Sir Humphrey rose to continue his cross-examination.
‘You have stated under oath, Mr. Menzies, that you are a happily married man.’
‘I am, sir,’ said the defendant with feeling.
‘Was your first marriage as happy, Mr. Menzies?’ asked Sir Humphrey casually. The defendant’s cheeks drained of their color. I quickly looked over toward Mr. Scott who could not mask that this was information with which he had not been entrusted.
‘Take your time before you answer,’ said Sir Humphrey.
All eyes returned to the man in the witness box.
‘No,’ said Menzies and quickly added, ‘but I was very young at the time. It was many years ago and all a ghastly mistake.’
‘All a ghastly mistake?’ repeated Sir Humphrey looking straight at the jury. ‘And how did that marriage end?’
‘In divorce,’ Menzies said quite simply.
‘And what were the grounds for that divorce?’
‘Cruelty,’ said Menzies, ‘but...’
‘But... would you like me to read out to the jury what your first wife swore under oath in court that day?’
Menzies stood there shaking. He knew that ‘No’ would damn him and ‘Yes’ would hang him.
‘Well, as you seem unable to advise us I will, with your permission, my Lord, read the statement made before Mr. Justice Rodger on June 9, 1961, at the Swindon County Court by the first Mrs. Menzies.’ Sir Humphrey cleared his throat. ‘“He used to hit me again and again, and it became so bad that I had to run away for fear he might one day kill me.”’ Sir Humphrey emphasized the last five words.
‘She was exaggerating,’ shouted Menzies from the witness box.
‘How unfortunate that poor Miss Carla Moorland cannot be with us today to let us know if your story about her is also an exaggeration.’
‘I object, my Lord,’ said Mr. Scott. ‘Sir Humphrey is harassing the witness.’
‘I agree,’ said the judge. ‘Tread more carefully in future, Sir Humphrey.’
‘I apologize, my Lord,’ said Sir Humphrey, sounding singularly unapologetic. He closed the file to which he had been referring and replaced it on the desk in front of him before taking up a new one. He opened it slowly, making sure all in the court were following every movement before he extracted a single sheet of paper.
‘How many mistresses have you had since you were married to the second Mrs. Menzies?’
‘Objection, my Lord. How can this be relevant?’
‘My Lord, it is relevant, I respectfully suggest. I intend to show that this was not a business relationship that Mr. Menzies was conducting with Miss Moorland but a highly personal one.’
‘The question can be put to the defendant,’ ruled the judge.
Menzies said nothing as Sir Humphrey held up the sheet of paper in front of him and studied it.
‘Take your time because I want the exact number,’ Sir Humphrey said, looking over the top of his glasses.
The seconds ticked on as we all waited.
‘Hm — three, I think,’ Menzies said eventually in a voice that just carried. The gentlemen of the press began scribbling furiously.
‘Three,’ said Sir Humphrey, staring at his piece of paper in disbelief.
‘Well, perhaps four.’
‘And was the fourth Miss Carla Moorland?’ Sir Humphrey asked. ‘Because you had sexual intercourse with her that evening, didn’t you?’
‘No, I did not,’ said Menzies, but by this time few in that courtroom could have believed him.
‘Very well then,’ continued Sir Humphrey, as he placed the piece of paper on the bench in front of him. ‘But before I return to your relationship with Miss Moorland, let us discover the truth about the other four.’
I stared at the piece of paper from which Sir Humphrey had been reading. From where I was seated I could see that there was nothing written on it at all. A blank white sheet lay before him.
I was finding it hard to keep a grin off my face. Menzies’ adulterous background was an unexpected bonus for me and the press — and I couldn’t help wondering how Carla would have reacted if she had known about it.
Sir Humphrey spent the rest of the day making Menzies relate the details of his previous relationships with the four mistresses. The court was agog and the journalists continued to scribble away, knowing they were about to have a field day. When the court rose Mr. Scott’s eyes were closed.
I drove home that night feeling not a little pleased with myself, like a man who had just completed a good day’s work.
On entering the courtroom the following morning I noticed people were beginning to acknowledge other regulars and nod. I found myself falling into the same pattern and greeted people silently as I took my regular position on the end of the bench.
Sir Humphrey spent the morning going over some of Menzies’ other misdemeanors. We discovered that he had served in the Territorial Army for only five months and left after a misunderstanding with his commanding officer over how many hours he should have been spending on exercises during weekends and how much he had claimed in expenses for those hours. We also learned that his attempts to get on the local council sprung more from anger at being refused planning permission to build on a piece of land adjoining his house than from an altruistic desire to serve the public. To be fair, Sir Humphrey could have made the Archangel Gabriel look like a soccer hooligan; but his trump card was still to come.
‘Mr. Menzies, I should now like to return to your version of what happened on the night Miss Moorland was killed.’
‘Yes,’ sighed Menzies in a tired voice.
‘When you visit a client to discuss one of your policies, how long would you say such a consultation usually lasts?’
‘Half an hour, an hour at the most,’ said Menzies.
‘And how long did the consultation with Miss Moorland take?’
‘A good hour,’ said Menzies.
‘And you left her, if I remember your evidence correctly, a little after six o’clock.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘And what time was your appointment?’
‘At five o’clock, as was shown clearly in my desk diary,’ said Menzies.
‘Well, Mr. Menzies, if you arrived at about five to keep your appointment with Miss Moorland and left a little after six, how did you manage to get a parking ticket?’
‘I didn’t have any small change for the meter at the time,’ said Menzies confidently. ‘As I was already a couple of minutes late, I just risked it.’
‘You just risked it,’ repeated Sir Humphrey slowly. ‘You are obviously a man who takes risks, Mr. Menzies. I wonder if you would be good enough to look at the parking ticket in question.’
The clerk handed it up to Menzies.
‘Would you read out to the court the hour and minute that the traffic warden has written in the little boxes to show when the offense occurred.’
Once again Menzies took a long time to reply.
‘Four sixteen to four thirty,’ he said eventually.
‘I didn’t hear that,’ said the judge.
‘Would you be kind enough to repeat what you said for the judge?’ Sir Humphrey asked.
Menzies repeated the damning figures.
‘So now we have established that you were in fact with Miss Moorland sometime before four sixteen, and not, as I suggest you later wrote in your diary, five o’clock. That was just another lie, wasn’t it?’
‘No,’ said Menzies. ‘I must have arrived a little earlier than I realized.’
‘At least an hour earlier, it seems. And I also suggest to you that you arrived at that early hour because your interest in Carla Moorland was not simply professional?’