The Baker Street Jurors (13 page)

“You should have taken the shortcut, like I did. It's the door at the end of the hall.”

“It was locked. Someone must have let it close behind them.”

“Oh,” she said. “Oops. Sorry.”

The judge looked up from his papers and spoke. “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury…” He paused. “Good news—the court will again let you all out a bit early. Bad news—I must ask you all to go home and pack your bags.”

The courtroom was silent, except for the intake of breath from the jury.

“We don't want to do this, for many reasons, not least of which is the inconvenience to all of you. But issues have been raised in response to a juror's question…”

The judge glanced sidelong at Nigel as he said this, but several of the jurors—especially Bankstone—were less subtle and overtly glared.

The judge continued. “Such that we have no choice but to go to the island ourselves and see the view firsthand.”

Now there were audible groans.

“We will assemble in the alley at nine in the morning. Do not be late. We want to get there and back again on the same day if we can. We have chartered a bus and we have made arrangements to stay overnight at the island's only hotel if, and only if, it becomes necessary to do so. But we'll try to avoid that. Bring what you think you might need, but only what you can easily carry. Because of the special circumstances, all meals will, of course, be taken care of.

“I daresay the sudden nature of this may be inconvenient for some of you. I remind you that you are English jurors. But if any of you feel you have a reason why you cannot possibly do this, please write it down—briefly—raise your hand, and then pass your note to Mr. Walker.”

There was a general rustle, but after a few moments, only two jurors actually raised their hands.

The first was Bankstone.

No great loss, thought Nigel.

The next was Lucy.

Nigel sighed.

Mr. Walker collected the two notes, and took them to the judge, who reviewed them very quickly. The judge called out the number for Bankstone.

Bankstone stood, eagerly.

“Tickets to the London Palladium are not sufficient cause,” said the judge. “Even if they are front row seats. Denied. Sit down, please.”

Now the judge called out the number for Lucy. She stood. The judge looked at her note, and then at her.

“See if you can work it out,” he said. “If you can't, call Ms. Sreenivasan first thing in the morning.”

The judge turned back to the entire jury. “Again, nine in the morning, and remember all my cautions. We are adjourned.”

All the jurors exited to the corridor in a rush, with confusion and even some grousing.

In the corridor, Siger took his unlit pipe out of his pocket and walked in the direction of the fire escape. Nigel went in the other direction, looking for Lucy. As he reached the stairs to the exit, Bankstone caught up with him. The man was not happy.

“This is what happens when someone asks too many questions,” he said. “Now what do I do with these?” He held up his theater tickets.

Nigel shrugged. “Donate them? I'm sure someone in London hasn't seen
Cats.
”

Bankstone angrily tore the tickets into tiny pieces, dropped them on the floor like confetti, and stormed off down the corridor.

Nigel continued on and caught up with Lucy just as she was shutting off her phone. He suggested a pint at the Magpie and Stump across the street.

She hesitated, it looked to Nigel like it was yes, and then—it was no. Ballet lessons.

As lithe and limber as Nigel was sure she was, ballet lessons still surprised him.

And, on the theory that the more unlikely the excuse is, the more likely it is intended to convey a rejection, he prepared himself to say good afternoon and be on his way.

But then she said, “Have you noticed that Mr. Siger keeps saying things that Sherlock Holmes said in those stories and films?”

Nigel looked at her in some surprise. Of course he had noticed, but he didn't realize anyone else had. “Yes,” said Nigel. “It's rather odd.”

“Well, I don't know about odd. But it's a little unusual. At first I thought he was doing it to sort of chat me up. But now I think it's not that—I think he's just such an enthusiast that he wants to share it.”

“That's a possibility,” said Nigel.

“Is there another?” she said.

Nigel shrugged.

“Well, at least we know he's not a ringer,” she said.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, he's not someone who got onto the jury on purpose, with an agenda. If he were, he wouldn't be calling attention to himself this way.”

“True,” said Nigel. “But getting a ringer onto a jury is not an easy thing to do in the first place. Not when selection is random and you don't allow all those challenges like they do in America.”

“But maybe not so hard if most of the population is favorably disposed to your side to begin with,” she said. “And of course you could also convert a juror into your ringer after they are selected, rather than before.”

“Yes,” said Nigel. “Nobbling is what it's called. Or tampering. And that's why we're supposed to maintain anonymity.”

“And how effective do you think that has been?”

“Not very,” said Nigel. “But here you are telling me your suspicion—if there is a ringer, how do you know it isn't me?”

She smiled and shrugged.

“How do you know it isn't me?” she said. And then she went on her way.

 

11

Nigel got his coffee especially early the next morning. He wanted to wake up fully before heading for the departure point. He wanted to be alert and capable of clever, potentially seductive, banter with Lucy.

He was too tired to look away from the headlines. And before Bob could even pour, Nigel saw it in
The Daily Sun.
“McSweeney Jury to Take Road Trip!”

Nigel groaned.

Bob poured Nigel's coffee and said, “All packed, are you?”

“I suppose
The Daily Sun
has advice on what I should be taking with me?”

“It says the whole trip was made necessary just because of a trivial question brought up by one of the more annoying jurors on the alternate panel.”

“Fine,” said Nigel. “That's their opinion.”

“The paper also says it has all the details of the site visit, but isn't revealing them because they don't want to piss off the judge.”

“Bloody hell,” said Nigel. “That better just be bragging. It's one thing if everyone knows we're going on a site visit. It's something else if the media knows where and when and how we're going.”

“Maybe there's a leak,” said Bob. “Wouldn't be the first time a juror got in bed with the media, would it?”

“No,” said Nigel. “It wouldn't.”

Nigel stood staring at the headline for a moment. He drank his coffee and woke up a little more. Then he checked his watch. There was probably enough time.

“Bob, I'm going back upstairs and I'm going to toss something out my office window. I need you to watch for it.”

“Will it splatter and make a mess on the pavement in front of my newsstand?”

“No, it won't splatter.”

“All right then. But if you injure a paying customer, I'll testify for them if they sue.”

Nigel went quickly back into Dorset House and took the lift up to Baker Street Law Chambers. Lois was just now settling in at her station.

“There you are,” she said cheerily. “Any progress with the young lady?”

“What? Oh, you mean from the jury. Well, so far the answer is no. She's almost always on the phone. I tried twice to set something up, but the first time she had swimming practice and yesterday it was ballet lessons.”

“Swimming and ballet?”

“Uh-huh. But Lois, right now what I need is—”

“Nigel, did you check for a ring?”

“Of course. Very first thing. No ring. And no tan line where one might have been removed.”

“And I think you told me she applied at first for an exemption from jury service—but didn't get it?”

“Yes. But Lois—”

“Oh my. Oh my.”

“What?”

“Nigel, it's obvious. But if you haven't already figured it out, then you're just fooling yourself, and there's no point in me explaining it to you.”

“I don't see … Lois, I don't have time to discuss this. I need a piece of paper about the same size and weight as the jury summons that we got last month.”

“You mean like the one you threw out the window?”

“Ah … yes.”

“Oh my. Oh my.”

“Would you please stop saying that?”

Lois opened a drawer in her desk and took out a sheet of formal stationery.

“I knew something bad would happen when you did that,” she said.

Then she got a red marking pen and quickly drew something at the top of the sheet.

“What's this?”

“That's to make it look like a summons from Her Majesty's Courts Service,” said Lois. “And easier to see. In case you're going to do what I think you're going to do.”

Nigel nodded and said, “I think we might have a media mole in our jury pool.”

“A mole?” said Lois.

“Someone who has been planted by the media to feed them information that should remain confidential. And I have a theory about who. So this is worth a go. At least if the winds haven't changed.”

“I'll open the window,” said Lois.

She walked ahead of Nigel into his office. She moved the blinds and raised the window.

Nigel folded the sheet of paper into an airplane. Then he sat behind his desk and—trying to do it just as he had the first time—he tossed the invention out the window.

And then he ran quickly to the lift.

“Good luck!” shouted Lois.

Nigel came out of the Dorset House lobby onto Baker Street. He looked in all directions.

Bloody hell, the thing was already gone!

But now Bob called out from his newsstand, “Did you lose another airplane?”

“Yes,” said Nigel. “Which way did it go?”

“Where the wind took it,” said Bob. “That way.”

Nigel ran that way, toward the intersection with Marylebone Road.

And he caught sight of it—just as a cross-draft diverted the document across the street, along with the pedestrians, who had just gotten their walk signal. Nigel saw it get kicked once, accidentally, and that sent it up over the curb, and from there it drifted another twenty yards, until it came to a stop next to the bronze statue in front of Marylebone station.

Nigel ran across the street after it, against the light.

At the foot of the statue, the faux summons got bumped again, and it slid on down into Marylebone station itself, with all the attendant commotion—rushing air, hurried commuters, and vibrations from the trains and the busker musicians who belted out tunes for coins.

It lighted for a moment on the stairs, beneath the peach-colored wall tiles and a new poster for a West End theater revival that was bringing Diana Rigg back to the stage. Nigel ran to catch up with it, but was blocked for a moment by a middle-aged man who had stopped on the stairs in front of the poster, obviously mesmerized, thinking no doubt about that actress in a spy catsuit on the telly forty or more years earlier.

The summons got kicked by someone dodging that obstruction, and Nigel pursued it down another flight of stairs.

He heard the sound of the next arriving train, and the people on the stairs rushing down with renewed vigor; the sheet of paper got kicked again and again, no one paying attention to what it was, until finally the rush of a departing train picked it up a final time, and deposited it into the open saxophone case of a busker who was plying his trade at the stairway juncture between the eastbound and westbound trains.

Nigel stopped in front of the busker, who was belting out “Summertime.” Nigel waited for him to finish, and then said, “I haven't heard you here before. Is this your usual station?”

The man shook his head. “A tall, bearded fellow with a pipe used to play violin here,” he said. “But he told me a couple weeks ago that he's found something better to do.”

Nigel considered that, chastised himself for not having figured it out earlier, despite the shaved beard, and tossed a two-pound coin in on top of the airplane.

 

12

A full-length premium motor coach waited with engine running in the alley behind the Old Bailey. The diesel exhaust condensed in the cold air and assailed the group of jurors who stood shivering, hands in their coat pockets, in the alley. They coughed in the fumes and flapped their arms to keep warm, and waited anxiously to board.

Uniformed police stood in the street, directing morning traffic away from the alley. The media—in vans, on foot, and on motor scooters—were camped in front of the courthouse but were blocked from entering the alley.

Nigel looked about for Lucy and didn't see her. Her carpool still hadn't arrived.

Now the Old Bailey door opened. The bailiff Mr. Walker stepped out, followed by the witness Percy Pemberton, and then Slattery, Langdon, the judge—and, last, Ms. Sreenivasan the court steward, with a clipboard in hand.

She walked over to the group of jurors and began checking off their names. Then she walked back to the judge and attorneys.

“We're missing three at the moment,” said Ms. Sreenivasan to the judge. “But the driver called in and said they are just delayed by traffic; they'll be here within five minutes.”

Slattery the prosecutor leaned toward Langdon for the defense and said, possibly in jest, “If they're not here in the next ten minutes, we'll be down to eleven—perhaps you can move for another mistrial.”

“Not going to need one. I've already destroyed your motive and provided an alibi. I'm getting an acquittal this time. You're the one who will wish it was a mistrial.”