Dennis Wheatley - The Shadow of Tyburn Tree

"Bless you, my boy!" the Colonel started up, clutching at this straw. "I would go with her, wherever she was sent. Anything would be better than what she faces now—anything!"

"But we need time for this," Roger hurried on. "We'll have to rake up all the excesses of Sir Humphrey's past and brief Counsel on entirely new lines. In fact, it virtually means asking for the case to be retried."

Colonel Thursby sank back with a groan. "Nay. I fear that after all 'tis useless. The judge would never grant an adjournment at this stage, unless we could produce at least some evidence in support of our new line of defence. Could we but bring a doctor into court to­morrow morning to swear that he had noticed signs of insanity in Humphrey, we should be given time to collect proof that he was really mad. But we cannot. Neither, were we granted the time, could we collect the proof. If drinking like a fish and reckless riding are to be accounted signs of lunacy, then half the squires in England would be chained to the walls of Bedlam."

"In Sir Humphrey's case 'twas not excessive drinking and hard riding alone," Roger persisted. "Towards the end his mind was definitely affected. He had a mania that Georgina was making a fool of him, and when he burst into her room he acted like a madman. I'll swear to that."

"You cannot, without- revealing your presence there."

"I'll do so then. I would venture anything on a chance that Georgina's sentence may be transportation rather than a hanging."

The Colonel wrung his hands. Oh, Roger, my boy, I know you would; and all my instincts urge me to let you make the attempt. But 'tis, now that I must strive to keep a level head for both of us. Do you not see that even if the judge granted an adjournment, at the end of it we'd still have no solid evidence that we could bring to establish Humphrey's madness. Then, when the case reopened, your part in this affair would be uncovered by the prosecution. You would find yourself in the dock beside Georgina. As two lovers accused of doing her husband to death between you, what chance would either of you stand?"

"None, I fear," agreed Roger miserably.

For a few moments they sat silent, then he burst out: "Yet, by hook or by crook, an adjournment we must get. Even in a week much could be done. We could find ways and means to throw discredit on the prosecution's witnesses. We could create a belief that Georgina went in terror of her husband, even if we have to bribe fresh witnesses of our own to say so. We could engage new Counsel to present the de­fence from a different angle. But all these things need time—time— time!"

" 'Tis the same thought that has haunted me these past three weeks," sighed the Colonel. "Yet, had I had longer, I know not what more I could have done; or even now if these measures you propose would prove effective. They sound so simple, but I fear you would find them far from easy of accomplishment."

Roger suddenly snapped his fingers. "I have it! I will go to the Prime Minister. As the King's first representative he must surely have the power to order the adjournment of a trial for a week."

Colonel Thursby did not seek to dissuade him. His own belief was, that although the Royal prerogative enabled the King to pardon a convicted person, if he wished, not even he had the right to stay the course of British justice once it was set in motion. Yet the Colonel, worn out as he was himself, could still sympathise with Roger's terrible urge to take some form of action, and thought it better that he should set out on a futile errand than remain inactive at the mercy of his heartrending thoughts.

Grabbing his hat and cloak, Roger promised that he would come back as soon as he could, and ran downstairs. As there was no hackney coach in sight, he dashed round to the mews at the back of the house, shouted for his old friend Tomkins, the Colonel's coachman, and told him to harness a pair of horses to a carriage. By half-past six he was back in Downing Street.

His luck was in to the extent that the Prime Minister had just finish­ed dinner and was about to go across to the House, so consented to give him a few minutes before leaving, but there it ended. Pitt was gentle but adamant.

He said that if Roger was dissatisfied with the course that the case had taken, that alone, as a member of the public, gave him no right whatever to intervene. If he had private knowledge of the circum­stances in which Sir Humphrey Etheredge had met his death, then it was his duty to disclose it. As far as he, the Prime Minister was con­cerned, even with the best will in the world, he could not instruct a judge to adjourn a case upon which he was already sitting. The only means by which an adjournment could be secured was by an appli­cation to submit fresh evidence before the judge ordered the jury to find a verdict.

"Fresh evidence!" "Time!" "Fresh evidence!" "Time!" were the words that hammered like the loud ticking of a clock in Roger's over­wrought brain. How, without worsening Georgina's desperate position, by making it public that she had had a lover with her in her bedroom who had helped to bring about her husband's death, could he produce the one and secure the other?

Suddenly he saw that there was only one person in the world who, if he chose, could stave off the apparent inevitability of the judge donning the black cap and pronouncing the death sentence on Georgina the foDowing morning. It was Vorontzoff. His enemy had been the first to arrive in the room and find Georgina kneeling by her dead husband's body. If he could be cajoled, bribed or bullied into retracting the evid­ence he had already given, and making a fresh statement, the situation might yet be saved.

For a further ten minutes Roger talked to Pitt, asking his advice on the legal aspects of certain courses which might be pursued. With some reluctance Pitt agreed that one of them was worth attempting; then he added:

"To approve what you have in mind is not consonant with my status as a barrister-at-law, and even less so with my functions as a Minister of the Crown. Yet, from what you tell me, I realise that you are driven to this extremity out of an attachment which combines the highest feelings of a brother, friend and lover. In such a case I cannot find it in myself to put a restraint upon you. Officially, I must know nothing of this matter, but as a friend I hope that you will succeed in your unorthodox endeavour to unveil the truth and establish Lady Etheredge's innocence."

*****

Side by side they went downstairs to their respective carriages. Britain's great Prime Minister, sitting stiff-necked and unbending, as usual, drove the short distance to the House of Commons; while Roger directed Colonel Thursby's coachman to Amesbury House.

For the past three hours he had not given a single thought to Natalia Andreovna. Now, as he walked up the steps of the mansion it struck him that on this, their first night in England, he would have once more to plead urgent business as an excuse for leaving her. But he was not called upon to do so.

On entering the drawing-room, where several members of the family and their friends staying in the house were assembled round a dish of after-dinner tea, the old Marquess told him that when they had finished dinner, as he had not returned, Natalia had expressed a wish to take a drive round Piccadilly and the Parks to see them for the first time in the evening light. She had excused herself from accepting an offer that one of them should accompany her, on the plea that Roger would be disappointed if, during her first outing in London, anyone but himself showed her the sights. So, in order to indulge this whimsy of his foreign guest, the Marquess had sent for his second coachman, who spoke a little French, and told him to take her for an hour's drive round the town.