Very short Wimsey AU sort of meta-fic

[nineveh_uk]

‘You can sit down, you know,’ said Miss Vane, gesturing to the other armchair. Boyes sat.

‘How about some coffee, old girl?’

Miss Vane looked at him coldly. ‘I said you could come round. If you want someone to serve you food and drink, I suggest you employ a maid.’

*

‘Mr Boyes!’ exclaimed Hannah Westlock, opening the door to find that gentleman on the top step, supported by the strong arm of the driver. ‘Now you sit down here, and I’ll ring for the doctor.’

‘Never mind the doctor, get me a brandy. That b- wouldn’t even give me a cup of coffee.’

***

Forget buying poison while giving the name of famous murderers, or living with your boyfriend. Ironically, what ultimately lands Harriet Vane in the dock isn’t a social transgression, but adherence to social rules of politeness, first that Harriet actually agree to Boyes' demand that they meet, second that having done so she is required to play the hostess. Rules so strict that the murderer can rely on them in setting up his alibi: Urquhart offers Boyes Turkish coffee, which Boyes doesn’t like, thus setting up the chance for a statement that Harriet will offer coffee, and increasing the chance of Boyes actually drinking it.

Comments

[azdak]

I love your "ways of fucking up DLS's plot" fics. If only Harriet had given the loathly Phil the cold shoulder like that!

[nineveh_uk]

I like to think of it as a sophisticated dissection of literary devices and cultural mores. I like to think that, but basically it's just me having fun.

I'm now wondering whether Harriet's five years of "I don't blame the police thinking me a murderer because of my scandalous life" are really to distract her from kicking herself all the time for one (nearly) fatal 5 minutes.

[antisoppist]

I thought she blamed herself for her scandalous life and didn't blame the police for following motive, means and opportunity. But it hadn't occurred to me that the opportunity would have disappeared if she hadn't given him anything to drink. *raises glass*.

The judge does think immorality equals murder, however. Her case is slightly improved by giving him coffee out of a saucepan rather than making it specially for just him as any decently devoted woman would have done.

[antisoppist]

*replies to self now not under the influence of post-choir ginger wine (it has nearly run out)*

It wasn't until discussions on the list and elsewhere that I considered the possibility that Urquart had deliberately set her up. I'm still not sure whether he did or not, or if he did, whether it was more calculated than just keeping as many options as possible open for the police. But Harriet doesn't consider it either does she? Would it not have taken 5 years if she could have told herself "I was framed by a calculating bastard"? (not that that would improve anyone's ability to trust men ever again really). And "some murderers do deserve to get hanged" would have been an interesting variation at the end of BUSM.

[nineveh_uk]

I don’t think that Urquhart so much sets Harriet up to start with, as setting Harriet up is the inevitable consequence of his strategies in providing his own defence. After all, Urquhart doesn’t actually want Boyes’ death to be considered murder. He wants (1) natural causes, and if that fails, it to be (2) suicide (it is bad luck for him that Boyes was taken ill so soon - had he come home angry and gone to bed, it would have been much harder to prove he didn’t take the arsenic himself). If the suicide theory is dismissed, then Harriet’s involvement muddies the waters by providing another opportunity for administering poison, but as Urquhart didn’t know that she has bought arsenic in the past and was thus a more plausible candidate than just “somewhere else he was that evening and had drink”, I don’t know that he was initially thinking of her as the definite fall-guy for option (3) someone else murdered him, so much as he seized the opportunity when it presents itself (but he certainly seizes it then – he says that the note that could be interpreted as suicide was actually a reference to a suggestion U. himself made for a trip to Barbados! Urquhart could have pushed for a suicide verdict a lot more than he does, before Peter’s involvement makes him realise that continuing to pursue Harriet could be dangerous).

Perhaps Harriet, thinking in detective fiction conventions, has just accepted U’s pushing it off on her as what murderers do rather than taking it personally. But I bet the evenings she felt obliged to invite Peter to her flat were ones on which she had a fresh bottle of whatever she planned to serve!

I hope that somewhere in the yet uncatalogues Sayers stuff there is her own fanfic of the Urquhart trial!

[antisoppist]

After all, Urquhart doesn’t actually want Boyes’ death to be considered murder.
That is a very good point.

What of the judge's roughly matching the dates of Boyes' gastric attacks to the dates when Harriet bought poison? That has to be just coincidence, yes? The dates coinciding with meetings with Harriet works in the sense that, if they are poisoning attempts, Urquhart is following the same formula of doing it on nights when Boyes is going out to Bohemian parties with potential other suspects about.

And were they trial runs or did it take Urquhart several goes to get the fatal dose right? If he's aiming for suicide, he wants it to be soon after the break-up with Harriet rather than months later and before Mrs Wrayburn goes and dies on him. No wonder the version that works is so carefully planned if it took him four tries to get it right. I see him as opportunist and a bit panicky rather than an evil mastermind of cunning. He should have sorted the fake will out much earlier too.

I was going to suggest you wrote the Urquhart trial next. I suppose there is no need for Harriet to be called as a witness alongside Peter.

[nineveh_uk]

I think the judge matching poisoning purchases has to be coincidence, and "well, she _might_ have met him and poisoned him. She can't prove she didn't". Despite the fact that not all the meetings do line up (is "some time in May" before or after she buys that poison - the judge of course says before).

I interpret Boyes' earlier 'attacks' not as Urquhart doing trial runs, but as deliberately minor doses to give Boyes a gastric attack so that the death doesn't come out of the blue, but re-establishes a history of an old illness coming back. It also associates them with periods of emotional stress (caused by meeting Harriet), making them more plausible (and as you note, the parties providing otehr suspects).

Would Harriet need to be a witness of Boyes' health that evening, and on the previous occasions they met? Especially if she could testify that Boyes was perfectly healthy while living with her, and even after they broke up, but only had problems in his cousin's house (I wonder what they ate on those crucial evenings - was it always omelette?) Bt I have too many WIPs already!

I am inclined to agree re. an opportunist who gets a bit panicky - the will seems in indicate he was counting on natural causes, with suicide a considerable second, given that "had he any money" is a perfectly reasonable question to ask. (I wonder if it was asked and U. said nothing?)

[antisoppist]

There would have been a huge amount of publicity over Harriet being called as a witness - particularly alongside Peter - and you'd think she'd have mentioned it at some point. I suspect it went on murderer's confession and she didn't get called but I would like her to be and the reasons you give do justify it. We don't get Peter's reaction to Urquhart's hanging either, even at the end of BUSM. "It might have been me" doesn't really cover it. It is all missing!

The trouble with panicky opportunist (though supported by his reaction to the Turkish delight) is that the alibi required a lot of calculated forward planning. How long does it take to build up immunity anyway? Today's theory is that he was so enamoured of his own perfect murder method that he forgot to think about anything else.

There is no such thing as too many WIPs.

[nineveh_uk]

There must have been some post-trial publicity for the press to already be being associating Harriet and LPW at the start of HHC. But it is odd Trial II is never mentioned. Clearly I just want Harriet to have further torment/be thrown together with Peter.

I have no idea how long it takes to become immune to arsenic. Perhaps U. found out because he genuinely did start taking the arsenic as an anti-aging quack treatment. If I got really speculative, how long does it take to ingest arsenic? Could Urquhart just have whizzed to the loo and thrown up his dinner?

It also strikes me that Harriet's major explanation of how she feels about her experience is in the SCR in GN, when she's (a) not wanting to talk about her actual feelings for reasons of personal privacy, and (b) not wanting to talk about her actual feelings because she's trying to be rational and unemotional (and fit in with the dons). So it would make sense that she didn't talk about it there, since Miss Edwards is interested in the investigation rather than the trial

[jennyrad.livejournal.com]

This is a remarkably clever point. Most interesting.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

Thanks! It was one of those "hang on a minute" things.

[jennyrad.livejournal.com]

It was a very timely time, having read this, to go and watch the Hobbit, wherein Bilbo Baggins has a similar, albeit murder-free, problem ...

[tudorpot.livejournal.com]

applauds!

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

Thanks.

[madamedarque.livejournal.com]

Ah, this is great! Very illuminating--and you made me want to punch Philip Boyes through the screen in about six words.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

I almost want to punch Philip Boyes through the screen. It helps to remember that the man he's based on suffered the ultimate revenge of being described as bad in bed in a bestseller ;-)

[sonetka.livejournal.com]

Niiiiiice. Of course, it *could* be a coincidence (Urquhart likes Turkish coffee as a rule anyway, doesn't he?) but all the better for plausible deniability later. Things could still go wrong, though -- Harriet and Philip might have quarreled so badly that he would have left before he even drank anything, or he could have begun feeling ill a little sooner and not wanted any coffee. But then there'd be the "suspicion-proof" dinner to fall back on, so it could be chalked up as a suicide. Damn, but Urquhart is a nasty piece of work. I suppose the idea was that while an inquiry into a suicide can always be reopened, law enforcement are going to be very reluctant to reopen an inquiry into a case where someone has already been executed for the crime.

[penguineggs.livejournal.com]

You can't prove a negative; even if Harriet says Boyes didn't drink anything at her house she can't prove it, but Urquhart can prove the innocence of everything he ate at Urquhart's.

[sonetka.livejournal.com]

True enough. Still, as weak as the case is against Harriet in the real story, it's hard to imagine her even being detained if neither Boyes nor Harriet ever mentions his having coffee with her. Even less so if he tells Hannah Westlock that the bitch wouldn't even give him coffee :).

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

It would certainly have given Impey Biggs a lot more to work with if she were charged:

"Ladies and gentleman of the jury, this lady is accused of the crime – the capital crime – of murder. Only the greatest certainty of her guilt could justify her conviction in this case. But what certainties has the Attorney General presented the court with? Murder requires motive, means, and above all, it requires opportunity. My learned friend has failed to prove that Miss Vane had the means, he has failed to prove she had any motive, and the words of Mr Boyes himself, speaking now from beyond the grave, assure us beyond any doubt that she had no opportunity."

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

The really bad option for Urquhart would have been had Harriet and Boyes made up! That's not going to be very plausible on the "stress and misery caused him problems" front, let alone suicide.

[sam-t.livejournal.com]

Ah, but then he'd either have collapsed while still at Harriet's, or (had he made it back and told someone that he'd sorted his love life out) the prosecution would have claimed that Harriet was only pretending to be nice so she could poison him. And 'stress from the Fickleness of Woman' is probably still plausible.

(I do like the observations on the coffee! I hadn't quite thought of it like that before.)

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

If he collapses at Harriet's, then she might end up looking after him (because she can't afford a nurse). In which case, there won't be a nurse with knowledge of arsenic poisoning to spill the beans. Though Harriet recognising the symptoms, reporting it, and ending up under suspicion herself would be interesting!

[fallingtowers.livejournal.com]

Do I sense an AU plotbunny here...?

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

Only if you want to write it! World enough and time and all that.

[stevie-carroll.livejournal.com]

A fascinating theory there.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

Thanks. I always enjoy Wimseyverse theorising :-)