Chapter 19 of 27 · 4'52"
The prosecution's last witness is the defendant's own wife — except the court learns she is Christine Helm, already married when she wed Vole. She then testifies that he came home at ten past ten with blood on his cuffs and said, "I've killed her." Her explanation is colder than the confession: "I cannot go on lying to save him."
Christine Is Not Mrs Vole
The Confession in the Courtroom
❝ Monologue · 12 lines the wife's confession
It builds from quiet confession to panic, turning gratitude into the reason she destroys him.
The prosecution calls its final witness, Christine Helm, not Mrs Vole. She reveals she was already married when she went through a ceremony with Vole, so she is not legally his wife and may testify against him. She then describes the night of the murder: Vole came home at 10:10 breathing hard, threw off his coat, checked the bloody cuffs, and told her he had killed the woman.
The twist is not that Christine lies, but that she tells a truth arranged to destroy him. The prosecution's whole problem with her was that a wife cannot easily testify against her husband; the solution is a name. "I went through a marriage ceremony with him, but I already had a husband" turns the loving wife into a legal stranger and makes her evidence admissible. From there she dismantles her own earlier statement: the alibi was never love, only "gratitude," and she had left out one detail — that Vole came home with blood and said, "I've killed her." Her final justifications are the cruellest lines in the film, because they sound like conscience: "I cannot go on lying to save him," and that he turned a "harmless old fool" into an accomplice. Wilfrid, hearing all of it, only asks that the story not be told "in instalments."
A1–C2 is the CEFR scale. Cards above the level you pick fade, and playback will not auto-pause on them.
“I went through a marriage ceremony with him, but I already had a husband.”
In one calm sentence she voids her own marriage and unlocks everything she is about to say.
Neutral
“That woman, she was a harmless old fool, and he makes of me an accomplice to the murder.”
She shrinks the victim and indicts Vole in one breath, turning herself into his tool.
Neutral
“I cannot go on lying to save him.”
Short and final, it cuts the last tie between gratitude and silence in one stroke.
Neutral
“He said "I've killed her."”
A reported confession, six words long, that turns the whole trial.
Neutral
I cannot go on lying to save him. I said to the police what he wanted because I'm grateful to him. He married me and brought me to this country. What he has asked me to do I have because I was grateful. It was not because he was your husband and you loved him? I never loved him. It was gratitude, then, that prompted you to give him an alibi - in your statement to the police? - That is it. Exactly. - But now you think it was wrong to do so. - Because it is murder. That woman, she was a harmless old fool, and he makes of me an accomplice to the murder. I cannot come into court and swear that he was with me at the time it was done. I cannot do it! I cannot do it!
Up next · 20a chronic and habitual liarThe scene: Myers Destroys Christine on the StandBecause a wife could not easily be made to testify against her husband. By showing she already had a husband, the prosecution turns her into a legal stranger to Vole, so her evidence is allowed.
She says she did. She claims she gave Vole an alibi in her police statement out of gratitude, because he married her and brought her to England, not out of love.
According to Christine, he arrived at ten minutes past ten, breathing hard, with blood on his cuffs, and told her, "I've killed her." That alleged confession is the heart of the prosecution's case.
She calls Mrs French a harmless old fool and says Vole made her an accomplice to the murder. She refuses to swear in court that he was with her when the crime happened.
He shouts that she is lying and that it is not true, refusing to stay silent. The judge threatens to clear the court and offers an adjournment, but Wilfrid lets the testimony continue.
