‘Archery does give you strong wrists and arms, sir,’ she said demurely. ‘But I fail to see what that has to do with this trial.’
Charles Augustus Pugh looked carefully at the jury He felt he had made his point. ‘I want to put a hypothesis to you, if I may, Mrs Buckley.’ Pugh paused. The fingers of his right hand were back at the imaginary piano on his gown, working their way through Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto. He was speaking more in sorrow than in anger, as if he sympathized with Rosalind Buckley’s plight.
‘I put it to you that you were furious, more than furious, with Christopher Montague for jilting you in favour of a younger woman, a woman he might have been able to marry before God, blessed in church by the Holy Sacrament, a woman with whom, forgive me, he could father legitimate children rather than bastards. I put it to you that you remembered the details of the case in Rome, not so many years before, when revenge was extracted with a piece of piano wire. I put it to you that you did indeed go to Richmond and complete your first purchase of this deadly material. On the night of the murder I suggest that you went to Christopher Montague’s flat, as you had done so often in the past. I put it to you that the knowledge of what was going to happen in there only served to fuel your anger even further. For your husband was going to ask Montague for his decision about whether to give you up or not. Montague would have told him that the affair had ended some months ago. You would have been humiliated in front of your husband from whom you were already estranged. Think how he might have mocked you.
‘So, I put it to you, Mrs Buckley, you entered the flat that evening with your own keys. I suggest that you took precautions to give yourself a better chance of success. The police found two wine glasses that had been washed up in Mr Montague’s kitchen. His cleaning lady had not cleaned them. Mr Montague was not in the habit of washing up his glasses. I suggest you put laudanum or some similar drug into the wine to make him sleepy and less able to resist. Then you murdered Christopher Montague. You removed all the papers on his desk to confuse any investigation that might follow. You removed some of his books that might have given clues about the article he was writing on forgeries in the Venetian exhibition. The police might assume that the murder was intimately connected with what Montague was working on at the time of his death.’
Pugh paused. The jury were staring transfixed at Rosalind Buckley. So was the judge. So were the gentlemen of the press, preparing vivid descriptions in their minds of the demeanour of the witness. Only Powerscourt was not looking at Mrs Buckley. He was looking at the prisoner in the dock, Horace Aloysius Buckley opening and closing his mouth very rapidly as if he wished to speak.
‘I further put it to you, Mrs Buckley,’ Pugh’s eloquence rolled on, ‘that you also found it necessary to commit a second murder. Maybe Thomas Jenkins was in London that night and met you after the murder in Montague’s flat. Maybe you thought he knew that you were the killer and could not be sure that he would keep his mouth shut. Maybe you thought he would betray you to the police. I put it to you that you took a further trip to Richmond to purchase more piano wire.’
Pugh picked up the piano wire labelled Exhibit A from its table and began twisting it slowly in front of Mrs Buckley. Powerscourt could have sworn that Pugh was bending it into the shape of a noose.
‘And furthermore, Mrs Buckley, I put it to you that you brought with you to Oxford not just the wire, but also one of your husband’s ties. You left it there at the scene of Thomas Jenkins’ murder to incriminate your own husband. Again we find the washed-up cups at the scene of the crime, suggesting that you put laudanum or some similar substance in Mr Jenkins’ tea. You removed the papers from the desk as you had removed the papers from Christopher Montague’s desk in order to confuse any investigation. I put it to you, Mrs Buckley, that you committed both these murders. Is that true?’
The only sound in court was the sobbing in the witness box. Pugh pulled out a large white handkerchief and offered it to his witness. ‘Compose yourself, Mrs Buckley,’ he said. ‘You only have to answer one question. I put it to you once more that you committed both these murders. Is that true?’
Still Rosalind Buckley gave no reply.
‘I ask you once more, Mrs Buckley.’ Pugh was now talking to her as he might comfort a crying child. ‘Is it true?’
Rosalind Buckley looked up at the judge. ‘Do I have to answer that question, my lord?’
Mr Justice Browne knew his duty. ‘You need not incriminate yourself, Mrs Buckley,’ he said firmly, ‘you have a right to remain silent if you choose.’
Rosalind Buckley looked down at the floor. She wiped her eyes once more. Powerscourt noticed that everybody around him seemed to be holding their breath.
‘Yes,’ she whispered finally, ‘most of it is true.’
There was a sudden shout from the prisoner in the dock. Horace Buckley might not have wanted to die, but he felt nothing but overwhelming pity for his wife at this moment.
‘No! No!’ he shouted. ‘It’s not true! It’s not true! I killed them! I killed them both! Please believe me!’
‘Silence in court! Take the prisoner away! Take him below!’ Sir Rufus was to say afterwards that he had never seen Mr Justice Browne so angry. Horace Aloysius Buckley was weeping as they led him away. Mrs Buckley was prostrate in the witness box. The judge took up his gavel once again and banged it furiously on the desk.
‘This court is adjourned until three o’clock this afternoon,’ he said. ‘Sir Rufus, Mr Pugh, Inspector Maxwell, Chief Inspector Wilson, I wish to see you all in my chambers at half-past one.’
28
William Alaric Piper’s first American visitor arrived shortly before ten o’clock that morning. Cornelius P. Stockman stared incredulously at the new sign outside the gallery. He stared even more incredulously as Piper came out to greet him in person in the street.
‘How kind of you to come and see us, Mr Stockman, at a time like this. Look,’ he pointed dramatically at the words ‘The Salisbury Gallery’ above the door, ‘a new business is going to rise, like the fabulous phoenix, from the ashes of the old. But come in, Mr Stockman, I have much to tell you, and much to show you. I have not been idle since your last visit.’
Piper sat the American down in his little office. He told him of de Courcy’s treachery, how a partnership founded in trust had been broken by betrayal. He told Stockman that all communications with the forger had been conducted from de Courcy’s private address; how the paintings were brought into the gallery, hidden away among the normal traffic, how de Courcy would tell him that he had discovered these paintings in country houses where the owners were so hard up for money they were willing to part with their inheritance.
‘I wonder, Mr Stockman,’ Piper went on, ‘if even in America, that great land of freedom and opportunity, a rotten apple sometimes finds its way into the barrel and corrupts all it encounters. I hope not, I do hope not. I pray that you may never encounter such depth of treachery in your own country, that it is confined to the more decadent purlieus of Europe.’
Piper shook his head. Stockman wasn’t quite sure what purlieus meant. But he couldn’t give his fellow countrymen exemption from betrayal.
‘I’m afraid, Mr Piper,’ he said, ‘that even in America we are confronted almost daily with behaviour such as this. Riches in my country are meant to be the fruit, the reward of honest endeavour and hard work. Far too many seek to attain them by fraud and deception.’