The Three-Body Problem (30 page)

‘Mr Crawford must have obtained his translations very soon after this. The main judge of the competition, Professor Mittag-Leffler of Sweden, looked at them, and told me that they appear to have been translated by native speakers, but not by mathematicians. I guess, therefore, that he sent them to an ordinary translating agency; if proof is needed, I have no doubt that this agency can be located and identified.

‘Hearing of the arrest of Mr Weatherburn, Mr Crawford soon was assured that he was under no suspicion, and on the 4th of May, he took his two manuscripts, sealed them into an envelope, addressed it, and went to post it, probably to someone on the mainland who forwarded it to Stockholm. I visited Stockholm, met with the organiser of the competition, Professor Gösta Mittag-Leffler, and saw the envelope and manuscripts there with my own eyes. However, as the manuscripts were anonymous, and the handwriting, language and envelope did not indicate
Mr Crawford explicitly, I was forced to make a special request to open the sealed envelope mailed together with the suspicious manuscript, marked with the epigraph of the author, and containing his name. Professor Mittag-Leffler had not the authority to open the envelope himself, and insisted that such authority could come only from the King of Sweden, patron of the competition. Thus I had to meet and present my petition to the King himself. He opened the envelope, and confirmed that the author of the manuscript was Mr Crawford. He has written this letter to you, my Lord, to inform you of it.’

An agreeable gasp went round the courtroom, as I extracted the King’s gloriously embossed and sealed letter from my leather bag, and handed it to the judge. There was a breathless silence as he broke the seal and read the brief message aloud.

‘I pray you continue, Miss Duncan,’ he said, turning to me. ‘I remain with bated breath waiting to understand how Mr Crawford met his death.’

‘That was mysterious to me, too, at first,’ I told him. ‘Recall that on the occasion of the quarrel within the ABC group on the 14th of February, Mr Crawford had drunk a full half-a-bottle of whisky in his excitement. Such an act was most infrequent with him, as a matter of fact, and accompanied only moments of tremendous stress and excitement. The mailing of his manuscript to Sweden was such a moment, especially as he could not share it with a single person. He returned home, alight with secret triumph, took down his whisky bottle, still half-full as he had not touched it since the day of the ABC meeting on February
14th, and drank it down in two large tumblerfuls. As it contained a large dose of digitalin, he fell dead of cardiac arrest within a few minutes.

‘But who had placed the digitalin in the whisky? At first, I believed that it was Mr Beddoes, who had extracted the flask from Mr Akers’ pocket after murdering him. But this explanation did not satisfy me completely. For one thing, I could not see why Mr Beddoes should have taken the flask, for surely he could not have conceived of killing Mr Crawford already at that moment – they had not yet quarrelled and were still the best of friends. I thought he might have somehow predicted their future disagreement, but that seemed unlikely and really too diabolical. Furthermore, it gave no explanation of Mr Akers’ peculiar behaviour with his medicine in the Irish pub during the last dinner of his life. It took me some little time to realise that I had been led astray by the prosecution’s insistence that Mr Akers’ bottle of digitalin was stolen from his pocket by his murderer.

‘In fact, what happened was much simpler. During the fatal ABC meeting of February 14th, Mr Akers must have understood perfectly that Mr Crawford had no intention of allowing him to proceed with his intentions, submit his paper, and savour his triumph alone. A bitter, impulsive and asocial man, he suddenly decided to eliminate Mr Crawford, probably having almost no thoughts for the consequences. Seeing Mr Crawford, not for the first time, down a full half-bottle of whisky at a single sitting, he must have imagined, not incorrectly, that this was a habitual practice with him, and in a quiet moment, he contrived to empty his bottle of
digitalin into the half-bottle of whisky which still remained. He could easily have arranged to visit a doctor in London within the next days to obtain a renewal of his medicine without arousing the suspicions of his regular doctor. If he had done so, he might well have never come under suspicion for the crime, for no one but his doctor knew of his reliance on digitalin, and no one but Mr Beddoes knew of his special and secret association with Mr Crawford. However, he made a serious slip at his dinner with Mr Weatherburn. Automatically following his usual habit, without thinking, he ordered water, poured out a glass and attempted to put his usual ten drops of digitalin into it. However, no more than a drop or two remained in the bottle, as he had emptied it within the afternoon. He must have immediately realised the foolishness of his gesture, as he had now a witness both to the fact that he was in possession of some medication, which might be associated with the death of Mr Crawford, and that the flask was empty. However, there was nothing to do about it. On an impulse, he threw the telltale bottle of digitalin away, probably in the restaurant when he went to wash his hands. He was quite agitated during the dinner, and indeed, so he should have been, as he must have felt that it was yet time for him to prevent the grisly murder he had undertaken. I hope, I wish to believe, that he would surely have done so that same evening, had his own death not so unexpectedly overtaken him. I hope so, but we will never know.

‘My Lord, gentlemen of the jury, that is all that I have to say. I sincerely hope I have been able to explain all of these events to your satisfaction.’

I stopped speaking, and remained standing shakily in the witness box. A strange noise, like a wave, began at the back of the public gallery and swelled about the courtroom, and I realised after what seemed a long time that it was applause. The judge banged his gavel upon his desk and said ‘Silence in the courtroom!’

He then turned to the barristers. ‘Would the prosecution like to adjourn until tomorrow to prepare its response to Miss Duncan’s evidence?’ he said politely.

The prosecutor stood up.

‘I will make my closing statement now, my Lord, if you please,’ he replied firmly.

He turned to the jury and spoke very briefly.

‘Members of the jury, you have now heard two very different explanations of how three mathematicians were murdered, and two very different explanations of the same body of evidence, that concerning the disappearance of the bottle of digitalin, the presence of the accused with each of the first two victims just before their deaths, and so on. The witness we have just heard has added new evidence. It is up to you, now, to compare the two possible explanations of the evidence, and to determine, beyond a reasonable doubt, which is the true one. I rest my case.’

Automatically, counsel for the defence arose, and his speech was even shorter than the prosecutor’s.

‘Members of the jury, I explained to you before how the accused could be perfectly innocent of the horrendous crimes imputed to him, and guilty of nothing more than being in the wrong place at the wrong time on two separate
occasions. The additional information brought to you by this new witness completes my presentation of the case. I have nothing more to add.’

Mr Justice Penrose bowed his head apologetically towards the jury. ‘Members of the jury, please deliberate once again, and return when your verdict is ready.’

No trial can ever have closed more speedily. The jury returned in less than two minutes. They sat down, and the judge asked them: ‘Members of the jury, have you reached a conclusion?’

‘Yes, my Lord.’

‘What is your verdict?’

‘We have changed from our previous conclusion, my Lord. We now unanimously believe that the prisoner is not guilty. We wish to say that we feel we have very narrowly escaped being led into grave injustice.’

The courtroom erupted in cries of all kinds and the judge banged his gavel again.

‘The prisoner is hereby acquitted and released without a stain on his character!’ he shouted over the noise in stentorian tones.

All of a sudden I could not bear the noise and the crowd and the hundreds of eyes for a single second longer. I rushed from the courtroom and stepped into the quiet darkness of the streets, where I wandered about for a long time before returning home. It has been too much and too long and too hard, and I feel too numb to triumph tonight.

Tomorrow, however, I shall begin a new adventure!

Vanessa

My dearest sister,

The whole of this past week has been full of sunshine and roses, outdoors, indoors, and within my very heart. Each morning, I awake, and recall afresh that Arthur’s trial is over, and with it the very trial of my soul; my entire life feels renewed and joyful. And each day has brought its own unexpected, delightful surprise.

The first one came the very day after the end of the trial. Naturally, the unexpected and dramatic ending was reported in our local newspaper. I was so tired after my performance in the witness box, that I tumbled into bed and slept like the dead until
astonishingly
late the next morning, and was awoken by Mrs Fitzwilliam entering with a tea tray in her hands, upon which lay a newspaper.

‘Well, my dear,’ she said to me, as she drew the curtains kindly and let in a wave of brilliant sunshine, ‘you must be tired enough to sleep so long! I know you’ve had a hard time of it all, and I thought I’d bring your breakfast in this morning, so you may have some much-deserved relaxation. And do have a look at this, dear – you’re on the very front page of the newspaper! Just think!’

Oh dear, it was perfectly true. There was a picture of me, taken as I left the courthouse, framed within the doorway, almost a silhouette against the lighted background. It was followed by a very foolish article. I did not like to read it at all; it presented things in a very silly way, not at all properly. No one, reading it, would imagine that I was simply driven
to search for the truth and avert a dreadful injustice – they all seemed to foolishly impute some deeper reason for it all! Such motivations as mine must lie below the visual field of ordinary journalists.

The very next afternoon, I received visits from the mothers of nearly all the little girls in my class. With amazing speed and efficiency, Mrs Burke-Jones had been to call on each and every one of them, and had presented her proposition of widening the class to contain boys as well as girls, and welcoming it, if necessary, in her home.

My class contains several pairs of sisters (and even one collection of three), so that in fact, my twelve little students possess only seven mothers between them; Mrs Burke-Jones aside, I was called upon by the other six. Rose’s mother was the first to call. She praised me with enthusiasm for my role at the trial, and told me that she would have been delighted to send any brothers of Rose to join my class, if only she had had any, but alas, Rose was an only child. To cut a long story of discussions and negotiations short, three mothers, one of whom has two daughters, said that they could not agree to continue to send their daughters to a class as daring and scandalous as what I, or rather, Mrs Burke-Jones, was proposing. I had been afraid of this reaction, and had half made up my mind to say that I had not taken any decision on the subject yet. But that is not how it went, for I found myself stubbornly upholding the project, and in the end found my little class to be reduced from twelve to eight.

And yet, it is at the same time most interestingly increased, for not only are Emily’s two brothers to attend, but – good
heavens – I had no idea, but the mother of the three little girls followed them up directly by a series of three little boys, none of whom have begun lessons yet. I am to take the oldest one immediately, and the following two in subsequent years. And two other little brothers are to join us, making a total of five boys in all, beginning immediately. They are all very little boys, with the exception of Edmund, as all the older ones are in school already. It will be most awfully sweet!

The calls and visits were followed by a lengthy discussion with Emily, her mother, and Miss Forsyth. I am to continue residing in Mrs Fitzwilliam’s rooms, but the schoolroom will now be located in Mrs Burke-Jones’s large nursery, and Miss Forsyth will be my assistant for part of the afternoon; she will teach French, and help me with the smallest children if they become overexcited, as seems more than likely. There is to be a break in the middle of the afternoon, during which the children may run about in Mrs Burke-Jones’s lovely garden. She is overjoyed at the whole idea, and appears to have recovered a purpose for her life in it; I quite believe that she sees herself as a kind of honorary headmistress, and who knows, perhaps she will end up as the headmistress of an excellent and reputable and very modern school!

The next morning, I received
your
letter. Oh, Dora, how exciting! All the changes in my life, which seemed so great to me, and the varied experiences I have had during these last weeks, pale before those which await you now that you have accepted Mr Edwards’ proposal. How beautifully he expresses the feeling that at such a distance, one’s true needs and desires become clear and sharply outlined, whereas in the confusion
of daily presence, they become blurred and confused. Poor Mr Edwards – so many people would burn to confront the long and mysterious journey to vast, hot and unfamiliar regions, filled with natives and strange illnesses, which awaits him, and he yearns only to return home to the English countryside and live amongst the fresh green fields. Still, Dora, in your quiet way, you have always been more stubborn than I; simply reserving yourself for the great moment. I know you; now that you know what you are waiting for, you will be able to reserve yourself as long as necessary, with an infinity of obstinate patience, while Mr Edwards works until the government permits him to return. Surely it cannot be more than a small number of years! And after all, we are only twenty, you and I.