Salcombe Hardy groaned: “How long, O Lord, how long shall we have to listen to all this tripe about commercial arsenic? Murderers learn it now at their mother’s knee.”
“I particularly want you to remember those dates—I will give them to you again—the 10th April and the 5th May.” (The Jury wrote them down. Lord Peter Wimsey murmured: “They all wrote down on their slates, ‘She doesn’t believe there’s an atom of meaning in it.’ ” The Hon. Freddy said “What? What?” and the judge turned over another page of his notes.)
“About this time, Philip Boyes began to suffer from renewed attacks of a gastric trouble to which he had been subject from time to time during his life. You have read the evidence of Dr. Green, who attended him for something of the sort during his University career. That is some time ago; but there is also Dr. Weare, who, in 1925 prescribed for a similar attack. Not grave illnesses, but painful and exhausting, with sickness and so on, and aching in the limbs. Plenty of people have such troubles from time to time. Still, there is a coincidence of dates here which may be significant. We get these attacks—noted in Dr. Weare’s casebook—one on the 31st of March, one on the 15th of April and one on the 12th of May. Three sets of coincidences—as you may perhaps think them to be—Harriet Vane and Philip Boyes meet ‘towards the end of March,’ and he has an attack of gastritis on March 31st; on 10th April Harriet Vane purchases two ounces of arsenic—they meet again ‘in the second week in April,’ and on April 15th, he has another attack; on 5th May, there is the purchase of weedkiller—‘some time in May’ there is another meeting, and on the 12th May he is taken ill for the third time. You may think that is rather curious, but you must not forget that the Crown has failed to prove any purchase of arsenic before the meeting in March. You must bear that in mind when considering this point.
“After the third attack—the one in May—the doctor advises Boyes to go away for a change, and he selects the northwest corner of Wales. He goes to Harlech, and spends a very pleasant time there and is much better. But he has a friend to accompany him, Mr. Ryland Vaughan, whom you have seen, and this friend says that ‘Philip was not happy.’ In fact, Mr. Vaughan formed the opinion that he was fretting after Harriet Vane. His bodily health improved, but he grew mentally depressed. And so on June 16th, we find him writing a letter to Miss Vane. Now that is an important letter, so I will read it to you once more:
‘Dear Harriet,
Life is an utter mess up. I can’t stick it out here any longer. I’ve decided to cut adrift and take a trip out West. But before I go, I want to see you once again and find out if it isn’t possible to put things straight again. You must do as you like, of course, but I still cannot understand the attitude you take up. If I can’t make you see the thing in the right perspective this time I’ll chuck it for good. I shall be in town on the 20th Let me have a line to say when I can come round.
“Now that, as you have realised, is a most ambiguous letter. Sir Impey Biggs, with arguments of great weight, has suggested that by the expressions ‘cut adrift and take a trip out west,’ ‘I can’t stick it out here,’ and ‘chuck it for good,’ the writer was expressing his intention to make away with himself if he could not effect a reconciliation with the accused. He points out that ‘to go west’ is a well-known metaphor for dying, and that, of course, may be convincing to you. But Mr. Urquhart, when examined on the subject by the Attorney General, said that he supposed the letter to refer to a project which he himself had suggested to the deceased, of taking a voyage across the Atlantic to Barbados, by way of change of scene. And the learned Attorney General makes this other point that when the writer says, ‘I can’t stick it out here any longer,’ he means, here in Britain, or perhaps merely ‘here at Harlech,’ and that if the phrase had reference to suicide it would read simply, ‘I can’t stick it out any longer.’
“No doubt you have formed your own opinion on this point. It is important to note that the deceased asks for an appointment on the 20th The reply to this letter is before us; it reads:
‘Dear Phil,
You can come round at 9:30 on the 20th if you like, but you certainly will not make me change my mind.’
“And it is signed simply ‘H.’ A very cold letter, you may think—almost hostile in tone. And yet the appointment is made for 9:30.
“I shall not have to keep your attention very much longer, but I do ask for it at this point, specially—though you have been attending most patiently and industriously all the time—because we now come to the actual day of the death itself.”
The old man clasped his hands one over the other upon the sheaf of notes and leaned a little forward. He had it all in his
