‘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.