‘Well, I shouldn’t keep them long,’ he muttered. ‘I’m only here to describe the lay-out of the place. You’d have thought a sketch-plan would do.’
The slats of the Venetian blind were bent permanently downwards at the centre where others before him had tried to make the time go faster by peering out into the scorching expanse of red gravel where the cars were parked.
‘Calling Mr. Anthony Henley. Calling Mr. Anthony Henley.’
The voice was getting louder as the messenger approached them down the corridor. It stopped outside. Then the door was pushed open. The khaki uniform with the shorts and the rolled shirt sleeves looked very smart against the surrounding shabbiness of the waiting-room.
‘Mr. Henley, saah. All ready for you.’
The A.D.C. buttoned up his jacket and straightened himself.
‘Can’t say they’ve exactly hurried themselves,’ he remarked.
Harold tilted his chair further backwards: it was now as far over as it was safe to go.
‘Good luck,’ he said. ‘Don’t forget: remind them I’m still here.’
He hadn’t even opened his eyes while he was speaking.
The big centre fan in the ceiling of the Courtroom gave out a harsh, juddering note, and stopped revolving. There was nothing really wrong with it, nothing broken. It was simply that the motor, the bearings, everything, had become overheated: when they had cooled down a bit it would start going round again.
The Attorney-General paused. Because everyone was gazing upwards to see in what position the blades had stuck, he had for the moment lost the Court’s attention.
‘Mr. Henley, you have just told the Court that you had to slip out for a few moments,’ he resumed.
He made the observation as though, in that heat, he appreciated that the jury could hardly be expected to remember such things unless they were repeated for them.
‘And how long would you say you were absent?’
‘About five minutes.’
‘About five minutes. Did anybody see you go?’
‘Not that I’m aware of, sir.’
‘Sir Gardnor, for instance? Could he have seen you?’
‘No sir. He was at his desk. Facing the other way. I didn’t have to go past him.’
‘And was there anyone else in the main tent at the time? I’m not referring to the ladies; you have said their quarters were separate. In the main tent, remember.’
‘Only… only Old Moses, sir.’
The A.D.C. said the name as though he were reluctant to mention it: he kept his eyes carefully away from the dock while he was speaking.
‘And was Old Moses, as you call him, awake?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘How do you know? Did you see him?’
‘No, sir. It was just that I could hear him moving about.’
‘At three o’clock in the morning?’
‘He was always around, sir, in case Sir Gardnor needed anything. He never turned in until after Sir Gardnor had gone to bed.’
‘And you are certain you heard him?’
‘Quite certain, sir. Sir Gardnor called out to him, I think he wanted a drink, or something.’
‘And did you hear Old Moses reply?’
The A.D.C. paused.
‘Not exactly reply, sir. There was the sound of a soda-water bottle being opened up. And then I heard a glass or something being put down.’
‘Was that all?’
‘I heard Sir Gardnor say “thank you”.’
‘So Old Moses was at the desk right beside him, was he?’
‘He must have been.’
‘And when you left, there was no one else there?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Just Sir Gardnor and Old Moses?’
The Attorney General paused.
‘Sir Gardnor, and Old Moses at the desk close beside him?’ he repeated slowly.
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Thank you. That is all.’
The A.D.C. took out his handkerchief and passed it across his forehead. Then, he ran his finger around the back of his neck inside the collar. He hadn’t liked what the Attorney-General had made him say. So far as he was concerned, Old Moses had been part of the household, a fixture: the Residency, in his day, couldn’t have got on without him.
But Mr. Das was already on his feet. He had made his usual little bow, and was now smiling engagingly in the direction of the A.D.C.
‘How long did you know Sir Gardnor?’ he asked.
‘About six years. I had the honour to serve him for three.’
‘Three happy years?’
‘Very.’
‘Throughout the whole time?’
‘Throughout.’
‘No disagreements?’
‘None whatsoever.’
‘Then you were looking forward to future service with him?’
‘I was.’
‘Did Sir Gardnor ever mention the probability of his Delhi appointment to you?’
‘He did.’
‘And were you to accompany him?’
‘I don’t know. We never discussed it.’
‘That’s rather strange, isn’t it?’
Mr. Das’s smile had disappeared. He was now frowning as though completely mystified.
‘Three years together,’ he continued. ‘Three happy years. No disagreements of any kind. And not a word about remaining with him. Now why was that?’
The Chief Justice thrust his spectacles down to the end of his nose, and looked across at Mr. Das. The gesture was a slight one. But it was sufficient. Mr. Das faced immediately towards him.
‘M’lud?’ he asked.
The Chief Justice’s finger was raised in the air while he was speaking.
‘Mr. Das,’ he told him. ‘I have been listening very carefully to your questions, and I am not happy about them. They are leading nowhere but into conjecture. And that I shall not allow. Mr. Henley cannot possibly tell you why Sir Gardnor did or did not mention this or that subject to him. The answer to your question is not to be discovered anywhere in this court-room, Mr. Das. What you are seeking can be found only in the grave.’
The Chief Justice paused long enough for the severity of his rebuke to be appreciated. Then he pushed his glasses back up his nose again as though nothing had happened.
‘You may proceed,’ he said.
Apart from his bow, Mr. Das gave no indication of having been aware that he had just been interrupted.
‘Mr. Henley,’ he said, as though the idea had been in his mind all the time, ‘I would like you to detach your mind entirely from Sir Gardnor, and consider only yourself.’
Because no direct question had been asked, the A.D.C. ignored him. Right from the start, he had made it perfectly clear that he was going to keep his answers to Mr. Das down to the strictest minimum.
‘You told the Court, did you not,’ Mr. Das continued, ‘that you “slipped out of the tent for a few moments”—I think those were the words. Now at what time would that have been?’
‘About three a.m. I didn’t actually look at my watch.’
‘And so far as you were aware nobody saw you go?’
‘That is so.’
‘So there is no witness as to the exact time?’
‘None that I know of.’
‘Did you leave hurriedly?’
‘No.’
‘Why did you leave at all?’
The A.D.C. lifted his chin a little, and drew down the corners of his mouth out of utter contempt for the man.
‘To go to the lavatory,’ he said.
Mr. Ngono found himself admiring the A.D.C. for the sheer straightforwardness of his answer. It must have been very embarrassing to have had to admit publicly that he had been taken short in the night like a child. Indeed, Mr. Ngono was rather surprised that Mr. Das should have thought of putting the question at all: the explanation was so perfectly obvious.
‘But was there no lavatory accommodation inside the tent?’ Mr. Das enquired, with just the r
ight note of incredulity creeping into his voice.
‘Are you telling me that Sir Gardnor had to leave by his own front door whenever he wanted to go to the lavatory?’
‘I am not telling you that.’
‘Then there was a lavatory inside the tent?’
‘There was.’
‘Didn’t Sir Gardnor allow you to use it?’
The Attorney-General gave a quick glance in Mr. Das’s direction. Up to that point, he had been quietly drawing on the back of a long envelope that had contained his brief. It was bridges that he drew mostly, while in Court listening to Defence Counsel: he had two arches already neatly finished—brickwork, headstone and all—and he was beginning to sketch in the outline of the long centre span. Now, pencil point posed above the thick manila paper, he waited: something told him that, at any moment, things would begin getting rougher.
‘The lavatory was for Sir Gardnor and his staff.’
‘And did you ever avail yourself of it?’
The corners of the A.D.C.’s mouth were drawn further down than ever by now: he was clearly disgusted by the whole line of Mr. Das’s questioning.
‘Of course.’
‘Then why did you not use it on this occasion?’
‘I didn’t want to disturb anyone.’
‘Very commendable, I’m sure.’
Mr. Das’s head was cocked a little to one side as he said it, and he was smiling. By now, it was a superior, slightly patronising kind of smile. The Attorney-General recognised it as all part of the reducing-a-witness process.
‘And which lavatory did you use?’ Mr. Das went on.
‘One of the outside ones.’
‘But which one? The officers’?’
‘No.’
‘Then was it the one for the other ranks?’
‘No.’
Mr. Das tilted his wig forward on his forehead again. The gesture was like a punctuation mark: it showed that he had come to the end of a whole paragraph in his enquiry. He cleared his throat quite unnecessarily before putting his next question.
‘There was only one other lavatory in the whole camp, Mr. Henley. That was the latrine for African servants. Was it the African latrine that you went to?’
Mr. Ngono, in his excitement, was leaning so far forward that the juror next to him had to tap him on the shoulder so that he would sit back a bit and let them all get a look.
‘It was.’
The voice in which the A.D.C. answered was so low as to be almost inaudible.
‘But that latrine was right on the other side of the camp, wasn’t it?’
The A.D.C. merely nodded.
‘About two hundred yards away, would you say?’
‘About that.’
‘And, when you reached it, how long did you stay there?’
‘I don’t remember.’
Mr. Das was delighted. It was what he had been waiting for. ‘Don’t remember’ was always a sure sign that the witness was concealing something. He decided to press on.
‘Then I will try to help you. Would it have been, shall we say, five minutes?’
‘Possibly.’
‘Or even longer? Ten minutes, perhaps?’
‘It could have been.’
‘Quarter-of-an-hour, then?’
‘I don’t know, I tell you. I wasn’t well. I was suffering from dysentery.’
Mr. Das went back onto his heels for a moment: he was rocking reflectively to and fro throughout the whole of his next question.
‘You tell me that in the small hours of the morning you had an attack of dysentery,’ he said. ‘With dysentery, when these attacks occur, you have to go to the lavatory immediately, do you not, Mr. Henley? It is not in the nature of the ailment to be able to hang about. Even so, you chose to go right past two near-by lavatories, both open and available to you, and walk across the entire width of the camp to the African latrine. Why did you do that, Mr. Henley?’
‘I didn’t want to run into anyone.’
‘And did you run into anyone?’
‘No.’
‘You didn’t encounter a soul in the whole course of your long walk?’
‘No.’
‘Or after you had got there?’
‘No.’
‘Are you sure, Mr. Henley?’
‘Quite sure.’
Mr. Das had been holding a bundle of papers in his hand while he was speaking. Now he suddenly threw the papers down on the table top in front of him. It was something that, more than once, he had seen other Counsel do. And it had never been known to fail. The whole Court had gone absolutely silent.
‘I put it to you that you did want to run into someone, Mr. Henley,’ he said. ‘Who was it that you went to meet?’
The A.D.C. was sweating again. He had gone damp and sticky all over. There was a signet ring on his left hand, and he kept twisting it nervously round between his thumb and forefinger.
Mr. Das took that for another good sign.
‘I didn’t go to meet anyone.’
Mr. Das paused.
‘Was the kitchen boy a friend of yours, Mr. Henley?’ he asked.
‘He was about the camp. I’d spoken to him.’
‘And was that as far as the friendship went?’
The A.D.C. drew down the corners of his mouth. He was staring straight at Mr. Das, looking him full in the eyes, and not answering. It was obvious that he did not intend to answer.
But this did not matter in the slightest. Mr. Das had been waiting, preparing for this moment, all the way along. And, now that it had come, he was ready for it.
Still with the same fixed smile upon his face, he started to address the A.D.C. again.
‘Mr. Henley,’ he said, ‘I put it to you that everything that you have said in this Court has been lies. All lies, and nothing but lies. It wasn’t an attack of dysentery that drove you from the tent, because you never had dysentery, did you? You left the tent because you wished to see someone. That someone was the kitchen boy. It was by prior arrangement that you met him, wasn’t it? And you chose the African latrine because it was so close to his quarters, so convenient for him. All that is correct, is it not, Mr. Henley?’
The sweat that had been forming on the A.D.C.’s face had begun to trickle. Even from where Mr. Ngono was sitting, he could see little rivulets running down. While Mr. Ngono watched, he saw the A.D.C. pass the back of his hand across his forehead: it came away glistening.
‘It is not correct.’
Mr. Das looked perfectly cool: he wasn’t even sweating.
‘I put it to you, Mr. Henley, that you were there to meet your accomplice. The accomplice was the kitchen boy. You had got it all worked out, hadn’t you?’
‘We’d got nothing worked out.’
The A.D.C. had interrupted at last. It did not, however, sound in the least like his own voice. Usually he was rather quietly spoken.
Mr. Das was not disconcerted. Eyes shut, he was reconstructing the whole affair.
‘Sir Gardnor had dropped you, hadn’t he?’ he went on, in the same musical voice that had annoyed the Chief Justice when he first heard it. ‘He was going to leave you behind, wasn’t he? And I put it to you that you had decided to get your own revenge. You had decided to kill him, hadn’t you?’
The Chief Justice raised his forefinger.
‘Do what to him, Mr. Das?’ he asked.
‘Kill him, m’lud.’
The Chief Justice lowered his hand again.
‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘I did not hear you. You may proceed.’
Mr. Das’s eyes were open by now.
‘And when you had killed him, stabbed him with his own paper-knife, you put the rest of your plan into operation. You had already bribed the kitchen boy, paid him money, hadn’t you, Mr. Henley? And for one reason and for one reason only—to put suspicion on himself by running away. You knew that he’d never be found again, not out there in all that jungle. That was why you met him in the latrine that night, wasn’t it? To tell him
that you’d done your bit.’
The A.D.C. had gone very pale.
‘No’ was all he said.
‘Then why did you meet him there?’ Mr. Das demanded.
At that moment, the centre fan gave a shudder that set the blades vibrating. The rattle made everyone look upwards. But there was nothing to see. The fan had started to revolve quite normally again.
Chapter 42
Dinner was now over, and Mr. Frith sat facing Mr. Drawbridge across the width of the small table at the end of the long dining-room.
It had been a short, simple sort of meal: in Sir Gardnor’s day there would have been two, possibly three, more courses. Also, the small table would never have been used at all. Whenever Mr. Frith had dined alone with Sir Gardnor, they had always been separated by an immense distance of mahogany, with the candlesticks and the silver pheasants and the big rose bowl cutting them off almost entirely from each other.
As it was, the smoke from the pipe that Mr. Drawbridge was lighting kept drifting into Mr. Frith’s face. It was an old pipe, charred round the rim, and burnt down on one side where the match always went. Lighting a pipe in the dining-room was another thing that would never have happened in Sir Gardnor’s day.
‘Did the right thing, of course,’ Mr. Drawbridge remarked. ‘Sent a note down asking us to excuse him. Said he would be staying in his room this evening.’
Mr. Frith roused himself. The day had been an exhausting one, just sitting there in Court listening. Now that it was finished, moments of sleepiness kept coming over him.
‘Don’t wonder,’ he replied. ‘Can’t see how he can live it down. Not after all that native latrine stuff.’
Mr. Drawbridge nodded.
‘Too bad really,’ he said. ‘I’m told everyone knew he was that way. But you don’t have to make a thing of it. Very dirty of Counsel to play it up like that.’
‘Dirty sort of Counsel,’ Mr. Frith observed. ‘That’s why they got him out here.’
‘All Talefwa’s doing, I suppose.’
Mr. Frith leant forward as though he were afraid of eavesdroppers.
‘Hand in glove,’ he replied. ‘Anyhow, the C.J. spotted it. Cuts him down to size, doesn’t it, just being interpreter?’
‘How did the jury take it—the bit about the A.D.C., I mean?’
‘Oh, they got the message all right. Probably all new to some of them. Weren’t all regular Residency types, you know.’
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