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But left-wing Laborite Barbara Castle insisted on getting back to the question of "Miss Christine Keeler, missing call girl, vanished witness." What, she asked, "if there is something else of much greater importance? What if there is a question of the perversion of justice at stake?"
For the government's answer next morning, the Commons was packed. On the front bench with Prime Minister Har old Macmillan sat urbane Tory Secretary of State for War John Profumo. 48, whose beautiful actress wife Valerie (Great Expectations ) Hobson sat quietly in the speaker's gallery overhead. Profumo rose and calmly said. "I understand that my name has been connected with the rumors about the disappearance of Miss Keeler." Indeed, Profumo said, he and his wife had met Christine at Cliveden, and he had subsequently seen her "on about six occasions at Dr. Ward's flat" in London. "I last saw Miss Keeler in December 1961, and I have not seen her since. Any suggestion that I was in any way connected with or responsible for her absence from the trial is wholly and completely untrue. There has been no impropriety between myself and Miss Keeler. I shall not hesitate to issue writs for libel and slander if scandalous statements are made outside this House."
After the two-minute speech, Profumo and his wife left the Commons for the races at Sandown Park, where they were the guests in the royal box of the Queen Mother. That night the Profumos danced cheek to cheek at a Tory Party ball.