So Evil My Love Page #8

---

Into the deceased's medicine

by someone else.

Implying a verdict of murder by persons,

a- unknown, or b-known.

You have heard evidence that the medicine

Was given to Henry Courtney by his wife,

on her own admission,

And on the evidence of the maid, to curtis.

You have heard Mrs. Courtney deny

She knew the medicine contained

a deadly poison.

From the time Henry Courtney was

carried into his bedroom by the butler.

Only two persons had access to him,

The maid, the curtis and his wife.

Which brings us to the implication

of murder by persons known.

Witness has been borne

That Mrs. Courtney had been heard

to desire her husband's death.

The most recent occasion

being not half an hour

Before the fatal dose was administered.

In addition, you have heard from

Mrs. Courtney senior

That her daughter-in-law

was addicted to alcohol.

And that the deceased had planned,

on the night of his death,

To take her to a sanatarium

in Scotland to effect a cure,

Strongly against her will.

Gentlemen, this evidence

may lead you to conclude

That the motive for this crime,

if crime it is,

Lies in one direction and

with one person only.

Do you have any letters for me?

Ah, rien, monsieur.

Are you sure?

Absolument, monsieur.

Hello, Mark.

This is lusette, a very charming model.

She has no english,

but her art is international.

Mark bellis, my dear, wanted

by the police of three continents,

And most of the women.

Enchante, mon amI.

Get rid of her.

Au revoir, lusette. A tout a l'heure

Cette a deux, au revoir, cherie.

Garcon. Un autre beer.

Read it to me.

L'affaire Courtney?

Umm. Ahaaaa.

Stop grunting like a pig and translate it.

Concluding her evidence,

Mrs. Harwood repeated her conviction

That the deceased had taken his own life

By deliberately placing the poison

in his own medicine bottle.

Huh. Sad, of course.

Say, this strikes the right note.

Verdict tomorrow. That's today.

Well, well, it's a foregone conclusion.

Suicide.

Murder.

Murder?

What else do you expect?

The evidence is all against her.

Poor girl. She fainted in court.

No wonder, that fool almost

denounced her in his summing up.

Rubbish!

The girl killed her husband.

I can't say I blame her.

The man was a swine.

No question about it. She did it.

She did?

Certainly!

Forgive me,

but I was foolish enough to think

You mentioned something about suicide,

just now.

The law suggests murder,

and I agree with the law.

You agree with the law.

This is a unique occasion.

It calls for a toast.

To the law.

Gentlemen of the jury,

are you agreed on your verdict?

Yes, sir.

How say you.

We return a verdict of willful murder

Against Mrs. Susan Courtney.

Silence, please.

Mrs. Susan Courtney.

You have heard the verdict of the jury

And you are committed on my warrent

To stand trial at

the next central criminal court.

Officer, close the court.

What are you doing here?

Who exactly are you?

Jarvis is the name, ma'am.

Confidentual investigations promptly

and personally performed.

Your servant, ma'am, and humanities.

I've no business with you.

Oh, I know that, ma'am.

There's nothing you want investigated.

Quite the reverse, if anything. Hum?

What do you want?

Only the pleasure of knowing you, ma'am.

Oh, I know it's customery to be introduced

Through a mutual friend.

But as our friend, yours and mine,

Is no longer with us.

You'll pardon the liberty, I'm sure.

Did you know, Mr. Courtney?

Know him ma'am?

Why we hadn't a secret between us.

Anytime he wanted to know something or other

about someone or other,

he'd come to me and I'd dig it up for him.

And the things you find in

the most respectable neighborhood

You'd be surprised, ma'am.

Why take that little place of yours

in Minton treet, for instance.

Now, who in the world

would have thought that

In that house lived a pair of murderers.

Oh, don't go ma'am, please.

You've nothing to fear from me.

Why don't you go to the police?

No evidence. No proof.

And no chance of obtaining

the one or the other.

Neither have they.

Why do you come to me?

As a student of human nature. Ma'am,

I've spent a lifetime studying crime.

And I wanted to meet a woman who seems

to have committed the perfect one.

A woman with the nerve not only to do it,

But to let another woman hang for it.

Get out of here!

I was afraid you'd take it like this.

Ah, well.

Think of it.

There she'll be, Mrs. Courtney, I mean,

Through weeks of trial and appeal,

Suffering all the slow,

majestic processes of the law.

Until at last early one morning

Justice is done.

And she is hanged by the neck until dead.

And here you'll be, all that time,

Unmoved, unshaken, hardly giving

the matter a moments thought.

Just calmly and quietly going

about your business.

Here in the house where it happened.

A brave woman, Mrs. Harwood.

Good day, to you, ma'am.

Susan.

Susan.

I knew you'd come.

How do you feel?

Are they treating you well?

Is there anthing I can do?

Nothing.

Sir John came to see me yesterday, Susan.

Susan.

He loves you.

He'll help you to be all right.

He's with you all the time.

Remember that.

No use.

I killed him, you know.

Has to be me.

Couldn't have been anybody else.

I wanted him to die, remember?

I must have been out of my mind.

Henry was right.

He wanted to put me in a sanitorium.

He killed himself.

No.

He killed himself.

Not Henry.

He would never let me be free of him.

Isn't it strange.

He doesn't seem to be dead, at all.

I can't stand the waiting any longer.

Will it be soon, do you think?

I don't mind it if it's soon.

It's, it's just the waiting.

No, oh, I know.

It's time to leave now.

Don't go.

Oh, please let me stay. I must talk to her.

I'm sorry.

My dearest,

I saw her today, in the prison hospital.

Dear God, the sight of her lying there.

I'll never forget it.

The fear in her eyes.

Her torment.

Her absolute faith in me.

How long I can endure this agony

of mine, I don't know.

I'm without comfort,

Without sleep,

And above all, without you.

Go and see Duval.

Tell him I'll fake a Rembrandt for him.

Two if he likes.

And I want five thousand francs each.

Find out when the next boat sails

for New York, and get me two berths.

Rembrandts, you don't

Yes, and hurry.

You fool.

Fool? For doing the one thing you've

been begging me to do for months?

I begged you, yes. But no,

I'm a great artist, you said.

I won't destroy the one thing I believe in.

I called you an idiot, but I admired you.

Now I've got nothing but contempt

For your romantic obsession

with your former landlady.

Obsession, perhaps you're right.

Perhaps that is the word.

But this last two weeks,

I've been living in torment.

One side of my brain battling

against the other.

My heart battling them both in turn.

And I'm sick of it.

I'm sick of pretending I don't know.

I'm sick of pretending I don't care.

But I do know. And I do care.

Now, do as I told you.

No evidence. No proof,

Rate this script:5.0 / 2 votes