Frank Danby

“ Arbuthnot's good looks persuade you to that course," Keightley said coolly. "I should think it over again. Mrs. Vibart is not the woman to be ignored. She won't leave the matter here."
Mr. Turner looked annoyed, and Keightley Wilbur stood up and threw his cigarette into the fireplace. "No, I should certainly not let Mrs. Arbuthnot's attractions carry you as far as that," he repeated thoughtfully.
"Nonsense," the coroner answered pettishly. "I don't know what you mean. When a man has a hobby like yours there is no saying where it will lead him." ”

“ Arbuthnot's aunt and uncle, further investigation had revealed the fact that the man was an habitual drunkard. He had a fall or blow, of which he was only able to give a very incoherent account before his death. The jury found he died from an accident, the cause of which there was not sufficient evidence to show. There was nothing at all to connect his young niece with the event. As regarded the woman, they had a verdict to the effect that she died from an overdose of veronal, whether self-administered or feloniously there was again no evidence. ”

“ I know you hate it. A human document is less precious to you than four aces or a quintette in hearts. But I'm made differently. It won't take three minutes—her letter, I mean. We can skip David's journalese. No, I won't; I'll begin at the beginning. I made Turner communicate with the Public Prosecutor. And when that damned Recorder, with his unimaginative speech, misled the Grand Jury, it was I who worked her up to this confession. ”

“ He seemed very triumphant and full of self-importance.
"Here is the story behind the verdict with a vengeance, mater. You've read it?"
"No: and I don't want to. It is horrible of you to look so pleased. It is a dreadful thing that the poor woman should have been driven to such despair."
"But if she were guilty?" he put in quickly.
"How can she have been guilty? The grand jury could not even find a true bill."
"The Recorder led them. He got his back up against Julia Vibart the night he met her here. Devenish as good as told me so. ”

“ You must clear your minds of anything you have heard or read about this case and consider it entirely on its merits. Mrs. Arbuthnot is not charged upon any count except the manslaughter of her son; nor is she chargeable upon any other. That she is in debt, and has endeavoured to raise money upon an insurance policy on her son's life, is not an indictable offence. You have to consider the circumstances of the child's death. There is no evidence to show that Mrs. Arbuthnot suggested the operation; the evidence is all the other way. ”

“ He said that from the first the case was seen to be hopeless, and all he and two doctors they called in could do was to relieve the suffering with opiates. Mrs. Arbuthnot was naturally in acute distress. She kept begging them wildly to try different remedies. Toward the end she fell into a violent attack of hysteria, completely losing control of herself, and had to be restrained from drinking the remainder of the carbolic. They all thought the hysteria might develop into actual mania, and after consultation decided to give her a morphia injection. ”

“ The coroner's jury found that the prisoner had done this dreadful, this almost incredible deed. If there is any doubt in your minds, you will find a true bill, and the case will be tried by a competent tribunal. ”

“ The brokers have been in the flat, and everything seems to smell of them. I'm very little better off here than I was in Pentonville; and although the Grand Jury threw out the bill against me, there will always be people who will think I was guilty. It is all Julia Vibart's fault. But for her disgraceful letter there would have been a vote of sympathy for me at the coroner's inquest, and no one would ever have thought anything more of the matter. You asked me about Lennie. I did give him the carbolic by mistake, whatever anyone may say ”

“ It betrays an attitude of mind so rarely detached, and so amazingly perverse, that had it appeared as fiction it might well have been deemed incredible. Four murders have been charged against the writer, one more heinous than the other—the relatives who sheltered her childhood, the husband who garnered her youth, her own and only child. ”

“ Vibart calmly replied that her brother did not die of typhoid fever, but of a concurrent pneumonia. Before anyone could stop her she added:
"The window of his room was thrown wide open when he was in the sweating stage of high fever. Neither of the nurses had opened it."
Mr. Marden, on behalf of the Public Prosecutor, watched the evidence closely. There were constant interruptions. The court was in a condition of barely suppressed excitement. ”

“ Archie Vibart is the sickest man in London to-day. He says if anything happens to Mrs. Jim he'll blow his brains out. He knows if it had not been for him that letter to the coroner would never have been written. ”

“ Arbuthnot's uncle, with whom she lived as a girl, and a year or two later on her aunt, who both died under circumstances necessitating investigation—Mr. and Mrs. Latimer Rowlands, of Adderley, Sussex. In the opinion of the nurses and many other people there should have been a similar inquiry into the death of her first husband, James Hobbs, a fine young man of eight-and-twenty, who quarrelled with Mr. Gerald Arbuthnot and turned him out of his house a few days before being taken ill. You adjourned the inquest yesterday for further medical evidence, and the witnesses were bound over. ”

“ Mr. Arbuthnot is a man of limited means and no occupation. He was supposed to pay a small sum, but practically he lived on my brother. Jim told me so himself. My information as to my brother's last illness came from the nurses. They were both very scandalised by Gerald Arbuthnot's constant presence in the house, and all that went on."
Mr. Waterlow objected sharply to the word "mysterious," and, addressing the jury, said there was nothing mysterious about Jim Hobbs's death, except in the evil imagination of the witness. Mr. Hobbs died of typhoid fever. Mrs. ”

“ He spoke weightily, every word told; and although David Devenish was impatient of Keightley Wilbur's running comments, he could not but agree that the whole speech might have been made by a counsel for the defence; it was an indictment of public curiosity and Press comment, a personal, and to Keightley at least, a biased view.
"Gentlemen: James Hobbs died of typhoid fever and pneumonia. Several doctors saw him in the course of his illness, and the practitioner in attendance filled in the death certificate. ”

“ Unfortunately, she gave him instead a large dose of carbolic disinfectant that stood near it in a somewhat similar bottle. The mistake was discovered almost immediately, the doctors summoned, and every remedy tried. But without avail. The boy died the following day. The doctor would attend before them and give the result of the post-mortem examination, and he would be compelled also to call the mother. Mr. Turner asked the jury to be as considerate as possible. This was an only son and the occasion a very sad and trying one for her.
"Mrs. Arbuthnot was then called. ”

“ It was Mr. Turner's business to know what action, and not Keightley's. Keightley was prepared to advise or assist, but naturally it must be ex-officially.
Somehow or other, nevertheless, instructions were given to the coroner's officer. The statements contained in Mrs. Vibart's letter were investigated, and all of them were confirmed! There had been inquests both upon Mrs. Arbuthnot's aunt and uncle, and in each case the findings had been inconclusive. Under these circumstances, and constant pressure, Mr. Turner ultimately and reluctantly sent Mrs. ”