When Last I Died

"Certainly not. As I explained before (this had been during her statement to her counsel) I had no reason to want to make money, either with or without the help of the boys. I had plenty of money. The boys were amused at playing the poltergeist tricks, and it was such a change to see them laughing and happy."

"But when their laughter and happiness grew too dangerous, you battened them down in that cellar with frogs, newts and all kinds of slimy and disgusting creatures, and left them there in the dark and the wet to starve."

"I never did that! I swear it! This is all a mistake. I am not the person who ought to be accused."

"When did the boys become a nuisance?"

"Never. I did not find them a nuisance. I had very little to do with them. I was at the Institution most of the time they were at the house."

Counsel had led up to this point very well, Mrs. Bradley thought. The next part of the argument did not take her by surprise, but it seemed to flummox the prisoner. Pointing at her (one of the few histrionic or dramatic gestures he made during the trial) Counsel for the Prosecution said clearly :

"You were not at the house during most of the time that the boys were there?"

"No."

"You were still at the Institution?"

"Yes, certainly."

"Will you tell the court the amount of your salary at the Institution?"

"I—let me see—I think I was getting about a hundred and sixty."

"And your board and lodging, of course?"

"Yes, except during holiday periods."

"Quite so. When did you begin to receive your legacy?"

"About—on—let me think. It would have been—I think I had the first payment towards the end of February."

"Towards the end of the February?"

"Yes, I believe that's right."

"And the boys escaped from the Institution on January twenty-third, according to the records kept by the Warden."

"Yes, I suppose that would be right."

"It is right. We can call witnesses to prove it, if necessary. Now, tell me: did you know, when those boys escaped—that is to say, on January twenty-third—that your aunt was going to die and leave you all this money?"

"No! No, of course I didn't!"

So she did not, even now, perceive the trap, thought Mrs. Bradley.

"Well, then, I suggest that perhaps your financial position, at the time that these boys escaped and found their way to this house which your relatives had rented, was not quite as assured and as satisfactory as you would have the court to believe?"

"Yes, but—No, I know it wasn't, but, don't you see——"

"I am afraid we do see," responded the learned gentleman, with a satisfied smile. "We see that your protestations that you did not need to exploit the mischief-making powers of the boys for your own gain are not, in the light of your own evidence, either acceptable or true, and I forbear to enlarge upon the point, which is, I am convinced, perfectly comprehended by the jury, but it was a very odd coincidence indeed that these boys, with no help from you, should have managed to find their way, not only to your relatives, but into a house where their services could be utilized in such a gainful way to their employers."

"I know all that. I agree," said Bella Foxley desperately, "but I didn't kill the boys! I didn't shut them up! There are those who know far more about that than I do!"

Counsel for the Defence cited the 'long arm of coincidence' in his closing speech. He insisted that coincidence was an everyday happening. He begged the jury to remember strange coincidences in their own lives and to attempt to explain them away in the light of ordinary reason. His client did not deny, he said, the presence of the boys at the house; she did not deny the purpose for which their services had been used. But the faking of spiritualist miracles was not murder, nor was it in any sense akin to murder, and it was for murder that his client was being tried, the murder of these boys she had befriended.

She had a long and honourable record in the Institution of which they had heard so much. She had a reputation, even, for kindness. One of the witnesses for the prosecution had been, himself, a boy at the Institution, and, in spite of the fact that his evidence had been given against the prisoner, he had had to agree that she had been a kind woman, bringing into the lives of these poor boys—victims of our social system rather than sinners in their own right!—something of a mother's care and love.

Was it likely, was it probable, in fact, was it possible at all, that such a woman could have done the deed attributed to her by the prosecution ?

"Not a bad effort," said Ferdinand. "Really not bad at all. I'm prepared to lay you a monkey to sixpence that that jury will let her off. The missing link is vital. You can't put the job on to Bella without something better than that wretched hysteria-patient of yours, and that's that. After all, Crodders ain't so far wrong about coincidences, and the jury, curse them for superstitious fatheads, know it."

Mrs. Bradley agreed.