I can see her face now, the wide dark eyes and the restrained emotion. I can still hear her voice as she said:
“Everything’s finished….”
I can’t describe to you the infinite desolation she conveyed in those words. They were a literal statement of truth. With Amyas’s defection, everything was finished for her. That, I am convinced, was why she took the coniine. It was a way out. A way suggested to her by my stupid dissertation on the drug. And the passage I read from the Phaedo gives a gracious picture of death.
Here is my present belief. She took the coniine, resolved to end her own life when Amyas left her. He may have seen her take it—or he may have discovered that she had it later.
That discovery acted upon him with terrific force. He was horrified at what his actions had led her to contemplate. But notwithstanding his horror and remorse, he still felt himself incapable of giving up Elsa. I can understand that. Anyone who had fallen in love with her would find it almost impossible to tear himself away.
He could not envisage life without Elsa. He realized that Caroline could not live without him. He decided there was only one way out—to use the coniine himself.
And the manner in which he did it might be characteristic of the man, I think. His painting was the dearest thing in life to him. He chose to die literally with his brush in his hand. And the last thing his eyes would see was the face of the girl he loved so desperately. He might have thought, too, that his death would be the best thing for her….
I admit that this theory leaves certain curious facts unexplained. Why, for instance, were only Caroline’s fingerprints found on the empty coniine bottle. I suggest that after Amyas had handled it, all prints got smudged or rubbed off by the soft piles of stuffs that were lying over the bottle and that, after his death, Caroline handled it to see if anyone had touched it. Surely that is possible and plausible? As to the evidence about the fingerprints on the beer bottle, the witnesses for the defence were of opinion that a man’s hand might be distorted after taking poison and so could manage to grasp a beer bottle in a wholly unnatural way.
One other thing remains to be explained. Caroline’s own attitude throughout the trial. But I think I have now seen the cause for that. It was she who actually took the poison from my laboratory. It was her determination to do away with herself that impelled her husband to take his own life instead. Surely it is not unreasonable to suppose that in a morbid excess of responsibility she considered herself responsible for his death—that she persuaded herself that she was guilty of murder—though not the kind of murder of which she was being accused?
I think all that could be so. And if that is the case, then surely it will be easy for you to persuade little Carla of the fact? And she can marry her young man and rest contented that the only thing of which her mother was guilty was an impulse (no more) to take her own life.
All this, alas, is not what you asked me for—which was an account of the happenings as I remember them. Let me now repair that omission. I have already told you fully what happened on the day preceding Amyas’s death. We now come to the day itself.
I had slept very badly—worried by the disastrous turn of events for my friends. After a long wakeful period whilst I vainly tried to think of something helpful I could do to avert the catastrophe, I fell into a heavy sleep about six a.m. The bringing of my early tea did not awaken me, and I finally woke up heavy-headed and unrefreshed about half past nine. It was shortly after that that I thought I heard movements in the room below me, which was the room I used as a laboratory.
I may say here that actually the sounds were probably caused by a cat getting in. I found the window sash raised a little way as it had carelessly been left from the day before. It was just wide enough to admit the passage of a cat. I merely mention the sounds to explain how I came to enter the laboratory.
I went in there as soon as I had dressed, and looking along the shelves I noticed that the bottle containing the preparation of coniine was slightly out of line with the rest. Having had my eye drawn to it in this way, I was startled to see that a considerable quantity of it had gone. The bottle had been nearly full the day before—now it was nearly empty.
I shut and locked the window and went out, locking the door behind me. I was considerably upset and also bewildered. When startled, my mental processes are, I am afraid, somewhat slow.
I was first disturbed, then apprehensive, and finally definitely alarmed. I questioned the household, and they all denied having entered the laboratory at all. I thought things over a little while longer, and then decided to ring up my brother and get his advice.
Philip was quicker than I was. He saw the seriousness of my discovery, and urged me to come over at once and consult with him.
I went out, encountering Miss Williams, who had come across from the other side to look for a truant pupil. I assured her that I had not seen Angela and that she had not been to the house.
I think that Miss Williams noticed there was something amiss. She looked at me rather curiously. I had no intention, however, of telling her what had happened. I suggested she should try the kitchen garden—Angela had a favourite apple tree there—and I myself hurried down to the shore and rowed myself across to the Alderbury side.
My brother was already there waiting for me.
We walked up to the house together by the way you and I went the other day. Having seen the topography you can understand that in passing underneath the wall of the Battery garden we were bound to overhear anything being said inside it.
Beyond the fact that Caroline and Amyas were engaged in a disagreement of some kind, I did not pay much attention to what was said.
Certainly I overheard no threat of any kind uttered by Caroline. The subject of discussion was Angela, and I presume Caroline was pleading for a respite from the fiat of school. Amyas, however, was adamant, shouting out irritably that it was all settled, he’d see to her packing.
The door of the Battery opened just as we drew abreast of it, and Caroline came out. She looked disturbed—but not unduly so. She smiled rather absently at me, and said they had been discussing Angela. Elsa came down the path at that minute, and as Amyas clearly wanted to get on with the sitting without interruption from us, we went on up the path.
Philip blamed himself severely afterwards for the fact that we did not take immediate action. But I myself cannot see it the same way. We had no earthly right to assume that such a thing as murder was being contemplated. (Moreover I now believe that it was not contemplated.) It was clear that we should have to adopt some course of action, but I still maintain that we were right to talk the matter over carefully first. It was necessary to find the right thing to do—and once or twice I found myself wondering if I had not after all made a mistake. Had the bottle really been full the day before as I thought? I am not one of those people (like my brother Philip) who can be cock-sure of everything. One’s memory does play tricks on one. How often, for instance, one is convinced one has put an article in a certain place, later to find that you have put it somewhere quite different. The more I tried to recall the state of the bottle on the preceding afternoon, the more uncertain and doubtful I became. This was very annoying to Philip, who began completely to lose patience with me.
We were not able to continue our discussion at the time, and tacitly agreed to postpone it until after lunch. (I may say that I was always free to drop in for lunch at Alderbury if I chose.)
Later, Angela and Caroline brought us beer. I asked Angela what she had been up to playing truant, and told her Miss Williams was on the warpath, and she said she had been bathing—and added that she didn’t see why she should have to mend her horrible old skirt when she was going to have all new things to go to school with.
Since there seemed no chance of further talk with Philip alone, and since I was really anxious to thin
k things out by myself, I wandered off down the path towards the Battery. Just above the Battery, as I showed you, there is a clearing in the trees where there used to be an old bench. I sat there smoking and thinking, and watching Elsa as she sat posing for Amyas.
I shall always think of her as she was that day. Rigid in the pose, with her yellow shirt and dark-blue trousers and a red pullover slung round her shoulders for warmth.