‘We will now take Mrs. Thompson’s evidence with regard to his wife. Mrs. Mercer did leave the kitchen twice, once “round about eight o’clock”. Mrs. Thompson cannot put it nearer than that, and she says that the absence was not “above two or three minutes”. Mr. and Mrs. Grey have both sworn to hearing Mr. Everton’s voice on the telephone at eight o’clock. In this respect you can, I think receive their evidence. I see no reason to doubt that Mr. Grey came to Solway Lodge that evening in response to a telephone call from his uncle, or that that call was put through, as he states, at eight o’clock. I think you may, therefore, dismiss this absence of Mrs. Mercer’s as immaterial. She says she went through the dining-room with some plates, and there is no reason to doubt what she says.
‘I would like you now to pay particular attention to Mrs. Mercer’s second absence. Shortly after a quarter past eight she again left the kitchen, with the avowed intention of arranging Mr. Everton’s room for the night. This might at first sight appear, a suspicious circumstance, since the cook is not usually free to attend to upstairs duties during the quarter of an hour immediately preceding what is the principal meal of the day for a business man. Her explanation that owing to the hot weather a cold supper had been ordered and was already set out in the dining-room is confirmed by the police. They also state that Mr. Everton’s bed had in fact been turned down. Now I want you to notice the time element very carefully here. If you suspect Mrs. Mercer, you must suppose that she went upstairs, performed her duties there, and came down again, bringing with her the pistol which Mr. Grey swears he left behind when he moved from Solway Lodge a year ago, but of which she and her husband deny any knowledge. Well, you have to suppose that she has loaded that pistol and brought it downstairs, that she then enters the study and without further ado shoots her employer. You have to imagine her locking the door, wiping her finger-prints off the handle – no prints were found upon it but those of Mr. Grey – wiping her finger-prints off the pistol – only Mr. Grey’s finger-prints were found there – and then making her escape by way of the glass door. To do all this she had under five minutes, and she had still to get back into the house. If you can believe that this nervous, hysterical woman could first plan and commit a cold-blooded murder, and then coolly remove all traces of her complicity, you are still faced with the problem of how she got back into the house. The front door was locked and bolted, and all the windows on the ground floor were fastened with the exception of the two in the dining-room, which were open at the top. The police report that it is impossible to raise the lower half of these windows from the outside. The back door was also locked. Mrs. Thompson is positive that the key was turned after she was admitted. The police found it locked. I have gone into all this in detail because I wish to make it quite clear that Mrs. Mercer is not under suspicion. In spite of her absence from the kitchen at the crucial time, it was, as I think I have shown you, a physical impossibility for her to have committed the crime and got back into the house. The study door remained locked until Mr. Grey opened it from the inside. He has himself testified that the key was sticking in the lock. Mrs. Mercer could not have come through that door and left it locked upon the inside.
‘We will now turn to the evidence of Mr. Bertram Everton. I need not point out to you the importance of this evidence. Mr. Bertram Everton has sworn that when he dined with his uncle on the evening of Monday, July 16th, Mr. James Everton informed him that he was about to change his will. He conveyed this impression in terms which Mr. Bertram Everton understood to mean that he himself was to be a beneficiary. I will read you a transcript from the shorthand notes of this part of the evidence.
‘ “Did he tell you he was making a will in your favour?”
‘ “Well, not exactly.”
‘ “What did he say?”
‘ “Well, if you really want to know, he said that if he’d got to choose between a smooth-tongued hypocrite and a damned tomfool, he’d choose the fool.”
‘ “And you took that reference to yourself?”
‘ “Well, it seemed to point that way.”
‘ “You took it to mean that he was about to execute a will in your favour?”
‘ “Well, I didn’t think he’d do it, don’t you know. I just thought he’d had a row with Geoffrey.”
‘ “Did he tell you so?”
‘ “No – I just got the impression.”
‘Now this evidence is borne out by the ascertained facts. It is a fact that on the morning of the sixteenth-that is, the morning after this conversation with Mr. Bertram Everton – Mr. James Everton sent for his solicitor and altered his will. You have had Mr. Blackett’s evidence. He stated that he had received instructions on the telephone to bring Mr. Everton’s will to Solway Lodge immediately. He found his client very far from well. In his view Mr. Everton had received some severe shock. He had described him to you as neither excited nor angry, but pale, subdued, and highly nervous. His hand was shaking, and he did not appear to have slept. Without explanation he tore the old will across and burned it in the open grate. The principal legatee under this old will was Mr. Geoffrey Grey. There were also legacies to Mrs. Grey, to Mr. Francis Everton, and to Mr. And Mrs. Mercer. Having burnt the will, Mr. Everton instructed Mr. Blackett to draw up a new one. In this new will Mr. Geoffrey Grey’s name does not appear. Neither Mrs. Grey nor Mr. Francis Everton receive any legacy. The bequests to the Mercers are unaltered, and the remainder of the property goes to Mr. Bertram Everton. You will notice that this corresponds exactly with the impression conveyed to him by his uncle’s remarks of the evening before.
‘In a murder case suspicion is apt to attach to the person who benefits most largely by the death. In this case, however, no suspicion falls on Mr. Bertram Everton, who, perhaps fortunately for himself, was in Edinburgh at the time of the murder, and was moreover without a motive, because even if he understood his uncle to have the intention of making a will in his favour, he could not in fact have known that such a will had actually been signed. Statements of employees of the Caledonian Hotel, Edinburgh, confirm his presence there at a late breakfast, at lunch, at round about three o’clock, at something after four, at eight-thirty p.m. on the 16th, and at nine a.m. on the 17th. It is therefore quite impossible to connect him with the crime.
‘We now come to Mr. Geoffrey Grey’s evidence. He denies any quarrel with his uncle or any knowledge of any reason for the alteration of his uncle’s will. Yet Mr. James Everton did alter his will. According to Mr. Blackett’s evidence he altered it in deep distress of mind. When the new will had been drawn up he drove to his bank accompanied by Mr. Blackett. He signed his new will in the manager’s room with the manager and one of the bank clerks as witnesses. I invite your attention to this point because it makes it quite clear that Mr. Everton was not under duress of any kind – he was acting of his own free will. He had cut one nephew out of his will, and had left all his property to another, yet the nephew who was cut out, Mr. Geoffrey Grey, has sworn that he knew of no reason for this. He has sworn that there was no break in his cordial relations with his uncle.