Excellent Intentions Page 19

  “Do you know, somehow I don’t feel that that’s quite fair. For that matter, I didn’t feel that the Judge was entirely impartial.”

  “Really if you are going to say things against the Judge! I mean, you can’t do that!”

  “I’m not. Only that this particular Judge had made up his mind too definitely.”

  “Well, he ought to give us a lead, oughtn’t he? That’s method, isn’t it?”

  “It may be, but it is also method that we consider all the evidence, and only the evidence.” Ellis felt himself compelled to go on fighting, even though he was beginning to think that it was a losing battle and that he himself was not so certain.

  From the far end of the room came a little whispering amongst the more silent members of the jury. “We five here, Mr. Foreman, have made up our minds. We say ‘guilty’.”

  Ellis looked round and listened to a chorus of “agreed”. Even the farmer who had wanted to hang Raikes, seemed to have changed his mind. For a full minute he hesitated, then he said: “No, we can’t have a verdict unless it is unanimous, and I can’t square it with my conscience to fall in line with you unless not only I but you have reviewed all the evidence. I do put it to you that it is our duty to do so and that we can’t avoid it.”

  “I must say, Mr. Foreman, that I find your conscience somewhat tiresome.”

  “I second that.”

  “But there’s method in it.”

  “I’m sorry, but I insist. If you are all still of the same mind, then it may be another matter, but otherwise it almost seems as if we were not taking an intelligent interest in it.”

  “Well, really.” There was a general movement which showed that Ellis had gone too far. Nevertheless, up to a point, he won his case. The jury consented rather more systematically than might have been expected, but still rather discursively, to consider the case. It took them over two hours and they were not by the end at all pleased with each other.

  The Clerk of Assize rose and put the usual question. “Members of the jury, are you agreed upon your verdict?”

  “We are.”

  “Do you find the prisoner at the bar” (he gave the name in full) “guilty or not guilty?”

  Ellis intimated in one word that he had been unable to shake his fellow jurors’ original opinion.

  The Clerk of Assize turned to the accused.

  Part VII

  Conclusion

  In the quiet of a small house in Dorset in the valley of the Frome, in which he was hoping to enjoy many placid, happy days fishing, Sir Trefusis Smith read his Times contentedly. He had thought that he could rely on the Court of Criminal Appeal, and now he saw that he had been right.

  It had always been his intention to retire directly after the trial of Joan Knox Forster, and he had carried it into immediate execution. And really, though with the report of the appeal in front of them many people might not have thought so, it had been rather an heroic ending. For he had never had the slightest doubt as to the guilt of the accused. Even his combative reactions to Anstruther Blayton’s discursive methods—competent though they had been—had not allowed him to take any other view. Nor, in his opinion, could any jury have come to any other conclusion than that which had been reached by Ellis and his colleagues, for all Vernon’s efforts could not cover up the fact that his client was far too honest and had practically given herself away in the box.

  All through, that had been the trouble. It seemed an odd thing to think about a woman who had committed a murder, and other people might not agree with him, but he had a very definite respect, almost amounting to admiration, for her. For one thing, he thoroughly agreed with her opinion of Cargate’s character, which perforce had not been spared by either side at the trial. To Sir Trefusis, a picture of Cargate had gradually been presented in which he appeared to be, if possible, even worse than he had been in life.

  And, with that in his mind, the tall, clumsy woman had seemed so essentially honest. He had liked her. He even, though he did not agree with them, respected her political ideas, and finally he came to the conclusion that, guilty though she was, it would be a pity if she were to be hanged.

  It had been rather a shock to him to reach that point, and at first he had been inclined to push it aside as pure senility, mixed with the sentiment arising from the knowledge that it was his own last case. He had never been anything other than a realist in his life before. In fact the very idea that English criminal law should be based on sentiment and not justice was absolutely abhorrent to him. Once admit that, except in self-defence, killing could ever be justified, and there would, in his opinion, be an end of all safety and sanity in the country. And that he, who had been regarded as something of a hanging Judge, should allow such a doctrine to creep in, was an impossible and intolerable idea.

  No. All through the trial he had placed before himself firmly the objective that that must not happen; even a verdict of “not guilty” he had regarded as extremely undesirable, because, to his mind, it would be so obviously contrary to the facts, that it would be generally considered to be based on inclination, and once such a precedent crept in, there was no knowing where it would end.

  Nevertheless as he had listened to Blayton’s fair but remorseless representations, he had wished more and more strongly to preserve both the principle on which the law rested, and the life of the accused. It had seemed hard at first, but gradually a way had become clear to him. It involved some sacrifice of his own reputation, but he had never cared much for that. If his conscience acquitted him, the rest of the world might go hang.

  It had been a temptation to take the point offered by Vernon, and withdraw the case from the jury on the ground that Cargate had not been proved ever to have died of poison at all, but his judicial sense had made it quite impossible for him to do so. He simply could not bring himself to say that there was no evidence on which the jury might find that the poison had in fact been taken. Indeed the point seemed to him to be exactly the opposite way round. He had no doubt whatever that Cargate had been murdered.

  So finally he had decided to take up the line that he did, and it had been perfectly and entirely successful. Indeed he had always thought that it would be, although for about half an hour he wondered whether he had overdone it. It was possible, he knew, to put things too plainly to a jury, and so end by finding them asserting their independence by bringing in a contrary verdict. If he was any judge of character, the foreman of that particular jury had been just such a type of man.

  However, justice had been vindicated by the verdict, and now humanity had triumphed in the Court of Criminal Appeal. He had succeeded in obtaining both his objectives. There would be no execution.

  With a contented smile, he skimmed through the column. “Brought out every point against the accused… did not mention those which might have been in her favour… would instance in particular that it was not mentioned that the accused was shortsighted… knew nothing of botany or gardening… conceivably pardonable errors…” Yes, Vernon had picked up neatly most of the points on which Sir Trefusis had relied for his ultimate result. Indeed he had added a few which, to Sir Trefusis’s mind were less good. He did not think that it was quite fair to say that he had minimized the possibility of the other three being the criminal. Personally he thought that he had put that quite fairly, but it was equally proper for Vernon to suggest that he had not. He had to remind himself rather sharply that it was irrational for him to be irritated by that.

  Ah! But here at last was the point on which he had mainly relied. He thought that he had seen Vernon quickly conceal a smile of approaching triumph when he left that out, and here it was. He nodded with satisfaction. Yes, it was perfectly true. He had never told the jury that they must be satisfied beyond reasonable doubt, and that if they were not, that it was their duty… The phrases had come so naturally to him, that it had been quite hard to keep them back.

  But he had n
ot said them, and by that negation, coupled with the general adverse trend of his summing-up, he had made, he had always thought, practically certain that the Court of Criminal Appeal would be bound to quash the verdict. And now he saw that they had done so. It almost made him laugh to see the careful way in which they had attempted to spare his feelings. Their intentions were as excellent as he felt his own to have been. But the great thing was that they had done it. He was glad, thoroughly glad of the final result of the trial in connection with the murder of Launcelot Henry Cuthbert Cargate.

  Dear Reader,

  We want to tell you about Richard Hull, a writer with whom you may or may not be familiar. Here is a chance to find out more!

  Richard Hull wrote 15 novels. He worked as an accountant in private practice and, during the Second World War, he also worked for the Admiralty in this capacity.

  Arguably Hull’s most well-known novel was The Murder of My Aunt, originally published in 1934. This was Hull’s first novel and its success encouraged and convinced Hull to become a full-time writer. His trademarks throughout many of his novels are his humour and his unexpected, intriguing endings. He includes unreliable narrators in his work, and writes from the different perspectives of victims and criminals alike.

  Richard Hull was a member of the Detection Club, and even assisted Agatha Christie with her duties as President.

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