Drink to Yesterday

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“Is it not a fact,” asked Morpeth, “that automatics are forbidden in this country?”

“Except to certain members of His Majesty’s forces.”

“Was he a member of His Majesty’s forces?”

“It does not appear so.”

“I don’t like this,” said the grocer. “I feel there’s something bein’ hid up.”

“You have had all your questions answered, sir,” said the coroner in an Arctic voice.

“Yes, but we’ve had to fish for answers, as it were.”

“I take it,” said the butcher, “that there is definitely no question of murder in this case?”

“In my opinion, none,” said the Superintendent.

“Then it is a question of choosing between suicide and accident?”

“I shall advise the jury that that is so when I address them before they retire,” said the coroner.

“Was there any finger marks on the second tumbler as was used?” asked the grocer.

“I take it you mean fingerprints,” said the police witness. “None. Only smears.”

“Do the police,” asked the butcher, “attach any importance to the broken glass in the fireplace?”

“None.”

“I can’t help thinking,” said Mrs. Carter, “that that should have a meaning if only we could see it. For why should he use a glass he never did use, and then deliberately smash it, or so it seems. Why break a glass he valued when he was just about to die?”

“If the police are correct in supposing the death to have been accidental, madam,” said the Superintendent, “he did not know he was about to die. As to why he broke the glass—if it was he who broke it and not the visitor—the police have no theory to offer.”

“It takes the ladies,” said the grocer, “to get a real answer out of this witness.”

“I had occasion,” said the coroner, with remarkable energy, “only a few minutes ago, to express my views on the subject of irrelevant interpolations made by a member of this jury. When these interruptions are not only irrelevant but offensive, I assure the jury that I know my duties and powers in such a case!”

He glared at the grocer, who merely looked straight in front of him.

“I am waiting for an apology, sir,” said the coroner.

“Oh, are you?” asked the grocer in a surprised voice. “Sorry I spoke,” he added cheerfully.

“Bumptious little beast,” said the squire’s son in a perfectly audible voice which the coroner pretended not to hear.

The farmer, Morpeth, rose again. “May I ask if the police have any views as to how he came to shoot himself in the left temple? I knew the deceased quite well, but I never noticed that he was left-handed.”

The Superintendent answered. “The police theory is that he was stooping over the table holding the pistol in his left hand with the barrel pointing upwards and was about to do something with his right hand—pick up a piece of rag, for example—when something caused him to turn his head to the right. Something slipping, perhaps, or a mouse in the wall, or some such slight interruption. Or possibly he was merely looking round for something. Anyway, we think that at that moment the pistol, being oily, turned in his hand and he inadvertently pressed the trigger.”

“Thank you,” said Morpeth, and sat down.

“Is it really credible, sir,” said another juryman, the schoolmaster, “that a shot could be fired in a room with open windows in the middle of the village, and not a soul hear it?”

“Apparently, sir.”

“Very strange.”

The butcher asked if inquiries had been made as to whether anyone had seen a car standing at the garage that night.

“Yes, sir, but without result,” said the Superintendent. “That is, as regards material times. There were cars in and out in the course of the evening, but none were observed at the garage after midnight.”

“What about his financial affairs?” asked the schoolmaster. “Was he being pressed for money?”

“Apparently not, there is no sign of it. The business, though small, was fairly prosperous, and the turnover increasing. There are some outstanding accounts, but more money was owed to him than he owed.”

“Are there any more questions?” asked the coroner, and as no one answered, he dismissed the witness and addressed the jury.

“You are here to inquire into the untimely death of this man,” he said, “and I ask you to dismiss from your minds matters which cannot be relevant to this inquiry. It is unfortunate that several such irrelevancies have arisen here. It cannot, for example, concern us whether the name by which he was known among you was his real name or not, since there is no question of murder here. For the same reason, the identity of his overnight visitor is not important, though, as the last person to see the deceased alive, this visitor might have been able to tell us something of his frame of mind that evening which would have been of use to us in deciding whether it were a case of suicide or of death by misadventure. For I would advise you that ‘death by misadventure’ is the proper verdict to bring in in this instance if you should decide that it is not suicide. I would further suggest, without wishing to dictate to you, that there is absolutely no evidence to support the latter hypothesis. His finances appear to have been in a satisfactory condition, so far as is known he had no pressing anxieties, nor was he at all subject to periods of mental instability. Unless, therefore, there is any further point upon which my guidance would be of service to you, will you retire and consider your verdict?”

“ ’S’truth,” said the squire’s son, under his breath this time, and the jury went out of the room.

They sat round the table in another room and the foreman spoke.

“As you know, madam and gents,” he said, “I am a man from Hammead and not one of the fortunate in’abitants of your peaceful vale; consequently I ’ad not your privilege—”

“Lumme,” said the grocer, “he’s caught it now.”

“I was about to say I did not ’ave the honour of knowing the deceased man personally, as most of you did; consequently I am not going to put myself so far forward into your personal feelin’s as to suggest any discussion unless it can’t be ’elped. The dead man was a friend of most of you, and I expect you’d rather settle this up quick and decent, if I may so express it.”

“I think that is very nicely put,” said Mrs. Carter.

“Thank you, ma’am. I propose therefore to start with the lady at my right ’and ’ere, and go round the table askin’ each in turn to say ‘Misadventure’ or ‘Sooicide’ accordin’ each to his views. Madam?”

“Death by misadventure, poor dear,” she said, and her voice trembled a little. The foreman made a note.

“Death by misadventure,” said the schoolmaster.

“The same,” said the butcher.

“Death by misadventure,” said the next voice.

“Misadventure,” said Morpeth shortly.

“Suicide,” said the grocer.

Someone started to speak, but the foreman said: “One moment, please,” and continued his round of the table till it appeared that Mr. Brown was the only dissentient from the general verdict.

“Now, sir,” said the foreman, turning his face towards the grocer, “it seems that we are all agreed but you. Now, if you could but bring yourself to agree, wouldn’t it be pleasanter all round, if I may say so? The poor gentleman is dead and nothing can bring him back. He hasn’t been murdered, so there’s no question of punishing anybody. What use is there, may I ask, in making unpleasantness over a thing that don’t really make no odds to us one way or the other, and won’t make no odds to the deceased either, not till the Last Judgment, when I suppose we shall all know the rights of it an’ not before. Now, sir, won’t you change your mind?”

“No,” said the grocer.

“Why not?”

“Because in my ’umble opinion he shot himself in a fit of drunken depression and I don’t ’old with all this smug hypocritical whitewashing—”

“De mortuis,” said the schoolmaster, “nil nisi bonum.”

“You are, I believe, a total abstainer, aren’t you, Brown?” asked Morpeth.

“I am, and proud of it. Not a drop of alcoholic—”

“Yet I believe you ’ave an off-licence,” said the butcher, and before Brown could answer, the farmer went on:

“If you had the sense and self-control to take drink in reasonable quantities, you’d know the effect of a little alcohol is cheering, not depressing.”

“Little alcohol, you’ve said it!” said the grocer. “But that drinking repro—”

“Mr. Brown,” said Mrs. Carter. Brown stopped in the middle of a word and she leaned across the table towards him. “Mr. Brown, if we were all perfect, which none of us are, we should still have no right to judge our fellow men. Mr. Brown, if that poor man drank more than we thought he should sometimes, perhaps there were reasons we know nothing of. Mr. Brown,” she went on, tapping the table, “he did more kind actions every week than you do in a year. And finally, Mr. Brown, if you persist in your horrible, beastly remarks about our poor friend who is dead, not only will I never come inside your nasty poky little shop again, but I’ll make this place too hot to hold you or my name’s not Maria Carter,” and she burst into tears.

“Hear, hear,” said the farmer. “There, there, ma’am.”

“Will you not agree with us now?” asked the foreman.

“Suppose I can’t disoblige a lady,” muttered Brown.

So they returned to the coroner with a unanimous verdict, and the big room cleared slowly as the talking people drifted away.

The coroner stood chatting to Superintendent Harlow for a few minutes, till they noticed a slim woman come quietly in against the crowd and look round as though for guidance.

“Can I help you, madam?” asked the Superintendent.

Slowly she turned her eyes on him and said: “Is the inquest over?”

“Yes, madam.”

“And the verdict?”

“Death by misadventure.”

“So. Please can I have him now,” she said, “all to myself at last?”

“Who are you, madam?”

“I am his wife,” she said.