Twenty-One Days Read online

  He had imagined he would welcome the independence of his own lodgings, no one interrupting him to know this or that, and to ask his opinion about something. But occasionally it was lonely, and he would have welcomed the awareness of other people around him. Most of the men at his law firm were considerably older than he, and he was careful not to be seen to be closer to any particular one rather than another. There were undercurrents of alliances and rivalries, and Daniel knew that he could make serious errors with a single misjudgement.

  It was warm inside the hallway and smelled pleasantly of lavender furniture polish.

  ‘That you, Mr Pitt?’ Mrs Portiscale’s voice came from the kitchen at the far end of the passage. ‘Like a cup of tea, dear? It’ll be an hour before supper’s ready.’

  ‘Yes, please, Mrs Portiscale,’ he called back. He never refused, because if he did she might stop asking. Besides, it was nice having someone welcome you back and take that little bit of care.

  He sat in the front room, where residents met their visitors. Mrs Portiscale was very strict about not having young ladies go up into gentlemen’s apartments. ‘Of course, I trust you, dear,’ she had said when he first moved in, ‘but one rule for all, you know? That’s fair.’

  ‘How’s your case going, dear?’ she asked as she brought a small tray with a cup of piping hot tea and a couple of crisp biscuits. She knew he did not take sugar in his tea. In exchange for her extra attention, Daniel regaled her with accounts of his cases, although only sharing those elements in the public domain. He had told her about odd witnesses, and jurors, without ever mentioning names. He was surprised how astute she was at seeing through pretence. She often made guesses that seemed at first to him preposterous, but that turned out to be accurate.

  She stood there now in her dark skirt and plain white blouse, hands on her hips, ready for a conversation.

  ‘Got to finish it up early as I can tomorrow,’ he said with a smile. It was not that he felt cheerful about it, but he had learned he could get away with almost anything if he said it with a smile. He had a feeling that Mrs Portiscale saw through that, but she was almost his mother’s age, though she had no sons of her own. ‘Thank you for the tea, Mrs Portiscale.’

  ‘You’re welcome,’ she said. ‘Don’t you stop up too late over your books, young man. You’ve got to get your sleep. Supper will be shepherd’s pie, and will be served in about an hour.’

  He gave her another smile, and sat back to think.

  What was the evidence against Blackwell? He should divide it between the arguable and the unarguable. There was no time to waste on the latter.

  Unarguably, Hinton had been shot sometime between nine and midnight five weeks ago. It had been with his own gun, and at his lodgings just off the Pentonville Road. The gun had no fingerprints on it.

  Roman Blackwell was a student of life and especially of its quirks. Unarguable was the fact that he had lent Hinton a very large sum of money and that Hinton had not repaid it, and indeed had not even paid interest on it.

  Blackwell could not account for where he had been at the time of Hinton’s death. His claim was that he had been hired, in his capacity as private enquiry agent, to follow a man suspected of extortion, but since he had taken some trouble to wear a disguise, no one could swear to having seen him.

  Daniel finished his tea and carried his tray back to the kitchen, then went upstairs to reread all he had on the Blackwell case. He stopped for dinner, and resumed again.

  At midnight, he was still reading, without finding anything useful. Finally, he put the last piece of paper back on the table. He hated letting Blackwell down, the more so because Blackwell had trusted him, even though Daniel had never before tried a case for anything bigger than petty theft. He was aware that Blackwell might know perfectly well how Daniel felt about being trusted, and used those emotions to make him take the case. He didn’t believe Blackwell would manipulate him like that, but it had occurred to him. Blackwell was a master at reading people, and using them if he wanted to. His history was full of such incidents.

  But there was no pretence in Blackwell’s fear. His hanging, if it happened – and it would, if Daniel could not save him – would be very real indeed. Daniel felt ice cold at the thought of it, even in this warm room with its fireplace, bookcases, and polished wooden desk. One gaslight burned softly, shedding a yellow light. It was an old house. Generations of people had been comfortable here. The pictures on the wall were old, but pleasant. One day he must get around to bringing some of his own, something he really liked – beautiful, not just pretty. Bare trees in winter, perhaps? A ragged sky, wind-driven clouds – something that held his mind and stirred it, not merely was agreeable to the eye.

  Think! No time to sleep.

  He imagined Blackwell taking the gun and loading it. He went through the motions of it in his mind, opening the breach, picking up the shell, carefully placing it, then closing the chamber, and then wiping it clean to take off the marks of his fingers. You couldn’t load a gun with gloves on: too clumsy. Perhaps you’d use a cotton cloth; better still, a leather chamois.

  He froze. Had the killer remembered to wipe the cartridge case too? His fingermarks would be on that!

  Ottershaw! The fingerprint expert who had examined the gun. Nice man. Clever. Surely, he had thought of that? Or had he even been given the shell casing? At the scene, the police had collected the evidence tied to the crime. Had they even thought of looking for the casing?

  Daniel stood up. It was after midnight, but time was too short to wait until tomorrow. He put on his coat and went to the door. He must leave quietly, and not disturb the whole household, certainly not Mrs Portiscale. She would come down to enquire.

  It took him nearly half an hour to get to Ottershaw’s house, even though there was very little traffic on the road. And then he had to ring the bell three times before the door finally opened to show Ottershaw himself, in a dressing robe, blinking in the hall light, his hair standing in all directions.

  ‘I’m sorry, Dr Ottershaw,’ Daniel said, stepping inside and apologising again. ‘I do know what time it is – but I have an idea, and Roman Blackwell’s life might rest on it.’

  ‘Really?’ Ottershaw looked at him doubtfully. He was a tall, thin man, almost as tall as Daniel, and was wearing pyjamas and one slipper.

  Daniel realised how foolish he would look if Ottershaw had thought of testing the shell casing. He was an expert, so probably he would have. Daniel had woken him at one o’clock in the morning for nothing.

  ‘Well, what is it?’ Ottershaw asked.

  ‘I was thinking about loading a gun,’ Daniel said, closing the front door behind him.

  Ottershaw’s eyebrows shot up. ‘My dear boy, please . . .’

  ‘No.’ Daniel blushed at his clumsiness. ‘I mean, what would you touch?’

  ‘The butt, probably the trigger guard, probably the barrel. But there were no prints on any of them.’

  ‘And the shell casing?’

  ‘Ah! They only brought me the shell casing afterwards. Different young constable. I see what you mean.’ His face was suddenly filled with enthusiasm. ‘Quite possibly, the casing – in fact, for certain. If he did not wear gloves to handle the gun itself, then he would not to handle the shell. Awkward things, gloves, for fine work. I cannot even write my name legibly with gloves on.’ He looked rueful. ‘Or without, for that matter,’ he added, backing into the hall and towards the stairs. ‘Let me get dressed, and we will have a look. I work in my cellar, you know. I had it converted into my laboratory. Wonderful places, cellars. Nobody bothers you. Would offer you a cup of tea, but we must get to work, dear boy. Wouldn’t actually know how to make one, and I’m not wakening the butler. Lives on the top floor, and sleeps like the dead. Just give me a few minutes.’

  Actually, it took him ten minutes and he found Daniel still standing in the hall when he returned.

  ‘Oh dear. Should have asked you to wait in the sitting room,’ he said. ‘But the f
ire is out anyway. Not really comfortable. Now come with me, and we’ll see what we can find.’

  He led the way to a cellar door, switched on an electric light, and led the way down the fairly steep steps.

  Daniel followed, and was immediately in a different world. There were glass jars, tubes, and retorts everywhere. All kinds of instruments were laid out in cases. Bottles with carefully labelled substances made it for the moment look like a sweet shop. There were various pieces of equipment, most of which Daniel could not name. And in a wide space by itself, at the far end, a wood-burning, round-bellied stove. It still retained some heat and, although below ground, the room was neither chilly nor damp.

  Ottershaw noticed Daniel’s surprise. ‘Ah!’ he said with satisfaction. ‘You took me for an eccentric, didn’t you? Not at all. Most practical man. Science doesn’t lie, we merely misunderstand her sometimes. We find what we expect to find, or worse still, what we want to.’

  He led the way over to a filing cabinet, produced keys from his pocket, and opened the locked section. He withdrew a file, and from the bottom of the drawer a gun wrapped in muslin. ‘See!’ he said, like a conjurer about to begin a trick. ‘We shall now examine the shell casing very carefully, and see what we have.’ With that, he pulled on cotton gloves, removed the gun from its wrapping, along with the separately wrapped shell casing.

  ‘What is the file?’ Daniel asked.

  ‘Why, a picture of the prints we took of Mr Blackwell, so we might compare them with the ones we were hoping to find on the gun, of course.’

  ‘But we didn’t find any,’ Daniel pointed out.

  Ottershaw gave a sharp, wry look. ‘No, dear boy, and this is only of use to us if we find on the casing some that are not Mr Blackwell’s. If, after all, we find some that are, it’s a very different matter indeed. Now, are you sure you wish me to look?’

  Daniel thought only for a moment. His decision would be irreversible, and he was gambling with Blackwell’s life. If he was innocent, it was his only chance. If he was guilty, he was lost. If Daniel did nothing, it was time that he faced the fact that he could not save Blackwell. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Better be damned for action than inaction.’

  Ottershaw gave him a brief, tight smile, his face dramatically lit and appearing out of proportion in the fixed lamplight of the laboratory. Then he turned and began to work in absolute silence, except for the faint click of the metal, as he picked up the casing on a stick and wedged the end of the stick into a vice.

  Daniel stared in fascination as Ottershaw opened a box of powder, dipped a brush into it, and then lightly dusted the shell casing, leaving a residue on it. He moved closer and drew in his breath sharply. There were tiny lines forming patterns on the surface of the metal.

  Ottershaw breathed out slowly. It was only a faint sigh, but he was clearly on the brink of discovery. ‘Not yet!’ he warned. ‘There are fingerprints, but whose?’

  Daniel nearly answered, then realised that Ottershaw was talking to himself. The man’s face was alive with the intensity of exploration. This was his art, his miracle.

  Ottershaw ignored Daniel entirely now, absorbed in study through a magnifying glass.

  Daniel held his breath.

  ‘Possible . . .’ Ottershaw said at last. ‘They are like Blackwell’s, but there are differences. Yes, definite differences. See – here.’ He moved back from the table, gesturing towards both the photographs of Blackwell’s prints and the print on the casing. ‘Look – there are whorls . . .’ He pointed with the tip of a small, sharp instrument. ‘Look.’

  Daniel peered at it and saw fine lines in almost a circle.

  ‘See?’ Ottershaw urged.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And those are Blackwell’s that we took before. See where the thumbs are almost the same?’

  ‘Yes . . .’

  ‘Now look at these.’ Ottershaw pointed to the casing and a break in the lines below the whorl. Only a print of a thumb was there, but the lines were at a different angle, and there was a brief break in them: islands. Different! They were not made from the same thumb. He indicated the photograph of the right thumb, and then pointed to another photo. ‘Isn’t the left thumb either,’ he said with conviction. ‘Of course, we don’t know whose it was. Doesn’t matter for this trial if we did. This is cause only for reasonable doubt.’ He looked at Daniel carefully, to be sure he understood.

  ‘Of course,’ Daniel agreed, but he now had proof that Blackwell was not the murderer.

  Ottershaw shook his head. ‘Lot to learn, dear boy. Jurors are twelve ordinary people, not twelve enthusiasts for new adventures of the mind. Sitting still all day trying to concentrate on the arguments going on in front of them is enough adventure for most. They believe what they can understand. Trust me, I’ve tried to explain some finer points of science, and I might as well have saved my breath to cool my porridge. You’ve not only got to be right, you’ve got to be better than the other man. And Sefton is no fool. I know him. He’ll try to make them think your chap’s a trickster, a fraud. And that you are naïve. You won’t win them over just with facts.’ He shook his head as if he had said this many times before, but to no effect.

  Daniel felt suddenly deflated. ‘But you can see that that is not Blackwell’s thumbprint!’ he exclaimed.

  ‘You can see that,’ Ottershaw agreed. ‘But if I don’t want to believe that, then I won’t.’

  ‘Yes, you will,’ Daniel contradicted immediately.

  Ottershaw smiled widely. ‘Yes,’ he conceded. ‘I will. Because Blackwell is a rogue, but I don’t think he’s a killer. And I’d like you to win. I like you. You’re the future, open-minded, willing to learn, eager, and with sense to listen to what you’re told – most of the time. But that isn’t enough to win.’

  Daniel was deflated. ‘Then what is?’

  ‘Make them want to believe you, and then show them why they should. They’ll do it then, and Sefton won’t argue them out of it.’

  ‘But I’ve only got half a day!’

  Ottershaw’s eyes were bright. ‘Then you’ll have to be quick!’

  ‘We both will,’ Daniel assured him. ‘I’m going to call you as a witness. I need an expert to swear to all of this. We haven’t needed you before because there were no fingerprints.’

  Ottershaw’s face shone. ‘Good. Should we have a cup of tea?’

  ‘What?’ Daniel was caught on the wrong foot.

  ‘Do you want a cup of tea? I’m not working all night without a cup of tea and a piece of cake!’

  ‘Oh – yes. Yes, please.’ Daniel had not realised how much he would like that. ‘Would you like me to make it?’

  ‘Good idea. Then get ready to work, my boy. We’ve a lot to do. But we’ll start by establishing the ground rules, eh?’ He looked steadily at Daniel.

  ‘Yes . . .’

  ‘Good. They are simple. I’ll do as you say, as to the law. You do as I say, as to science – and human nature.’

  ‘I’ve—’

  ‘You’re agreed. Excellent.’

  Daniel had been about to argue the point, but he looked at Ottershaw again and changed his mind. ‘Yes, sir.’

  Ottershaw waited.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Daniel reaffirmed.

  ‘Now, about that tea . . .’

  Daniel slept on Ottershaw’s sofa for a couple of hours, then rose and washed. He borrowed Ottershaw’s razor at risk of cutting his throat; he had never used an open blade before. He borrowed a comb to make his unruly brown hair lie reasonably flat.

  He then carefully packed the gun Ottershaw had lent him for the demonstration he planned in the courtroom.

  After a hasty breakfast of porridge, they set out for the courthouse. Ottershaw at least had a reasonable spring in his step. He did not know Blackwell enough to care deeply about saving his life. Daniel, on the other hand, knew both Blackwell and Mercy, even if he had met them only recently. He cared very much, not just that Blackwell might lose his life, and Mercy lose all that she c
ared about most, but also because they trusted Daniel to help them, whether it was a tactic to engage him or not. Although it might have begun that way, now it was real.

  The trial began very much as it had adjourned the day before: the gallery was packed, the jurors expectant, and Sefton looked confident and very nearly triumphant. He could already smell the delicious aroma of victory, and the dish was set before him.

  ‘Mr Pitt?’ the judge said with his eyebrows raised.

  ‘Yes, my lord.’ Daniel rose to his feet. ‘I call the only witness for the defence: Dr Octavius Ottershaw.’

  Sefton rose immediately. ‘My lord, Dr Ottershaw is well known to the court. He is a fingerprint expert. Possibly the best. We hardly need his expertise to tell us that there are no fingerprints on the gun that was used to murder Hinton.’

  The judge looked at Daniel. ‘I do hope this is not a diversionary tactic of desperation, Mr Pitt?’

  ‘No, my lord. Far from it,’ Daniel responded immediately.

  ‘Then proceed. And please hold your remarks, Mr Sefton. I will not hang a man before I have heard his defence. Is that understood?’

  ‘Yes, my lord,’ Sefton said, with strained temper showing through his acquiescence.

  Daniel called Ottershaw, who took the stand and swore to his name, place of residence, and some brief but impressive qualifications.

  ‘Dr Ottershaw,’ Daniel began, very aware that he must hold the jury’s attention with every word he said. They were already convinced that Blackwell was guilty, for which he could hardly blame them. They did not want to hear explanations, and above all they did not want to hear excuses. Sefton was aware of that and would play to it the instant he saw the opportunity. ‘Are you quite sure all people’s fingerprints are different?’ Daniel asked innocently. He must keep it brief.

  ‘Yes, sir, quite sure,’ Ottershaw replied. Then he turned to the jury. ‘You, sir,’ he looked at a large, impressive man, very well dressed. It was easy to imagine he had a good opinion of himself. ‘Your fingerprints are unique to you. They are not exactly the same as those of any other man on earth.’