A Gross Carriage of Justice

Chapter 16

Sir Percival Pugh stood and considered the jury a moment. They looked like almost all the juries he had ever faced, eagerly awaiting his expertise to clarify the confusion created by the prosecution for the Crown, Sir Osbert Willoughby, in his opening remarks. At last, satisfied, Sir Percival nodded and turned first to the judge, and then back to the jury.

“My Lord, gentlemen of the jury. I have heard my worthy opponent claim that my client, Harold Nishbagel, did willfully and with malice aforethought — those words not being original with my worthy opponent, I might mention, despite his attempt to make them appear so — take a shovel and beat his long-time friend and close associate, Clarence Wellington Alexander, to death.

“Gentlemen, my Lord, nothing could be further from the truth. Harold Nishbagel would not harm a fly. I have three witnesses to this fact, witnesses of such unimpeachable probity that even Sir Osbert will be forced to accept their irrefutable honesty. They will testify to Harold Nishbagel’s unflagging kindness and dislike of anything smacking of violence. I might mention in passing, gentlemen, that Nishbagel, in its original Osage Indian language, means exactly that — kind-heartedness, moderation, abatement, tranquillity. To an Osage named Nishbagel, doing anything of a forceful nature would be to violate the code of the Osages, and bring upon one the curse of all his Osage ancestors.”

Sir Percival paused to sip a glass of water. He dabbed at his lips while watching the jury from the corner of his eye. Their own eyes, like those of a sparrow locked in frozen rigidity to those of a snake, followed his every move. Gotcha! Pugh thought with uncharacteristic reversion to his Irish ancestors, and went on, his voice calmly continuing to hypnotize them.

“Gentlemen, what are the true facts of this case? Did Harold Nishbagel raise a shovel and bring it down upon the head of his friend, Clarence Wellington Alexander? Yes, gentlemen, he did.”

“Yes, gentlemen, he did. That is a fact, and facts are not to be denied. They are, however, to be extrapolated, to be explained. I stated earlier, gentlemen, that Harold Nishbagel would not harm a fly, and that is true. But a wasp? Gentlemen, in the Osage Nation, the wasp is the deadliest of enemies, representing as it does all the evils in mankind. It also stings, gentlemen, as many of us know to our sorrow; it also stings. Only those who have suffered the sting of that member of the family hymenoptera can know how painful it can be. And so, gentlemen, when my client saw this wasp on the forehead of his beloved friend, he raised his hand to strike it. In his anxiety to relieve his friend of the possibility of that painful bite, he failed to realize that at the moment he was holding a shovel...”

Pugh paused and then gave the prosecution its death blow.

“My worthy opponent had made much of the fact that there was no sign of any wasp in the wound; and that, gentlemen, is the true tragedy of this case, and one that requires that you not only find my client innocent, but that you add your commiseration to mine. For not only did my client forget he was holding a shovel, he also missed the stinging beast, killing his best friend. That, gentlemen, is tragedy...”

He sighed.

“Gentlemen, my first witness is William Carruthers...”

The northeast corner of the lounge of the Mystery Authors Club was ringing with cheer. Two extra chairs had been brought there, and while it made for a slight bit of crowding, it did nothing to lessen the festivities that emanated from the alcove.

“Five of them, now!” Potter, the secretary, said to one of his coterie, looking darkly toward the source of all the merriment.

“One of them is Sir Percival Pugh!” someone said in awe.

“And the big one is the man he just defended, that Indian,” someone else said. “But he’ll be leaving soon. I saw him leave his bags with the hall porter, and the hall porter told me the man wanted to be called in an hour to catch the airport bus.”

“Good riddance,” Potter said, and sniffed. “Any idiot too stupid to notice he was holding a shovel when he went to swat a wasp! And then to miss the beast, yet! Can’t be very bright, is all I can say.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” someone else said. “He had the brains to hire Sir Percival, didn’t he?”

“And it wasn’t his intelligence that was at fault,” someone else said, “just his aim. Happens to the best of us. I remember at the last August skeet shoot —”

Potter walked away. He hated to be disagreed with, especially by members of his own clique. He glared toward the northeast corner. Maybe if he started with just the three old men, and then had them really disappear one at a time... But he had a feeling that with his ill fortune, the three would be around for a long, long time... or that someone else had used the plot a long time before...