My wife and I are both bibliophiles. We love books and we keep on expanding our collection, even though we know that we will never be able to read everything. One of the nicest things about our wide variety of titles is the regular rediscovery of volumes that I’ve completely forgotten about.
I was watching my daily episode of the Trump circus last week when I spotted a book on a shelf behind the telly. I got up to take a closer look. Too Late For Tears by Benjamin Bennett. I guess it was a bestseller when it was published in 1948. There was a first edition in September of that year, followed by a second and third edition just two months later. The twelve chapters deal with twelve famous homicides in South Africa.
The one that stands out for me is a murder I can vaguely remember people talking about when I was growing up. Does the name Maria Lee ring a bell? Her story is a long one, but let’s cut it short. She was in her mid-forties and had already been married four times when she met the 26-year-old Alwyn Smith. There was an affair that eventually ended when the young Smith died from arsenic poisoning. Maria Lee was found guilty of murder.
In his book Bennett describes how Mr Justice Steyn, “struggling to pronounce the formula in a husky voice he himself could scarcely recognise”, passed his first death sentence on a woman. “The law gives me no option,” he said. “I have to do my duty. The sentence is that you be returned to custody and hanged by the neck until you are dead.” He ended with these words: “May the Lord have mercy on your soul.”
And then this description: “She began to weep. No longer was her grief insincere. No longer did she sob for the benefit of the Court. This time sorrow was deep and genuine for Maria Lee. But it was too late for regrets. It was even TOO LATE FOR TEARS.”
ALBÉ GROBBELAAR
