Grounds for Appeal

TWENTY-ONE

After the first few days of January had come and gone, it felt in Garth House as if the festive season had never been. A faint air of anticlimax hovered over the staff as they settled down to pick up their routines.

Sian’s microscope sections of the heart in the ‘road rage’ dispute had allowed Richard to confirm his previous suppositions. The thrombus in the coronary artery was seen to be at least several days’ old, certainly well before the incident with the truck. This fitted with the suggestive results of the TTC experiment that there was infarction of the heart muscle, tissue damage which had to be well in excess of the one-hour interval between the altercation on the road and the time of death. Having explained all this to the Hereford coroner, that worthy was able to placate the relatives sufficiently for them to abandon their intention to bring a legal action against the other driver.

Angela and Richard had two other matters coming up for their attention. In a few days, they would be going to the Royal Courts of Justice for the Millie Wilson Appeal — and soon after that, they were to investigate the intriguing case of the vintner’s Prodigal Son.

On the tenth of the month, they found themselves at Newport railway station, waiting for the Red Dragon express to Paddington. Jimmy had driven them down in the Humber, as they would be staying in London for at least one night, depending on how the case went.

When the train thundered in behind the famous Caerphilly Castle engine, they found their seats in a First Class carriage, booked by the ever-efficient Moira.

There were four other people in the compartment, so they were unable to talk shop. Richard was in one of his restless, expansive moods that Angela was coming to recognize. She thought he was like a big schoolboy, excited at a journey by train to ‘the big city’.

‘This is getting to become a habit, buzzing off together to London for the night,’ he whispered. A few months earlier, they had gone up to deal with an exhumation for the War Office at the military hospital on Millbank.

‘We’re becoming creatures of habit,’ she responded. ‘Just like last time, I’m going to haunt Bond Street this afternoon, while you go to hit the library again at the Royal Society of Medicine!’

He grinned at her. ‘But we can’t go to see The Mousetrap this evening, because we did that last time.’

‘No, but you can treat me to a meal at a decent restaurant,’ she countered. ‘Then we’d better go back to the hotel and swot up our reports ready for tomorrow.’

Richard groaned. ‘I’ve been through them so often, I could recite them by heart! But you’re right, we have to do our best for poor Millie. We only get one shot at this.’

A few minutes later, the train plunged into the Severn Tunnel, the longest in Britain, and he felt Angela shudder.

‘I hate tunnels,’ she murmured. ‘I always feel as if I’m being buried alive.’

He felt a sudden urge to hold her hand until they emerged into daylight again, but the presence of other passengers inhibited him. Before they reached Swindon, he suggested coffee in the dining car, partly to be able to talk without being overheard. As they sat facing each other across a table, they discussed recent cases and the personalities in their little world of the Wye Valley.

‘Moira seems dead set on this law thing,’ observed Angela. ‘I don’t know how we’ll manage without her, but I’m glad she’s found something to aim for. She’s too young to just moulder away as a lonely widow.’

‘I’m making enquiries at the universities in Cardiff and Bristol, to see what’s on offer for someone like her,’ he replied. ‘She got good results years ago with her School Certificate and says she has her double-matric, so there shouldn’t be any problem in qualifying for admission. Getting some financial help would be the thing — there must be bursaries and scholarships for mature students.’

Angela smiled. ‘We’re like a couple of earnest parents, trying to do the best for our children!’ she exclaimed. ‘You’ll be getting Sian to do a doctorate soon!’

‘Not just yet, though she’s damned good at chemistry. In fact, I’m hoping to get us some work from that private clinic in Newport. They often want blood sugars, ureas, glucose tolerance tests and other clinical stuff. Sian could do those standing on her head, if we get the kit for her.’

Again she smiled at his enthusiasm. ‘Who’s left for you to help up the ladder, Richard? Perhaps you could send Jimmy on an Advanced Driving Course — or perhaps over to Burgundy to learn viniculture!’

‘More likely he’d want to go to Evesham to learn how to grow bigger strawberries!’ said her partner ruefully. ‘Talking of viniculture, are we all set to go down to Chateau Dumas next week?’

Angela set down her GWR coffee cup and nodded. ‘All I need to take are some syringes, needles and oxalate tubes. A sample each from father, mother and the alleged son.’

‘Just as well you don’t need one from Victor Dumas. He’d probably chuck your syringe over the nearest hedge!’

‘It’s such a shame that this has caused such a rift in the family,’ she said sadly. ‘Madame told me that the presumed son from Canada is adamant that he doesn’t want any part of the inheritance. He says he has a good job and his foster parents in Montreal have told him that he will be their heir.’

Richard sighed at what seemed an intractable problem.

‘Obviously Victor doesn’t believe that. It has to be said that some confidence tricksters are very clever at covering all the angles.’

Angela poured more coffee for them from the pot on the tray, as their conversation drifted to other things.

‘Priscilla looked very happy with her new job,’ she observed. ‘I’ll bet she has half the red-blooded men in the university chasing her by now.’

‘Only half? Everyone from the Vice-Chancellor down will be setting their caps at her.’

Priscilla Chambers had called in at Garth House the previous week, on her way back to Aberystwyth from spending Christmas with her parents in Oxford. Breezing in from her MG roadster, she was her usual lively, flirtatious self as she hugged and kissed everyone and handed out belated Christmas presents. She reported that she was getting on famously with Eva Boross and that they had already started on the excavation of the ancient monastery up in the hills.

‘I’m glad she’s happy there,’ said Richard. ‘I must have a drive up to Aberystwyth one day and see how she’s getting on,’ he added mischievously.

Angela eyed him suspiciously. ‘Down boy!’ she said sternly. ‘Priscilla would eat you alive. Talking of Aberystwyth, have you heard if there’s been any progress on the bog investigation?’

He shook his head. ‘Not since before Christmas. I must give DI Thomas a ring when we get back. That’s the trouble with being a pathologist, you do your bit at the post-mortem, then everything goes quiet until the trial. And if they don’t charge anyone, then often that’s the last you ever hear of it.’

Angela agreed. ‘Same with many of our science cases. I used to learn more from the Daily Telegraph than I did from the police.’

‘Not like it is in detective novels and films! If you believed those, you’d think that it was the doctors who solved all the cases, not the coppers who do all the leg work.’

The train slowed for Swindon and they went back to the compartment to reclaim their seats. Angela turned to her Vogue magazine, anticipating seeing the real thing that afternoon in the famous shops of the West End. Richard knew how keen she was on fashion and wondered again how she managed to dress so elegantly on her salary, especially since she had left the security of the public service for the more uncertain rewards of private enterprise. He strongly suspected that her well-heeled family subsidized the contents of the expensive-looking carrier bags that she carried when she returned from her shopping expeditions.

When the train steamed into Paddington station, Richard carried their overnight cases into the Great Western Hotel through the entrance at the top of the platform and booked them in at the desk.

‘Here were are again, ready for another night of unbridled passion!’ he said facetiously as they went up in the lift.

His partner regarded him coolly, used to his flights of fancy. ‘Sure, Richard! You can have your unbridled passion in Room 321 and I’ll have mine in Room 334.’

Next morning, they caught the Circle Line from Paddington to the Temple and walked up Arundel Street to the Strand. The huge Victorian-Gothic extravaganza of the Royal Courts of Justice loomed in front of them and they plunged under the great entrance arch into the cold magnificence of the main hall, more like a cathedral than a court of law. It was Richard’s first visit, as he had never worked in London, but Angela had been there several times during her years at the Met Lab, though her usual stamping ground had been in the criminal courts of the Old Bailey.

She led him to the row of varnished notice boards in the centre, where the Order Papers for the day were pinned up.

‘Better see which court we’re in,’ she advised. ‘There are over a thousand rooms in this place!’

A search of the Order Papers told them that the Court of Criminal Appeal was hearing the case of Millicent Agnes Wilson in Court Six and after following the signs, they climbed a twisting stone stairway to a gallery that ran around the great hall at first-floor level.

Though the ground floor was milling with people, up here it was quiet, almost sepulchral. Everything seemed to be either gloomy grey stone or dark oak. The entrances to the courts were panelled doors leading into small vestibules, with an inner door opening into the court proper.

‘Here’s Number Six, but no one seems to be about,’ said Richard. ‘It’s ten to ten, so we’re in plenty of time.’

‘Let’s have a look inside,’ suggested Angela, looking very smart and businesslike in a slim charcoal-grey suit over a white blouse. They went into the cramped vestibule and looked through a window in the inner door. The three Appeal judges were not yet on their high bench, but a group of bewigged barristers, dark-suited solicitors and black-gowned ushers were standing around the front of the court.

‘There’s Douglas Bailey and Penelope Forbes,’ observed Richard, pointing at the Bristol solicitor and the junior counsel. They moved into the back of the court and very soon Bailey saw them and came hurrying across to greet them.

‘Good to see you both. We’re going to be running a little late, I’m afraid, a lot of legal wrangling to be endured.’ He looked worried and slightly abstracted as he spoke.

‘Are there problems?’ asked Richard.

‘Some procedural issues about admissibility of evidence. I hope we can get it sorted out, but I suggest you pop down to the refreshment room for half an hour, to save waiting too long in this mausoleum.’

Angela knew the way and they went back down the stairs and out through a passage at the back of the main hall, following signs to a rather spartan cafe in the bowels of the building. Richard brought a couple of cups of indifferent coffee from the counter and they sat at a Formica-covered table to spend thirty minutes in these uninspiring surroundings at the heart of the British judicial system.

‘Bailey didn’t seem all that optimistic, did he?’ said Angela, pushing aside her half-empty cup with a moue of distaste. ‘I wonder what the problem can be?’

Richard was uncharacteristically cynical. ‘Probably the lawyers spinning it out to increase their fees. They get paid piecework, so the longer it lasts, the more “refreshers” they get.’

When the half hour was up, they made their way back up to the court, to find an usher waiting for them.

‘Mr Bailey asks if you would mind waiting outside here, please. Their lordships are sitting now, hearing legal arguments.’

He directed them to a bench outside the court, on the cloistered corridor that looked down at the floor of the great hall below. Like all the woodwork, the seat looked as if it had been there since the place was built eighty years earlier.

They waited patiently for an hour, Richard eventually getting restive, as the hard oak was becoming unkind to his backside. Both of them were free from any stage fright at appearing before Lords of Appeal, as they had been too long in the business of giving expert evidence to be at all nervous, but the delay was proving irksome.

‘What the hell’s going on?’ said Richard, as he stood to walk up and down the corridor, partly to bring back the circulation into his thighs. On the second circuit, his question was answered, as Douglas Bailey and Penelope Forbes came out of the courtroom to speak to them. Both looked despondent, though the woman looked angry as well.

‘Big problem, I’m afraid,’ growled Bailey. ‘It looks as if we’ve brought you up to London for nothing!’

Richard stared at him in surprise. ‘You mean you’re not going to call us? Has there been an adjournment?’

Miss Forbes shook her head. ‘More than that, I’m sorry to say. Their Lordships, in their wisdom, have decided that they will not hear your evidence. Not today, not ever, unless we manage to get another Appeal sometime in the future!’

Angela was indignant, in her usual dignified way.

‘But that’s outrageous! This Appeal was Millie’s only hope. Why on earth have they refused to listen to us?’

Before the barrister could reply, the court door swung open and a very angry Paul Marchmont strode out. He was red in the face and his hair was dishevelled as he tore off his wig. Advancing on them, he began apologizing profusely.

‘I’m so sorry, doctors! Both for you and poor Millicent Wilson! Those silly old fools in there should be retired, before they do any more legal damage!’

Though Marchmont was known as a bit of a rebel, this was strong language even for him.

‘So what’s happened?’ asked Richard, perturbed that all his hard work seemed to have been in vain.

‘The three wise monkeys in there declared that this was an Appeal, not a retrial. Their argument, from which I could not budge them, was that your opinions could have been given at the original trial and is therefore not new evidence.’

‘But we were not involved at the trial,’ protested Angela. ‘We’d never even heard of Millie Wilson then.’

The QC threw up his hands in disgust. ‘I know, but this has happened before. The judges take such a narrow view of things and stick like glue to the rules. I tried to preach the “natural justice” sermon to them, but they were not impressed. Obviously, they had made up their minds not to hear you before we’d even started.’

‘I still don’t understand why our evidence was not good enough for them,’ persisted Angela stubbornly.

Marchmont waved his arms about in denial.

‘My dear lady, it was first class! Their blinkered argument was that as you are not putting forward any new discoveries made since last year, the same evidence could have been offered at the trial, either by you or by some other competent forensic experts. I could not deny to their lordships that all you have so diligently put forward in your excellent reports was available knowledge last year. The judges said that the fact that it was not so offered was the fault of the defence team and that was not a factor that concerned them.’

Richard was becoming as exasperated as the senior counsel.

‘So Millie will have to spend God knows how many years in prison because of some technicality seized upon by three elderly judges? Is there nothing that can be done for her?’

Marchmont mopped his brow with a flowing white handkerchief before settling his wig back on his head.

‘After their lordships have lunched, I’ll try to nit-pick a few points in the trial proceedings, but I know it will be futile. The success rate in criminal Appeals is abysmally low, as the judges’ mafia stick together and the Lords of Appeal fall over backwards not to find any fault with the way their brothers in the lower courts conduct their business.’

With more profuse apologies and commiserations — and a reassurance that all expert witness fees and expenses would be met — the lawyers left them to make their way out of the vast building. Richard was still seething with indignation at having done all that work in vain, but Angela was more concerned with their inability to have helped Millicent Wilson.

‘The poor woman will be devastated,’ she said, as they walked out into the Strand. ‘I don’t envy Douglas Bailey for having to break the news to her.’

In the open air, away from the inimical atmosphere of the courts, Richard’s mercurial temperament took an upswing.

‘Come on, let’s go and have a nice lunch somewhere, then get to Paddington and head back to civilization in Wales.’

Next morning at coffee in the staff room, they had to relate every detail of their abortive trip to Sian and Moira, who were equally incensed by the outcome.

‘They say the law’s an ass and now I quite believe them,’ said their fiery technician, her socialist hackles rising. ‘All those old judges, with their Eton and Oxford backgrounds, should be sacked and some younger ones appointed, who know what ordinary life is really like.’

Moira was more thoughtful about the debacle and got Richard to explain what had gone wrong. He repeated what the Queen’s Counsel had said to them.

‘What did he mean by “natural justice”?’ she asked, her growing interest in the law evident once again.

‘I’m not all that clear, but I think the general thrust is that, notwithstanding all the conventional rules of legal procedure, if a situation seems a flagrant disregard of common sense and fair play, then the rules should be circumvented… but you’ll be able to tell me more about it in a year or two’s time, when you’re a legal expert yourself!’

Their forensic debate was interrupted by the phone ringing in the office and Moira went off to answer it. She came back to tell Richard that the police in Aberystwyth wanted to speak to him and when he picked up the receiver, he found it was Meirion Thomas on the other end. They spoke for about ten minutes and when Richard went back to his cold cup of coffee, he had more news to tell his colleagues.

‘It sounds as if our Body in the Bog case has been wrapped up as far as it can go,’ he announced.

The others clamoured for the details, all having had a stake in the unusual case. Angela had done the original serology on the tissue from the borehole, Sian had prepared histology sections of the skin and the bone disease, while Moira had typed all the reports.

‘So who was he? And have they got the chap who killed him?’ demanded Sian.

Richard retold the chain of events which Meirion had described to him.

‘Some antique dealer recalled seeing a man with a Batman tattoo years ago. They traced his van back to Cardiganshire and found old blood stains in the back, of the same group as our corpse. The van belonged to a former Czech soldier, who was in a gang in Birmingham, then got moved to Borth to act as a fence for stolen goods and a lookout for sheep rustling.’

‘Extraordinary story!’ said Angela. ‘You wouldn’t believe it if you read it in a novel. They did pretty well to get a blood group from a van after a decade.’

‘You haven’t told us yet who he was!’ persisted Sian.

‘Some American seaman called Josh Andersen, who decided he didn’t want to be torpedoed in 1942 and ran off to become a gangster in the Midlands. It seems that he started pinching money from the gang boss, who had him rubbed out, as they say in Chicago.’

He went on to relate what DI Thomas had told him, about the Czech’s confession that he had been lumbered with a headless corpse for disposal.

‘A pretty tall story, that!’ observed Moira. ‘Have they charged him with the murder?’

‘Apparently not, though they’re holding him as an accessory for the time being. No doubt the Director of Public Prosecutions will have to sort it out. Meirion thinks that probably either the gang leader, Mickey Doyle, or one of his henchmen actually did the deed. But Doyle legged it to Spain several years ago and they can’t get him out.’

‘So why cut his head off?’ queried Sian with a little shudder of horror, even though she had known about it for weeks.

‘Retribution for trying to fleece his boss, apparently. This Doyle villain seemed to have taken grave exception to this Josh skimming part of the profits from his protection rackets, brothels and casinos, so he had him killed and then exhibited his head on festive occasions as a warning to the rest of his gang.’

They kicked the topic around for a time, squeezing every last bit of information from Richard, who only knew what Meirion had told him.

‘We must tell Priscilla about this, unless it’s already all over the local papers down in Cardiganshire,’ said Angela. ‘She was in on it from the very beginning. In fact, she owes her new university post to this beheaded gangster, as otherwise she would never have met Doctor Boross!’

‘Well, it certainly beats going down the Labour Exchange as a means of looking for a job!’ giggled Sian.

It was one of those cold, fine days that occur in winter, with a thin blue sky looking down on frosted fields, as Angela and Richard drove to Cardiff on their way to the vineyard in St Mary Church. They had decided to make a day of it, as it was the first time that Angela had been to the city, declared the capital of Wales only a few months before. After an early lunch in the Angel Hotel, the place where Louis Dumas had met his alleged son, Richard walked her around the centre of the city, which he knew well from six years there as a medical student. She dutifully admired the huge castle and the superb buildings of the civic centre, although secretly she would have preferred spending the time in the three large department stores.

Then a forty-minute drive through the Vale of Glamorgan brought them to ‘Chateau Dumas’, as her partner insisted on calling it, where a rather apprehensive Louis and Emily received them courteously. They ushered them into the sitting room, where a tall young man rose to greet them. Black-haired and serious of face, the two doctors saw nothing of either of his presumed parents in his features — but Richard recalled that the younger son Victor also bore no particular resemblance to them. The father introduced him as Pierre Fouret and the soft-spoken Canadian replied in an accent which was more French than North American.

‘I understand that we all have to undergo this ordeal of the needle!’ he said, in a tone intended to lighten the rather tense atmosphere. Angela, who was rather taken by this good-looking man, went along with his ploy.

‘Just a small prick in the arm, Monsieur Fouret. I guarantee that you’ll survive!’

The bloodletting was performed swiftly and discreetly in Louis’s study across the hall, Angela’s experienced hands taking the three samples into her labelled tubes with the minimum of drama or disturbance. When she had repacked her bag and washed her hands, they went back to the sitting room for the inevitable tea and biscuits. They made rather strained small talk for a while, keeping off the subject of the Dumas family problems. Pierre told them of his life as a tractor salesman and the travelling it entailed.

‘I’m off back to Quebec next week and will probably be in the States and Mexico for a few months,’ he explained. ‘I doubt I’ll be sent back to Europe until the autumn.’

Richard wondered if this was a coded message that he would not be hanging around the family, seeking to ingratiate himself with them. The time soon came for them to leave and as they rose to go, Richard learned that Louis intended driving Pierre back to Cardiff to catch the train for London.

Richard and Angela made their way to the Humber, parked on the gravel area outside, as the Dumas clan said their goodbyes. Angela got into the front seat and as Richard was putting her case in the boot, he saw another car turning into the driveway from the road outside. It was a new yellow Triumph TR2, a two-seater sports car with the hood down, in spite of the winter weather. It drew up nearby and Victor Dumas got out, muffled in a heavy car coat and a scarf. He looked rather surprised to see Richard, but greeted him affably.

‘Hello, doctor! I didn’t expect to see you back here in this cold weather. I’m afraid the vines are all fast asleep for the next few months.’

Feeling rather uncomfortable, Richard saw no alternative but to say why he was there.

‘Just called in to take some blood samples. We were just leaving, actually.’

Victor’s face changed in an instant as he realized the implications. His smile vanished and his face reddened in anger.

‘Is that bloody crook here?’ he snarled. ‘I’ll not have him pestering my parents, they’ve suffered enough!’

As if on cue, the trio from the house appeared at the front door and stopped dead as soon as they saw Victor outside. As he marched angrily towards them, his father stepped forward and attempted to act as peacemaker.

‘Victor, come and meet Pierre Fouret. He’s just come to have a blood sample taken…’

He got no further, as Victor began ranting at the older man, who stood impassively under a barrage of invective and abuse, the thrust of which was that he was a scheming charlatan, out to make trouble and wheedle his way into his parents’ affections.

Emily began to weep, Louis tried ineffectually to restrain his younger son and Richard wished the ground would open up under him, so that he could avoid witnessing this highly embarrassing family feud. He was glad that Angela was already in the car, hunkering down and pretending that she was unaware of what was going on.

The row escalated rapidly, as Victor closed with Pierre and tried to drag him away from his mother and father. Although the visitor had kept silent until now, he resisted Victor’s physical force and told him to behave himself.

This further inflamed the aggressor, who began shouting at him to go and continued to pull at his arm. Pierre shook him off, his self-control obviously weakening under the provocation. The climax came when Victor swung a punch at the other man, catching him on the shoulder. Pierre pushed him away, in a last attempt to distance himself, but this made things worse, as Victor followed up with a heavy blow in the stomach, which made Pierre grunt with pain. This was too much for his self-restraint and he landed a fist squarely on Victor’s nose, which immediately began to bleed profusely. He staggered back and almost fell into Richard’s arms, as the pathologist had decided that he had better try to dampen down the rumpus.

His first reaction was to pull out his handkerchief and offer it to Victor, who automatically clapped it to his nose, then thrust it back as he pulled out his own.

‘I’m going and I’ll not be back while that impostor is here,’ he screamed emotionally, though it was somewhat muffled as he staunched the dribble from his bruised nose. Without another word, he almost ran to his car and sped away in a shower of gravel.

Angela was about to get out of the Humber, her better nature overcoming her reluctance to becoming embroiled in a family fracas. She thought she had better see if there was any female comfort she could offer the distressed Emily Dumas, but Richard, after a quick word with her husband, came back to the car and slipped into the driving seat.

‘Louis says it would be best if we left them to cope with their embarrassment alone,’ he explained and with some half-hearted waves from the group at the door, they left the unhappy house with a rather guilty sense of relief.

It took Angela almost the whole of the next day to put the samples through a wide battery of grouping tests and Sian and Moira had left by the time she went into Richard’s room with a sheaf of papers in her hand. He looked up from his microscope, where he was going through some slides prepared by Sian that day.

‘Have you worked your magic to a satisfactory conclusion, Doctor Bray?’ he asked, being in one of his frequent whimsical moods.

Angela sat on a stool alongside him and waved the forms at him. ‘I don’t suppose you want all the details, as I know you have never grasped the beautiful logic of genetics.’

He grinned back at her. ‘It’s a blind spot in my otherwise powerful intellect! Could never fathom all these blood groups with fancy names — Rhesus, MNS, Lutheran and all the rest of them. Just give me the answer, lady!’

She dropped the papers on the desk in front of him.

‘Right, if that’s what you want. Firstly, Pierre Fouret or Maurice, or whatever you want to call him, is certainly not eliminated as being the biological offspring of Emily and Louis Dumas. In fact, in terms of probability, there’s about an eighty-five per cent likelihood that he is their son, given the congruity of various subgroups.’

Richard gave a thin whistle. ‘Well, well! I wonder what Victor will say when he learns that? Point out that there’s still a fifteen per cent chance that Maurice is not his older brother?’

He stopped, as he saw that Angela was looking at him with an odd expression on her handsome face.

‘Remember that handkerchief you gave him yesterday, when Victor had the punch on the nose? Well, I took it from the dirty-clothes basket this morning and ran a few simple ABO tests on the bloodstains.’

He stared at her, wide-eyed. ‘You’re not going to tell me what I think you’re going to tell me, are you?’

She nodded slowly. ‘I am indeed, Richard! There’s no reason why Victor’s mother can’t be Emily Dumas — but Louis Dumas certainly isn’t his father!’

Richard reached out and laid a hand on her reports as he spoke. ‘Louis hinted that their marriage had a rough patch when they came back to Paris from Indo-China. Are we going to tell them?’

Angela looked at him sternly. ‘No way! We were hired to determine whether Maurice was their son, not Victor.’

She slid the top report from under his fingers and carefully ripped it into a dozen pieces and then dropped them into the waste-paper basket.

‘That’s the best place for surprises like that, Doctor Pryor!’

It was another month before the next big surprise came their way, this time a much more welcome one.

Moira brought in the day’s mail when they were sitting in the staff room for their elevenses and amongst the few envelopes for Richard was one with a Bristol postmark. Embossed on the back flap was the familiar name of a solicitor’s firm.

‘Let’s hope this is a cheque for our fees and expenses,’ he said hopefully. ‘Though it usually takes months, even after umpteen reminders.’

He opened it and as he studied the few typed paragraphs on the single sheet of headed paper, his eyebrows seemed to climb up his forehead.

‘Good God! I can hardly believe it!’

‘So it’s not a cheque, unless they’ve given us a couple of thousand,’ said Angela drily.

‘No, but it’s from Douglas Bailey. Just a preliminary note to let us know that someone else has confessed to killing Arthur Shaw — and that it’s expected that Millie Wilson will be released in the near future!’

The three women were agog with surprised excitement, as they had all been outraged by the rejection of Millie’s Appeal in January. Even the usually reticent Angela demanded more details.

‘How did that come about? Bailey must surely say who did it?’

‘He says it was one of the other lodgers in that house, a layabout called Roscoe Toms, who was one of those in the poker game that night.’

‘Not the man who found the body next morning, was it?’ asked Sian excitedly. ‘In detective stories, it’s usually the finder who did it!’

Richard shook his head and told them the rest of what the solicitor had written.

‘At least this fellow Toms won’t hang… because he’s already dead! That’s how it came to light a few days ago. He was in a drunken fight in some other back-street poker game in St Paul’s and got his neck slashed in a knife fight. He bled to death at the scene, but made a dying declaration in the presence of a local doctor and a police officer, in which he confessed to killing Arthur Shaw. It happened at two o’clock in the morning during a row over an accusation of cheating in the poker game, in which Roscoe lost a lot of money to Shaw.’

‘Will that be enough to exonerate Millie Wilson?’ asked Moira. ‘What’s this “dying declaration” business?’

‘I’m a bit hazy myself,’ admitted Richard. ‘It’s a rare event, but as far as I recall, a person must be dying and know that he has no hope of survival, when it’s assumed that he would have no motive for not telling the truth. In those circumstances, any statement he makes in the presence of more than one witness is admissible in evidence.’

‘At least that’s more than ours was at the High Court!’ remarked Angela, rather bitterly.

Moira nodded sagely. ‘And it gives a new twist to the meaning of “natural justice” that we were talking about last month!’