Emily Colville nudged her mother gently in the ribs. ‘That’s what I told you on the night of the wedding, Mama,’ she whispered. Emily did not see fit to tell her mother that she had known for years about Randolph’s other wife in France. That, after all, was what Tristram had been blackmailing him about.
Georgina Nash leaned over to whisper back. ‘What did you tell me on the night of the wedding, Emily?’
‘Why, Mama, I told you I had seen Mrs Colville, Mrs Randolph Colville, running down the stairs out of the state bedroom after the shot. Where the murder was.’
Georgina Nash stared at her daughter. Of course. That was what she had tried to remember about that awful day. That was what she had intended to tell Lord Powerscourt only it had slipped out of her mind. And at some point between the wedding and today, she realized, she had forgotten that she had forgotten. She wondered how much work and trouble and expense might have been avoided if her memory hadn’t let her down. The whole affair began with Emily’s wedding. It was ending now with Emily telling her that she had seen the murderer leaving the scene of the crime. Should she tell Lord Powerscourt? There didn’t seem much point now. It was over.
Pugh leant back and whispered to Powerscourt and Lady Lucy: ‘I wonder if some sharp solicitor advised her on how to tell her story. You see, if she goes on with the line of being out of her mind with anger and grief, it could go well for her. Her counsel could argue that she didn’t know what she was doing, that she was suffering from a kind of temporary insanity. I don’t think it would get her off, but they wouldn’t hang her.’
Sir Jasper Bentinck was rising to his feet now. ‘My lord,’ he began, speaking loudly to rise above the noise in court, ‘I have just been having a conference with Detective Chief Inspector Weir of the Norfolk Constabulary. I have to inform your lordship that in the light of recent events the Crown no longer believes in the case against the defendant Mr Colville.’
The judge beckoned Pugh and Sir Jasper over to his position for a brief conversation. Then he banged his gavel very firmly on his desk.
‘Gentlemen of the jury, you have heard what Sir Jasper has just told us, that the Crown have lost faith in their case. That means they do not believe Mr Colville is guilty. But even in these circumstances, the law must have a verdict. Mr Cosmo Colville has been on trial here on the most serious charge a man may face in an English court, that of murder. The Crown no longer believe Mr Colville to be guilty. But he must be seen to be Not Guilty. That is why I am going to send you out now to consider your verdict. Only you can put Mr Colville back into society as an innocent man. I recommend most strongly that you give your verdict in favour of the defence, a verdict of Not Guilty.’
The judge nodded at the foreman, who led the jury out. He stared at the spectators and the remaining newspapermen, as if daring them to speak. Pugh was taking sips of his water, holding a whispered conversation with his junior who sent Powerscourt a note.
‘Can’t stop for drink afterwards. New case.’
‘Markham Square, six o’clock,’ Powerscourt replied. ‘We’ll contact everybody.’
Yet another note arrived for Powerscourt saying the judge would like a word in his rooms when the trial was over. The jury were returning now. Lady Lucy worked out that it had taken about four minutes to save a man from the gallows. The sombre litany rang out across Court Number Two of the Old Bailey as it had done for centuries.
‘Gentlemen of the jury,’ said the Clerk, ‘have you reached your verdict?’
‘We have.’
‘Do you find the defendant Cosmo Colville guilty or not guilty on the charge of murder?’
‘Not guilty.’
Mrs Randolph Colville fainted clean away. Perhaps she knew she would be next. She was led away by the two policemen when she came round. Cosmo Colville was weeping in the dock, the warders astonished that a man just released from the death penalty should take his freedom so hard. The judge spent some time collecting his things. Pugh and his junior shook hands with Powerscourt and Lady Lucy and promised to come to the party. Detective Chief Inspector Weir of the Norfolk Constabulary felt angry with himself. This was the first murder case in over thirty years where he had lost. Perhaps he should have listened more carefully to young Cooper and his ideas. Georgina and Willoughby Nash were pleased that their house would fade from the news. Two of the newspapers had used diagrams of Brympton Hall and the layout of the rooms to explain the case to their readers. Now they were returning to the old anonymity that should surround their home.
Powerscourt was wondering what the judge wanted to see him about. Had he committed some faux pas in the course of the case? Should he not have sent any of those notes to Charles Augustus Pugh? The Clerk of the Court ushered him into the presence of the majesty of the law.
‘Ah, Powerscourt,’ said Mr Justice Black, ‘how good of you to come and see me. Minor matter, actually, more a question of family history really. Aren’t you a Cambridge man? Trinity Hall if I’m not mistaken? Cricket?’
Powerscourt admitted the charge was true.
‘My youngest brother was up at the same time as you,’ the judge went on, ‘I saw you both batting together in a match against St John’s. He made twenty-nine and you were undefeated on thirty-seven. I was watching that day, God knows how many years ago it was. I knew I’d seen you before.’
Powerscourt bowed slightly and headed for the door. ‘One last thing, Powerscourt. You’re not a bridge player by any chance, are you? Four Spades? Three No Trumps? That sort of thing? It’s my partner, you see. We’ve been together for years. Then he dropped down dead yesterday. Collapsed into the roast beef at the Garrick. Always good, mind you, the roast beef at the Garrick. Good way to go.’
Powerscourt admitted that he was not proficient at bridge. As he made his way towards the street he wondered what sort of tariff might await the judge’s partner. Three months for the wrong lead perhaps. One year’s hard labour for failing to count trumps. Three years in Pentonville for not reading your partner’s signals correctly.
By three o’clock that afternoon the Powerscourts were ensconced in the drawing room in Markham Square. Powerscourt was wondering about taking Lucy to Rome once things had calmed down.
‘Francis,’ she said, ‘can I ask you a question?’
‘Of course, my love, fire ahead.’
‘That note you sent to Mr Pugh, before he cross-examined the Colville women in court this morning, what did it say?’
‘I think I said we couldn’t be sure of winning with the suicide argument. Sir Jasper, after all, could have used the family disgrace as a motive for Cosmo to kill his brother. There is a different murderer, I said. Cherchez la femme.’
‘I see,’ said Lady Lucy. ‘Did it come to you that late on, that Mrs Colville was the killer?’
‘I should have seen it much earlier,’ said Powerscourt, ‘in so many cases the husband or the wife is the murderer of the other.’
‘And the money, Francis? All that money that disappeared out of the Colville company accounts?’
‘Well, I think I know what happened to that,’ Powerscourt replied. ‘You remember the French wife over in Burgundy saying her husband had been buying a lot of land, vineyards, that sort of thing? I don’t know if he put it in his French name or in the company name but that’s where the money went.’
He paused for a moment. ‘There is one thing I’m not sure about, and that is the mysterious Frenchman, the one who spent the night in Cawston and took a cab over to Brympton Hall for the wedding the next morning. I’m sure he was real, those two in the hotel were trustworthy people. Perhaps he lost his nerve in a strange place where he didn’t understand a word anybody said to him. Perhaps he thought he would be exposed and ran away before he was caught.’