Now, gentlemen, I am going to leave the first list as it stands: that of the persons with no apparent motive whatsoever for either wishing or causing the death of Maxwell Brunton. But I am going to take that second list, those with a motive, and subdivide it into those with a strong motive and those with a weak motive. Let us examine that list before we split it.
We have Enid Brunton, Adrian Brunton, Peter Hargreaves, Jeannette Bokay, the Jenningses, and Mary Lamort. Consider that list in your minds for a moment, gentlemen, and you will find that the subdivision is easy. In the ‘strong-motive’ half we shall have Enid Brunton, Adrian Brunton, Jeannette Bokay, and Mary Lamort. In the ‘weak-motive’ half we shall have Peter Hargreaves, Arthur Jennings, Sarah Jennings, and Mary Lamort …
I hope you are following me, gentlemen. I am carrying out, as best I know how, a very difficult task. You will notice that once again one name appears on two lists: that of Mary Lamort. I do not want to seem unduly cryptic. Perhaps I have not been, but Mary Lamort must come up on every one of our lists. She was associated illicitly with the dead man. She did go to see him in secret that night … and yet we know nothing! She must appear in all classes, so that whatever class we happen to be thinking about at the moment her name will be there before us for consideration. We are left, then, like this: I will state this as a table. It is in my mind as a table.
No Motive.—Sydney Harrison, Claire Bayford, Violet Burrage, and Mary Lamort.
Weak Motive.—Peter Hargreaves, Arthur Jennings, Sarah Jennings, and Mary Lamort.
Strong Motive.—Enid Brunton, Adrian Brunton, Jeannette Bokay, and Mary Lamort.
which, gentlemen, is, I hope, clear, but I am sure, unfortunately, gets us precisely nowhere!
That table and all that I said before I think may fairly be held to have codified all the abstract evidence which has been elicited during these long days upon which the Court has sat. And yet, I repeat, we are nowhere! We have, it is true, one common factor—Mary Lamort—but that is all. Actually we are nowhere! Now for concrete evidence:
We have none. Or practically none. We have the fact of Maxwell Brunton’s death, and sworn medical opinion that that death could not have been self-caused. We have the approximate time of death; the definite cause of death; and the definite instrument which inflicted that death. And we have, above all, the practically absolute certainty that the death was caused by an inmate of the house—by one of those ten people whom, these past days, we have been questioning and questioning and questioning. We have also one witness who saw one other person in the house go into the study that night, and secretly. But, as we have already seen, this piece of evidence, as a help toward arriving at a really definite conclusion, is valueless. Almost as if it had never existed. If we had more concrete evidence we might arrive at a conclusion, but we have not. And, after all our efforts, I am perfectly certain that we could not get more even if we sat for a year.
It is my considered opinion, gentlemen, that this crime will not—cannot—be brought home to any single person unless and until further concrete circumstantial evidence is found. Personally, I do not believe that such further evidence exists. I cannot believe it. You must remember that not only have we been doing our best here in this room, but that, outside, the police, with all their vast resources, all their vast experience, and their terrific energy, have been working to the same end. And they, gentlemen, even with our labours to help them, are not a whit more forward than they were.
It is not out of place for me to say this last, I know, because this morning, before we met here, I discussed the matter with the authorities. They are, I know, going to continue their inquiries. They feel that, however baffled we and they may be at the moment, something, if they continue, may ‘turn up.’ I must say I doubt it.
Gentlemen, I come to an end feeling more helpless and ineffectual than ever in my life. I can only hope that others, watching my labours, have realised what difficulties—to my mind, insuperable difficulties—have stood and will stand between us and a solution of this affair.
Mr Foreman, I must now formally ask you to consult with the rest of the jury and in due course let me know your verdict. You know, I think, the verdicts which you can return. Do you wish to withdraw and consider your verdict?
Yes, Mr Coroner.
Very well, I will wait.
THE JURY
You have considered, then, and arrived at your verdict?
Yes, Mr Coroner.
It is …?
Murder. By person or persons unknown.
Thank you, gentlemen. If I may say so, the only possible verdict in the circumstances.
PART FOUR
LETTER FROM COLONEL ANTHONY GETHRYN TO SIR EGBERT LUCAS, DATED 6th AUGUST, 193–
COSTA DEL CHICA, SPAIN,
6th August, 193–
MY DEAR LUCAS,
I have had a go at your problem. Although I don’t want my penny back, I’ve rung the bell. But don’t take that sentence too blithely. I know who killed this man Brunton. My reasons for being sure you will find later, but you will also find that you are no forrarder. No forrarder, I mean, from your ‘give-a-man-a-black-cap-and-hang-him’ point of view. You won’t be able to do that. I’ve done this sum, I know, and I’m sending you the answer, but it’s not the sort of sum—and the way it’s worked out isn’t orthodox enough—to produce a verdict of ‘Guilty’ from any British jury.
When I read your letter I was a good deal annoyed with you, both for trying to spoil my holiday and thinking that you could. And then, when I found that with the suave, bland nerve which I suppose has got you where you are, you had not waited for consent, but had sent me that verbatim report of the inquest proceedings, I became, in these stages, amused at what I thought was your persistence, exasperated by the sight of the unopened bulky folder, curious as to the oddity of an affair which should make you pester me like this, and at last flagrantly avid to try my hand at off-the-spot detection.
It was when I had let this avidity have free play among the shorthand reports that I realised for the first time that it might be possible really to get the answer to the puzzle with nothing else to work on. I then sat down and thought for a week. On the sixth day the thing was in as much of a muddle as ever it had been. On the seventh morning I suddenly saw the key, and within two hours I knew as much as I’m going to tell you. It wasn’t until after I’d made the notes of what follows in this letter (that is, it wasn’t until after I had worked out my equation), that I wired to you for those photographs of the dramatis personæ. (How the devil, by the way, did you get them all? And how, having got them, were you able to let me have them so quickly?) I merely mention this to show that I was not even helped by knowing what the people looked like. I only wanted to know, as confirmation, what they looked like.
I feel, you know, rather pleased with myself. It was like reading a very good detective story and actually working out before you got to Chapter XXIX—‘Crawley Worme Explains’—who did kill Lady Hermoine.
But let’s get on.
X equals the girl Violet Burrage. There is no doubt of this. You listen, m’sieu, and I show you; yes, like this:
As you know, in any affair at all with which I am concerned from the point of view of ‘finding out,’ my first rule is to look for oddnesses. It doesn’t matter to me whether the oddnesses appear to be related to the crime or not. The fact that odd they are is enough. Sometimes I have to look a long time before I find anything odd. Sometimes I never find anything at all. But this time—well, I ask you! The whole business is an odd business. Right from beginning to end. Instead of having to look for oddities you have them staring goggle-eyed at you from every angle. You have, instead, of the usual search for motive, a perfect gallimaufry of motive handed to you, right at the beginning of the proceedings, on a large salver.
To start: There are, besides the corpse, ten people in the house; and of these ten one or more must have been the slayer. And of these ten, no fewer than seven have entirely adequate m
otives for slaying.
That ought, you know, to be odd enough for one South Kensington murder (incidentally, Lucas, hasn’t this opened your eyes about South Kensington? I never thought it of them, I didn’t really!) but instead of finishing there the oddities go on. And on. You find, after this orgy of motive, the following:
A very sudden and quite, at first sight, out-of-character cautiousness upon the part of the amorous deceased. You find that the only definite piece of ‘accusative’ evidence is at the same time at least part of an alibi for the accused. You find that the donor of this accusative evidence has, apparently, the gift of being able to see through solid bodies! And you find, lastly, that this accuser (apart from his, her, or its appearance—which is only corroborative) suffers from an odd affliction.
We will now go back to the beginning again. We will take our first oddness. There is too much motive. Those seven people who have between them this excess of reason for killing have been most exhaustively dealt with by the coroner—he does not, I must say, seem quite such a fool as coroners generally are—and so, therefore, we leave them. But what do we do? We look at those people who have not got, apparently, any motive. Don’t think I’m mad or drunk. I mean it. This is an odd business and therefore we must get at it in an odd way. In the usual case, where the perpetrator of a crime is hidden, the book of rules says, ‘Look for motive.’ In this case we must turn the book of rules upside down. Get me? It is odd that there should be a lot of motive, but there is a lot of motive. Therefore it is odd, this time, that there should be people without motive. I hope you follow, but whether you do or not, you’ve got to come along.
I said, let’s look at the people without motive. They are Sydney Harrison (what an unpleasant little creature), Claire Bayford, and Violet Burrage, the kitchenmaid. There they are. Inscribe their names in letters of fire upon your brain and hold them there. We now make a table: a table of the oddities of which I have just spoken. It comes out, slightly rearranged, like this:
Oddity 1.—Three persons, out of ten, without motive.
Oddity 2.—Accuser of Mary Lamort—deliverer of Mary Lamort.
Oddity 3.—The accuser of Mary Lamort has X-ray eyes.
Oddity 4.—Maxwell Brunton develops, on first visit upon the fatal night of Mistress Mary Lamort, unusual and excessive caution because of …?
We will now do that table all over again and put against each oddity the answer or equivalent to that oddity. Thus:
ODDITY
EQUIVALENT
1. 3 persons without motive.
Sydney Harrison, Claire Bayford, Violet Burrage.
2. Accuser and clearer of Mary Lamort.
Violet Burrage.
3. Accuser of Mary Lamort has X-ray eyes.
Violet Burrage.
4. Maxwell Brunton develops excessive caution because of
Violet Burrage.
Look at this. You may not see just yet why I have put Violet Burrage’s name as the equivalent to the last two oddities. You may not even see what I mean by the third oddity. But you will see that, in regard to (1) she is all right; that in regard to (2) she is all right; (it was her evidence that first got Lamort really into trouble, and it was her evidence—by showing that the second visit of Lamort to the study was at one-thirty—that freed Lamort of the possibility of having killed Brunton on that second visit). Now for (3) and (4). I will show you that Violet is also the right answer here. But I must first show you, perhaps what (3) means. In her evidence, Violet exhibits a complete knowledge of the Lamort’s attire. Violet knows (1) that the nightdreth wath black; (2) that it wath thilk; (3) that it had jutht a thort of wrap over it; (4) that thith wrap wath jutht a thin thing; (5) that it had bright colourth on the front; (6) that Lamort was wearing a great green stone which could not have been worn by anyone else in the house.
Look at your plan; the plan that the coroner had; the plan that you sent me; the plan that everybody has been looking at so long that they’ve quite forgotten to make any meaning out of it. When she saw Lamort, she (Violet) was coming out of the linen cupboard, and Lamort, Violet says, was coming out of Lamort’s room. Look at Lamort’s room. There is, we know from Violet, a light on the landing, a light which is apparently sufficient to show up—though it must be fairly dimly—the whole of the corridor down to the study. But Violet says that when she saw Lamort, ‘the’d’ (Lamort had) ‘jutht come out of her room. The wath jutht thutting the door.’
Look again at your plan and you will see which way the doors open. Lamort, to have been shutting her door, is almost certain to have had her back to the landing and the linen cupboard. Lamort was going to the study. Lamort—unless it had been for one brief let’s-have-a-look-and-see-if-anyone’s-about glance, far too swift to show herself in detail to anyone just peeping—would not at all have faced the landing or the linen cupboard. She was going to the study, and she went (Violet says so) to the study.
Now, even supposing that Lamort was feeling gymnastic and wanted to shut the door behind her back, and did in fact shut the door behind her back, facing while she did so toward the linen cupboard and the landing, is it possible that Violet could have seen in such detail a no doubt very attractive costume? It is not likely; it is so damn unlikely as to be virtually impossible. So much for that third oddity.
Now for the fourth. That oddity was: Maxwell Brunton develops, on the first visit of Mistress Mary Lamort to the study, unusual and excessive caution because of Violet Burrage.
This is a difficult one, but it’s all right. Look here. First, we may believe the second evidence of Lamort. No one, much less an erotic and neurotic woman of this description, who probably isn’t such a bad sort, can lie in layers. Her first lie took it all out of her. Her second statement was the truth. Now, then: Brunton is ‘carrying on,’ to the limit, with Lamort. Brunton is an entirely experienced lover and manager of women. Brunton has made a date with Lamort. The appointment was for no definite time. Brunton said, in effect, ‘Come along when the coast’s clear.’ Lamort, accordingly, knowing that the house was abed (she had come up with the main body and must have listened and heard Claire Bayford and Hargreaves go to their rooms a bit later), went along to the study at about a quarter-past twelve. But is she welcome? She is not. Maxwell, she tells us, made a bit of a racket as she was mousily entering and before she could see round the door. (She says, ‘I heard him jump up. I think he must have knocked his chair over.’) Maxwell lets her come in, but only just in. Maxwell is cross. Maxwell says something like, ‘No, no, it’s not safe! You must go away and come back later!’ Ridiculous! If it is not safe, the danger of discovery is doubled by sending the poor lady immediately back over her hazardous journey. But if it is safe, why send her back? Obviously, the man is concerned not with the possibility of someone else (a) coming in or (b) overhearing, but with the certainty of someone (a) coming in; (b) overhearing, or (c) being in already, and of these three alternatives, I want to make you, Lucas, take the third.
If the certainty had been that someone outside the room was at the time about to come in in a position to overhear, Brunton could have said nothing. There wouldn’t have been time. He would either have just whispered, ‘Go!’ with such intensity that she would have gone, realising the urgency, or he would have taken her in and either faced the music or hidden her. If the certainty had been that someone was at some future time going to come in or to be able to overhear, he would have told her so: what he would have told her would have been that the someone who was going to come in or to be in a position to overhear was his wife. He would have said this whether it was true or not, because this would be a satisfactory explanation to Lamort and also an explanation which would effectively make her realise the necessity for going. But he followed neither of these courses, and, therefore, if you really think about this, you will see that the danger lay not outside that room at all, but inside it. That is, that there was some other person in that room at that time.
Who was this? Who could it have been? The o
nly way to find this out is by elimination. It could not have been his wife: she would not have consented to being hidden. It is most highly improbable that it was his daughter, for the same reason. It could not have been any male member of the household, for any one of them would either (1) have objected, at least long enough for the plan to go agley, to being hidden, or (2) and this is the more probable, Brunton would never have allowed Lamort to enter the room. He saw that door opening; he was waiting for Lamort. If he had had a man with him he would have been at that door in a flash. He was, as sticks out very plainly from the evidence, a very decent person of his kind. (Is that good enough for you about the men? I could go on, but unless you send me a special prepaid cablegram I shan’t. Think it out.)
That exhausts the non-starters, and we are left with Sarah Jennings, Jeannette Bocquet, and Violet Burrage.
Sarah Jennings I am going to scratch. She could only have had one reason for being in the study at such an extraordinary time, and that would be for the purpose of silencing Brunton in order that he might not send her Arthur back to finish his stretch. The improbability of this is so vast that no backing to it is really required, but just in order to be tidy, I will point out that, if this woman—this cheerful, humorous, fifty-year-old Cockney dame—had so screwed herself up that she was actually contemplating killing ‘the Master’ (unthinkable thought!) she would have been unable to do it in anything save one violent upheaval. She could not—it is psychologically impossible—have talked to the Master first, and allowed the Master to hide her when the Master’s lady came in. She could only have burst in, picked up the rockery, and done the job right away. If, being about to kill him, she had spoken at all, it would have been to ‘give him the rough edge of her tongue!’ in which case the rough edges would have been heard quite easily by Lamort, and she, Lamort, would never have entered.
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