A Dorothy L. Sayers Mystery

Woburn Square, cabbie,

quick as you can!

Paper! Paper!

Miss Harriet Vane charged with murder!

Star, Standard, and News. Cheltenham races.

Paper! Paper!

A striking face.

Not just conventionally pretty.

Much more than that.

Damned attractive.

More coffee, milord?

Milord?

Can that really be the face of a poisoner?

Well, milord, I...

Bunter, launch the Lagonda.

Can't wait, Bunter. I'll get a cab back.

Very good, milord.

Very sorry.

Sorry, sir. public gallery's full.

I'm looking for Chief Inspector Parker.

Is he expecting you?

I believe so.

Right you are, sir. Court Number One.

I'm obliged.

Come along! Please!

There's no more room inside.

You're obstructing the entrance.

The case for the Crown is that Harriet Vane

murdered Philip Boyes with arsenic.

The defense do not dispute

that death was due to arsenical poisoning,

and that you must accept.

The only question that remains for you

is whether in fact that arsenic

was deliberately administered by the prisoner

with intent to murder.

The deceased, Philip Boyes, was, as you've heard,

a writer.

He was 36 years old, and had published five novels

and other literary works,

works sometimes described as of an advanced type.

They preached doctrines

which may seem to some of us immoral

or seditious,

such as atheism and anarchy

and... ahem... what is known as free love.

There's Chief Inspector Parker, sir.

What are you doing here, Peter?

I've been following the case in the newspapers.

And now you've come for the kill.

Charles, I think you've made a mistake.

I'm sure I've made many.

I'll catch up with you.

Shall I leave the gentleman with you?

Yes. I'll look after him.

This young woman, Harriet Vane...

she didn't do it.

Will you tell me why?

It's a hunch, as yet.

Ah. A hunch.

Could you squeeze me in?

Yes, come with me. I'll get you in the back way.

Your mother's here, and your friend Mr. Arbuthnot.

Mama and Freddy? Heavens! what are they doing here?

I think all of London's here.

The prisoner is also a novelist by profession,

and it is very important to remember

that she is a writer

of so-called mystery or detective stories,

stories that deal with various ingenious methods

of committing murder and other crimes.

His honor has just started his summing up, so...

Understood. I'll creep in like a mouse.

I don't give much for her chances.

While there's life, there's hope.

If not very much time.

The prisoner herself...

The prisoner herself has told us with great candor

how she became attached to Philip Boyes,

how for a considerable time

she held out against his persuasions

to live with him in an irregular manner.

There was, in fact, no reason at all

why he should not have married her honorably,

but apparently he'd represented himself

as being conscientiously opposed to any formal marriage.

You have the evidence of Sylvia Marriott

and Eiluned Price

that the prisoner was made very unhappy

by the attitude which he chose to take up.

At any rate, in November of 1927,

the prisoner,

worn out, as she tells us,

by his unceasing importunities...

Mesmerized, old bean.

She's got you completely mesmerized.

Now, you may feel, and quite properly,

that this was a very wrong thing to do.

However, various friends have testified

that they apparently continued to live

on terms of the greatest mutual affection

for nearly a year,

until, in October of 1928,

Boyes finally offered her a legal marriage.

Now, you may find this surprising,

but this offer caused the prisoner

to become angry with Boyes,

angry with him because,

after persuading her against her will

to adopt his principles of conduct,

he had then renounced these principles

and, as she says, made a fool of her.

And as a result, there was a quarrel,

and the couple separated,

Miss Vane seeking temporary refuge

with her friend Sylvia Marriott.

After a short while,

Harriet Vane leaves

the sanctuary of Miss Marriott's establishment

and takes a small flat in Doughty Street,

while Philip Boyes accepts the invitation

of his cousin, Mr. Norman Urquhart,

to stay at his house in Woburn Square.

Although living in the same quarter of London,

Boyes and the accused

do not seem to have met very often after the separation,

but there's some evidence of a meeting

towards the end of November,

and another in the second week of December,

and a third in January of this year.

These times are worth noting.

We now come to a date

of the very greatest importance.

On Monday, December the 10th, 1928,

a young woman who has been identified as Harriet Vane

entered a chemist's shop

kept by Mr. Brown in Southampton Row

and purchased two ounces of commercial arsenic...

saying she needed it to destroy rats.

She signed the poison book in the name of Mary Slater.

And on Saturday, January the 5th,

we have another purchase of arsenic.

This time she gave the name of Edith Waters.

The prisoner has given

an explanation of these purchases

which you might consider, for what it's worth.

She says that she was engaged at that time

in writing a novel about poisoning,

and that she bought the drugs in order to prove by experiment

how easy it was for an ordinary person

to get hold of deadly poisons.

Now, these dates...

the 10th of December last, and the 5th of January...

there is a coincidence here which may be of significance,

three sets of coincidences.

Harriet Vane and Philip Boyes met towards the end of November,

and he has an attack of gastritis

on November the 30th.

On December the 10th,

Harriet Vane purchases two ounces of arsenic.

They meet again in the second week of December,

and on December the 15th,

he has another attack.

On January the 5th,

there is the purchase of weed killer.

they meet again soon after that,

and on January the 12th,

he is taken ill for the third time.

On his doctor's advice, he goes to visit his friend

Mr. Ryland Vaughn

and stays with him for a while in Wales.

This ought to blow the cobwebs away.

Yes.

I say, are you all right?

It's just a twinge.

Oh, dash it.

I should never have brought you up here.

No. No, tummy's all right.

More the heart.

You have heard Mr. Vaughn testify

that Philip Boyes was not happy.

In fact, Mr. Vaughn formed the opinion

he was fretting after Harriet Vane,

and on February the 16th,

we find him writing a letter to Miss Vane,

an important letter.

I will refresh your memory.

No, no, no, no. not this one.

"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 between us.

"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 shut it in for good."