Death of an Old Master (43 page)

‘Objection overruled. But I warn you, Mr Pugh, that I shall expect some evidence from you that this was the case.’

‘Yes, my lord, I believe we shall be able to satisfy you on that score. I have no more questions for Mrs Buckley for the moment. With your permission, my lord, I would like to call Miss
Alice Bridge.’

The judge grunted and fiddled with his pens.

‘I, Alice Bridge, do solemnly swear that the evidence I shall give is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.’

Powerscourt looked around the visitors in the public gallery. Was the formidable Mrs Bridge in court? Pugh was several steps ahead of him. He had already spotted Mrs Bridge from
Powerscourt’s description, staring at the proceedings through her lorgnette, her vast bosom protruding into the courtroom. He edged a pace or two to his left, blocking out all sight of
mother.

‘Miss Bridge,’ Pugh began, ‘I believe you too were a friend of Christopher Montague?’

The girl blushed slightly. ‘I was.’

‘And how long had your friendship been going on?’

‘A little over four months.’ Alice Bridge had brought a diary to court in case she needed it, a diary that detailed every single meeting she ever had with Christopher Montague.

‘Would you have described yourself as a passing acquaintance? A friend you might bump into from time to time? Or was it more substantial than that?’

Powerscourt looked round. Mrs Bridge was twisting herself into contortions as she tried to catch her daughter’s eye. But Charles Augustus Pugh’s broad well-tailored back stood
between her and her daughter.

‘It was more substantial than that, sir.’ Alice Bridge was speaking quite confidently now.

‘Would you have said that you were intimate with Mr Montague, that you were lovers?’ Pugh was speaking very slowly, looking closely at the jury.

‘I would,’ said Alice Bridge proudly, now staring in triumph at the grey figure of Rosalind Buckley.

‘Had Christopher Montague, and I don’t need to remind you, Miss Bridge, that you are under oath here . . .’ Pugh paused so the jury could appreciate what he knew was coming
next. ‘. . . had he asked you to marry him?’

Alice Bridge did not hesitate. ‘He had. We were planning to marry in St James’s, Piccadilly, sir.’

There was a mighty snort at the back of the court. Mrs Bridge had risen to her feet and was trying to make her way forward to the witness box. ‘What nonsense, child,’ she began. The
judge smashed his gavel on to his desk.

‘Silence in court! Remove that woman! At once! She is interfering with the course of justice!’

Two officers of the court moved swiftly. ‘I am her mother, she’s only a child . . .’ Mrs Bridge’s voice just reached the front of the court as she was led away.

‘This is not your drawing room, madam!’ Mr Justice Browne was furious. ‘It is a court of law!’ He paused and wiped his brow with a large blue handkerchief. ‘Mr
Pugh.’

‘So,’ said Pugh, ‘you were planning to marry. Were you also planning to have children, Miss Bridge? Children who would have been legitimate rather than bastards?’

‘We were.’ Alice Bridge’s replies were firmer with the removal of her mother.

‘One final question for you, Miss Bridge.’ Pugh was caressing her with his eyes, the fingers of his right hand playing another imaginary piano concerto on his gown. ‘As far as
you know, had Mr Montague told Mrs Buckley about your relationship?’

‘He had,’ said the girl.

‘How can you be sure?’ asked Pugh.

‘Mr Montague showed me bits of the letters she wrote him. She said he’d betrayed her, that her life was ruined.’

‘Thank you, Miss Bridge. No further questions.’

Sir Rufus had the sense that he was being outmanoeuvred again. He rose slowly to his feet. ‘Miss Bridge,’ he began, ‘would you describe yourself as a truthful
person?’

‘Objection, my lord.’ Pugh realized he might be able to throw Fitch off balance if he protested right at the beginning of the cross-examination. ‘Unfair line of
questioning.’

‘Objection overruled. Sir Rufus.’ The judge looked stern. Up in the press area one or two of the reporters were looking at the two women. Lucky Montague, they thought to themselves.
Not just one beautiful woman, but two.

‘I put it to you, Miss Bridge, that your entire story is pure fantasy, the kind of thing young girls have daydreams about, the kind of thing they enjoy reading about in the magazines and
popular fiction. Is that not so?’

The girl did not blush. She did not look down. She was, for once, her mother’s daughter. She felled Fitch with six words, looking him up and down as if he had come to clean the coal
cellar. ‘No, Sir Rufus, it is not.’

She smiled at Pugh. Fitch felt he should beat a retreat. ‘No further questions,’ he said and sat down grumpily in his chair.

This, Pugh, knew, was the trickiest bit of all. Mrs Buckley was recalled to the witness stand.

‘Mrs Buckley, you have heard the statement from Miss Bridge. Is it true?’

There was a long pause. A whole series of emotions, fear, doubt, anger passed across her face. Pugh hoped the jury were watching carefully. At last Rosalind Buckley spoke.

‘No,’ she said quietly.

‘Really?’ said Pugh, looking carefully at the jury. ‘Are you sure?’

There was another long pause. Then the words came out in a rush.

‘I mean it’s true and it isn’t. I did know Christopher, Mr Montague I mean, was seeing this other person.’ She stopped and looked round the courtroom to stare at Alice
Bridge. ‘I knew it was only an infatuation, I knew it would pass. I may have written him some letters, I’m not sure. I knew he would come back to me in the end.’

‘And if he didn’t, Mrs Buckley?’

‘I knew he would come back to me in the end.’

Pugh paused. Three of the newspapermen who worked for the evening editions crept slowly from the courtroom to file their reports.

‘Mrs Buckley, I wish to ask you about the period of time you spent in Rome before you were married, when you were still Miss Rosalind Chambers.’

‘Objection, my lord.’ Sir Rufus was up once more. ‘I fail to see what relevance this period in Rome can have to the present case.’

‘Mr Pugh?’ said Mr Justice Browne wearily. He knew that the juniors often placed bets on the number of successful objections, keeping score as if his courtroom were a tennis court.
He had done the same thing himself as a young man.

‘My lord,’ said Charles Augustus Pugh, ‘if my learned friend would permit to me to complete the line of questioning I am more than confident that the relevance will become
apparent to him. And,’ he added quickly, ‘to the members of the jury.’

‘Objection overruled. Mr Pugh.’

‘At the time of your residence in Rome, Mrs Buckley, you were between the ages of eighteen and twenty. Is that correct?’

‘Yes,’ said Rosalind Buckley. Suddenly she looked very very frightened.

‘And for most of your nineteenth year, Mrs Buckley, Rome was convulsed with a society scandal. You will forgive me, Mrs Buckley, if I convey the briefest of summaries to the
court.’

Pugh paused and took a long drink from his glass. ‘A young nobleman, Antonio Vivarini, from one of the oldest families in Rome, was found dead at the bottom of the Spanish steps. It
transpired that he had promised to elope with the wife of a high lay official in the Vatican. Then he broke his promise. He had laid plans to elope with another, the heiress to a great fortune. The
scandal went on for a very long time because the police were unable to find the murderer. The Romans said the police had been bribed, by the heiress’s father, or by the Vatican, it
doesn’t really matter. Can you remember who was convicted of the murder in the end, Mrs Buckley?’

Mrs Buckley looked as if she wanted to run away. ‘The wife,’ she said finally, ‘the wife of the man in the Vatican was convicted of the murder.’

‘And can you remember, Mrs Buckley, how Antonio Vivarini was killed?’

‘He was garrotted,’ she whispered.

Pugh had moved over to the table where the Exhibits were displayed. ‘Garrotted with what?’ he said in a loud voice.

The pause was almost interminable. Powerscourt and Johnny Fitzgerald both knew the answer. They knew that Rosalind Buckley must know the answer too. And they knew what the answer would mean.

‘With piano wire,’ she murmured.

‘Did I hear you correctly, Mrs Buckley? Piano wire?’ Pugh bent down and picked up the length of piano wire on the table, Exhibit A in the trial of Horace Aloysius Buckley for murder.
‘Piano wire,’ he was holding it up for the jury to see and twisting it slowly round his wrists, ‘piano wire, rather like this?’

Rosalind Buckley nodded. Some members of the jury were staring entranced at the length of piano wire, bending its way backwards and forwards round Pugh’s hands.

‘No further questions for the present. Call Samuel Morton.’

Samuel Morton, although he had not realized it, had been in protective custody all morning. William McKenzie had arrived very early at his little house in Richmond. He accompanied Morton to the
railway station. He brought him to the Central Criminal Court well before the queues had formed. They had one of the best views in the house until this moment when Samuel Morton took the stand.
Nobody in the court knew who he was. People asked their neighbours if he had been mentioned earlier in the proceedings. Sir Rufus Fitch felt his case slipping away from him, as more and more exotic
and dangerous rabbits were pulled from Pugh’s hat.

‘You are Samuel Morton, of Morton’s Musical Supplies of George Street, Richmond?’

Morton had a clear voice. He sang in the local church choir every Sunday of the year. ‘I am.’

‘Perhaps you could tell the court what sort of musical instruments and other musical requirements you supply, Mr Morton?’

‘Of course, sir. We sell pianos and harpsichords, a few violins, recorders, flutes, the odd viola. We also supply all the relevant accessories.’

‘Do you sell piano wire, Mr Morton?’

‘We do, sir. Mostly to the piano tuners, sometimes to ordinary members of the public.’

‘Mr Morton, do you recognize anybody in this court to whom you have sold piano wire in the last few months? Take your time, Mr Morton.’

Powerscourt had been watching Mrs Buckley very carefully. Morton took less than a minute to reply. ‘I do, sir.’

‘Perhaps,’ said Pugh, ‘you could point the person out to us.’

Morton pointed his finger straight at Rosalind Buckley. ‘That lady there,’ he said, ‘the one in the black hat, sir.’

‘And did she come just once? Or were there several visits?’

Samuel Morton took out a notebook from his pocket. ‘I always make a note of the date of the purchases, sir. It takes a long time to order piano wire from our suppliers. We have to place
the order well in advance if we aren’t going to run out.’

He turned over a few pages. ‘Her first visit was on 4th October, sir. Then she came back on 6th November, sir. Said she needed some more.’

‘Let me remind the gentlemen of the jury, my lord,’ said Pugh, speaking in his most measured tones, ‘that 4th October was a day or so before the murder of Christopher
Montague.’ He paused briefly. ‘And that 6th November was three days before the murder of Thomas Jenkins.’ Pugh paused and took a sip from his glass.

‘One final question, Mr Morton. Remember you are under oath here, if you will. Are you absolutely certain that the lady you have identified in this courtroom is the same lady who came to
your shop in Richmond and bought two separate lengths of piano wire on the dates you have given us?’

Samuel Morton did not hesitate. ‘I am certain,’ he said.

‘No further questions.’ Charles Augustus Pugh sat down.

‘Mr Morton,’ Sir Rufus was on his feet once more. ‘Would you say you were a successful merchant in the provision of musical services?’

‘I think we do all right, sir.’ Morton sounded like a very decent man. ‘My family have never lacked for anything, if you understand me.’

‘Quite so, Mr Morton, quite so.’ Sir Rufus managed to force out one of his rare smiles. ‘So how many people would you serve in your shop each day, Mr Morton? A successful man
like yourself.’

‘Well, it varies, sir. We always do very well in late August and September when the parents are putting their children in for music lessons. And at Christmas when people sometimes buy
pianos as a family present. On average I should say I serve between thirty and forty people a day, sir.’

Pugh was scribbling a note as fast as he could. He passed it back to Powerscourt, sitting one row behind him.

‘So in a week, Mr Morton,’ Sir Rufus went on, ‘in an average sort of week, you would serve about two hundred and fifty people or so?’

‘Somewhere between two hundred and two hundred and fifty, I should say, sir.’

‘Quite so,’ said Sir Rufus. ‘So in the ten weeks between the first alleged visit of Mrs Buckley to your store and today, you would have served between two thousand and two
thousand five hundred people, Mr Morton. Is that correct?’

‘Yes, sir,’ Morton replied.

‘I put it to you, Mr Morton, that it is absolutely impossible for anybody, however well they know their business, to remember the faces and the appearance of all their clients over such a
period. Particularly two thousand five hundred clients. Is that not so?’

Powerscourt passed the note to Johnny Fitzgerald, sitting by his side.

‘It’s not quite like that, sir, if you’ll forgive me.’

Sir Rufus’s eyebrows described a quizzical upward movement.

‘You see, sir,’ Morton went on, ‘almost all my customers are known to me by sight. Some of them have been coming to the shop for years and years. We always try to make them
feel welcome, you see, sir. Nine out of ten are known to me personally, maybe more. Some of the ones I don’t know I may have seen about the town, or at church, or at the children’s
school.’

Johnny Fitzgerald handed the note back to Powerscourt. He passed it on to Lady Lucy, sitting on his other side.

‘Nevertheless, I put it to you, Mr Morton, how could you possibly remember this lady in court here today, from the vast numbers you serve, and at such a length of time?’