Bernard Knight: According To The Evidence

‘Priscilla left the Met about three years ago, as prospects of promotion were grounded by budget cuts, as I well know! She took a job in a forensic institute in Australia but came back about six months ago.’

Angela paused. ‘I think she had a bad experience with a man – another broken engagement,’ she added rather bitterly. ‘We forensic biologists seem to be prone to that sort of thing!’

‘Is she free at the moment, then?’ he enquired.

‘She’s been doing short-term work at a couple of archaeological digs, but at the moment she’s “resting”, as they say in the theatre!’

Before she rang off, Angela promised to let him know as soon as she had contacted her former colleague, leaving Richard to tramp up the stairs in the echoing house, wondering what a former museum employee and itinerant archaeologist might look like – a mannish suit and rimless glasses, or long straggly hair and projecting teeth?

He gave the news to Moira and Siân next day and they all anxiously awaited another call from Angela Bray. Like Richard the previous evening, the two women wondered what any new locum would be like, if she materialized.

‘Why can’t Dr Bray find us a handsome young man instead?’ said Siân wistfully. ‘All these biologists seem to be women!’

It was almost the end of the week before Angela rang Richard again. Her mother had slightly improved in that she could speak a little in a slurred way, but her arm and leg showed no sign of recovering, so there was no chance that Angela could leave her.

Her main news was that she had tracked down Priscilla Chambers and in principle the lady was quite keen to help out on a temporary basis. Richard and Angela agreed on a salary regime for the locum, Angela insisting on paying most of it from her share of the profits of the partnership.

‘She can come down next Monday, Richard, and start immediately on a one-month agreement if she likes the look of the place. She doesn’t have a car, but she can use the train.’

‘Where can she stay? In that bed and breakfast you were in down in the village?’

‘That’s up to her, I suppose. She could use my rooms in the house, but that would cause another scandal in the valley!’

When Richard relayed this to Siân and Moira, they were relieved to hear that someone could take over Angela’s work, but rather apprehensive at a stranger invading the cosy little world of Garth House.

‘I’d better check with Mrs Evans that she’s got a vacancy at her B &B,’ said the efficient Moira.

‘Dr Bray mentioned that she could stay here in her rooms upstairs,’ said Richard mischievously.

This went down like a lead balloon with the two women, and Moira went straight off to telephone the lady who ran the bed and breakfast in Tintern Parva.

Angela rang again on Sunday evening to say that Miss Chambers intended catching the twelve o’clock express from Paddington next day. Richard offered to drive to Newport Station to pick her up, and just after two o’clock Siân and Moira heard the Humber roll up the drive and stop in the yard.

They hurried to the back door in time to see Richard opening the passenger door, from which a shapely pair of nylon-clad legs emerged, followed by a willowy redhead of about thirty.

With Richard grinning like a Cheshire cat behind her, she advanced towards them, elegant in a slim A-line suit under a swinging green topcoat, a tiny hat on her auburn curls.

Miss Chambers pulled off a glove and held out a hand, her perfectly made-up features breaking into a smile.

‘Hello, I’m Priscilla! What a lovely place you have here.’

As the two residents went out to meet her, Siân whispered in Moira’s ear, ‘My God, she’s gorgeous!’

‘When Angela gets back,’ hissed Moira, ‘I’m going to kill her!’

Though the forensic and legal procedures are broadly correct for 1955, some literary licence has had to be used, both because of the constraints of space and the need to offer an interesting story, as this was intended to be an entertaining novel, not a textbook! For instance, the research into changes into eye fluid potassium has been brought forward a few years, as the first mention was in 1958 and most of the published papers appeared from the 1960s.

Similarly, the military use of a Thompson sub-machine gun was unusual after the Second World War, though it was employed in Korea and Vietnam and some Special Forces members had an affection for odd weapons.

Until the highly controversial death of the nurse Helen Smith in Saudi Arabia in 1979, coroners had no obligation to investigate deaths occurring abroad. This has now changed, as the long-delayed inquest into the death of Princess Diana showed.

The order of court proceedings described at Gloucester Assizes has been manipulated somewhat for the sake of length – the Assizes are now the Crown Courts.

Agatha Christie’s Mousetrap opened in London on 25 November 1952 – and is still running!