Judge: Why not a veterinary surgeon?

Major: I’ve no opinion of the local vet.

Judge: I see.

Major: Besides, there was my wife.

Judge: Your wife, Major Ecclestone?

Major: She was upset, my lord. He gave her a pill. I had a drink.

Judge: I see. Yes, Mr. Golding.

Golding: Go on please, Major.

Major: Swale took away the remaining piece of liver to be analyzed and he also removed the—the body.

Golding: Was there any other event before or at about this time that seemed to you to have any bearing on the matter?

Major: Certainly.

Golding: Please tell the court what it was.

Major: That woman’s (The Judge looks at him) — The accused’s bathroom window overlooks my premises. It’s got a Venetian blind. She’s in the habit of spying on us through the slats. I distinctly saw them—the slats, I mean — open in one place.

Golding: When did you see this?

Major: Immediately after Swale left. She’d watched the whole performance. And gloated over it.

Judge: You are here to relate what you observed, Major, not what you may have conjectured.

Golding: Had anything occurred in the past to make bad blood between you and the defendant?

Major: Yes.

Golding: What was it?

Major: A cat

Judge: What?

Major: She had a cat, my lord. A mangy brute of a thing—

Miss Freebody: Lies! Lies! It was a beautiful little cat. (The Wardress quells her.)

Golding (coughs): Never mind what sort of cat it was. Yes, Major?

Major: About a week earlier it strayed into my garden at night. Not for the first time. Always doin’ it. Yowlin’ and diggin’. Drove my dog frantic. Naturally he broke his tether. Tore it away with a piece of the kennel.

Golding: And then?

Major: Ask yourself.

Golding: But I’m asking you, you know.

Major: Made short work of the poor pussy. (He laughs shortly.)

Miss Freebody: Brute!

Judge: Miss Freebody, you must be silent.

Miss Freebody: Pah!

Judge: Mr. O’Connor, will you speak to your client? Explain.

O’Connor: Certainly, my lord. (He turns and speaks to the accused who stares over his head, biting her lip.)

Golding: What were the results of the cat’s demise?

Major: She kicked up a dust.

Golding: In what way?

Major: Waylaid my wife. Went to the police. Wrote letters. Threatened to do me in.

Golding: Did you keep any of these letters?

Major: Last one. Burnt the others. About five of them.

Golding: May he be shown Exhibit Two?

(The letter is produced, identified, circulated to the Judge, to Counsel and to the jury.)

Golding: Is that the letter which you retained?

Major: Yes.

Golding: It reads, members of the jury: “This is my final warning. Unless your brute is destroyed within the next three days, I shall take steps to insure that justice is done not only upon it but upon yourself. Neither you nor it is fit to live. Take warning. M. E. Freebody.” (To Major) You received this letter—when?

Major: First of April.

(Laughter)

Usher: Silence in court.

Golding: Did you answer it?

Major: Good God, no. Nor any of the others.

Judge: Why did you keep it, Major?

Major: Thought of showing it to my lawyer. Decided to ignore it.

Golding (quoting): “I shall take steps to see that justice is done not only upon it but upon yourself.” Can you describe the nature of the letters you had received before this one?

Major: Certainly. Same thing. Threats.

Golding: To you personally?

Major: Saying that my dog ought to die and if I didn’t act smartly we both would.

Golding: And it was after the death of the dog and in consideration of all these circumstances, Major, that you decided to go to the police?

Major: Precisely. Decided she meant business and that I was at risk personally. My wife urged me to act.

Golding: Thank you, Major Ecclestone. (Golding sits down. Defense Counsel rises.)

O’Connor: Major Ecclestone, would you describe yourself as a hot-tempered man?

Major: I would not.

O’Connor: As an even-tempered man?

Major: I consider myself to be a reasonable man, sir.

O’Connor: I said “even-tempered,” Major.

Major: Yes.

O’Connor: You get on well with your neighbors and tradesmen, for instance? Do you?

Major: Depends on the neighbors and tradesmen. Ha!

O’Connor: Major Ecclestone, during the five years you have lived in Peascale you have quarreled violently with your landlord, your late doctor, the secretary of your club, your postman and your butcher, have you not?

Major: I have not “quarreled violently” with anyone. Where I encounter stupidity, negligence and damned impertinence I made known my objections. That is all.

O’Connor: To the tune of threatening the postman with a horsewhip and the butcher’s boy with your Alsatian dog?

Major: I refuse to stand here and listen to all this nonsense. (He pulls himself up, looks at his watch, takes a small container from his overcoat pocket, extracts a capsule and puts it in his mouth.)

Judge: What is all this? Are you eating something, Major Ecclestone?

Major: I suffer from duodenal ulcers, my lord. I have taken a capsule.

Judge (after a pause): Very well. (He nods to Defense Counsel.)

O’Connor: Major Ecclestone, was the liver the only thing in the safe that evening?

Major: No, it wasn’t. There was stuff for a mixed grill on Thursday. Chops, kidneys, sausages. That sort of thing.

O’Connor: And these had been delivered with the dog’s meat that afternoon?

Major: Yes.

O’Connor: Did you have your mixed grill?

Major: No fear! Chucked it out. Destroyed it. Great mistake, as I now realize. Poisoned like the other. Not a doubt of it. Intended for me.

O’Connor: And what about Mrs. Ecclestone?

Major: Vegetarian.

O’Connor: I see. Can I have a list of complaints, please? (Solicitor gives him a paper.) Major Ecclestone, is it true that, apart from my client, there have been five other complaints about the character and behavior of your dog?

Major: The dog was perfectly docile. Unless provoked. They bated him.

O’Connor: And is it not the case that you have received two warnings from the police to keep the dog under proper control?

Major: Bah!

O’Connor: I beg your pardon.

Major: Balderdash!

O’Connor: You are on oath, Major Ecclestone. Have you received two such warnings from the police?

Major (pause): Yes. (Nods.)

O’Connor: Thank you. (He sits down)

(Dr. Swale is called to the stand. Prosecution Counsel rises.)

Golding: Dr. Swale, you were called into The Elms on the evening of 4th April, were you not?

Swale: Yes. Mrs. Ecclestone rang me up and sounded so upset I went round.

Golding: What did you find when you got there?

Swale: Major Ecclestone was in the yard near the dog kennel with the Alsatian’s body lying at his feet.

Golding: And Mrs. Ecclestone?

Swale: She was standing nearby. She suffers from migraine and this business with the dog hadn’t done anything to help her. I took her back to her room, looked at her and gave her one of the Sternetil tablets I’d prescribed,

Golding: And then?

Swale: I went down to the Major.

Golding: Yes?

Swale: He, of course, realized the dog had been poisoned and he asked me, as a personal favor, to get an analysis of what was left of the liver the dog had been eating and of the contents of the dog’s stomach. I arranged this with the pathology department of the general hospital.