by Q. Patrick
Once again Sir Henry asked Mr. Graydon’s comment. Mr. Graydon said:
“There is no truth whatever in those two paragraphs. As a matter of fact, I had no idea that my daughter and her husband were not on good terms. Whenever I saw them together they always appeared to be quite happy and fond of each other.”
Sir Henry had won his first major victory in the defense of Edith Thompson. He had elicited testimony from one of the Crown’s own witnesses that two passages from the letters, which seemed in their context the descriptions of real events, had in fact been entirely imaginary. This, of course, implied to the jury that if Edith Thompson had fancifully invented these scenes of domestic conflict, she could just as well have invented all the other damning passages in the letters. But this weapon that he had introduced into Edith’s defense was a double-edged one. Although it showed what he wanted it to show, it also, to the simple mind, branded Edith Thompson as a liar. And, to a jury, a liar is often confused with a murderer. This was one of the most heartbreaking of Sir Henry’s dilemmas. How could he put across the fact that Edith Thompson’s gossamer inventions were unreal, yet, at the same time, not just coarse, common lies?
This problem was to dog the defense throughout the trial.
After Sir Henry was finished with Mr. Graydon, Mr. Inskip asked some unimportant details about the relative positions of the Graydon house, the Thompson house, and Mrs. Bywaters’ house, and the witness was dismissed.
Constable Foster was then brought to the stand to describe the arrest of Bywaters. The next witness was the Thompsons’ boarder, old Mrs. Lester, who, examined by Mr. Travers Humphreys, admitted that the Thompsons had never been “on very good terms.” She then offered an interestingly prosaic glimpse of the Thompsons during the few days before the murder.
“I remember Saturday, thirtieth September. Mr. and Mrs. Thompson went away together in the morning and Mrs. Thompson returned about half past ten. She stayed in for a time and then went out again. She came back in the middle of the day and cooked Mr. Thompson’s dinner. He came home to dinner. On Sunday, first October, Mrs. Thompson was in during the day and cooked their dinner. They went out together with some friends, I think, in the afternoon. On Monday morning, the second, they both went away the same time as usual and they came back about seven o’clock. On Tuesday they both went away as usual, and the next time I saw Mrs. Thompson was when she was brought back after midnight.… The Thompsons’ rooms are lighted by electric light. They did not keep servants. Mrs. Thompson cooked the food. A servant came on this day, fourth October, for the first time.”
Sir Henry was quick to pounce on that “servant.” After Mr. Whiteley had asked Mrs. Lester a few questions, Sir Henry extracted the following statement from the lodger:
“Mrs. Thompson complained to me that the housework was too much for her, and she told me that she was going to get a servant The servant actually arrived to take up her situation on the evening after the death of Mr. Thompson.”
Another point had been made for Edith Thompson. Surely the jury would realize that a woman planning the murder of her husband would hardly have bothered to hire a maid who actually arrived on the day after the crime.
A Board of Trade clerk then gave the official sailing dates of the S.S. Morea, and Sir Henry recalled Mrs. Lester to the stand. The prosecution had already brought up the cryptic passage in one of Edith’s letters about the “wrong porridge,” implying that Edith had poisoned the porridge she had prepared for her husband and then had eaten his dish by mistake. Sir Henry ingeniously got Mrs. Lester to admit that she was the one who prepared the porridge in the Thompson household. After a brief appearance by the chief purser’s clerk of the P. and O. Company, Edith Thompson’s employer, Herbert Carlton, was brought to the stand. He spoke highly of Edith’s ability, admitted that he had seen Bywaters on various occasions in the office, and, when cross-examined by Sir Henry, stated:
“There was no question at all of Mrs. Thompson leaving my employment. She was the sort of lady who with her business capacity would probably be able to get employment anywhere quite easily.”
Another employee in the millinery concern then testified to having seen Mrs. Thompson and Bywaters together in Aldersgate Street, and, at this relatively low level, with neither side having made spectacular headway, the court was adjourned until the following day.
After a second night of patient queuing and a second hectic scramble for the few gallery seats in Court Number One, the second day of the Thompson-Bywaters trial got under way. There was nothing much in the first moments to titillate the public.
The opening two witnesses were waitresses in Fuller’s teashop—the sinister tearoom where, according to Mr. Inskip, the conspirators had plotted their foul deed. Both the girls stated that they had seen the prisoners, either together or alone, at various times in the tearoom. Then another female employee from Carlton and Prior admitted knowing Bywaters and having delivered a note to him from Mrs. Thompson. She also testified to drawing police attention to the box in the office where the letters from Bywaters had been found.
After this, Freddie’s mother was recalled by Mr. Whiteley, who was still doing everything in his power to create sympathy for Freddie. From Mrs. Bywaters’ statement, her maternal resentment toward “that woman” peeps through in the final sentence.
“I remember in August 1921, my son coming home and having a conversation with me about Mrs. Thompson. He told me that Mrs. Thompson led a very unhappy life with her husband, and he asked me if I could tell him how she could get a separation from her husband. I said I could not tell him how to get a separation, but that there was no law to compel her to live with a man if she was unhappy with him.”
Various inspectors and constables then described their finding of the “Peidi” letters in Bywaters’ bedroom and in the “ditty box” on board the S.S. Morea. One of them, Constable John Hancock, stated that he had found at 41 Kensington Gardens a little bottle containing aromatic tincture of opium in the chest of drawers in the bedroom occupied by Mr. and Mrs. Thompson.
Next, a sensational enough witness, Inspector Richard Sellars told of the various interviews with Edith Thompson that had led up both to her first, false statement and her second dramatic statement after the glimpse of Freddie in the library window. He also described the interview with Freddie in which he had finally confessed. All statements, discredited and otherwise, made by the two prisoners were read out loud. Both Mr. Whiteley and Sir Henry grilled Inspector Sellars about Superintendent Wensley’s part in the investigation and about the trick “meeting” to which the prisoners had been submitted, but neither of them was able to make any point that told in their clients’ favor.
After Sellars, a police detective described the finding of Freddie’s knife down the drain, and a director of a firm of tool merchants identified the knife as one of his company’s products. John Webster, a Home Office analyst, was then brought to the stand. Examined by Mr. Travers Humphreys, he stated that he had found human bloodstains both on the knife itself and on Bywaters’ overcoat. He also testified that autopsy had disclosed traces of morphine in Percy Thompson’s liver and kidneys. Under cross-examination by Sir Henry, Mr. Webster admitted that these traces could well be the residue of a normal dose of aromatic tincture of opium taken by Percy Thompson for his heart condition, and that aromatic tincture of opium was a harmless drug that could legitimately be found in any home.
For its final witness, the prosecution called to the stand Dr. Bernard Spilsbury, the senior pathologist of the Home Office. For decades, few British murder cases came to trial without the celebrated Dr. Spilsbury’s figuring prominently in them. In this case, as in all the others, his appearance on the stand was the signal for tense expectancy in the gallery.
Dr. Spilsbury corroborated Dr. Drought’s diagnosis of the various knife wounds. He then went on to outline the results of his pathological findings and sensationally announced that he had found no signs of poisoning whatsoever and no indication tha
t powdered glass had ever been administered to the deceased.
Sir Henry, quick to see that the Crown’s distinguished witness could be turned into a witness for the defense, pressed these points in his cross-examination.
Q. Does it all come to this, that there has been no trace whatsoever in the post-mortem of any glass having been administered, either in large pieces or powdered?
A. That is so.
Q. No trace of any poison being present and no changes suggestive of previous attempts to poison?
A. Quite. Glass, if taken, would pass through the gullet into the stomach, and then through the duodenum and so on through the intestines to the caecum. Off the caecum is the appendix.
Q. On its journey through those parts of the body, would not a large piece of glass tend to cut or make a scar?
A. It would tend to cut or to pierce the wall. The scar would come afterwards.
Q. You might find a scar remaining afterwards, would you not?
A. You might do so. I made a very careful examination to see if there was any scar anywhere and I could not find any. There is no outlet from the appendix except the one opening into the bowel. I made a careful examination of the appendix and found no trace at all of glass of any sort, powdered or otherwise. If any of the poisons mentioned in my examination had been given in appreciable doses, illness would have resulted, the degree of illness depending upon the amount. There are not many of the poisons which have been put to me today which would leave any permanent effect at all. Some, of course, would leave a trace for a time.
Q. At any rate, there was no trace, either post-mortem or by analysis, of any poison ever having been given?
A. No.
Sir Henry had made his point. Although Dr. Spilsbury had not gone so far as to state categorically that no poison or glass could have been administered, he had done the next best thing. A review of the whole case for the prosecution, so far, was not such as to make Sir Henry too gloomy. All the evidence pointed to the fact that Bywaters’ attack on Percy Thompson had taken Edith completely by surprise. Her father had testified that certain passages, at least, in her letters had been make-believe. Dr. Spilsbury had all but admitted that the dark hints of poison and ground glass in Edith’s correspondence must have referred to imaginary incidents. So far, so good.
But still there remained the letters themselves. And, as if to remind Sir Henry of their monolithic presence, to close the case for the prosecution Mr. Travers Humphreys arose and read to the jury thirty-two of these letters in their entirety.
Mr. Travers Humphreys, the counsel who was originally supposed to have conducted the prosecution and who was perhaps the most gifted figure ever produced by the British criminal courts, was not a man who could have enjoyed the task allotted to him. But it was his job to read the letters, and he read them. And, it is said, his manner of delivery was not at all unsympathetic to Mrs. Thompson.
But the reading of these letters, which lasted several hours, fair though it was in theory to the prisoner, did little in fact to help her cause. Here, at last, were the damning phrases put back in their context. Here, if the jury had been able, the real flavor of the correspondence could have been savored. But prejudice was already grimly installed in their minds, and the Old Bailey, at the best of times, was not an ideal spot for concentrated listening. As the minutes ticked by, as Mr. Humphreys’ voice went on and on, the jury heard the evidence, yes. But how close was their attention? How close could it have been under the circumstances?
Sir Henry, listening too, must have been watching the jury like a hawk and, just as certainly, he must have realized that their minds soon became overwhelmed and sluggish. Only occasionally at the repetition of some familiar and damning phrase would a face or two light up with recognition.
This was not the moment that would turn the tide for Edith Thompson.
During the reading, Edith Thompson herself sat in silence as if she were on “the verge of a swoon.” Every now and then Freddie would glance at her, but she never gave the slightest sign of recognition. It is almost certain that she had no reaction whatsoever. For this was not the dream reading of her letters; this was the real reading.
Just as, looming ahead of her, although she did not realize it, were not the dream moments of Madame X in the witness box, but the real moments of Edith Thompson confronting the real noose.
Sir Henry, looking from the jury to his client, must have felt very low in his mind.
Finally the reading was over.
“That,” said the Solicitor General, “will be the case for the Crown.”
Sir Henry rose and did what little there was at that moment to be done. He reminded the jury that there were thirty-three additional letters written by Mrs. Thompson that the prosecution had not put in evidence. He did this to emphasize the fact that more than 50 per cent of the letters were so innocent that even the prosecution could find nothing damaging in them. It was a good point in theory, but probably the jury, already exhausted by the effort of listening, felt nothing but gratitude to the Crown for sparing them an even longer ordeal.
The time had come now for the defense to present its case.
Chapter Nine
In the late afternoon of the trial’s second day, Frederick Bywaters took the stand. As is customary when the prisoners themselves are to give evidence, neither counsel for the defense made an opening address.
Freddie Bywaters, now that the time had come, was still calm, still dedicated single-mindedly to his cause. He was going to save Edith Thompson. His manner during the early hours of the trial had created a very good impression, and the sympathy that had long been building up for him was now at its height. Perhaps Freddie, with the normal vanity of a good-looking boy, exaggerated the importance of that sympathy. It is certain that Cecil Whiteley did not. He had seen too many trials. He realized that the ripple of approval, the occasional moist eye were symptoms of a sympathy for a victim already doomed. The audience was merely indulging itself in a pity that would make the inevitable conviction that much more piquant.
Mr. Whiteley began his examination on a quiet note, and Freddie’s clear, straightforward answers seemed to be confirming the good impression already formed. Under Whiteley’s guidance, he sketched in his friendship with the Graydons and the Thompsons, the Isle of Wight holiday, his period as a lodger at 41 Kensington Gardens, the Bank Holiday quarrel, and the final muddled attempt on his second shore leave to persuade Percy Thompson to grant his wife a divorce. Although Edith Thompson seldom looked at him and sat with her head bowed, apparently unconscious of what was going on, he spoke of her always with a respect that was almost reverent. Unfortunately, as it turned out, Mr. Whiteley asked him exactly when he had fallen in love with her, and Freddie, giving the first hint of what chivalry can do to truth, pushed the date forward into September, thereby hoping to exonerate Edith from the stigma of having as a lover a lodger in her husband’s own home. But this was a small point and almost certainly did not, at the time, register with the jury.
Before introducing the subject of the murder itself, Mr. Whiteley turned his attention to the letters. At this moment we begin to see how restricting to his own defense Freddie’s determination to protect Mrs. Thompson was. If Freddie’s individual defense had been the defense’s only concern, Mr. Whiteley could have played up the “inciting” aspects of the letters. With feeling as high as it was against Mrs. Thompson, it would not have been impossible, with point after point from the letters, to convince the jury that Freddie had been a poor, bewildered youth egged on to crime by an unscrupulous older woman. This defense, though it might lose him some sympathy, might also have given him the chance of a lighter sentence. But, whatever its merits or demerits, this approach could not be used. Freddie being Freddie, the letters were to be minimized, and Freddie, by his own wish, was to be left with sole moral responsibility for the murder.
From that moment on, the defense of Freddie Bywaters became little more than a thinly disguised defense of Mrs. Tho
mpson.
Mr. Whiteley’s first choice from the letters that had already created such a damning prejudice against the prisoners’ came from Exhibit 62.
Q. Look now at this letter and at this passage: “All I could think about last night was that compact we made. Shall we have to carry it thro? Don’t let us darlint.” What was the compact?
A. Suicide.
Q. Who suggested that?
A. Mrs. Thompson had suggested it.
Q. Did you ever make any agreement that you should commit suicide?
A. Well, I suggested it as a way of calming her, but I never intended to carry it out.
Freddie’s answer had been effective; it set the picture of a highly strung Edith with extravagant emotions and an understanding, slightly amused, protective Freddie indulging her whims.
Q. The letter goes on: “I’d like to live and be happy—not for a little while, but for all the while you still love me. Death seemed horribly near last night—when you think about it darlint, it does seem a horrible thing to die, when you have never been really happy for one little minute.” I’m going to ask you at once, Bywaters. At any time was there any agreement between you and Mrs. Thompson to poison her husband?
A. Never; there was never such an agreement.
Q. Was there any agreement that any violence should be used against her husband?
A. No; the greatest violence was separation.
Q. As far as you could tell, reading those letters, did you ever believe in your own mind that she herself had ever given any poison to her husband?
A. No, it never entered my head at all. She had been reading books.
Once again, Freddie had struck the right note—Sir Henry Curtis-Bennett’s note. Edith, momentarily affected by the latest library novel, had scribbled fancies, and Freddie had been the first to realize how fanciful those fancies were.
