The Assize of the Dying

Ellis Peters

Description

From master of suspense Ellis Peters come two chilling tales of justice, deception, and revenge

The jury foreman trembles as he delivers the verdict. After a grueling trial, the erudite and elegant Louis Stevenson has been found guilty of murder—and sentenced to death. A ripple of excitement goes through the courtroom, and Stevenson rises to make a final statement. He’s innocent, he insists, and for condemning him, he swears cosmic vengeance on four men: the prosecutor, the foreman, the judge, and the true killer of Zoë Trevor. On their heads, he places the Assize of the Dying, a medieval curse that ensures they’ll be dead within a month.
 
In “The Assize of the Dying” and “Aunt Helen,” Ellis Peters is at her best—and murder and elegance go hand in hand.
 

Sujets

• Thriller
• Crime
• Crime fiction

Informations

• Publié par: Open Road Media
• Date de parution: 01 mars 2016
• Nombre de lectures: 3
• EAN13: 9781480417793
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 3 Mo

Extrait

The Assize of the Dying
Ellis Peters

MYSTERIOUSPRESS.COM
Into the well of intense silence Mr Justice Manton let fall, in his beautiful, dispassionate voice: Do you find the prisoner at the bar guilty or not guilty of murder?
The foreman of the jury, a highly strung little middle-aged architect, stood gripping the front of the box as though he were being asked to pronounce upon his own life and death, so desperately oppressed by the weight of history upon his inoffensive neck that his balding, fawn-coloured head trembled like a heavy flower upon an inadequate stem. In a dry croak he said: Guilty, my lord! and it was upon his forehead, not the prisoner s, that an instant sweat broke out before the sound of the words had ceased.
Charlie s hand clenched for a moment upon Margaret s in a convulsion of pure excitement. She heard a sound like an enormous sigh that emanated from every corner of the crowded court, and realised that she had been holding her breath in the unbearable tension of waiting for that verdict, and that hundreds of other people must have been doing the same. There was more in the suddenly released sound than awe and pity: a horrid suggestion, to her ear, of sensuous enjoyment. After all, they were not responsible for the prisoner s plight; there was no reason why they should not get a legitimate thrill out of it. Even Charlie, already tucking his notes and pencil away one-handed in preparation for a quick departure to the nearest phone, could not quite keep the hiss of satisfied appetite out of his deep sigh. Then, as if he sensed her disapproval, he flashed a soft, placating glance along his shoulder at her, and made a deprecating grimace before he turned his eyes again upon the solitary grey figure standing in the dock.
Mr Justice Manton said, with the same immovable courtesy: Louis Bretherton Stevenson, you have been found guilty of the wilful murder of Zo Trevor, at Hampstead, on the third of September last. Have you anything to say before sentence is passed upon you?
The prisoner raised his shaggy grey head, and levelled the hollow brilliance of his ageing eyes upon the Judge s face. In this situation Margaret found him an incredible figure. He did not belong here at all; he belonged in the reading-room of the British Museum, or the chair of arch ology at some obscure university, or to some byway of lost literature in which he could explore and write for ever without causing a ripple upon the oblivious surface of his century. He was tall, thin and slightly stooped, with all the marks of the scholar about him, and throughout the four days of the trial she had watched the public nature of his ordeal invade him gradually like a corrosive poison, dislocating his armour of habit joint by joint, and one by one upsetting every equilibrium he had perfected in his fifty-five years of highly personal living. Even if they had not found him guilty at the end of it, she thought bitterly, there would have been no way in the world of restoring him to his old condition. In a way, they d already killed him: it only remained to regularise the position.
Yes, my lord, said Louis Stevenson, I have.
His voice was quiet but clear, much as it must have sounded in the days when he had lectured at his provincial university, and periodically scandalised the faculty, as the prosecution had not failed to bring out, by the irregularities of his private life. There was nothing scandalous left in him now; he looked dusty and disorganised, shrunken into a smaller compass because of the necessity of preserving himself from the touch of a curiosity which nevertheless pursued him inch by inch even into his own body.
Mr Justice Manton waited, with his granite calm and patience unshaken. One elderly professional greyness confronted another. They might have been the two halves of a schizophrenic personality examining each other, on one side with uninhibited detestation, on the other with a cold tolerance at least as terrible. Margaret thought, with a sense of inevitability: Uncle John disliked him from the first moment he set eyes on him - I could see it. I suppose order always feels like that about disorder. But then, oughtn t he to have found some way of getting rid of the case? Or has he been pushing himself to the limit of fairness the other way, for fear of injustice? For the Judge was incorruptibility in one man, and had been in the game so long that he was on guard against every motion of his own mind, and had subdued the impulses of his heart as an expert breaks a horse.
Supposing, of course, that he had a heart! But for the existence of her cousin Charlie, who was unquestionably his child, she would have found it difficult to believe that her uncle belonged to the same warm and fallible species as other men.
I did not kill Zo Trevor, said the prisoner s muted but bitterly clear voice, but you, in the name of society, are about to kill me. To kill unjustly is murder, and since I have no remedy here I must and I do appeal for redress in another place.
When he paused for an instant, as he did now, the weight and quality of the silence became intense. He was so far apart from the collective experience of this courtroom full of people that they could hardly comprehend what he was saying; and what was to come was something beyond their power to guess. They hung upon the faint greyish lips, and held their breath, avid for his alien flavour.
I therefore summon the representatives of your guilt, said Louis Stevenson, sweeping his disorientated glance suddenly round the court before he fixed again upon the Judge s impassive face, to answer for my murder. You, who have conducted the case against me-
Counsel for the Prosecution gazed out from under his vast white brow and his unbecoming wig with a faintly embarrassed calm, as though he had accidentally overheard his distinguished name mentioned in a public place. Mr Justice Manton maintained his monolithic stillness, and waited for the protest to end. It was, after all, only a variation on all the other protests he had heard in similar circumstances in his long career.
You, who pronounced the verdict of guilty against me-
The foreman of the jury jumped as though a ghost had nudged his arm, and wilted a little more grievously in his own heat. His mouth hung open and trembling.
You, who summed up against me, and are about to condemn me to death- The two pairs of fierce old eyes locked again, and this time the fixed stare held - and the man, whoever he may be, who committed the crime for which I am being killed. You four, said Louis Stevenson, suddenly loud and peremptory through the stupefied quietness, I summon to meet me at the time appointed, at the Assize of the Dying.
After his voice had ceased, the silence fell like a stone. No one understood, yet they felt, chillingly through the alien syllables, the conviction that they had been listening to an indictment. The words had to do with them all, and with the four he had selected in particular, and all they knew was that they were being threatened, and did not know from which quarter to expect the blow. They came out of their superstitious stillness with a rustle and a murmur, whispering to their neighbours in overwrought, shrill sibilants that mounted in a few seconds to a formidable crescendo of uneasiness. Here and there about the crowded court began the helpless, infectious giggles of hysteria. The reporters, stirring quickly out of their paralysis, were already on their marks like runners, waiting for release.
Mr Justice Manton lifted his head imperiously, and said: Silence! in a knife-like voice that lopped off all sound far more effectively than the rapping of the gavel.
Charlie, his fingers pressing hard into Margaret s arm, whispered: But, my God, what does it mean ? There s the one man who could tell us, and I bet you my old man won t ask him! All the newspaperman in Charlie was quivering with curiosity and exasperation, to think that the Judge would pass by so intriguing an opening without exploring it. He knew his father very accurately; the measured voice, coldly courteous still, was merely asking gently:
That is all you wish to say?
It is all, my lord. You ll find it enough.
The Judge waited, erect, for the black cap to settle like a crow upon the curls of his wig. He began to pass sentence. Margaret pressed her shoulder against Charlie s arm, dropped her glance into her gloved palms and wished not to hear, but the stale, oppressive hush let the words fall upon her heavily one by one, and she could not avoid them.
-and may the Lord have mercy on your soul.
And on yours, my lord! said Louis Stevenson very softly, staring across the court from hollow, exhausted eyes. He was still looking back over his shoulder when they touched him on both arms, and he turned and went away with them, down slowly from view into the earth. They had killed him; they buried him.
She opened her eyes, which she had instinctively closed upon his going, and saw the court clearing like snow in the sun, the pressmen bolting for their telephones as soon as the Judge s stately back had vanished. The murmur had broken out again, was rising steadily to a high-pitched thrumming like angry bees, the outcry of gratified excitement. She felt for Charlie s sleeve as her eyes opened, and said aloud: But he didn t do it, you know!
It was not Charlie s face she saw when she turned her head, nor Charlie s voice that answered readily: No, I don t think he did, either.
She ought to have known that Charlie would be away ahead of the others, with his self-reliant memory already arranging impressions, and his fluent tongue composing the sentences which would roll over the wire to his paper already formed and finished. Probably he had even formulated by this time an inspired