Carnal Hours

promised.

The afternoon of the second day found the pretty blond Dorothy Clark repeating the story of Freddie taking her, and the other RAF wife, Jean Ainslie, home in the rain; this innocent tale gave the Crown the element of opportunity it needed.

This testimony was hardly a surprise-and, had they called me, the prosecution could have got one Nathan Heller to back that up as well-but Higgs on cross took the opportunity to punch a major hole in the other side’s boat.

After establishing that Mrs. Clark had seen de Marigny burn himself lighting candles, helping explain the notorious singed hairs Barker and Melchen claimed to have found, Higgs asked, “Did you see the accused, Alfred de Marigny, taken upstairs at Westbourne for questioning the morning of July nine?”

“Yes I did.”

“I put it to you-was it between eleven a.m. and twelve noon?”

“Yes, I’m certain it was.”

The murmur that swept the courtroom was an indication of how damaging this testimony was. One of the prosecution’s own witnesses had now established that Freddie could have left his fingerprint on that Chinese screen by touching it on the 9th of July. At the same time, this witness called into doubt the reliability of sworn police testimony.

This moment of victory was followed by hours of attack, as a succession of prosecution witnesses painted a grimly unflattering portrait of Freddie.

Dr. William Sayad of Palm Beach told of the quarrel between Sir Harry and Freddie, in which Freddie had threatened to “bash Sir Harry’s head.” The smooth Southerner who had gotten me into this-Walter Foskett, the Oakes family attorney-detailed various family squabbles, making Freddie look as bad as possible.

Appearing as the absent Colonel Lindop’s surrogate, Major Pemberton-a proper, mustached figure with an air of authority-presented the police version of the investigation leading to de Marigny’s arrest-backing up the unavailable Lindop’s own deposition, which incidentally mentioned nothing about what time Freddie may or may not have been taken upstairs for questioning by Melchen on the 9th.

Lieutenant Johnny Douglas-a jaunty Scotsman with a hawklike profile, impeccable in his khaki uniform-had been assigned to stay with de Marigny, keeping him under informal guard, prior to the Count’s arrest. As he and Freddie were friends, the accused had apparently let his guard down, asking Douglas if a man could be convicted in a British court solely on circumstantial evidence, particularly if the murder weapon was not found.

In his rolling burr, Douglas also claimed Freddie had said of Oakes, “That old bastard should have been killed anyhow.”

Higgs handed the cross to his young second chair, Callender, oval-faced, handsome, slightly overweight but light on his feet as he asked Douglas, “You do understand the accused is a Frenchman, and that the French have different laws than the British?”

“I understand so.”

The Chief Justice sat forward and posed his own question. “Were you aware the accused came from Mauritius?”

“Yes, my lord.”

Callender smiled tightly. “And didn’t the accused ask whether the murder weapon had been found?”

“I believe he did.”

“Now, under the circumstances, wasn’t it a perfectly normal question for him to ask? If a man could be convicted without the weapon?”

“Not an unusual question, no, sir.”

“And did you not say to the accused, ‘They are making a fuss about Sir Harry because he has dough. If it had been some poor colored bastard in Grant’s Town, I would not have to work so hard’?”

“I don’t recall saying any such thing.”

“Don’t you frequently use the expression ‘bastard’?”

“I seldom ever use that word.”

Callender’s smile was gone; he thrust a finger at the dapper little Scotsman. “I put it to you, Lieutenant Douglas, that ‘bastard’ is a favorite term of yours!”

“I deny it.”

“And I further put it to you that you were the one who said, ‘That old bastard should have been killed anyway.’”

“I deny it. Those are the accused’s words.”

“That is all, my lord,” Callender said.

An effective piece of cross-examination-but Douglas was a solid witness. Freddie looked glum in his cage, his cockiness knocked out of him.

The following day began melodramatically, even for the Oakes case: Lady Oakes, allowed to sit in the witness box, in black silk dress with black veiled hat and black gloves, spoke softly, convincingly, of the strain placed upon their family by her daughter’s marriage to Count de Marigny.

She would cool herself with a palm fan, raise a glass of water to her lips with a trembling hand; it was a performance that garnered much sympathy. And, cynical though I may sound, it was a performance: this gaunt, teary-eyed, frail widow was not the strong woman I had met in Nancy’s room back at the Biltmore in Miami Beach.

Not to mention the iron-willed broad who had got me bounced out of the B.C.

Still, I thought of the parade of witnesses designed to make a devil out of Freddie, Eunice Oakes was the weakest. She just didn’t have anything to say: Freddie wrote a “horrible” letter, critical of Sir Harry, to their impressionable son Sydney; Freddie had apparently encouraged Nancy to break from her parents if they would not accept him “into the family circle.”

That was about it.

Higgs asked only six gentle questions by way of cross, including: “Lady Oakes, did you ever hear the accused make any threat of bodily injury to your husband?”

“Of course not,” she almost snapped.

That was the Lady Oakes I had met at the Biltmore!

“And to your knowledge,” Higgs was saying, “the accused’s only complaint was that you and Sir Harry had not accepted him into the family?”

“I assume so.”

“My lord, I have no further questions.”

The rest of that morning and afternoon, too, found the pride of the Miami Homicide Bureau, Captain Edward Melchen, standing in the witness box, fat, florid, fidgety. For several hours, Adderley led Melchen through a rehash of his preliminary hearing testimony, covering the investigation, the arrest of de Marigny, remarks about Sir Harry the accused had allegedly made.

Higgs handed the cross to his eager assistant, and Callender went for the throat almost immediately.

“Captain, what important piece of evidence did your associate James Barker reveal to Lady Oakes and Mrs. de Marigny, at Bar Harbor after Sir Harry’s funeral?”

Melchen licked his lips. “Captain Barker informed them that de Marigny’s fingerprint had been found on the Chinese screen.”

“A fingerprint?”

Melchen shrugged. “He might have said ‘fingerprints.’”

“Did you and Captain Barker travel together, from Nassau to Bar Harbor?”

Callender’s precise British-Bahamian diction somehow made Melchen’s Southern drawl seem lazy, even stupid.

“Of course we did.”

“Did you discuss the Oakes case?”

“Yes we did.”

“Did you discuss the discovery of this most vital piece of evidence?”

Melchen winced; he seemed confused.

“The fingerprint or fingerprints, Captain Melchen. Did you discuss them with your