We Are Not Alone

We Are Not Alone

A Novel

James Hilton

Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Epilogue

PROLOGUE

IN A SMALL CATHEDRAL town where changes are few, there are always people who remember who used to live in a particular house, what happened to them there and afterwards, and so on. Thus, when a chain-store company bought a site at the corner of Shawgate and sent men to break up the old Georgian frontage, there were reminders all over the town — “That was where the little doctor lived.” It was a long time ago. The house had never been occupied since, and for a reason that made passers-by stare curiously as the picks swung through the dust clouds. In due course the job reached a stage when the whole of an inside wall was exposed, and on it, still hanging, a smashed picture which a workman sold for half a crown to a bystander. It proved on examination to be a faded etching of angels grouped around an arch of flowers, but when viewed at more than arm’s length the whole design took on the likeness of a human skull. Some forgotten Victorian artist must have thought this clever; he could hardly have imagined that it would ever be so appropriate.

For the little doctor, who had lived in that house for years, was finally hanged for the murder of his wife. A young woman was charged with him, and she too was sentenced to death. The case attracted a good deal of attention at the time, not only amongst the general public but in legal circles also. “The framing of the indictment to include both prisoners,” says one authority, “was perfectly logical and proper, for English law holds that if murder is committed, joint responsibility can be established against any number of persons without regard to the question of who struck the fatal blow. Thus it was possible throughout the Newcome trial to ignore the problem (interesting but perhaps insoluble) of individual behavior during the crucial hours. All the same, the defense seems to me to have been somewhat mismanaged; indeed, it was generally admitted afterwards that Sir Guy Lockhead made a cardinal mistake in putting Dr. Newcome in the witness box to face a Crown cross-examination. My own plan, had I been defending Newcome, would have been to stress the undoubted fact that all the evidence was circumstantial, and to urge that it was the duty of the prosecution to prove it to the hilt rather than expect my client to refute it. I am inclined to think that if this had been done, an opposite verdict might have been returned (even against the racial and political feeling that was aroused by the nationality of the female prisoner); for there was much in the doctor’s favor had not his hesitations, inconsistencies, and farfetched explanations created such a bad impression.”