Five Red Herrings1975

[last lines]

Bunter:
How does your lordship foresee the outcome?

Lord Peter Wimsey:
"Gentlemen of the Jury, you have heard evidence of the character of the deceased, of his habitual drunkenness and savage temper. You have heard how, on the day of his death, he drove a golf ball at almost point-blank range at the witness Jock Graham - an action which might well have had fatal consequences. You have heard how, in the presence of the Club Committee, he threatened the witnesses Strachan and Gowan with actual bodily harm if they chanced to cross his path again, and of how, on that same evening, he entered into a violent argument with the witness Michael Waters and threw whisky in his face, and fought him in the bar. And also of the far more monstrous attack on the person of Matthew Gowan - an act of unspeakable barbarity which must stir in every one of us the deepest revulsion - not to mention his most questionable advances toward the wife of the witness Hugh Farren. In the light of what you have heard, is there a single one of you who would dare to return a verdict of "guilty" against the accused, John Ferguson? I say with absolute confidence that there is not!" And of course they won't. It'll be self defense or justifiable homicide.

Bunter:
I'm delighted to hear it, my lord.

Lord Peter Wimsey:
So am I, Bunter. Ferguson's a good egg. It was his misfortune to suffer from a rotten neighbor!