Excellent Intentions

by Richard Hull

  “Thank you, my lord.” Ellis did not think that it did, but he was perfectly certain that it was the only answer that he was going to get.

  “Very well, then,” Mr. Justice Smith resumed. “We now come to the question as to what happened from the moment when the poison was bought until Cargate administered it to himself, if he ever did so. Much of this is not really in dispute, and I will deal with it quite briefly.” With that he recounted how the bottle had been in Cargate’s own care until the morning of July 12th, and he brushed aside the possibility of there having been a duplicate key. Even Ellis—who was rapidly developing a strong prejudice against the pale, aquiline face of the Judge—had to agree that in this the evidence had shown that he was perfectly right.

  “Down then to the moment when Mr. Yockleton left the library of Scotney End Hall, there is very little dispute as to what happened. It is the next period of eight minutes or so that we have to consider very carefully.” Mr. Justice Smith leant forward towards the jury, and in colloquial phraseology, “got down to it”.

  “This is what the prosecution say.

  “They say that during that morning Joan Knox Forster, who is now standing her trial before you, became more and more angry. She was, according to the prosecution, in a highly irritable state already owing to the repeated conflicts on the various matters of opinion to which I have already called your attention, that in fact she regarded him, as I have said, as a pest. Counsel for the Crown permitted himself one or two paradoxes on the subject, that it took a pacifist to have bloodthirsty intentions, and that those who verbally disagree most violently with public war are the most ready to fight in private. You may, or probably you may not, see some force in those remarks, but we are not here to consider the problem in the spirit in which the late Mr. G. K. Chesterton might have considered it in one of his excellent novels. We are here to consider facts, and I think that it would be best if you dismissed those reflections from your minds altogether.

  “To continue. The prosecution say then that during the morning of Thursday, July 12th, the accused’s anger got out of control and that she decided deliberately to murder her employer. They say that it is possible that at first she only decided to possess herself of the means of doing so and that she did not necessarily decide absolutely to commit the murder at once or even at all. Perhaps she did, perhaps she did not. The prosecution do not pretend to say.

  “But they do say that she took steps to get hold of the cyanide of potassium. She placed herself in the hall under the pretence of doing the flowers. The prosecution say that it was a pretence. The defence say that she was genuinely doing so. You will have to decide which of those two statements is more nearly the truth and the only guidance which I can give you is to remind you of what she herself said when she was being cross-examined. Let me read it to you.

  “‘You were arranging the flowers in the hall?’

  “‘In the hall and elsewhere.’

  “‘Elsewhere?’

  “‘Yes. In the drawing-room.’

  “‘What flowers did you put in the drawing-room?’

  “‘I don’t remember. It is some time ago now.’

  “‘But you do know what you put in the hall.’

  “‘There were red roses in the hall.’

  “‘We will come back to them later. Looking after the flowers was part of your usual duties?’

  “‘In a supervisory capacity.’

  “‘What do you mean by that?’

  “‘That I did not always do them myself but I saw that they were properly done.’

  “‘I see. But you did them occasionally yourself?’

  “‘Yes.’

  “‘Who did them normally, by the way?’

  “You will remember,” Mr. Justice Smith looked up from his reading, and looked at the jury, “that the witness hesitated for a considerable time before she answered that question. Eventually her reply was, ‘The housemaid, I think’.

  “‘You only think? But if you did not approve of the way in which they were done, didn’t you want to speak about it? And for that you must have known to whom you had to speak?’

  “‘If they were wrong, I put them right myself. I don’t like criticizing my juniors. It seems, somehow, impertinent.’

  “‘But this would only be advising. At the most it would be constructive criticism. Would it surprise you to know that Raikes generally looked after them?’

  “‘It would. It isn’t a man’s work.’

  “On that you will remember that counsel for the Crown intimated that he would recall Raikes to say that he did in fact do that part of the household work, and no doubt you will also remember that the accused admitted that she could not recollect when she had last touched any flower vase at Scotney End Hall, and to the suggestion that she had never done such a thing at all before, she contented herself by replying that she thought she had.

  “The prosecution’s suggestion therefore is that her desire to arrange the roses on that day was a mere pretence, and all the defence say in answer to this is simply that because she did not habitually undertake that household duty, there is no reason why she should not have done so on that day, and that the delay caused by Mr. Yockleton being with Mr. Cargate, provided a reason, in that she wanted a means of passing the time. It will be for you to decide which of those views is most probable.

  “But to continue. The next point concerns the type of roses. The accused in her original statement said that she left the hall to get one more rose from the bed on the lawn outside the library window. She said that it took a little searching as she had picked some from there already and she did not want to spoil the appearance of the bed. The prosecution state that that is entirely untrue and that she invented this explanation to account for her having been out of the hall for a short period during which she was under the impression that Raikes had passed through the hall and gone out through the door leading to the servants’ quarters. In fact, Raikes was still in the dining-room, and the movement of the door was not caused by his going out through it but by Mrs. Perriman putting her head in at the door and calling to him.

  “There was therefore, so far as Raikes was concerned, no need for her to have accounted for her absence. There might have been in connection with Mrs. Perriman’s momentary glance in, but you will remember that though she said in her examination in chief that she believed that the hall was empty when she called Raikes, she admitted in cross-examination that the door impeded her view, and that she did not look carefully.

  “But whether Joan Knox Forster was known to have been away for a minute or two during that period, is immaterial, because her own original statement is that she was, and she thought it necessary to explain what she was doing, and the strongest point in the prosecution’s case is that, at any rate according to them, that explanation is untrue.

  “They claim to prove it as follows. The roses which actually were in the bowl in the hall were Étoile d’Hollande. Raikes, with no knowledge that it was important, called the attention of Inspector Fenby to this fact. It is suggested by the defence—I will return to this point later—that you must not credit the evidence of Raikes, and that possibly he even tampered with the roses, but the first statement as to the contents of that bowl was given quite casually and before any real idea was in anybody’s mind, so far as is known, that the identity of the roses was of the slightest importance.

  “Inspector Fenby has told you that when Raikes called his attention to the roses, he looked at them. The Inspector does not happen to be interested in gardening, and he does not pretend to know the names of the various types of roses, but he has had his powers of observation trained, and he says that he saw a very dark crimson rose with a great number of petals. Raikes too called his attention to their scent, and he agrees that it was very powerful.

  “Now this description would be perfectly accurate with the variety of rose mentione
d by Raikes, namely Étoile d’Hollande. But it would be quite inaccurate of the rose growing outside the window of the library. That was called K. of K. and is a loose-petalled rose, only semi-double, with its yellow centre showing directly it is at all fully blown. Moreover, K. of K. is a much brighter red than is Étoile d’Hollande, so that, so the prosecution say, if one of the former had been placed inadvertently amongst the latter, it would have been readily observed.

  “And it was not observed.

  “Indeed Inspector Fenby went further. He said that he was certain that there was only one kind of rose in the bowl.

  “Now Inspector Fenby looked at that bowl twice. The first time we have already mentioned. The second time was when the accused herself asked his leave to throw the flowers away. That occurred on the Saturday evening, and this time he looked at them for a long while because he began to think that there was something wrong about them, though at the moment he could not think what it was. Therefore he is prepared to swear that every one of the flowers in the vase was of the darker variety. Moreover, on this occasion, Mr. Ley was also with him and, though he is not so confident as Inspector Fenby, he also has a very strong impression that there was no K. of K. rose in that bowl.

  “But that is not all. You will remember that Knox Forster in her first statement said that it took her some time to select a rose as some had been picked by her already. Now it happened that Mr. Ley in the course of quite casual conversation with Hardy the gardener at Scotney End Hall, made a reference to a ‘very fine second bloom’. It was, from a horticultural point of view, a gross error, because at the time it was July, and the second bloom does not occur until September, but it elicited a remark from Hardy to Inspector Fenby directly Mr. Ley was out of earshot. Hardy was rather contemptuous about Mr. Ley and his second bloom, I am afraid” (Mr. Justice Smith allowed himself a smile), “and he went on to say, ‘not one of these has been picked this year’. It was that conversation that remained in Inspector Fenby’s mind, and caused him to begin to take an active interest in the roses.

  “So you see then that the prosecution say that they have convicted the accused in two lies, and that she had neither during that important minute and a half on Thursday, July 12th, nor before, picked a rose from that particular bed, and that in addition no rose from that bed was in the bowl in the hall. Their witnesses to this were Inspector Fenby, Mr. Ley and Raikes, and you have heard what they have said.

  “The prosecution allege therefore that Knox Forster is proved to be untruthful, and they suggest that she must have a reason for this fabrication. They say that during that minute and a half she went, not into the garden, but into the library, and that she took out of the bottle a little of that poison and put it into a flower bowl of which she had possessed herself, and that then she slipped quickly into the drawing-room and that there she proceeded to grind down the crystals.

  “In support of this story, which counsel for the Crown had necessarily to admit was to some extent an hypothesis, it is pointed out that she originally neglected to mention that she had ever been into the drawing-room at all and that in fact we should never have known that she had gone there unless Raikes had seen her and told us. She now says that she recollects that she did look in for a few seconds and peered at a bowl there which was scratched, but she had forgotten all about it as a trivial detail. You will have to decide whether to accept that explanation.

  “But there is no doubt but that the bowl was scratched. The defence say it was done previously and that the accused was actually examining it, but they offer no explanation as to how that fact came to her notice, for I think that it will not be denied that those scratches would not be visible to a casual inspection from a distance. Moreover how was that damage done? The prosecution say that force had to be used to grind down the crystals and they commented sarcastically on the improbability of it being done by the stalk of a rose or any other flower. The defence content themselves with saying that they do not know how those marks were made and they aver, quite truthfully, that they are under no necessity to put up an alternative theory.

  “That then briefly is the Crown’s submission as to how the poison was obtained and prepared. I have dealt with the defence’s suggestions as to the bowl, but I have not yet dealt fully with what they say as to the roses.

  “They do not say very much, but briefly they say that Miss Knox Forster made a slip when she originally said that she picked the roses from the front of the house, that actually it was at the back, but that she forgot this, and that such a mistake was a very easy one to make. They then go on to say that she did actually pick one rose at the time she said that she did, but the very fact that its colour was brighter caused it to look odd and that someone must have removed it. No one has been found who says that he or she did so.

  “Next then the deceased returned to his library, and there is no dispute as to what happened until the gong rang for lunch. Now in her original statement Knox Forster volunteered the information that she was rather angry with the deceased because on that occasion he did not wash his hands. According to her, he said that he was hungry and they both went straight in to lunch.

  “On the other hand Raikes to begin with volunteered the information that he gave them a few minutes to wash and settle down and that this took about the ordinary time. At first sight there is no serious discrepancy between these two assertions because Raikes might have given time for them to do what in fact, though without his knowledge, they did not do. But you must remember that, for the somewhat strange reasons which he has given to you, Raikes was anxious to be certain that his master was safely seated inside the dining-room and he took simple precautions to watch the progress of events.

  “Scotney End Hall is an L-shaped house, and the kitchen premises run away from the front door. If you imagine that door to be towards the left centre of the bottom stroke, the kitchen, pantry and so forth would be at the top of the downward line, so that one side would have looked out on to the lawn at the side of the house if there had been any windows on that side, and the other on the back yard. Towards the right-hand end of the bottom stroke of the L and at the back was a small lavatory with hot and cold water laid on. The pipe from this ran into a drain which was open at the ground level. Consequently water from this basin could be seen as it ran out of the pipe into the drain if anyone chose to look out of the windows of the kitchen or the pantry.

  “And Raikes did choose to look, because it was the deceased’s habit to wash before lunch and Raikes wanted to know when he had done so, in order to be able to estimate the progress of events.

  “Therefore he looked and, as he has sworn to you, he based the timing of his actions on the fact that he saw water running out of the pipe into the drain. Moreover he has said that it was unusual for Miss Knox Forster to use that wash-hand basin. She, however, maintains that he was mistaken, and that both she and Cargate went straight in to lunch. It will be for you to decide which of those statements is true.

  “And it is not unimportant. Because it is unlikely, though not impossible, that either of them is making a genuine error. It is more probable that one or other of them is lying deliberately. If Raikes is lying, then it may be, as the defence say, in order to throw suspicion on the accused and possibly away from himself, but if you believe that it is Miss Knox Forster who is telling a deliberate untruth, then you will have to admit that it is possible that she occupied those few moments in mixing up the powder, into which she had already turned the crystals, with the snuff. I must point out to you, what indeed is obvious and freely admitted by the Crown, that there is no proof that she did so, only that she had an opportunity to do so and that, if she is lying, it provides an object for that prevarication.

  “So much for that point. We now have to turn to the car.

  “It is common ground that something went wrong with the car on that afternoon and that although it was possible, though with difficulty, to convey the witness Ma
cpherson from and to Larkingfield station, by the Friday morning it was out of action, despite the efforts of Miss Knox Forster on Thursday afternoon to put it right. Nor is it denied that Mr. Ley found out on the Saturday afternoon that, in his words, a bit of cotton waste had got drawn up into the exhaust and jammed in it. Mr. Ley removed it and the car was in order again.

  “It was perhaps a pity that Mr. Ley was so competent. It would have been interesting to have seen that piece of cotton waste and to have examined it, but unfortunately Mr. Ley destroyed it.

  “Nevertheless when Inspector Fenby heard this from Mr. Ley himself, it occurred to him, as it must have occurred to every one of us, that pieces of cotton waste do not get sucked automatically up the exhausts of cars, and he eventually made an examination which he well might have made before.”

  “And that,” thought Fenby, listening carefully to Sir Trefusis’s remarks, “is one in the eye for me because I have an uneasy feeling that I ought to have thought of it earlier. All the same the car was the one thing which was not in any way connected with the crime. Moreover I wonder whether it did immediately occur to everyone that the exhaust could not get choked accidentally, or whether even it is quite certainly true?”

  “When, however, the Inspector did at length examine the car,” Mr. Justice Smith’s voice continued quite dispassionately, “an event which did not occur until the following Monday—he found traces, albeit very faint traces, of plaster of Paris in the exhaust, and it is suggested to you that that could not have come there naturally. At first sight it seems difficult to see, even if the car was intentionally put out of action, what that had to do with Cargate’s death.

  “It is still not clear, but it is an undoubted fact, that Knox Forster, on hearing that the car had been put right, instantly remarked what a merciful fact it was that Cargate had not died of heart failure whilst driving, as he was in the habit of going fast and might have killed or injured one or more innocent passers-by. You will have to decide whether that was a natural humane remark which any of us might have made, or whether it was an idea so much in her mind, that she took steps to prevent such a tragedy occurring and then, directly it was mentioned, blurted out her fears, being at that time under the impression that Cargate’s death had been ascribed to purely natural causes.”