‘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.’