‘Damn and blast!’ he said to Powerscourt, just settling himself in on the other side of the formidable desk. ‘I mean, seriously damn and blast!’ He opened a low drawer rather furtively and produced a packet of cheroots and a box of matches. ‘Not meant to have one of these before six o’clock in the evening. Manage it most days. I’ve always said a chap should be allowed a few sins every now and then to make his virtues brighter the rest of the time. Would you agree with that, my friend?’
‘Absolutely,’ said Powerscourt, wondering what fresh catastrophe had reduced Pugh to his tobacco at ten o’clock in the morning. A quick glance out of the window revealed no hecatomb of dead birds or dismembered mammals that might have been massacred by the Pugh chambers cat.
‘The gun,’ said Pugh, blowing a great cloud of smoke past Powerscourt, ‘you will remember the gun in the state bedroom, held by Cosmo, believed to have been the weapon used to kill Randolph?’ Powerscourt nodded. ‘My God, this cheroot tastes good. Maybe you have to smoke them earlier and earlier in the day.’ He took another contented puff. Powerscourt looked expectant.
‘And you will recall, my dear Powerscourt, that you yourself toiled mightily to find a couple of fingerprint experts who might be willing to give evidence, travelling as far as the louche purlieus of Brighton to find one of these gentlemen? And indeed you did find such a man. So I had our solicitors write to the Norfolk Constabulary, copied to the prosecution solicitors, naturally, to ask if one of our own experts might look at the fingerprints on the gun and give his opinion to the court. The law officers of East Anglia, I fear, took some time to reply. Now I know why. This is the relevant portion of their answer: “The Norfolk Constabulary does not, at present, have its own fingerprint service. In any cases where we consider fingerprint evidence necessary, we send the relevant materials to the Metropolitan Police in London and they look after our interests as they would those of their own officers. Unfortunately” – I’ll say this is unfortunate, Powerscourt, wait for it, my friend – “the gun found in the possession of Mr Cosmo Colville was brought back to Fakenham police station. It was not tagged or stored in a safe place. A new cleaning woman, unacquainted with the customs of the force and the need for integrity in the storing of evidence, dusted the gun the very day it was taken to Fakenham. She told the station sergeant that she didn’t like dirty and dusty objects cluttering up the place. It looks much better now it’s cleaned up, that gun, she told the officer in charge. There’s not a print left on the thing now. It’s as clear of fingerprints as the day it left the factory.” God save us all.’
‘Heaven deliver us from Norfolk cleaning women,’ said Powerscourt, ‘especially the ones from Fakenham. How bad is it, Pugh?’
‘Well, suppose there were no prints other than those of Cosmo Colville on the gun. We could have argued that he wiped the gun with his own handkerchief to protect the murderer, that it was entirely consistent with his policy of being prepared to lay down his life for another. And if there had been anybody else’s fingerprints, then they would obviously have been those of the murderer. So far, my lord,’ Pugh pulled at the sleeve of an imaginary gown, ‘we have not been able to find the owner of these other prints. Perhaps he is in hiding or has fled abroad. But, gentlemen of the jury, I would remind you of your duty not to convict my client if you think there is any doubt at all about his guilt. I put it to you that these other fingerprints are themselves eloquent witnesses to the dangers of a conviction and the need for a more prudent acquittal.’
Pugh took another satisfying pull of his cheroot. ‘I could have wittered away for quite a long time in that vein, Powerscourt, you know. It might have done some good.’
‘Is there anything at all you can do with the gun, Pugh?’
‘Well,’ he grinned slightly, ‘I’ve subpoenaed the cleaning woman for a start. I want her to say that nobody had told her about not cleaning certain things, that she regarded everything in the station as fair game for her dusters, that if the Ark of the Covenant itself had dropped into the yard at the back of the premises, she’d have been on to that in a flash, brush and dusters in hand. I shall imply that the Norfolk police were negligent. I shall point out that their incompetence has made it impossible for my client to have a fair trial and that the case should be thrown out because of the tampering with the evidence.’
‘Don’t suppose there’s any chance of that?’ said Powerscourt.
‘No, there isn’t,’ said Pugh, blowing an enormous cloud of smoke towards the ceiling, ‘but it’s worth a try. The thing is, I don’t think many of these judges understand fingerprints. One of them told me after a case not long ago that he believed they changed every time a person washed his hands. Stood to reason, his lordship said, all that water running over the skin, it’s bound to change the patterns.’
‘You are bound to be a much better judge than I of what might weigh with the jury, Pugh. Now the fingerprint evidence is gone, what are we left with?’
‘Don’t underestimate the cleaning lady, Powerscourt. I have high hopes of the cleaning lady. I shall recall the elderly police person before her. She may show up the Norfolk Constabulary for a collection of fools who couldn’t look after things properly, and ipso facto, were unlikely to have arrested the right man. Mind you, they may get some director person up from the Theatre Royal in Norwich to coach her. I’ve known provincial police forces do stranger things in my time.’
‘The mysterious Frenchman,’ said Powerscourt, ‘how do you rate him?’
‘Ah,’ said Pugh, ‘if anything I like the mysterious Frenchman even more than I like the cleaning lady of Fakenham. That couple from the hotel are going to appear for the defence. Tell me this, Powerscourt, you have been writing to lots of people who were near to where the murder was committed in the Long Gallery, is that not so? And none of them remember a Frenchman?’
‘Not one,’ said Powerscourt.
‘I just wonder if we shouldn’t shift the focus. Look at it this way. If our theory is correct, and the mysterious Frenchman was the murderer, then I don’t think he would have gone back into the crowd after he’d done the deed. He’d have cleared off as fast as he could, down the stairs from the state bedroom and legged it round the empty side of the Hall. So he wouldn’t have been up there in the Long Gallery for any of your correspondents to see. Why don’t we try the other seating plan, the one taken in the garden before they went into the house, and see if any of those people remember a Frenchman or a stranger. He’s bound to have been lurking about then. He had to get into the house to commit the murder after all.’
‘Right,’ said Powerscourt, ‘we’ll write to them all.’
‘What about the vanished under footman or trainee coachman or whatever he was,’ said Pugh. ‘Has he turned up yet?’
‘William Stebbings,’ Powerscourt replied, ‘trainee footman, close to the butler and the murder scene at Brympton Hall. No sign of him as yet. I think the Nashes are beginning to lose hope.’
‘I’m sure you know as well as I do, Powerscourt,’ said Charles Augustus Pugh, ‘horrible thing to say, but he’s more use to us dead than alive. God forgive me, but if he was murdered I could almost guarantee to get Cosmo off.’
Powerscourt nodded across the desk. ‘Lucy and I were saying the same thing only the other day. I’d like to pick your brain on a slightly different tack, if I may. It doesn’t help us in the short term with the defence, mind you.’
‘As things stand at present,’ said Pugh, now nearing the end of his cheroot, ‘we don’t have enough to save Cosmo. Unless we can work a miracle, he’s going to swing. Tell me what you want to pick my brain about.’
‘It’s this,’ said Powerscourt, ‘why is Cosmo refusing to say a word? Nobody’s made any sense of that so far. Let’s leave women out of it for a moment. What on earth would persuade a conservative character like Cosmo to play the hero? Does he know who the murderer is? Does he refuse to give somebody away? Is it a question of honour in some way? Did some dark secret of the Colvilles have to remain a secret? Family honour and all that? I can just about see Cosmo taking that line, you know. Like a lot of people who aren’t necessarily very clever, I’m sure he could be very obstinate when it came to what he saw as his interests or his family’s interests. Did the secret have to do with the family row? God knows, Pugh, I’m sure I don’t.’