by Richard Hull
A grunt from Vernon dismissed the point. “Probably be able to get round it. Anyhow we are putting the cart before the horse. We’ve got lots of time before the trial to think out our defence. What’s it going to be?”
“I was going to suggest,” Oliver began a little tentatively, since he really felt that questions of policy were his leader’s province, “that we might begin by suggesting that he wasn’t murdered at all.”
“You mean suicide?”
“No. I did think of that, but there isn’t any motive for it. At least not fit to bring forward. I meant quite simply that it was not a murder at all.”
“You mean that it really was heart failure all the time? I don’t remember that being taken as a line before.”
“Yes. The medical evidence isn’t a bit strong. The post-mortem didn’t reveal a single sign that wasn’t quite consistent with heart failure. I’m told that it wouldn’t anyway because the action of potassium cyanide is in fact to produce heart failure. Then while it is true that the snuff was doped—”
“No chance of getting round that?”
“None whatever, I’m afraid—there is very little evidence that he ever took the snuff. He was just going to do so on the station platform when the porter knocked it off his thumb. Then he gets into the train and, according to this man Hardy the baker, he was just going to do so again. Now Hardy had seen him thinking of doing so on the platform. Couldn’t we suggest that Hardy imagined the rest?”
“We can suggest anything that we like, but I fancy that Hardy’s answer will be that his curiosity was aroused and that was why he was watching. I think that any question about that might prove to be a boomerang.”
“Well, then, what about saying that though he was seen to be just about to take a pinch, he never actually did. That in fact he died of natural causes just before?”
“I see that the prosecution,” Vernon turned over the papers before him, “are going to get Hardy to say that he saw a flush come over Cargate’s cheeks just as he died. I don’t know, but I imagine that, if they think that is worth while putting in, that it is in some way a sign of having taken this particular poison.”
“I believe that it is, but I think that we could get round that. You see Hardy only saw his face reflected in the window. I believe that if we cross-examined him about what else he saw, that he would get into a muddle and so we could discount that.”
“Very well, then. I shall take that in hand, but I don’t honestly think that it is going to do us much good. It’s too great a coincidence that a man should die of heart failure when he is within a split second of taking something which would have killed him.”
“Coincidences have happened, and it’s up to the prosecution to prove that they haven’t again. If you come to think of it, I must say that I didn’t know that to sniff up anything of that sort was a fatal thing to do. I remember smelling as a small boy one of those bottles into which one put unfortunate butterflies and it didn’t kill me. But it did give me a headache though,” he added reflectively.
“Exactly. And it did kill the butterfly. Also you only sniffed it. You didn’t put some of it in carefully ground powder right up your nose and you didn’t have a weak heart. No, I don’t think that that line is much good—anyhow it only removes us from murder to attempted murder, because you can’t get round the fact that the crystals were ground up—but that doesn’t mean that we won’t try it. Only we must think out other lines as well. Who is trying it by the way?”
“Smith probably.”
“Then I don’t think we shall have any luck, but we can try.”
Vernon’s long experience had enabled him to form a picture of what would happen that proved to be substantially accurate. At the close of the case for the prosecution, he rose and put a preliminary point. “I submit, my lord, that the prosecution have not proved that the deceased was ever murdered at all, and on that ground I ask your lordship to withdraw the case from the jury.”
Mr. Justice Smith looked startled, as well he might, but he was a man who at all times liked to mix his law with as much spice of originality as might well be permitted. A subtle and original point that was not too obvious was certain to appeal to him and he would allow his fancy to toy with it and caress it, as a cat would play with a mouse. But, like the cat, he very seldom let the mouse escape, and so, although he was delighted to listen to the suggestion that Vernon was putting forward (though it had originally taken shape in Oliver’s brain), his common sense never really allowed him to consider that there was any substance in it. Nevertheless he listened with pleasure to what Vernon had to say.
Then he looked at his notes. “I see, Mr. Vernon,” he said, “that the witness, Hardy or Baker—there appears to be some confusion as to his surname—spoke of seeing the box with the sparkling lid appear from the deceased’s pocket, and the light brown powder being put on his left thumb. A lot of it there was, so the witness said, and he added that he admired the skill with which it was kept in place. Then he says that the thumb travelled surely up to Cargate’s nose, and with a powerful sniff the brown powder disappeared.”
“Yes, my lord, but you will remember that I cross-examined him about it.”
“You did. Let me see. ‘You were, when the deceased took the pinch of snuff sitting in your compartment.’ No, it was before that. If I remember aright, you called the attention of the Court twice to the fact that the witness was only in the corridor. Ah, here we are. Let me read it to you.” His lordship adjusted his spectacles, and read aloud.
“‘You saw this compound placed on the deceased’s thumb?’
“‘Yes.’
“‘You had seen that done before? Are you sure that the one incident did not remind you of the other?’
“‘It made me want to look.’
“‘Exactly. You wanted to see what happened. Did you get a very good view? It isn’t very easy to see something which is only reflected, is it?’
“‘Not so good a view as I should have liked, but I saw well enough.’
“‘You saw the powder on his thumb?’
“‘I did.’
“‘And then you saw that it had disappeared?’
“‘Yes.’
“‘It might have fallen on to the floor?’
“‘He raised his thumb to his nose.’
“‘And then he sneezed.’
“‘He did. Right violently.’
“‘I suggest to you that the sneeze blew the powder off his thumb.’
“‘It might have done, but I think that he sniffed it up.’
“‘But he might not?’
“‘Well, he might not.’
“I remember, Mr. Vernon,” Mr. Justice Smith put down his notes, “thinking that the witness expressed by the intonation of his voice, extreme doubt as to that.”
“But he had to admit that he might have blown it on to the floor.”
“He did indeed. Still—” There was very little doubt what Mr. Justice Smith thought of it. “I see,” he said, “that you then went on to deal with the question of the alleged flush on Mr. Cargate’s cheek. You will probably, however, agree with me that though the witness was a little doubtful as to such matters as the colour of the deceased’s tie, he was not really shaken on that point. Moreover, in reply to Mr. Blayton, he said that he saw quite clearly that the snuff placed on Mr. Cargate’s thumb actually disappeared up his nostril. What have you to say to that?”
“That the witness was jumping to conclusions. I am not impugning his honesty—merely his accuracy. I put, as you have just mentioned, my lord, various questions to him as to Mr. Cargate’s dress and movements, and he was unable to answer them. His recollection is very faint on all points except when we come to those which are really important, and there he is strangely certain and precise.”
Mr. Justice Smith considered the matter. It might well have been said in
reply that the witness was in fact confident; that he noticed the points that were essential because they were the points that were interesting and that he did not waste his time in looking at those details which were irrelevant; and that moreover there was no doubt but that the snuff was poisoned.
Out of the corner of his eye Sir Trefusis saw Blayton starting to rise and he did not feel that he wanted to hear him any more. “I don’t think that I need trouble you, Mr. Blayton. I see no reason for withdrawing the case from the jury. But I shall remind them that they will have to satisfy themselves that Henry Cargate did in fact die as the result of absorbing potassium cyanide through his mucous membrane. Go on, Mr. Vernon.”
“If that succeeds,” Vernon brought his thoughts back from considering what might happen, and continued his conference with his junior, “well and good, but naturally we must not assume that it will. The next point is that it seems to me that there is an elementary flaw in what I take to be the prosecution’s whole case. It seems too good to be true, but don’t they assume all the way through that, because the poison was put into the snuff after 9.45 a.m. on the 12th, that it must have been taken out of the bottle after that time? Why shouldn’t it have been taken out before, ground down at leisure, and put in later?”
“I think that they very nearly did fall into the trap. If you will look at my cross-examination at the police court and at the depositions we have got about that, you will see how nearly they did. But Fenby (he was the detective in charge), spotted it in the end, and as bad luck for us would have it, he was able to cover it completely. Look at what Raikes said then.” Oliver produced two more documents, and pointing to a passage, read it through quickly.
“‘Mr. Cargate purchased a quantity of potassium cyanide in Great Barwick on the afternoon of July 11th. He told me so himself. He did not get back in time to give it to Hardy the gardener that night. On the morning of July 12th, in my presence and in that of Miss Knox Forster, he unlocked a drawer in his writing-desk and put the bottle on the table, saying that he was going to tell Hardy to use it that evening and that he would give him some instructions during the day about its use. I had been summoned to the room to receive directions as to cleaning the box which Mr. Cargate used for keeping snuff in.’ That, I am afraid, means that it could not be got at. Moreover, Miss Knox Forster confirms what Raikes says.”
“Unless someone had a duplicate key.”
“A Yale lock, and there is not the slightest evidence of a duplicate or of Cargate’s keys being missing at any time. He kept them locked up in a safe at night which required a special combination in order to open it. He was a suspicious man, as it happens, and took rather a lot of precautions.”
“And there isn’t anything to suggest tampering with the safe or the drawer?”
“Nothing at all, I’m afraid.”
“Then that goes by the board. But I shall bear it in mind in case an opportunity occurs. It seems to me that our strongest points are the weakness of the motive, the possibility of it being one of three other people, and, generally speaking, the lack of very convincing proof. We shall be able all the way through to throw doubts on the accuracy of the witnesses and of the certitude of the conclusions that the prosecution are drawing.”
“Are we going to put forward an alternative theory?”
Vernon thought for a minute. “On the whole I think not. If one does it without really strong grounds, it rather puts the jury’s back up. But I think that we may say that though we do not suggest it as a fact, nevertheless we would like to point out that it was just as possible for A to have done it as B. For instance this stamp dealer—what’s his name?”
“Macpherson.”
“Macpherson, Macpherson,” Vernon repeated it twice to get it into his head. “It’s pretty clear that he had nothing to do with it, but Blayton will have to deal with the point that he did have half a chance, because all the time must be covered. It will come out that Cargate was a rogue and composed stamps from portions of others—very likely Blayton will produce those half-prepared West Indian things that Fenby found and the apparatus and inks for putting on or removing parts of surcharges and overprints. If we are lucky, he will get tied up in technicalities and begin boring everyone. He may even rather stress the point because he has got to suggest that Cargate was such a wrong ’un that to get rid of him was a public-spirited action. It was of course entirely meritorious and that in itself may rather prejudice the jury in our favour. Still, that’s beside the point. Where was I?”
“You were talking about Macpherson.”
“Oh yes. Now is there any reason for being certain that he did not do it?”
“He was able to prove that he was never nearer to Scotney End Hall than Larkingfield on the morning of the 12th. Consequently it could not have been he who moved the bottle in the morning. Also he had, according to his own story which seems to be borne out by his action in going on selling stamps to and buying them from Cargate, no absolutely clear idea that there was anything wrong about Cargate until that afternoon—and then he says that he was doubtful. In fact he went down to answer some accusations of Cargate’s, and he’s got the letter showing them.”
“He might have started suspecting then—or at any rate getting annoyed.”
“He might, but his demeanour was perfectly friendly, as Raikes has said, when he was shown in, and in the car coming up he spoke to Miss Knox Forster about what a good customer Cargate was.”
“Bluff perhaps?”
“It might be, but he could not have expected to find not only some poison ready at hand but, in addition, the means of administering it in an unusual way. It would not occur to everyone that it was lethal at all. And he had something like three minutes in which to decide that it was, make up his mind, not only how he would do it, but that he would do it at all, pound the crystals into powder—incidentally finding something with which that could be done—and mix the result thoroughly with the snuff. All that when at any moment he might find that Cargate had returned, and Cargate, though the full quarrel was to come later and the accusation of stealing the stamp had not then been made, had implied that there was something funny about the stamps Macpherson had been selling to him. Macpherson knew that Cargate was a suspicious man and he would not have run risks. For instance, if Cargate had returned while he was pounding up the crystals, he could not possibly have explained it away. But, anyhow, I don’t think that it could have been done in the time. Moreover, supposing that he had, it would have been done in such a hurry that you would have thought that he would have left some traces. And so far as I know, he didn’t.”
“What sort of traces do you mean?”
“Well, the bottle, for instance. You notice that the gardener says that at five o’clock it was in exactly the same position as it was at twelve.”
“He can’t really be sure of that, can he?”
“I don’t see how he really can be, but he says he is.”
Vernon put down a note. “We might be able to shake him about that, or at any rate to make the jury see that he was swearing to something which was more than any human being could know.”
“Yes, I see, but all the same there isn’t any positive sign. And unfortunately there are several actual pieces of evidence which, though small in themselves, point against our client. And cumulatively they do add up to an unpleasantly effective whole.”
“They do, and we’ve got to try to deal with them. But I want first of all just to finish with one other possibility. That is Yockleton. Just the sort of chap who would do a murder for the very best of reasons.”
“I believe,” Oliver laughed, “that he would have been more likely to have done it if Cargate had not suggested that he stole that emerald. After that it might have been thought that he did it to shield himself, and Yockleton might be prepared to murder someone in a good cause and to take the consequences of doing so, but he would never have done it if there w
as a possibility of his motives being misinterpreted. Besides from what I can hear of him, if he had done it, he would immediately have confessed to it at the first opportunity.”
“I wonder,” Vernon said. “When it comes to the point people are rather more shy of confessing to crimes which they have really done than you might think—even people of Yockleton’s type, whose conscience and sense of duty make them at once the salt of the earth and a perfect nuisance. No, unless you can produce something more definite than that, I shall contemplate uttering the most shameless slanders against Mr. Yockleton.”
Oliver thought for a minute before he answered. He liked working with Vernon, who might well have applied to himself the description he had just given of Yockleton. For there was no doubt that there was no one who devoted himself more thoroughly and conscientiously to the cases of his clients than the short, pugnacious, tendentious, but eminently likeable little man who was now insisting on Oliver’s answering a case in which neither of them believed. Moreover, it was quite clear to Oliver that he would have to produce a reasonably good answer.
“I think,” he began, “that the reasons for excluding Yockleton are rather the same as those for leaving out Macpherson. In the same way that Macpherson has been able to prove that he was not at Scotney End during the morning, so Yockleton has been able to account for all his day after he left Cargate in the morning. And so, as in the case of Macpherson, you have got to assume that he conceived and executed the whole idea while Cargate was fetching the parish magazine.”