Thirty Days Hath September
Category:
Drama/Serials
No. of Segments:
104
Duration:
12 mins approx
Program Details:
When Diana Hall arrived at Windermere in the north of England to visit her married sister, Cynthia Stockton, she realised all was not well. Formerly a fashion model, Cynthia had wed millionaire George Stockton three years earlier. At the time, Stockton was 57 and Cynthia 24 and, despite the age difference, it seemed an ideal marriage. Stockton was intensely jealous of his beautiful wife and had gone so far as to engage a private detective to spy on her . She was also to learn that Cynthia had been receiving anonymous poison pen letters.
Two weeks later, George Stockton’s dead body is discovered. He had been poisoned. It appears to be a case of suicide, but certain facts are unearthed by the police that indicate otherwise. The ensuing investigation culminates when Cynthia is arrested and charged with her husband’s murder.
Archer McFarlane Bishop is approached by Diana and asked to handle Cynthia’s defence. At 43, he is a leading criminal lawyer, wealthy and socially prominent with a lovely wife and the respect of all who know him. Ironically it is his wife, Gaynor who persuades him to accept the brief. He visits Cynthia in prison and is at once struck by her beauty and the softness of her manner, but finds her strangely evasive about certain matters and concludes that she is with-holding information. He is nontheless convinced of her innocence and sets out to prove it.
In the process, Archer falls in love with her. Few are more aware than he of the peril of such a relationship with a client – but such is his infatuation that he ignores the warnings of his conscience. At the expense of his personal life and the esteem of his friends, he pieces together a case for the defence. He becomes a man obsessed with but one goal in mind – Cynthia’s acquittal. He then discovers that she has had an affair with Stockton’s nephew and beneficiary, Dick Marsden.
The entire complexion of the case changes when it becomes apparent to Bishop that it was Marsden who killed Stockton and that Cynthia is trying to protect him. He slants the evidence accordingly, and at the ensuing trial turns the finger of guilt from Cynthia to Marsden. During the course of the proceedings Bishop’s wife leaves him. In every sense he becomes a man alone, fighting for a cause he truly believes in but employing tactics that are little short of deplorable.
Cynthia is acquitted.
Within an hour of the verdict being handed down, Marsden leaps from a ten storey building to his death and for the first time, Bishop is assailed by doubt. Confronted by Cynthia, he learns the horrifying truth – that she did in fact murder her husband. Bishop now realises that he too is guilty of murder – that Marsden is dead because of him. But he is guilty of more than murder.
Bishop decides he must right the terrible wrongs and see that justice is served. An ironical twist of fate assists his endeavours.