The courtroom at the Old Bailey was crowded. Every seat was
taken and the ushers were turning people back at the doors.
It was April 18, 1892, the Monday after Easter, and the
opening of the London Season. It was also the third day in
the trial of distinguished soldier John Adinett for the
murder of Martin Fetters, traveler and antiquarian.
The witness on the stand was Thomas Pitt, superintendent of
the Bow Street police station.
From the floor of the court Ardal Juster for the
prosecution stood facing him.
"Let us start at the beginning, Mr. Pitt." Juster was a
dark man of perhaps forty, tall and slender with an unusual
cast of feature. He was handsome in some lights, in others
a trifle feline, and there was an unusual grace in the way
he moved.
He looked up at the stand. "Just why were you at Great
Coram Street? Who called you?"
Pitt straightened up a little. He was also a good height,
but he resembled Juster in no other way. His hair was too
long, his pockets bulged, and his tie was crooked. He had
testified in court since his days as a constable twenty
years before, but it was never an experience he enjoyed. He
was conscious that at the very least a man's reputation was
at stake, possibly his liberty. In this case it was his
life. He was not afraid to meet Adinett's cold, level stare
from the dock. He would speak only the truth. The
consequences were not within his control. He had told
himself that before he climbed the short flight of steps to
the stand, but it had been of no comfort.
The silence had grown heavy. There was no rustling in the
seats. No one coughed.
"Dr. Ibbs sent for me," he replied toJuster. "He was not
satisfied with all the circumstances surrounding Mr.
Fetters's death. He had worked with me before on other
matters, and he trusted me to be discreet should he be
mistaken."
"I see. Would you tell us what happened after you received
Dr. Ibbs's call?"
John Adinett sat motionless in the dock. He was a lean man,
but strongly built, and his face was stamped with the
confidence of both ability and privilege. The courtroom
held men who both liked and admired him. They sat in
stunned disbelief that he should be charged with such a
crime. It had to be a mistake. Any moment the defense would
move for a dismissal and the profoundest apologies would be
offered.
Pitt took a deep breath.
"I went immediately to Mr. Fetters's house in Great Coram
Street," he began. "It was just after five in the
afternoon.
Dr. Ibbs was waiting for me in the hall and we went
upstairs to the library, where the body of Mr. Fetters had
been found." As he spoke the scene came back to his mind so
sharply he could have been climbing the sunlit stairs again
and walking along the landing with its huge Chinese pot
full of decorative bamboo, past the paintings of birds and
flowers, the four ornate wooden doors with carved
surrounds, and into the library. The late-afternoon light
had poured in through the tall windows, splashing the
Turkey rug with scarlet, picking out the gold lettering on
the backs of the books that lined the shelves, and finding
the worn surfaces of the big leather chairs.
Juster was about to prompt him again.
"The body of a man was lying in the far corner," Pitt
continued. "From the doorway his head and shoulders were
hidden by one of the large leather armchairs, although
Dr. Ibbs told me it had been moved a little to enable the
butler to reach the body in the hope that some assistance
could be given—"
Reginald Gleave for the defense rose to his feet. "My lord,
surely Mr. Pitt knows better than to give evidence as to
something he cannot know for himself? Did he see the chair
moved?"
The judge looked weary. This was going to be a fiercely
contested trial, as he was already uncomfortably aware. No
point, however trivial, was going to be allowed past.
Pitt felt himself flushing with annoyance. He did know
better. He should have been more careful. He had sworn to
himself he would make no mistake whatever, and already he
had done so. He was nervous. His hands were clammy. Juster
had said it all depended upon him. They could not rely
absolutely on anyone else.
The judge looked at Pitt.
"In order, Superintendent, even if it seems less clear to
the jury."
"Yes, my lord." Pitt heard the tightness in his own voice.
He knew it was tension but it sounded like anger. He cast
his mind back to that vivid room. "The top shelf of books
was well above arm's reach, and there was a small set of
steps on wheels for the purpose of making access possible.
It lay on its side about a yard away from the body's feet,
and there were three books on the floor, one flat and
closed, the other two open, facedown and several pages
bent." He could see it as he spoke. "There was a
corresponding space on the top shelf."
"Did you draw any conclusions from these things which
caused you to investigate further?" Juster asked
innocently.
"It seemed Mr. Fetters had been reaching for a book and had
overbalanced and fallen," Pitt replied. "Dr. Ibbs had told
me that there was a bruise on the side of his head, and his
neck was broken, which had caused his death."
"Precisely so. That is what he has testified," Juster
agreed. "Was it consistent with what you saw?"
"At first I thought so. . . ."
There was a sudden stirring of attention around the room,
and something that already felt like hostility.
"Then, on looking more closely, I saw several small
discrepancies that caused me to doubt, and investigate
further," Pitt finished.
Juster raised his black eyebrows. "What were they? Please
detail them for us so we understand your conclusions, Mr.
Pitt."
It was a warning. The entire case rested upon these
details, all circumstantial. The weeks of investigation had
uncovered no motive whatsoever for why Adinett should have
wished harm to Martin Fetters. They had been close friends
who seemed to have been similar in both background and
beliefs. They were both wealthy, widely traveled, and
interested in social reform. They had a wide circle of
friends in common and were equally respected by all who
knew them.
Pitt had rehearsed this in his mind many times, not for the
benefit of the court, but for himself. He had examined
every detail minutely before he had even considered
pursuing the charge.
"The first thing was the books on the floor." He remembered
stooping and picking them up, angry that they had been
damaged, seeing the bruised leather and the bent
pages. "They were all on the same subject, broadly. The
first was a translation into English of Homer's Iliad, the
second was
a history of the Ottoman Empire, and the third was on trade
routes of the Near East."
Juster affected surprise. "I don't understand why that
should cause your doubt. Would you explain that for us."
"Because the rest of the books on the top shelf were
fiction," Pitt answered.
"The Waverley novels of Sir Walter Scott, a large number of
Dickens, and a Thackeray."
"And in your opinion the Iliad does not go with them?"
"The other books on the middle shelf were on the subjects
of Ancient Greece," Pitt explained. "Particularly Troy, Mr.
Schliemann's work and discourses, objects of art and
historical interest, all except for three volumes of Jane
Austen, which would more properly have belonged on the top
shelf."
"I would have kept novels, especially Jane Austen, in a
more accessible place," Juster remarked with a shrug and a
tiny smile.
"Perhaps not if you had already read them," Pitt argued,
too tense to smile back. "And if you were an antiquarian,
with particular interest in Homeric Greece, you would not
keep most of your books on that subject on the middle
shelves but three of them on the top with your novels."
"No," Juster agreed. "It seems eccentric, to say the least,
and unnecessarily inconvenient. When you had noticed the
books, what did you do then?"
"I looked more closely at the body of Mr. Fetters and I
asked the butler, who was the one who found him, to tell me
exactly what had happened." Pitt glanced at the judge to
see if he would be permitted to repeat it.
The judge nodded.
Reginald Gleave sat tight-lipped, his shoulders hunched,
waiting.
"Proceed, if it is relevant," the judge directed.
"He told me that Mr. Adinett had left through the front
door and been gone about ten minutes or so when the bell
rang from the library and he went to answer it," Pitt
recounted. "As he approached the door he heard a cry and a
thud, and on opening it in some alarm, he saw Mr. Fetters's
ankles and feet protruding from behind the large leather
chair in the corner. He went to him immediately to see if
he was hurt. I asked him if he had moved the body at all.
He said he had not, but in order to reach it he had moved
the chair slightly."
People began to shift restlessly. This all seemed very
unimportant. None of it suggested passion or violence,
still less murder.
Adinett was staring steadily at Pitt, his brows drawn
together, his lips slightly pursed.
Juster hesitated. He knew he was losing the jury. It was in
his face. This was about facts, but far more than that it
was about belief.
"Slightly, Mr. Pitt?" His voice was sharp. "What do you
mean by 'slightly'?"
"He was specific," Pitt replied. "He said just as far as
the edge of the rug, which was some eleven inches." He
continued without waiting for Juster to ask. "Which meant
it would have been at an awkward angle for the light either
from the window or the gas bracket, and too close to the
wall to be comfortable. It blocked off access to a
considerable part of the bookshelves, where books on travel
and art were kept, books the butler assured me Mr. Fetters
referred to often." He was looking directly at Juster. "I
concluded it was not where the chair was normally kept, and
I looked at the rug to see if there were indentations from
the feet. There were." He took a deep breath. "There were
also faint scuff marks on the pile and when I looked again
at Mr. Fetters's shoes, I found a piece of fluff caught in
a crack in the heel. It seemed to have come from the rug."
This time there was a murmur from the court. Reginald
Gleave's lips tightened, but it looked more like anger and
resolution than fear.
Again Pitt went on without being asked. "Dr. Ibbs had told
me he assumed Mr. Fetters leaned too far, overbalanced, and
fell off the steps, cracking his head against the shelves
on the corner. The force of the blow, with his body weight
behind it, not only caused bruising severe enough for him
to lose consciousness, but broke his neck, and this was the
cause of his death. I considered the possibility that he
had been struck a blow which had rendered him insensible,
and then the room had been arranged to look as if he had
fallen." There was a sharp rustling in the front row, a
hiss of indrawn breath. A woman gasped.
One of the jurors frowned and leaned forward.
Pitt continued without change of expression, but he could
feel the tension mounting inside him, his palms sweaty.
"Books he would be likely to read had been pulled out and
dropped. The empty spaces left by them had been filled from
the top shelf, to explain his use of the ladder. The chair
had been pushed close to the corner, and his body placed
half concealed by it."
A look of comic disbelief filled Gleave's face. He gazed
at Pitt, then at Juster, and finally at the jury. As
playacting it was superb. Naturally he had long known
exactly what Pitt would say.
Juster shrugged. "By whom?" he asked. "Mr. Adinett had
already left, and when the butler entered the room there
was no one there except Mr. Fetters. Did you disbelieve the
butler?"
Pitt chose his words carefully. "I believe he was telling
the truth as he knew it."
Gleave rose to his feet. He was a broad man, heavy
shouldered. "My lord, Superintendent Pitt's thoughts as to
the butler's veracity are irrelevant and out of place. The
jury has had the opportunity to hear the butler's testimony
for themselves, and to judge whether he was speaking the
truth or not and whether he is an honest and competent
person."
Juster kept his temper with obvious difficulty. There was a
high color in his cheeks. "Mr. Pitt, without telling us
why, since it seems to annoy my honorable friend so much,
will you please tell us what you did after forming this
unusual theory of yours?"
"I looked around the room to see if there was anything else
that might be of relevance," Pitt replied, remembering,
describing exactly. "I saw a salver on the small table at
the far side of the library, and a glass on it half full of
port wine. I asked the butler when Mr. Adinett had left the
house and he told me. I then asked him to replace the chair
where it had been when he came in, and to repeat his
actions as exactly
as he was able to." He could see in his mind's eye the
man's startled expression and his unwillingness. Very
obviously he felt it to be disrespectful to the dead. But
he had obeyed, self-
consciously, his limbs stiff, movement jerking, his face
set in determined control of the emotions which raged
through him.
"I stood behind the door," Pitt resumed. "When the butler
was obliged to go behind the chair in order to reach Mr.
Fetters's head, I went out of the door and across the hall
and in through the doorway opposite." He stopped, allowing
Juster time to react.