4 January 1917

4 January 1917 is the date on which General John Gordon Macarthur, commanding a brigade on the Western Front in France, deliberately sent Captain Arthur Richmond to his death. The act was a cold-blooded murder disguised as a routine wartime order, and it remained beyond the reach of any court. More than eighteen years later, on the evening of 8 August 1935, a gramophone record played to the assembled guests on Indian Island accused Macarthur of having "on the 4th of January, 1917, deliberately sent your wife's lover, Arthur Richmond, to his death." The accusation was the first public revelation of a crime that had been hidden for nearly two decades, and it set in motion the psychological unraveling that would lead to Macarthur's own murder two days later.

The Crime and Its Background

Macarthur had loved his wife Leslie deeply and believed in her absolutely. When he discovered, through a letter placed in the wrong envelope, that she was conducting an affair with Richmond—a young officer under his command—the shock was devastating. The letter made clear that the relationship had been going on for some time, including during Richmond's last leave. Macarthur's love turned to a cold, murderous rage. He managed to carry on as usual, showing nothing, and tried to keep his manner toward Richmond unchanged. Only a very young officer named Armitage, who had perceptions beyond his years, looked at Macarthur curiously once or twice and may have guessed what was coming. On 4 January 1917, Macarthur sent Richmond on a reconnaissance mission from which only a miracle could have brought him back unhurt. No miracle occurred. Richmond was killed. Macarthur later reflected that mistakes were being made all the time, officers being sent to death needlessly, and that people might say afterward that "Old Macarthur lost his nerve a bit, made some colossal blunders, sacrificed some of his best men." But he knew the truth: he had sent Richmond to his death deliberately, and he was not sorry.

The Aftermath and Concealment

Leslie never learned that her husband had discovered the affair. She wept for her lover, but her weeping was over by the time Macarthur returned to England after the war. He never told her he had found her out, and they went on together—only, somehow, she seemed no longer real to him. Three or four years later she died of double pneumonia. Macarthur left the army and bought a small place in East Devon, near the border of Dorset, where he enjoyed shooting and fishing and went to church on Sundays—except on the day the lesson was read about David putting Uriah in the forefront of the battle, which he could not face. For a time his neighbours were friendly, but gradually he felt that people were eyeing him differently, as though they had heard some lying rumour. He suspected that young Armitage had talked after the war. He began to avoid people, withdrawing into himself. The crime had been committed nearly thirty years before the events on Indian Island, but it had never been forgotten, and the suspicion that others knew haunted Macarthur's later years.

The Accusation and Macarthur's Response

When the gramophone record blared out the accusation on the night of 8 August 1935, Macarthur reacted with indignation. He stood erect, squaring his shoulders, and barked out that there was "no truth—no truth whatever" in what had been said about Richmond. He insisted that Richmond was one of his officers whom he had sent on a reconnaissance and who was killed in the natural course of events in wartime. He resented very much the slur on his wife, whom he called "the best woman in the world—absolutely Caesar's wife!" But the effort to speak cost him a good deal; his hand shook as he pulled at his moustache. Later that night, lying in the darkness, he could not sleep. He kept seeing Arthur Richmond's face. He remembered that he had been fond of Richmond, that Leslie had not found him dull as she found so many others, and that he himself had been delighted at the thought that Leslie took a motherly interest in the boy. The self-deception collapsed as he recalled the truth: Richmond was twenty-eight, Leslie twenty-nine. The letter in the wrong envelope, the pain that had hurt like nothing else, the slow gathering of murderous rage—all of it came back. He acknowledged to himself that he had sent Richmond to his death and that he was not sorry. But he also recognized that the act had cost him everything: Leslie had gone far away where he could not reach her, and after she died he was alone.

Acceptance of Death

By the morning of 9 August, Macarthur had undergone a profound change. When Blore, Lombard, and Armstrong searched the island, they found him sitting at the extreme end of the island, staring out to sea. He told them there was so little time and insisted that no one disturb him. Later, when Vera Claythorne came to sit beside him, he spoke with a strange calm. He said that none of them were going to leave the island—that was the plan—and that what she could not understand was the relief. "The blessed relief when you know that you've done with it all—that you haven't got to carry the burden any longer," he told her. He spoke of Leslie, of how he had loved her and how proud he had been of her, and then said quietly, "That's why I did it." He admitted that in a way it was murder, but that it had not seemed like that at the time. He had had no regrets then. But afterward everything was different. He no longer knew Leslie; she had gone away where he could not reach her. He told Vera that she too would be glad when the end came. When she left him, he was still sitting there, looking out to sea, speaking Leslie's name very gently and softly. He had come to the end of things and did not want to leave the island.

Death and Investigation

Later that same morning, just before lunch, Dr. Armstrong went down to call Macarthur to the meal and found him dead. He had been struck on the back of the head with a life preserver or some similar weapon. The blow had been delivered from behind, and Macarthur had not seen it coming. The murder was the third on the island, following the deaths of Anthony Marston and Mrs. Rogers. The police investigation after the event confirmed that Arthur Richmond had been serving under Macarthur in France and was killed in action, and that there had been no friction of any kind between them—they were, in fact, close friends. The official record noted that some blunders had been made at that time, with commanding officers sacrificing men unnecessarily, and that Macarthur's action might have been a blunder of that kind. But the confession of Lawrence John Wargrave, the true murderer on Indian Island, revealed the full truth: Macarthur had met his death painlessly, not hearing his killer approach from behind. Wargrave had chosen his time for leaving the terrace very carefully, and everything was successful. The date 4 January 1917, the day Macarthur had sent Richmond to his death, was the original sin that led, eighteen years later, to Macarthur's own murder on a remote island off the Devon coast.