CHAPTER VII.

AN EXAMINATION OF CERTAIN DISCREPANCIES IN THE STATEMENTS OF THE THREE PRINCIPAL WITNESSES.

"The night of the 16th of January will be long remembered. For three weeks the snow had fallen, intermittently, it is true, but for hours together. The roads were almost blockaded, and traffic was carried on under exceptional difficulties. The season, which in the early part of December had promised to be unusually mild, suddenly vindicated its reputation, and we were treated to an old-fashioned, bitter winter of great severity. On the evening of the 15th of January the frost was most severe, its intensity lasting until some time after daybreak, the thermometer showing at eight o'clock A.M. close upon sixteen degrees of frost. When it began to snow again people, congratulated themselves that a thaw was setting in. They were mistaken. Had it been possible the snow would have frozen as soon as it reached the ground, but it fell in too great quantities for such a result. In the evening a piercing wind raged through the thoroughfares, and the snow continued to fall more heavily than during the day. In some places there was a drift almost, if not quite, man high, and our columns on the morning of the 17th recorded the discovery of three lifeless persons, one man and two women, who had been frozen to death during the night. With these unfortunates we have nothing to do; what concerns us and our story is that on the night of the 16th, Mrs. Middlemore, a housekeeper in one of the old houses in Gerard Street, Soho, very imprudently went out just before midnight to fetch her supper-beer. Even the raging storm did not prevent her from indulging in her usual habit, the temptation of beer being too strong for her, and the prospect of going to bed without it being too appalling to risk. She saw that the street door was secure when she left the house, and was surprised, upon her return, to find it open. These, and many other particulars which will be duly recorded, are statements which have already appeared in public print, and we are not responsible for them. At the moment of her reaching the street door the circumstance of its being open was impressed upon her by the appearance of a man hurriedly leaving the house. He did not stop to address her, and she had no opportunity of asking his business there, because he flew by her 'like a flash of lightning,' she says. Naturally alarmed, she raised her voice and cried, 'Police!' One, Constable Wigg, happened to be not far distant, and he responded to her summons. Having heard what Mrs. Middlemore had to say, he saw that there were two things to attend to--one, to ascertain whether anything had occurred within the house; the other, to follow the man who had escaped from it with such celerity. As he could not fulfil these two duties at one and the same time, he in his turn summoned to his assistance a brother constable of the name of Nightingale. This officer pursued the man, and Constable Wigg and Mrs. Middlemore entered the house.

"Now, with the exception of Mrs. Middlemore, there was only one regular tenant in the house, M. Felix, who had lived there for nearly two years, and concerning whom, up to the night of January 16th, very little appears to have been known, except that he was a retired gentleman, living on his means, fond of pleasure, and of a generous disposition to those who served him well. Mrs. Middlemore speaks in the highest terms of him, but she judges only from one point of view, that of a landlady who has a liberal lodger. Otherwise, she has no knowledge of him, and cannot say where he came from, whether he was married or single (the circumstance of his living a bachelor life would not definitely decide this question), or whether he has any relations in any part of the world. There are many gentlemen of the description of M. Felix pursuing their mysterious careers in this great city, a goodly number of them under false names.

"M. Felix was a very peculiar gentleman. He paid for the entire house, although he occupied only three rooms, a sitting-room, a dining-room, and a bedroom. His stipulation when he first entered into possession was that under no circumstances should any other tenant but himself be allowed to occupy a room, and he went so far as to refuse permission to Mrs. Middlemore for any friends of hers to sleep in the building. Her duties consisted in attending to him and to his rooms, which she entered and set in order only when he directed her, and for these slight services she was extravagantly paid. Such a tenant was a treasure, and she appreciated him accordingly, not venturing to disobey him in the slightest particular. He had taken the greatest pains to impress upon her that she was never, under any circumstances whatever, to come to his rooms unless she was summoned, and from what we have gathered of his character, M. Felix was a gentleman who could be stern as well as pleasant, and was not a person who would allow his orders to be disobeyed without making the delinquent suffer for it. These imperative instructions rendered Constable Wigg's course difficult. Mrs. Middlemore had left M. Felix in the house when she went to fetch her supper-beer, and it was in the highest degree improbable that he should have quitted it during her absence. He was not a young man, he was fond of his ease, and the storm was raging furiously. Nothing less than a matter of life or death would tempt a man of M. Felix's disposition from his cosy fireside on such a night. Constable Wigg suggested that he should go up-stairs to M. Felix's rooms, and ascertain whether he was in and safe, but Mrs. Middlemore would not listen to the suggestion, and of course without her consent Constable Wigg could not carry his proposition into effect. In a casual examination of those parts of the premises which Mrs. Middlemore allowed him to enter he saw nothing to excite his suspicions, and he decided to wait for the return of Constable Nightingale before he proceeded further.

"We break off here for a moment for the purpose of making brief mention of one or two peculiar features in this singular affair, leaving Constable Wigg and Mrs. Middlemore standing in the passage or the kitchen--(they say the passage, we presume to say the kitchen, where doubtless a cheerful fire was blazing; policemen are human)--at half-past twelve or a quarter to one in the middle of the night, waiting for Constable Nightingale to report progress. Curiously enough, the time cannot be exactly fixed, because the kitchen clock had stopped, because Constable Nightingale's watch had stopped also, and because Constable Wigg did not wear one. In an affair of this description it is as well not to lose sight of the smallest details. We arrive at the time, half-past twelve or a quarter to one, approximately. Even in such a storm as was then raging through the streets, Big Ben of Westminster made itself heard, and it transpires, from a statement volunteered by Constable Wigg, that the great bell was proclaiming the hour of midnight when, tramping half-frozen on his beat, he heard a cry for help. Three times was this cry sent forth into the night, and, faithful guardian as he was, according to his own averment, he endeavored to ascertain the direction from which the appeal proceeded. It may well be believed that, with the wind blowing seemingly from all points of the compass at once, he failed to make the necessary discovery; but it strikes us as singular that when he was talking matters over with Mrs. Middlemore it did not occur to him that the cry for help may have proceeded from the very house in which he was standing. We make no comment upon this singular lapse of memory. It strikes us also as by no means unimportant that in the statements of Mrs. Middlemore and the two constables there is something very like contradiction and confusion. Mrs. Middlemore gives an answer to a question as to her movements in connection with those of the constables, and presently, being pressed to be definite, says something which throws doubt upon her first answer. She excuses herself by saying that she was upset and worried, but to us this explanation is not satisfactory, if only for the reason that her subsequent correction throws doubt upon certain answers given by the two constables to certain questions put to them. However, in the present aspect of the matter, these contradictions may simply point to some dereliction of duty on the part of the constables which they may wish should not be known, and perhaps to some agreement on the part of these three witnesses to an invented story which, believed, would exculpate the constables from any such dereliction. This is mere supposition, and we present it for what it is worth.

"It is difficult to ascertain the precise time at which Constable Nightingale returned to the house in Gerard Street after his fruitless search for the man who had alarmed Mrs. Middlemore by his sudden rush from the premises. Truly he must have had the greatest difficulty in making his way through the streets. In explanation of our remark that in the statements of Mrs. Middlemore and the two constables there is something very like contradiction and confusion, we append their answers to a few of the questions put to them. We will deal with Constable Nightingale first:

"'When you left the house in Gerard Street in pursuit of the man what direction did you take?'

"'I went in the direction of Oxford Street.'

"'That is, you went to the right?'

"'Yes.'

"'Why not to the left?'

"'That would have led me to Leicester Square and Charing Cross.'

"'Did you choose the Oxford Street route at haphazard?'

"'No.'

"'What induced you to take it?'

"'I was told by Constable Wigg that the man went that way.'

"'Did you meet any person on the road?'

"'No one.'

"'Absolutely no one?'

"'Absolutely no one.'

"'How long were you engaged upon your search for the man?'

"'I can't exactly fix it.'

"'May we say an hour?'

"'That would be near the length of time.'

"We will now deal with Constable Wigg. He was asked--

"'How did you summon Constable Nightingale to your assistance?'

"'I blew my police whistle.'

"'Many times?'

"'Not many. He must have been very near.'

"'But he did not make his appearance immediately?'

"'No; not immediately.'

"'Shall we say that two or three minutes elapsed before he joined you?'

"'About that.'

"'You explained to him what had occurred?'

"'Yes, with the assistance of Mrs. Middlemore.'

"'You both explained it together?'

"'Well, first one spoke, then the other.'

"'Did you tell Nightingale that the man had fled in the direction of Oxford Street?'

"'No.'

"'In point of fact, you did not see the man come out of the house?'

"'No.'

"'And? therefore, could not have given Nightingale the direction?'

"'No, of course I could not.'

"Now for Mrs. Middlemore:

"'When the man rushed by you from the house, you screamed loudly for the police?'

"'As loud as I could.'

"'How many times did you call?'

"'I kep' on calling till Constable Wigg came up.'

"'He did not come the moment you raised your voice?'

"'No, not immediate. Per'aps in two or three minutes.'

"'If we say two minutes we shall be within the mark?'

"'Yes.'

"'Did you inform Constable Nightingale that the man ran away in the direction of Oxford Street?'

"'No; I was so flustered that I didn't see which way he run.'

"These are all the extracts we need give for the purpose of our illustration, merely asking the reader to bear in mind that each witness was examined without the others being present. Is it quite unreasonable to infer that, had they been examined in each other's presence, their answers would not have been exactly as they are reported in the public prints?

"Constable Nightingale has since given an explanation of this discrepancy by the admission that he must have made a mistake in supposing that he received from Constable Wigg the information of the route the man took when he scurried off; but we submit that this explanation is not entirely satisfactory.

"Another thing. Constable Nightingale states that he was engaged in the search for an hour, and that during the whole of that time he did not meet a single person on the road. How is that statement to be received? He was hunting in some of the busiest thoroughfares in London, and it bears the form of an accusation that he did not for a whole hour observe one policeman on his beat. He was on his, he declares, at the time he heard Constable Wigg's whistle. Constable Wigg was on his beat, according to his own declaration, when he blew it. Were they the only two constables in a thronged locality who were faithfully performing their duty? Doubtless the other constables on duty would indignantly repudiate the allegation, but Constable Nightingale distinctly implies as much. We do not wish to be hard on this officer, who bears a good character in the force. His movements and proceedings between the hours of twelve and two on the night of the 16th may have been innocent enough, or, if not quite blameless, excusable enough on such a tempestuous night, but we unhesitatingly say that his evidence is suspicious, and that we are not inclined to accept it as veracious.

"Still another thing. We have ascertained from persons acquainted with Constable Nightingale, that he was very proud of his silver watch, which he was lucky enough to win in a raffle, and that he was in the habit of boasting that it never stopped, and never lost or gained a minute. It is singular, therefore, that on this eventful night it should have stopped for the first time, and at a time when it might be most important to fix the occurrence of events to a minute. Perhaps Constable Nightingale's watch stopped in sympathy with the stoppage of Mrs. Middlemore's kitchen clock.

"We are anxious to do justice to the parties, and we hasten to say that at our request they have allowed a competent watchmaker to examine Constable Nightingale's watch and Mrs. Middlemore's clock; but this watchmaker reports that they are in perfect order, and that he can find no reason why they should both have stopped almost at the same moment.

"If any of our readers consider that we are straining too hard on trifles, we reply that the importance of so-called trifles cannot be over-estimated. The world's greatest poet has said, 'Trifles light as air are in their confirmation strong as proofs of Holy Writ.'"