‘Such cases are less uncommon than you might think,’ said Mr Spragge.
‘Cases of suicide?’ inquired Frankie.
‘No, no, I meant cases of undue influence. Mr Savage was a hard-headed business man, and yet he was clearly as wax in this woman’s hands. I’ve no doubt she knew her business thoroughly.’ ‘I wish you’d tell me the whole story properly,’ said Frankie boldly. ‘Mr Carstairs was – well, was so heated, that I never seemed to get the thing clearly.’ ‘The case was extremely simple,’ said Mr Spragge. ‘I can run over the facts to you – they are accessible to everyone – so there is no objection to my doing so.’ ‘Then tell me all about it,’ said Frankie.
‘Mr Savage happened to be travelling back from the United States to England in November of last year. He was, as you know, an extremely wealthy man with no near relations. On this voyage he made the acquaintance of a certain lady – a – er – Mrs Templeton. Nothing much is known about Mrs Templeton except that she was a very good-looking woman and had a husband somewhere conveniently in the background.’ ‘The Caymans,’ thought Frankie.
‘These ocean trips are dangerous,’ went on Mr Spragge, smiling and shaking his head. ‘Mr Savage was clearly very much attracted. He accepted the lady’s invitation to come down and stay at her little cottage at Chipping Somerton.
Exactly how often he went there I have not been able to ascertain, but there is no doubt that he came more and more under this Mrs Templeton’s influence.
‘Then came the tragedy. Mr Savage had for some time been uneasy about his state of health. He feared that he might be suffering from a certain disease ‘ ‘Cancer?’ said Frankie.
‘Well, yes, as a matter of fact, cancer. The subject became quite an obsession with him. He was staying with the Templetons at the time. They persuaded him to go up to London and consult a specialist. He did so. Now here. Lady Frances, I preserve an open mind. That specialist – a very distinguished man who has been at the top of his profession for many years – swore at the inquest that Mr Savage was not suffering from cancer and that he had told him so, but that Mr Savage was so obsessed by his own belief that he could not accept the truth when he was told it. Now, strictly without prejudice. Lady Frances, and knowing the medical profession, I think things may have gone a little differently.
‘If Mr Savage’s symptoms puzzled the doctor he may have spoken seriously, pulled a long face, spoken of certain expensive treatments and while reassuring him as to cancer yet have conveyed the impression that something was seriously wrong.
Mr Savage, having heard that doctors usually conceal from a patient the fact that he is suffering from that disease, would interpret this according to his own lights. The doctor’s reassuring words were not true – he had got the disease he thought he had.
‘Anyway, Mr Savage came back to Chipping Somerton in a state of great mental distress. He saw ahead of him a painful and lingering death. I understand some members of his family had died of cancer and he determined not to go through what he had seen them suffer. He sent for a solicitor – a very reputable member of an eminently respectable firm – and the latter drew up a will there and then which Mr Savage signed and which he then delivered over to the solicitor for safe keeping. On that same evening Mr Savage took a large overdose of chloral, leaving a letter behind in which he explained that he preferred a quick and painless death to a long and painful one.
‘By his will Mr Savage left the sum of seven hundred thousand pounds free of legacy duty to Mrs Templeton and the remainder to certain specified charities.’ Mr Spragge leaned back in his chair. He was now enjoying himself.
‘The jury brought in the usual sympathetic verdict of Suicide while of Unsound Mind, but I do not think that we can argue from that that he was necessarily of unsound mind when he made the will. I do not think that any jury would take it so.