David Dickinson - Death of a wine merchant

Pugh had originally intended to let the early witnesses go, not to ask any questions at all. But the lack of weapons in his armoury left him no choice but to cross-examine them all. Doubt, he said to himself, doubt. I can’t possibly persuade them that Cosmo didn’t do it, I just need to plant some doubt. Enough doubt and I might get an acquittal if we’re lucky.

‘Mrs Nash,’ he began, trying to sound as friendly as he could, ‘did you say you had a hundred guests at this wedding? And how many of them were known to you personally, the guests I mean?’

‘I’m not sure I understand you,’ said Georgina Nash. ‘Are you suggesting that I didn’t know who I’d invited to my own daughter’s wedding?’

‘Not at all, Mrs Nash, I can’t have been making myself clear. Let me try again. I suggest that if there were a hundred guests, half were on your side and half on the Colville side. Roughly speaking that is. So you would probably have known all the guests invited on your side, and some, but probably not the majority, of those invited through the Colvilles. Would that be right?’

‘I see what you mean,’ said Georgina Nash. ‘Yes, that is more or less right.’

‘So, of the hundred guests drinking your champagne and looking for their tables in your Long Gallery, there might be about forty you did not know and had never met?’

‘If you choose to put it like that I suppose that must be the case.’

Georgina Nash didn’t sound happy at being represented as the principal hostess at a party of a hundred where forty of them were completely unknown to her.

‘So these people could have been English or French or of any nationality at all?’ Pugh was determined to introduce the notion of a villainous Frenchman, garlic-chewing if possible, beret-wearing, onion-carrying, frog’s-legs-munching, into the minds of the jury.

‘I’m pretty sure they were all English, British anyway,’ Georgina Nash said loyally.

Pugh made a non-committal sort of noise that hinted at disbelief, a sound referred to by his junior as a muted grunt. ‘Could you enlighten us, Mrs Nash, about the various entrances and exits to the Long Gallery? It is the contention of the defence that a person or persons unknown may have made their way into your grand room, killed the unfortunate Mr Colville and made his escape long before the police arrived on the scene. Could you enlighten us about the principal ways in and out? We don’t need to know about the back stairs.’

‘Well,’ said Georgina Nash, ‘the principal way in is up the main staircase in the Great Hall – that’s the route the guests were taking. Then there’s a smaller staircase at the far end of the Long Gallery near the lake. And there’s another little staircase out of the state bedroom itself, now I come to think of it.’

‘So, Mrs Nash,’ said Pugh, taking delivery of a diagram of the first floor of Brympton Hall from Richard Napier and pointing to the relevant sections as he referred to them. ‘Here is the main staircase, slightly set back from the Long Gallery, here is the little staircase at the other end of the room, and here is another, a third staircase, in the very room where the murder was committed.’ Pugh had moved right over to the jury benches and showed them the various staircases on his diagram. He left the illustration with the foreman of the jury in case they needed to refer to it in the future.

Mrs Nash did not say anything. She was beginning to feel that this whole business of giving evidence was rather distasteful. Pugh pressed on. ‘Let me try, Mrs Nash, if I may, to pull together some of the strands of your evidence. On your own account, there were approximately forty people roaming around at your wedding reception that you had never seen before. And we have seen from the diagram of your beautiful house that there are three separate ways in and out of the relevant rooms a murderer among the forty unknowns could have used to kill Randolph Colville and make his escape.’

‘Objection, my lord.’ Sir Jasper was on his feet. ‘This is pure speculation, my lord, almost fantasy. My learned friend has no more proper evidence for saying these things than I would have for saying the earth is flat.’

‘Mr Pugh?’ A judicial pencil span rapidly through judicial fingers.

‘I was merely trying to point out to the members of the jury that Mr Colville could have been murdered in a completely different fashion to that put forward by the prosecution.’

‘Objection overruled,’ said the judge, ‘but try to confine your comments to the facts in future, Mr Pugh. Carry on.’

‘I have no further questions for this witness,’ said Pugh, bowing slightly to Mrs Nash. He had, he thought, done as much damage as he was capable of to the prosecution case. But his victory over the objection, he suspected, was Pyrrhic. These tactics of suggestion and innuendo were all he had until Powerscourt returned. Maybe they would still be all he had after Powerscourt returned.

Sir Jasper moved majestically on. Charlie Healey, the Nash butler, was in the witness box now, being guided through his role on the day of the murder. Pugh waited until the police had been called and Charlie’s role returned to that of attendant lord rather than major player. Sir Jasper looked particularly pleased with himself as he sat down.

‘Am I right in thinking, Mr Healey,’ said Pugh genially, ‘that you were a military man before you turned butler?’

‘I was, sir. I was a sergeant in the Blues and Royals.’

‘A most responsible position, I’m sure. I want to concentrate on the events immediately before and after the murder, if I may.’

‘Very good, sir.’ Charlie Healey looked at Pugh as if he were a detachment of hostile cavalry dimly seen in the distance but approaching fast.

‘Can you tell us exactly where you were when you heard the shot, Mr Healey?’

‘I was at the far end of the Long Gallery, trying to get people seated in their proper places, sir.’

‘And with your military experience, you knew immediately that it was gunshot?’

‘I did, sir,’ said Charlie Healey, wondering where this elegantly dressed lawyer was trying to take him.

‘But let us be clear on this point, Mr Healey. You didn’t see the gun, you didn’t see anybody pull the trigger.’

‘I did not, sir.’

‘And at this point, you told my learned friend, you hurried as fast as you could towards the direction of the gunfire.’

‘I did, sir,’ said Charlie, ‘I wanted to make sure there weren’t any more shots.’

‘Quite right, Mr Healey, quite right. Perhaps you could tell the court precisely what you saw when you went into the state bedroom on the far side of the house from the Long Gallery.’

‘Yes, sir,’ said Charlie. ‘It was like a tableau, so it was, everything sort of frozen. Mr Randolph Colville lying on the floor, looking very dead with blood trickling out on to the carpet, and Mr Cosmo locked into the chair opposite with the gun in his hand. I managed to get the gun off him and sent word to the master about what had happened.’

‘I’m sure you behaved very properly, Mr Healey,’ said Pugh, who suspected that a witness like Charlie would make a very good impression on the jury. ‘But could we just be clear on a couple of points? You saw the defendant with the gun in his hand. But you didn’t see him fire it, did you?’

‘No, sir, I did not.’

‘And, to the best of your knowledge, the gun could have been fired by some other person or persons unknown who made good their escape down the stairs in the state bedroom, so convenient as that was the room where the murder was committed. Is that not the case, Mr Healey?’

‘If you put it like that,’ said Charlie defensively, ‘then I suppose it could have happened in that way.’