# The Story Behind the Verdict/Chapter 2
### CHAPTER II
#### THE ARBUTHNOT CASE

There is no doubt that for a short time after the death of Pierre Lamotte Keightley Wilbur suffered from restlessness, from a depression that took the form of an immense volubility and an inability to settle to regular work. His mother, who knew no more than Press and public of what lay behind the inconclusive verdict in that strange case, thought the loss of his friend, and the possible slur upon his hospitality, were sufficient to account for the alteration she found in him. She suggested change of air and scene, and so was responsible directly or indirectly for the sojourn to Paris, and the intimacy with Georges Carpenter, of which more hereafter. If his stay in the great capital synchronised also with that of Ellaline Blaney, Mrs. Wilbur knew nothing to connect the two circumstances, and in any case would have been too discreet to inquire. She was satisfied six months later to receive her beloved back in Carlton House Terrace, a little thinner, perhaps, but entirely restored to his habitual serenity of whimsical demeanour.
Soon after his return, however, she began to notice his interest in cases in the coroners' courts. True to herself and her methods with him, she appeared to find nothing strange in his going from Westminster to St. Martin's, from the City to St. Pancras, to listen to the most sordid description of how this or the other unknown, or too well known derelict, came by his or her wretched end. He could talk of nothing else during their hours together but how some child who had died suddenly was accused of meningitis, whilst Keightley suspected she was a case of poisoned rabbit, carefully prepared by a mother who had previously insured her; of how some habitual drunkard, picked up in the street, was found to have died of "natural causes," although he himself had more than a suspicion that a worn-out wife or an ill-treated son or daughter had hastened matters by tightening a necktie, or refraining from disturbing a fatal position.
Mrs. Wilbur shuddered and expressed a great disgust at the things she heard, but never a want of interest, since it was Keightley who related them. It was not until he became absorbed in the Arbuthnot case that she entered a protest, which proved inefficacious, except in so far as it kept the Mornington Ransby matter from home consumption. She never made the same mistake after that.
The Arbuthnot case filled the public mind for a long time, but that it presented unusual features Keightley had realised even in the first hearing, and before the adjournment, when the evidence was disclosed that made such an extraordinary sensation.
This preliminary inquiry was heard at Westminster, by Mr. Turner, a friend of Keightley's, who related to him the incident that marked the pause before the adjourned inquiry. The first part of the story can best be told in the bald language of the newspaper report.
"At the 'City Arms' yesterday, the coroner, Mr. G. H. Turner, opened an inquest on the body of Leonard Hobbs, a schoolboy, who met his death under very distressing circumstances.
"Mr. Turner, addressing the jury, told them the facts were not in dispute. The boy had been sent home from a preparatory school at Broadstairs in order to undergo a slight operation—the removal of tonsils and adenoids. This was done by Dr. Harkness, of Grosvenor Street, assisted by Dr. Grainger, who administered chloroform, both thoroughly competent and careful physicians. They would hear that the boys mother undertook the little nursing that was required, and, after having spent the day by his side, remained with him during the night. The boy was of a nervous disposition, and a composing draught had been left for him, to be used if required. About two o'clock in the morning he became exceedingly restless, and his mother prepared to give him the medicine. 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.
"Mrs. Arbuthnot hardly looked old enough to be the mother of a boy of twelve. She was slight and fair, very pale, and seemed terribly nervous. She gave her evidence in a low voice that was occasionally almost inaudible:
"‘I am Ethel Arbuthnot. I have been married twice. Leonard was my only son. The operation took place in the dining-room, which had been prepared on purpose. I was with him the whole time. He was under chloroform; but there was a great deal to be done in getting hot water, holding and emptying basins, waiting on the doctors. He lost a great deal of blood. I was very worried, but not unequal to what I had to do. Afterwards he was carried into my own room. I felt tired and exhausted, and the first part of the night my husband sat up with me. He gave me a small glass of brandy and soda before he left. I don't think I slept at all, but I may have. I was awake when Lennie began to get restless and talk. He complained that his throat was sore and that he had a headache. He wanted to get out of bed, and asked me to switch on the electric light and give him a book. He said he was sure he should not sleep again and that he felt sick. It was the condition that Dr. Harkness had anticipated. The electric light was not on: there was only a nightlight in the room. I had been sitting by the bed, and got up to fetch the medicine——'
"Here she stopped abruptly, grew very white, and seemed as if she was about to faint. A murmur of sympathy ran through the court, and Mr. Turner suggested she might like to rest a little while whilst he called the medical evidence. Her husband assisted her out of the court, and she was heard sobbing in the passage.
"‘One of the saddest cases I have been called upon to investigate,' the coroner remarked feelingly.
"Dr. Harkness said the boy was strong and healthy, apart from the natural nervousness about the operation. He admitted that he did not usually operate without a professional nurse in attendance; but this was the slightest operation known, little more serious than the extraction of a tooth. Mrs. Arbuthnot gave them most efficient help. He was a surgeon and physician, in general practice. The carbolic was ordered by him, a solution of one in ten. It was for sterilising his instruments. He had not used it, however, as he came straight from home, and they were already sterilised. He saw the bottle of carbolic, but his impression was that it was much larger and of a different shape from the one that contained the bromide. It was by his instructions that the room was kept dark. Mrs. Arbuthnot suggested a nightlight, and he thought it a good idea. He was sent for again at three in the morning.
"He then related the symptoms of the young patient, the remedies used, and their effect. 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. He had seen her every day since then, but was not yet completely satisfied as to her mental condition. He hoped Mr. Turner would see his way to shorten her ordeal in the witness-box as much as possible.
"Dr. Grainger, after having been sworn, said he administered chloroform to Leonard Hobbs, whilst Dr. Harkness performed the simple operation known as guillotining the tonsils, afterwards removing two small adenoids. The whole thing took less than twenty minutes, and he was out of the house half hour after he had entered it. He never saw a bottle of carbolic, but carbolic was used to sterilise all surgical instruments. He knew nothing of Dr. Harkness's prescription of bromide, nor anything further of the case until he received the coroner's summons.
"At this juncture Mr. Arbuthnot returned, and intimated to the coroner that his wife was ready to resume her evidence.
"Mr. Gerald Arbuthnot was obtrusively well dressed, and somewhere about forty years of age. His forehead retreated, and his chin also, leaving nothing prominent but his nose and mouth. The shape of his face gave him a hawklike appearance, a moulting hawk, for his hair was scant. He looked gentlemanly and exceedingly stupid, and nothing he said contradicted his appearance.
"Mrs. Arbuthnot now commanded herself sufficiently to tell how, in the dim light, she had taken the bottle from the mantelpiece, not knowing or remembering there was another there. But she grew more and more excited as she went on:
"‘He said it was nasty and smelt horrid, that it burnt his mouth. I made him take it, I made him take it!’ she repeated, her voice rising, her eyes wide and dazed. It was obvious she was wound up to the extreme limit of her endurance, and there was the likelihood of a very painful scene. Hastily Mr. Turner asked the jury whether they had heard sufficient, and there was a unanimous murmur of acquiescence. Mrs. Arbuthnot was directed to leave the box, and the foreman of the jury said they would like to express their sympathy with her. The coroner agreed, but suggested it would be better to wait until the end of the proceedings. He had still to call the medical man who made the autopsy.
"Dr. Maudsley proved a difficult and tiresome witness. He used technical words that puzzled the jury, and gave details that seemed unnecessarily nauseating. He said that only the abdominal viscera had been examined as yet, and they were in a perfectly normal state: the stomach had been taken out, and at the larger end there were numerous small, yellowish-white spots about the size of a mustard seed. In reply to a question he said these were not at all accountable for death, nor would they have any effect on the health of anyone. He was diffuse and slow, the hour was already late, and when it became obvious that what was wanted could not be got from him at this juncture, the coroner adjourned the inquiry for a fortnight for the completion of the medical evidence.
"The witnesses and the jury were then bound over in the usual way to appear at the adjourned inquiry."
The following day the coroner received a letter. Keightley Wilbur was sitting with him when it arrived. The coroner read the letter slowly, and then re-read it. After which he passed it to his visitor, saying, "What do you make of that?"
This was the remarkable document handed to Keightley for an opinion:
"Personal—without prejudice.
"381 Upper Brook Street, W.
"Dear Sir,—You held an inquest yesterday on little Leonard Hobbs. The jury and yourself were sympathetic with the bereaved mother, Mrs. Arbuthnot.
"It may interest you to know that an inquest was held on Mrs. 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. I think the above facts should be before you when you reassemble. And one or two others which you can easily verify.
"Mrs. Arbuthnot is heavily in debt, having lost money playing baccarat at Boulogne and Le Touquet. She plays bridge daily at high points, dines at expensive restaurants, and dresses from Paris. By the death of her son she comes in for a few thousand pounds of ready money at a time when the need for it is acute.
"You were not satisfied with the medical evidence. But the medical evidence is the least part of this strange case of successive inquests upon Mrs. Arbuthnot's relatives.—Yours sincerely,
"Julia Vibart."
Keightley was strangely interested, not the least so because Julia Vibart was a friend—or at least an acquaintance—of his mother.
"Well, what do you think of that?" Mr. Turner asked him, puffing away at his pipe.
"Do you often have such letters about your cases?" Keightley asked.
"Oh, yes! But only when there is something mysterious about them, something unusual, or that attracts the public attention. And such letters are generally anonymous."
"You do not look upon this as a mysterious or unusual case?"
"No; sad, but not in any way mysterious. You were in court? I know your hobby, and that you think there is a story concealed behind every coroner's verdict. But you must not carry it too far." He spoke sententiously; he was rather a sententious person. "Pretty little woman, wasn't she? I thought there was something very pathetic and pleasing about her. Not the sort of woman you would have thought would have such a bitter and malicious enemy."
"You think the letter malicious?"
"Don't you?"
"Not entirely. What are you going to do about it?"
"To do about it!" And the coroner took a surprised puff at his pipe. "Nothing. Put it on the fire, of course."
"I should not let your admiration of Mrs. 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."
"All right. Just as you like. But if you are really not going to do anything in the matter, would you mind if I keep the letter? I might make a few inquiries on my own account. The thing interests me, I admit. Is there any way, for instance, of finding out if the contents of this letter are true?"
"I could send my officer to make inquiries," Mr. Turner admitted reluctantly.
It was true that he had found Mrs. Arbuthnot attractive and pathetically pretty, that she had appeared to plead to him for help from her place on the witness-stand, and that he had found quite a little glow of pleasure in answering her appeal. He was one of those bachelors, less rare than most people suppose, whose amorousness preserves them from matrimony by the large indefiniteness of its quality. He had a roving and appreciative eye, and a lame and halting imagination. Mr. Turner was past middle age, inclined to be stout, and conscientious in the performance of his duty notwithstanding his idiosyncrasies.
"If you have really taken a fancy to the little woman …"
Such an innuendo was not to be borne, and Keightley had ultimately little trouble in persuading his host that Mrs. Vibart's letter must neither be thrown on the fire nor ignored. Keightley considered the statements should be verified, and if they were found to be correct that action should be taken upon them. 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. Vibart's letter and the result of his officer's investigation to the Public Prosecutor. The Public Prosecutor, whose curiosity had already been titillated by a private talk with Mr. Keightley Wilbur, wrote back word that he would be represented at the adjourned inquest. This was not a fortnight later, but a month, Dr. Maudsley having asked for an extension of time in order to conclude his post-mortem.
That month had made a considerable difference in Mrs. Arbuthnot's appearance. She had dropped something of her pathos and all of her tendency to hysteria. Her mourning was modified and elegant: and when she caught the coroner's eye, which he seemed to do unconsciously, but quite often, he felt like a worm and a traitor, and wished that he had never listened to Keightley.
Mr. Humphrey Marden, representing the Director of Public Prosecutions, concentrated his attention upon Mrs. Arbuthnot for some time, although without her becoming aware of it. She wore a little spot of black sticking-plaster, as if to heighten the effect of her pallor, and probably for the same purpose her eye-lashes were artificially darkened. She appeared sad, but not unduly so. Once, in reply to some observation of her husband, she even smiled, although as if under protest, displaying pretty teeth. When she took off her gloves in readiness to be sworn, Keightley noticed and pointed out to Mr. Marden that her hands did not match the delicacy of her figure: they were large, and the knuckles prominent, the flesh grown over the flat nails, which were pinkly varnished. Both men agreed that they were cruel hands. She wore no wedding-ring, although she had been twice married. There was a man's ring on her little finger—one diamond set in thick gold.
Humphrey Marden, a thin and wiry man, with a broad, intellectual forehead and a close, combative mouth, was instinctively suspicious and professionally acute. Mrs. Vibart's letter had interested him considerably: he agreed that it was malevolent, and now they speculated as to what story lay behind it.
That there was a story both men knew the moment Mrs. Vibart came into the court. Mrs. Arbuthnot's pallor turned to a sickly yellow, and she trembled all over like a little dog on the edge of a pond.
After the conclusion of Dr. Maudsley's evidence, when, in the natural order of events, the verdict of "Death from misadventure" would have been recorded, and the rider of the jury's sympathy put into correct form, there was a slight pause. Then the coroner said, almost apologetically:
"Gentlemen,—After the last adjournment of this case I received a letter the contents of which I felt it my duty to communicate to the Director of Public Prosecutions. His representative is here to-day, and wishes me to call the writer."
Mrs. Arbuthnot's face became a study of pallid hatred or fear. Such a change came upon it that even the coroner was startled. Husband and wife whispered hurriedly together, and Gerald Arbuthnot got up and began to speak. Mrs. Vibart was already on the witness-stand and being sworn by the constable.
"I protest against this woman being called." The solitary Press man sat up and began to take notice, and the jury leaned forward. "She can know nothing whatever about the accident. She has always hated Ethel, my wife. …" He spoke with almost incoherent anger, and a certain dazed stupidity, as if he had been prompted what to say and had forgotten the words in which to express himself.
Mr. Marden rose, also, and asked smoothly if Mrs. Arbuthnot was represented by a solicitor. He said Mr. Arbuthnot's intervention was irregular. The witness had written a letter, and it was by his instructions she was called to give evidence upon it.
"We were told to-day's proceedings would be purely formal," Mr. Arbuthnot answered, and he appealed to the coroner.
The coroner, still uncertain as to his own action in the matter, hesitatingly suggested that, after Mrs. Vibart's letter had been put to her, they should adjourn for the attendance of Mrs. Arbuthnot's solicitor. He said, looking to the representative of the Public Prosecutor for confirmation, that it might be necessary to recall the witness to give evidence on a future occasion, and that cross-examination should be reserved.
Mr. Marden replied he thought that was a very reasonable course to take.
Mrs. Vibart was a tall and graceful woman, exquisitely dressed, and evidently of a higher social position than the Arbuthnots. She had been quite unmoved by Mr. Arbuthnot's interruption, and gave her evidence without any exhibition of feeling:
"I am Julia Vibart, wife of Archibald Vansittart Vibart, of Tregarthen Towers, Cornwall, and 381 Upper Brook Street. I wrote the letter to the coroner, produced, and am prepared to be examined upon it. I know nothing of the death of Leonard Hobbs, but am well acquainted with his mother and her history. Mrs. Arbuthnot's first husband was my half-brother. Mr. Arbuthnot was in the house at the time of his death, although my brother had ordered him out of it a few days before he was taken ill. I did, and do, think there were suspicious circumstances about my brother's death. I did not communicate with the coroner on that occasion. I thought the murder was constructive, and might be difficult to prove. Nothing could bring him back to me," she added sadly.
At the word "murder" a little thrill ran through the half-empty court, and the Press man was seen to be writing rapidly. Mr. Arbuthnot had again risen to his feet, but was bidden to sit down by the coroner.
In reply to Mr. Marden, Mrs. Vibart continued:
"When I read the report of the inquest on my brother's son, the fourth of her relatives who had died whilst under her care, I thought, in the public interest, I could no longer remain silent. I am not actuated by any feeling of malice towards Mrs. Arbuthnot Yes, I quite realise the implication of my letter."
Mr. Marden asked a few further questions, but there was nothing in the nature of cross-examination, and the proceedings terminated, after the formal binding over, by an adjournment for one week. Mr. Arbuthnot asked if he could have the letter, and the coroner replied that it had passed out of his possession into that of Mr. Marden. He said he had no doubt whatever that Mr. Arbuthnot, or his solicitor, would be supplied with a copy on application. It was, however, a privileged communication.
At the next hearing the court was crowded and the Press table full. The letter had been published in full, and an enterprising journal actually reproduced it in facsimile, although it was said never to have been out of Mr. Marden's possession. Several applications had been made to Judges in Chambers on this and other points. Everyone, however remotely connected with the case, was snapshotted as they entered or left the court. All the intervening week the papers had come out with large headlines and the promise of startling disclosures. "The Arbuthnot Mystery" had seized the public imagination. Mrs. Vibart was a lady well known in Society, and had entertained royalty. The implication of her letter was obvious, and, indeed, she had not denied it. Since the Maybrick case nothing like this had ever been known. Men and women talked of it in the streets, in omnibuses, and in tubes. Public sympathy wavered and varied. Was this Mrs. Arbuthnot a modern Borgia, or the most unfortunate of women? Was she entangled in a series of almost unheard-of coincidences, or a secret and callous murderess?
At the adjourned inquest Mrs. Vibart was the first witness called. Mrs. Arbuthnot's solicitor was in court, and proved most unfortunate in his examination of her. He elicited, without intending to do so, a story of an unhappy marriage and much that was damaging, if not damning, to his client. Mrs. Vibart managed to barb with venom each apparently innocent answer.
"No, I never met Mrs. Arbuthnot until she had been married some time to my half-brother. She was not in my social circle: her father was a publican, or hotel proprietor—what is called, I believe, a 'licensed victualler.' Yes, my brother was attached to her, although of late he had been jealous and suspicious of her intimacy with Mr. Arbuthnot, her present husband, who lived with them for a short time as a paying guest. Shortly before his mysterious death my brother made a will, dividing his property between his wife and son. I heard that there had been several violent scenes between my brother and Mr. Arbuthnot. Finally Jim, my brother, turned him out of the house, and forbade him to re-enter it. He was taken ill the day after he had delivered his ultimattim. 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. 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. Jurymen asked irrelevant questions. Formal or informal objections were made continually—notably by the coroner himself, who stated more than once that they were inquiring into the death of Leonard Hobbs, and said he would have no extraneous matter introduced. He avoided Mrs. Arbuthnot's eye when he added weakly that if she had been unfaithful to her first husband, this was neither the place nor time to investigate her conduct. He endeavoured to limit the inquiry: but apparently the case was too strong, and broke from his control.
At the instance of Mr. Marden, for instance, evidence of Mrs. Arbuthnot's financial position was called for and produced. It was overwhelming and incontrovertible. She was blacklisted in two of the great trade protection papers, there were judgment and other summonses against her, and she had been frequently sued. It appeared also that not only was Leonard Hobbs's life insured for a considerable sum, but Mrs. Arbuthnot had been endeavouring to raise money on the policy. She had been in communication with the office a week or two before the boy came home to undergo his trifling operation. She had not succeeded in raising the money. The office had asked for two substantial sureties, and they had not been forthcoming.
This evidence produced a very painful impression.
Mr. Waterlow protested vehemently and often. He was sufficiently injudicious to jump up, whilst the gentleman from the insurance office was actually on the stand, and passionately ask the court to consider to what all this evidence was tending, of what were they suspecting and accusing his young and wretched client? Of murdering her only child for the sake of a few hundred pounds that he, or any of her friends, would have been glad to advance her?
He succeeded in attracting the attention of the reporters and voicing what the people in court had hardly brought themselves to think. Before any charge at all had been made, Mr. Waterlow said indignantly that a more cruel, more baseless accusation had never been promulgated. In his speech, before the verdict was given, Mrs. Arbuthnot's lawyer said that he could trace the malignity with which his client had been treated, and the Press campaign against her, to the woman who had written her letter and gone into the witness-box to vilify her sister-in-law's moral character, to blacken her name. He said if the matter did not end here he would be able to prove that this was not the first occasion on which Mrs. Vibart had striven to injure an innocent woman whose only real fault was that she had married Mrs. Vibart's brother.
When he had concluded this tirade, Mr. Marden rose and said that Mr. Waterlow would have ample opportunity in another place to defend his client. He spoke very gravely, and everybody understood the significance of his speech.
The coroner asked if Mr. Marden had any further witnesses, and when the reply was in the negative summarised the case shortly and called upon the jury for their verdict. They retired, and were gone for over two hours. Apparently they were unable to make up their minds, for twice a note was brought in to the coroner asking for directions. They wanted to see the report of the inquests of Mrs. Arbuthnot's aunt and uncle. They asked what had become of the bottle of carbolic and the bottle of bromide for which it had been mistaken. The coroner told them that when Mrs. Arbuthnot had, in her frenzy after the boy's death, attempted to drink the remainder of the carbolic solution, the bottle had been broken, and unfortunately the pieces had been thrown away.
Finally they came back with a verdict that the coroner refused to accept.
"We find that Leonard Hobbs met his death from carbolic acid poisoning, administered by his mother, but under what circumstances there is not sufficient evidence to show."
He sent them back again, explaining that this was no verdict at all.
"What you have to decide, gentlemen, is, whether this was 'Death from misadventure,' or whether you have heard sufficient to make out a prima facie case for a verdict of murder or manslaughter. I may point out to you that, after the observation that has fallen from Mr. Humphrey Marden, it is obvious a further inquiry must take place."
In the end they came to the conclusion that Leonard Hobbs had met his death from poison, feloniously administered. And on this, after the necessary formalities had been gone through, Mrs. Gerald Arbuthnot was committed for trial on the coroner's warrant.
The next scene in the drama was in extraordinary contrast. Instead of the sordid courthouse, the jury of petty tradesmen, the policemen, and the adjacent mortuary, there was the large and beautiful house in Carlton House Terrace, priceless tapestries on the staircase wall, and the thronging guests, in their fine laces and jewellery, pressing up to where stood their hostess, Keightley Wilbur's mother, at the head of the stairs, the famous pearls round her neck.
The throng was great and the ladies leisurely in their movements. A quiet, undistinguished gentleman, grey and middle-aged, found himself wedged between two who talked with as much freedom as if they had been in the seclusion of their no doubt elegant dressing-rooms.
"That's Julia Vibart there—just in front of Lady Sylvester, in black velvet. Did ever a woman get her own back so neatly? They'll hang that Arbuthnot woman."
"I suppose she is guilty?"
"Not a bit of it, my dear! Charlie used to know her when she was Mrs. Jim Hobbs. He says she's the last woman in the world to make a holocaust of her relations: she hasn't the pluck."
"How far do you think things went between her and Archie Vibart?"
"He paid a few bills for her …"
Another voice struck in upon the talk:
"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."
The middle-aged man with the grey whiskers, who was wedged in, could not help listening.
"Brains! Archie Vibart's brains! If he had had half an ounce of intelligence he would have carried on with anyone in the world rather than Mrs. Jim, as you call her—Mrs. Gerald she is now. Julia is a vindictive woman, and he might have known what to expect."
The congestion of traffic broke up at the moment, but the man who listened found himself little better circumstanced. It was Mrs. Vibart herself who was now talking of the Arbuthnot case to her absorbed host, quite calmly, and as if her interest in it was no different from that of the general public.
"Poor Jim!" she was saying. "She led him a dreadful life; he used to come to me with his troubles. After she fell in love with Gerald Arbuthnot she refused to live with him, although she remained in the same house. Jim was quite infatuated with her, or he would have taken my advice earlier."
"That was——"
"To insist on the friendship with Gerald Arbuthnot being broken off. Instead, he actually had him to stay in the house! He said he wanted to show his confidence in her. Jim was never very wise."
Keightley had been pursuing Mrs. Vibart ever since her appearance in the witness-box. Nothing but the Arbuthnot case interested him, and he spent his entire time in re-constructing the psychology of what he was already convinced was a most rare and unique crime. Mrs. Vibart was nothing loth in supplying him with detail, and he asked her question after question, as if he had been a child, repeating himself and making her repeat herself.
"She had small vices. Tell me again about the dressmaker."
"She used to have things home from the shops on appro. and copy them."
"Splendid! And about her meals?"
"She would lunch or dine with any man who asked her; if they did not ask her, she asked them. She had no idea of domesticity. All she knew was a restaurant or club life. She would walk up and down Bond Street until she met someone she knew. …"
"This was before she met Gerald Arbuthnot?"
"Not at all: it was both before and after. Her first intrigue after her marriage was with his brother. The Arbuthnots were college friends of poor Jim's. I saw what was going on and warned him."
"And then?" he asked.
"Then all at once my brother seemed to realise the truth of what I told him, and turned Gerald out of his house, forbade him to come back under any pretext. Poor Jim! He was taken ill a few hours after that. I was abroad at the time. A friend telegraphed to me, and I hurried back; but, of course, I arrived too late."
"You really do think that she made away with him?"
"I really do know that she had all to gain and nothing to lose by his death. She had run through his money, or the greater part of it. And the nurses were very suspicious of her."
"You questioned them?"
"Oh, yes! I felt I ought to know. They told me he had food the doctors forbade, and of the open window. Gerald Arbuthnot sat with her in the library all the time Jim was upstairs dying and they canoodled together on the sofa in front of the fire."
"Who was it said ambition was the last infirmity of noble minds? I suppose what you are really aiming at is to have a relative in Madame Tussaud's?"
A sense of humour was not Julia Vibart's strong point.
"I did not wish to appear against her at all. I only wrote to the coroner because I thought it a public duty."
David Devenish joined them—a clean-shaven, thin and alert man, with his hair turning grey, well known through his connection with one of the big halfpenny papers and his intimacy with a certain popular actress.
"Report credits you with a different motive," he said lightly.
"Report wrongs me." She turned to him hotly. "You ought to contradict it."
"Your husband takes her part, doesn't he? He says Ethel Arbuthnot was devoted to the boy."
"She is very subtle and very clever, not in the least as she appears on the surface. Archie really knows very little about her. I ask you, or any unprejudiced person, now would you relish the ministrations of your wife when you were dangerously ill if her lover were downstairs, waiting to hear the bulletins?"
"Was Gerald Arbuthnot her lover? I understand they did not marry for over two years after your brother's death."
"Why should they hurry to go through the ceremony?" she answered scornfully.
A turn in the tide of people swept her upstairs, but kept the two men who had been talking to her where they were. David Devenish recognised the undistinguished-looking listener.
"Good-evening, Sir Charles. Did you hear 'the witness for the prosecution'? Good heavens! Of what malice these women are capable. It is unthinkable they should ever be allowed to take part in national affairs."
"You think Mrs. Vibart malicious?" Sir Charles Milton asked.
"And you?"
The Recorder smiled quietly.
"I have little doubt Mrs. Arbuthnot's case will be heard without prejudice," he answered.
Keightley wished to argue and discuss the matter. Sir Charles gave him the attention one's host demands, but no more. It was obvious, or so Keightley said afterwards, that already he had taken a view of the "Arbuthnot case."
At the assizes, when the Recorder addressed the Grand Jury, he gave a weighty and judicial résumé of the case of "The Crown v. Ethel Arbuthnot." He said the inquiry before the coroner had been very irregularly conducted, and a large mass of extraneous matter introduced into the case, with the object, apparently, of creating prejudice and inflaming public opinion. The jury would either find a true bill or not, as they thought right. He said he did not wish to influence their judgment, only to point out to them that, as regarded the inquests on Mrs. 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. There was no accusation of any kind made then, or, until now, by inference or otherwise, against Mrs. Arbuthnot, who was a mere schoolgirl at the time. The Recorder added that he did not know how such a charge could have been sustained.
"He says he does not want to influence their judgment," Keightley commented scoffingly to David Devenish, who was seated beside him in the court. "I wonder what more he could have said had that been his only objective? "
"Hush!" answered the journalist. "Wait, give the man a chance."
"Now," said the Recorder, "we come to the death of the prisoner's first husband, James Hobbs. The person who wrote to the coroner is James Hobbs's step-sister. If you decide upon sending the case for trial, it must be on the strength of this document, of which the prejudice is easily apparent."
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. 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. The boy was sent home from school on the advice of the school doctor, and his mother took him to one of the most eminent physicians in London to confirm the prognosis and advise as to treatment. Gentlemen, is it conceivable that at this moment she began to plan to use the occasion in order to make away with him? Or is it the suggestion of the prosecution that the crime—if it were a crime—was unpremeditated, and that it was not until, in the dead of night, when the boy woke and, so to speak, cried to her for help—her own and only child—she conceived all at once the devilish, I use the word with due deliberation, the devilish scheme of freeing herself from her pecuniary embarrassments by encompassing his agonising death. 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. But if, on the other hand, and after mature deliberation, you are unable to bring yourselves to this conclusion, you will throw out the bill."
Keightley's ironical cheer drew upon him the attention of the Recorder who, after a startled moment of indignant recognition, said if there was any further disturbance he should order the court to be cleared.
The jury threw out the bill, and Mrs. Arbuthnot, who had already been in custody for five weeks, was ordered to be immediately released.
Twenty-four hours later there were big placards at all the street corners, and London was startled by the announcement:
"Suicide of Ethel Arbuthnot.
"Sensational Sequel to the Arbuthnot Case."
Keightley brought the evening edition of the Grail into his mother's sitting-room when he went home for afternoon tea. 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. If it had not been for me——"
"My dear, I wish you would drop this craze. You are growing quite bloodthirsty and inhuman."
"I wish you would sometimes let me finish a sentence." He was almost pettish. "If it had not been for me, I tell you, Ethel Arbuthnot might still be alive."
"Horrible! I only hope it isn't true."
She wanted to talk about the last rubber of bridge and a curious combination of cards, about her next dinner-party, her new tea-gown—anything but police-court problems.
"I believe you are going to insist upon reading it to me."
"Of course." He settled her in a corner of the sofa, flung himself on the floor and rested his back against her knees. "Now I'm comfortable. Yes, I really believe I am responsible for this confession. I am not going to read her letter until I have told you all about it. I met her at the prison gate—I and Gerald Arbuthnot. He was all to pieces, and no help to anyone. I took them to a private room at Verrey's, and gave them a really good dinner, a magnum of Mumm after cocktails, port to follow, and liqueurs. It took a long time to get her going. Arbuthnot sat with a silly, painted grin on his face, lapping up the drink, and she hardly spoke at all.
"I tried her one way after another: talked first of the coroner, and then of the Recorder. Poor old Johnnie Turner—he should have heard me! I sympathised with her; said how badly she had been treated. She sat all hunched up, crumbling her bread, hardly eating at all. Then, all at once, quite abruptly, apropos of nothing at all, I brought in Julia Vibart's name.
"‘There is one person, anyway, in London to-night who will be glad of your acquittal,' I said.
"‘"Who is that?' she answered dully.
"‘Julia Vibart.' Mater, you never saw such a change; she yellowed all over; there was vitriol in her eyes and pouring from her tongue. I can't repeat you the things she said. She is a gutter-snipe, of course; but less than that, ever so much less, and more! When she got her breath she asked me why Julia would be glad, and I told her that Archie had said to everyone that if anything happened to her he would never go back to Brook Street: he would leave England——"
"‘He would leave her?' she asked quickly, all at once, all in a breath. 'Archie would have left Julia for me, on my account?'
"She was dangerous, mater, vicious, the worst type of human rodent. She spat contempt upon the Vibarts, their social position; accused Julia of crimes of which I am sure she had never even heard—unnatural, degrading crimes. Then she spoke of Archie. I believe she had tried to lure him away from his wife, deliberately and of malice prepense. She gloated, she positively gloated over the suggestion that he would have left Julia if she had been found guilty. I got tired of it in the end—the repetition and the virulence—and got up to go."
"You left them there?"
"You know how late I was in coming home?"
"I heard you."
"I slept until one o'clock. Then I went down to the Savoy grill, where I met Devenish. I knew about the suicide before I met him. The news was on all the placards. But not the letter. That is only just out. You must let me read it to you. 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. The letter must have been written within an hour after I left them. Listen. David starts:
"‘By taking her own life in the sensational manner described in another column, Mrs, Ethel Arbuthnot has added an absorbing chapter to the annals of criminal psychology. We make no apology for giving in extenso the letter she left behind her.'
"The letter is to me. The police found it in the flat; they wanted to keep it, but I got it from them, and let David have it in time for the fifth edition. My name isn't mentioned; I thought it better not. I suppose it will come out ultimately, but that can't be helped. David prints the letter without beginning or end. The police have it again now, but you shall see it when I get it back.
"‘Thank you for all your kindness to me to-night; but it is all of no use. 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; I never dreamt of it burning his throat and mouth. Gerald had given me a brandy and soda, and I did not know what I was doing. The tradesmen and moneylenders have got Lennie's insurance money; I have not benefited a penny by it. I have had a most unhappy life, and through Julia Vibart everything has been brought up against me now. Uncle was always teasing me when I was a child; making me do and say things I hated. He made me stand up and beg for my Sunday dinner once, as if I had been a dog. If I ran under his feet when he was drunk, and he fell to the bottom of the stairs, I can't see that I was to blame because his skull was fractured. And as for aunt, she watched me, and kept me in her stuffy rooms, and never let me do anything I wanted. She asked if she had had her sleeping draught, and I said "No." I did that twice in the night, out of kindness, She wanted to sleep soundly. I know you will understand.
"‘It is disgraceful to say I did anything to Jim; nobody but Julia would have thought of such a thing. If I opened the window, it was because he seemed so hot; and as for giving him things to eat, he was always fond of sweet things, and the doctors said nothing about plum cake. The nurses were sneaking things; always watching and peering about. I was not going to ask them what I might give my own husband.
"‘There was never anything between Gerald and me whilst Jim was alive, whatever people said. Gerald was a great comfort to me all the time Jim was ill. That is what Julia resented—that I should have any comfort. She was always jealous of me, first with Jim and then with Archie. The truth is, that I have sex attraction and she hasn't. I want everyone to know how cruelly she has persecuted me. I am going to take an injection of morphia, and then impale myself on her railings, or lie down on her doorstep—that's where I shall be found; and she will see what Archie will do then. The house won't have half a bad name …"
Keightley interrupted his reading:
"‘David takes it for granted that she meant to commit suicide. But, of course, she had no such intention; she was never untrue to type. She meant to take just not enough, and to make a row with the policeman who rescued her. However, something must have gone wrong with her calculations. David goes on:
"‘As we know, she carried out her intention, and was found on the doorstep of Mrs. Vibart's house in Upper Brook Street at an early hour this morning.'
"Now David begins to preach. The paper has to keep up its tone:
"‘The whole document is addressed to one of our great students of humanity. 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. And practically she admits and excuses them all! "I have had a most unhappy life," she exclaims, and instances the smallest of childish grievances. She blames her sister-in-law for having brought her to her present pass, and in her last hours is only occupied in planning revenge. She is neither repentant nor ashamed, only vindictive.
"‘Further investigations we have ourselves been able to make shed a little more lurid light on this amazing personality.'
"It is I who made the investigations, and not asked David at all: but that is by the way," was Keightley's sotto voce.
"As a child Ethel Arbuthnot seems to have been a curious, secretive, savage little creature, resenting control, devoid of gratitude, acutely sensitive to ridicule. She was barely fifteen when she accomplished her uncle's death in the manner she describes. A little later she discovers herself to be possessed of what is known as "sex attraction," and all her aunt's vigilance is needed to keep her from disaster. How that vigilance was rewarded we also know. James Hobbs, who met her whilst she was still in mourning, married her at a registrar's office within a few weeks of the acquaintance. She was faithful to him apparently but for a very short period. Mr. Gerald Arbuthnot, who had been best man at the wedding, was godfather to her child; and shortly afterwards we find him living in the same house with them, from which time onwards the domestic atmosphere was in a condition of continual turmoil. That Gerald Arbuthnot would have been betrayed in his turn appears probable from the frequent visits of Mr. Archibald Vibart to the Hat in Sloane Street, and his admission that he had supplied Mrs. Arbuthnot with money. We make no apology for mentioning the names of these two gentlemen; it is unavoidable under the circumstances. One of our representatives interviewed Mr. Arbuthnot, and asked him if it were true that his wife gambled at Le Touquet, Boulogne, Dinard, and in a notorious London bridge club; that her financial troubles were due to losses in all these places. He replied, as if it excused her conduct, that she went to church regularly, and frequently to sacred or classical concerts on Sunday afternoons!
"‘Mr. Archibald Vibart has left London, but our interviewer succeeded in seeing him before he left. He admitted everything, but seemed to be still persuaded that Mrs. Arbuthnot was a greatly wronged woman'
"Now, mater, this last is all mine. When you get it well into your beautiful little head you will understand what it is that lures me into the purlieus of criminal investigation:
"‘The case is interesting in many ways, but chiefly perhaps in so far as it shows the incapacity of our legal machinery to deal with the abstruse, the unknown, the unexpected. Sir Charles Milton led the Grand Jury to their decision to throw out the bill against Mrs. Arbuthnot by telling them there was no evidence against the prisoner. It seems to the lay mind, in view of her confession, that, if this is so, the laws of evidence require remodelling, and considerably greater significance given to the word "circumstantial." We wonder what Sir Charles Milton thinks now of his speech to the jury. It was greeted with ironical cheers, to which his only response was a threat to clear the court. We know now which end of the court should have been relieved!"
"There, mater, what do you think of that?"
"I think it is time I went to dress for dinner."
"Cynic!" But he rose and opened the door for her.
"You won't admit that I have been the deus ex machina that sent one criminal to her doom?"
"When are you going to take up literature again?"
"When I am through with life," he answered airily.