Prisoner at the Bar Read online

  The usher handed him a dozen photographs, roughly bound together in an album. He flicked through them. “This is how the body was.”

  “Will you tell us what were your findings?”

  “The deceased had suffered four injuries. There was a lacerated wound on the forehead with a slight cross tear that you can just see in the photograph, caused by a blunt instrument. There was bruising under the right eye and splitting of skin, typical of injury from a kick.”

  “One moment, please. Are you here referring to the four roughly parallel cuts under the eye that are clearly shown in photograph number four?”

  The pathologist turned over the photographs. “Yes.”

  “Please continue.”

  “There was bruising around the sixth and seventh ribs, again typical of an injury from a kick. Finally, there was a serious fracture to the skull. From the nature of this wound, the presence of a large piece of rock close to the deceased’s head, and the relative positions, I can say that the wound was caused when the deceased fell over the rock face and landed on his head.”

  “Were you able to make any assessment of the time of death?”

  “Death occurred between eight and eleven o’clock the previous night.”

  “Are these exact times?”

  “They are no different from such times as are normally given.”

  “What does that mean?” asked the judge.

  “My Lord, discovering the time of death is not an exact science since it has to rely on a number of inexact factors. From my observations, and my experience, I believe that the deceased died between the times I have mentioned. I cannot swear, however, that death could not have taken place outside those hours.”

  “Very well,” said the judge.

  “Did you carry out a post mortem?”

  “I did, on Wednesday, the second of October. Initially, I made a general examination of the body and I discovered in the right hand a blonde hair caught up in a cadaveric spasm.”

  “What is that?”

  “It is a relatively uncommon event in which there is a violent spasm of the muscles at the moment of death. Occasionally, though not in this case, the whole body may go rigid at death.”

  “Will you look at photograph nine, please?”

  The pathologist looked through the photographs again.

  “That shows the hair. Naturally, the fingers have been slightly opened up.”

  “What did you do with this hair?”

  “I placed it in a phial which I sealed and initialled.”

  “Will you look at exhibit number seven, please?”

  The usher handed a phial to the witness, who identified it.

  “May we now move on to the nature of the injuries the deceased had suffered?” said Stimpson.

  “The lacerated wound to the forehead was severe and would have resulted in partial loss of consciousness. The flesh was split and the bone beneath was fractured. From the nature of the wound, I imagine the weapon to have been long and thin — around half an inch — probably metal, with a short cross-piece roughly a quarter of an inch from the end.

  “The injury below the right eye was certainly caused by a kick and probably the bruising to the rib was likewise caused, although I cannot be certain of this. The wound to the top of the skull was very severe and resulted in death. Death would have occurred within a very short time of this last injury, about five minutes at the most.”

  “Can you indicate the order in which the injuries were received?”

  “I can give you my opinion, but this is based as much on common sense as on medical facts.”

  “And none the worse for that!”

  “The first blow was to the forehead. This rendered the man semi-conscious and he collapsed to the ground. There, he was twice kicked. He then either rolled over, or was pushed over, the rock face and fell head first on to the piece of rock which killed him.”

  “Can you say whether, as a general proposition, these injuries suggest anything to you?”

  “I would judge the assailant to have been stripped of all self-control.”

  Stimpson turned and spoke quickly to his instructing solicitor, then sat down.

  Tutt stood up. He hitched his gown over his shoulders, adjusted his wig, took off his glasses which he had been wearing whilst he took notes and carefully began to clean the lenses with a handkerchief. “I’m interested in the order in which you claim the injuries were received,” he said, in a bland voice. “You did say, I think, that you based your answer on common sense, not medical facts — why is this?”

  “I’ve never yet met a case where a man’s been kicked under the eye when he was standing upright.”

  There was some laughter.

  “But if you stop to think about it, this is not an impossible feat?”

  The pathologist shrugged his shoulders.

  “If your answer depended on common sense, not medical knowledge, presumably it’s because your medical knowledge is insufficient?”

  “That is not how I would put it.”

  “I feel certain of that. Nevertheless, I suggest that is the situation.” Tutt finished polishing his glasses. He dangled them from his right hand, sometimes swinging them backwards and forwards. His voice became even blander. “But I believe you have been put forward by the prosecution as an expert witness on medical facts, not on common sense?”

  “That doesn’t mean…”

  “Is that not so? Then surely the jury is just as competent — some might even say more so — to judge the order the injuries were received in?”

  The pathologist didn’t answer.

  “Can you say whether a bruise has been caused before death or immediately afterwards?”

  “If there is sufficient time after death, yes, since…”

  “In this case, which is the one we’re interested in, you yourself have put the period of time at five minutes. Can you tell whether a bruise has been received within five minutes after death?”

  “No.”

  “Then do we have this situation? Despite your previous claims, in fact the order the injuries were received in might have been that the deceased fell over on to his head, was attacked as he lay with a blunt instrument and hit on the forehead, and was then kicked? Correct me if I’m wrong, but you cannot say, medically, that that was not so?”

  “No,” muttered the pathologist.

  “Or the deceased might, with a high flying kick, have been kicked under the eye, fallen, been kicked on the ground, have rolled over the rock face and suffered the fatal injury, then been hit across the forehead with the blunt instrument. That also is possible from a medical point of view?”

  “Yes.”

  “A wide choice of permutations!”

  In the dock, Bladen found himself assessing from a professional viewpoint Tutt’s cross-examination. It had been of small relevance to the case, since no matter in what order the injuries were received they had resulted in death, but it had effectively destroyed the jury’s belief, based solely on the witness’ standing as an expert, in his infallibility.

  Tutt turned over a page of his brief and put on his spectacles. He appeared to read although in fact he was merely giving the jury as much time as possible in which to assimilate what they had just heard. When he thought he could wait no longer, he resumed the cross-examination. “Tell me — from a medical viewpoint, I hasten to add, not from one of common sense…”

  “Are you suggesting the two can never be in harness?” asked the judge. Since being ill five years back from a complaint never properly diagnosed, he had tended to dislike doctors.

  “My Lord,” said Tutt, “perhaps the witness could tell us whether, in his long experience, he has ever found the two things to go together?”

  The pathologist did not try to hide his anger.

  “Tell me,” repeated Tutt, with the same bland pleasantness, “did the deceased roll over the edge of the rock face, or was he pushed?”

  “I can’t say. I made that quite clea
r.”

  “I just want the jury to be as clear on this point as you say you are. Would the blow to the forehead have caused much bleeding?”

  “A fair amount, but not excessive.”

  “And would blood have been splashed around by the blow?”

  “Possibly.”

  “Then would you not expect the person who wielded the blow to have been splashed with some of the blood?”

  “Possibly.”

  “You wouldn’t put it any higher than that?”

  “No, I wouldn’t.”

  “Suppose I tell you that I shall be calling a witness who will testify that in his opinion the assailant almost inevitably would have been splashed with blood?”

  “I should ask him whether he was ignoring not only common sense, but the medical facts as well,” said the pathologist, with open pleasure.

  Tutt smiled. “Quite so,” he said, as if that were just the answer he would have expected from so self-opinionated a man. “You have told us that the wound on the forehead suggests a weapon long and thin, probably metal, with a short cross-piece near the end. Were you shown anything that might have caused this wound?”

  “A car’s starting handle.”

  “Can you say from the nature of the wound that the starting handle did make the wound?”

  “No. I can only say that in my opinion it could have done.”

  “Thank you.” Tutt sat down.

  Stimpson re-examined. “Did you make any sort of examination of the ground above the point where the body was found?”

  “I did.”

  “What did you discover?”

  “There was blood on some of the leaves of a rhododendron bush and some blood on the ground — I say blood because tests were carried out in my presence which proved conclusively it was human blood.”

  “If that blood came from the deceased, from which wound would it have come?”

  “The one across the forehead.”

  “Thank you.”

  The forensic scientist from Denbrington forensic laboratory went into the witness box. He gave evidence on the shoeprint, the finding of blonde hairs on Bladen’s clothes, the absence of any such hairs on Thompson’s clothes, and the detailed results of the comparison tests he had made.

  “Mr. Moores,” said Stimpson, hunching his shoulders and leaning forward slightly, “will you please summarise in so far as you can your evidence regarding the hairs?”

  “Normally, as I have said, it is impossible to state that a certain hair has come from a certain person: at best, we can say it is similar in all respects to hairs from that person. But in this case the control hair, the hair from the deceased’s fingers, and one of the hairs I found on the accused’s coat, were not only similar in all respects, each had been cut within the past forty-eight hours and probably within the past twenty-four, and each had been tinted the same golden colour.”

  “Tests were made on the tinting agent and evidence on this will be given shortly. In the light of the results of these tests, can you tell us anything further?”

  “Yes, sir. The hairs all came from the same head.”

  “The hair on the accused’s coat and the hair in the dead man’s fingers came from the head of Mrs. Curson?”

  “That is correct.”

  Stimpson sat down. Tutt stood up and once more polished his glasses. Did he cross-examine? This evidence was vital and the defence must try to shake it, but the witness had restricted himself to facts that were entirely within his own knowledge and the defence had no means of negating them. To challenge an expert without the means of backing up that challenge was to ask for trouble: yet to allow this evidence to go through unchallenged must surely be to present the prosecution with the case?

  “Yes, Mr. Tutt,” said the judge.

  Old Flappy knew exactly what the trouble was, thought Tutt moodily. “Mr. Moores, you say that you can positively identify all these hairs as having come from Mrs. Curson’s head?”

  “That is so.”

  “I wonder if this is really true. If we were dealing with the hairs uncut and un-tinted, you wouldn’t be able positively to identify them?”

  “No. In such a case I could go no further than to say the test hairs and the control hair were similar in all respects.”

  “How many other women in this country have hair of exactly similar colour?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “A great number?”

  “Beyond the obvious fact there is a much less frequency of natural blonde and red hair than brown or black, I cannot say.”

  “Would not a number of women have hair not only of the same colour but of exactly the same characteristics: that is, the value of I and diameter of medulla?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “By the law of averages, would not a proportion of these women have had their hair cut and tinted within the forty-eight hours preceding Monday, the thirtieth of September?”

  “I can’t answer that other than to say I was advised that the tint was new and in very limited circulation at the time.”

  “But you’re not going to deny it was used on anyone else?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Then your evidence tends to become a long list of what you don’t know.” Tutt sat down.

  “If I might explain…” Moores stopped speaking as Tutt ostentatiously turned and spoke to Vallis.

  Stimpson stood up. “Mr. Moores, I can quite understand my learned friend’s reluctance to hear your explanation, but I am certain the jury would welcome it.”

  “It is this, sir. If you take each point separately, then there can be no positive identification: I tried to make that clear. But when you put them all together, in my judgement there is such an identification. The odds against another woman having exactly the same coloured hair that is possessed of the same characteristics, who had it cut within the previous forty-eight hours, and who had it tinted with the same tint that was so new to the country, are too great to be considered.”

  “And further, of course, this mythical woman would also have had to be present at the scene of the crime at the time of the murder?”

  Tutt hastily came to his feet. “My Lord, that is a very improper comment for my learned friend to make.”

  “Quite so,” said the judge mildly.

  In the dock, Bladen silently cursed Tutt for his handling of the last witness. Why challenge when that challenge must fail? It was obvious that the hair in Thompson’s fingers had originally come from Katherine’s head, so what Tutt should have been doing was to prove Thompson picked it off Elmer’s clothes, not his, Bladen’s. He was swept by the sickening certainty that no cross-examination would shake the jury’s belief in his guilt.

  *

  A second forensic scientist, from London, gave evidence on the identification and comparison of the hair tint found on the hairs and the sample taken from the hairdressing salon. A laboratory assistant testified he had been given a number of car tools, including a starting handle, and had tested these for blood. There had been no signs of blood on any of them. Tutt cross-examined neither witness. He had no means of challenging the first and the evidence of the second was in his favour.

  *

  Jules Guichard, surprisingly, did not look like a pansy from Chelsea. He was a short, chunky man, just over thirty years old, with a face that contained lines of hard determination.

  “I am the owner of Maison Guichard, in the High Street at Paraford Cross. I have a number of assistants, but carry out as much of the important work as I can.” He spoke with a French accent because to do so had become second nature to him.

  “Have you ever attended to Mrs. Curson?” asked Stimpson.

  “Indeed, yes. For a number of years, now, I have had the pleasure of sculpturing her hair.”

  “When was the last time?”

  “On Monday, the thirtieth of September, at ten-thirty in the morning.”

  “What exactly did you do to Mrs. Curson’s hair?”

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p; “I gave it a sculptured cut in a slightly different style to emphasise certain lines in her face. I also managed to persuade her to allow me to tint it. Mrs. Curson is a very beautiful woman with magnificent hair and previously she had refused to use tint — mostly I agreed with her because who can improve on nature? But the new tint called Aztec Gold was just designed for her. It added that superb extra something.”

  “Is it a popular tint?”

  “It was then very new and, you understand, only for hair of the exact shading of Mrs. Curson’s.”

  “Can you say how many times you had previously used it?”

  “Never. Since then, once only.”

  Stimpson looked down at the notes he had made on the side of the proof. He was about to sit down when Tutt said there would be no cross-examination. The witness left the box. “Mr. Rollo,” said Stimpson.

  The policeman by the main doors, by tradition wearing white gloves, opened one of the doors and called for Rollo. The call was repeated by a second policeman outside.

  Rollo entered the courtroom and went along the gangway between counsel’s and the public benches, past the dock, and into the witness box. He took the New Testament in his right hand and repeated the oath. He had dressed carefully, but looked less majestic than when in black coat and striped trousers. The courtroom was warm, but not warm enough to account for the beads of sweat on his forehead. He answered the preliminary questions.

  “Will you tell the court, please, who to your knowledge was present on Monday morning, the thirtieth of September?” asked Stimpson.

  “Mr. Curson was at home all morning, Mrs. Curson went out but returned before lunch. Briggs and Mrs. Rollo were present, and so was Mrs. Don until just after midday.”

  “Anyone else?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Should anyone else have been present?”

  “Thompson should have been working in the garden, sir, but wasn’t.”

  “How can you be certain he was not somewhere in the garden which is, I believe, a large one?”

  “Mr. Curson requested me to give him a message concerning the south herbaceous border.” Rollo had clearly not considered it part of his job to give messages to the gardener. “I searched all over the garden and he was nowhere around. I discovered the gardener’s shed had not been opened so it was obvious he had not started work that day.”