I at once recognised them for genuine documents in my stepmother’s handwriting.
‘How many letters have you?’
‘Well there’s more than I ’ave ’ere. But them as I ’old in my ’and w’ich makes eight, countin’ them two, is the ones as ’ud interest anybody as wanted to know w’y a gentleman might die sudden.’
‘Are there any that say definitely how he died or what he died of?’
‘No,’ said Mrs Cutts. ‘I wouldn’t deceive a gentleman like you, sir. Tell the truth, likewise fair and square. Them eight letters, sir, is wot they calls excitements to murder, and would be so considered by any party as might ’appen to receive them. But as for saying in so many words “weed-killer” or “prussic acid”, I will not say as you will find them words in black and white.’
‘That, of course, detracts from their value,’ I said carelessly. ‘These letters are evidence of sad immorality, no doubt, Mrs Cutts, but it’s one thing to wish a person dead and another to kill him.’
‘There ain’t sech a great difference,’ said Mrs Cutts, a little shaken. ‘It says in the Bible – “ ’E that ’ateth ’is brother is a murderer,” now, don’t it, sir? And there’s some as sits on juries ’as the same way of thinkin’.’
‘Maybe,’ said I, ‘but all the same, it’s not proof.’
‘Very good, sir,’ said Mrs Cutts with dignity. ‘I wouldn’t contradict a gentleman. You ’and me them letters back, Archie. The gentleman don’t want ’em. Ef Mr Lathom ’ad any sense ’e’d burn the rubbishin’ stuff, and so I’ll tell ’im, clutterin’ up the place.’
‘I don’t say that, Mrs Cutts,’ said I, holding on to the letters. ‘They are of interest, but not of as much interest as I thought they might be. What value did you think of placing on them?’
‘To them as knew ’ow to use ’em’ – here Mrs Cutts appeared to size me up from head to toe – ‘letters like them might be worth a ’undred pounds apiece.’
‘Rubbish,’ said I. ‘I’ll give you fifty pounds for the lot, and that’s more than they’re worth.’
I put the two letters back on the table and flicked at them disdainfully.
‘Fifty pound!’ shrieked Mrs Cutts, ‘fifty pound! And me riskin’ losin’ a job as is worth more than that any day in recommendations and perks, not countin’ my money regular every week!’
She gathered the letters together and began to tie the packet up again.
‘Mr Lathom ’ud give five times that much to know as they wos safe,’ she added.
‘Not he,’ said I. ‘I doubt if he has as much as a hundred pounds in the world. Whereas, if your son likes to come round with me to my hotel, I can give him cash on the nail.’
‘No,’ said Mrs Cutts. ‘I can’t let them letters go. Supposin’ Mr Lathom wanted to read ’em and they wasn’t there.’
‘That’s your affair,’ said I. ‘If you don’t want to sell them, you can keep them. If I were you I’d put them back quickly where you found them, and say nothing to Mr Lathom about it. There’s such a thing as blackmail, you know, Mrs Cutts, and judges are pretty strict about it.’
Mrs Cutts laughed scornfully.
‘Blackmail! Nobody ain’t goin’ to charge theirselves with murder, and don’t you think it.’
‘There’s no murder there,’ said I. ‘Good-night.’
I rose to go. The woman let me get as far as the door and then came after me.
‘See ’ere, sir. You’re a gentleman, and I don’t want to be ’ard on a gentleman wot’s pore father ’as died sudden. Give me two ’undred pound, and I’ll let yer take copies of ’em and Archie shall go with you and bring ’em back.’
‘Copies don’t count so well in a court of law as originals,’ I said.
‘They could be swore to,’ said Mrs Cutts.
‘Not at this time of night,’ said I.
The youth Archie leaned across and whispered to his mother. She nodded and smiled her unpleasant smile.
‘See ’ere, sir, I’ll risk it. Archie shall bring you them letters to your ’otel in the mornin’ and you shall take copies and ’ave them swore to afore a lawyer. I dursn’t let you ’ave them, really I dursn’t, sir. I’m takin’ a sad risk as it is for a respectable woman.’
‘Very well,’ I replied. ‘But copies are only worth a hundred pounds to me at the very outside.’
‘You’re makin’ a very ’ard bargain, sir.’
‘It’s that or nothing,’ said I.
‘Well, sir, if you say so. I’ll send Archie round at ten o’clock, sir.’
I agreed to this and walked away, glad to get out. I lay awake all night, fancying that Mrs Cutts would go to Lathom in the interval and make better terms with him.
However, Archie was there with the letters in the morning as agreed, and I took him and them round to a solicitor’s where typed copies were made and sworn. I also made an affidavit that I recognised the writing of the originals as being in my stepmother’s handwriting. I then paid the lad the agreed hundred pounds in Treasury notes, and dismissed him.
I have entered into all these details in order that there should be no doubt as to the genuineness of these copies, and to make quite clear why I am unable at the moment to forward the originals.
It is true that I could probably have forced Archie into handing the letters over, since he had no right to them. But several reasons urged me to take the other course. First, I had no legal right to them either, and was not clear how my action might be looked upon by the police. Secondly, and this was more important, I could hardly hope that Lathom would not discover their absence, and, if he did, he might take fright and leave the country and thus add great difficulties to my task. It would take some weeks, perhaps, to collect all the evidence I needed, and by the time I was ready to set the law in action, he might hide himself very effectually. Thirdly, I did not wish to alienate Mrs Cutts. I foresaw that she might be very useful, not only in bringing me fresh letters, if any arrived that threw further light on the business, but also in keeping watch on Lathom’s movements. I suggested to Archie that there might be possibilities of further reward in the future, and cautioned him against alarming Lathom.
It is conceivable, however, that Mrs Cutts may consider it more advantageous to blackmail Lathom than to assist me. Up to the moment of writing, he is still living in Chelsea, and apparently feels himself safe. But for all I know, Mrs Cutts may have retained the letters and be blackmailing him on her own account. Or she may have delivered her warning, and he may have destroyed the letters and made himself (as he imagines) secure. In the latter case it will, of course, be impossible to produce the original documents in court, and then the certified copies will justify their existence.
Having obtained the evidence of the adultery, I now felt myself in a position to put pressure on Munting, and accordingly went round to see him again.
‘I perfectly appreciate,’ I said, ‘the reasons for your silence at our last interview. But if I tell you that I have in my hands independent proof that Lathom was Margaret Harrison’s lover, perhaps you will feel justified in assisting my inquiries.’
He shrugged his shoulders.
‘My dear man,’ he said, ‘if you have proof already, I don’t see what assistance you require. May I ask what you call proof? After all, one doesn’t make these accusations without sufficient grounds.’
‘I have got the letters written to Lathom by my stepmother,’ I said, ‘and they leave the matter in no doubt whatever.’
‘lndeed?’ said he. ‘Well, I won’t ask you where you got them from. Private detective work is not in my line. If you really believe that your father was driven to do away with himself, I am extremely sorry – but what can one do about it?’
‘I do not think so,’ I said. ‘I believe, and these letters afford strong evidence to my mind, that my father was cruelly and deliberately murdered by Lathom at Margaret Harrison’s instigation. And I mean to prove it.’
‘Murdered?’ he cried. ‘Good God, you
can’t mean that! That’s absolutely impossible. Lathom may be a bit of a rotter in some ways, but he’s not a murderer. I’ll swear he isn’t that. You’re absolutely mistaken.’
‘Will you read the letters?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘Look here. You’re a man of the world. If things have got to this point, I don’t mind admitting that Lathom did have some sort of an affair with Mrs Harrison. I did what I could to make him drop it, but, after all, these things will sometimes happen. I told him it was a poor sort of game to play, and when I got the opportunity – over that Milsom affair – I told him I’d shut up about it on condition he cleared out. He assured me afterwards, in the most solemn way, that it was all finished with. Why, damn it, I asked him about it the very day we went down to Manaton, and he repeated that the whole affair was absolutely over and done with.’
‘He was wise,’ I said dryly, ‘since he was taking you down there to view my father’s dead body. Even you might have suspected something if you had gone to “The Shack” in the knowledge that it was to Lathom’s interest to find what he did find.’
His face changed. I had touched him on the raw somewhere.
‘Did you, as a matter of fact, believe Lathom?’
‘I believed him – yes.’ He turned his pipe thoughtfully over between his fingers. ‘I believed that the affair had been put an end to. But I was not altogether sure that Lathom’s affection for Mrs Harrison had ceased.’
‘And when you found that my father had died so opportunely – did no suspicion enter your mind?’
‘Well – I admit it did just pass through my mind that Harrison might have done it himself. I – I didn’t want to believe it. I don’t know that I did really believe it. But it did occur to me as a possibility.’
‘Nothing more?’
‘Absolutely nothing more.’
‘Will you read the letters, and tell me if, after that, you still think there was nothing more?’
He hesitated.
‘If you are so sure that Lathom is innocent, you may be able to prove his innocence.’
He looked at me doubtfully, and slowly put out his hand for the letters. He read the endorsement by the solicitor, and looked sharply at me again, but said nothing. I waited while he read the documents through – first quickly, then for a second time slowly and with greater attention.
‘You will notice,’ I said, ‘that, shortly before the time when he told you the affair was over, Margaret Harrison had written him a letter clearly indicating that she believed herself to be about to have a child by him.’
‘Yes, I see that.’
‘And that he was not informed that this belief was erroneous till after my father’s death.’
‘No.’
‘Plenty of motive for murder there.’
‘Plenty of motive, certainly. But motive by itself is nothing. Good heavens, man, if everybody committed murder because they had a motive, precious few of us would die natural deaths.’
‘But you will admit that murder was being urged upon him, in various ways, in all these letters.’
‘I wouldn’t necessarily go so far as to admit that. Mrs Harrison is an emotional, imaginative woman. She picks up phrases out of books. Plenty of people talk in this vague way about love – about its being supreme, and justifying itself, and sweeping obstacles aside and so on, without ever intending to put their words into action. I’ve written that kind of thing myself – in books.’
‘Very likely. As a modern novelist you need not be expected to uphold a high standard of morals. But in practice, I take it, you would not wish to excuse or justify murder.’
‘No. I confess to an old-fashioned prejudice against murder. It may be inconsistent of me, but I do. And so, I am sure, would Lathom.’
‘Lathom is obviously very much under the influence of Margaret Harrison.’
‘I should have said it was the other way round.’
‘In some things. In theory, no doubt. But when it comes to doing things, I should say she was infinitely more practical – and more unscrupulous. But say, if you like, he is only under the influence of a strong passion – don’t you think that might lead him to do things which conflicted with his principles, or prejudices, or whatever you like to call them? Come now, you have called me a man of the world. Murders are done every day, for much less motive than Lathom had.’
He drummed on the table.
‘Well,’ he burst out at last. ‘I’ll admit that. I’ll admit – for the sake of argument – that Lathom might have murdered your father, though I don’t believe it for a moment. But it was physically impossible. How could he? He was here in London all the time.’
‘That’s where you can help me. Why was it impossible? How do you know it was impossible? Can you prove that it was impossible?’
‘I’m sure I can.’
‘Will you let me have all the facts you know about the whole thing from the beginning?’
‘Of course I will. Damn it all, if Lathom did do it, he deserves everything that’s coming to him. He’d have to be an absolute swine. Mind you, Lathom and I didn’t always get on together, but – it’s absurd. He can’t have done it. But we’ve got to kill the possibility.’
He began to walk up and down, visibly perturbed. I waited. We were interrupted by a servant announcing dinner.
‘You’ll stay?’ said Munting. ‘You must meet my wife. She has a very clear head for this kind of thing.’
I accepted, not wishing to lose a day in getting to the bottom of the matter. We did not, of course, talk about the subject while the maid was in the room, but after dinner we all went into the library, and there outlined the story to Mrs Munting. I mention her, not because she was able to contribute anything of great value to the discussion (though, being a woman, she was more willing than her husband to allow that a young man might murder an older one for a woman’s sake), but because she fetched out the letters which Munting had written to her during his period of residence at Whittington Terrace, in order to verify facts and dates. In the end, she handed the letters over to me in case I might find in them any clue or suggestion which we had overlooked. Munting rather naturally objected to having his love-letters (if one can call these rambling effusions by that name) put into the hands of a comparative stranger, but his wife, with that curious lack of delicacy which virtuous women often display, laughed, and said she was sure I should not pay any attention to the personal passages.
‘Mr Harrison is not proposing to publish your Life and Letters, you know,’ she said.
This childish remark seemed to amuse Munting. He said: ‘No; I fancy I’m safe with him,’ and raised no further objection. Probably his vanity was sufficient to assure him that the exposure of his intimate feelings was bound to leave a favourable impression. Indeed, it is obvious that, even in writing to his fiancée, he was writing for effect half the time and quite possibly with an eye to future publication. With young men like Beverley Nichols and Robert Graves prattling in public about their domestic affairs, we need hardly expect to find any decent reticence among the smart novelists of today.
Taking the question of Motive as settled for the moment, we proceeded to discuss the subjects Means and Opportunity. Under these heads, the Muntings put forward a number of objections to the murder theory, and I was bound to recognise that they looked sufficiently formidable. Here is the schedule which I drew up immediately after this conversation.
Points to be Investigated in Connection with the Death of George Harrison
A. Means
1. – Did Harrison really die of muscarine poisoning?
Muscarine (the poisonous principle of Amanita muscaria) was obtained in large quantities from (a) the viscera; (b) the bedclothes; and (c) the half-eaten dish on the table.
The appearance of the body and the symptoms of the illness, as deduced from the attendant circumstances, were both consistent with muscarine poisoning.
Sir James Lubbock stated on oath that the cause of death was muscarine poisoning
.
Question: Could any other poison have produced similar effects or a similar chemical analysis? The analyst’s attention having been specially directed to muscarine by the inquiries on the opening day of the inquest, did he, in fact, search for any poison other than muscarine?
Note: To write to Sir James Lubbock and put these points before him.
2. – In any case, how did the muscarine get into the body, if we exclude the hypotheses of accident and suicide?
Supposing that Lathom had himself gathered the poisonous fungi and surreptitiously added them to the dish while it was in course of preparation, the murder might have been very simply accomplished. If he had merely put them into the basket with the genuine edible fungi gathered by my father, the latter would certainly have discovered and thrown them away when preparing the dish. It would, therefore, be necessary to wait, and add them when the process of cooking was already so far advanced that the fungi had lost their characteristic colour and shape.
On any ordinary occasion it would have been easy for Lathom to do this. It will be seen from the evidence at the inquest that Lathom was often left at home in ‘The Shack’ while Harrison went sketching or botanising.
In the actual case there are difficulties, some of which have to be considered under the heading ‘Opportunity’.
Question: Did Lathom know Amanita muscaria sufficiently well to be able to find it and know it for what it was? (Answer: Quite possibly my father might have shown it to him and warned him against it. Or he might have studied the pictures in my father’s books or in some other book.)
If not, can he have got some accomplice to procure the fungus for him? (Not impossible, but unlikely. Country people usually pay little attention to fungi, and the element of risk involved would be very great.)
In what way was the dish of fungi cooked? It would be easier to add a foreign substance to a stew, for example, which is done slowly and needs little superintendence, than to a grill or a fry, which takes only a few minutes and is under the cook’s eyes all the time. (Answer: Munting, speaking from memory, thinks the dish appeared more in the nature of a stew. My father’s letter to me (No. 15) of October 22nd, 1928, is of interest in this connection.)