Ordeal by Innocence

‘All right. It’s your say so–and you’re sticking to it. Jacko didn’t kill her. Very well then–who did kill her? You haven’t thought about that one, have you? Think about it now. Think about it–and then you’ll begin to see what you’re doing to us all…’

He wheeled round and went abruptly out of the room.

Chapter 4

Calgary said apologetically, ‘It’s very good of you to see me again, Mr Marshall.’

‘Not at all,’ said the lawyer.

‘As you know, I went down to Sunny Point and saw Jack Argyle’s family.’

‘Quite so.’

‘You will have heard by now, I expect, about my visit?’

‘Yes, Dr Calgary, that is correct.’

‘What you may find it difficult to understand is why I have come back here to you again…You see, things didn’t turn out exactly as I thought they would.’

‘No,’ said the lawyer, ‘no, perhaps not.’ His voice was as usual dry and unemotional, yet something in it encouraged Arthur Calgary to continue.

‘I thought, you see,’ went on Calgary, ‘that that would be the end of it. I was prepared for a certain amount of–what shall I say–natural resentment on their part. Although concussion may be termed, I suppose, an Act of God, yet from their viewpoint they could be forgiven for that, as I say. But at the same time I hoped it would be offset by the thankfulness they would feel over the fact that Jack Argyle’s name was cleared. But things didn’t turn out as I anticipated. Not at all.’

‘I see.’

‘Perhaps, Mr Marshall, you anticipated something of what would happen? Your manner, I remember, puzzled me when I was here before. Did you foresee the attitude of mind that I was going to encounter?’

‘You haven’t told me yet, Dr Calgary, what that attitude was.’

Arthur Calgary drew his chair forward. ‘I thought that I was ending something, giving–shall we say–a different end to a chapter already written. But I was made to feel, I was made to see, that instead of ending something I was starting something. Something altogether new. Is that a true statement, do you think, of the position?’

Mr Marshall nodded his head slowly. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘it could be put that way. I did think–I admit it–that you were not realizing all the implications. You could not be expected to do so because, naturally, you knew nothing of the background or of the facts except as they were given in the law reports.’

‘No. No, I see that now. Only too clearly.’ His voice rose as he went on excitedly, ‘It wasn’t really relief they felt, it wasn’t thankfulness. It was apprehension. A dread of what might be coming next. Am I right?’

Marshall said cautiously: ‘I should think probably that you are quite right. Mind you, I do not speak of my own knowledge.’

‘And if so,’ went on Calgary, ‘then I no longer feel that I can go back to my work satisfied with having made the only amends that I can make. I’m still involved. I’m responsible for bringing a new factor into various people’s lives. I can’t just wash my hands of it.’

The lawyer cleared his throat. ‘That, perhaps, is a rather fanciful point of view, Dr Calgary.’

‘I don’t think it is–not really. One must take responsibility for one’s actions and not only one’s actions but for the result of one’s actions. Just on two years ago I gave a lift to a young hitch-hiker on the road. When I did that I set in train a certain course of events. I don’t feel that I can disassociate myself from them.’

The lawyer still shook his head.

‘Very well, then,’ said Arthur Calgary impatiently. ‘Call it fanciful if you like. But my feelings, my conscience, are still involved. My only wish was to make amends for something it had been outside my power to prevent. I have not made amends. In some curious way I have made things worse for people who have already suffered. But I still don’t understand clearly why.’

‘No,’ said Marshall slowly, ‘no, you would not see why. For the past eighteen months or so you’ve been out of touch with civilization. You did not read the daily papers, the account of this family that was given in the newspapers. Possibly you would not have read them anyway, but you could not have escaped, I think, hearing about them. The facts are very simple, Dr Calgary. They are not confidential. They were made public at the time. It resolves itself very simply into this. If Jack Argyle did not (and by your account he cannot have), committed the crime, then who did? That brings us back to the circumstances in which the crime was committed. It was committed between the hours of seven and seven-thirty on a November evening in a house where the deceased woman was surrounded by the members of her own family and household. The house was securely locked and shuttered and if anyone entered from outside, then the outsider must have been admitted by Mrs Argyle herself or have entered with their own key. In other words, it must have been someone she knew. It resembles in some ways the conditions of the Borden case in America where Mr Borden and his wife were struck down by blows of an axe on a Sunday morning. Nobody in the house heard anything, nobody was known or seen to approach the house. You can see, Dr Calgary, why the members of the family were, as you put it, disturbed rather than relieved by the news you brought them?’

Calgary said slowly: ‘They’d rather, you mean, that Jack Argyle was guilty?’

‘Oh yes,’ said Marshall. ‘Oh yes, very decidedly so. If I may put it in a somewhat cynical way, Jack Argyle was the perfect answer to the unpleasant fact of murder in the family. He had been a problem child, a delinquent boy, a man of violent temper. Excuses could be and were made for him within the family circle. They could mourn for him, have sympathy with him, declare to themselves, to each other, and to the world that it was not really his fault, that psychologists could explain it all! Yes, very, very convenient.’

‘And now–’ Calgary stopped.

‘And now,’ said Mr Marshall, ‘it is different, of course. Quite different. Almost alarming perhaps.’

Calgary said shrewdly, ‘The news I brought was unwelcome to you, too, wasn’t it?’

‘I must admit that. Yes. Yes, I must admit that I was–upset. A case which was closed satisfactorily–yes, I shall continue to use the word satisfactorily–is now reopened.’

‘Is that official?’ Calgary asked. ‘I mean–from the police point of view, will the case be reopened?’

‘Oh, undoubtedly,’ said Marshall. ‘When Jack Argyle was found guilty on overwhelming evidence–(the jury was only out a quarter of an hour)–that was an end of the matter as far as the police were concerned. But now, with the grant of a free pardon posthumously awarded, the case is opened again.’

‘And the police will make fresh investigations?’

‘Almost certainly I should say. Of course,’ added Marshall, rubbing his chin thoughtfully, ‘it is doubtful after this lapse of time, owing to the peculiar features of the case, whether they will be able to achieve any result…For myself, I should doubt it. They may know that someone in the house is guilty. They may get so far as to have a very shrewd idea of who that someone is. But to get definite evidence will not be easy.’

‘I see,’ said Calgary. ‘I see…Yes, that’s what she meant.’

The lawyer said sharply: ‘Of whom are you speaking?’

‘The girl,’ said Calgary. ‘Hester Argyle.’

‘Ah, yes. Young Hester.’ He asked curiously: ‘What did she say to you?’

‘She spoke of the innocent,’ said Calgary. ‘She said it wasn’t the guilty who mattered but the innocent. I understand now what she meant…’

Marshall cast a sharp glance at him. ‘I think possibly you do.’

‘She meant just what you are saying,’ said Arthur Calgary. ‘She meant that once more the family would be under suspicion–’

Marshall interrupted. ‘Hardly once more,’ he said. ‘There was never time for the family to come under suspicion before. Jack Argyle was clearly indicated from the first.’

Calgary waved the interruption aside.

‘The family would come under suspicion,’ he said, ‘and it might remain under suspicion for a long time–perhaps for ever. If one of the family was guilty it is possible that they themselves would not know which one. They would look at each other and–wonder…Yes, that’s what would be the worst of all. They themselves would not know which…’

There was silence. Marshall watched Calgary with a quiet, appraising glance, but he said nothing.

‘That’s terrible, you know…’ said Calgary.

His thin, sensitive face showed the play of emotion on it.

‘Yes, that’s terrible…To go on year after year not knowing, looking at one another, perhaps the suspicion affecting one’s relationships with people. Destroying love, destroying trust…’

Marshall cleared his throat.