Chapter Seventeen

BUT to Jimmy’s astonishment, it was not Benover, but Quarrenden who replied.

“Not so fast, Inspector,” he said in a deep, incisive voice. “You cannot arrest this man on a charge of murder until certain matters mentioned in his statement have been fully examined.”

“How is that?” Jimmy asked. “Surely that statement amounts to a full and complete confession of guilt?”

“It does indeed,” Quarrenden replied. “But you must concede me to have a more profound knowledge of the law than you appear to possess. Since you brought this man here in order that I might hear his statement, I have every right to question him. Whatever outrage he may have committed, he is still entitled to justice.”

Without awaiting Jimmy’s reply, the barrister raised the shade of the reading lamp until the light fell full upon Benover’s grey and quivering face.

“Now, as you hope for mercy in a future life, answer my questions truthfully!” he commanded. “You state that some time between the 3rd and the 10th of this month, you introduced a quantity of Oenanthotoxin into a bottle of Hampden’s Gin Blimp. Is that correct?”

In a flash, Jimmy found himself, in imagination, in a very different setting. The library gave place to the austerity of a criminal court. Quarrenden assumed wig and gown and Benover stood in the witness box, a prisoner on a capital charge giving evidence in his own defence. But the judge was not a mortal in a scarlet robe, but God himself.

Slowly came Benover’s answer, in a feeble but composed voice: “Yes, that is correct.”

“What was your intention when you performed this act?”

“I intended to take the bottle with me to the Lonicera and then contrive that George Farningham should drink a glass of its contents.”

“Did you inform anyone else of this intention? Anyone at all, no matter whom?”

“Most certainly I did not. It is not the sort of information that one would confide to anybody else.”

“Are you satisfied that the precautions you took as regards secrecy were such that no one could have known or even guessed that the bottle had been poisoned?”

“Absolutely. Nobody saw me at any stage in the proceedings, and I was very careful indeed to remove all traces as I went along.”

“Where exactly was this poisoned bottle at the time when you left this house for London on Wednesday morning?”

“Among my clothes in one of the suit cases I had not unpacked, as there was nothing in it I should want while I was staying here. I intended taking the case exactly as it was to the Lonicera on the following Monday.”

“What exactly did you say to your sister when you showed her the other bottle, the harmless one, on the evening of your arrival here?”

“I can’t swear to the exact words. But I told her that I had found a new cocktail and had bought two bottles of it, one for her, and one to take down to George Farningham.”

“I understood you to say that on the following evening your sister made some further reference to this second bottle.”

“She merely said that it was thoughtful of me to get a bottle for George.”

“Did your sister ask where you were keeping the second bottle while you were here?”

“No, she did not, but it would not be very difficult for her to guess that it was in the suit case I was to take on board the Lonicera.”

“You are prepared to swear that you gave your sister no indication of where the bottle could be found?”

“I am. I gave her no indication and she never asked for any.”

“When did you last see the poisoned bottle in the suit case?”

“On Monday afternoon, when I took out the harmless bottle and carried it into Olga’s boudoir. I had no occasion to open the suit case again.”

“Where was your sister when you unpacked the harmless bottle?”

“In her boudoir with the door shut. She could not possibly have seen me do it.”

“You have said that on Wednesday morning your sister told you that she intended to spend the day with friends in Westerham. Did you implicitly believe this statement?”

“I had no reason to doubt it. There was no improbability in her having made arrangements to do so.”

“It is most important that this point should be made absolutely clear. Had you ever, then or previously, the slightest suspicion that your sister might visit George Farningham during the period covered by his cruise?”

“Not the slightest. Neither Olga nor George, nor anyone else for that matter, had ever suggested such a thing to me, or even dropped a hint of anything of the kind. That’s the most terrible thing about it. If I had known, or even guessed where she was going, I might have thought of the possibility of her looking for the bottle and taking it with her. And then I could have hidden it somewhere.”

“Will you swear that when you left this house on Wednesday morning you had no suspicion whatever that your sister intended to visit George Farningham that day?”

“I will,” Benover exclaimed passionately. “If I had had the slightest inkling where Olga was going, she would be alive now.”

There was a pause before Quarrenden’s next question. And then he addressed Jimmy. “Are you satisfied with this man’s statement and his answers to my questions, Inspector?”

“Perfectly,” Jimmy replied. “I shall, of course, ask him to write out his statement and sign it.”

“And then?” Quarrenden asked sharply.

“He will be brought before the magistrate in the morning on a capital charge. It’s time we were getting back to London now.”

“One moment,” said Quarrenden. “You appear to be under a misapprehension; do you not yet realize that no crime has been committed?”

“No crime!” Jimmy exclaimed, glancing swiftly at the man beside him. But Benover had once more let his head fall forward on his arms and was taking no heed of the conversation. Even the fluttering of a large white moth which had flown in from the night, attracted by the light of the reading lamp and was circling about his head, did not rouse him.

Quarrenden slowly repeated the words. “No crime has been committed. This man is morally guilty of the deaths of two people, but the law does not recognize moral guilt. For there to be a crime, there must be mens rea, and also actus reus. Mens rea alone is not punished, nor are the earliest conceivable stages of the actus reus. There is no criminal liability, except in the case of treason, where mens rea has only been followed by some act that does no more than manifest the mens rea.

“In order to make my meaning perfectly clear I will express that in a slightly different way. Liability will not begin until the offender has done some act which not only manifests the mens rea but also goes some way towards carrying it out. Such an act must help in a sufficiently proximate degree towards carrying out the indictable crime contemplated. While no abstract tests can be given for determining whether an act is sufficiently proximate to amount to at least an attempt, it is clear that mere preparation for the intended crime, antecedent to the actual commencement of the crime itself, does not amount to an indictable offence or an indictable attempt.

“For example, if I contemplated killing a man in Dover, and I bought a pistol in Sevenoaks and a railway ticket to Dover where I expected to find my victim, all that I have done are some acts of preparation too remote from the actual offence to constitute even an attempt. If, however, I were actually to meet the victim, point the pistol at him and put my finger on the trigger without drawing it, I should have performed an act which is part of the crime of murder.

“Now let us apply this ruling to the present case. In the case of Rex v. Vauquier, Mr. Justice Avory, in his summing up, made the following remarks: ‘In this case, if you should be driven to the conclusion that the prisoner at the bar laid this poison for the deceased, intending him to take it, it is not necessary to search for, much less to establish a motive for his doing it. The accused here is either guilty of murder or he is not guilty of anything.’

“What exactly is meant by ‘laying poison’? Placing it in such a manner that the intended victim is bound to take it. Vauquier knew that his victim was in the habit of taking salts every morning. He introduced strychnine into the bottle containing the salts, and did not allow the bottle out of his sight until his victim had taken the usual dose. This the jury held to be deliberately laying the poison.

“But the case of this man here is entirely different. He had prepared the poison, but he was not allowed the opportunity of laying it. If he had been able to carry out his original intention, he would have laid the poison by offering the bottle of Hampden’s Gin Blimp to George Farningham. He would then have been guilty of intended murder, whether or not George Farningham had drunk any of the contents. But as it was, far from laying the poison, he was keeping it hidden in what he considered was a perfectly safe place.

“There is but slight difficulty in reconstructing the course of events. My wife enjoyed the glasses of cocktail she drank from the harmless bottle. She knew that her brother had bought a second bottle for his friend, and had no reason to suppose that the contents of this second bottle differed in any way from those of the first. After her brother had left the house on Wednesday it occurred to her that she would like to have the pleasure of introducing this new cocktail to George Farningham. She believed that no harm would result from her doing so, for she could explain matters to her brother on her return from Cauldmouth. She had no difficulty in finding the second bottle, as to her the suit case was the obvious receptacle in which to look for it. That it was obvious to her, does not mean that it was obvious to anyone else. She was the only person, other than her brother, who was aware of the presence of a second bottle in the house. She took this bottle with her to Cauldmouth and it was responsible for both her death and that of George Farningham.

“But that does not involve guilt on the part of her brother. He could not have foreseen that his sister would abstract the bottle and take it to George Farningham herself. He was not even aware that she was to see George Farningham during his holiday. Her action was entirely unknown to her brother for, wishing to conceal her true destination, she had dropped no hint of her intention. The probability is that she did not abstract the bottle until after her brother’s departure from this house on Wednesday morning. He took no hand in the laying of the poison, and since therefore he did not commit murder, nor was able to prevent the crime, he is innocent in the eyes of the law. A lifetime of remorse is a fitting punishment for such innocence. Now you may take him away, Inspector.”

As Quarrenden pressed the bell, Jimmy caught Benover’s arm and shook it gently. But the,other seemed dazed, and it was a second or two before he could rouse him. Collard appeared, and the two filed out of the semi-darkness of the library into the full light of the hall, Benover staggering like a drunken man.

+++

“And to tell you the truth I was more than a little puzzled what to do with him,” said Jimmy.

He had been telling the story a few evenings later in Dr. Priestley’s study, to an interested audience which included Dr. Oldland and Hanslet. The Professor had listened with closed eyes, but now as Jimmy paused he opened them and looked at him inquiringly. “You doubted the truth of Benover’s statement, perhaps?” he asked.

“No, I never doubted that, sir,” Jimmy replied. “There was a sort of earnestness about the way he spoke that didn’t leave any room for doubt. It was what Quarrenden had said that puzzled me. Here was a man who had confessed to brewing a poison with intent to commit murder. Yet, according to the highest possible legal authority, he wasn’t guilty of any crime.”

“Rather a nasty knock for a conscientious policeman,” Oldland remarked. “It seems to me that you had no option but to let him go.”

“I wasn’t going to do that then and there,” Jimmy replied. “By the time Collard showed us out it was getting on for midnight and, after all, as I had dragged him down to Worley House it was up to me to take him back again. And then there was his mental state to be considered. The effort of confession had left him as limp as a rag. How much he had taken in of what Quarrenden had said, I don’t know. While he was telling his story, he expected to be hanged for it, there’s no doubt about that. But when we’d left the study, he didn’t behave in the least like a reprieved murderer. All he could do when I spoke to him was to shiver.

“Anyhow, there was the police car waiting at the front door. I bundled us both into it and told the driver to take us back to Scotland Yard. But it wasn’t until we were halfway there that I made up my mind what to do. I told Benover that I should detain him in custody for the present. He just didn’t take the slightest notice. I don’t think he would have made any protest if I’d told him I was going to throw him into the river as we crossed Westminster Bridge.”

Oldland nodded. “I think I can understand his frame of mind,” he said. “You detained him as much for his own sake as yours, I daresay.”

“That’s about it,” Jimmy replied. “Benover wasn’t in a fit state to be left to himself. I wondered, when we were at Worley House, what he might have about him. And when he was searched at the Police Station, we found a tiny glass phial full of liquid. I gave this to Mr. Wallis the next day, and he found that the liquid was a saturated solution of Oenanthotoxin in alcohol. That discovery didn’t surprise me overmuch. Benover had kept some of the stuff back for his own use in case he was driven into a corner. And one must suppose that as soon as I began to talk to him about that bottle of Hampden’s Gin Blimp, he imagined he was standing in that corner. He’d made up his mind to make a clean breast of it and then swallow the stuff at the first opportunity. He was even more dumbfounded than I was when Quarrenden, of all people, absolved him from all criminal responsibility.

“And then, besides, I had another reason for detaining him. I wanted a signed statement that I could show to the Chief. After the story he had told, I couldn’t just dismiss him with my blessing. But as it turned out, our legal advisors confirmed Quarrenden’s decision. Since Benover had taken no active steps towards putting his intention into action, there could be no case against him.”

“There may be no case against him,” said Oldland. “But to my mind he is morally guilty of a double murder. What do you say, Priestley?”

“My experience has taught me that a very wide gulf may lie between moral and legal guilt,” Dr. Priestley replied. “The legal view presumably is that the deaths of George Farningham and Mrs. Quarrenden were due to accidental causes. It would be very interesting to speculate where exactly the line could be drawn between accident and design. The fact that the bottle of gin was poisoned was undoubtedly due to design. That Mrs. Quarrenden should have taken it, unaware of this fact, was purely accidental. But on the whole, I should imagine that Benover’s technical innocence is not effective as a relief to his conscience.”

“I don’t suppose it is,” said Oldland. “By the way, what’s become of him, Jimmy?”

“He’s due to sail for South America next week,” Jimmy replied. “As soon as the decision not to prosecute was definitely made, I had a long chat with him. He had pulled himself together a bit by then, and was in a state to look at things sensibly. And he told of his own accord that if anyone ever deserved to be hanged, he did. Not on George Farningham’s account, I fancy, but on his sister’s.

“I told him that I was sorry we couldn’t oblige him. And then I proceeded to give him some good advice. I said that he could do nobody any good by taking the law into his own hands once more and committing suicide. The best thing he could do was to take up his appointment in South America with the least possible delay. The statement he had made would, of course, remain an official secret. And Quarrenden, the only person besides myself who had heard him make it, was not likely to publish it abroad.”

“Your advice was excellent, Inspector,” said Dr. Priestley. “We may hope that Benover will follow it. And Quarrenden? How did he sustain the knowledge that his wife’s death was due to his brother-in-law’s action?”

Jimmy seemed to see those masklike features facing him across the table.

“That is more than I can tell you, sir,” he replied.

THE END