Death of a wine merchant

22

Powerscourt and Lady Lucy didn’t reach London on Saturday. They still hadn’t reached London by six o’clock on Sunday evening. By that stage Charles Augustus Pugh had rung the telephone exchange three times to check that his line was working. He had called on the Powerscourts’ house in Markham Square at four o’clock in the afternoon only to be told that the master and mistress had not returned. At last, a few minutes before seven, Pugh’s telephone rang. It was Powerscourt. He, Pugh, would set out for Chelsea immediately.

‘My God, Powerscourt, you look as though you’ve been in the wars,’ said Pugh, inspecting his friend at the top of the staircase to the drawing room.

‘I’m fine now,’ said Powerscourt with a smile, ‘last rites not needed for a while yet.’

‘Well,’ said Pugh, ‘you must tell me the whole story when we’ve got more time.’

‘I’ll buy you lunch. How’s that? Now then, these are the French documents, my friend,’ said Powerscourt. ‘Lucy translated them while we were waiting for the train in Paris. The local lawyer thought it would help if he got the Mayor’s signature as well. They look as though you could get married or buried with them they’ve got so many stamps on the page.’

Pugh read them very fast. ‘I’ll get them typed up first thing in the morning. That junior of mine is rather an expert with the typewriters though he doesn’t advertise the fact in case he’s turned into a glorified clerk. It’s amazing what you can do with a philosophy degree these days. But I think we need something more. We need a signature from some responsible person here to say the translation’s accurate and can be relied on.’

‘Lucy’s word not good enough?’ said Powerscourt.

‘Lady Lucy’s word is good enough for anything,’ said Pugh loyally, ‘we just need something the prosecution can’t argue with.’

‘French Ambassador?’ suggested Powerscourt. ‘I’ve met the fellow a couple of times.’

‘He’s foreign,’ Pugh put in. ‘Juries don’t like foreign.’

‘How about Rosebery?’ asked Lady Lucy. ‘He’s a former Prime Minister, after all.’

‘How’s his French?’ said Pugh.

‘Don’t think it matters much about his French, actually,’ said Lady Lucy. ‘It’s very good but the prosecution won’t want to cross-examine a man of his eminence, former Foreign Secretary and all that. Would you like me to drop him a note?’

‘Please do,’ said Pugh. ‘Now then, I want to hear what you think. It seems to me that all this stuff about bigamy isn’t going to wash in court. As far as we know, the Colvilles on this side of the Channel don’t know about the extra wife down there among the vineyards. Johnny Fitzgerald told me he didn’t find a hint of bigamy when he poured drinks down the Colville servants in St John’s Wood and Pangbourne, fishing for gossip about the family row. I don’t think I can just put one of the Colville women in the witness box and start asking them about bigamy. The judge wouldn’t allow the question. So I think we have to go with the sergeant. That is, if we are even allowed the sergeant.’

‘What do you mean, Pugh, no sergeant?’ asked Powerscourt. Was it for this that he had gone to France to be chased round a hospital floating in wine, tied on to a terrifying pressoir and locked up in a French lunatic asylum?

‘Well,’ said Pugh, leaving his chair and draping himself over the Powerscourt mantelpiece, ‘I’ve never been in a murder trial with evidence this late before. I’m not absolutely sure about the procedure. I should have brought young Napier with me. He’s very hot on procedure, probably reads it up in bed last thing at night in his best pyjamas after a blast of Aristotle. Never mind. This is what I think happens. I have to inform the judge and the prosecution team that the defence have fresh evidence they would like to submit, even at this late hour. Grovel grovel grovel. I would be most grateful for your considered opinions as you can fit into five minutes. Then the judge can do one of two things. He can clear the court, tell everybody including the jury to come back in an hour or something like that. We carry on the argument from our normal positions. Or, if he feels he wants his home comforts, bigger pencils, softer chairs in the case of Mr Justice Black, he takes Sir Jasper’s team and my team back to his rooms to discuss the matter.’

‘And what,’ asked Powerscourt, ‘is the argument about?’

‘Basically, it’s about whether to admit the new evidence or not,’ said Pugh. ‘We’re in Sir Jasper’s hands, really. If he says this is most improper, these statements have no value, there are no real witnesses for me to cross-examine in the normal way, why are the two women not here, then that will bear heavily with the judge. He can either throw it out, or insist that the two witnesses appear in his court by such and such a date. If he follows the strict letter of the law and the proper procedures we might fare rather badly.’

‘Could we launch an appeal, if they won’t admit our evidence and Cosmo is convicted?’ said Lady Lucy, who disliked losing as much as her husband.

‘Don’t even think about appeals at this stage, Lady Lucy. One thing at a time.’

‘Which way do you think Sir Jasper will jump, Pugh?’ said Powerscourt.

‘I wish I knew,’ said Pugh. ‘If he wants to win the case very badly then he’ll be very difficult and it will be hard for the judge to admit our new evidence. We’ll just have to wait until the morning.’

‘Do you think Francis will have to give evidence?’

‘He might well have to,’ said Pugh. ‘White shirts, highly polished black shoes the order of the day. Nothing fancy. Nothing to irritate the bloody judge.’

Powerscourt left Markham Square early the next morning for a last-minute conference with Pugh. The court was due to sit at nine thirty. Lady Lucy had promised herself one important task involving the twins’ hair when Rhys, the Powerscourt butler, made his normal apologetic shuffle into the room, holding a letter in his hand.

‘This just came in the post, my lady. From France. I thought it might be important, my lady.’

‘Hold on a minute while I look at it,’ said Lady Lucy, glancing anxiously at the clock which showed the hour of five past nine.

‘Dear Lord Powerscourt,’ she read, translating as she went, ‘I hope your journey back to London was uneventful. In all the turmoil about my husband and his sad end I forgot to tell you one thing. I don’t know if it’s important or not but I felt I should let you know. I tried to contact you at the railway station before you left but your train had gone. I wrote to the other wife, the one in England, to tell her her husband had a French wife living as well as an English one. The letter should have reached her about ten days before the fateful wedding. The letter from the English wife I found in Jean Pierre’s pocket was written on headed notepaper so I had the address. The schoolmaster wrote it in English for me. What he must think of us all! I asked her what she wanted to do with her husband. I said I was perfectly happy to keep him if she didn’t mind. He is so happy in Burgundy with his wines. I have had no reply. Yours etc.’

‘My God,’ said Lady Lucy. ‘You have done well, Rhys, this changes everything. Now then, can you get me a cab right away? And a driver who knows the back routes to the Old Bailey? There is hardly any time left.’

It was ten past nine when the cab set forth from Chelsea. Lady Lucy was thinking hard as the vehicle swung out of Markham Square and into the King’s Road. Rhys had done well again, she felt. This was not one of those ponderous cabs capable of taking four people at a time. It was a two-seater, more like a fly or a phaeton, and the young man driving it seemed to know his business.

‘What time do you have to be at the Old Bailey, Lady P?’ he shouted back to her through the glass panels separating driver from passenger.

Lady Lucy couldn’t help smiling. Nobody had called her Lady P in years.

‘Half past nine,’ she said. ‘It’s very important.’

‘Christ,’ said the young man, swearing violently at a couple of pedestrians who threatened to hold them up. ‘I’m going to try the Embankment route,’ he yelled, turning at full speed into Sloane Street and down towards the river. ‘I checked with one or two of the other drivers,’ he said, ‘and they all said it’s very crowded further north.’

Lady Lucy thought she could see things clearly now for the first time since her involvement in this case began. She remembered hearing about the great family row at the Colvilles shortly before the wedding. The letter from France must have arrived by then. Accusations, recriminations, cries of betrayal. And Randolph? What did he say to his tormentors? Maybe by now he had simply run out of lies. They had just passed the Royal Hospital Chelsea, one or two aged pensioners in their red coats wandering down towards the Thames, and the driver had performed another hair-raising manoeuvre with supreme skill. At what point Randolph had decided to kill himself Lady Lucy could only guess. It was now eighteen minutes past nine. Maybe I should always travel across London like this, she thought, in a graceful little vehicle with Jehu himself come back from the dead to take the reins.

Charles Augustus Pugh was on edge that morning. He had smoked two cheroots in his chambers before they set off for the court. His young man Richard Napier had rings under his eyes from long hours spent in the Gray’s Inn Library searching for precedents. All three were wearing immaculate white shirts and polished black shoes. Just before they reached the Old Bailey Pugh stopped suddenly and waved his arms violently in the morning air.

‘My friends,’ he said, putting an arm round each of his companions, ‘there will be no half measures today. Either we shall succeed beyond our wildest dreams and Cosmo Colville will walk a free man tonight. Or the judge will throw our documents in the bin and the unfortunate Cosmo will be a day closer to the hangman and the rope. There can be no middle way. But come, my friends, let us be of good cheer. England expects that every man this day will do his duty.’ With that Pugh laughed his enormous laugh and led them into Court Number Two of the Old Bailey.

Lady Lucy’s driver had overtaken everything he could on his madcap journey through the streets of London. They were just past Westminster Bridge now, Whitehall and Horse Guards Parade a street away to their left. It was twenty-three minutes past nine. Lady Lucy could hear the cabbie muttering to himself about the traffic around Charing Cross.

‘If they didn’t have those bloody trains, Lady P, they wouldn’t have so much bloody traffic,’ he yelled, pulling out to overtake an omnibus, ‘stands to reason.’

‘Are we going to make it?’ Lady Lucy shouted through the noise.

‘Get clean through Charing Cross and we might just do it,’ said the cabbie cheerfully.

‘Whoops,’ he yelled, pulling sharply on his brakes as an old-fashioned four-seater stopped suddenly in front of him. ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’

Lady Lucy was wondering about Randolph Colville’s last hours. Presumably he had taken the gun with him to the wedding. Maybe it was the sight of all those people at the reception who would shortly learn of his shame and his disgrace that pushed him over the edge. At least he had waited for his son to get married. Poor man, she thought, as the cabbie let out a shout of triumph after negotiating the perils of Charing Cross. Poor Randolph, blowing his brains out in that remote bedroom while the champagne flowed and the oysters were being carried up from the kitchens down below. The driver carried on up the Embankment and up Middle Temple Lane to the Strand. Fleet Street now and the passing of Temple Bar, gateway to the City of London. Twenty-seven minutes past nine. Lady Lucy could see St Paul’s and its dome, towering over London like the Colossus towered over Rhodes in ancient times. She checked the letter was still in her bag and ran through her translation once again.

The court was very full that morning. Society ladies jostled with the gentlemen of the press as they settled in their seats. Powerscourt wondered if Pugh had tipped them off. Sir Jasper made another of his little bows to the defence team. Pugh had told him as soon as he saw him of his fresh evidence and his proposal to ask the court to consider allowing it. He handed Sir Jasper his copy of the relevant papers and sent another copy to the judge. It was twenty-eight minutes past nine.

Then disaster struck Lady Lucy’s mission of mercy. A cart had overturned in the middle of the road at the bottom of Ludgate Hill. Barrels were lying about all over the street. Porters and policemen were trying to restore order.

‘Damn!’ said the cabbie. ‘I think we’ve had it, Lady P. I’m going to have to turn into these side streets. One large vehicle coming the other way and you can get stuck for half an hour.’ He turned round at full speed, the little machine tilting over like a yacht turning in a stiff breeze, and then he shot right into Farringdon Road.

In Court Two the day had an unusual beginning. Mr Justice Black sent word that the jury were to be kept in the jury room. There was, the judge informed them, a question of law which had to be settled. A couple of minutes later Mr Justice Black sent word that he wished to see both legal teams and their supporters in his rooms. The Clerk of the Court told the witnesses and the spectators and the journalists that the court was adjourned until eleven o’clock.

The cabbie had turned into the Old Bailey at last. They were only three minutes late. Lady Lucy pressed an enormous sum of money into the cabbie’s hand.

‘Run for it, Lady P!’ he shouted. ‘Good luck!’

Lady Lucy made her way through the throng of people who appeared to be leaving rather than entering the courtroom. She could just see Charles Augustus Pugh about to exit through a side door.

‘Mr Pugh!’ she shouted. ‘Stop a moment! There’s more evidence.’ She was now almost at his side, waving the letter in her hand. ‘This letter came from France this morning. It’s from the French wife. She wrote to the English wife before that great row they had, telling Mrs Colville, English version, that she, Madame Drouhin, was Madame Colville, French version. Sometime before the wedding it would have been.’

‘Written in French or English?’ They could both hear a cry of ‘Mr Pugh, where are you?’ coming from the behind the door.

‘French,’ said Lady Lucy.

‘Try to get it translated and typed up if you can,’ said Pugh, opening the door, ‘and send it in as soon as possible through the Clerk of the Court.’ With that he ran at full speed towards the judge’s rooms.

Mr Justice Black was settled deep into his chair as the lawyers began to file in, defence solicitors on the side of Charles Augustus Pugh, the last to arrive, Detective Chief Inspector Weir for Sir Jasper. The judge was the proud possessor of a handsome room in the new Old Bailey, a fire burning in his grate, bookshelves lined with legal documents, a forbidding desk for his lordship with a couple of humble chairs on the opposite side. So far Mr Justice Black was still in the genial mood he had at the start of the day.

‘Mr Pugh,’ he said firmly. When he learnt of the circumstances of the judge’s weekend a year later, Powerscourt was to say that the judge’s weekend was the most important single event in that day at the Old Bailey. The judge was a keen, and very successful, bridge player. He had spent Saturday evening at his club playing for rather high stakes. He had won a great deal of money. The memory of that last finesse to secure the final rubber would stay with him for a long time. Claret, that was how he planned to spend his winnings. The judge was very fond of claret. He had brought with him that day the latest catalogue from Berry Bros. amp; Rudd to read on the train.

‘My lord,’ said Pugh, ‘I beg the court’s forgiveness for what I am about to request and I convey my apologies to you for the inconvenience I may be about to cause.’

‘Get on with it, for God’s sake,’ his junior whispered to himself and began a drawing of the foreman of the jury.

‘My lord,’ Pugh went on, ‘the defence would like to ask the court to consider admitting fresh evidence it wishes to put before the court. This evidence only reached London on Sunday evening. It is, I believe, germane to the very substance of this case. I have given a copy of the papers to my learned friend, Sir Jasper, and to yourself.’

Pugh sat down. The judge peered at Pugh.

‘This is irregular, Mr Pugh, most irregular.’ Pugh wondered for a moment if he was simply going to throw the new evidence out without even hearing it.

‘Mr Pugh,’ the judge began, ‘you will forgive us, Sir Jasper and I, while we read these new documents.’

‘The page with the English translation is under the page with the French, my lord. The French wedding certificate is in your bundle, my lord. And before you start reading, forgive me, but I have yet another document relevant to the proceedings. It only came from France this morning, my lord. The Clerk will bring it in once the translation and typing is complete, my lord.’

‘When documents come from France,’ said the judge, searching for his glasses, ‘they come not as single spies, but in battalions.’

Mr Justice Black read the pieces of paper. Then he read them again.

‘Correct me if I am wrong, Mr Pugh. Your new evidence tells us that Randolph Colville was a bigamist, with a second wife living in Burgundy. And, furthermore, that he was flirting with another Frenchwoman whose husband caught them kissing and threatened to kill Randolph Colville. God bless my soul. It does make you wonder about their morals over there, it really does.’

Pugh restrained himself from saying that the same or worse could be said about English morals over here. There was a knock at the door. The Clerk of the Court shuffled in and handed over copies of the letter.

‘Battalions, gentlemen, battalions,’ said the judge grimly and read the final piece of evidence from Beaune.

‘There is a precedent, my lord, for documents arriving late being admitted as evidence. Regina versus Spick, my lord, 1897. Late financial information from America was accepted by Mr Justice Williams in that case.’ Pugh did not bother to point out that his young assistant had discovered five other cases where the late evidence had not been admitted before tumbling on Spick at a quarter to two in the morning.

The judge muttered to himself as if precedents were not going to hold much weight with him. ‘Mr Pugh,’ Mr Justice Black laid his glasses on a pile of papers on his desk, the one concealing the wine catalogue, ‘what can you tell us about the provenance of these documents?’

‘Well,’ said Pugh, ‘the defence has been fortunate to have at its disposal a private investigator who went to Burgundy, discovered the other wife and tried to give their testimony such legitimacy as he could. You will note that the first two are signed in the presence of a French lawyer and the Mayor of Beaune? And there is the marriage certificate, of course.’

‘Did you say private investigator?’ asked the judge. He made it sound like the lowest forms of rat catcher.

‘I did, my lord, he is a most distinguished man in his field, called Powerscourt.’

‘Powerscourt, did you say, Mr Pugh? Lord Francis Powerscourt?’ asked Sir Jasper.

‘The same, Sir Jasper. He is without, if you would like to question him.’

‘Forgive me, Mr Pugh,’ said the judge, ‘I should like to hear from Sir Jasper about the attitude of the prosecution to these documents. I have to say I regard it as most irregular. There are no witnesses. The proper course would be for me to adjourn the trial for forty-eight hours and send a reliable man over to Burgundy who can confirm that these statements are reliable. Or I could throw them out altogether. Sir Jasper?’

‘My lord, my initial reaction is one of suspicion. These documents could all be forgeries after all. I see that the note from Lord Rosebery vouchsafes the veracity of the translations but not the veracity of the documents themselves. Where are the witnesses, my lord? Why are these two ladies not in court to give their evidence? Why is there nobody for me to cross-examine to establish the truth? That, after all, has always been a fundamental right of counsel in English law going back centuries.’

Richard Napier was making a lightning sketch of Sir Jasper now, Bentinck in Full Flow he had decided to call it.

‘I think we can launch a limited investigation into the truth of the documents right here in this court, my lord.’ Sir Jasper was sounding very efficient now, a man rising to the occasion. ‘I believe we have the wife of the defendant and the wife of the victim in the witness room, both of whom took part in family discussions on these matters. I propose to request Detective Chief Inspector Weir here to ask the two ladies if they believe this new material to be true, and if they object to this evidence coming out in court.

‘I must confess an interest here, my lord. I have not had the privilege of meeting Lord Francis Powerscourt in person. But I know many people who have. Indeed I recall our former Prime Minister Lord Salisbury speaking most highly of his integrity and his abilities in my hearing shortly before he died, Lord Salisbury that is, not Lord Powerscourt. Perhaps, my lord, if we could summon him here he might be able to help me.’

‘By all means,’ said Mr Justice Black in cheerful mode at the memory of his winning contract of six spades redoubled in the penultimate rubber. ‘Bring him in when Sir Jasper has finished his conversation with the Chief Inspector.’

Richard Napier went off to find Powerscourt. Pugh suddenly saw that Powerscourt, although he would not be aware of it, might hold the whole case in his hands. If he could convince Sir Jasper that the documents were genuine, then the prosecution would accept them and the judge would have little option but to agree with that decision. If Sir Jasper was not convinced, then there would be no documents and the case would almost certainly be lost.

Another chair was brought forward opposite the judge. Powerscourt bowed to him and shook hands with Sir Jasper.

‘Good of you to join us, Lord Powerscourt,’ Sir Jasper began. ‘I would like to ask you a few questions about these documents if I may.’

‘By all means,’ Powerscourt replied, turning slightly in his chair to face the prosecution counsel.

‘Could I begin by asking what took you to France in the first place? Did you suspect that Randolph Colville might be running a separate establishment over there?’

‘May I say something about the different ways of operating between barristers and judges and private investigators?’ said Powerscourt. ‘You gentlemen here in these august surroundings are dealing with the full majesty of the law. You need facts. You need evidence. You need to be able to cross-examine witnesses to test the truth of their statements. With me it is very different. I went to Burgundy on a hunch, on instinct. It was, admittedly, a hunch of several different parts. Randolph Colville was ambidextrous, totally so. He could play tennis without ever using a backhand. The Colville man in Burgundy disappeared around the time of the murder. He was often asked to England but never came. When representatives of the firm who knew Randolph Colville went to Beaune, he was always away on business. This man in France was also ambidextrous, able to write his name with both hands at the same time. It seemed to me that they might be one and the same person.’

‘Are you telling us,’ Sir Jasper sounded incredulous, ‘that you were not aware of the bigamy factor until you went there?’

‘I was guessing, Sir Jasper. I took a recent photograph from his English wife’s house with me so that the wife and the other woman could confirm his identity.’

‘Let me ask you two related questions, if I may,’ said Sir Jasper. ‘Was it impossible for the two women to come and give evidence? And are you certain this marriage certificate is genuine?’

‘I tried, believe me, Sir Jasper, to persuade one or both of them to come to London. The wife was too upset. She was, after all, married to a man who was married already. Her children, their children, had lost their father and, possibly, their future. She was going to travel as soon as she could to her mother’s house somewhere in the Auvergne. The other lady could not face the shame of telling a court in another country what she had done in her own. And she was waiting for her husband the sergeant to come back. You mention marriage certificates, Sir Jasper. I have brought the one in the possession of the lawyer Antoine Foucard from Givray who witnessed the statements of the two women. His father had been the lawyer responsible for the wedding. His father had been a guest at the reception. When I showed him the photo of Randolph Colville by the Thames he was in no doubt it was Jean Pierre Drouhin. Madame Drouhin was reluctant to let me take her copy away as she thought she would need it in any arguments with the legal gentlemen about the will. The one I have brought is the one from the lawyer’s office. I am certain it is genuine.’

Detective Chief Inspector Weir had found an empty office to talk to the two Mrs Colvilles. He explained that the defence were trying to bring new evidence to bear concerning the bigamous behaviour of Randolph Colville.

‘When did you first hear of this bigamy business?’ asked Weir.

‘I’ll handle this, Hermione,’ said Isabella Colville. ‘We first heard about ten days before the wedding.’

‘But you didn’t see fit to inform the authorities?’ said Weir sternly.

‘No, we didn’t,’ said Isabella, ‘we didn’t think it was any of their business.’

‘I must ask you this, ladies, did you believe it was true, this information about the other wife in France? That there was another Mrs Colville, as it were?’

‘Of course it was true, it is true.’ Isabella Colville sounded indignant. ‘Randolph didn’t deny it, he never said it wasn’t true. He admitted the whole thing, for heaven’s sake.’

‘Could I ask, Lord Powerscourt, if you were operating through a translator in these discussions in Burgundy?’ said Sir Jasper.

‘No, I was not, Sir Jasper. I am fluent in French and my wife Lady Lucy speaks it perfectly. She is, if I could coin a phrase, linguistically ambidextrous between French and English.’

Sir Jasper glanced at his watch. It was now ten past ten, fifty minutes to go before the court re-assembled.

‘One last question, Lord Powerscourt. This is all most irregular. What can you say to convince me that these statements are genuine, that we are not being hoodwinked by a couple of crafty Frenchwomen out to feather their nests in some way or other?’

‘Gentlemen,’ said Powerscourt addressing the judge and Sir Jasper, ‘in my profession, as in yours, you acquire over the years an acute sense of when people are lying to you. I am absolutely convinced that the two women were telling the truth, that their statements are genuine. If you asked me to go into the witness box behind us and swear under oath that they were true I would gladly do so.’

‘Thank you,’ said Sir Jasper, ‘thank you very much.’

‘I must put one other point to you, ladies.’ Weir was well used to being treated as a fool by now. ‘Do you have any objection to this information coming out in court? About the bigamy, I mean.’

Mrs Isabella Colville paused. She knew there were people who suspected that her husband Cosmo was keeping his silence because of some secret, and if those people knew about her brother-in-law’s bigamy, they might assume that the bigamy was the cause of the silence. Would Cosmo want her to admit the bigamy into court proceedings? Would it bring shame on the Colville name? Suddenly she remembered the look on Charles Augustus Pugh’s face and the tone of his voice the previous Friday when she asked him outside the Old Bailey about her husband’s chances. His words were optimistic. His face and his voice were not.

‘It’s the defence that’s asking for it, isn’t it, Detective Chief Inspector?’ Scandal or no scandal, Isabella Colville wanted her husband back. ‘Well, it’s my husband who’s on trial. If his defence team want it, then I think they should have it. Absolutely. No objections here.’

Sir Jasper and the rest of the lawyers listened gravely to the Detective Chief Inspector’s account of his interview.

‘Gentlemen,’ said the judge, ‘I would welcome a brief summary from both of you of your own position. Mr Pugh?’

‘My lord,’ said Pugh, ‘I have very little to say. I believe Lord Powerscourt put the case for the acceptance of the French evidence very clearly. We believe that the signed documents and the marriage certificate are sufficient proof that the women of Givray are telling the truth. We have just heard that the Colville women here are convinced the bigamy is true – the husband never denied it after all – and they have no objections to the matter coming out in court. Of course the defence would like to see the new evidence included. But that is not my decision, my lord. It is for you and Sir Jasper and the defence is most grateful for the way the matter has been handled. I remain in your debt, my lord, for your willingness to look at this late request. We shall, of course, accept your judgement.’

‘Sir Jasper?’

‘I have to say, my lord, that I am torn. On the one hand we have the lack of witnesses, the fact that there is nobody for me to cross-examine. And yet. And yet.’

Sir Jasper was not a dyed-in-the-wool reactionary like some of his colleagues. As a young man, fresh from Oxford at the elegant buildings of Lincoln’s Inn, he had fallen in love with the law. He had lit metaphorical candles in all the temples of the legal system. Those candles had long since gone out, guttered and blackened as his disillusion grew with the passing years. Exaggeration had a lot to with it. The police, he felt, exaggerated their evidence and left out the bits that did not suit their case. The barristers exaggerated their vanity, locked into an adversarial system that confused the force of advocacy with the reality of their cases and the cause of justice. Judges and juries grew confused, cynical of the evidence and the barristers who presented it. Three years ago Sir Jasper himself had been involved in a miscarriage of justice. He had appeared for the prosecution in a case where a man was hanged, only for it to be discovered three weeks later that he was innocent, by which time it was too late. That case had weighed heavily with him ever since.

‘I must say,’ he went on, ‘that I attach great weight to the testimony of Lord Powerscourt. What particularly impressed me was his willingness to put his career and his considerable reputation on the line by going into the witness box. I also attach weight to the marriage certificate for I believe it to be genuine. And we have just heard from Detective Chief Inspector Weir, my lord, that the two Mrs Colvilles, who learnt of the bigamy some ten days before the wedding, are absolutely certain that it is true. And they have no objection to the bigamy evidence being brought into open court. I believe, my lord, that we always have an obligation to maintain the traditions of the law, for without order there is nothing. But we also have an obligation to be fair, to hear all the arguments and all the evidence even when they may have arrived by singularly unorthodox means.’

Sir Jasper paused. Pugh sat perfectly still, looking at his papers. Powerscourt was looking at Sir Jasper. Pugh’s junior had abandoned his sketching for the moment, staring at the prosecution counsel.

‘On balance,’ Sir Jasper concluded, ‘the prosecution has no objection to the admittance of these documents. I leave the matter, my lord, in your capable hands.’

‘Thank you, gentlemen,’ said Mr Justice Black. ‘It is now twenty-five minutes past ten. I suggest the legal teams take an adjournment. If you, Sir Jasper and Mr Pugh, care to return at ten to eleven I shall inform you of my decision. That should give you a little time to prepare for any new circumstances we may find ourselves in.’

The legal teams shuffled out. The jury and the gentlemen of the press were drifting back into court. Pugh and Powerscourt collected Lady Lucy and filled her in on what had happened in the judge’s rooms. They held an impromptu conference on the pavement outside away from the public and the newspapermen.

‘Do you think he’s going to admit it, Powerscourt?’ said Pugh.

‘Yes, I think he will.’

‘Do we run with the mysterious Frenchman? Or the suicide?’

‘Suicide surely,’ said Lady Lucy. ‘He couldn’t take the shame, poor man.’

‘There’s one thing we haven’t realized,’ said Powerscourt. ‘I’ve only just seen it this minute. Sir Jasper may have seemed rather magnanimous in there, but I wonder if he’s just being cunning.’

‘What do you mean?’ asked Pugh.

‘Well,’ said Powerscourt, ‘think about the new evidence. It shows that there was bigamy and that the Colvilles on this side of the water were aware of it. Indeed they had a massive family row about it.’

‘So?’ said Charles Augustus Pugh.

‘Simply this,’ said Powerscourt. ‘The one thing the prosecution case have never had is a reliable motive for Cosmo murdering his brother. Now they have one. The family are desperately keen to preserve the good name of Colville. They do not want the bigamy to be known abroad. Randolph has disgraced the family. Once he is dead the whole story might never get out. Cosmo shoots his brother to preserve the family honour and is just about to make his escape down one of those back stairs. Then the butler steps in. It’s highly unlikely the police would have arrested Cosmo if he hadn’t been found in that unfortunate position. He’d have got away and come in round the front door with the stragglers. Just bad luck he got caught. Remember the police never heard a whisper about the bigamy.’

‘Christ!’ said Pugh. ‘I’ve got to reappear before the judge. I have to say, I have no idea what to do when the court resumes. Send me a note if inspiration strikes you, Powerscourt.’