TRAGEDY IN THE VILLAGE

Evening Star, Issue 22261, 12 February 1936, Page 3

TRAGEDY IN THE VILLAGE

A SERIAL STORY BY HILDA HIKE INSTALMENT THIRTEEN T. The remainder of the case for the prosecution was comparatively unexciting. The will of the Rector was proved, showing that the accused gained greatly by his death. Sir Robert Temple left most of the crossexamination to his junior. Sir Robert called, as his first witness, Sirs Chudleigh. Her evidence and that of some of the other witnesses may be given as it appeared in the local press. Mary Newton Chudleigh, housekeeper to Dr Henri Godhart, of Roselea, Trevarthcn, stated that on-the morning of Tuesday, August 8, Dr Godhart -set out for his rounds in the country, and she understood he was calling first at Bodithiel Rectory. She noticed a copy of a newspaper in a wrapper on the hall stand just as he was leaving, and took it out to him. He asked her to put a stamp on it, and to post it in time to catch the 11. o’clock connection. If the newspaper was the ‘ Nursing Mirror,’ it was delivered on the previous day from Messrs W. H. Smith and Sons’ bookshop. It had not been in the house for 24 hours. If Dr Godhart had said that he had continually forgotten to post it, she could not explain the statement.

George Blight, manager to Messrs Veering and Wilcox, of Plymouth, stated that his firm were the agents for a concert arranged •by the Philharmonic Society on July 20. A ticket numbered E 26 was sent to Dr Godhart for a performance of ‘Hiawatha’ at the Guildhall on that date. He had no knowledge whether the doctor personally attended the concert. George Alillman, general labourer, of Bodithiel, stated that on Tuesday, August 8, he was called into the Rectory by the accused. He was perfectly certain that there was no newspaper behind the “fire-dog.” If there had been, he could not possibly have failed to see it. He had no doubt whatever that Miss White was genuinely surprised and horrified at finding the Rector gassed. Excitement was enormously quickened when the attendant called; “ Dr Paul Callington.” The witness was sworn and his quali,fi cations recited to an audience which was duly impressed. He deposed that a fortnight previously in the scullery at Bodithiel Rectory he had examined the cellar in the scullery in which the gas main tap was placed. It was a roujid tap which required a lever to move it, but there was actually no lever attached. . Examining it with an electric torch he found marks on the side such as might have been made with a spanner or similar instrument. They appeared to be of recent origin. On the ground to the right of the tap he found the detachable portion of a ticket (now produced) for a concert at Plymouth Guildhall on July 20. It was impossible, in his opinion, that the ticket could have been in the place where he found it unless it had been dropped by some person who was actually inside the cellar.

He had since supervised the taking of a flashlight photograph, which was handed to the jury, showing the cellar and the place in which the ticket was found. Witness further stated that on Tuesday, August 8, he was at Roselea when a message was received by telephone that Miss Grago, of Church street, was ill. The case appearing to be an . urgent one, he went. to see the patient. He found her in a very violent and excited condition, which he gathered from the maid had lasted for some time.

“ Did you,” asked Sir Robert Temple, “ form any opinion abolit Miss Grago’s condition, and about the treatment she had been receiving?” “ I formed the opinion,” replied Dr Callington, “ that the patient was suffering from a condition of hyper-excit-ability allied to hysteria caused by inexpert treatment by hypnotic suggestion.”

“Did you see the patient again?” “ Yes, on the following morning, in company with Dr Godhart and subsequently by myself.” “ I believe. Dr Callington, that your later visits were a departure from medical etiquette, and that you and Dr Godhart exchanged angry words.” “ That is so.” “ Were his protests justified?” “ Technically they were. I acted from a sense,of urgency.” “ What did you fear?” “ I had no donbt that hypnotic treatment was being performed by an unskilled person, and I had fear of permanent mental damage.” “ You persuaded Aliss Grago to leave home?” “ I did. _ She went to a rest home in Devonshire, where, under skilled attention, she made a complete recovery and is here to give evidence to-day.” The cross-examination was _ directed to showing that the ticket might have been placed in the cellar by some other person to incriminate Dr Godhart, and that Aliss Grago’s present ideas were the result of suggestion treatment under the control of Dr Callington. The witness vehemently repudiated this theory. Aliss Grago, he insisted, was now in her right mind, and had never been insane. All the suggestion treatment since she left Trevathen was purely curative.

-11. Edna Oliver, the next witness, deposed to having been in the service of Miss Grago, of Church street, Trevarthen, as a daily maid. Her mistress had been an invalid all the time she had known her, which was since last Alay. She was regularly attended by Dr Godhart, who called every third day. The doctor used to stay with her for some time, and when he left her mistress was invariably asleep. She always woke up half an hour after he left. Witness was under the impression that he gave her some medicine to send her to sleep, hut Aliss Grago said he simply talked to her. Her mistress spoke a good deal about the skill and kindness of Dr Godhart and said any other doctor would not understand her case and would do her harm. Early in August, Miss Crago said she was worried because she could not repay the doctor for all his kindness. She said she would feel happier if she could show her appreciation in some way and had decided to make a will, in which she would express her gratitude and leave him all she possessed. She said; “ It’ only a few sticks of furniture bub he will appreciate it.” A solicitor fn i Plymouth came to see her mistress tbe next day. The witness remembered Dr Godhart’s visit. For some days previously, Miss Crago had been saying that Mr Turpin was going to cut her cousin, Aliss White, out of his will. To wit-

ness’s knowledge Miss Crago had not seen or received a letter from her cousin for over a week. Ethel Pcndray Crago was an interesting witness. She looked pale, but walked briskly into the witness box and gave her evidence in a firm voice. She confirmed the evidence of the last witness about the visits of Dr Godhart. “ I always felt better, she said. “ when he took my hand in his and looked into my eyes. He used to say slowly: ‘You are getting sleepy; you will soon be asleep.’ I have no recollection of any dreams, but on the following day I always seemed to know things which I did not know before. I am quite certain that neither my cousin nor anybody else while I was awake had ever told me that Air Turpin was going to disinherit her, but I was quite sure of it. It was like something I had known all my life. When I told him that I would like to leave anything I had to him he laughed and said it was quite unnecessary. Then he said: ‘ But I know how you feel and it is a very nice thought. But don’t have a local solicitor, for you know what a place this is for gossip. A friend of mine will be down from Plymouth in a. couple of days, and he will do it for you.’ ” Two days later the solicitor came and she made a will in the sense she had indicated. After the will by Aliss Crago in favour of Dr Godhart had been duly proved, the defence called Dr Arnold Scantlehury. The doctor was a bene-volent-looking elderly man, who quickly' impressed the court with a sense botli of liis competence and his honesty. He explained that he kept a rest home on Dartmoor, near Horrabridge. to which Miss Crago had been brought on the recommendation of Dr Callington. She had been thoroughly examined and he found that she had no organic trouble of any kind. He was convinced that she had not at any time been epileptic. She was highly strung and he found symptoms indicating fear and emotional shock. Hypnotic treatment had at no time been applied to her at the home. She had received what was known as pre-hypnotic suggestion, but which was purely with a view to the re-establishment of health. At no time had any statements bearing upon questions of fact been directly or indirectly suggested to her. She had given an account of her relations with Dr Godhart which corresponded with the evidence she had given in court. Dr Scantleburv expressed himself as certain that Aliss Crago was in full possession of her faculties and that her statements at present were entirely reliable. The afternoon was given over to the speeches of counsel. Sir Robert Temple, in a powerful address to the jury, urged that the case for the prosecution had been entirely shattered by tbe evidence. Sir Gilbert made an energetic rejoinder, but lie did not succeed in disguising the fact that he had ceased to expect a verdict. He spoke indignantly of attempts to confuse the issue by suggesting fantastic alternative theories, but it was clear that his heart was not in his plea. The two speeches, nevertheless, occupied tbe whole of the afternoon, and the court adiourned until the next morning, when Air Justice Levers would sum up. But Air Justice Lavers’s summing up was obsenred in tbe public mind by the suicide of Dr Henri Godhart. whose letter addressed to the coroner, made the judge’s remarks a purelv formal preliminary fo the acquittal of Agatha White. • In a first-class compartment in the Cornish Riviera Express, Dr Callington and Sir Robert Temple, who had prosecuted for the Crown, were returning to London. “That man,” said Temple, “is the nearest approach to a real mastercriminal that I have ever encountered in real life.” “ A remarkable character,” Callington assented. “ AVhat made you suspect him?” “ It’s rather a long story. I realised quite soon that’ there was something wrong with him. He was telling lies, and when a man does that he has a motive. It may be as innocent as mere vanity, or a kind of childish instinct for romancing. In this case, he was gving me a needlessly false account of an unusual situation. To begin with, if you find a man of Godhart’s intellect and qualifications rusticating in a place like Trevarthcn you ask why. Now lie told me that it was because he had a high blood pressure.” “ And hadn’t he?” “ I thought not. You see anybody may have a high blood pressure as the result of trouble in heart or kidneys or toxaemia or what not. If you leave these things out, , you will find that people tend to fall into different classes and you can divide humanity into the high-pressure and the lowpressure type.” “ Do you mean to tell me that you can decide these things at sight, without instruments?” “ With rough accuracy, yes. When Godhart told me that he was in Trevarthen because he had to go easy on account of his blood pressure, and added that his heart and kidneys were sound, I was very suspicious. All the appearances were against it. The highpressure man of his age would be likely to tend towards baldness; he had :v good head of hair, which grew rapidly. He was bored by sport and purely intellectual in his interests. Another anomaly. Then he drank coffee freely and enjoyed it. None of these things amounts to proof, but broadly, I saw a man whom I would classify as in the alkaline-low pressure group pretending to be in the acid-high pressure class.” “That’s all Greek to me.” “ AVell that’s what first made me suspicious. Then there was Aliss Crago. Why was an intelligent man like Godhart treatiilg a purely psychological case with large doses of bromides and talking nonsense about epilepsy ? 1 wasn’t intended to see her, of course, and when I had seen her, he made a very clever attempt to exploit some speculations of mine on thought reading. It’s a common fallacy with some people to assume that if you accept certain phenomena as possible, you will rush to them as the most probable explanation. A man may believe in ghosts and still know that there are enormously more bogus spooks than real ones. When I found that she knew things about Bodithiel which she had not learned at first hand, it was overwhelmingly the most probable explanation that somebody had told her. I had no doubt that Aliss Crago’s condition was the-result of some form of dabbling calling on her, and when 1 went there she was ready to receive me. “ But there’s a digression. Before 1 heard of the Rector’s death I was asking myself two questions. One was: What is the veal reason for Godhart being in Trevarthcn? The other was Why is he hypnotising Miss Crago? I was, therefore, prepared to bring him right awav into the list of suspects. How did lie stand in relation _lo the two tests—opportunity and motive? “ It was a lack of thoroughness in dealing with Aliss Crago that ultimately let him down. He ought to have kept her under suggestion until the end. When had got her to make the will, his interest flagged and he left her alone. To that extent my move in bringing about the exhuma-

tiou succeeded. For all his apparent calm, he was really rattled. You need to be pretty calm and collected for hypnotism and Godhart was in a ferment. He lost his hold on his patient. The inquest had made her suspicious. I purposely allowed a week to elapse before in abnormal psychology, and I have seen enough of clumsy suggestion treatment to form a fair idea. “ The opportunity was plain enough, and it is only because the suspicion was supposed to be limited to Miss White and Petherick that the importance of the main tap wasn’t recognised from the beginning. Alotive was less clear, but what put the police wrong was that they limited their inquiry to the immediate results of the rector’s death. They didn’t pursue their inquiry. Suppose the rector dies, who gets his money? Aliss White. Suppose she dies? “ When I examined it from that angle, it became absolutely clear to me that whether or not Godhart had killed the rector, he was trying to get Aliss White convicted of murder. He professed to be trying to exculpate her, but on his own admission, he was always drawing the noose round her neck. Now a fool may do that, but Godhart was a clever mail. If he had ivanted to help her, be would have done it. When 1 found him piling up the ■ evidence against her, 1 formed the impression t at this was what he wanted to do. AVith Aliss White out of the way the‘money went to Miss Crago. I felt sure he would see it was all right after that. We subsequently proved, of course, that he had attended to everything. “A general theory of Godhart was forming itself in my mind, and I mentioned to one or two people that I had five propositions. If I was right Godhart was carrying but a diabolically clever scheme to get money. That suggested a reason for his presence in Trevarthcn. He had succeeded to the practice of a man who was said to have died of what is known here as ‘ gastric.’ So 1 made a leap. Here are the propositions: “One; That Doctor Trethewey died of arsenical poisoning. “Two: That he left his estate to Godhart. i “Three: That Aliss White’s money would go to Miss Crago, “Four: That Doctor Godhart had given hypnotic treatment to Miss Crago. “Five: That she had made a will leaving everything to Godhart. “ As \on know, they were all proved. All the evidence I could get was confirmatory. When I suggested that Miss Crago should be certified as insane, Godhart got really angry. It would imperil the validity of her will. You will remember he fainted in court at Aliss White’s trial when he said he thought Aliss Crago was out of her mind. That was a critical point. It marked his definite realisation that he was now fighting for his life and must Oe prepared to throw away the money. It was the moment of defeat.” “ Thank God you were on the spot,” said Sir Robert. “ Otherwise he would have got away with his second murder.” The End.