“You’re thinking of Dr. Twenden,” he said and Leon inclined his head slowly.
“I was,” he confessed.
Manfred smiled.
“Twenden was acquitted with acclamation and cheered as he left the Exeter Assize Court,” he said, “and yet he was guilty!”
“As guilty as a man can be—I wondered if your mind was on the case, George. I haven’t discussed it with you.”
“By the way, was he religious?” asked Manfred.
“I wouldn’t say that,” said the other, shaking his head. “I was thinking of the pious letter of thanks he wrote, and which was published in the Baxeter and Plymouth newspapers—it was rather like a sermon. What he is in private life I know no more than the account of the trial told me. You think he poisoned his wife?”
“I am sure,” said Manfred quietly. “I intended discussing the matter with you this evening.”
The trial of Dr. Twenden had provided the newspaper sensation of the week. The doctor was a man of thirty: his wife was seventeen years his senior and the suggestion was that he had married her for her money—she had a legacy of £2,000 a year which ceased at her death. Three months before this event she had inherited £63,000 from her brother, who had died in Johannesburg.
Twenden and his wife had not been on the best of terms, one of the subjects of disagreement being her unwillingness to continue paying his debts. After her inheritance had been transferred to her, she sent to Torquay, to her lawyer, the draft of a will in which she left the income from £12,000 to her husband, providing he did not marry again. The remainder of her fortune she proposed leaving to her nephew, one Jacley, a young civil engineer in the employ of the Plymouth Corporation.
The lawyer drafted her bequests and forwarded a rough copy for her approval before the will was engrossed. That draft arrived at Newton Abbot where the doctor and his wife were living (the doctor had a practice there) and was never seen again. A postman testified that it had been delivered at the 8 o’clock “round” on a Saturday. That day the doctor was called into consultation over a case of viper bite. He returned in the evening and dined with his wife. Nothing happened that was unusual. The doctor went to his laboratory to make an examination of the poison sac which had been extracted from the reptile.
In the morning Mrs. Twenden was very ill, showed symptoms which could be likened to blood-poisoning and died the same night.
It was found that in her arm was a small puncture such as might be made by a hypodermic needle, such a needle as, of course, the doctor possessed—he had in fact ten.
Suspicion fell upon him immediately. He had not summoned any further assistance besides that which he could give, until all hope of saving the unfortunate woman had gone. It was afterwards proved that the poison from which the woman had died was snake venom.
In his favour was the fact that no trace of the poison was found in either of the three syringes or the ten needles in his possession. It was his practice, and this the servants and another doctor who had ordered the treatment testified, to give his wife a subcutaneous injection of a new serum for her rheumatism.
This he performed twice a week and on the Saturday the treatment was due.
He was tried and acquitted. Between the hour of his arrest and his release he had acquired the popularity which accumulates about the personality of successful politicians and good-looking murderers, and he had been carried from the Sessions House shoulder high through a mob of cheering admirers, who had discovered nothing admirable in his character, and were not even aware of his existence, till the iron hand of the law closed upon his arm.
Possibly the enthusiasm of the crowd was fanned to its high temperature by the announcement the accused man had made in the dock—he had defended himself.
“Whether I am convicted or acquitted, not one penny of my dear wife’s money will I touch. I intend disposing of this accursed fortune to the poor of the country. I, for my part, shall leave this land for a distant shore and in a strange land, amidst strangers, I will cherish the memory of my dear wife, my partner and my friend.”
Here the doctor broke down.
“A distant shore,” said Manfred, recalling the prisoner’s passionate words. “You can do a lot with sixty-three thousand pounds on a distant shore.”
The eyes of Leon danced with suppressed merriment.
“It grieves me, George, to hear such cynicism. Have you forgotten that the poor of Devonshire are even now planning how the money will be spent?”
Manfred made a noise of contempt, and resumed his reading, but his companion had not finished with the subject.
“I should like to meet Twenden,” he said reflectively. “Would you care to go to Newton Abbot, George? The town itself is not particularly beautiful, but we are within half an hour’s run of our old home at Babbacombe.”
This time George Manfred put away his paper definitely.
“It was a particularly wicked crime,” he said gravely. “I think I agree with you, Leon. I have been thinking of the matter all the morning, and it seems to call for some redress. But,” he hesitated, “it also calls for some proof. Unless we can secure evidence which did not come before the Court, we cannot act on suspicion.”
Leon nodded.
“But if we prove it,” he said softly, “I promise you, Manfred, a most wonderful scheme.”
That afternoon he called upon his friend, Mr. Fare of Scotland Yard, and when the Commissioner heard his request, he was less surprised than amused.
“I was wondering how long it would be before you wanted to see our prisons, Señor,” he said. “I can arrange that with the Commissioners. What
