XVI

But even in a court of law, where everything, in spite of what the more ignorant section of the public may think, is arranged and prearranged, the unexpected sometimes does happen.

To the amazement of everybody present, Sir Joseph Molloy was almost as kindly, as courteous, as careful of hurting her feelings, in his cross-examination of Ivy Lexton, as his good friend Sir Jonathan Wright had been during the examination-in-chief. Indeed Sir Joseph, as a famous descriptive writer declared the next morning, was positively dove-like in his gentleness. When cross-examining Mrs. Jervis Lexton, his object seemed to be simply that of proving that Roger Gretorex, in everyday life, had been a considerate, chivalrous, and extremely unselfish friend. And that had already been freely admitted by the leading counsel for the Crown.

True, there came a moment when Sir Joseph, who found it painfully difficult to play the role he had faithfully promised Roger Gretorex to play, pressed Ivy just a little hard as to what form of words the prisoner had used on the last occasion he had made love to her.

The witness broke down, for the first time, over that probing question, and it was sobbing that she asked: “Must I answer that?”

The Judge explained to her, kindly enough, “Yes, prisoner’s counsel is entitled to an answer to that question. But if you cannot remember the exact form of words which were used on that occasion, you are entitled to say so.”

And then she replied, uttering the words very clearly this time: “I can only remember that he said he loved me, and that were I free he hoped I would become his wife.”

Now those were the last words Sir Joseph had intended Ivy Lexton to utter in answer to his question. And the knowledge that this was so caused a murmur of⁠—was it amusement?⁠—to run through the Court. The public much enjoy hearing a witness score off counsel.

“And what did you answer to that?” he asked sharply.

And then, as Ivy again began sobbing, shrugging his great shoulders he signified that his cross-examination of the principal witness for the Crown was over.

Some of those present in Court were cruel enough to regret that Sir Joseph had not been up to his usual form. What would not such people have given to have heard what had passed at an interview the great advocate had had, only yesterday, with the man now standing rigid in the dock!

Sir Joseph Molloy always insisted on seeing any man or woman whom he was about to defend on a charge of murder and, at his final interview with Gretorex, the prisoner had begun by begging him most earnestly to refrain from cross-examining Ivy Lexton.

But as to that, his counsel had refused to be guided by the accused man’s wishes.

“Do you expect me to put the hangman’s rope round your neck?” he had asked harshly.

Even so, he had promised that he would be very gentle with her. And gentle he had been, all the more gentle, perhaps, because, at the very end of that painful, curious interview, Gretorex had said to him, gazing right into his eyes:

“Treat Mrs. Lexton as you yourself would treat the woman you love, or your own cherished sister, were she in the witness-box and you her cross-examiner.”

So it was that, to his bitter regret, Sir Joseph Molloy had behaved, with regard to Ivy, in a way quite foreign to his nature. What he had longed to do was to turn this lovely little creature inside out, and to apply to her, in his own inimitable, almost affectionately feline, manner, that awful Third Degree before which even the innocent trembled.

After a great deal of anxious thought, he had made up his mind to plead, on his client’s behalf, a fit of temporary insanity. He hoped, that is, to persuade the jury that, by some extraordinary combination of circumstances, Jervis Lexton had been suffering in very truth from some commonplace digestive disorder up to that last day when Gretorex, driven mad by jealousy and love, had done the awful deed. Not, that is, as the slow poisoner goes to work, but as a man takes out a knife to stab his rival to the heart.

That had been, roughly speaking, the line Sir Joseph had intended to take before he had seen his client. But to do that he would have had to play with Ivy Lexton as a powerful cat plays with a young mouse, and that course of action had been absolutely forbidden by the man whom he now believed innocent, even though reason whispered that he must be guilty.

Then was it all over⁠—the ordeal she had so dreaded at an end? Ivy felt suddenly as if everything were whirling round her, and indeed she nearly fainted. But she made an effort to pull herself together, and to those who saw her leave the witness-box the expression on her white face appeared deeply pathetic.

“Bravo! You did splendidly! I’m proud of you,” whispered Paxton-Smith.

And then he asked, “Would you like to stay on in Court, or shall I take you home?”

He hoped she would say “Home.”

For a moment she looked undecided, then, “I think I would like to stay,” she murmured.

Now that her part was done, and with her legal adviser’s “Bravo!” pounding in her ears, she felt she would prefer to be here rather than alone in the flat. Indeed, when Paxton-Smith had found her a comfortable seat among her friends, she began to feel a curious sense of detachment, as if the drama of the trial being played out before her scarcely concerned her personally at all.

This strange feeling was really the measure of her profound relief at having, so to speak, weathered the storm of what everyone had told her would be such an awful experience. Why, it hadn’t been really terrible at all! There had been moments of her examination⁠—not of her cross-examination⁠—which in a sense Ivy had almost enjoyed. She had been able to make herself out, to the great company of people about her, what she believed herself to be⁠—a sweet-natured, unselfish little woman, whom everybody loved.⁠ ⁠…

The appearance of Dr. Berwick in the witness-box gave her a momentary sensation of unease. He was clear, unemotional, and not in the least nervous.

There was a little tiff between him and counsel when he told the story of how he had come in one day, and found the prisoner prescribing for his, Dr. Berwick’s, patient. It was put to him as a fact that Gretorex had not made out any form of prescription and that when he was “caught” apparently doing so, he had only been writing down the name of an ordinary gargle, to be found made up in every chemist’s shop. Also, at the time he had written down the name of that proprietary preparation, Gretorex was under the impression that, Dr. Lancaster having had an accident, the sick man had no one attending him, at any rate at that moment.

Even so, Dr. Berwick’s evidence was regarded by all those present as very damaging to the prisoner, and Sir Joseph could do nothing with him, save to denounce him angrily for not having insisted at once, as soon as he became uneasy, on a second opinion.

And then Roger Gretorex’s famous counsel flung by far the greatest sensation of the trial on the Court.

In a quiet, toneless voice he observed, as if he was stating the most natural thing in the world, “I do not call any evidence.”

There ran an excited murmur through the, till now, still audience. Everyone had fully expected that the prisoner would give evidence on his own behalf and, to the great majority of those there, the fact that Gretorex had refused to go into the witness-box, not only signed his own death-warrant, but proved conclusively that Sir Joseph regarded his client as guilty.

At first Ivy did not understand what it was that had happened. Then two or three of the friends by whom she was surrounded excitedly explained the exact meaning of Sir Joseph’s apparently casual remark.

She, the woman in the case, said nothing in answer to these eager, wordy explanations. Indeed, she seemed hardly to take in all that was being told her. But inwardly she was feeling, oh! so thankful, so intensely thankful, that Roger Gretorex had refused to give evidence. She had been so horribly afraid that when in the witness-box her onetime lover might, unwittingly, give her away.

It was of Miles Rushworth that she was thinking, ever thinking, deep in what she called her heart. He had been to her the only audience that mattered, while she had been examined and cross-examined as to her relations with the prisoner.

“And now,” whispered someone just behind her, “comes the closing speech for the Crown.”

Ivy was not particularly interested in the closing speech for the Crown. And, truth to tell, neither was anyone else in Court, excepting, it must be hoped, the jury.

Sir Jonathan sat down at the end of⁠—was it twenty minutes, or only a quarter of an hour?

There was a short moment of breathing space, and then all prepared to give their best attention while Sir Joseph Molloy started what was afterwards described as “his great speech for the defence.”

But though it may have been a great speech, it was a very short speech, for the famous advocate knew that the only hope of saving Gretorex from the gallows would be to make the kind of appeal to the jury which is always made in France with regard to what is called there a crime passionnel.

The fact that Sir Joseph had not elected to call any evidence gave him, as all those instructed in the law who listened to him were well aware, the last word. And he made the most of his privilege.

More than once during the course of what was simply a noble panegyric of Roger Gretorex, the prisoner went from deathly pale to very red. He would have given many of his few remaining days of life to close his powerful advocate’s mouth. Also, what was the use of it all? Gretorex knew as well as did the Judge that the fact that he was high-minded, chivalrous, the best of sons to a widowed mother, and a man whose money affairs were in perfect order, had nothing to do with the question as to whether he had committed the murder for which he was being tried. Neither, for the matter of that, would the fact that he had adored the wife of Jervis Lexton, and had gone temporarily mad for love of her, save him from the gallows.

One man, on whom by accident the prisoner’s eyes were fixed for a moment, actually shrugged his shoulders, when Sir Joseph brought in a swift allusion to the fact that one of the prisoner’s great-uncles had died in a lunatic asylum.

Now the Judge desired⁠—indeed they all desired⁠—to finish the case that day.

“Do you wish to stay on for the summing-up and for the verdict?” whispered Paxton-Smith to his client.

Again he hoped that Ivy would⁠—well? have the decency to rise and say, “No, I will go home, now.”

But instead of saying “No,” she whispered, “Yes, I think I should like to do that.”

And then, in slow, impressive tones, the Judge began his summing-up.

Though Mr. Justice Mayhew took what seemed to be a considerable time, his was one of the shortest addresses to a jury ever delivered in an important trial for murder at the Old Bailey. The story he had to recapitulate was, in a sense, so very ordinary. It had been unfolded, in all its stark simplicity, by a tiny handful of witnesses, including of course the most important of them all, the young wife of the murdered man.

Even so, speaking himself with impressive clarity, the Judge went over the now well-known tale step by step. And finally his lordship directed the jury that the fact that a man has been what is loosely called “driven mad” by love does not mean that he is not capable of keeping command over his faculties. Why, at the very time this was supposed to have happened to the prisoner, he was in charge of a large medical practice, and carrying out all the responsible, anxious duties attached to such a practice in an admirable manner!

“We have here the not uncommon case of a strong man’s infatuation for a beautiful woman who gives him little, if any, encouragement,” he observed.

And there was a murmur of disapproval when one of Ivy’s women friends gave a sudden little cackle of laughter, to the shocked surprise of everyone in Court.

The Judge brushed aside with relentless logic any effect that might have been produced on the jury by Sir Joseph Molloy’s moving account of Gretorex as a wise, unselfish physician, a devoted son, and within the possible limit a generous landlord. No doubt all that was true. But the whole history of crime was there to prove that a person could be all these excellent things, while being also a cruel, callous, secret murderer.

In this case, assuming Gretorex was guilty, the man who had been slowly done to death had been the secret poisoner’s own familiar friend, his boon-companion in many a party of careless pleasure. Further, the man before them, the prisoner in the dock, had not even dared to go into the witness-box. The Judge pointed out in solemn, measured tones that he had the right to comment, and comment most seriously, on that omission.

As the afternoon wore itself away, everyone became very weary. Even Ivy began to wish that she had gone away when Paxton-Smith had last suggested that she should do so.

She stole a glance at Roger Gretorex. He was looking straight at the Judge, with a thoughtful, measuring glance. He looked far more himself, his reserved, intelligent self, than he had done when Sir Joseph was engaged in making that dramatic, useless appeal to the jury.

Ivy Lexton gazed at the prisoner in the dock with a strange feeling at her heart. In a sense she was still proud of this man who had been her devout, adoring lover. He looked so brave, so cool, so completely self-possessed. The majority of those who now and again glanced his way to see how he was “taking it” thought him revoltingly callous.

And, at the same moment that Ivy was doing so, Roger’s mother stole a look at him. Her heart was full of such agony that she felt as if merciful death might suddenly intervene and end it all for her. And her agony was shared, one is tempted to say, almost to the full, by the girl who sat beside her.

At last the summing up was over. The prisoner was taken below, and then began the waiting for the verdict.

To many of those in Court the jury seemed to be away a long, long time. Yet as a matter of fact, it was only a bare half-hour before all those who had gone out to stretch their legs, and talk over for the hundredth time the only real point of mystery in the story, came swarming back into the Court.

Slowly, almost in a leisurely way, the nine jurymen and the three jurywomen filed in. Some of those present noticed that not a single juror looked at the prisoner, who had been brought back to the dock and now stood at ease between two warders.

Although the verdict was a foregone conclusion, every human being there looked strained, anxious; and Ivy Lexton again felt sick and faint. For the first time since she stepped into the witness-box no one was looking at her, for everyone was looking at the jury.

Everything being now ready, the Judge returned to the bench, all those who were seated in Court rising to their feet.

The Judge, having bowed to the Court, seated himself, and so, apparently, did everyone else there, except the three men, the prisoner and his custodians, standing in the dock.

Then the Clerk of the Court asked the fateful question:

“Members of the jury, have you agreed upon your verdict?”

There was a pause, but at last the foreman of the jury, a nervous, intelligent-looking man, who was evidently intensely relieved that his responsible task was now over, answered in a clear tone, “We have.”

“Do you find the prisoner, Roger Kingston Gretorex, guilty or not guilty of the wilful murder of Jervis Lexton?”

There was a scarcely perceptible wait, and then came the one word⁠—“Guilty.”

And it was as if there swept a great sigh through the now lighted Court, followed by a sudden buzz of talk.

But this was instantly quelled when the ushers cried sternly, “Silence!”

All eyes were now fixed on the prisoner. He was standing far more stiffly to attention than he had done a moment ago, as the clear tones of the Clerk of the Court rang out:

“Roger Kingston Gretorex, you stand convicted of wilful murder. Have you anything to say for yourself why the Court should not give you judgment according to law?”

“Only that I am innocent.”

The five words were uttered in a cool, firm tone.

It was the second time during the whole course of the trial that anyone there had heard Roger Gretorex’s voice.

Ivy felt better now, and she watched everything that went on with eager, excited interest.

Sitting near the Judge was a young man to whom no one had before paid any special attention. But now every eye was fixed on him, for it was he who lifted a square of black cloth, and placed it, with careful deliberation, on the Judge’s wig.

Then solemn, slow, emphatic tones of admonition fell on the heavy air. They were not cruel words, for the Judge felt deeply sorry for the young man before him. He had heard, only last evening at a dinner-party, something of the quiet, kindly, useful life that Mrs. Gretorex and her son had both led since the death of the husband and father who had caused their financial ruin.

And then came the awful words⁠—

“Roger Kingston Gretorex, the jury, after a careful and patient hearing, have found you guilty of the wilful murder of Jervis Lexton. The sentence of the Court upon you is that you be taken from here to a lawful prison, and from there to a place of execution; and that you be there hanged by the neck until you be dead; and that your body be buried within the precincts of the prison in which you shall have been last confined after your conviction; and may the Lord have mercy on your soul.”

As Ivy Lexton, supported by a number of her friends and acquaintances, left the Old Bailey by a back way, she chanced in the passage to meet Mrs. Gretorex face to face. The eyes of the two women crossed⁠—and a stab of horrible pain flashed across the worn, yet even now calm, face of Roger Gretorex’s mother.