‘All I know is that the body was still warm when I touched it,’ he said.
‘But it was a warm night, wasn’t it?’
‘It was.’
‘And you have said that you are no expert. The heat of the body would prove nothing—except to an expert, that is—now would it, Mr. Stebbs?’
‘I’ve only told you what I noticed.’
‘And was there anything else you noticed—Lady Anne, for instance?’
‘No. She was right over on the other side of the tent.’
Mr. Das was no longer smiling at Harold. Head back, he was staring vacantly at the ceiling where the fan kept giving a half turn or two, and then stopping short again.
‘Are you and Lady Anne what might be called independent witnesses?’ he asked.
The Chief Justice stirred himself and pushed his glasses further up his nose: he found that he was always heard better when he was wearing his glasses properly.
‘I don’t understand you.’
‘There was no arrangement between you?’
‘None whatsoever.’
‘No special understanding?’
‘I have told you. None.’
Mr. Das’s eyes had returned to him now.
‘But you are friends, are you not?’
‘Yes. We are friends.’
‘Close friends?’
‘I suppose you could call it that.’
‘I don’t call it anything, Mr. Stebbs. I want you to tell me what your relations were.’
He paused.
‘Were they intimate?’
Mr. Ngono was suddenly leaning so far forward that he was blotting out everything. The chief cashier, whose view he was totally blocking, touched him on the shoulder again. But, this time, Mr. Ngono did not move. In his excitement, he did not even notice.
‘We didn’t see a great deal of each other, if that’s what you mean.’
‘It is not in the least what I mean,’ Mr. Das replied. ‘I was using the word in its more specific legal sense.’
Mr. Ngono drew in his breath sharply. Mr. Das’s question must mean that Mr. Talefwa had told him everything, simply stolen his confidences and used them for his own purposes. Mr. Ngono hated Mr. Talefwa.
‘Do you understand my meaning now?’ Mr. Das asked.
The familiar smile was there when he put the question. It was still there while he waited for the reply. The Court had gone very quiet again.
‘I do.’
Harold could feel his heart bumping as he said the words.
‘And what is your answer?’
‘No. It is not true.’
Mr. Das’s smile changed somewhat. It now seemed somehow toothier.
‘I want to avoid any possibility of misunderstanding on this point,’ he said. ‘I will therefore re-phrase my question.’
He halted deliberately.
‘Were you]and Lady Anne lovers?’ he asked.
Harold could not remember afterwards whether he had actually denied it. He had been ready to do so: that much was certain. There were some things that Mr. Das would never be able to drag out of him.
But, at that moment, there was an interruption.
It came from inside the dock itself. His white cloth slipping off him, Old Moses struggled up from his chair. Now that he was upright, he looked more gaunt and scarecrow-like than ever. Pursing up his withered, crinkled lips, he spat on the floor at Mr. Das’s feet.
Chapter 44
Harold and the Attorney-General were cool at last. Bathed and changed, they were out on the verandah of the Milner Club, and the breeze that had come up had just begun to set the corners of the table-cloths flapping. The air usually got moving in this way after dusk, when it was too late to be of real use to anybody.
‘Pity the C.J. isn’t here,’ the Attorney General remarked reflectively. ‘But he’s awfully strict about it. No mixing while the case is on.’
Over in the lighted doorway of the clubhouse, one of the bar boys was standing. While he was still speaking, the Attorney-General made a circular, signalling movement with his hand to indicate that another round was needed.
‘Well, I can tell you one thing,’ Harold said. ‘If he hadn’t spat at him, I think I’d have done myself.’
The Attorney-General shook his head.
‘You did very well,’ he told him. ‘Just the right note of indignation. Keep it up that way.’
‘Dirty little swine.’
‘Oh, I don’t know about that,’ he replied. ‘Only doing his job. Trying to establish conspiracy. Not a bad idea. Lots of juries fall for it.’
‘He didn’t have to bring her into it—not like that, he didn’t.’
The Attorney-General was playing with the sugar-bowl. It was one of the new kind, with telescopic tongs fitted into the electro-plated lid. He was selecting specially inaccessible lumps, and endeavouring to capture them.
‘Been expecting it,’ he replied. ‘Got to make everything at the top seem as rotten as possible. It’s just African politics.’
‘Well, it won’t work.’
The Attorney-General paused.
‘I’d rather have had an all-white jury,’ he said.
Harold was silent for a moment.
‘How long’ll it go on?’ he asked.
‘A couple of days. May run into next week. All depends on him. It could be finished tomorrow.’
‘Think Lady Anne’ll be all right?’
‘Don’t see why she shouldn’t be. It’s not like the A.D.C. She isn’t trying to cover anything up.’
‘Not exactly nice for her, though.’
‘Said she wanted to be called. Told me so herself. Probably been looking forward to it. Pure revenge, of course. Women are like that.’
‘She isn’t,’ Harold told him. ‘She can’t bear people getting hurt.’
But the Attorney-General wasn’t listening.
‘Got it,’ he said.
And, to prove what he was claiming, he showed Harold a particularly small, wedge-shaped lump nipped in the end of the new, patent sugar tongs.
The arrangements for getting Lady Anne to the Court had all been worked out with Sybil Prosser.
A car was to be waiting at Crown Cottage from nine-forty-five onwards and, when Lady Anne reached the courthouse, she was to be taken straight up to the Chief Justice’s ante-room: it had been set aside for her for as long as she should be inside the precincts. The Chief Justice himself had volunteered to use the other door straight out into the corridor.
It was only now, with the Usher calling everyone to order, that the Chief Justice realised what his gesture had cost him: it meant that he was entirely cut off from his own private washroom.
Punctually at ten o’clock, he addressed the Court.
‘It is not possible to prescribe an exact timetable for any trial,’ he said. ‘Nor would it be my wish to do so. Events must be unfolded as the discretion of Counsel dictates. A short trial, a hurried trial, a trial in which examination is skimmed-over or, worse still, avoided altogether, will always be a bad trial. It is the absolute privilege of the defence to advance all arguments, and elicit all available facts, so that the accused may be given a fair hearing, and proper representations be made on his behalf.’
The Chief Justice paused, as much for breath as to emphasise what he had just uttered. He already rehearsed the piece that morning while he was shaving, and he had the whole thing word perfect.
‘Nevertheless,’ he went on, ‘I must remind Counsel of the condition of the next witness that the Crown will call. She is a lady recently widowed. She has suffered profound shock from the very circumstances which bring her here. Her health, I am advised, is still precarious. I will therefore ask Counsel on both sides to show every consideration, and not detain the lady any longer in the witness-box than the pursuit of strictly relevant information may require.’
The Attorney-General’s eyes had been half-closed while the Chief Justice had been speaking. Now they were open again. The Chief
Justice had given no warning of the address; the Attorney-General had, indeed, been rather surprised when the little lecture had begun. But it had certainly finished up all right. That bit about ‘the pursuit of strictly relevant information’ had clearly been aimed at Mr. Das; and very well aimed, too.
The Attorney-General bowed towards the bench.
‘I am most grateful to you, m’lud, for having spoken,’ he said. ‘The delicate state of the health of the witness had, of course, been in the very forefront of my mind when deliberating on whether or not to call her. I will do my utmost to ensure that your Lordship’s wishes are in every respect complied with.’
The Chief Justice bowed back in turn, and it was Mr. Das’s chance to catch his eye.
‘With your Lordship’s approval, I shall endeavour to be brief,’ he said. ‘Very brief indeed, m’lud.’
For that, he got his own return bow from the Chief Justice. It was not much of one, however; more of a nod than a bow, really.
‘Call Lady Anne Hackforth.’
It was the moment for which everyone had been waiting.
With the blinds drawn at all the windows, the light in the courtroom was placid and subdued. Then, at the side, a door opened. Behind it was the bare corridor, sunlit and white-painted. And, into the frame of the doorway, came Lady Anne.
Mr. Ngono thought that he had never seen anything so beautiful. Lady Anne was veiled, and all in black. The white handkerchief that she was carrying made the blackness seem blacker still. And beneath the dark lace-work of the veiling, her face showed white like the handker-chief. She was walking slowly, her head bent forward, hands clasped in front of her.
The Court now had gone entirely silent. It was the presence of widowhood, of bereavement, that had subdued it. There was a hush over everything, and even Mr. Das’s smile had disappeared.
Harold leant forward.
‘Oh, God,’ he was thinking. ‘They shouldn’t have let her come. She’ll never stand it. Not on top of everything else. It’ll kill her.’
The door, through which Lady Anne had just entered, was already closing when it was pushed violently open again, and Sybil Prosser appeared. Somewhere, pinned behind it, was the Court Usher: he was protesting. But Sybil Prosser ignored him. She went over to Lady Anne and put her arm round her. The usher opened the door of the witness box.
‘Please be seated, Lady Anne.’ It was the Chief Justice who was speaking. ‘The Court has been told that you have not been well.’
Lady Anne did not move. She stood there, her hands resting on the rail in front of her, swaying slightly. The Chief Justice noticed that she had not raised her head since she had come in; all that he could see was the pale forehead, and the veil covering it. He began to wonder if she had even heard him.
He was just about to address her again when he saw that her lips were moving.
‘Thank you,’ she said, ‘but I am quite strong enough to stand.’
Her voice was so low, so faint, that the Chief Justice found himself leaning forward so that he could hear her.
‘Very well,’ he replied. ‘But if, at any time, you should become fatigued, you are to tell me. I have already expressed my wish that, in every way possible, you are to be spared all unnecessary strain.’
He caught the Attorney-General’s eye as he was speaking. The Attorney-General half-rose from his seat and obediently bowed back.
‘You may proceed,’ the Chief Justice told him.
The Attorney-General was gentle, very gentle. He might have been a kind teacher coaxing a nervous pupil. It was obvious that he was there simply to help her. And, bit by bit, her story pieced together.
She had been asleep. It must have been somewhere towards three in the morning, because she had given Sybil Prosser her medicine at two-thirty. Then she had gone back to bed again. But, tired as she was, she had wakened suddenly. Whatever it was that had disturbed her, she had felt frightened. It was like something being knocked over, she said, or something heavy bumping against Sir Gardnor’s desk. She had even wondered if it might be a wild animal that had got into the tent. She had never liked the shooting of any game, she told them, and the thought had crossed her mind that it might be the mate of the leopard that Sir Gardnor had just killed.
No, she had not heard anything spoken; there hadn’t been voices of any kind. It was simply because she was aware that someone, or something, was moving about that she had got up. In the ordinary way, she would have called out to ask if Sir Gardnor was all right: she couldn’t do that, however, because she had Sybil Prosser asleep in the bed alongside hers. It had not worried her in the least that at three a.m. Sir Gardnor should still be working: she had known him many times sit up at his desk practically all night. It was just that this time it had been different: she had felt that there was something wrong. That was why she had left her own sleeping tent, and had gone through into the main marquee.
‘And what did you see when you got there?’
The Attorney-General waited, but there was no reply. Lady Anne had her handkerchief pressed up against her eyes.
‘I am sorry that this should be so painful,’ the Attorney-General assured her. ‘Please take your time. Take your time, and then tell me in your own words.’
Lady Anne was sobbing quite audibly by now, and the Chief Justice was becoming concerned for her.
‘Are you sure you are all right, Lady Anne?’ he asked. ‘I can adjourn the Court if you so wish.’
But Lady Anne only shook her head.
‘I can go on now,’ she said.
‘Then will you please tell me what you saw?’ the Attorney-General asked in the same quiet, almost wheedling, tone of voice.
Lady Anne brought her hand down from her face, and took hold of the rail to steady herself. She was looking out into the Court now: it was the first time since she had entered the witness-box that she had raised her head.
‘I saw my husband,’ she said. ‘He was in his usual chair where he had been sitting when I said good-night to him. Only he wasn’t moving. And there was… there was… there was blood all over him.’
She was crying again by now, and the Attorney-General waited patiently for her to recover sufficiently to continue.
‘Was anyone with your husband?’ he asked.
Lady Anne nodded.
‘Yes.’
‘Who was that person?’
The pause was a long one this time. It was as though Lady Anne could not bring herself to utter the name.
‘Old Moses.’
The Chief Justice was leaning right forward again. He was anxious to miss nothing, and Lady Anne’s last answer seemed to have been breathed rather than actually spoken.
‘And what was Old Moses doing?’
The Chief Justice could see that her lips were moving, but he could hear no sound. It seemed that she was unable to form the words. Then she recovered herself.
‘He was leaning on him,’ she said, ‘pressing down on him, doing something to his neck. There was a lot of blood on his hands, too.’ She paused. ‘He didn’t see me at first.’
‘And then?’
‘I screamed. I just stood there, and screamed. I couldn’t do anything. I could only scream. That was when Mr. Stebbs came in.’
‘How much later would that be?’
‘I don’t know. I can’t remember.’
Her words were suddenly coming faster. She had raised her voice now: it was the first time the Chief Justice had been able to hear her properly.
‘I can’t remember anything about that night. It was all too awful. I don’t want to remember. I just want to be dead myself so that I can forget about it.’
The Attorney-General raised his hand and coughed into it.
‘Thank you, Lady Anne,’ he said. ‘I shall not trouble you any further.’
While he was still speaking, Sybil Prosser had gone across to the witness box. She might have been a nurse in attendance. Pushing back Lady Anne’s veil, she fed her like a baby with little sips of w
ater from the glass that had been placed on the ledge beside her.
The Chief Justice tapped with his pencil.
‘I must ask that the witness should receive no further assistance here in Court,’ he said. ‘If Lady Anne’s Counsel sees fit to ask for an adjournment, I have already said that I am ready to grant it.’
It was Lady Anne who shook her head.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, faintly. ‘I am quite ready to go on. It’s only that I thought that… that it was all over.’
The Chief Justice looked hard at her for a moment. He was worried; another outburst like the last one, and he would refuse to allow her to go on. But she seemed to be composed enough now. She had lowered her head again and her hands were back on the rail in front of her.
Reluctantly, the Chief Justice turned, and nodded in Mr. Das’s direction. Mr. Das rose slowly, far slower than he had risen for the other witnesses. He was diffident and apologetic. Even his bow seemed humble.
‘Lady Anne,’ he said, ‘it grieves me very much that I should have to question you at all. You must believe me when I say that it is deeply painful for me, too. I would have wished to spare you anything more. But my duty requires it.’
He paused.
‘Would you please, Lady Anne, fold back that veil that you are wearing?’
The Attorney-General was immediately on his feet.
‘M’lud,’ he began, ‘I must protest most strongly. Can it really be necessary that…’
This was an entirely different Attorney-General: a fiery one. His voice had just the right edge on it. He was using his arms very effectively, too.
But he need not have troubled even to have risen. Lady Anne had already thrown back her veil. She had thrust her hand under it angrily, as though it were in her way. And she had raised her head again.
Mr. Das bowed back to her.
‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘That is much better. Now we can see each other.’
He paused. It was an even longer pause than last time. He simply stood there, his eyes fixed upon her.
Then his smile returned.
‘Lady Anne,’ he asked, ‘was it you who murdered your husband?’
Chapter 45
The Court was now deserted, except for the cleaners. These were divided into two bands. The first was going round with watering-cans and a bowl of canteen tea-leaves to lay the dust. Behind them came their superiors with the brooms. They were gathering up the wet sludge that was all that remained of the thin reddish powder from the loose gravel in the entrance drive. The operation was performed daily. If anyone even walked along the drive, he was followed by a cloud of dust that seeped endlessly in under the doors and through the Works Department woodwork of the window frames. The air vents were frequently clogged solid.
The Governor's Lady Page 30
