CHAPTER EIGHT

1.

The police car had met Dr. Henry Mortlake at Conway off the Holyhead train, at 10:14 that night. The Assistant Commissioner had moved quickly after Superintendent Larrabee’s phone call in the afternoon and Dr. Mortlake had caught the 5:25 p.m. from London.

He went straight to the churchyard; with him were Chief-Constable Pritchard, Superintendent Larrabee, Inspector Owen, Detective-Sergeant Pitt and the rest of them. The cemetery superintendent and the gravedigger; the undertaker Morgan the Coffin; there was the pathologist and a chemist from Cardiff police laboratory. It was thought right that Merrill himself should know what was in the wind, and he was informed of the exhumation, and so was Dr. Griffiths.

Merrill, on being told Dr. Griffiths would be there, stayed away.

Behind canvas screens the grave was opened up in the light of oil lamps. First, samples were taken from the soil in various parts of the cemetery, to ascertain whether there was arsenic in the soil. They were placed in various containers and sealed.

Mrs. Merrill’s grave was identified by the cemetery superintendent and the gravedigger. Digging then began, and a sample of the soil was collected from immediately above the coffin, Morgan duly identifying it. Further samples of soil were taken, and the coffin was raised by Morgan and the gravedigger, who trundled it on a hand-bier to a semi-derelict cottage in the lane by the churchyard.

Sacking was hung over the front room window, and by the light of more oil lamps, Dr. Mortlake made his preliminary examination.

The remains were reinterred, and Dr. Mortlake made a dash in the police car to catch the Holyhead train back to London, which was stopped for him at Conway at 1:28 a.m. In the sleeper with him were the specimens in jars for analysis. It had been quite a busy night for him and he slept well.

A Scotland Yard car met him off the train at Euston at 6:45 a.m. That afternoon the Home Office analyst, Kilrain, reported to him what the specimens from the grave at Castlebay showed.

At 4:25 p.m. Superintendent Larrabee, accompanied by Sergeant Pitt and Inspector Owen, made a second call upon Merrill. He was just leaving his office to go home. But he didn’t go home. Not that evening.

‘You know who I am,’ Larrabee said, without wasting much time discussing the weather. ‘As a result of the exhumation of the body of your late wife it has been ascertained that she died from arsenical poisoning.’

Merrill stared at him, wooden-faced. Larrabee took a deep breath and went on. ‘I am therefore going to arrest you and take you to Castlebay police station, and there you will be charged with the wilful murder of your late wife; and you will also be charged with the attempted murder of Edward Stone. It is right that I should tell you that you are not obliged to say anything unless you wish to, but anything you say will be taken down in writing and may be given in evidence.’

‘I shall deny that I had anything to do with the death of my wife or the illness of Mr. Stone,’ Dick Merrill said. ‘Perhaps you would let me telephone my solicitor. He is in London.’

2.

Royston, who was a partner in the firm of police-court solicitors which Philip Vane had once had a part of before he went inside, caught the 5:25 p.m. for Conway, and was able to see Merrill late that night at Castlebay police station.

Next day he was brought before Castlebay Magistrate’s Court. Afterwards, Royston phoned Vane in London and filled in the picture. He had talked to Morgan the Coffin, the people at the cemetery, Sergeant Parry at the police station, Gwladys Williams and others. He was in court when Inspector Owen went into the witness box formally to prove the arrest of the accused.

Inspector Owen said the matter was in the hands of the Director of Public Prosecutions, and he asked for a remand of eight days, when he said the prosecution hoped to be in a position to proceed. Royston had no objection to offer, Dick Merrill was duly remanded, and taken in a police car to Caernarvon Jail.

Royston saw him in the afternoon and got from him a detailed statement concerning his life with his late wife, his acquaintanceship with Edward Stone, and his interviews with the police, the statement he had made to Superintendent Larrabee of which Royston would obtain a copy in time for the next police court hearing.

Vane heard it in full from Royston on his return to London. He had been wondering how Margot Stone had taken it; he hadn’t told Royston about her. He killed an impulse to go up to Castlebay, to try and see her again. It was an impulse, he decided, which was best left where it was; he didn’t think it would get him anywhere.

But he couldn’t help wondering how she and Stone were getting on; and how sick she felt for Merrill’s sake.

3.

At the next hearing eight days later, before the same magistrate, Claud Smithson from the Director of Public Prosecutions Office told the court that, according to the prosecution, arsenic had been administered by the accused to Stone, and that this had led to the exhumation of the body of the accused’s wife, with the result that her remains were also found to contain the same poison.

It was not necessary, Smithson said, for the prosecution to say what the motive was, but he thought it right to mention that the case for the prosecution was that the accused was actuated by a passionate devotion to Mrs. Stone and his desire to get rid of those who stood in the way of his fulfilment of it, his wife and Edward Stone.

‘That’s a lie,’ Merrill said from the dock, his voice raised angrily. He showed increasing agitation as Claud Smithson unfolded the case for the prosecution.

‘Tell your client he must not interrupt the proceedings,’ the magistrate’s clerk told Royston. ‘The court will hear anything he has to say in due course.’

Then the business of taking the witnesses’ depositions: Gwladys Williams, enjoying the opportunity it gave her of telling the story of Dick Merrill’s carrying on with Mrs. Stone; Dr. Griffiths frankly admitting that he had been misled by appearances; Dr. Richards, Cardiff police laboratory analyst; and Dr. Mortlake; there was Edward Stone to add his account of the dinner party at Tamarisk, and its consequences.

Royston made no attempt at any cross-examination; he was careful not to risk tying counsel’s hands at the trial, if a trial should follow. ‘No questions,’ he said at the end of each of the witnesses’ evidence.

And then Mrs. Stone entered the witness box; as she took off her glove to hold the Testament, she looked across at Dick Merrill and smiled; it was a fleeting smile and he smiled back at her.

She was clearly essential to the prosecution as a witness. She could describe what had transpired that night at the dinner party and of her husband’s illness. But Claud Smithson catching that smile exchanged between her and Merrill interpreted it as an indication of what might be ahead.

She gave her evidence hesitantly, her voice was quiet, but she could be heard quite clearly. She gave an account of what had happened at the dinner party. Smithson did not ask her any questions about her friendship with Merrill; he left it to the defence.

Royston knew he was on safe ground, and this time when Smithson had finished, he stood up. ‘Mrs. Stone, you saw nothing unusual at the dinner party?’

‘Nothing whatever.’

‘You did not see the accused act in a suspicious manner?’

‘Certainly not. He was charming to us both, as he always was.’ And again she smiled at Merrill. This time he did not smile back at her, but gave her a little nod.

‘No more charming to you than to your husband?’

She looked at Royston, her face serious, and then said: ‘No, I think not.’

‘Did you know his maidservant, Gwladys Williams?’

‘I really could not say whether I did or not.’

Royston’s glance flickered from her to Merrill, then he asked for Gwladys Williams to stand up in court. She came and stood by the witness box. Margot Stone said: ‘No, I don’t think I have ever seen her before.’

‘Does that mean that you have never been to the bungalow known as Fancy, alone?’

‘I have been to Fancy once or twice by myself, but I can’t remember the exact occasions.’

And there Royston left it; all the prosecution’s evidence had been offered and Royston submitted that there was no prima facie case.

‘No reasonably-minded jury,’ he said, ‘could convict the prisoner of murder on the evidence as it stood. The only case against him was that Mrs. Merrill died from the effects of arsenic, which may have been self-administered or administered by accident. And that Mr. Stone, also in some mysterious way, suffered from the effects of arsenical poisoning.’

There was no evidence to show, he went on, that his client even had arsenic in his possession, and certainly there was no evidence that he ever used it in the way alleged.

Merrill watched the magistrates, one woman and two men, intently as they went out to their retiring room. They were back in ten minutes, to whisper with the clerk, who nodded affirmatively before turning to look at Royston.

‘We find on the evidence as it stands that there is a prima facie case.’

There was a mutter in the court, which was full, and the clerk coughed loudly before he turned to Merrill, glancing down at the note in his hand.

‘You will have an opportunity to give evidence on oath before us, and to call witnesses. But first I am going to ask you whether you wish to say anything in answer to the charges? You need not say anything unless you wish to do so; and you have nothing to hope from any promise, and nothing to fear from any threat, that may have been held out to induce you to make any admission or confession of guilt. Anything you say will be taken down and may be given in evidence at your trial. Do you wish to say anything in answer to the charges?’

Royston was up on his feet again. ‘Through me, sir, the accused pleads Not Guilty to both charges, and reserves his defence.’

The clerk gave him a nod, coughed again and then committed Dick Merrill to stand his trial at the next Assizes, mid-October at Caernarvon.