by Q. Patrick
A. I have not any exact recollection, but all I can say is I had the knife in my left hand, and they got there somehow.
Q. During all this time after you had brushed Mrs. Thompson away did you see her again?
A. I did not. She might have been ten miles away for all I saw of her. After the struggle I suppose I ran away. I don’t remember it definitely, but that is what happened.
Q. At that time did you realize that he was dead?
A. No, he was standing up when I left him. I then made my way home.
There it was—the case for self-defense. However feeble it must have seemed to Mr. Whiteley in anticipation, it had turned out in fact to be even more disastrously ineffective. All pretense of credibility had left Freddie’s story at the time when the crime itself was described, and his ability as a liar was nonexistent. Even the dialogue he had used for himself and Percy Thompson patently betrayed its sources. In one of Edith’s letters, already read in court, Edith, describing a supposed scene between herself and Percy, had quoted Percy as saying, “I know that is what you want, but I am not going to give it to you; it would make it too pleasant for both of you.” And, in his own statement, also already read in court, Freddie, in describing the first and final attempt to get a divorce, had quoted himself as saying, “You take a delight in making Edie’s life a hell,” and Percy as replying, “I’ve got her, I’ll keep her.” Peidi had always done the inventing for both of them. On his own, Freddie had been unable even to compose new dialogue. The only essential but futile innovation he had made were the three words: “I’ll shoot you.”
Only Freddie could have hoped that the jury would believe that Percy Thompson, the industrious, respectable shipping clerk, would escort his wife to a family theatre party with a gun in his pocket. And it was utterly improbable that any juror would believe that the vigorous, twenty-year-old Freddie had stabbed the frail, ailing Percy in terror that his own life was endangered.
The self-defense attempt had been a total failure, and it had ironically proved much more damaging to Edith Thompson than the alternative defense that Freddie’s veto had made impossible. If Freddie had claimed unpremeditated impulse, some of the jury might have believed him. But that hadn’t happened. Now all the jury could do was to reject his proposition and, in consequence, prepare itself to accept that of the prosecution—the proposition of conspiracy to murder jointly entered upon by Freddie and Edith Thompson.
With a few unimportant questions and a final, half-hearted attempt to show that Freddie’s early statements had been tricked out of him by Superintendent Wensley, Mr. Whiteley gave up.
Freddie Bywaters was then turned over to cross-examination—a self-discredited, hopelessly vulnerable witness.
Chapter Eleven
The cross-examination of Freddie Bywaters makes painful reading, although he never for a single moment broke down or deviated from his own absurd, implausible version of the letters’ meaning, in spite of all Mr. Inskip’s efforts. Wherever it led him, to whatever humiliations and inconsistencies, he was not going to admit that Edith Thompson had ever toyed with the fancy of killing her husband. Time and time again he stuck to his preposterous propositions, which exasperated the Judge into caustic interjections and certainly alienated the jury once and for all.
Mr. Inskip, who had so many possible openings for attack that he scarcely knew where to begin, started, rather feebly, with the question of exactly when Freddie and Edith had declared their love. During his examination, Freddie had, for typically chivalrous reasons, pushed the date of avowal forward to September, when it had really taken place on June 27, his birthday.
Mr. Inskip, by quoting from the letters, showed that Edith had stated in black and white that on June 27 Freddie had said, “I love you.”
Q. Was that a true or an untrue statement, that a year ago in June 1921, you and she had declared your love for each other?
A. That is not right.
Q. That is untrue?
A. That is untrue.
Q. Can you suggest how this woman; who was in love with you, had invented an imaginary beginning for this amazing passion?
A. I don’t quite understand you.
Here the irritated Mr. Justice Shearman broke in: “To come down to the simpler question—did you on that day say, ‘I love you’?”
Bywaters answered, “No.”
Mr. Inskip then read another quotation from the letters, and asked, “Does that satisfy you that your evidence is wrong as to the date you told her you loved her?”
Again Bywaters replied, “No.”
If Freddie had not already discredited himself, that piece of dialogue would have been enough to stamp him as a liar. Mr. Inskip, flushed with success, proceeded to the question of divorce. He tried to show that Freddie had made no real effort to make Percy obtain one and implied that, from the beginning, he had decided that murder would be a simpler and cheaper method of obtaining the woman he loved. The Solicitor General moved then to the suicide pact and tried to prove that it was never seriously considered by either of the lovers. Freddie admitted that he had not taken it seriously, but maintained that Edith had never abandoned the project. Mr. Inskip then launched a head-on attack, trying to make Freddie admit that Edith Thompson had wanted him to kill her husband. He was met with a stubborn denial.
After that deadlock, the Solicitor General tried once again to prove that Freddie and Edith had never seriously contemplated a divorce or an elopement, and that no real action along these lines had been planned. The word “action” is important, for, having referred to a shipboard friend of Freddie’s called Dan, who was mentioned in the letters, Mr. Inskip then read the following extract from Exhibit 17:
“Darlint, don’t trust him [Dan]—I don’t mean don’t tell him anything because I know you never would … What I mean is don’t let him be suspicious of you regarding that—because if we were successful in the action—darlint circumstances may afterwards make us want many friends—or helpers and we must have no enemies—or even people that know a little too much. Remember the saying, ‘A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.’”
Q. What was “the action” that she there refers to?
A. Suicide, as far as I remember.
Q. But, Bywaters, read it again. What does “the action” mean?
A. Mrs. Thompson had proposed to me that she did not want to make my life as unhappy as hers. She said she would sooner kill herself.
Q. Do you really suggest that “the action” means suicide?
A. As far as I remember, yes, it means suicide.
Q. Are you quite clear it does not mean crime?
A. I am positive of that.
Mr. Inskip quoted another reference in the letters to “failure,” which Freddie explained as failure to get a divorce or a separation. The Solicitor General suggested that, if they had really wanted a divorce, they could easily have obtained one by giving Percy Thompson sufficient evidence. Freddie retaliated by saying that Percy would not have given them one anyway. Mr. Inskip then spent considerable time on a formal letter of Christmas greetings that Freddie had deliberately written, as a front, so that Edith could show it to her family without arousing their suspicions. After this, he returned to the poisons.
Q. Did the subject of poisons ever occur in your conversation with her when you were at home?
A. Sometimes.
Q. In what connection?
A. General conversation; knowledge.
Q. Who mentioned poisons?
A. If she had been reading anything and poison was mentioned, and any matter that she would not understand, she would ask me what it meant.
Q. Did you know anything about poison?
A. I did not know very much.
Q. Did she appear to be interested in poison?
A. Not particularly.
Q. Did it ever strike you it occupied a prominent place in her mind?
A. No more than other things.
Q. Did you take an interest in poisons?
A. I was fond of chemistry when I was at school.
Q. But chemistry and poison are two different things.
A. Poisons deal with chemistry. Poisons come in chemistry.
Q. Did you take any interest in poisons as poisons?
A. No.
Q. Did you keep up your interest which you say you had in chemistry?
A. No, I did not. She knew of that interest, though; her brother used to join me.
Q. Do you suggest, then, that the mention of poison in your letters was due to the fact that she knew you were interested in chemistry? Is that your explanation?
A. No, my explanation is this: If she had been reading something and it occurred to her, if I had been in her presence she would have asked me what it was. If I was not there, she put it in writing.
Q. Do you remember a document which you wrote out containing troy weights, Exhibit Fifty-seven?
A. Yes.
Q. When did you write it?
A. I could not say.
Q. Why did you keep it?
A. Because it is useful in general, knowledge.
Q. Had that any connection with the request she made to you to experiment with the pills?
A. Oh, no.
Q. Turn back to the letter of first April, Exhibit Seventeen, and listen to this paragraph: “He was telling [his] Mother et cetera the circumstances of my Sunday morning escapade and he puts great stress on the fact of the tea tasting bitter as if something had been put in it he says. Now I think whatever else I try it in again will still taste bitter—he will recognise it and be more suspicious still and if the quantity is still not successful—it will injure any chance I may have of trying when you come home. Do you understand?”
From here on the hopeless position into which Freddie had forced himself becomes cruelly apparent. This paragraph uncompromisingly states Edith Thompson’s claim that she had put something bitter in her husband’s tea. If Freddie had been able to admit that Peidi had made statements of this sort in the letters, he could have explained them away as the lurid fancies they were by drawing attention to their context. But since Freddie’s nearsighted loyalty made this approach impossible, he was compelled to flounder into threadbare double talk.
Q. What did you understand about that passage?
A. That she had taken the quinine and it tasted bitter.
Q. Look at it again. “He puts great stress on the fact of the tea tasting bitter ‘as if something had been put in it,’ he says.” To whom did it taste bitter?
A. Mrs. Thompson.
Q. Do you suggest that, Bywaters?
A. I do.
Q. Do you suggest that is how you understood the letter when you received it?
A. I do.
Q. “Now I think whatever else I try it in again will still taste bitter—he will recognise it and be more suspicious still.” Do you still adhere to what you say, that she is speaking of her taste?
A. Yes.
Q. What did you understand him to be suspicious of?
A. That she was attempting to commit suicide.
Q. Did you understand her to mean that she would tell him that her tea tasted bitter and she was about to commit suicide?
A. Possibly she would.
Q. Is that your understanding of that passage?
A. That is.
Q. Look at the letter of first May, Exhibit Nineteen: “I don’t think we’re failures in other things and we mustn’t be in this.” Did you understand what they referred to?
A. Yes.
Q. What?
A. Well, if you read further, “We mustn’t give up as we said.”
Q. What was that?
A. Give up trying for a separation or divorce.
Q. “We must learn to be patient. We must have each other darlint. It’s meant to be. I know. I feel it is because I love you such a lot—such a love was not meant to be in vain. It will come right I know one day, if not by our efforts some other way. We’ll wait eh darlint, and you’ll try and get some money and then we can go away and not worry about anybody or anything. You said it was enough for an elephant.” Do you remember saying that?
A. Yes.
Q. And what was it you said was enough for an elephant?
A. The quinine I had given Mrs. Thompson.
Q. For what had you given her quinine?
A. She had been wanting me to get her something with which to commit suicide, as she did not want to make my life as unhappy as hers. To satisfy her craving I said I would get her something, and I gave her quinine.
Q. Is it your suggestion that in May, 1922, you were lending your assistance to her side to commit suicide?
A. Her suggestion.
Q. You say you gave her this quinine because she wanted something with which to commit suicide. Is that right?
A. Yes, that is so.
Q. Did you give her quinine with that object?
A. I did.
Q. Were you therefore willing to help her to commit suicide?
A. No, I knew she could not hurt herself with quinine.
Q. You were playing with her ideas?
A. I was pulling her leg.
Q. “You said it was enough for an elephant. Perhaps it was. But you don’t allow for the taste making only a was it meant to be?” That is your explanation, that you small quantity to be taken. It sounded like a reproach, were playing a joke upon her?
A. That is so.
Q. “Darlint I tried hard—you won’t know how hard—because you weren’t there to see and I can’t tell you all—but I did—I do want you to believe I did for both of us.… I was buoyed up with the hope of the ‘light bulb’ and I used a lot.” Did you understand that was referring to a dose she herself took of broken glass?
A. Possibly, yes. She was trying to persuade me to give her something’ with which to commit suicide, and I refrained. I gave her this quinine so that she would not take anything herself.
Q. But in the next passage that I have called your attention to she refers to another specific. “I was buoyed up with the hope of the ‘light bulb’ and I used a lot—big pieces too.” Did you understand that to mean that she had taken glass?
A. I understand that to be a lie from her to me.
Q. You understand, even if it was a lie, that what it was a lie about was what she had taken herself?
A. Oh, yes.
Once again, Mr. Justice Shearman was no longer able to restrain his impatience with the witness.
Q. (by Mr. Justice Shearman) Look at it. Was she lying about what her husband had taken or what she had taken herself?
A. I say she was lying about what she had taken herself.
Q. (by Mr. Inskip) Look at the next sentence. “I quite expected to be able to send that cable.” Do you suggest that after she had taken the dose that would kill her she was expecting to send you that cable?
A. No, I do not suggest that.
Q. What do you suggest?
A. That she would have sent me a cable if she had been successful in getting a divorce or an agreement of separation.
Q. (by Mr. Justice Shearman) Had you arranged with her if anything happened she should cable you?
A. Yes, if she was successful in getting an agreement for separation.
Q. (by Mr. Inskip) “I quite expected to be able to send that cable—but no—nothing has happened from it.” That is the glass?
A. No.
Q. What was it?
A. The approach of Thompson to get this separation.
Q. “Now your letter tells me about the bitter taste again. Oh darlint, I do feel so down and unhappy. Wouldn’t the stuff make small pills coated together with soap and dipped in liquorice powder-like Beecham’s—try while you are away.” Is that why you were interested in troy weights?
A. No.
Q. “Our Boy had to have his thumb operated on because he had a piece of glass in it that’s what made me try that method again—but I suppose as you say he is not normal.” Who is “he”? Read the next
sentence if you are in doubt—“I know I feel I shall never get him to take [a] sufficient quantity of anything bitter.” Have you any doubt that you understood that to mean the husband?
A. I did not understand that.
Q. To whom did you understand it referred?
A. Perhaps she had made a mistake in the words.
Q. And meant “me”?
A. Yes.
Q. “I know I feel I shall never get ‘myself’ to take a sufficient quantity of anything bitter.” Is that how you read it?
A. That is right; she did not like the taste of quinine.
Q. Was there any reason why she should be concerned as to leaving traces of what she was doing? Read the next sentence: “Darlint two heads are better than one is such a true saying. You tell me not to leave finger marks on the box—do you know I did not think of the box but I did think of the glass or cup or whatever was used. I wish I wish, oh I wish I could do something.” You understand that to mean at the time, “I wish, I wish, oh, I wish I could kill myself”? Is that it?
A. Yes.
Mr. Inskip had reduced Freddie to his ultimate absurdity. But he pressed on and this painful inquisition was repeated all over again. This time the theme was the quotation from the novel “Bella Donna”: “It must be remembered that digitalin is a cumulative poison and that the same dose, harmless if taken once, yet frequently repeated, becomes deadly.” Freddie reiterated that Edith Thompson had referred to digitalin purely and simply as another means by which she might commit suicide. Although Mr. Inskip mocked the ludicrous idea of a woman’s killing herself with frequent small doses of a cumulative poison, Freddie remained adamant. He was equally adamant about bichloride of mercury. This poison too had been mentioned by Mrs. Thompson merely as another suicide possibility. Relentlessly Mr. Inskip returned again to the light bulb.
Q. Look at the letter of twenty-fourth April, Exhibit Eighteen, which apparently reached you at Aden on May seventh. “I used the ‘light bulb’ three times but the third time he found a piece—so I’ve given it up—until you come home.” What did you understand by that passage?
A. She had been lying to me again.
