Four

Closing speech for the Defence.

“Gentlemen of the jury, the responsibility now rests with you. It is for you to say if ElinorCarlisle is to go forth¹ free from the court. If, after the evidence you have heard, you are satisfiedthat Elinor Carlisle poisoned Mary Gerrard, then it is your duty to pronounce her guilty.

“But if it should seem to you that there is equally strong evidence, and perhaps far strongerevidence against another person, then it is your duty to free the accused without more ado.

“You will have realized by now that the facts of the case are very different from what theyoriginally appeared to be.

“Yesterday, after the dramatic evidence given by M. Hercule Poirot, I called other witnesses toprove beyond any reasonable doubt that the girl Mary Gerrard was the illegitimate daughter ofLaura Welman. That being true, it follows, as his lordship will doubtless instruct you, that Mrs.

Welman’s next of kin³ was not her niece, Elinor Carlisle, but her illegitimate daughter who went bythe name of Mary Gerrard. And therefore Mary Gerrard at Mrs. Welman’s death inherited a vastfortune. That, gentlemen, is the crux⁴ of the situation. A sum in the neighbourhood of two hundredthousand pounds was inherited by Mary Gerrard. But she herself was unaware⁵ of the fact. She wasalso unaware of the true identity of the woman Hopkins. You may think, gentlemen, that MaryRiley or Draper may have had some perfectly⁶ legitimate² reason for changing her name to Hopkins.

If so, why has she not come forward to state what the reason was?

“All that we do know is this: That at Nurse Hopkins’ instigation, Mary Gerrard made a willleaving everything she had to ‘Mary Riley, sister of Eliza Riley.’ We know that Nurse Hopkins, byreason of her profession, had access to morphine and to apomorphine and was well acquaintedwith their properties. Furthermore, it has been proved that Nurse Hopkins was not speaking thetruth when she said that her wrist had been pricked⁷ by a thorn from a thornless rose tree. Why didshe lie, if it were not that she wanted hurriedly to account for the mark just made by thehypodermic needle? Remember, too, that the accused has stated on oath that Nurse Hopkins, whenshe joined her in the pantry, was looking ill, and her face was of a greenish colour —comprehensible enough if she had just been violently sick.

“I will underline yet another point: If Mrs. Welman had lived twenty-four hours longer, shewould have made a will; and in all probability that will would have made a suitable provision forMary Gerrard, but would not have left her the bulk of her fortune, since it was Mrs. Welman’sbelief that her unacknowledged daughter would be happier if she remained in another sphere oflife.

“It is not for me to pronounce on the evidence against another person, except to show that thisother person had equal opportunities and a far stronger motive⁸ for the murder.

“Looked at from that point of view, gentlemen of the jury, I submit to you that the case againstElinor Carlisle falls to the ground….”

 

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