Dorothy Sayers - The Documents in the Case

‘There’s no murder there,’ said I. ‘Good-night.’

I rose to go. The woman let me get as far as the door and then came after me.

‘See ’ere, sir. You’re a gentleman, and I don’t want to be ’ard on a gentleman wot’s pore father ’as died sudden. Give me two ’undred pound, and I’ll let yer take copies of ’em and Archie shall go with you and bring ’em back.’

‘Copies don’t count so well in a court of law as originals,’ I said.

‘They could be swore to,’ said Mrs Cutts.

‘Not at this time of night,’ said I.

The youth Archie leaned across and whispered to his mother. She nodded and smiled her unpleasant smile.

‘See ’ere, sir, I’ll risk it. Archie shall bring you them letters to your ’otel in the mornin’ and you shall take copies and ’ave them swore to afore a lawyer. I dursn’t let you ’ave them, really I dursn’t, sir. I’m takin’ a sad risk as it is for a respectable woman.’

‘Very well,’ I replied. ‘But copies are only worth a hundred pounds to me at the very outside.’

‘You’re makin’ a very ’ard bargain, sir.’

‘It’s that or nothing,’ said I.

‘Well, sir, if you say so. I’ll send Archie round at ten o’clock, sir.’

I agreed to this and walked away, glad to get out. I lay awake all night, fancying that Mrs Cutts would go to Lathom in the interval and make better terms with him.

However, Archie was there with the letters in the morning as agreed, and I took him and them round to a solicitor’s where typed copies were made and sworn. I also made an affidavit that I recognised the writing of the originals as being in my stepmother’s handwriting. I then paid the lad the agreed hundred pounds in Treasury notes, and dismissed him.

I have entered into all these details in order that there should be no doubt as to the genuineness of these copies, and to make quite clear why I am unable at the moment to forward the originals.

It is true that I could probably have forced Archie into handing the letters over, since he had no right to them. But several reasons urged me to take the other course. First, I had no legal right to them either, and was not clear how my action might be looked upon by the police. Secondly, and this was more important, I could hardly hope that Lathom would not discover their absence, and, if he did, he might take fright and leave the country and thus add great difficulties to my task. It would take some weeks, perhaps, to collect all the evidence I needed, and by the time I was ready to set the law in action, he might hide himself very effectually. Thirdly, I did not wish to alienate Mrs Cutts. I foresaw that she might be very useful, not only in bringing me fresh letters, if any arrived that threw further light on the business, but also in keeping watch on Lathom’s movements. I suggested to Archie that there might be possibilities of further reward in the future, and cautioned him against alarming Lathom.

It is conceivable, however, that Mrs Cutts may consider it more advantageous to blackmail Lathom than to assist me. Up to the moment of writing, he is still living in Chelsea, and apparently feels himself safe. But for all I know, Mrs Cutts may have retained the letters and be blackmailing him on her own account. Or she may have delivered her warning, and he may have destroyed the letters and made himself (as he imagines) secure. In the latter case it will, of course, be impossible to produce the original documents in court, and then the certified copies will justify their existence.

Having obtained the evidence of the adultery, I now felt myself in a position to put pressure on Munting, and accordingly went round to see him again.

‘I perfectly appreciate,’ I said, ‘the reasons for your silence at our last interview. But if I tell you that I have in my hands independent proof that Lathom was Margaret Harrison’s lover, perhaps you will feel justified in assisting my inquiries.’

He shrugged his shoulders.

‘My dear man,’ he said, ‘if you have proof already, I don’t see what assistance you require. May I ask what you call proof? After all, one doesn’t make these accusations without sufficient grounds.’

‘I have got the letters written to Lathom by my stepmother,’ I said, ‘and they leave the matter in no doubt whatever.’

‘lndeed?’ said he. ‘Well, I won’t ask you where you got them from. Private detective work is not in my line. If you really believe that your father was driven to do away with himself, I am extremely sorry — but what can one do about it?’

‘I do not think so,’ I said. ‘I believe, and these letters afford strong evidence to my mind, that my father was cruelly and deliberately murdered by Lathom at Margaret Harrison’s instigation. And I mean to prove it.’

‘Murdered?’ he cried. ‘Good God, you can’t mean that! That’s absolutely impossible. Lathom may be a bit of a rotter in some ways, but he’s not a murderer. I’ll swear he isn’t that. You’re absolutely mistaken.’

‘Will you read the letters?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘Look here. You’re a man of the world. If things have got to this point, I don’t mind admitting that Lathom did have some sort of an affair with Mrs Harrison. I did what I could to make him drop it, but, after all, these things will sometimes happen. I told him it was a poor sort of game to play, and when I got the opportunity — over that Milsom affair — I told him I’d shut up about it on condition he cleared out. He assured me afterwards, in the most solemn way, that it was all finished with. Why, damn it, I asked him about it the very day we went down to Manaton, and he repeated that the whole affair was absolutely over and done with.’

‘He was wise,’ I said dryly, ‘since he was taking you down there to view my father’s dead body. Even you might have suspected something if you had gone to “The Shack” in the knowledge that it was to Lathom’s interest to find what he did find.’

His face changed. I had touched him on the raw somewhere.

‘Did you, as a matter of fact, believe Lathom?’

‘I believed him — yes.’ He turned his pipe thoughtfully over between his fingers. ‘I believed that the affair had been put an end to. But I was not altogether sure that Lathom’s affection for Mrs Harrison had ceased.’

‘And when you found that my father had died so opportunely — did no suspicion enter your mind?’

‘Well — I admit it did just pass through my mind that Harrison might have done it himself. I–I didn’t want to believe it. I don’t know that I did really believe it. But it did occur to me as a possibility.’

‘Nothing more?’

‘Absolutely nothing more.’

‘Will you read the letters, and tell me if, after that, you still think there was nothing more?’

He hesitated.

‘If you are so sure that Lathom is innocent, you may be able to prove his innocence.’

He looked at me doubtfully, and slowly put out his hand for the letters. He read the endorsement by the solicitor, and looked sharply at me again, but said nothing. I waited while he read the documents through — first quickly, then for a second time slowly and with greater attention.

‘You will notice,’ I said, ‘that, shortly before the time when he told you the affair was over, Margaret Harrison had written him a letter clearly indicating that she believed herself to be about to have a child by him.’

‘Yes, I see that.’

‘And that he was not informed that this belief was erroneous till after my father’s death.’

‘No.’

‘Plenty of motive for murder there.’

‘Plenty of motive, certainly. But motive by itself is nothing. Good heavens, man, if everybody committed murder because they had a motive, precious few of us would die natural deaths.’