Desperate Acts

Chapter Seventeen

SEVENTEEN

The trial of Brodie Langford continued on Friday morning. To come were the critical witnesses in the Crown's effort to construct a story of blackmail, intemperate youth, sudden rage, cunning improvisation and calculated deception. Cyrus Crenshaw was first up.

As it turned out, there were no surprises in his testimony, for which Marc was grateful, but it was damning enough anyway. Crenshaw testified, in a straight-ahead and unequivocal manner (much appreciated by Thornton, who let him talk away as much as he pleased), that he had left the meeting via the cloakroom about three or four minutes after Fullarton, and observed two men in the alley. One was comatose on the ground and the other crouched over him. In the jurors' minds, this account followed nicely upon the one Fullarton had provided yesterday, in which two men had been seen grappling in anger. Now one of them had evidently knocked out the other, and the victor was checking out the damage. Like Fullarton, Crenshaw had not seen their faces or recognized either combatant, and he too had exercised a gentleman's prerogative and scuttled off home. Again, Thornton pressed the business of the attacker's hatless head and familiar blond hair, but Crenshaw stuck to his original claim.

Marc began his cross-examination by once more going through the motions of demonstrating that the precise time-line being presented by Thornton was not really precise at all.

"Could you not have left seven or eight minutes after Mr. Fullarton instead of three or four?"

"Anything's possible," Crenshaw shot back.

Marc now moved to a point mentioned in Cobb's notes of his interview with Crenshaw that had been conveniently overlooked by Thornton.

"You told Constable Cobb when he spoke to you that you thought the man crouched over Albert Duggan was feeling about the injured man as if he were concerned that he had hurt him badly, did you not?"

"Milord, I must object. The question involves pure speculation on the part of the witness."

"I am almost quoting from the constable's notes, Milord."

"You may answer yes or no," the judge said to Crenshaw.

"I did say somethin' like that."

"Thank you. One final question. You cannot say with any certainty that the man crouched over the victim was the defendant, Mr. Langford?"

"I could not, sir."

Marc concluded by requesting permission to recall Crenshaw. Thornton looked puzzled, but not worried. He did not even bother to rebut. No member of the jury would believe that it had not been Brodie, in view of the lad's own statement. And he would tidy up the time-line and sequence of events in his summation. But for Marc the departure times were significant. If Crenshaw had been only three minutes behind Fullarton, he could not only have witnessed the punch to the cheek but also heard enough to realize who Duggan was - and take the decision to finish him off after Brodie ran.

Tobias Budge drew on his vast experience as friendly tapster when he took the stand, smiling most cooperatively and nodding knowingly at the prosecutor's questions, as if they were part of the natural order and begged answers that were obvious and incontrovertible. Thornton led him smoothly through the tale he had spun for Cobb: he had gone down to the wine-cellar about a quarter to ten to look for a case of French wine, happened to peer out the tiny window looking onto the alley, and noticed two pair of legs involved in a scuffle.

"And there were bodies attached to these legs?" Thornton said with a nice smile for the jury.

"I assumed there had to be," Budge said, "though the window wasn't high enough fer me to see 'em."