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paper got cold feet, thinking she’d sue. They
     pulled the story – but not before the first edition had gone out. Much to their
     surprise, nothing happened. No writ, nothing. A few days later this chap’s boss
     was playing cards at the Muthaiga Club, and who should be on the same table as him?
     Diana. He thought he should say something – apologize, you know. She waved his
     explanation aside. “Oh, everyone knows I did it,” she said.’
    ‘Yes, A.B.?’
    ‘Well, there you are, that’s
     what I’m saying. She admitted it.’
    Mr Patel shook his head in disbelief.
    ‘That is hardly what I would call an
     unambiguous admission of guilt. Even if she did say it, does it not occur to you that
     her words might have been intended as ironic?’
    ‘And if I might put in a word
     here,’ said Mr Malik who, being no less fascinated by the case than anyone else inKenya, had indeed read all the books about the Erroll case he could
     get his hands on over the years (and dozens of newspaper articles besides), ‘it
     seems that once again we are faced with the problem of hearsay evidence. The woman who
     wrote this book – and, as far as I remember, she paints a far from flattering picture of
     Diana – bases her conclusions on a conversation at which she was not herself
     present.’
    ‘Exactly my point, Malik,’ said
     Mr Gopez with a triumphant smile.
    ‘What point?’ said Mr Patel.
     ‘A moment ago you were saying that Diana did it.’
    ‘The point I was trying to make,
     Patel, is that Malik is right. Hearsay evidence is like one of those verbal agreements
     in Hollywood you read about – not worth the paper it’s written on. Same with your
     Delves Broughton.’
    At this point, some of you may be feeling
     just a little confused by all these references to this and that theory by this and that
     writer. So, while our friends at the Asadi Club order another round of Tusker beers and
     make further inroads into the bowl of chilli popcorn on the table in front of them, let
     me summarize.
    White Mischief
– later made into a
     film of the same name – was published in 1982 by the English journalist James Fox. The
     book reads like a true-life detective story and was based on the transcript of the 1941
     Broughton murder trial and interviews which Fox and his colleague, the English writer
     Cyril Connolly, conducted from 1969 onwards with as many as possible of the key players
     then still alive. His story goes like this.
    At about 3 a.m. on the morning of Friday the
     24th of January 1941, two African men were driving a milk delivery truck from the then
     rural settlement of Karen to Nairobi. It was dark and wet. Soon after the two men had
     turned right out of Karen Road and were heading north-east towards the city, they saw
     the lights of a stationary car that seemed to have veered across the highway in the
     direction they were heading. The car had ended up tilted halfway into a shallow pit on
     the wrong side of the road about 150 yards beyond the junction. They stopped their truck
     and got out. The car was a black Buick. Though its headlights were still on, the engine
     wasn’t running and the windows were closed. At first the car seemed empty, but
     when the delivery drivers looked inside they saw a man hunched sideways on the floor
     under the steering wheel on elbows and knees, his head on the floor, his hands together.
     He looked dead. The two men immediately turned the truck back towards Karen to go and
     get help.
    Within the hour, four local constables from
     the police post at Karen were on the scene. They flagged down a white dairy farmer who
     was also driving towards Nairobi. The dairy farmer later stated that he had earlier
     passed the spot, heading in the opposite direction, at about 2.40 a.m., but had seen
     nothing. While talking with the constables, the dairy farmer noticed a wound behind the
     dead man’s left ear. He drove on to the main police station in Nairobi to fetch