The Police Have Their Doubts
While the representatives of the defence—official and unofficial—were
pursuing their separate lines of investigation, the police had not
been altogether idle. Inspector Blaikie had not been long in finding
out that Thomas had been making inquiries among the servants at
Liskeard House, or in drawing the conclusion that the defence would
make an attempt to shift some part at least of the suspicion to other
shoulders with the object of creating enough doubt to make it
difficult for a jury to convict their client. He was not surprised at
this, and it did not at all alarm him; for, among other things, he
regarded it as sure proof that the lawyer held his own case to be
weak. The inspector was quite unable to take seriously the idea that
Winter was in any way implicated in the murders; and Morgan’s
complicity, owing to the position of their bedrooms, was practically
impossible without Winter’s. Blaikie therefore treated Thomas’s moves
as being merely the necessary preparation for an attempt to throw dust
into the eyes of the jury, and not in the least an endeavour to find
the real murderer. There could be no doubt about it—Thomas’s tactics
were, from the inspector’s standpoint, the final and conclusive
proof—Walter Brooklyn had murdered Prinsep, and either he or Prinsep
had murdered George Brooklyn. They had the right man under lock and
key.
But it is one thing to be sure that you have the right man in custody,
and quite another to be sure of getting him convicted by a jury. The
inspector admitted that the case against Walter Brooklyn was not
conclusive. His complicity was practically proved; but there was no
direct evidence that he had actually struck the blows. The evidence
was circumstantial; and, in these circumstances, the inspector did not
disguise from himself the fact that any attempt to shift the suspicion
might at least create enough doubt to make a conviction improbable.
Accordingly, while Joan and Ellery were doing their best to prove
Walter Brooklyn’s innocence, Inspector Blaikie was searching, with
equal vigour, for further proofs of his guilt.
But he found nothing that was of material importance, so far as he
could see. The sole addition to his case was the evidence of a
taxi-driver, who, from his accustomed post on the rank outside the
Piccadilly Theatre, had seen Walter Brooklyn pass at somewhere about
half-past eleven or so; but the man could not be sure to a few
minutes. This was all very well in its way, the inspector thought; but
as Walter Brooklyn’s presence inside Liskeard House at about 11.30 was
proved already, it could not be of much importance to prove his
presence just outside at about the same time. There was, however, this
to be said for the new piece of evidence. Walter Brooklyn denied the
telephone message, and maintained that he had not been at Liskeard
House at all. Direct evidence that he had been at the time in question
within a minute’s walk of the house was certainly better than nothing.
Nothing further had come to light when, on Saturday morning, Inspector
Blaikie went to Superintendent Wilson with his daily report on the
case, telling him first about the taxi-man’s evidence. The
superintendent seemed to attach some importance to this. “Where you
have to rely on circumstantial evidence,” he said, “the accumulation
of details is all-important. Every little helps. Your taxi-driver may
yet be an important link in the chain.”
The inspector confided to his superior that the result of his
reflections on the case was to make him far more doubtful than he had
been of securing a conviction.
“Quite so,” said the superintendent. “I thought you would realise that
when you had thought it over.”
The inspector replied that he saw it now, and went on to explain what
he believed to be the strategy of the defence—throwing suspicion on
the servants. “The trouble of it is,” he said, “that although I’m
absolutely sure in my own mind that Winter had nothing whatever to do
with the affair, there’s no way of proving the thing one way or the
other. So far as the evidence goes, he might have done it. Of course,
there’s absolutely no shred of evidence that he did; but that is not
enough to prevent a clever counsel from arousing suspicion in the mind
of a jury.”
“Are you so sure,” said the superintendent, “that there is no shred of
evidence? I mean, of course, of what the other side may be able to
dress up to look like evidence. I should say that fellow Thomas is
clever enough to find something that he can make serve as a cause for
suspicion, if there is anything at all that will serve. For example,
this Prinsep seems to have been a bit of a beast. Is there anything to
show whether Winter was on good or bad terms with him? If they had
quarrelled or anything of the sort, that is just the kind of fact
Thomas, or his counsel, would use to good effect.”
“You’re right there; but I’ve come across nothing that would suggest a
quarrel. Morgan—that’s the valet chap—made no secret of disliking
Prinsep very cordially; but Winter seems to be just the good, faithful
family servant.”
“I dare say there’s nothing to be found out in that way: but you might
make a note of it, and get a few inquiries made. We want to know
exactly how strong the defence is likely to be. And, by the way, I
suppose you still have no doubts in your own mind that Walter Brooklyn
is the murderer?” The superintendent opened his eyes, and looked at
the inspector as he spoke.
“None at all—at least, it seems to me practically certain. Quite as
certain as the case against most men who get hanged. Do you mean that
you are in doubt about it?”
The superintendent made no direct reply to this. “At any rate,” he
said, “the evidence is certainly not conclusive. I suppose you have no
idea whether the defence will try to prove an _alibi_.”
“I don’t see how they can. According to his own story, Brooklyn was
just strolling about alone all the evening. He can’t prove that,
surely.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that. If it were true, he might have been seen
by a dozen people. And, even if it weren’t true, Thomas might be able
to produce witnesses who would swear they had seen him. Thomas
wouldn’t stick at that. Any _alibi_ he tries to produce will need very
careful scrutiny.”
“But we know Brooklyn was in the house at 11.30.”
The superintendent smiled, and leant back in his chair. “No,” he said,
“that is just where you go wrong. We don’t know it. It rests on the
evidence about the telephone message. But have you considered all the
possibilities about that message? The defence clearly will not admit
that Walter Brooklyn sent it. We believe he did; but is it not quite
possible for the defence to argue that somebody else sent that message
with the deliberate intention of misleading us? And is it not also
possible that Brooklyn sent it, but not from Liskeard House?”
“But why should he say he was at Liskeard House if he wasn’t?”
“I don’t say he wasn’t. But he may maintain that the man who took the
message down made a mistake. After all, such mishaps are common
enough. Or he may have been meaning to go to Liskeard House before the
messenger arrived.”
“I think that is ruled out any way. We have proved from inquiries at
the telephone exchange that Liskeard House did ring up Brooklyn’s club
at about the time stated. There was some trouble about the connection,
and the operator remembers making it.”
“Well, take the other possibility. May not the defence argue that some
one else must have impersonated Brooklyn at the telephone, with the
deliberate object of throwing suspicion upon him? The murderer,
supposing him not to be Walter Brooklyn, would obviously want to get
some one else suspected if he could. On that theory, all the
circumstantial evidence would be false clues left by the real
murderer.”
“That doesn’t seem to me at all likely, if I may say so. The evidence
that was left on the spot where Prinsep was killed was obviously meant
to incriminate George Brooklyn. That seems to show that, when the
murder was done, the murderer had no idea that George Brooklyn was
dead already, if indeed he was. A criminal would hardly lay two
distinct and actually inconsistent sets of clues, leading to quite
different suspects.”
“Not unless he was a quite exceptionally clever criminal, I grant you.
But tell me this. Why should a man, who otherwise covered his traces
so well, give himself away like an utter fool by that telephone
conversation?”
“Obviously, I should say, because the ’phone message was sent before
the murder, and the murder was not premeditated. Having killed his
man, Brooklyn took the only possible course by denying the
conversation.”
“Yes, that theory hangs together; but I’m not satisfied with it. There
seems to me to be every reason to believe that the murders were most
carefully thought out beforehand, and in that case the sending of the
telephone message needs a lot of explanation. Then, again, we have
still no indication at all of how Walter Brooklyn, or for that matter
George Brooklyn, got into or out of the house.”
“On that point I have absolutely failed to get any light. My first
idea, of course, was duplicate keys, and the stable yard. But the yard
was quite definitely bolted as well as locked by eleven o’clock. The
wall could not be scaled without a long ladder, which is out of the
question. The front door is quite impossible, unless three or four
servants were in the plot. I suppose they must have slipped in through
the theatre, although it beats me how they got in without being seen.”
“May not Walter Brooklyn have come in through the stable yard before
it was closed, and been in the house some time before the murders? He
may have been going away when your taxi-man saw him at about 11.30.”
“Even so, that doesn’t explain how he let himself out and bolted the
place after him from the inside. And, in any case, George Brooklyn was
still alive at 11.30, when he was seen leaving the building by the
front door. He had to get back, and Prinsep, if he killed him, must
have been alive too until well after 11.30.”
“And you can add to that the difficulty that George Brooklyn seems to
have got back into the garden after 11.30, and that, where one man
could enter unseen, so could two.”
The inspector scratched his chin. “The whole thing is a puzzle,” he
said. “But there’s one thing I’m sure of. It’s a much worse puzzle if
you don’t assume that Walter Brooklyn was the murderer.”
“Still, there’s nothing so dangerous as to simplify your problem by
assuming what you cannot conclusively prove to be true. If I were a
juryman, I certainly could not vote for a conviction on the evidence
we have at present.”
“But there’s no one else who could have done it.”
“Oh, yes, there is. There’s all the population of London. I grant you
we have at present no reason for suspecting any one else in
particular. But that may be because we don’t know enough.”
“Then what do you want me to do?”
“Hunt, for all you’re worth, for further evidence. Don’t shut your
eyes to the possibility that Walter Brooklyn may not be the murderer.
Hunt for evidence of any kind, as if you were starting the case
afresh.”
“And, meanwhile, Walter Brooklyn remains in custody?”
“Most certainly. There is presumptive evidence that he is the guilty
party. But it’s nothing like a certainty. Remember that.”
The above conversation serves to show that the police, on their side,
were becoming seriously worried. They had hoped that the strong
presumptive evidence against Walter Brooklyn would speedily have been
reinforced by further discoveries; but so far they had been
disappointed. Inspector Blaikie at least was still strongly of opinion
that he was guilty; but a strong opinion is not enough to convince a
jury, and the inspector did not like to see the acquittal of a man he
had arrested, especially as he had no other evidence pointing to some
different person as the guilty person. Superintendent Wilson at least,
while he could not blame the inspector for his conduct of the
investigation, was growing more and more dissatisfied with the
progress of the case. He had an uneasy and a growing feeling, which he
had at first been unwilling to admit even to himself, that they were
on the wrong tack.