‘Well, so we should have done, had not you and Mrs Gavin offered to feed them. Did you – I mean, was there some feeling in your mind that she would come back to see how they were getting on?’
‘I did not think she would leave the district without making certain that they would not starve. I think it must have broken her heart to drown those puppies.’
‘Well, that’s something to her credit. We shall bring her in front of the magistrates, and she will reserve her defence, I suppose. I wonder what it will be? Our case against her is reasonably strong, I feel, but it’s going to be very difficult to prove that she actually administered the poison to her husband. I wish, really, that we could have got her on one of the stranglings. I thought we stood a chance with the Swansea case, but it went blue on us over those fingerprints.’
(8)
The defence was that Heinrich Schumann, depressed by the pain and inconvenience he had suffered from his illness, had decided to make an end of himself and had committed suicide. The defending counsel pressed the doctor hard, and he was compelled to admit that, until he had been informed of the result of the autopsy after the body had been disinterred, he had been fully convinced that the patient’s death had been due to natural causes. Cross-examined as to the attitude of Mrs Schumann to her husband’s illness, he stated that it had always seemed to him sympathetic and kind.
Edward James was called for the prosecution, but, whether intentionally or not, made a bad witness and was cross-examined ruthlessly by the defence.
‘Did the prisoner at any time tell you that she wished to be rid of her husband?’
‘Not in so many words, no.’
‘What made you think she wanted to marry you?’
‘She said so.’
‘In so many words?’
‘Not exactly.’
‘Did she say, “I want to marry you” – were those words used?’
‘No. She said she loved me.’
‘But not that she wanted to marry you?’
‘That was implied.’
‘But you were engaged to her daughter, were you not?’
‘Not at the time of her husband’s death.’
‘Did she consent to your engagement to her daughter?’
‘I suppose so.’
‘Well, did she or didn’t she?’
‘She did not like it much.’
‘How do you know?’
‘She told me that her daughter would be unfaithful to me.’
‘Then didn’t that imply that she supposed the marriage would take place? You could not marry her and her daughter.’ And so on and so forth, until James’s replies came dangerously near self-contradiction.
‘The jury don’t like Edward James,’ said Laura. ‘I’ve got a feeling we are on the eve of an acquittal. Pity they didn’t charge her with Karen Schumann’s death. That dog-whistle evidence is foolproof.’
‘I doubt whether it would have convinced a jury. In the present case,’ said Dame Beatrice, ‘the jury will have to believe that Heinrich Schumann died of poison, but the defence have probably succeeded in convincing them that the poison was self-administered. They have established that Heinrich must have known that “butter of antimony” was kept in the cottage as medicine for the dogs, and the doctor’s evidence showed that Heinrich, although often very ill, was not always confined to bed.’
‘In other words, if he really intended to swallow the stuff, he not only knew where it was kept but was able to get hold of it and help himself to a fatal dose. On the other hand, the doctor agreed that it was filthy stuff to take, and is a corrosive poison,’ said Laura.
‘Heinrich may not have been aware of those facts.’
‘What happens if she is acquitted?’
‘There is little to be gained by anticipating the verdict of the jury.’
There was no acquittal. The jury were out for less than an hour and the verdict of Guilty was unanimous. The summing-up by the judge had been fair and impartial and leaned, if anything, towards the case for the defence, so that the verdict was received by the knowledgeable with a good deal of comment and surprise.
It was some weeks later that an explanation came to light. Dame Beatrice was at a dinner-party given by her son, the eminent Q.C. Sir Ferdinand Lestrange, and found herself at table seated next to the man who had led for the prosecution. The talk between them led Dame Beatrice to ask which of his many cases he had been most surprised to win. He replied, without hesitation,
‘Oh, Regina v. Schumann.’
‘I was in court for that. She did do it, you know,’ said Dame Beatrice.
‘Yes, but I didn’t believe we’d convinced the jury, and, actually, we couldn’t have done – not on the evidence. The summing-up was fair enough, but I felt it went against us. The most I hoped for was a disagreement sufficient to make another trial necessary, and I didn’t think we’d get any fresh material, at that.’
‘Did you know what the foreman’s profession was?’
‘Yes. The defence knew it, too, and made no objection. In fact, they may have thought it an advantage to them, rather than the reverse. He was a vet.’
‘Yes,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘I was at Crufts last week. My secretary was exhibiting her son’s wolfhound and his Yorkshire terrier. I ran into this man and, of course, recognised him, and we talked about the trial. I asked him why the jury had convicted Mrs Schumann against the weight of the evidence. He said that he told them that the taking of antimony in any form was so unpleasant that no would-be suicide would have taken more than one dose of it, and that the medical evidence made it clear that small doses had been administered over a period of time. We ourselves had noted the same point, of course, but he appears to have insisted on elaborating it. What is more, he claimed that Mrs Schumann, because of her profession, would have known her husband was taking it, whether she had
