"Mortimer, John - Rumpole and the Nanny Society" - читать интересную книгу автора (Mortimer John)

"Yes."

"Where we know the box with the ring in it was. Did James Gregthorpe leave the room while you were there together?"

"I think he went to the lavatory. He wasn't feeling well."

"How long was he away?"

"I suppose five minutes."

"Time enough for you to take the ring, run up the stairs with it to Kirsti's room, and hide it among the sweaters she wouldn't be wearing in June."

The learned counsel for the prosecution was summoning up his strength to object to my cross-examining my own witness, so I carried on without drawing a breath.

"Because you wanted to get Kirsti into trouble. Get her sent to prison, and perhaps back to Sweden."

"Why?"

"Because you were jealous of her. Because you were having an affair with Gregthorpe yourself, and that was why you kept meeting. I don't know where you met, but I do know you were jealous of Kirsti. He'd been in love with her, perhaps he was in love with her still. It was a chance too good to miss. Isn't that the truth, Miss Petronella Sanderson?"

Petronella was silent. She was looking round the court, amazed and frightened. She stared at Kirsti, as through she must have discovered the truth, but Kirsti looked away. She looked at the Bull, but he was indulging in a rare moment of silence. She looked at the jury, but they stared back at her without smiling. She avoided looking at me. Then she lowered her eyes and quietly, in the stillness of the court, she said, "I don't think you can prove any of that."

It wasn't an admission, but then it wasn't a denial either. It was enough to make the jury think that my reconstruction of the events might be true.

Enough to give them a reasonable doubt, so that they could do what they secretly wanted to do and acquit the blonde and beautiful Swede.

"Whatever gave you the idea that Petronella and Gregthorpe were having an afair?" Bonny Bernard, my instructing solicitor, and partner in crime, asked as we left the court.

"I heard her telephoning James from a pub. She said he must be careful of his cold and be sure to wear his raincoat when he went out and not get wet. When a woman starts to treat a man as though she were his nanny, you may be sure she has some deep and lasting relationship with him."

The End