Strong Poison

by Dorothy L. Sayers

  Chief-Inspector Parker, disengaging himself from a group of friends, came slowly up through the crowd and greeted the Dowager. “And what do you think of it, Peter?” he added, turning to Wimsey, “rather neatly got up, eh?”

  “Charles,” said Wimsey, “you ought not to be allowed out without me. You’ve made a mistake, old man.”

  “Made a mistake?”

  “She didn’t do it.”

  “Oh, come!”

  “She did not do it. It’s very convincing and water-tight, but it’s all wrong.”

  “You don’t really think that.”

  “I do.”

  Parker looked distressed. He had confidence in Wimsey’s judgment, and, in spite of his own interior certainty, he felt shaken.

  “My dear man, where’s the flaw in it?”

  “There isn’t one. It’s damnably knife proof. There’s nothing wrong about it at all, except that the girl’s innocent.”

  “You’re turning into a common or garden psychologist,” said Parker, with an uneasy laugh, “isn’t he, Duchess?”

  “I wish I had known that girl,” replied the Dowager, in her usual indirect manner, “so interesting and a really remarkable face, though perhaps not strictly good-looking, and all the more interesting for that, because good-looking people are so often cows. I have been reading one of her books, really quite good and so well-written, and I didn’t guess the murderer till page 200, rather clever, because I usually do it about page 15. So very curious to write books about crimes and then be accused of a crime oneself, some people might say it was a judgement. I wonder whether, if she didn’t do it, she has spotted the murderer herself? I don’t suppose detective writers detect much in real life, do they, except Edgar Wallace of course, who always seems to be everywhere and dear Conan Doyle and the black man what was his name and of course the Slater person, a scandal, though now I come to think of it that was in Scotland where they have such very odd laws about everything particularly getting married. Well, I suppose we shall soon know now, not the truth, necessarily, but what the jury have made of it.”

  “Yes; they are being rather longer than I expected. But, I say, Wimsey, I wish you’d tell me—”

  “Too late, too late, you cannot enter now. I have locked my heart in a silver box and pinned it wi’ a golden pin. Nobody’s opinion matters now, except the jury’s. I expect Miss Climpson is telling ’em all about it. When once she starts she doesn’t stop for an hour or two.”

  “Well, they’ve been half-an-hour now,” said Parker.

  “Still waiting?” said Salcombe Hardy, returning to the press-table.

  “Yes—so this is what you call twenty minutes! Three-quarters of an hour, I make it.”

  “They’ve been out an hour and a half,” said a girl to her fiancé, just behind Wimsey. “What can they be discussing?”

  “Perhaps they don’t think she did it after all.”

  “What nonsense! Of course she did it. You could see it by her face. Hard, that’s what I call it, and she never once cried or anything.”

  “Oh, I dunno,” said the young man.

  “You don’t mean to say you admired her, Frank?”

  “Oh, well, I dunno. But she didn’t look like a murderess.”

  “And how do you know what a murderess looks like? Have you ever met one?”

  “Well, I’ve seen them at Madame Tussaud’s.”

  “Oh, wax-works. Everybody looks like a murderer in a waxworks.”

  “Well, p’raps they do. Have a choc.”

  “Two hours and a quarter,” said Waffles Newton, impatiently. “They must gone to sleep. Have to be a special edition. What happens if they are all night about it?”

  “We sit here all night, that’s all.”

  “Well, it’s my turn for a drink. Let me know, will you?”

  “Right-ho!”

  “I’ve been talking to one of the ushers,” said the Man Who Knows the Ropes importantly, to a friend. “The judge has just sent round to the jury to ask if he can help them in any way.”

  “Has he? And what did they say?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “They’ve been out three hours and a half now,” whispered the girl behind Wimsey. “I’m getting fearfully hungry.”

  “Are you, darling? Shall we go?”

  “No—I want to hear the verdict. We’ve waited so long now, we may as well stop on.”

  “Well, I’ll go out and get some sandwiches.”

  “Oh, that would be nice. But don’t be long, because I’m sure I shall get hysterics when I hear the sentence.”

  “I’ll be as quick as ever I can. Be glad you’re not the jury—they’re not allowed anything at all.”

  “What, nothing to eat or drink?”

  ”Not a thing. I don’t think they’re supposed to have light or fire either.”

  “Poor things! But it’s central-heated, isn’t it?”

  “It’s hot enough here, anyway. I’ll be glad of a breath of fresh air.”

  Five hours.

  “There’s a terrific crowd in the street,” said the Man Who Knows the Ropes, returning from a reconnaissance. “Some people started booing the prisoner and a bunch of men attacked them, and one fellow has been carried off in an ambulance.”

  “Really, how amusing! Look! There's Mr. Urquhart; he’s come back. I'm so sorry for him, aren’t you? It must be horrid having somebody die in your house.”

  “He’s talking to the Attorney-General. They all had a proper dinner, of course.”

  “The Attorney-General isn’t as handsome as Sir Impey Biggs. Is it true he keeps canaries?”

  “The Attorney-General?”

  “No, Sir Impey.”

  “Yes, quite true. He takes prizes with them.”

  “What a funny idea!”

  “Bear up, Freddy,” said Lord Peter Wimsey. “I perceive movements. They are coming, my own, my sweet, were it never so airy a tread.”

  The court rose to its feet. The judge took his seat. The prisoner, very white in the electricity, re-appeared in the dock. The door leading to the jury-room opened.

  “Look at their faces,” said the fiancée, “they say if it’s going to be Guilty they never look at the prisoner. Oh, Archie, hold my hand!”

  The Clerk of Assizes addressed the jury in tones in which formality struggled with reproach.

  “Members of the jury, have you all agreed upon your verdict?”

  The foreman rose with an injured and irritable countenance.

  “I am sorry to say that we find it impossible to come to an agreement.”

  A prolonged gasp and murmur went round the court. The judge leaned forward, very courteous and not in the least fatigued.

  “Do you think that with a little more time you may be able to reach an agreement?”

  “I’m afraid not, my lord.” The foreman glanced savagely at one corner of the jury-box, where the elderly spinster sat with her head bowed and her hands tightly clasped. “I see no prospect at all of ever agreeing.”

  “Can I assist you in any way?”

  “No, thank you, my lord. We quite understand the evidence, but we cannot agree about it.”

  “That is unfortunate. I think perhaps you had better try again, and then, if you are still unable to come to a decision, you must come back and tell me. In the meantime, if my knowledge of the law can be of any assistance to you, it is, of course, quite at your disposal.”

  The jury stumbled sullenly away. The judge trailed his scarlet robes out at the back of the bench. The murmur of conversation rose and swelled into a loud rumble.

  “By Jove,” said Freddy Arbuthnot, “I believe it’s your Miss Climpson that’s holdin’ the jolly old show up, Wimsey. Did you see how the foreman glared at her?”

  “Good egg,” said Wimsey, “oh, excellent, excellent egg! She has a fearfully tough conscience—she may stick it out yet.”

  “I believe you’ve been corrupting the jury, Wimsey. Did you signal to her or something?”<
br />
  “I didn’t,” said Wimsey. “Believe me or believe me not, I refrained from so much as a lifted eyebrow.”

  “And he himself has said it,” muttered Freddy, “and it’s greatly to his credit. But it’s damned hard on people who want their dinners.”

  Six hours. Six hours and a half.

  “At last!”

  As the jury filed back for the second time, they showed signs of wear and tear. The harassed woman had been crying and was still choking into her handkerchief. The man with the bad cold looked nearly dead. The artist’s hair was rumpled into an untidy bush. The company director and the foreman looked as though they would have liked to strangle somebody, and the elderly spinster had her eyes shut and her lips moving as though she were praying.

  “Members of the jury, are you agreed upon your verdict?”

  “No; we are quite sure that it is impossible for us ever to agree.”

  “You are quite sure?” said the judge. “I do not wish to hurry you in any way. I quite prepared to wait here as long as you like.”

  The snarl of the company director was audible even in the gallery. The foreman controlled himself, and replied in a voice ragged with temper and exhaustion: “We shall never agree, my lord—not were we to stay here till Doomsday.”

  “That is very unfortunate,” said the judge, “but in that case, of course, there is nothing for it but to discharge you and order a fresh trial. I feel sure that you have all done your best and that you have brought all the resources of your intelligence and conscience to bear on this matter to which you have listened with so much patient and zealous attention. You are discharged, and you are entitled to be excused from all further jury service for twelve years.”

  Almost before the further formalities completed, and while the Judge’s robes still flared in the dark little doorway, Wimsey had scrambled down into the well of the court. He caught the defending counsel by the gown.

  “Biggy—well done! You’ve got another chance. Let me in on this and we’ll pull it off.”

  “You think so, Wimsey? I don’t mind confessing that we’ve done better than I ever expected.”

  “We’ll do better still next time. I say, Biggy, swear me in as a clerk or something. I want to interview her.”

  “Who, my client?”

  “Yes, I’ve got a hunch about this case. We’ve got to get her off, and I know it can be done.”

  “Well, come and see me tomorrow. I must go and speak to her now. I’ll be in my chambers at ten. Goodnight.”

  Wimsey darted off and rushed round to the side-door, from which the jury were emerging. Last of them all, her hat askew and her mackintosh dragged awkwardly round her shoulders, came the elderly spinster. Wimsey dashed up to her and seized her hand.

  “Miss Climpson!”

  “Oh, Lord Peter. Oh, dear! What a dreadful day it has been. Do you know, it was me that caused the trouble, mostly, though two of them most bravely backed me up, and oh, Lord Peter, I hope I haven’t done wrong, but I couldn’t, no I couldn’t in conscience say she had done it when I was sure she hadn’t, could I? Oh, oh, dear!”

  “You’re absolutely right. She didn’t do it, and thank God you stood up to them and gave her another chance. I’m going to prove she didn’t do it. And I’m going to take you out to dinner, and—I say, Miss Climpson!”

  “Yes?”

  “I hope you won’t mind, because I haven’t shaved since this morning, but I’m going to take you round the next quiet corner and kiss you.”

  Chapter IV

  THE following day was a Sunday, but Sir Impey Biggs cancelled an engagement to play golf (with the less regret as it was pouring cats and dogs), and held an extraordinary council of war.

  “Well, now, Wimsey,” said the advocate, “what is your idea about this? May I introduce Mr. Crofts of Crofts & Cooper, solicitors for the defence.”

  “My idea is that Miss Vane didn’t do it,” said Wimsey. “I dare say that’s an idea which has already occurred to you, but with the weight of my great mind behind it, no doubt it strikes the imagination more forcibly.”

  Mr. Crofts, not being quite clear whether this was funny or fatuous, smiled deferentially.

  “Quite so,” said Sir Impey, “but I should be interested to know how many of the jury saw it in that light.”

  “Well, I can tell you that, at least, because I know one of them. One woman and half a woman and about three-quarters of a man.”

  “Meaning precisely?”

  “Well, the woman I know stuck out for it that Miss Vane wasn’t that sort of person. They bullied her a good deal, of course, because she couldn’t lay a finger on any real weakness in the chain of evidence, but she said the prisoner’s demeanour was part of the evidence and that she was entitled to take that into consideration. Fortunately, she is a tough, thin, elderly woman with a sound digestion and a militant High-Church conscience of remarkable staying-power, and her wind is excellent. She let ’em all gallop themselves dead, and then said she still didn’t believe it and wasn’t going to say she did.”

  “Very useful,” said Sir Impey. “A person who can believe all the articles of the Christian faith is not going to boggle over a trifle of adverse evidence. But we can never hope for a whole jury-box full of ecclesiastical diehards. How about the other woman and the man?”

  “Well, the woman was rather unexpected. She was the stout, prosperous party who keeps a sweet-shop. She said she didn’t think the case was proved, and that it was perfectly possible that Boyes had taken the stuff himself, or that his cousin had given it to him. She was influenced, rather oddly, by the fact that she had attended one or two arsenic trials, and had not been satisfied by the verdict in some other cases—notably the Seddon trial. She has no opinion of men in general (she has buried her third) and she disbelieves all expert evidence on principle. She said that, personally, she thought Miss Vane might have done it, but she wouldn’t really hang a dog on medical evidence. At first she was ready to vote with the majority, but she took a dislike to the foreman, who tried to bear her down by his male authority, and eventually she said she was going to back up my friend Miss Climpson.”

  Sir Impey laughed.

  “Very interesting. I wish we always got this inside information about juries. We sweat like hell to prepare evidence, and then one person makes up her mind on what isn’t really evidence at all, and another supports her on the ground that evidence can’t be relied on. How about the man?”

  “The man was the artist, and the only person who really understood the kind of life these people were leading. He believed your client’s version of the quarrel, and said that, if the girl really felt like that about the man, the last thing she would want to do would be to kill him. She’d rather stand back and watch him ache, like the man with the hollow tooth in the comic song. He was also able to believe the whole story about purchasing the poisons, which to the others, of course, seemed extremely feeble. He also said that Boyes, from what he had heard, was a conceited prig, and that anybody who disposed of him was doing a public service. He had had the misfortune to read some of his books, and considered the man an excrescence and a public nuisance. Actually he thought it more than likely that he had committed suicide, and if anybody was prepared to take that point of view he was ready to second it. He also alarmed the jury by saying that he was accustomed to late hours and a stale atmosphere, and had not the slightest objection to sitting up all night. Miss Climpson also said that, in a righteous cause, a little personal discomfort was a trifle, and added that her religion had trained her to fasting. At that point, the third woman had hysterics and another man, who had an important deal to put through next day, lost his temper, so, to prevent bodily violence, the foreman said he thought they had better agree to disagree. So that’s how it was.”

  “Well, they’ve given us another chance,” said Mr. Crofts, “so it’s all to the good. It can’t come on now till the next session, which gives us about a month, and we’ll probably get Bancroft next ti
me, who’s not such a severe judge as Crossley. The thing is, can we do anything to improve the look of our case?”

  “I’m going to have a strenuous go at it,” said Wimsey. “There must be evidence somewhere, you know. I know you’ve all worked like beavers, but I’m going to work like a king beaver. And I’ve got one big advantage over the rest of you.”

  “More brains?” suggested Sir Impey, grinning.

  “No—I should hate to suggest that, Biggy. But I do believe in Miss Vane’s innocence.”

  “Damn it, Wimsey, didn’t my eloquent speeches convince you that I was a wholehearted believer?”

  “Of course they did. I nearly shed tears. Here’s old Biggy, I said to myself, going to retire from the Bar and cut his throat if this verdict goes against him, because he won’t believe in British justice any more. No—it’s your triumph at having secured a disagreement that gives you away, old horse. More than you expected. You said so. By the way, if it’s not a rude question, who’s paying you, Biggy?”

  “Crofts and Cooper,” said Sir Impey, slyly.

  “They’re in the thing for their health, I take it?”

  “No, Lord Peter. As a matter of fact, the costs in this case are being borne by Miss Vane’s publishers and by a—well, a certain newspaper, which is running her new book as a serial. They expect a scoop as the result of all this. But frankly, I don’t quite know what they’ll say to the expense of a fresh trial. I’m expecting to hear from them this morning.”

  “The vultures,” said Wimsey. “Well, they’d better carry on, but tell ’em I’ll see they’re guaranteed. Don’t bring my name in, though.”

  “This is very generous—”

  “Not at all. I wouldn’t lose the fun of all this for the world. Sort of case I fairly wallow in. But in return you must do something for me. I want to see Miss Vane. You must get me passed in as part of your outfit, so that I can hear her version of the story in reasonable privacy. Get me?”