“‘I can’t remember, as I say. I don’t think so, but it’s possible.’
“‘You have told us that you did not encourage Mr. Eagles to leave you
anything.’
“‘I did not.’
“‘Nor try to discover the amount?’
“‘No, it hardly interested me. I expected to marry him and have money
settled on me.’
“‘Very well, we will leave that.’
“While the Attorney was looking through his papers Patty passed her
handkerchief across her lips and forehead, and then set her teeth.
“‘You concluded your letter by saying, “I believe everything will be
O.K.” Are you sure that doesn’t refer to the verdict at the inquest?’
“(Sharply.) ‘Yes, perfectly sure.’
“‘Then to what did it refer?’
“‘I have already said that it referred to the money I should get under
the will.’
“‘Yet you weren’t sure you were to get a penny?’
“‘I can’t be sure, I thought the lawyer had told me.’
“‘You know he has denied that.’
“‘Yes, but he may be wrong.’
“‘But if he is right, you didn’t know you had inherited a penny?’
“‘I have told you I strongly suspected he had left me something.’
“‘If he had, why was there any doubt about your getting it?’
“‘I thought it might be disputed.’
“‘On what grounds?’
“‘Undue influence, I suppose.’
“‘Now I want to be fair to you. Do you seriously suggest that the Jury
should believe that “It will be O.K.” referred, and referred only, to a
legacy the very existence of which was unknown to you?’
“‘It is the truth; as I say, I believe the lawyer _had_ told me about
it.’
* * * * *
“Those are the salient passages,” said Myers, “but there was much else.
Patty’s character disappeared beneath the rain of questions, but her
reputation for pluck was never more convincingly justified.
“Her counsel in his re-examination set himself to counteract the very
perilous impression left by these answers.
* * * * *
“‘Had you heard anything which made you realise there was a serious
risk that your marriage would not take place?’
“‘I knew that people, enemies of mine, were warning Mr. Eagles about
me.’
“‘And you were afraid he would act on their advice?’
“‘Yes, he had spoken to me about it.’
“‘About this legacy--had you good reasons for suspecting its existence?’
“‘Yes, Mr. Eagles frequently said he would see that I was provided for
if anything happened to him.’
“‘When you referred to the risk, can you explain a little more clearly
what was in your mind?’
“‘Well, I thought it might be disputed on the ground of undue
influence--not that I have used any, but, as I have said, I have many
enemies.’
* * * * *
“To understand the beauty--to criminologists--of this duel concerning
the letter, the whole of Patty’s examination and cross-examination
should be closely studied. For five long hours Patty’s life was hanging
by a thread.
“Sir Leonard, in order to neutralise the deadly implications in her
letter, had been compelled reluctantly to reveal that she had a very
strong motive. If she knew of the legacy she had 30,000 good reasons
for shooting Richard; if she was ignorant of it, that terrible word
‘risk’ could not be explained.
“In my opinion they were the five finest hours the Old Bailey has given
us.
“When the Attorney-General got up to make his closing speech everyone
felt it was touch and go. He was perfectly fair, but perfectly
firm. The evidence he marshalled would have been deadly but for the
conflict in the medical evidence and the absence of the revolver. He
characterised Patty’s answers about the letter as incredible.
“Then Sir Leonard got up and made the speech of his life. He began with
one of his most impressive exordia.
“‘Gentlemen of the Jury, the prisoner at the Bar is accused of murder.
If she is found guilty of that foul crime she will meet in three weeks’
time a shameful, felon’s death. On my poor efforts depend her defence:
on your verdict her liberty or death. Gentlemen, it is an awful
responsibility that you and I must share.’
“He made no attempt to disguise the fact that his client was a hardened
little scoundrel, but he impressed on the Jury how much more she had to
gain, and gain in perfect safety, by marrying Richard than by taking
the frightful risk entailed by murdering him. She would not have been
the calculating little intriguer which she had shown herself, if she
had failed to realise the inevitable suspicion which was bound to fall
upon her when the terms of the will became known. People of her type
did not commit murders, they steadily fleeced, and so great was the
dead man’s infatuation she had every reason to believe she could force
him to marry her, when she could fleece him to her heart’s content.
“So did he dismiss the question of motive.
“He emphasised the sharp and irreconcilable conflict in the medical
evidence. Would the Jury ever know a moment’s peace if they sent her to
the gallows when such doctors could disagree?
“He made much of the absence of the revolver, and--this will interest
you, Robert--he asked how could the shot have been fired? The dead man
was shot from the front at point-blank range. He must have stood stock
still and calmly allowed the prisoner to blow his brains out. Was it
conceivable?
“The letter of which the prosecution made so much was perfectly capable
of bearing the construction the prisoner put upon it. In a peroration
of majestic power he demanded that the prisoner be given the benefit of
the doubt. ‘If she is guilty,’ he concluded, ‘she will not escape, for
there is One Who knows all: Vengeance is His, He will repay!’
“The Judge’s summing up was quiet and eminently judicial. On the whole
it inclined, and I think rightly, to the defence. The police had not
made out their case.
“At length the Jury filed out, and Patty was taken out of Court, her
eyes blazing with excitement, and two red stains flaming in her cheeks.
The Jury were out for three and a half hours. It was known afterwards
that two of them long held out for a verdict of guilty, but in the
end gave way, and in a quivering silence the foreman pronounced ‘Not
guilty,’ which would undoubtedly have been ‘Not proven’ in Scotland.
“And that, Robert, was the end of the ‘Balland Mystery’--till you took
that afternoon stroll.”
“What happened to Patty?” I asked.
“She dodged the vast crowd awaiting her, and disappeared from the
knowledge of men till two years later she was found dead from
an overdose of cocaine in a Buenos Aires Hotel--she had been
‘White-slaving’ apparently. She made no attempt to get the £30,000,
Richard’s next of kin winning the action for undue influence unopposed.
Mason died in prison three years after the trial.”
“Now tell me again just exactly what you saw.”
I did so. When I had finished he said, “There was one little detail you
mentioned that time which you didn’t mention before: you say she paused
for a moment by a tree?”
“Yes, she just hesitated for a moment or two and then disappeared.”
“Look here,” said Myers, “this fascinates me. Could I come down with
you and see the place?”
“Of course you can,” I said. “We can go to-morrow if you like.”
“We’ll go down in the car,” said Myers. “I’ll pick you up at ten.”
We lunched at the house, and then walked down to the scene of my
vision. I pointed out to my highly excited companion the exact spot,
and he regarded it reverently.
“Was this the tree?” he asked, pointing to a fine cedar.
“Yes,” I replied.
“And she paused just here?”
“Yes.”
Myers examined the trunk carefully, and then turned to me suddenly.
“Look here,” he said, and he pointed to a hole of medium size about the
level of his waist in the cedar.
“Good Lord!” he said, “I wonder! I wonder! Look here, run up to the
house and see if you can find a strong knife, I want to get my arm into
that hole.”
I eventually waylaid a gardener, who produced a knife, which I took
back to Myers. He set to work, and after a few minutes he put down the
knife, and with a look of extreme excitement on his face, thrust in his
arm to the shoulder. “Empty!” he groaned. “No, by God! it’s not!” He
drew up his arm. “Robert, you are the most wonderful man in the world.
Do you know what I’ve got in my hand?”
He drew his hand clear of the hole and then opened it, and there was
the neatest little Colt revolver. He jerked it open, and there were six
cartridges, five unused, one used.
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