The Jury (24 page)

But when all is said, what does that evidence amount to? Even if one were so rash as to take it at its face-value, what does it amount to? It amounts to this: that here was a married couple who sometimes exchanged angry words— how unlike married couples, how extraordinary, how unheard-of! And here is a man, the husband, who had an opportunity, provided he had the means, an opportunity of doctoring his wife's malted milk. For two or three minutes— let us call it three minutes—the cup of malted milk was within his reach and he was unobserved: that is, if we take Mrs Tucker's evidence at its face value. That, members of the jury, was the only opportunity he had. Now who else had such an opportunity? Who had a boundless opportunity? Clearly Mrs Tucker herself. At any time of the day or night Mrs Tucker could have given a drug to Mrs Strood. That she did so once, and without Mrs Strood's knowledge, she has told us herself in evidence. That was on Dr Cartwright's instructions. But what she did on Dr Cartwright's instructions she could do again without his instructions. What she did once legitimately she could do a second time and feloniously—or through some compound of ignorance and excessive zeal.

Understand me, members of the jury, I am not accusing Mrs Tucker of murdering her mistress or even of causing her death. I am accusing nobody. I am merely putting forward an hypothesis that is every whit as credible and as probable as the one submitted to you by my learned friend. I go further and say it is
more
credible, it is
more
probable. On the question of the time of death the medical evidence does not help us much—there is a wide margin for conjecture—but Dr Cartwright, who saw the body at eight o'clock, judged that death had taken place some seven or eight hours earlier. That takes us back to midnight. Now we know that Strood left the house at twenty minutes to eight (we have the unimpeachable word of Mr Nix for that); so for over four hours, from seven-forty to midnight, Mrs Tucker had the free run of the house. Her husband wouldn't be keeping a watch on her actions—
why should he? It is her right, it might even be her duty, to enter Mrs Strood's bedroom from time to time; and no question would be made of that. She had given Mrs Strood one dose of oscitalin by stealth; and if she chose she could give her another. But how would she get possession of the material for this second dose? I don't know; nobody knows. But, if it comes to that, how would Strood get possession of such materials? Again nobody knows. The Prosecution doesn't know and makes no pretence of knowing. No evidence, I repeat, has been brought to show that he possessed either the chloral itself or the means of obtaining it. He had at most a three minutes opportunity of administering the poison, while Mrs Tucker had at least four hours. I say emphatically that there is no more evidence against Strood than against Mrs Tucker. And I do not accuse Mrs Tucker. If there is insufficient evidence to support a charge of murder against Mrs Tucker—and certainly the evidence
is
insufficient—there is equally insufficient evidence against Roderick Strood.

Perhaps you noticed that a few moments ago, in dealing with that crucial matter of the cup of malted milk, I used the word 'doctoring'? I suggest that what the Prosecution alleges against my client is that he was guilty of 'doctoring' the malted milk. Now I chose that colloquial way of expressing the matter because it happens to be a very accurate way. You will hear, from Strood's own lips, that he added nothing whatever to that malted milk; you will hear that on no occasion has he given drugs to his wife. But even according to the theory of the Prosecution, which he will repudiate, the amount of chloral alleged to have been given was not a fatal dose, and could in fact have been given in innocence, as was the oscitalin given by Dr Cartwright. And now it is my duty to set before you another hypothesis, namely that Mrs Strood herself, for reasons which we shall never know, had taken something before the doctor's arrival. Her manner was strange, said Mrs Tucker. The doctor was sent for without her knowledge, and, as it turned out, against her will: the doctor himself told us that. She asserted that he had been brought on a fool's errand. All this may suggest to you that Mrs Strood had special reasons for not wanting the attentions of a medical man. I do not stress the theory; I do not stress my suggestion about
Mrs Tucker; I offer them as alternatives to the theory advanced by the Prosecution, a theory which, I suggest, has nothing in logic, and little in probability, to recommend it. You may still think that the Prosecution's story is a little more probable than these alternatives I am offering you. You
may
think so, though I do not believe you will. But even though you do think so, that is not enough. If there is doubt in your minds, reasonable doubt, it is your duty to acquit. It is not for me to prove any alternative theory: it is for the Crown to prove, beyond reasonable doubt, that the story they advance is true in fact, that it really happened so. My lord will tell you the law in this matter, which is that the burden of proof rests upon the Crown, and that Roderick Strood is innocent unless and until he is
proved
guilty.

Now, members of the jury, if I have carried you with me thus far, if I have succeeded in showing you that the theory of the Prosecution is unsupported, or very dubiously supported, by the facts elicited in evidence, you will perhaps be inclined to wonder how that theory was ever arrived at. A moment's reflection will resolve the puzzle. At the beginning of my speech I characterized the case for the Prosecution as a tissue of suspicion, conjecture, and false inference. A good deal has been said, and a good deal more has been hinted, about a lady in this case, an Austrian lady who happens to be a distinguished musician. That Strood is deeply devoted to this lady is not in question; and, as you will hear, he blames himself bitterly for those indiscretions which have led to her being mentioned in this case. For that, I dare to say, he will never forgive himself. Again and again he has insisted, that, whatever happens, Fräulein Andersch must not be put into the witness-box. I know you will agree that the sentiment does him honour, and I think you will equally agree that I am doing no more than my plain duty in overriding his wishes on this point. As you will presently hear from his own lips, it was precisely because he desired to protect this lady's name from the least breath of scandal that he was proposing to travel under the name of Roderick Williams instead of as Roderick William Strood. The Crown asks you to believe that because Roderick Strood and Fräulein Andersch were devoted friends, and possibly lovers, they had planned to marry each other,
and that Strood killed his wife in order to be free to carry out that plan. This, they tell you, is the motive; and my learned friend the Attorney-General, if I remember him aright, assured you with great confidence and satisfaction that if you were in search of a motive for this alleged murder here was motive enough and more than enough. As to that, I will make two observations. The first observation is this: just as it is not incumbent upon the Prosecution in a case of alleged murder to prove motive, so no amount of motive can prove a murder. If there is no murder proved against the prisoner, if the evidence is insufficient to support such a charge against him, all the talk in the world about motive makes not a pennyworth of difference. All that has been said and hinted about Strood's 'motive' can have no weight whatever (subject to what my lord will tell you) if you are not satisfied, beyond all reasonable doubt, that the Crown is right on the main issue. That is my first observation on the question of so-called motive. My second observation is that this same motive, when subjected to a searching examination, proved to be as dubious as everything else in this dubious case.

You will notice that I am taking you through this case step by step, and that at every turn of the road we find new doubt awaiting us. You will hear in evidence that it was not the intention of these two people to marry each other. To my mind that is a conclusive answer. But I will add this: that if they had intended to marry each other, there would still have been no sort of reason why Strood should have felt it necessary to commit the dastardly and dangerous crime of which he is accused. Why should he perpetrate such an atrocity? And why should he take such a risk? He is not precisely a rich man, but he is a man very comfortably off, and the payment of alimony, had it come to divorce, would have been no very great burden upon him. Incidentally, the late Mrs Strood had a little money of her own. But that is all hypothetical, for the reason that I have already given you, namely that this plan of marriage between them has never existed outside the imagination of the learned gentlemen who are conducting the Prosecution.

Now I will come to the evidence of Detective-Sergeant
Bolton. That was the witness, you will remember, who spoke of meeting Strood at Southampton and who claimed to be able to quote, with precise accuracy, the words uttered by Strood. I was able to test his accuracy here in court, by asking him to write down, from memory, the alternative form of words that I had suggested to him a few moments before. The result of my little experiment was very illuminating indeed; for the witness, in trying to reproduce my words, made precisely the same mistake which, in my belief, he made when trying to write down in his note-book the words spoken by the prisoner. I have no doubt that Bolton is an experienced and able officer; and experience is a very good thing, but it sometimes leads to a rather excessive self-confidence. It was a small mistake he made, but a significant one. 'My God! So I killed her!' That was what the witness understood me to say, and that was what he wrote down. What I did say, as my lord told you, was: 'My God! So I've killed her!' I do not believe, members of the jury, that you will fall into the error of thinking that the difference is a trifling one, and of small account. It is a very significant difference indeed. If you, any one of you, had murdered a woman, you might exclaim in a moment of agitation: 'I killed her!' You would certainly not say: 'I have killed her.' A foreigner might say that, being unfamiliar with ordinary English idiom; but no Englishman would. On the other hand, if one of you gentlemen of the jury were conscious of having caused a great deal of mental pain and distress to your wife, and if you were suddenly informed of your wife's death, what more natural than that you should imagine, in your remorse, that she had been driven by your conduct to take her own life? And what more natural than that you should exclaim: 'My God! So I've killed her!'

There is another thing I would point out to you in this connexion. I fancy that the Prosecution regards this alleged remark of Strood's as a very important part of their case. Yet even in the form—as I suggest the inaccurate and misleading form—in which Bolton first gave it to us, it is open to more than one interpretation. What does the exclamation 'My God!' suggest to you? It suggests horror, yes—but does it not equally suggest astonishment? Now a murderer cannot be
astonished to learn of his victim's death, and the astonishment displayed by Strood at Southampton must therefore tell in his favour. And if the Prosecution says that the astonishment was insincere, was put on, I answer that they cannot have it both ways. A man acting innocence is a man on his guard and though such a man might exclaim 'My God!' with an eye to the effect on his audience, the very last thing he would say is 'I killed her' or 'I've killed her.' With great respect to my learned friend, I do not think he has strengthened his case by laying so much stress on that unguarded exclamation of the prisoner's. Whichever way you look at it, whichever of the two versions you adopt, it strongly suggests innocence in the man who uttered it.

Members of the jury, I shall not at this stage trouble you with a long speech. I shall have an opportunity of addressing you later on, after the evidence is concluded, and then, of course, I shall have to deal rather exhaustively with the evidence and to put my client's case squarely and finally before you. My learned friend will reply, and, finally, my lord will sum up. But before I make an end of these few remarks I will say something about the evidence of House, the barman at the Zenith Hotel, Southampton. I do not know what impression that witness made on you, members of the jury, but I will say that during some twenty-five years' experience as an advocate in His Majesty's Courts of Justice I have never listened to evidence so unsatisfactory, so unconvincing, never listened to so palpable a farrago of guesswork and fancy. I will put it more strongly than that and say that it will surprise me if you can persuade yourselves to believe a word of that evidence. This man House asserted …
[analysis of House's evidence omitted].
Moreover, Fräulein Andersch, of her own free will, and to the neglect of her professional interests—for she has contracts in America which it will now be impossible for her to fulfil—this lady, I say, will go into the witness-box, and you will hear from her own lips …

ELISABETH FRIEDA ANDERSCH, examined for the Defence by MR RONALD YOUNG: I am an Austrian subject, by profession a pianist. I first met the prisoner at Heidelberg, in the spring of this year. I came to England in July and have been here ever since. I do not speak English so very well, but I understand it without difficulty.

Can you recall the events of October the 31st?—Perfectly well.

On the evening of that day did you dine with Mr Strood at the Zenith Hotel, Southampton?—Yes.

When the meal was finished did he leave you for a moment or two?—Yes.

Will you tell us more about that?—He wished for some brandy and the waiter was gone away. If he ring the bell the waiter will come back, but he says No, he will himself go for the brandy. He asks me if he shall bring to me also some brandy, but I did not want some.

When he came back, had he the brandy with him?—Yes.

About what time was it when he rejoined you in the dining-room?—It was nine o'clock.