you know. Nothing’s gone into my bank account. You’ve got the records. Whoever’s got those jewels has got nothing to do with me.”
“I wasn’t asking you about the jewels, Lady Robinson. I was suggesting that you wanted what Lady Anne had: her title, her husband, and her husband’s money.”
“But not her jewels.”
“Please don’t argue with counsel, Lady Robinson,” said the judge, intervening for the first time in the morning. “Just try to answer his questions.”
“I’m sorry, my Lord,” said Greta, bestowing one of her most winning smiles on the old judge.
“That’s all right. Please carry on, Mr. Sparling.”
The barrister turned a page of his notes and changed tack.
“What were you talking to your midnight visitor about in your basement apartment in April of last year?” he asked.
“Money. It was a man I owed money to. I was asking for more time to pay.”
“So it was in the nature of a business meeting. Why were you conducting business in the middle of the night, Lady Robinson?”
“I wasn’t. We went out earlier, and then he came back to my flat and stayed late. I thought that an evening’s entertainment might make him more…”
“More compliant?”
“Yes. More willing to give me more time.”
“Were you right? Was he more willing?”
“Yes. He agreed to wait.”
“How much money did you owe this man, Lady Robinson?”
“About ten thousand pounds.”
“And have you repaid it now?”
“Most of it.”
“How?”
“I saved money, and my husband has helped me a bit.”
“Even though you lied to him about meeting this man. You’ve already admitted that in your interview. You told your husband that you were with your mother in Manchester.”
“I lied because I was ashamed of owing the money.”
“You lied because you didn’t want anyone to know that you had been meeting the man who was going to kill Lady Anne. That’s the truth, isn’t it?” Sparling’s accusation came accompanied with a sudden aggression of voice and gesture, but neither seemed to have any effect on Greta. She smiled at Sparling before answering his question slowly and deliberately.
“No, it’s not the truth, Mr. Sparling. I lied because I was ashamed of being in debt. I did not want Sir Peter or Lady Anne to think badly of me.”
“Did you say to your visitor, ‘Can’t you see I haven’t got him yet’?”
“No, I would never have said that. I would’ve said: ‘Can’t you see I haven’t got it yet,’ about the money. If you recall, Mr. Sparling, Thomas couldn’t be sure if I said ‘him’ or ‘it.’ I’m sure it’ll be in your notes.”
“So you weren’t referring to not yet having secured Sir Peter. Is that right?”
“I was talking about the money.”
“Your visitor was the man who killed Lady Anne, I suggest. Thomas recognized him as such.”
“He saw a man from behind. And that man can’t have been the man in my flat anyway.”
“Why not?”
“Because the front door of the basement was locked when I went up to the main house via the internal staircase. I always kept it locked from the inside because of burglars.”
“Why couldn’t your visitor have unlocked it?”
“Because I had the key.”
“You never mentioned this in your interview, Lady Robinson. Why not?”
“Because I didn’t think of it.”
“And that’s not all you failed to mention, was it? Sergeant Hearns asked you again and again to give the name of your visitor. Again and again you refused to provide it. Why? What had you got to hide?”
“I had nothing to hide. The man’s name is Andrew Relton.”
Sparling stopped, momentarily taken aback. He hadn’t expected Greta’s reply, and he had never heard this name before. But it took no more than a second or two for him to regain his composure and return to the attack.
“You tell us now when your trial’s almost over and so the information’s useless,” he said. “Why wouldn’t you tell the police when you were interviewed? That’s when it mattered.”
There was a pause, and then Sparling went on as if Greta’s silence was exactly what he had expected.
“You aren’t answering because you haven’t got an answer, have you, Lady Robinson? You didn’t name this man to the police because you didn’t want them to investigate your story.”
“No, I didn’t want Andrew dragged into all this, and what’s wrong with that?” said Greta angrily. “My debts are my own affair. They’ve got nothing to do with this trial. Nothing at all.”
“You didn’t want to name your visitor because he’s the man who murdered Lady Anne. That’s the truth, isn’t it?” Sparling had drawn himself up to his full height as if to emphasize his accusation.
“No, it’s not,” said Greta with equal emphasis.
“The same man who went back to deal with Thomas just before your trial.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“The man whom his friend called Rosie.”
“I don’t know anyone called Rosie or Rose,” said Greta firmly. “Man or woman. It’s a ridiculous name.”
Immediately Sparling regretted asking about the murderer’s return to the House of the Four Winds the previous week. He’d thrown away the advantage gained by highlighting Greta’s evasiveness with the police and instead concentrated the jury’s attention on the weakest part of his case. Now he had no choice but to continue.
“He referred to you by name. He said you were the one who showed him how the hiding place worked.”
“No, he didn’t. Thomas has made that up. It’s pretty convenient, isn’t it, that this Rosie character should mention me by name just when he could be sure that Thomas would overhear?”
“Please just answer the questions, Lady Robinson,” said Sparling in an effort to keep control of his cross- examination. But he was being beaten back and he knew it. He’d noticed out of the corner of his eye how several of the jurors had nodded in agreement immediately after Greta’s last observation. Sparling was in fact half relieved when the judge chose this moment for a ten-minute midmorning adjournment.
At the very moment that Judge Granger was sitting back in his easy chair in the privacy of his chambers inhaling the smoke from his first cigarette of the day, Thomas and Matthew were sitting at a table in the cafeteria of the Family Records Office with an array of half-drunk cups of coffee and empty soft-drink cans in front of them. They’d just returned from a third unsuccessful attempt to persuade Andrew the applications clerk to expedite their application.
“Bastard, officious bastard.” Thomas spat out the words while giving further expression to his feelings by crushing an empty Coke can in his hand.
“I know,” said Matthew. “But if you’d carried on, we’d probably have gotten thrown out and then we wouldn’t get the certificates at all.”
Thomas didn’t answer. He’d begun work on another can.
“We should still be okay even if we get the certificates at twelve-twenty. It’s not far from here to the court in a taxi, and then we’ve only got to find Sergeant Hearns. He’ll sort it out, Tom.”
“If he can. But it may be too late by then. My father told me that Greta’s not calling any other witnesses except him, so once he’s given evidence, we’ve had it. Hearns said that there can’t be any more evidence after the defense has closed its case.”
“We should have gotten him to help with this.”
“I couldn’t get hold of him all day yesterday, and he’s not going to get the information any quicker this morning than we are. Besides, what we’ve got out of the index book doesn’t really amount to that much if you think
