The Tumbled House

  “Yes, Mr Hutton. And then?”

  “Well, my Lord, the prosecution were taken rather by surprise, I think, but we had some legal argument, and then the learned Recorder upheld my submission and directed the jury to find the prisoner not guilty.”

  “It looks a very arguable point,” said the judge, getting really interested at last. “I remember being in court myself when R. v. Pickup was decided many years ago. But there’s a later case.…”

  “Yes, my Lord, I——”

  Mr Doutelle cleared his throat. “And what happened then, Mr Hutton? Did you ever see Sir John afterwards?”

  “I met him two weeks later here in the Law Courts. He stopped and told me how distressed he was at the ruling he had made which he said was inconsistent with R. v. Kritz 1949, which——”

  “Yes, that was the one I was trying to remember,” said Mr Justice Alston.

  “I tried to reassure Sir John,” said the young barrister. “It was presumptuous of me to do so, but I had talked it over with several of my colleagues and some of them had felt that the prosecution was at fault in preferring the wrong charge. Besides Sir John had had to decide without having the cases in front of him. But he appeared unconvinced and seemed to blame himself. It was shortly after that that I heard of his retirement.”

  “Did you connect his retirement in any way with this case?”

  “No, it never entered my head to do so. Judges—with every respect, my Lord—often … that is, sometimes.…” He hesitated.

  “Err?” suggested his Lordship.

  “I was going to say, my Lord, have their judgements reversed in the Court of Appeal.”

  “Except that there is no appeal against an acquittal.”

  “No, my Lord.”

  “Go on, Mr Doutelle.”

  “One final question,” said Mr Doutelle. “ Will you think very carefully, Mr Hutton, and tell the court whether at any time during this case, Salem Levitski was ever referred to under his assumed name of Stanley Salem?”

  “No, he definitely was not.”

  “Why are you so sure?”

  “Because on the following day when I read my paper I was surprised to see a short column referring to his acquittal and calling him Salem levitski, alias Stanley Salem.”

  “Thank you, Mr Hutton.”

  Lytton asked only three questions.

  “Stanley Salem was a well-known name In 1956, wasn’t it, Mr Hutton?”

  “Yes, I suppose it was—in certain circles.”

  “Do you think the police were making a very good job of it if they didn’t discover their prisoner’s alias?”

  “I think they slipped up.”

  “Do you seriously ask us to believe that everyone slipped up—that the name of Stanley Salem—if not actually mentioned—was not ‘known’ at the trial, even by his own solicitor, even by the learned Recorder?”

  “I have no idea what his solicitor knew. I only know that the following day it came as a complete surprise to me.”

  The next witness was a brisk elderly man who had not been in court more than half an hour when he was called.

  “You are Arthur Horace Lippmann and you are a Doctor of Medicine and a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians? You practise at 210 Harley Street?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can you tell us about one of your patients who visited you on the 28th September, 1956?”

  “Yes. An appointment was made a week previously by Sir John Marlowe’s secretary, and Sir John came to see me at 10 a. m. on the Monday. He complained of some discomfort and pain in the chest but he said he had not been to see his local physician. I examined him and found that he had an aortic lesion, probably resulting from the rheumatic fever he had suffered as a child.”

  “What did you tell him?”

  “He was so clearly a man of intellect and courage that I could only tell him the truth. Namely that he was unlikely to live longer than two or three years, and only that if he lived a quiet and retired life.”

  “What was his reaction?”

  “He was naturally upset. But after a while philosophical. He told me that he had had great plans for the future, now he would have to revise them. He thanked me, as if I had done him a favour, and prepared to leave. As he was going he asked me not to tell anyone of his visit. Of course it was an unnecessary request, but I remember he said, ‘Pity, I hope, is something I shall never have to ask for’.”

  “Did you ever see him again?”

  “Yes. Twelve months later he called again. There was very little change. I think perhaps he had hoped for some miracle.”

  “Thank you, Dr Lippmann.”

  The judge looked at Mr Lytton who half rose and with a resigned expression shook his head.

  “Mrs Narissa Delaney.”

  She looked tall and continental in her black suit with the flowered toque, the elegant gloves. She walked to the witness-box and took the oath in a composed undertone. The judge looking at her with interest. Here, so clearly, was the lady in the woodpile. Was this Sir John’s bit of stuff? If so, his taste was not to be derided.

  “You are Mrs Narissa Delaney, and you live at Chatterton House, Hurtmore Road, Godalming?”

  “Yes.”

  “Will you kindly tell the court when you first met Sir John Marlowe?”

  “It was in January, three years ago. I was petitioning for divorce. When my husband decided to contest the case, my solicitor, Mr Mills, advised that we should retain a Q.C. to lead the junior who had first been engaged. I met Sir John two or three times in February during the hearing of the case, and after it was over I called on him to thank him. A little later he wrote inviting me to a small dinner-party at his house.”

  “Did you at any tune during the hearing of the case see him without your solicitor being present?”

  “I never saw him privately at all until I called to thank him two weeks alter the case was over. A friendship then sprang up.”

  “What do you mean by a friendship?” asked his Lordship.

  “He came several times to week-end parties at my house, my Lord. We saw each other sometimes in London. We fell in love.” Mrs Delaney made the statement casually, as it were dropped the comment into court. “But because my divorce was not absolute, he insisted that we should be circumspect. He warned me that I might be spied upon by someone called the Queen’s. Provost——”

  “Proctor. Yes, go on.”

  “That letter,” she said with contempt. “That letter that was read out in court. It is of no concern to me how it is interpreted here, but in fact it was meant innocently enough. It was after a week-end we had spent together as guests at the home of some friends of mine whose name I will give if you need it. For me knowing John was the beginning of a new life. I saw no reason why I should not tell him so.”

  “Quite,” said Mr Doutelle. “And after the divorce was made absolute?”

  “In view of his position and the way we had first met, John thought it a little early to marry right away. So we planned to announce our engagement in October and be married the following January. We had a private engagement party in May.”

  “And then?”

  “In September, John was unwell. He went to the doctor you have just heard, who told him that he could not live.” She made a gesture. “ That was the end of my new life.”

  “You did not marry?”

  She put one glove over the edge of the box. “ That was something in his nature—I cannot explain—a pathological dislike of being ill, a dislike of being pitied. Of course I wished to marry him. If we had only two years, then we should spend ‘ binding me to a dying man.’ We argued long but I could not move him. At the same time he must have decided he would keep his illness a secret even from his own children.”

  “Why?”

  “For one thing, his son had just himself become engaged and was to be married in the November. John did not wish to cast a cloud on him at that time. But of course it was much more than that. He carried his prid
e and independence to extreme limits. He loathed the thought that it might get into the paper. Also, I think he had a superstitious hope—strange in him—that if no one knew it might not become quite so true. If everyone was aware of his condition, everyone would be waiting for him to die. If no one knew, he could half delude himself that he had retired voluntarily to write his book, that he was perfectly well, within limits, and could forget his disease.”

  “What happened when he retired, Mrs Delaney? Did you visit him?”

  “As often as he would allow. Once or twice a week. Sometimes I stayed over a week-end. I—did what I could, right up to the end.”

  There was a pause. The court was stiller than it had been.

  “One other thing worried him,” she said, “and that was that the newspapers took hold of his retirement and made it seem an act of self-sacrifice. The rich barrister giving up fame and fortune to devote his time to other things. That was something, when he decided to keep his ill-health secret, that he had never anticipated at all. It worried him, for he said he felt a hypocrite because of this unwanted prestige he had gained. That was why he was abrupt with people who spoke to him in that strain, that was why in the end he began to tell people his retirement was not voluntary. It was not to start a slander campaign against himself or to imply that he had been asked to retire: it was simply that he was trying to correct a wrong impression.”

  “Did you see much of Sir John during the period he was writing Crossroads?”

  “Of course. All through. I read the page proofs for him and helped him often with corrections.”

  “Did you know of the quarrel with the Reverend George Chislehurst?”

  “Oh, yes. Of course. John talked to me about all that.”

  “Will you tell us what happened, so far as you know it?”

  “Sir John and Mr Chislehurst had been close friends for several years. They were first attracted by their common interest in philosophy, and John thought very much of Chislehurst’s book. They would discuss the subject long into the night, often after he had been in court all day. They saw many of the problems of life from different sides, and sometimes disagreed about the solution. But always it was friendly until John published his book.” She took off her other glove and folded it beside the first. A square-cut diamond winked in the dull light. “John told his friend of his intention to write that book. They talked of it much together. They agreed together that Sir John should make use of certain material in two chapters of Mr Chislehurst’s book and that he should make acknowledgement of his debt in a foreword. Unknown to Mr Chislehurst, Sir John also dedicated the book to him. The book was finished and set up in page proofs, and in this form John sent a copy to his friend. He was—staggered by the reply. Mr Chislehurst was a clergyman and saw the universe through Christian eyes … John—Sir John Marlowe—did not.”

  “Could you explain that, Mrs Delaney?”

  “I do not mean that he was without—any religion. You might call him perhaps a reverent agnostic.… Now this Mr Chislehurst knew, this he had known all along; but for some reason he expected John’s book to reach the same—same conclusions as his own. It did not. He flared up, and no apology, no explanation would do. I have saved the letters—and copies of two of John’s letters which I typed myself. Perhaps.…” She hesitated.

  Mr Doutelle produced a bundle of letters and copies were again passed up.

  “These have been disclosed?” said His Lordship.

  “Yes, my Lord, and the appropriate notices have been given.”

  “The first,” said Mrs Delaney, “is the one that Mr Chislehurst wrote after receiving the page proofs.”

  Doutelle read: “‘Dear John Marlowe, I have read the proofs of your book and have to say at once that I am astonished and deeply distressed at what I found there, at the use you have made of the material we agreed you should take from my book Man and the Future. Certainly the premises are much the same, but your reasoning from them is entirely humanist in origin and not Christian, as mine was. If you do not believe, fundamentally, in a Christian God then you are turning the most precious possession in man’s heritage to unworthy ends.’” Doutelle looked up. “There follows two pages of argument, my Lord, and then the last page reads: ‘In conclusion I can only ask you to do two things. First, take out the passages which in any way derive from my work. Second, expunge my name from among your acknowledgements and remove the dedication. I would have no part in any false credit which may come to you as a result of this unworthy publication.’”

  Counsel put the letter down. “Next is a copy of the reply that Mrs Delaney typed for Sir John.” He read:

  “My dear George, I am very upset that you should so much dislike this book. I did not know that I had ever pretended to be anything other than I am—though I suppose from your letter we must to some extent have misunderstood each other. I don’t disbelieve in God. I just don’t know. One leaves open the possibility of the Christian revelation being true. But as far as I see now, there are various manifestation of the truth, and it is our job to make the imaginative effort to comprehend them all. Haven’t we argued about that often enough? Anyway, it’s from that general standpoint, and with a good deal of thought for man’s moral and ethical welfare, that I have tackled this book.

  “Believe me, I’m very distressed at this misunderstanding. I’ll do what I can to meet you, but it’s really too late to make the alterations you want. Anyway, even if the two chapters were re-drafted the result would not be notably different. Of course I can take out the dedication and the acknowledgement. But I wish you would change your mind, old friend, and let them stay. Our many arguments were always a tremendous stimulus to me. I had hoped they would continue. Why not think it over for a day or two? I’ll do anything reasonable to please you. But time is short. It is particularly short for me. I can’t delay publication now. Your sincere friend, John Marlowe.”

  In a pause after counsel had finished reading, Mrs Delaney said: “The letter that was read out in court on Friday was Mr Chislehurst’s reply to this letter.”

  Mr Doutelle went on to read four further letters, but they did not greatly advance the point that had already been made.

  When he had finished he said: “ Mrs Delaney, did you ever meet the Reverend George Chislehurst?”

  “Oh, yes. Quite often for a few months.”

  “What was your impression of him?”

  “That he was a man with very strong but rather narrow views—like his sister who gave evidence here yesterday. He was a clever man but dogmatic.”

  “So far as you know, did Mr Chislehurst expect to gain financially from the publication of Sir John’s book?”

  “Oh, no. Long before its publication John told him that all proceeds from the book would go to charity and Mr Chislehurst was entirely in agreement.”

  “Was Sir John a wealthy man?”

  “Before he retired he had a very big income. He repeatedly offered to help Mr Chislehurst, but Mr Chislehurst, apart from the hundred pounds he accepted at the beginning, would take nothing. After Sir John retired of course he was quite short of money and could barely make ends meet.”

  “Now, Mrs Delaney, will you tell us if you knew Salem Levitski?”

  “Yes, I did. My husband and I always knew him as Stanley Salem—though we knew his real name was Levitski.”

  “If you spoke of him, how did you refer to him?”

  “Always as Stanley Salem.”

  “Did Sir John Marlowe meet him at your house?”

  “Certainly not. Salem was my husband’s friend, not mine. After my divorce I was very glad to see the last of him. I never invited him to my house and Sir John never met him.”

  “Might he have met him outside?”

  “It seems unlikely. I saw John one evening during that first week in October and he was looking ill. I asked him what was the matter, and he said he was annoyed with himself and irritated at a mistake he had made during the Borough Sessions. And he added that what made it
worse was that it had been to the benefit of a former friend of mine, whom he hadn’t recognised under his real name of Levitski.”

  “And then?”

  “I told him that I thought he was making too much of it. But he said it was no business of a judge’s to preside unless he had an unpreoccupied mind. Of course I had no idea then that only three days before he tried this case he had been told he was going to die.”

  “Did he not tell you immediately of his visit to the doctor?” asked the judge.

  “No, my Lord, he didn’t tell me for some weeks after that.”

  “Mrs Delaney,” said Mr Doutelle; “ do you know of any reason for Sir John Marlowe wishing to favour Stanley Salem on your behalf?”

  “None. None whatever.”

  By now it was well after four. Doutelle glanced hastily at the clock and said: “Returning to the question of these letters you have produced. How did they come into your possession?”

  “Some I had before Sir John died. My own letters to him I took possession of afterwards.”

  “Where did you get them?”

  “From his house. I had a key. His son was away, and his daughter and daughter-in-law had left everything undisturbed. After his death I used to go down sometimes for an hour or so. It gave me some comfort to be in the house again. I took some letters and some manuscripts and personal papers then.”

  “ You have heard the plaintiff say how he got possession of these two letters he read to the court. Do you have anything to say about that?”