The White Lie

But alas! the public had one morning opened their daily papers to find a tragic picture of his wrecked machine, and beneath was printed the news of his fatal fall from a distance of eight hundred feet.

The inquest had been held at the Old Ship Hotel at Mundesley, the day after the accident, and, in addition to representatives of the Admiralty, a number of aviation experts who had examined the wreckage had been present.

The inquiry was a searching one, for an important London newspaper had hinted that, owing to the parsimonious policy of the Admiralty, certain of their aeroplanes were not of the same stability as those owned by private individuals. Hence the authorities at Whitehall had set themselves to refute such damaging allegations.

To that quiet little fishing village had come some of the greatest aviation experts, world-famous pilots, and representatives of that select body whose dictum in all aviation is law – the Royal Aero Club. And all were there with one object – to decide as to the reason of the sudden collapse of the naval Bleriot.

The coroner sat in a stuffy little room, the windows of which were open. Nevertheless, with the place crowded the atmosphere was oppressively hot. The inquiry was long and tedious, for after evidence had been given as to the lieutenant’s departure, and eyewitnesses had described his fall, there came a quantity of highly technical evidence put forward by the Admiralty with the object of proving that the machine had been in a perfectly satisfactory condition. The Gnome engine was of 80 horse-power, the monoplane had been thoroughly overhauled only four days previously, and the flights which Barclay had made in her from Eastchurch proved that there had been no defect which could have been detected.

Curious it was that that inquiry was being held in the same hotel where Ralph Ansell and Jean Libert had taken their tea.

One man alone knew the terrible truth – the man who, on that fatal evening, had crept under the hedge unseen, and substituted the small steel bolt with one of wood with such an expert, unerring hand – the man who had stood up in the cab and calmly watched the awful result of his evil handiwork without the slightest sign of pity or remorse.

He had hurled Noel Barclay to his death with as little compunction as he would have crushed a fly. And yet little Jean, with the neat figure and great, dark eyes, in her innocence and ignorance, loved him so dearly and so well. She never dreamed the truth, and therefore he was her ideal, while she was his affianced wife.

In that small, over-crowded room, clean-shaven experts stood up one after the other, each expressing a different theory as to the cause of the accident.

When poor Barclay had been found, the engine was lying upon his chest, his neck was broken, his face battered out of all recognition, and both arms were broken. So utterly wrecked was the machine that it presented the appearance of a mass of splintered wood, tangled wires, and torn strips of fabric flapping in the wind.

All had been examined carefully, piece by piece, after the mangled remains of the unfortunate pilot had been extricated. The bolt was missing and search failed to find it. A quantity of evidence was forthcoming, and many theories advanced, the conclusion arrived at being that the left wing collapsed owing to undue strain, and the machine, instantly out of control, fell to earth.

There was but one verdict which the twelve honest men of Mundesley could return.

Expert evidence agreed that the quick-release at the end of one of the stay-wires was faulty. The steel bolt holding the main-stay cable and secured by a split-pin could not be found. It had evidently broken and fallen out, so that the left wing, being thus unsupported, had collapsed in mid-air.

And in face of these facts the jury returned a verdict of “Accidental death.”

This the public read next morning in their newspapers, together with expressions of deep sympathy and declarations that the air was, as yet, unconquered.

On the same day as the inquest was held upon the body of Lieutenant Barclay, a coroner’s inquiry was held at the little market-town of North Walsham, which, though inland, is the relay for the telegraph-cables diverging to Northern Europe, into the discovery on the highway of the body of the motor-cyclist, Mr. Richard Harborne.

Held in a schoolroom near the railway station, public and witnesses sat upon the school benches, while the coroner occupied the headmaster’s desk.

Again there was an array of witnesses, but from the first the crowd at the back of the room scented mystery.

A carter of the village of Worstead, speaking in his broad Norfolk brogue, described how he had discovered the body and had come into North Walsham and told a constable.

“I was a coomin’ into North Walsham wi’ a load o’ hay what I’d got from Mr. Summers, o’ Stalham, when just after I turned into the Norwich road I saw sawmthin’ a-lyin’ in the ditch,” he said slowly, while the grey-haired deputy-coroner carefully wrote down his words.

“Well?” asked the official, looking up at the witness.

“Well, sir, I found it was ’im,” the man replied.

“Who?”

“The gentleman what war killed.”

“The deceased, you mean,” said the coroner.

“Yes, sir. I went over and found ’im a-lyin’ face downwards,” was the reply. “I thought ’e wor drunk at first, but when I see blood on the road I knowed there’d been sawmthin’ up. So I went over to ’im.”

“In what position was the body when you discovered it?” the coroner asked.

“’E wor a-lyin’ with ’is feet in the water an’ ’is ’ead in the brambles like.”

“As if he had fallen there?”

“No, sir. As if ’e’d been thrown into the side o’ the road. There was blood – a lot of it all alon’ the road.”

“What did you do?”

“Well, I pulled ’im out, and saw a nasty cut in ’is throat. So I drove on to North Walsham and saw Mr. Bennet.”

“Anything else?”

“No, sir, nawthin’ else.”

“Any juryman wish to ask a question?” inquired the coroner, looking across at the twelve local taxpayers.

The foreman, a stout farmer, said:

“I’d like, sir, to ask the witness if the gentleman was dead when he pulled him out of the ditch.”

“Dead as mutton,” was the witness’s prompt reply.

“You think he was dead? He may not have been,” the coroner remarked.

“Well, I put my ’and on ’is ’eart an’ it didn’t beat, sir.”

“Very well,” said the official holding the inquiry, “that will do.”

Superintendent Bennet, of the Norfolk Constabulary, stationed at North Walsham, gave evidence regarding the discovery. He described how the previous witness had called at the police-station, and how they went out in a light trap on the Norwich road together.

“I found deceased lying on the grass on the left side of the road close to a telegraph post,” he said, while a tall, grey-faced, well-dressed man of forty-five, of a somewhat military appearance, who was seated at the back of the room, leaned forward attentively to catch every word. “The thorn bushes beside the ditch were broken down by the body apparently being cast there. It was getting dusk when I arrived on the spot, but I could clearly see traces of blood for about forty feet from the ditch forward in the direction of Norwich.”

“Then the body must have been carried back from the spot where the blow was struck?”

“It was dragged back. A shower had fallen in the afternoon, and there were distinct marks on the damp road where the heels of the deceased had scraped along, and also the footmarks of the murderer.”

At these words those present in court held their breath.

“Have you taken any action in regard to those footmarks?”

“I have not, sir. But the detectives from Norwich have,” answered the officer.

“Could you see the track of deceased’s motor-cycle?”

“Quite plainly. The deceased apparently dismounted close to the spot where the first trace of blood appeared, for there were marks of a struggle. The gentleman must have been struck down and promptly flung into the ditch, after which his assailant mounted the cycle and rode off.”