The Ballroom Murder by Leigh Straw

Author:Leigh Straw
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Fremantle Press
Published: 2022-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

It was now after five in the evening. Hubert Parker stood up, ready to cross-examine the accused. He asked Audrey about her visits to boats in the port. Arthur Haynes intervened and so began a discussion between the two about evidence and reflecting on the character of the accused.

‘I have no intention of making any reflection of her character,’ Parker replied.

The judge agreed: ‘Then don’t make any reflection. So far there is nothing against this girl’s character.’

Audrey told the courtroom that her mother always waited up for her and knew of her meetings with Cyril.

‘And she never objected?’ Parker asked.

‘No.’

‘Didn’t she make a complaint once about another man?’ Parker was referring to Jessie’s visit to seek the help of policewoman Laura Chipper.

‘No, never.’

‘But,’ Parker continued, ‘she complained once about something she found in your bag?’

Audrey responded indignantly: ‘That had nothing to do with this affair at all. And she did not make a complaint.’

Arthur Haynes interjected and claimed that Parker could not refute the story and so was ‘throwing stones’.

‘I did not say I could not refute the story,’ Parker replied, ‘and at all events I’m not throwing stones at someone who is dead.’ It was a poignant dig at the defence lawyer and his case against Cyril.

Hubert Parker directed his attention back to the accused: ‘Are you surprised to know that no rings were found among Gidley’s belongings after his death?’

‘He may have given them away to other women.’

‘What earthly use would your diary, which you say was stolen, be to Gidley?’

‘I don’t know?’

‘Did it have anything in it that you would not have liked Gidley to see?’

‘No. Anybody would have been at liberty to read it.’

The prosecutor asked Audrey more about her relationship with Cyril and whether she had been respectable with him. They would often meet at the gate of her parents’ garden, where they would talk for a long time. Gidley only ‘seduced’ her once.

Arthur Haynes objected again to the questions and while Hubert Parker said he had no intention of making suggestions about the ‘girl’s character’, the judge told him not to do so and that it was irrelevant anyway. The details of Laura Chipper’s statement about the ‘french letter’ would now not be detailed.

Judge Northmore, noting it was past six o’clock, adjourned, telling the courtroom the trial would resume the next day.

Spectators hurried out of the courtroom, making what they wanted to out of the opening addresses and Audrey’s testimony. It was hard not to feel for the young woman. If what she was saying was true, Cyril Gidley had terrorised her family and she had just publicly told of being sexually assaulted by him. It didn’t mean she had the right to take justice into her own hands, but it might explain why, seeing him with another woman and publicly slighting her, she had gone into some daze and resolved to make him notice her.

Had she really forgotten the revolver in her hand and been as surprised as everyone else when it went off?

Hubert Parker had a lot to think about that night.

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