According to Buckingham Palace, the extraordinary turn of events was put into motion last Friday when the Queen told her son, Charles, the Prince of Wales, that she had met Mr. Burrell in the days after the princess's death in 1997 and he had told her he was keeping some of Diana's papers.
The palace said the comment was made in the course of a general conversation between the Queen and her son as they rode in a royal limousine to St. Paul's Cathedral in London for a memorial service for the victims of last month's bomb blast in Bali, Indonesia.
The palace spokesman said Charles thought the information significant and "immediate steps were taken to draw this to the attention of the police."
That came as a shock to the prosecutors, and it ruined their case.
The butler to the late Princess of Wales is suddenly 
