Free A Guide to the Beasts of East Africa by Nicholas Drayson Page B

I urge you to put away your prejudices and to listen
     with open minds to what Mr Gopez and Mr Patel have to say. Our two protagonists will
     soon be presenting their arguments, but before they do so they have agreed that I should
     read out a summary of the background to the case, and of the evidence produced in the
     trial of the only person prosecuted for the murder on the twenty-fourth of January 1941,
     of Lord Josslyn Hay, the twenty-second Earl of Erroll.’
    The Tiger turned towards the two men seated
     beside him and, after receiving a nod from each, began outlining the facts of the case –
     the crashed car, the discovery of the body, the police investigation. He described the
     clues the police had found at the scene of the crime – the broken armstraps, the
     lipstick-stained cigarette and the white marks on the back seat of the car – and how
     when the investigating officer visited Sir Jock Delves Broughton at his house on the
     afternoon of the murder, he noticed a pair of half-burned white gym shoes on a bonfire
     in the garden.
    ‘And now, to the trial. The prosecution
     alleged that Broughton, on hearing Lord Erroll dropping off Diana at the house in Karen
     at about 2.20 a.m. on the night of the murder, put on a pair of gym shoes and climbed
     out of his first-floor bedroom window armed with a pistol. He hid in the back seat of
     Erroll’s car. When the car slowed down at the junction with Ngong Road, Broughton
     shot Erroll, pulled him on to the floor, drove the car into a murram pit, ran home,
     climbed back up the drainpipe and got back into his bedroom without being seen by anyone
     in the house – though one person in the house gave evidence that she heard a dog barking
     sometime in the night. As corroboration the prosecution hoped to show that the bullet
     that killed Lord Erroll matched bullets previously fired from Broughton’s own
     gun.’
    The Tiger pursed his lips.
    ‘I have to say that their case was not
     a strong one. In a fine example of the barrister’s art, the counsel for the
     defence, Mr Morris, showed conclusively that Broughton’s gun could not have been
     the one that fired the fatal bullet, thus demolishing the ballistic evidence on which
     the prosecution largely relied. As a house of cards will fall after one card is removed,
     their case collapsed. In a unanimous decision the jury acquitted Broughton of the murder
     of Lord Erroll. I will now leave Mr Patel to explain to you why he thinks they were
     wrong.’
    Tiger Singh bowed towards Mr Patel, who now
     stood.
    ‘Thank you, Tiger.’ He turned to
     face the audience.
    ‘The Tiger has said that I will try
     and convince you that the jury was wrong to find Sir Jock Delves Broughton not guilty of
     the murder of Lord Erroll. On the contrary, Ithink they were right.
     Why? In the light of the evidence – or lack of evidence – and in the light of
     Broughton’s plea of not guilty, they had no choice. But we, ladies and gentlemen,
     are privy to information that the jury did not have. We know what happened
after
the trial.’
    If Mr Patel had been wearing a waistcoat,
     thought Mr Malik, at this point he would undoubtedly have stuck his thumbs into its
     pockets.
    ‘Since the trial and acquittal, there
     have been many theories about who was the murderer. Means and motives abound. There
     were, apparently, many people in Kenya who would have been quite happy to see Erroll
     dead – as well as, if you believe one theory, the British government. But after the
     trial no new witnesses came forward, no new and reliable evidence was found.’
    Mr Patel reached for the glass of water in
     front of him and took a small sip.
    ‘But many years later – in 1982 to be
     precise – one of the people involved in the story made an astounding claim. Juanita
     Carberry, at the time of the murder fifteen years old and stepdaughter of Erroll’s
     friend and former lover June Carberry, told the English journalist James Fox that