources into action to find the wanted man. Reproductions of the sketched picture post card signed 'Bon-bon' were prominently displayed in all the newspapers, and anyone having knowledge of the sender or the card was invited to communicate at once with the Wortley police. All railway stations and ports of embarkation were closely watched and for almost a week the most intensive search went on. Then, late on the evening of the thirteenth of September, a bookmakers clerk named Harry Rocca sought out the Chief Constable and, in a state of considerable agitation, volunteered to make a statement. He confessed outright to an intimacy with the dead woman and, in fact, admitted having been with her on the night before the murder. Then he proceeded to lay information that he knew the sender of the post card — a friend with whom he often played billiards who had a marked talent for sketching. Some months before he had introduced this man to Mona Spurling. Moreover, when the reproductions of the post card appeared in the daily press his friend had come to him with a worried air and asked him to back him up, saying: If anyone asks where I was on the night of September eighth, make out I was playing pool with you at the Sherwood Hotel/
"That, of course, was enough. The Superintendent of Police, accompanied by Inspector Swann, immediately proceeded to the address which Rocca gave them. There they learned that the person they wanted boarded the Liverpool night express from the Leonard Street Station only an hour before. The arrest, at Liverpool, followed inevitably. The man, Paul, was your father."
Again there was silence. The minister moistened his lips at the carafe which stood on his desk. His brows drawn, he went on.
"It so happened that Albert Prusty, the main witness, was confined to bed by an acute attack of asthma — he was, by trade, a
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tobacconist who manufactured cigarettes and the nicotine dust periodically caused him this complaint — but the two other witnesses were immediately taken to Liverpool by the Superintendent and Inspector Swann. There, from a dozen assembled persons, they unhesitatingly picked out your father as the man they had seen on the night of the murder. There was, indeed, a terrible certainty in their recognition. Edward Collins exclaimed, 'So help me God, that is the man!' while the younger girl, Louisa Burt, carried to the verge of hysteria by the responsibility of her position, burst into tears. 1 know I am putting a rope round his neck,' she cried. 'But that's him.'
"Popular feeling ran high against the prisoner — to escape the fury of the mob he was taken from the southbound train at Bar-bridge Junction and conveyed in a closed vehicle to Wortley Jail. But God knows, dear Paul, I have wrung your heart enough. The trial began on the fifteenth of December at the Wortley Assizes before Lord Oman. With what anguish did we endure these fateful days! One after another, the prosecutor called the witnesses to give their damning evidence. Search of your father's trunks had resulted in the discovery of a razor which medical experts for the Crown proved to be the instrument of the crime. A handwriting expert testified that the charred, half-destroyed note of assignation found in the murdered woman's flat had been written, left-handed, by your father. He had many times been seen in the florist's shop, buying himself a boutonniere, laughing and chatting with Miss Spurring. So it went on. The attempted flight to the Argentine, his vicious
resistance of the police, all bore heavily against him. Most damning of all was his fatal attempt to establish a false alibi with Rocca. And when he took the stand, he was, alas, a poor witness on his own behalf, contradicting himself, losing his temper, yes, even shouting at the judge. He could not properly account for his movements at the hour of the crime, asserting that he had spent part of the evening in a cinema. But this pitiful excuse was riddled by the prosecuting counsel. Amidst the darkness only one faint gleam shone in his favour. Albert Prusty, while admitting that your father resembled the man who ran from the flat, would not swear that he was the actual person. However, it came out that Prusty's eyesight was bad, and in cross-examination it was plainly
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seen that he entertained a grievance at not being taken to Liverpool with Collins and Louisa Burt.
"The summing up of the judge went dead against the accused. The jury retired at three o'clock on the afternoon of December twenty-third. They were absent only forty minutes. Their verdict was 'Guilty.' I was there in the courtroom — your mother was too ill to attend — and I shall not to my dying day forget the frightful moment when Lord Oman, assuming the black cap, pronounced sentence and commended your father's soul to the mercy of God. Struggling and raving as the warders bore him away, your father shouted, 'There is no God. Damn your mercy and His. I want neither.'
"Ah! The Lord God is not lightly mocked, Paul. Yet perhaps it was to answer such a blasphemy that the Almighty did show mercy to the sinner. Although no one dared expect it, on the eve of the execution — mainly, I believe, because the Home Secretary of that time was a man of great humanity — your father's sentence was commuted to life imprisonment and he was removed to Stone-heath Prison."
With the falling cadence of the pastor's voice a final stillness fell upon the room. Both men kept their gaze averted one from the other. Paul, now so deeply sunk in his chair that he seemed crushed into it, wiped his forehead with the handkerchief crumpled in his damp hand.