Agatha Christie Collection - 3 Novels And 25 Short Stories. Agatha Christie
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“You found these two objects, you say, in the chest of drawers. Was the drawer unlocked?”
“Yes.”
“Does it not strike you as unlikely that a man who had committed a crime should keep the evidence of it in an unlocked drawer for anyone to find?”
“He might have stowed them there in a hurry.”
“But you have just said it was a whole week since the crime. He would have had ample time to remove them and destroy them.”
“Perhaps.”
“There is no perhaps about it. Would he, or would he not have had plenty of time to remove and destroy them?”
“Yes.”
“Was the pile of underclothes under which the things were hidden heavy or light?”
“Heavyish.”
“In other words, it was winter underclothing. Obviously, the prisoner would not be likely to go to that drawer?”
“Perhaps not.”
“Kindly answer my question. Would the prisoner, in the hottest week of a hot summer, be likely to go to a drawer containing winter underclothing. Yes, or no?”
“No.”
“In that case, is it not possible that the articles in question might have been put there by a third person, and that the prisoner was quite unaware of their presence?”
“I should not think it likely.”
“But it is possible?”
“Yes.”
“That is all.”
More evidence followed. Evidence as to the financial difficulties in which the prisoner had found himself at the end of July. Evidence as to his intrigue with Mrs. Raikes--poor Mary, that must have been bitter hearing for a woman of her pride. Evelyn Howard had been right in her facts, though her animosity against Alfred Inglethorp had caused her to jump to the conclusion that he was the person concerned.
Lawrence Cavendish was then put into the box. In a low voice, in answer to Mr. Philips’ questions, he denied having ordered anything from Parkson’s in June. In fact, on June 29th, he had been staying away, in Wales.
Instantly, Sir Ernest’s chin was shooting pugnaciously forward.
“You deny having ordered a black beard from Parkson’s on June 29th?”
“I do.”
“Ah! In the event of anything happening to your brother, who will inherit Styles Court?”
The brutality of the question called a flush to Lawrence’s pale face. The judge gave vent to a faint murmur of disapprobation, and the prisoner in the dock leant forward angrily.
Heavywether cared nothing for his client’s anger.
“Answer my question, if you please.”
“I suppose,” said Lawrence quietly, “that I should.”
“What do you mean by you ‘suppose’? Your brother has no children. You would inherit it, wouldn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Ah, that’s better,” said Heavywether, with ferocious geniality. “And you’d inherit a good slice of money too, wouldn’t you?”
“Really, Sir Ernest,” protested the judge, “these questions are not relevant.”
Sir Ernest bowed, and having shot his arrow proceeded.
“On Tuesday, the 17th July, you went, I believe, with another guest, to visit the dispensary at the Red Cross Hospital in Tadminster?”
“Yes.”
“Did you--while you happened to be alone for a few seconds--unlock the poison cupboard, and examine some of the bottles?”
“I--I--may have done so.”
“I put it to you that you did do so?”
“Yes.”
Sir Ernest fairly shot the next question at him.
“Did you examine one bottle in particular?”
“No, I do not think so.”
“Be careful, Mr. Cavendish. I am referring to a little bottle of Hydro-chloride of Strychnine.”
Lawrence was turning a sickly greenish colour.
“N--o--I am sure I didn’t.”
“Then how do you account for the fact that you left the unmistakable impress of your finger-prints on it?”
The bullying manner was highly efficacious with a nervous disposition.
“I--I suppose I must have taken up the bottle.”
“I suppose so too! Did you abstract any of the contents of the bottle?”
“Certainly not.”
“Then why did you take it up?”
“I once studied to be a doctor. Such things naturally interest me.”
“Ah! So poisons ‘naturally interest’ you, do they? Still, you waited to be alone before gratifying that ‘interest’ of yours?”
“That was pure chance. If the others had been there, I should have done just the same.”
“Still, as it happens, the others were not there?”
“No, but----”
“In fact, during the whole afternoon, you were only alone for a couple of minutes, and it happened--I say, it happened--to be during those two minutes that you displayed your ‘natural interest’ in Hydro-chloride of Strychnine?”
Lawrence stammered pitiably.
“I--I----”
With a satisfied and expressive countenance, Sir Ernest observed:
“I have nothing more to ask you, Mr. Cavendish.”
This bit of cross-examination had caused great excitement in court. The heads of the many fashionably attired women present were busily laid together, and their whispers became so loud that the judge angrily threatened to have the court cleared if there was not immediate silence.
There was little more evidence. The hand-writing experts were called upon for their opinion of the signature of “Alfred Inglethorp” in the chemist’s poison register. They all declared unanimously that it was certainly not his hand-writing, and gave it as their view that it might be that of the prisoner disguised. Cross-examined, they admitted that it might be the prisoner’s hand-writing cleverly counterfeited.
Sir Ernest Heavywether’s speech in opening the case for the defence was not a long one, but it was backed by the full force of his emphatic manner. Never, he said, in the course of his long experience, had he known a charge of murder rest on slighter evidence. Not only was it entirely circumstantial, but the greater part of it was practically unproved. Let them take the testimony they had heard and sift it impartially. The strychnine had been found in a drawer in the prisoner’s room. That drawer was an unlocked one, as he had pointed out, and he submitted that there was no evidence to prove that it was the prisoner who had concealed the poison there. It was, in fact, a wicked and