Chapter 9

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"I believe this case" I began "starts a whole lot further back than anyone really could have imagined. In fact, it was probably pure luck that it was told at all. But then I've learned to live off luck, so I take it as it comes. The story of how a young man's life was ruined by a careless mistake."

"What's that got to do with anything?" Adelaide scoffed.

"Everything" I said coolly. "Because it was this incident, this little mistake, that led us to where we are today."

"How?" Mr. Smith asked forcefully, surprising us all with his speech. I realized that, once again, I had slipped into my usual dramatical routine, and even though now I knew, I wasn't going to stop. It was far too much fun.

"It left a deep amount of hatred brewing" I explained. "Or at least, when the parents admitted the real reason for his wheelchair to their son, it did. And one thing about pure hatred, it doesn't go away easily."

"I'll second that" Vendradaire smirked. "I've met many women on my travels..."

"Oh, do shut up!" Mr. Price snapped. I was momentarily surprised, but eventually took it in my stride.

"Guilt, too, is another emotion that's hard to get rid of" I continued. "Imagine having to watch your child-your child-suffer because of a simple mistake you made. Imagine the pain."

"This is getting us nowhere!" Abernarthy snapped.

"If I don't explain it like this, then it won't make sense later!" I retorted. "I've listened to all your ideas, it's only fair you listen to mine like a proper gentlem..."

"That's enough!" Brenkley stepped in firmly. "From both of you."

Despite feeling decidedly cheesed off, I had to admit Brenkley was doing an excellent job of keeping neutral. It was just what we needed in this situation.

"Hatred and guilt. That's all that was needed. The guilt of the parents, and the hatred of the son" I added.

"The son?" about four astounded voices chorused.

"But he was upstairs the whole time! How could he have been involved?" Abernarthy pointed out. If Brenkley hadn't been there I would have made some sort of degrading remark about Abernarthy's intelligence, but Brenkley was there, so I didn't.

"You think the son pushed his father down the stairs" Brenkley himself sighed slowly. I nodded.

"I do."

"But that's preposterous!" Adelaide spluttered.

"Is it?" I asked. "Considering what I've just told you, about hatred and guilt?"

"Well..." the man with the moustache stammered uncertainly, as, I fancied, his brain finally began to work properly.

"You can't prove any of this!" Abernarthy scoffed. "It's just as plausible as anything I've put forward!"

"It's nothing like anything you've put forward!" I snapped. " Because unlike yours I..."

"Enough!" Brenkley barked.

"Sorry" I said meekly.

There was a silence, as nobody was quite sure what to say next.

"Can anyone pick any holes in this?" I asked. "I mean, granted, I haven't finished explaining it yet, but..."

"Holes?" Abernarthy snorted. "There isn't anything to pick holes in! It's a fanciful notion!"

"Right" I breathed, trying desperately to stay calm. "Alright. Marcus Harrison waits until he knows only he and his parents will be in the house, and pushes his father down the stairs-"

"Why?" Abernarthy demanded. "Why not just do it on any other day?"

"Because he didn't want the blame to fall on anyone other than his parents" I explained, and when Abernarthy opened his mouth, I shouted over him.

"Let me finish! It'll all make sense in the end!"

I wanted to add that, frankly, to anyone with half a brain cell it should make basic sense already, but I reckoned Brenkley wouldn't let me get away with that.

"So, he pushes his father down the stairs. Then, he waits at the top for his mother to discover what he has done. When she does, she reacts in the way he hoped she would."

"Which is?" Bright asked, looking decidedly horrified already.

I looked around at them all, reproachfully.

"The thing with this sort of guilt" I began to explain "is that it doesn't go away. It's on your mind constantly, and it was on Mrs. Harrison's mind that afternoon. She sees what her son has done, and sees something she can do to try and lift some of that everlasting guilt off her shoulders. She's always known in her heart her son would never have forgiven her or her husband for their mistake, so in her desperation, in that moment, she seizes her chance to make it up to her son. She decides to take the blame for her husband's murder."

"How does that affect everything?" Chatt asked, over the deathly silence that now hung in the room.

"It means that everything which happened after that moment" I told him "was deliberately created by Mrs. Harrison to throw suspicion onto herself. She moves the body into the study, so there was no way anyone could say her son could have been involved, as he was stuck upstairs. She stabs the almost-dead body with the knife, in a place she believes will make it seem like the knife was the weapon that killed her husband. She then left the house for no apparent reason, in order to make herself seem more guilty."

I let this hang for a second. Not even Abernarthy dared make a comment.

"So in a very twisted way, Mr. Abernarthy" I added. "You were absolutely right. This murder was indisputedly designed to catch out people who think they're clever. The reason why everything always seemed so blindingly obvious is because that was Mrs. Harrison's intention. She wanted it to seem like she killed her husband, and she knew that all the boffins at Scotland Yard, except perhaps a select few, would pick up all the clues she has left and draw the conclusion she wanted them to. She's been playing you all for fools this entire time, and frankly, I rather admire her for it."

There was a decidedly chilly silence. But sadly, I wasn't finished.

"I need to ask this. Can anyone find anything that seems wrong here?" I asked. "Just because I'm confident doesn't mean I'm right, so don't get carried away, cos I tend to do that to people."

"It....fits the facts" Brenkley nodded. "There's no questions left unanswered."

"I think it is right" Mr. Patience mused, looking at my board of questions with a critical eye. Everyone else did the same, and I could see them, one by one, as they failed to find any sort of issues with what I had put forward.

"Do you see my dilemma now?" I asked patiently.

"I do" Chatt sighed.

"So d' I" Samuels added.

"Do we follow the course of justice and remove a soul guilty of murdering a man, or do we turn a blind eye and murder a soul guilty of ruining a living life?" Brenkley murmured.

"Sheesh" Vendradaire commented. There was a silence.

"I'm sorry?" Abernarthy blustered. "But am I right in saying that we are accepting this...erroneous story as the truth?"

"Can you find anything wrong with it?" Mr. Patience asked, remarkably patiently, I thought.

"The whole wretched thing's ridiculous!" Abernarthy scoffed again. "You're all complete fools!"

"You're avoiding the question" Rider said firmly. There was another pause, as the whole room turned to look at Abernarthy with a sort of confused, almost disgust.

"You realize everyone's against you, now, don't you?" I pointed out quietly.

Almost in desperation, Abernarthy looked slowly from one man to the next. Each face he saw wore the same blunt, unsavoury expression. He was the one being ridiculous, and they all believed it.

"Fine" he sighed. "Fine. I won't contest."

"That's not the point" I said firmly. "You can't just let other people bully you into agreeing with them. Imagine what situation we would be in if I had just said 'I won't contest'?"

"We'd all be at home, thinking we had a job well done" Chatt said thickly, sitting down on one of the chairs with a bump. It seemed everyone was feeling the melancholy atmosphere, as we all seemed to disperse throughout the room, each lost in our own thoughts. Apart from Mr. Abernarthy and myself, that was.

"Do you..." I began, searching for the right word. "Do you truly believe what I've put forward isn't right?"

Mr. Abernarthy looked stoically at me.

"It...It just seems so impossible" he admitted quietly.

"That?" I prompted, sensing something more. Abernarthy hesitated. I thought perhaps he had been accepting that as the end of his reasoning.

"That...someone-a woman of all people-could come up with a theory like that, based on what we were given" the man carried on, in a low voice, so as not to disturb the rest of the room, who were all deep in their own individual thought.

"So really, it's not the theory you don't believe in" I suggested, as the mindset of this man began to reveal itself. "It's me."

"You've got it" came the reply.

"But that's not the point" I pressed. "The focus should be on the theory, not the person behind it."

Abernarthy sighed.

"I can't trust the theory, because I don't trust you."

I hesitated, unsure how to tackle this.

"Why don't...What makes you not want to trust me?" I asked carefully.

"For a woman to put forward a complex theory such as that, it's hardly possible that she thought it up herself" Abernarthy explained, and every inch of compassion I had for him retreated swiftly and was replaced with overwhelming amounts of disgust.

"So who's told you to say it?" Abernarthy added casually.

"I thought it up myself" I replied tetchily.

"I don't believe you."

"Wait. You're saying that a man could have thought my theory up?" I said suddenly, having only just thought about it.

"Undoubtedly" Abernarthy replied, matter-of-factly.

"So, what, a woman is clever enough to trick the whole of Scotland Yard and an enture court full of men into believing she killed her husband, but another woman is not clever enough to work it out?" I asked, a little indignantly.

That stumped him.

"Look" I sighed. "Forget about me. Do you or do you not think that this was what happened on that day or not?"

"The evidence suggests that the knife was not the weapon that did the damage" Abernarthy eventually admitted. "But all this falling-down-the stairs talk?" It's speculation, in your words, Miss Winter."

"Alright" I nodded. "But you agree the knife wasn't the real weapon?"

"I do. The evidence proves it" Abernarthy nodded firmly.

"So, since we know..." I began.

"Miss Winter, I do not wish to be persuaded..." Abernarthy butted in.

"But you have to be, unless it won't be a true verdict at the end" I reasoned. "I know it's difficult. But let me explain."

"Fine" the man snapped.

"So" I repeated again. "Since we know the knife wasn't the actual weapon that did the killing, what are the possible reasons for it being stuck in?"

"To make sure" Abernarthy said.

"Implying she was the one who inflicted the other injuries" I added. "Right. Question. Why didn't she leave it looking like a fall down the stairs? She could have easily gotten away with it if she had. Remember, there were no servants in, and the son couldn't have done anything, so the poor man would have died a slow and painful death anyway. What's the point of the knife?"

I sadly realized what a terrible pun that was only after I had said it. Abernarthy shook his head, sighing.

"Perhaps she wanted to make sure?" he asked. "People don't think straight when they do this stuff."

"We're delving into the premeditated argument again!" I complained. "She would have known what she was doing."

Abernarthy didn't make any sort of reply.

"I can sort of understand where you're coming from here" I carried on, to a steely silence. "But every other man in this room has been noble enough to admit they've been outsmarted by a woman. And they're better men than you are, right now."

"It makes sense in my head" the man admitted reluctantly. "But..."

"Your pride's getting in the way" I finished. He looked defeated.

"Don't give up now" I coaxed. "We've still got a big decision to make."

I stood up, brushed him off and strode purposefully to the centre of the room.

"Gentlemen" I began. "We have a new decision to make. We have decided as a whole that this woman is innocent of murder, but what we have not decided is what we are to do now. Let me put this into perspective, in case you haven't already. If we say Guilty, then this woman will undoubtedly hang, but we will not have followed the true course of justice. If we say Not Guilty, then although we will be doing our duty as jurors, we will leave a lot of guilt, and possibly still some hatred behind. Not to sound cliché, but shall we all take a seat?"

We all took our seats, back around the original table we had sat around hours previously. I smiled around.

"Shall we all take a vote?" I asked.

The papers were handed out, but this time I collected them back in again.

"Not Guilty" I read out, unfolding one paper at a time.

"Not Guilty. Not Guilty. Not Guilty. Not Guilty. Not Guilty. Not Guilty. Not Guilty. Not Guilty. Not Guilty. Not Guilty..."

I fumbled with the last paper in the bowl. Finally grabbing it, I picked it up and unfolded it.

"Not Guilty."

I beamed. So did everyone else, in their own ways. I turned to Abernarthy, who was already heading for the door.

"I believe we have reached a conclusion" I smiled. "Can someone call the porter?"

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