Strong Poison: Chapter 4 - Lord Peter Wimsey Proposes to Harriet Vane in Holloway Jail

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

Chapter 4 The following day was a Sunday, but Sir Impey Biggs cancelled an engagement to play golf, with the less regret as it was pouring cats and dogs, and held an extraordinary council of war.

Well now, Wimsey, said the advocate, what is your idea about this? May I introduce Mr Crofts of Crofts and Cooper, solicitors for the defense?

Lord Peter Wimsey (0:21)

My idea is that Miss Vane didn't do it, said Wimsey. I dare say that's an idea which has already occurred to you, but with the weight of my great mind behind it, no doubt it strikes the imagination more forcibly.

SPEAKER_1 (0:33)

Mr Crofts, not being quite clear whether this was funny or fatuous, smiled deferentially. Quite so, said Sir Impey, but I should be interested to know how many of the juries saw it in that light.

Lord Peter Wimsey (0:45)

Well, I can tell you that, at least, because I know one of them. One woman and half a woman, and about three quarters of a man.

SPEAKER_1 (0:54)

Meaning precisely.

Lord Peter Wimsey (0:55)

Well, the woman I know stuck out for it that Miss Vane wasn't that sort of person. They bullied her a good deal, of course, because she couldn't lay a finger on any real weakness in the chain of evidence, but she said the prisoner's demeanour was part of the evidence and that she was entitled to take that into consideration.

Fortunately, she is a tough, thin, elderly woman with a sound digestion and a militant high-church conscience of remarkable staying power, and her wind is excellent. She let them all gallop themselves dead and then said she still didn't believe it and wasn't going to say she did.

SPEAKER_1 (1:32)

Very useful, said Sir Impey.

A person who can believe all the articles of the Christian faith is not going to boggle over a trifle of adverse evidence, but we can never hope for a whole jury box full of ecclesiastical diehards. How about the other woman and the man?

Lord Peter Wimsey (1:48)

Well, the woman was rather unexpected. She was the stout, prosperous party who keeps a sweet shop. She said she didn't think the case was proved, and that it was perfectly possible that Boyes had taken the stuff himself, or that his cousin had given it to him. She was influenced, rather oddly, by the fact that she had attended one or two arsenic trials and had not been satisfied by the verdict in some other cases, notably the Seddon trial.

She has no opinion of men in general, she has buried her third, and she disbelieves all expert evidence on principle. She said that personally, she thought Miss Vane might have done it, but she wouldn't really hang a dog on medical evidence. At first she was ready to vote with the majority, but she took a dislike to the foreman, who tried to bear her down by his male authority, and eventually she said she was going to back up my friend Miss Climpson.

SPEAKER_1 (2:42)

Sir Impey laughed.

Very interesting. I wish we always got this inside information about juries. We sweat like hell to prepare evidence, and then one person makes up her mind on what isn't really evidence at all, and another supports her on the ground that evidence can't be relied on. How about the man?

Lord Peter Wimsey (2:59)

The man was the artist, and the only person who really understood the kind of life these people were leading. He believed your client's version of the quarrel, and said that if the girl really felt like that about the man, the last thing she would want to do would be to kill him. She'd rather stand back and watch him ache, like the man with the hollow tooth in the comic song.

He was also able to believe the whole story about purchasing the poisons, which to the others of course seemed extremely feeble. He also said that Boyes, from what he had heard, was a conceited prig, and that anybody who disposed of him was doing a public service.

He had had the misfortune to read some of his books, and considered the man an excrescence and a public nuisance. Actually, he thought it more than likely that he had committed suicide, and if anybody was prepared to take that point of view, he was ready to second it. He also alarmed the jury by saying that he was accustomed to late hours and a stale atmosphere, and had not the slightest objection to sitting up all night. Miss Climpson also said that, in a righteous cause, a little personal discomfort was a trifle, and added that her religion had trained her to fasting. At that point, the third woman had hysterics, and another man, who had an important deal to put through next day, lost his temper. So, to prevent bodily violence, the foreman said he thought they had better agree to disagree. So that's how it was.