dates. In the end, she handed the letters over to me in case I might find in them any clue or suggestion which we had overlooked. Munting rather naturally objected to having his love-letters (if one can call these rambling effusions by that name) put into the hands of a comparative stranger, but his wife, with that curious lack of delicacy which virtuous women often display, laughed, and said she was sure I should not pay any attention to the personal passages.
“ Mr. Harrison is not proposing to publish your Life and Letters, you know,” she said.
This childish remark seemed to amuse Munting. He said: “No; I fancy I’m safe with him,” and raised no further objection. Probably his vanity was sufficient to assure him that the exposure of his intimate feelings was bound to leave a favourable impression. Indeed, it is obvious that, even in writing to his fiancée, he was writing for effect half the time, and quite possibly with an eye to future publication. With young men like Beverley Nichols and Robert Graves prattling in public about their domestic affairs, we need hardly expect to find any decent reticence among the smart novelists of today.
Taking the question of Motive as settled for the moment, we proceeded to discuss the subjects Means and Opportunity . Under these heads, the Muntings put forward a number of objections to the murder theory, and I was bound to recognise that they looked sufficiently formidable. Here is the schedule which I drew up immediately after this conversation.
Points to be Investigated in Connection with the death of George Harrison A. Means Did Harrison really die of muscarine poisoning? Muscarine (the poisonous principle of Amanita muscaria ) was obtained in large quantities from (a) the viscera; (b) the bedclothes; and (c) the half-eaten dish on the table. The appearance of the body and