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Title: Tragedy at Law
Author: Hare, Cyril [Clark, Alfred Alexander Gordon] (1900-1958)
Date of first publication: 1942
Date first posted: 17 July 2015
Date last updated: 17 July 2015
Project Gutenberg Canada ebook #1261

This ebook was produced by Alex White, Mark Akrigg
& the Online Distributed Proofreading Canada Team
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PUBLISHER'S NOTE

Italics in the original printed edition are indicated _thus_.

Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected.

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                             TRAGEDY AT LAW


                               Cyril Hare





                               To J.A.F.






                               Chapter 1
                             NO TRUMPETERS


"No trumpeters!" said his Lordship in a tone of melancholy and slightly
peevish disapproval.

His words, addressed to nobody in particular, produced no reply,
possibly for the reason that no reply to a statement of fact so obvious
was possible. Everything else that man could devise or tradition dictate
for the comfort or glorification of His Majesty's Judge of Assize was
there. A Rolls Royce of cavernous size purred at the door of the
Lodgings. The High Sheriff, faintly redolent of moth balls but none the
less a shining figure in the full-dress uniform of a Volunteer Regiment
long since disbanded, strove to bow respectfully and to avoid tripping
over his sword at the same time. His chaplain billowed in unaccustomed
black silk. The Under Sheriff gripped his top hat in one hand and in the
other the seven foot ebony wand, surmounted by a carved death's head,
with which the county of Markshire inexplicably chooses to burden its
Under Sheriffs on such occasions. Behind, the Judge's Clerk, the Judge's
Marshal, the Judge's Butler and the Marshal's Man formed a sombre but
not less satisfying group of acolytes. Before, a detachment of police,
their buttons and badges gleaming in the pale sunshine of October, stood
ready to ensure safe conduct through the streets of Markhampton. It was
an impressive spectacle, and the lean stooping man in the scarlet robe
and full-bottomed wig who was its centre was well aware that he was not
the least impressive part of it.

But the fact remained, odious and inescapable. There were no trumpeters.
War with all its horrors was let loose upon the earth and His Majesty's
Judge must in consequence creep into his car with no more ceremony than
an ambassador or an archbishop. Chamberlain had flown to Godesberg and
Munich and pleaded for them, but in vain. Hitler would have none of
them. The trumpeters must go. It was a distressing thought, and the look
on the High Sheriff's face might be interpreted as meaning that it was a
trifle tactless of the Judge to mention such a painful subject at such a
moment.

"No trumpeters!" repeated his Lordship wistfully, and climbed stiffly
into the car.

The Honourable Sir William Hereward Barber, Knight, one of the Justices
of the King's Bench Division of the High Court of Justice, as he was
described on the cover of the calendar of the Markshire assizes, had
been known for obvious reasons, in his early days at the Bar, as the
Young Shaver. As the years passed, the title was generally abbreviated
to "the Shaver". More recently a small but growing circle had taken to
calling him among themselves "Father William", for reasons with which
his age had nothing to do. He was, in fact, a man still under sixty. In
civil dress he was, it must be admitted, nothing very much to look at.
His clothes always hung badly from his lanky frame. His manner was jerky
and abrupt, his voice harsh and somewhat high-pitched. There is,
however, something about judicial garments that gives consequence to any
but the most undignified figure. The ample robes concealed his gawkiness
and the full-bottomed wig that framed his face enhanced the austere
effect of his rather prominent, aquiline nose and disguised the weakness
of his mouth and chin. As he settled back upon the cushions of the
Rolls, Barber looked every inch a Judge. The little crowd that had
gathered round the door of the lodgings to see his departure went home
feeling that, trumpeters or no trumpeters, they had seen a great man.
And in that, perhaps, lay the justification of the whole ceremony.

Colonel Habberton, the High Sheriff, was less fortunate in his costume.
The Markshire Volunteers had never been a particularly distinguished or
warlike body, and it was difficult to believe that the designer of their
uniform had taken his work seriously. He had been altogether too
generous with his gold braid, too fanciful with his treatment of the
shoulder straps and had given fatally free rein to his imagination when
it came to the helmet which was perched uncomfortably upon its owner's
knee. In its best days the uniform had been a gaudy mistake. In the age
of the battledress it was a ludicrous anachronism--besides being
damnably uncomfortable. Habberton, his chin smarting from contact with
its high, stiff collar, was uneasily aware that the titters which he had
heard coming from the crowd had been directed at him.

Judge and Sheriff eyed each other with the mutual distrust of men
compelled to associate on official business who are well aware that they
have nothing in common. In a normal working year Barber encountered
anything up to twenty sheriffs and he had found that by the time he had
discovered anything of interest about any of them the moment had always
arrived to move on to another town on the circuit. He had, therefore,
long since given up the attempt of trying to make conversation with
them. Habberton, on the other hand, had never met a judge in his life
before his appointment and did not care if he never met another when his
year of office was over. He scarcely ever left his own estate, which he
farmed seriously and efficiently, and held the firm opinion that all
lawyers were crooks. At the same time he could not help being impressed
by the fact that the man before him represented Majesty itself and the
recognition of this feeling caused him no small annoyance.

In fact, the only occupant of the car who was entirely at his ease was
the chaplain. The assize sermon having, like the trumpeters, been
sacrificed to the stern necessities of war, nobody expected him to say
or do anything. He could, therefore, afford to sit back and regard the
proceedings with an amused and tolerant smile. This he accordingly did.

"I am sorry about the trumpeters, my lord," Colonel Habberton observed
at last. "I'm afraid it's because of the war. We were instructed. . . ."

"I know, I know," said his lordship forgivingly. "The trumpeters have
other duties just now, no doubt. I hope I may hear them again the next
time I am on the circuit. Personally," he hastened to add, "I don't care
anything for all this paraphernalia." The wave of his hand seemed to
include the car, the footman on the box, the escorting policemen and
even the Sheriff himself. "But some of my colleagues take a different
view. I can't think what any of my predecessors would have thought of an
assize without trumpets!"

Those who knew Barber best used to say that whenever he was particularly
faddy or exacting he invariably excused himself by referring to the high
standards set by his colleagues or, in their default, his predecessors.
One had a vision of a great company of masterful beings, in scarlet and
white, urging on the modest Barber to abate no jot of his just dues in
the interests of the whole judiciary of England, past and present.
Certainly Barber usually showed no reluctance in obeying their summons.

"The trumpets are there all right," said Habberton. "And I had the
tabards made with my own arms on them. It seems rather a waste."

"You can always have the tabards made into fire-screens," suggested the
Judge kindly.

"I have three sets of those fire-screens at home already--my father's,
my grandfather's and my great uncle's. I don't know what I should do
with another pair."

His lordship pursed his mouth and looked discontented. His father had
been a solicitor's clerk and his grandfather a barman in Fleet Street.
At the back of his mind lurked a secret fear that strangers would find
this out and despise him for it.

The Rolls Royce crawled on, keeping pace with the bodyguard of police.

                 *        *        *        *        *

"Damn this stick!" said the Under Sheriff genially, as he wedged his
wand of office with difficulty between himself and the door of the car
which he shared with the Marshal. "I've done this job for ten years now,
and how I haven't smashed it every time, I can't imagine. It ought to
have been put into cold storage for the duration along with the
trumpeters."

The Marshal, an ingenuous-looking, fair-haired young man, looked at it
with interest.

"Do Under Sheriffs always have that sort of thing?" he asked.

"Good Lord, no! It's peculiar to this loyal and stick-in-the-mud city.
Is this your first assize?"

"Yes, I've never seen one before."

"Well, I expect you'll have seen quite enough by the time you've
finished the circuit. Though it's not a bad job for you--two guineas a
day and all found, isn't it? _I've_ got to keep an office going with
both my partners and half my staff called up and this Punch and Judy
show to attend to as well. I suppose you know the Judge well, don't
you?"

The Marshal shook his head.

"No. I'd only met him once before. He happened to be a friend of a
friend of mine and offered me the job. Marshals are hard to come by just
now, I suppose." He blushed slightly and explained. "I was turned down
for the Army, you see. Heart."

"Bad luck."

"And as I was keen on the law, I thought it was rather a chance. I
suppose the Judge is a very great lawyer, isn't he?"

"M'm. I'll leave you to answer that one when you've seen a bit more of
him. You ought to get some useful experience anyhow. My name's Carter,
by the way. I don't think I caught yours?"

The young man blushed again.

"Marshall," he said. "Derek Marshall."

"Of course, I remember now. The Judge mentioned it--'Marshall by name
and Marshal by occupation!' Ha, ha!"

Derek Marshall laughed rather feebly in agreement. He was beginning to
realize that he was going to hear quite a lot of this jibe before the
circuit was over.

Not every car can move so smoothly as a Rolls when constrained to keep
pace with policemen marching at regulation pace. (In point of fact, as
Barber was at that moment pointing out, his predecessors in office would
have scorned anything less than mounted men. Habberton turned the knife
in the wound by recollecting that his grandfather had provided
twenty-five javelin men in livery.) The hired vehicle in which Marshall
and Carter were riding ground and jerked forward uneasily in its noisy
bottom gear.

"It will be all right when we are through the Market Place," observed
Carter. "We catch them up there, so as to get to the Cathedral before
them. . . . Here we are! Get ahead, man, get ahead!"

The car shot forward, scattering the loiterers who had gathered in the
narrow square to watch embodied Law pass by.

                 *        *        *        *        *

Beamish, the Judge's clerk, was feeling thoroughly pleased with the
world. To begin with, he was on the Southern Circuit, which for many
reasons he preferred to any other. Secondly, he had succeeded in
recruiting a staff--butler, marshal's man and cook--who seemed
thoroughly amenable and would not be likely to question either his
authority or any little pickings which might come his way while they
were associated. Lastly and immediately most important, it was evident
that the Under Sheriff of Markshire was a Real Good Sort.

Under Sheriffs, in the eyes of Beamish, were either Mean Bastards,
Decent Gentlemen, or Real Good Sorts. They declared their quality at the
very first moment of the first day of an assize. When the cars drew up
at the doors of the lodgings to drive to church and thence to open the
assize, it would be found that a Mean Bastard had provided no conveyance
for the Judge's clerk. He was left to scuttle through the streets on his
flat feet--and Beamish's feet were very flat--or to hire a taxi for
himself, and the Lord knew that it was hard enough to square the circuit
accounts without such extraneous expenses. A Decent Gentleman, on the
other hand, offered Beamish a seat in his car, beside the chauffeur, so
that he arrived at his destination in comfort, if not in dignity. But a
Real Good Sort, who understood something of the importance of a judge's
clerk in the scheme of things, provided him at the expense of the county
with a car of his own. Such was Beamish's happy position at this moment,
and his fat little body quivered with pleasure as he followed at the
tail of the procession through the streets of Markhampton.

Beside him sat Savage, the butler, a depressed, elderly man, with a
permanent stoop as though his back had become bent through years of
deferential attendance on generations of judges. He was reputed to know
every circuit town in England and he had never been heard to say a good
word of one of them. On the floor, between the two men, lay an odd
variety of objects--a pouch containing his Lordship's notebooks, a tin
box which held his short wig, a rug for his Lordship's knees and an
attach case from which Beamish could produce, when called upon,
sharpened pencils, a spare pair of spectacles, a box of throat lozenges
or any other of a dozen necessities without which justice could not be
properly administered.

Beamish was giving his last instructions to Savage. They were quite
unnecessary, but he enjoyed giving instructions and Savage did not
appear to mind receiving them, so that no harm was done.

"As soon as they've put me down at the Cathedral I want you to take this
lot up to the Court."

"I only hope they've done something about the draught on the bench,"
interjected Savage mournfully. "It was something cruel last spring
assizes. Mr. Justice Bannister complained about it something dreadful."

"If his Lordship finds himself in a draught there'll be trouble all
round," said Beamish, almost gloating at the prospect, "_Big_ trouble.
Did you hear what he did on the Northern last year?"

Savage merely sniffed. His manner suggested that nothing that judges did
would ever cause him any surprise and that in any case it never made any
difference whatever they did.

Beamish began to fuss round the car as they neared the Cathedral.

"Now, have we got everything?" he said. "Black cap, smelling salts,
Archbold--where's the Archbold, Savage?"

"Under your foot," said the butler, and produced that indispensable
compendium of the criminal law.

"That's all right, then. Now about his Lordship's tea and biscuits this
afternoon----"

"I've told Greene to see to that. It's his place."

Greene was the Marshal's man. Why it should have been the place of such
a functionary, and no one else, to attend to the Judge's tea did not
appear, but Savage's gloomy tones left no room for dispute in the
matter. Beamish decided to defer to his greater experience. So long as
he did not have to demean himself by getting the tea, it did not signify
who did.

"Very well, so long as you've arranged it between you. Begin as you mean
to go on is my motto. Here we are! Send the car back for me. Sharp,
now!"

                 *        *        *        *        *

The Mayor and Aldermen of the City were awaiting the Judge at the great
west door of the cathedral. So were several press photographers. The
Corporation bowed respectfully. The Judge bowed back. After some
preliminary hesitations, which gave the photographers a good opportunity
of shooting the Judge from various angles, and Beamish of making sure
that he was well in the picture, the procession finally sorted itself
out and moved up the nave to the strains of the national anthem.

Outside, the police stood at ease, standing in line from the cathedral
entrance, facing northwards. Opposite them, facing southwards, was
another line of police, ready to take on the duties of escort from the
service to the court. The Judge's lodgings being in the City of
Markhampton, it was the duty of the city police to protect its august
visitor. The assizes being uniquely the affair of the County of
Markshire, it was equally the duty of the county police to keep watch
and ward over them. Rivalry between the two forces had been acute and
even at times violent, until a solemn conference between the county
authorities and the city fathers--under the presidency of no less a
being than the Lord Lieutenant--had produced an acceptable compromise:
from the lodgings to the cathedral the Judge belonged to the city; from
the cathedral to the courts to the county. On the second and subsequent
days of the assize, the county relieved the city at a place
approximately midway between the lodgings and the courts. Such are the
complexities of local government in Markshire.

The Chief Constable of Markhampton stood at the head of his men and
being gifted with a sense of humour, winked solemnly at his opposite
number, the county superintendent. The superintendent winked back, not
that he saw anything amusing in the situation, but because it was
evidently the proper thing to do. Presently a small, dark man in a
shabby blue serge suit made his way out of the crowd and approached the
Chief Constable. He muttered a few words in the other's ear, and then
turned away. The Chief Constable appeared to take no notice, but as soon
as he had gone, beckoned to the superintendent, who came forward to join
him.

"That fellow Heppenstall," he said quietly. "He's about again. My
fellows lost trace of him last night, but he's in the town somewhere.
Just mention it to your Chief, will you?"

"Heppenstall?" echoed the superintendent. "I don't think I know--what's
he wanted for?"

"Wanted for nothing. We've got to keep an eye on him, that's all.
Special Branch tipped us off about him. Tell your Chief, he'll know all
about it. And if the Judge----Here they come! Party, _'Shun_!"

The procession emerged into the sunlight once more.

                 *        *        *        *        *

The Shire Hall at Markhampton, where the assizes were to be held, was an
eighteenth century building, the architecture of which Baedeker would
undoubtedly have classified as "well-intentioned". Both within and
without it was in the uncared for condition into which the
best-intentioned of buildings are liable to relapse if they are only
occasionally used. If the authorities had dealt with the draught on the
bench which had so disturbed Mr. Justice Bannister, that was all that
they had done by way of improvements for a long time past. At all
events, Francis Pettigrew, leaning back in counsel's seats and studying
the ceiling, found his eye caught by the patch above the cornice where
plaster had peeled off, and recognized it for an old acquaintance. He
fell to wondering rather drearily how many years it was since, holding
his first brief on circuit, he had first observed it. The thought
depressed him. He had reached an age, and a stage in his profession,
where he did not much care to be reminded of the passage of time.

On the desk in front of him lay two briefs, no more interesting and
little more remunerative than the one which had given him so much
pleasure as a youngster all those years ago. They would just about pay
his expenses for coming down to Markhampton. Beside them was a packet of
papers--printers' proofs at which he had been working overnight. He
glanced at the title page, which was uppermost. "_Travers on Ejectment._
Sixth Edition. Edited by Francis Pettigrew, M.A., LL.B., sometime
Scholar of St. Mark's College, Oxford, sometime Fellow of All Souls,
sometime Blackstone Scholar in Common Law, of the Outer Temple,
Barrister-at-Law." The reiterated "sometime" irritated him. It seemed to
have been the keynote of his whole life. Some time he was going to be
successful and make money. Some time he would take silk, become a
Bencher of his Inn. Some time he would marry and have a family. And now
in a sudden rush of disillusionment, from which he strove to exclude
self-pity, he saw quite clearly that "some time" had become "never".
"There was a cherry-stone too many on the plate, after all!" he thought
grimly.

Looking back at the confident, and--he could fairly say it
now--brilliant young man who had opened his career at the Bar beneath
that self-same flaking plaster ceiling, he fell to wondering what had
gone wrong with him. Everything had promised well at first, and
everything had turned out ill. There were plenty of excuses, of
course--there always were. The war, for one thing--that other war,
already being shouldered into oblivion by its successor--which had
interrupted his practice just as he was showing signs of "getting
going". A bad choice of chambers, burdened by an idle and incompetent
clerk, for another. Private difficulties which had kept his mind off his
work at critical moments--the long drawn out agony of his pursuit of
Hilda, for example. God! What a dance she had led him! And, looking at
it dispassionately, how extremely sensible she had been to take the
decision she did! All these and other things he remembered, the friends
who had let him down, the promises of support unfulfilled, the shining
performances unrecognized. But to be honest, and for once he felt like
being honest with himself, was not the over-riding cause of Francis
Pettigrew's lack of success--no, if he was to be honest why not call
things by their proper names?--of his failure, then, simply something
lacking in Francis Pettigrew himself? Something that he lacked and
others, whom he knew to be his inferiors in so many ways, possessed in
full measure? Some quality that was neither character nor intellect nor
luck, but without which none of these gifts would avail to carry their
possessor to the front? And if so, how much did he, Francis Pettigrew,
care?

He let his mind go back to the past, indifferent to the growing clamour
and bustle in the Court around him. Well it hadn't been a bad life,
taking it all round. If anybody had told him, twenty-five years ago,
that middle age would find him eking out a precarious practice by the
drudgery of legal authorship, he would have felt utterly humiliated at
the prospect. But looking back on the road he had travelled, though it
had had some uncomfortable passages, he found little to regret. He had
had some good times, made some good jokes--just how much his incurable
levity of speech had told against him in his profession was luckily
hidden from him--made and kept some good friends. Above all, the Circuit
had been good to him. Circuit life was the breath of his nostrils. Year
by year he had travelled it from Markhampton right round to Eastbury,
less and less hopeful of any substantial earnings, but certain always of
the rewards that good fellowship brings. Of course, the old Southern was
not what it was. The Mess was a dull place now in comparison with the
old days. When he had first joined it, there had been some real
characters in its ranks--men of a type one didn't see nowadays, men who
bred legends which he, Pettigrew, and a few old stagers like him, could
alone remember. That race was long since extinct. Those strange,
lovable, ferocious oddities belonged to a bygone era, and his successors
would have nobody to remember who was worthy even to father a good story
on.

So mused Pettigrew, all unconscious of the fact that in the eyes of
every member of the mess under forty he was already a full-blown
"character" himself.

There was a stir in court. Outside, where in the days of peace should
have sounded a cheerful fanfare, were heard the shouted commands of the
superintendent of police. A moment later Pettigrew, in common with
everyone else in court, was on his feet and bowing low. If anybody had
happened to look at him at that moment, he would have surprised on that
lined but genial face an unusual expression of antagonism, not unmixed
with contempt. There were few people alive who could bring that
expression on to Pettigrew's normally kindly features, and unhappily
Barber was one of them.

"Silence!" roared an usher to an assembly that was already as mute as
mice.

Beamish, standing at the Judge's side, then proceeded to declaim in a
peculiar warbling baritone of which he was inordinately proud, "All
manner of persons having anything to do before My Lords the King's
Justices of Oyer and Terminer and general Gaol Delivery in and for the
County of Markshire draw near and give your attendance." Nobody moved.
They were all in attendance already and a posse of ushers made sure that
they should draw no nearer to the fount of justice. "My Lords the King's
Justices do straightly command All Persons to keep Silence while the
Commission of the Peace is read."

All Persons continued to keep silence. The Clerk of Assize then took up
the tale in a thin treble, "George the Sixth, by the Grace of
God. . . ." After Beamish's elocution his performance was somewhat of an
anti-climax, but the formalities were got through without disaster. The
Clerk bowed to the Judge, the Judge to the Clerk. At the right moments
His Lordship perched upon his wig a small three-cornered hat, and for a
few delirious instants looked like a judicial version of MacHeath. The
vision passed all too quickly and the hat was laid aside, to be seen no
more until the next circuit town.

Beamish boomed once more. This time his target was the High Sheriff,
whom he commanded to be pleased to deliver the Several Writs and
Precepts to him directed that My Lords the King's Justices might Proceed
Thereon. With the air of a conjuror, Carter produced a roll of papers,
tightly bound in pale yellow ribbon. This he handed with a bow to
Habberton. Habberton handed it with a deeper bow to Barber. Barber, with
a bare nod passed it down to the Clerk of Assize. The Clerk put it on
his desk and what became thereafter of the Several Writs and Precepts
nobody ever knew. Those all important instruments were certainly never
heard of again.

The little procession filed out once more, and reappeared a few minutes
later. This time His Lordship was seen to be wearing his bob wig and had
abandoned his white-trimmed scarlet hood. It was a sign that the time
for mere ceremony was over and that the grim business of criminal
justice was about to begin. To Derek Marshall, experiencing his first
contact with the criminal law, it was an august, a thrilling moment.

There was a brief, whispered colloquy between Judge and Clerk, and then:

"Let Horace Sidney Atkins surrender!" piped the Clerk.

A meek, middle-aged man in a grey flannel suit climbed into the dock,
blinked nervously at the magnificence that his wrong-doing had somehow
collected together, and pleaded guilty to the crime of bigamy.

Markhampton Assizes were under way at last.




                               Chapter 2
                         LUNCH AT THE LODGINGS


"Marshal!" said the Judge in a hoarse whisper. It was his Court whisper,
something quite different from any tone normally used by him--or indeed
by anyone else.

Derek, in his seat on the Judge's left hand, started somewhat guiltily.
Despite his enthusiasm for the law, he had found a succession of the
small cases taken first on the calendar intolerably dull. Casting about
for some occupation, he had seized on the only literature immediately
available--the Testaments provided for witnesses taking the oath.
Markshire not being a county much inhabited by Jews, except for those
too wealthy to be often encountered in the criminal courts, the
Pentateuch was little in demand for this purpose; and Derek was deep in
the Book of Exodus when the imperious summons reached him. With an
effort he dragged his mind away from the court of Pharaoh to the far
less interesting court in which Barber was dispensing justice, and bent
his head to catch the great man's orders.

"Marshal," the whisper went on, "ask Pettigrew to lunch."

It was the second day of the assize. The hour was 12.30 p.m. and
Pettigrew was just tying the red tape round his second and last brief
before leaving the court. Barber, if he had so desired, could have sent
his invitation at any time after the sitting of the court that morning.
By delaying it to the last moment he must have known that he was
combining the pleasures of dispensing hospitality with the maximum of
inconvenience to his guest. Such, at least, was Pettigrew's first
reflection when, having bowed himself out of court, he finally received
the message in the dank and cheerless cell that served as counsel's
robing-room at the Shire Hall. He had planned to catch the only fast
train of the afternoon to London, which left at one o'clock, and lunch
on the way. If he accepted he could hardly avoid spending another night
in Markhampton. Moreover, the Judge had expressed his intention of
dining with the mess. Two meals in Barber's company was more than enough
for one day. On the other hand, there was nothing to make his presence
in London necessary. Barber, who was quite alive to the state of
Pettigrew's practice, knew this also and would be certain to take a
refusal as an affront. And that, Pettigrew reflected, would mean that he
would have his knife into him for the rest of the circuit. He pondered
the alternatives, wrinkling his nose in a characteristic fashion, as he
tenderly folded his wig into its battered tin box.

"Lunch with his Lordship, eh?" he said at last. "Who else is coming?"

"The High Sheriff and the Chaplain, and Mrs. Habberton."

"Which is she? The rather pretty, silly-looking woman who sat behind
him? She looked as if she might be quite good value. . . . All right,
I'll come."

Derek, a little upset at the cavalier treatment of a quasi-royal
command, was about to leave, when another member of the Bar, a
contemporary of Pettigrew's, came in.

"I'm just off," said the newcomer. "Will you share a taxi down to the
station?"

"Sorry, I can't. I'm staying to lunch."

"Oh! Father William's invited you, I suppose?"

"Yes."

"Sooner you than me, brother. So long!"

Derek, greatly mystified, made bold to ask, "Excuse me, sir, why did he
call him Father William?"

Pettigrew regarded him quizzically.

"Have you met Lady Barber?" he asked.

"No."

"You will shortly, no doubt. Do you know _Alice in Wonderland_?"

"Of course."

          _"In my youth, said his Father, I studied the law,_
                _And argued each case with my wife;_
          _And the muscular strength----_

Look here, you'd better be getting back to court, or the Judge will be
rising on you unawares. He must be pretty nearly through his list. See
you at lunch, then."

After the young man had gone, Pettigrew remained for a few moments alone
in the dingy robing-room, his lean face puckered in thought.

"Silly of me to talk to the boy like that," he murmured. "After all, he
may _like_ Barber. And he's certain to like Hilda. . . . Oh well!"

He fought down a twinge of remorse. At this time of day, it wasn't as if
he need have any fine feelings so far as _she_ was concerned!

                 *        *        *        *        *

Pettigrew, who had walked up from the Shire Hall, arrived at the
Lodgings just after the other guests. He entered the drawing-room just
in time to hear Barber repeating, "Marshall by name and Marshal by
occupation," and the burst of girlish laughter that signified Mrs.
Habberton's appreciation of the jest. Her laughter was not the only
girlish thing about her, Pettigrew observed, as introductions were
effected. Her manner, her clothes, her complexion, were all designed to
foster the illusion that although she could not have been less than
forty by the calendar, she remained essentially no more than
nineteen--and a somewhat callow nineteen at that. And yet, he reflected,
"designed" was hardly the right word. Nobody quite so obviously
brainless could be properly said to have designed anything. The truth
seemed to be that it had never entered Mrs. Habberton's fluffy, still
pretty head that she was in any way different from the fluffy, pretty
girl who had married from the schoolroom twenty odd years before. And
one had only to glance at her husband to see that he did not notice any
difference either. In a few years time she would probably be a rather
pathetic spectacle. Meanwhile she retained a certain kittenish charm
which Pettigrew acknowledged to be not without its attractions. Barber
appeared to share his opinion.

Marshall, still rather pink about the gills from the echo of Mrs.
Habberton's laughter, dispensed sherry with an unsteady hand, and a
moment or two later Savage flung open the door and announced, with a
deep curvature of the spine, "Luncheon is served, my Lord!"

Mrs. Habberton moved towards the door, but the Judge was there before
her.

"Forgive me," he grated, "but on circuit it is customary for the Judge
to take precedence of everybody--even of ladies."

"Oh, of course! How silly of me, I forgot!" tinkled Mrs. Habberton. "You
are the King, aren't you? How very naughty of me! And I suppose I ought
to have curtsied when I came into the room?"

Barber's voice floated back through the doorway.

"Personally, I don't care for all this sort of thing, but some of my
colleagues. . . ."

                 *        *        *        *        *

It was a very substantial lunch. Rationing was then still in the future
and Mrs. Square, the cook, had been nurtured in a tradition which was
not to be disturbed by such minor matters as a war. Mrs. Habberton, to
whom housekeeping was a perpetual nightmare, twittered with envy and
excitement as she surveyed the menu. She saw, disguised in Mrs. Square's
idiosyncratic French, fillets of sole, lamb cutlets, pancakes and an
untranslatable savoury. Her eyes sparkled with childish delight.

"Four courses for lunch!" she exclaimed. "In wartime! It's a
revelation!"

As usual, she was conscious, too late, that she had said the wrong
thing. Her husband reddened, the Chaplain coughed awkwardly. The Judge
raised his eyebrows abruptly, as abruptly lowered them again, and took
breath to speak.

"Now he's going to talk about his colleagues again," thought Pettigrew,
and plunged desperately in to the rescue. As usual, he said the first
thing that came into his head.

"The four courses of the Apocalypse, in fact," he remarked.

In the silence that followed he had time to reflect that he could hardly
have said anything worse. There was, it was true, a brief splutter of
laughter from the Marshal, but this subsided instantly under the Judge's
stare of disapproval. Mrs. Habberton, for whose sake the sally had been
made, showed an expression of blank incomprehension. The Chaplain looked
professionally pained. The High Sheriff seemed to find his collar
tighter than ever.

His Lordship, in the exercise of his royal prerogative, helped himself
first to fish, still in ponderous silence. Then he said pointedly:

"Let me see, Pettigrew, are you prosecuting in the murder trial this
afternoon?"

("He knows damn well I'm not," thought Pettigrew. It was some time since
an Attorney-General's nomination on circuit had come his way, and
privately he considered that Barber had not a little to do with this.)
Aloud he said suavely, "No, Judge, Frodsham is leading for the
prosecution. Flack is the junior, I think. Perhaps you are thinking of
the Eastbury murder, where I am to defend."

"Ah yes!" replied Barber. "That is a Poor Person's Defence, is it not?"

"That is so, Judge."

"It is a wonderful system," the Judge went on, turning to Mrs.
Habberton, "by which nowadays the poor can obtain the assistance of even
experienced counsel at the expense of the State. Though I fear", he
added, "the fees allowed are sadly inadequate. I think it shows great
unselfishness on your part, Pettigrew, to undertake such a case. It can
hardly be worth your while to come so far for such small reward, when
you might, no doubt, be earning far more substantial sums elsewhere."

Pettigrew bowed and smiled politely, but his eyes were glassy with
anger. All this heavy-handed irony at the expense of his poor, shrinking
practice by way of revenge for one feeble joke! It was typical of the
man. The Eastbury murder was a case of considerable difficulty and
likely to attract fairly wide attention even in the middle of a war.
Pettigrew had looked forward to its giving him some welcome publicity,
which might extend beyond the confines of the Southern Circuit. Now he
realized with a sinking heart, that if Barber could so arrange matters
it would prove to be merely another flash in the pan. He found time,
too, to wonder whether his client would be hanged merely because the
Judge had a down on his counsel.

Meanwhile Barber continued to pontificate.

"Undoubtedly the system is an improvement on the old days," he
pronounced. "But I'm sure I don't know what some of my predecessors on
the Bench would have thought of it. They would have seen something very
illogical in an arrangement by which the State, having decided that a
man should be charged with an offence, should go to the expense of
paying somebody to endeavour to persuade a jury that he was innocent. I
think they would have considered it part and parcel of that
sentimentality which in many directions is becoming far too common
nowadays."

Colonel Habberton murmured sympathetically. Like many another honest
man, he lived by catchwords. "Sentimentality" was linked with
"Bolshevism" in his mind as the root of all evil, and there were few
reforms, social or political, that did not come under one heading or the
other.

"This outcry against capital punishment, for instance," said the Judge,
and the conversation which had been in danger of becoming a monologue
instantly became general. Everybody had something to say about capital
punishment. Everybody always has. Even the Marshal produced some
ill-digested recollections of what he had once heard someone say in a
college debating society upon the subject. Pettigrew alone remained
silent, for very good reasons of his own. He knew quite well that his
turn was coming, and he had not long to wait.

"Sentimentality is a disease that particularly affects the young," the
Judge remarked. "Pettigrew, for instance, used to be a most violent
opponent of hanging. Isn't that so, Pettigrew?"

"I still am, Judge."

"Dear, dear!" Barber clicked his tongue sympathetically. "The illusions
of youth die hard with some of us. Personally, so far from abolishing
the death penalty, I should be in favour of extending it."

"Stretching the stretching, in fact," Pettigrew murmured to Derek, who
sat next to him.

"What did you say, Pettigrew?" said Barber, who was not nearly so deaf
as all judges are popularly supposed to be. "Oh! Ah! yes! Well, you will
have your joke, but some of us consider the subject a serious one. I
should be strongly in favour of the execution of far more criminals
to-day. The habitual thief, for example, or the reckless motorist. I
should hang them all. They are better out of this world."

"And in the next," said the Chaplain unexpectedly, "they may be sure to
find Justice."

Of all the solecisms at this unhappy lunch party, this was undoubtedly
the most devastating. A man of God had actually presumed to make a
public profession of his beliefs--beliefs, moreover which hinted at the
existence of a justice superior to that dispensed in the High Court! It
put a summary end to a discussion which, if never very profound, had at
least been lively, and cast a complete pall over the rest of the
proceedings. Thereafter conversation languished and died in spite of
intermittent efforts to revive it. Mrs. Habberton, in an attempt to make
the party "go", put her foot into it once more by asking the Judge
whether he thought the prisoner in the case for trial that afternoon had
really "done it", but apart from this nothing was said worthy of record.
Savage, reinforced for the occasion by Greene, bustled to and fro with
the admirable dishes. Behind the door a mysterious individual known as
the house-butler was occasionally to be seen handling bottles and
plates. But the best of food, drink and service could not disguise the
fact that the lunch, as an entertainment, was a failure. Everybody was
relieved when Savage announced that the cars were at the door and Barber
retired to assume his wig before returning to Court.

His expression still sullen and morose, the Judge was walking through
the hall of the lodgings on his way to the door when Beamish handed him
a letter.

"Excuse me, my Lord," he murmured, "but I found this just now. It must
have arrived while your Lordship was at luncheon."

Barber looked at the envelope, raised his eyebrows and opened it. The
message inside was quite short, and he read it through in a moment. As
he did so, his face cleared, and for the first time that afternoon he
looked positively cheerful. Then he handed it to Derek.

"This will amuse you, Marshal," he said. "You'd better give it to the
Chief Constable when you get to Court."

Derek took the flimsy, typewritten sheet, and Pettigrew, standing behind
him, read it over his shoulder. It ran as follows:

    _To Justice Barber, alias Shaver:_

    _Justice will be done, even to judges. Be sure your sins will
    find you out. You are warned._

There was no signature.

"Now that is the kind of thing that cheers up an assize," said Barber
genially. "Good-bye, Mrs. Habberton, it has been a great pleasure to
meet you. So long, Pettigrew. I shall see you in mess this evening. Are
you ready, Mr. Sheriff?" And he drove off in high good humour.

Pettigrew, looking after him, had to admit to a certain feeling of
admiration.

"Damn it all, the old brute has guts!" he murmured.

None the less, he did not greatly look forward to his dinner in mess
that evening.




                               Chapter 3
                        A DINNER AND ITS SEQUEL


It was unusual for the Judge to be entertained by the Bar at the first
town on the circuit, but this departure from custom was being made at
his own request. Pettigrew, who was a stickler for tradition, strongly
disapproved, but the rest of the mess saw no objection. One evening was
as good as another for a mild jollification. Besides it was known that
Lady Barber would be joining him for the rest of the circuit, and it
seemed only fair to give the Shaver an evening out while he could have
it. It was an excuse to finish the champagne which had been quite long
enough in the cellars of the Red Lion, and they struggled into their
stiff shirts with a good grace.

Barber had insisted that it should be an informal evening, and he marked
the informality by driving Derek down to the hotel in his own car,
waving aside the offer of the Sheriff's Rolls Royce. He was still in the
genial mood that had come over him immediately after lunch. The
afternoon's work had been unexpectedly light. The prisoner, midway
through the case for the prosecution, had, upon a broad hint from the
bench, offered a plea of guilty to manslaughter, which was promptly
accepted. Derek, who had been looking forward to hearing his first death
sentence in the sickly state of excitement of a tourist at his first
bullfight, felt a mixture of disappointment and relief at the tame
conclusion. The Judge, despite his bloodthirsty conversation at table,
had shown every sign of satisfaction at the result and imposed a
sentence which erred, if at all, on the side of lenience. Derek, who was
not wholly devoid of brains, came to the conclusion that his outburst at
lunch was no more than a mild attack of exhibitionism, and further that
the presence of Pettigrew had something to do with it.

About a dozen men in all comfortably filled the small room allocated to
the mess at the Red Lion. (It was rumoured that there were women members
of the Southern Circuit, but apart from paying their entrance fees, they
were not encouraged to take part in its activities. The local solicitors
were conservative folk and saw to it that no hope of briefs should tempt
them to disturb the ancient masculinity of the mess.) The chair was
occupied by Frodsham, the only leader present, a plump, affable man of
no great attainments, but gifted with an air of success and prosperity
that was rapidly making him successful and prosperous. The Judge sat on
his right and Derek opposite the Judge. On Derek's left was the Clerk of
Assize, a tremulous old gentleman with a weakness for taking snuff.
Pettigrew, whether by accident or design, had placed himself as far as
possible from Barber, on the left of the Junior, who as custom
prescribed, sat at the foot of the table. Here the younger members
present had naturally gravitated. Pettigrew enjoyed the society of the
young, and he was aware that they enjoyed his, although he was beginning
to suspect that they regarded him rather as a museum piece than as a
human being like themselves.

The Judge's good humour lasted through dinner, and, assisted by an
adequate supply of champagne, communicated itself to the rest of the
company. He gave his views upon the war, which were no better or worse
than anybody else's views in October 1939. He told, inevitably, a number
of anecdotes of his early days at the Bar, and as the evening wore on,
became mildly sentimental about old times on the circuit, which he
hinted, was not what it had been. Pettigrew, who was in the habit of
thinking exactly the same thing, listened to him with barely concealed
scorn. One of his minor grievances against Barber was that he had never
been a true circuiteer. As soon as he possibly could he had deserted the
rough and tumble of the assize courts for the flesh-pots of London. For
years before his appointment to the bench he had been a member of the
Southern in name only, requiring exorbitant fees to tempt him into the
country, away from his ever-growing practice in the Strand. No harm in
that, Pettigrew conceded. He too had dreamed of a rich metropolitan
practice in his time. But he loathed hypocrisy and he had his own
reasons for loathing this particular hypocrite. It enraged him beyond
measure to hear this impostor pretending to those who knew no better
that he was a true heir to circuit traditions and a repository of
circuit lore.

They had reached the stage of brandy and cigars, when the Judge rose to
his feet.

"There are a lot of fine old circuit customs which are in danger of
being forgotten," he observed. "Here is one that may be new to many of
the younger members present. Indeed I think that I am probably the only
person here old enough to remember it, and I should like to revive it.
It is the old toast which used always to be proposed by the senior
member of the mess at the first Grand Night of the Michaelmas Term. I
give it you now--Fiat Justitia!"

"Wonderful what a lot the Judge knows about these old customs," his
neighbour observed to Pettigrew, after the toast had been duly honoured.

"Wonderful," said Pettigrew drily. The toast should have been "Ruat
Coelum", and it was drunk at the end of the Summer Term, and was
proposed always by the Junior. These trifling exceptions apart, Father
William had got it perfectly. But it didn't matter. As the old fraud had
truly said, circuit customs were in danger of being forgotten; and
Pettigrew had by now drunk enough not to care greatly one way or the
other.

"By the way, Marshal," remarked his Lordship to Derek as he resumed his
seat, "did you give that _billet doux_ of mine to the Chief Constable?"

"Yes," said Derek. "He seemed to take it--well, rather more seriously
than you did."

"It's his business to take things seriously. Besides, he hasn't seen so
many of them as I have. It is extraordinary", he went on, turning to
Frodsham, "how many anonymous letters a Judge receives in the course of
his career. One takes no notice of them, of course. You'll need to
cultivate a thick skin when you arrive on the bench, I assure you."

"Oh come, Judge, my ambitions hardly go as far as that, you know," said
Frodsham in a tone which made it very clear that they did. "What was
this particular letter about?"

"It was merely a threat of the usual vague kind. Rather more offensive
than usual so far as I remember. What did the Chief Constable say about
it, Marshal?"

"He didn't say very much. He just looked rather glum and said, 'That
will be Heppenstall, I shouldn't wonder.'"

"Heppenstall?" said Barber sharply.

"It was some name like that, I think. He seemed to know all about him."

The Judge said nothing for some time after that, but he helped himself
liberally to the brandy.

The cessation of the flow of reminiscence from the head of the table
seemed to put a momentary damper on the high spirits of the evening, and
Frodsham was quick to notice it.

"Mr. Junior," he called down the table, "will you kindly designate some
member to entertain us?"

This was a tradition of the mess that everybody knew. On being
designated to entertain the company, the chosen member was bound
forthwith to contribute a song, story or impersonation upon pain of a
substantial fine. If his contribution failed to entertain, the penalty
was equally substantial and decidedly undignified.

"I designate Pettigrew," replied the Junior without hesitation.

Pettigrew stood up and stood silent for a moment, his nose contorted in
wrinkles that lost themselves between his eyebrows. Then he said, in
crisp professional tones,

"Mr. Junior, I beg to contribute the story of Mr. Justice Rackenbury and
the case of indecent assault tried at these assizes in the Hilary Term
of nineteen hundred and thirteen."

There was an anticipatory burst of laughter. Everybody present had heard
of the story, most were familiar with more or less garbled versions of
it, and Pettigrew had told it at circuit dinners half a dozen times at
least. That made no difference. This story was a legend, and legends do
not lose their potency by repetition. Rather, in the hands of
accomplished bards, they gather with the years fresh accretions which
add to their value as part of the inherited lore of the tribe. The mess
sat back in confidence that they would be well and truly entertained.

It was, in fact, for the time and place, a good story--mildly obscene,
highly technical, and told at the expense of an amiable company lawyer
whose incompetence as a criminal judge had long since passed into
history. Pettigrew told it well, his expression never varying and his
voice maintaining throughout the dry tones of an advocate discussing
some unexciting point of procedure. He appeared to be unconscious of the
gusts of merriment around him and when the tale reached its indecorous
conclusion seemed quite surprised to find himself on his legs and the
centre of hilarious applause.

In fact, so familiar was the story to him that he had for the most part
recited it almost absentmindedly, while his thoughts were busy on
another plane. Once launched on the well worn grooves of the famous
dialogue between Rackenbury and the prisoner awaiting sentence, he could
safely leave his tongue to take care of itself. His brain, meanwhile,
was occupied with half a dozen different things, mostly trivial enough.
Presently, however, one question came to occupy it to the exclusion of
all others. This was, quite simply, "What on earth is the matter with
the Shaver?"

For the Shaver was not laughing with the others. More, he was not
listening. He was sitting glumly regarding the tablecloth and from time
to time helping himself to another liqueur brandy from the bottle which
had somehow become anchored at his elbow. Characteristically,
Pettigrew's first anxiety was for the brandy. "There's not too much of
that 'Seventy-Five left," he reflected. "I must remember to tell the
Wine Committee at the next meeting. Of course, we'll never be able to
get any more as good as that, but we must do the best we can. . . .
Sickening to see the Shaver hogging that grand stuff. Not like him,
either. He'll be tight if he isn't careful." He found that he had
finished the story and sat down abruptly.

Barber was not tight, but he had certainly had enough to drink, and if
he went on at the rate he was going it would not be long before he would
have had too much. Something of the kind seemed to have occurred to him,
for the laughter that crowned Pettigrew's efforts had hardly subsided
before he suddenly pushed away his glass and said across the table,
"Marshal! It's time we were getting home."

Derek was not a little disappointed. The night was still young and he
was just beginning to enjoy himself. But obviously there was nothing to
be done about it. The distinguished guest rose from table and the party
automatically broke up. Derek retrieved their hats and coats and they
went out into the hall. Frodsham and one or two others accompanied them
out. Looking round to say "Good night" to these, Barber saw amongst them
Pettigrew, also dressed for the street.

"What are you doing, Pettigrew?" he asked in surprise. "Aren't you
staying here?"

"No, Judge, I'm stopping at the County."

Barber might not be a good circuiteer, but he knew enough to understand
exactly what staying at the County implied. The Red Lion was not only
the regular hotel for the mess, the place to which "letters and parcels
for gentlemen of the Bar" were ordered to be directed by the circuit
notices, it was the only first class establishment in Markhampton.
Everybody stayed there as a matter of course. Everybody, that is who
could afford to. To stay at the County, which in spite of its name was a
miserable pothouse, was a confession of dire poverty. The Judge took a
quick look at Pettigrew, at the shabby overcoat and the frayed trouser
legs which showed beneath them.

"The County, eh?" he said after a pause. "How are you getting there?"

"I shall walk. I like a bit of fresh air after dinner."

"Nonsense. I'll give you a lift. It's on my way."

"No really, Judge. I'd much sooner walk."

Outside it was pitch dark and a steady rain was falling.

"You can't walk in this," said the Judge testily, "get in!"

Pettigrew, without further words said, got in.

                 *        *        *        *        *

Now there are certain things which in a well-conducted world simply do
not occur. In a well-conducted world His Majesty's Judges of assize do
not drive their own cars while on circuit. They employ the services of
competent professionals supplied and paid by the county whose guests
they happen to be. Further, if they do so far forget their dignity as to
act as their own chauffeurs--for, after all, they are but human and may
be permitted to enjoy driving as much as lesser mortals--they do not do
so in the black-out, on a wet, moonless night, and after imbibing rather
more than the customary allowance of old brandy. Finally, at all times
and seasons, it may be taken for granted that they drive with the utmost
care and circumspection. It has regretfully to be recorded that in this,
as in so many other instances, the world proved to be somewhat worse
conducted than it is popularly supposed to be.

The accident happened at the junction of High Street and Market Place,
just after the car had taken the sharp right-hand turn necessary to
bring it round the corner. Pettigrew, who was sitting alone in the back,
was never able to say with precision exactly what occurred. He was first
shaken out of a doze by being thrown sideways in his seat as the car
swung round, then heard the squeal from the ball-bearings telling him
that the corner had been taken too fast, and finally awoke to full
consciousness with the realization that the back wheels were sliding
over to the left in a violent skid. A moment later the car struck the
nearside kerb with an impact that pitched him headlong into the back of
the driver's seat. And that, as he frequently had occasion to remind
himself later on, was absolutely all that he knew about it. He would be
wholly useless as a witness. That was some comfort.

It was a little time before Pettigrew pulled himself together
sufficiently to get out of the car and inspect the damage. When he
finally scrambled out on to the wet, slippery pavement he collided with
two almost invisible objects which proved to be Barber and Marshall.
They were standing very close together, as though for mutual support,
and even in the darkness their attitude had an appearance of
helplessness. The next thing he observed was a small spot of light in
the road immediately behind the car. Shaken as he was, it was a little
time before he realized that this light proceeded from a policeman's
lantern and that it was focused upon something--no, upon someone--lying
in the middle of a pedestrian crossing close to the car's tail lamp.

"Oh Lord," Pettigrew groaned, rubbing his head. "This is a pretty kettle
of fish."

He pulled himself together, and walked out into the road.

"Yes," said the constable shortly. "There's no bones broken. We might
move him."

He bent down, grasped the unconscious man beneath the shoulders,
Pettigrew took him by the legs, and together they carried him to the
side of the road. There the constable arranged his cape to form a rough
support for his head, while Marshall, who had now come forward, brought
a rug from the car to put over him. There followed a pause of a few
moments during which no one spoke. It suddenly occurred to Pettigrew
that this was a very young officer and that he was probably racking his
brains as to the next step in the road accident procedure. Obviously,
the proper thing to do in normal circumstances would be for the Shaver
to drive his victim to the nearest hospital, but he had not offered to
do so, and Pettigrew could see several good reasons why he should not.
The less publicity about this business, the better for all concerned, he
reflected.

"Shall I see if I can get an ambulance?" he said aloud.

The young policeman came to life at once.

"You stay here--all of you," he commanded.

He walked a few paces away, to where in the gloom Pettigrew could now
just discern a telephone box. He was only away a few moments, but it
seemed quite a long time to those who waited. The Judge was still
standing quite still and silent, his slightly bent form a picture of
dejection. Pettigrew did not feel equal to addressing him. To Marshall
he said quietly:

"Lucky there's nobody about, anyway."

"There was someone just now," Derek answered softly. "I saw him just as
I got out of the car. He made off when the bobby came up, though."

"Hell!" said Pettigrew.

"I say, sir, do you think he's badly hurt?"

"M'm. 'Fraid so."

The officer returned, his steps sounding now brisk and confident.

"The ambulance will be here in a moment," he announced. His notebook
came out with a flourish, and he turned to Barber. "You were the driver
of this vehicle, I think, sir?" he said. "Your name and address, if you
please?"

"Perhaps, officer, I can explain matters," began Pettigrew smoothly.

"One at a time, if you please, sir," interrupted the constable, now
evidently completely the master of himself and the proceedings. He
turned to Barber once more. "Your name and address, if you please?"

Barber gave it. It was the first time he had spoken since the accident
had happened, and his voice sounded even harsher than usual. The young
policeman, who had begun to write automatically in his book, stopped
abruptly, and his lantern wavered perceptibly for an instant. Then
discipline reasserted itself and he finished his writing, breathing
heavily as he did so. It was an awkward moment, and one for which no
instructions are laid down in the manuals issued for the guidance of
recruits to the Markhampton Constabulary.

"Er--just so, my lord," he said. "Just so. I----" he paused and gulped,
but went on bravely--"I'm afraid I shall have to ask for your lordship's
driving licence and insurance certificate."

"Just so," said Barber, repeating his words with what sounded like
almost ironic emphasis. Going to the car, he took from it a small
folder, which he handed to the constable.

"You will find them both in there," he grated.

At this point a diversion was effected by the arrival of the ambulance.
In what seemed to Pettigrew an amazingly short space of time, the
injured man was examined, bandaged, picked up and borne away, leaving
nothing to mark his passing but the constable's cape, lying neatly
folded on the pavement. Its owner took it up, shook it, and, the rain
having by now stopped, rolled it up and put it under his arm. Then he
resumed his study of the documents handed to him by the Judge.

In a well-conducted world--let it be repeated--all motorists without
exception, but particularly Judges of the High Court, renew their
driving licences when they expire. Further, well before the due season,
they take advantage of the reminders which their insurance companies are
good enough to send them and provide themselves with the certificate
required by the Road Traffic Acts, 1930 to 1936. The fact that from time
to time they carelessly forget to do so, and thereby commit quite a
number of distinct and separate offences, only goes to prove once more
how far from perfectly conducted the actual world is. The fact that even
Judges of the High Court are not immune from lapses of memory is perhaps
an argument in favour of the proposition that in a well-conducted world
they would not be allowed to drive motor-cars at all.

"I'm afraid, my lord," said the officer, "there seems to be something
wrong with these here."

Barber looked at them under the lantern.

"They appear to be out of date," he remarked sadly, almost humbly.

"In that case, my lord, I must ask you----"

But Derek at this point suddenly and unexpectedly asserted himself.

"Don't you think, officer," he said, "that the best thing would be for
you to report the whole matter to your superior, and then perhaps the
Chief Constable could come and discuss the matter quietly with his
lordship at the Lodgings? All this is--well, a little unsuitable,
perhaps."

The constable, obviously relieved, jumped at the offer.

"Perhaps you're right, sir," he said. "If I can just have your name and
the other gentleman's."

The notebook was flourished for the last time, and a moment or two later
the incident was closed--for the time being, at least. Pettigrew, who
found himself close to his hotel, walked away, while Derek, in his
new-found position of authority, firmly announced that he would drive
the Judge home, and got into the driver's seat without waiting for
permission.

"Damned old fool! Damned old fool!" Pettigrew found himself repeating
again and again as he walked the short distance back to the County. His
head was aching from the blow that it had received when the car hit the
pavement, his thin soles let in the damp from the pavement, he was
tired, bruised and angry. Particularly was he angry. From first to last
the responsibility for his plight rested on the Shaver, but for whom he
would at that moment have been snug in bed in London. In the reaction
from the hilarity of the evening, he began to feel as if the mishap
which had succeeded it had been deliberately planned by the Judge to
cause him annoyance. The Shaver's lapse in the little matter of the
driving licence and insurance certificate only served to increase his
wrath. In a way, it gave him a certain grim pleasure to find his enemy
in this undignified predicament, but this was more than counterbalanced
by disgust that one of His Majesty's Judges should have disgraced
himself in such a way. There was probably not a judge on the bench whom
Pettigrew had not at one time or another criticized, lampooned or held
up to ridicule in some post-prandial recitation for the benefit of the
mess. As individuals, he liked not a few, admired many, but reverenced
none. He knew them too well, had studied them too closely, to have any
illusions about them. But for the Bench as a whole, he felt a deep
unspoken respect which went to the very roots of his being. It was the
symbol of what he lived by and for, and anything that would tarnish the
good name of the order in the eyes of the outside world, as distinct
from the little charmed circle of lawyers, affronted him deeply. As the
sense of his own personal grievance wore off, the greater did the
enormity of Barber's conduct appear, and by the time that he had
finished his short walk, he was possessed by one thought only--that at
all costs this affair must if possible be kept out of the papers.

"The City Chief Constable's a sensible man," he mused. "There won't be
any criminal proceedings, anyhow. We can bank on that. Let's hope he can
put the fear of death into that young copper and see that he keeps his
mouth shut. As for Marshall, obviously he's got his head screwed on the
right way. He ought to be safe. Better have a talk to him in the
morning, all the same. Lucky there weren't any outside witnesses, except
one, and he wasn't there when the old idiot gave his name. Odd thing,
incidentally, the way he sheered off. . . . It's always a job to stop
people talking, but it might be managed. . . ."

Still pursuing his train of thought, he pushed open the swing door of
his hotel and stepped into the momentarily dazzling light of the hall.
His way through to the stairs led him past the inner entrance to the
saloon bar, and as he passed he heard the cry of "Time, gentlemen,
please!" He was astonished to find that it was no later. True, the mess
had dined at its usual early hour, and, thanks to the Judge, the evening
had not run its full course. But so much had happened since that he
could hardly believe that the County was in fact keeping legitimate
hours, and he peered in through the door to glance at the clock.

The bar was full and noisy with the mellow voices of patrons putting
away their last drinks. The air was cloudy with tobacco smoke and rich
with a warm, moist smell of beer and humanity. Pettigrew noted the time
by the clock on the far wall and was about to withdraw when his eye was
caught by an animated group beneath it. Three or four soldiers and one
or two civilians were clustered round a darts board, at which a short,
tubby middle-aged man in a dazzling check pullover was taking aim.
Evidently the game was in its concluding stages, and excitement was
running high. Evidently, also the thrower was a master of the craft. He
threw, and a shout went up. "Thirty-four you want!" someone shouted.
"Careful now, Corky. Go for----" But Corky evidently knew exactly what
he wanted. With a look of perfect confidence he threw again. Another
shout. "Double seven!" "Twenty now," said the voice. Pettigrew, who knew
nothing whatever of the game felt the rising tide of emotion grip him.
He became desperately anxious for Corky to do whatever was necessary,
and waited breathlessly for the last throw. He need not have worried.
Amid a sudden breathless silence, Corky raised his fat form on his toes
with the grace of a dancer, took careful aim and loosed his last shaft.
"Double ten!" The noise seemed to make every glass in the bar ring
again. Sweating, but otherwise perfectly calm, the triumphant Corky
suffered his hand to be wrung, his back to be thumped again and again,
and retired to finish his glass, while, the barman thundered, "Time,
gentlemen, _please_!"

From the moment that he had set eyes on him, Pettigrew had felt positive
that Corky was no stranger; but it was not until he saw the air of quiet
dignity with which he submitted to the attentions of his admirers, that
he recognized him. This was the more remarkable considering that he had
seen him last only that same afternoon. In view of the difference of the
surroundings, however, it was not altogether surprising. Pettigrew had
attended the beginning of the murder trial less for the sake of hearing
Frodsham's opening address to the jury than for the sheer sthetic
amusement it gave him to listen to the modulations of Beamish. Beamish
in Court, sombrely resplendent in tail-coat and striped trousers and
Corky in the saloon bar, the champion of darts players, seemed about as
far apart as two persons could possibly be, but that they were one and
the same could not be doubted.

Pettigrew chuckled on his way up to bed. He had at least made an amusing
discovery to end the evening with. "If anyone can inform my Lords the
King's Justices," he said to himself, striving to recapture the opulent,
over-refined tones of Beamish's court voice, "of any treasons, murders,
felonies or misdemeanours done or committed by the prisoner at the bar,
let him come forth and declare it, for the prisoner now stands upon his
deliverance." He wondered whether any of Beamish's saloon-bar friends
attended the assizes to hear him do his stuff. Perhaps he kept that side
of his life as secret from them as no doubt he did his trips to the
County from his employer. "Does the Shaver know he's called Corky?"
Pettigrew mused.

For the moment his delight at Beamish's metamorphosis had put Barber out
of his mind. Now the problem that had been worrying him returned with
double force. In his estimate of the possibilities of keeping this
distressing business dark he had forgotten to reckon with Beamish.
Clerks always knew everything. Was Beamish reliable? After what he had
seen, he did not feel so sure. Unless Beamish was able to keep Corky
entirely distinct from his professional life, it was difficult to
imagine secrecy and discretion flourishing in the atmosphere of the
County bar. Pettigrew got into bed with a furrowed brow and a very
wrinkled nose.




                               Chapter 4
                        AFTERMATH OF AN ACCIDENT


The Chief Constable of the city made an early call at the lodgings next
morning. His interview with the Judge, which might well have been a
difficult one, passed off smoothly enough, thanks to the fund of tact
and charm which he concealed beneath his bluff buoyant manner. Nothing
in terms was said about the unfortunate omission of his Lordship to
provide himself with the documents which are normally essential to the
legal conduct of a car on the road. Not a word was uttered which could
have suggested that the affair was to be hushed up, or, indeed, that
there was any affair to be hushed up. At the same time, the effect of
the interview was perfectly clear. The Judge, on his side, was deeply
sorry at what had occurred, and would certainly not drive his car until
what had been left undone had been done. The Chief Constable, on his,
guaranteed that nothing more would be heard of the matter, so far as the
police were concerned. Meanwhile, without suggesting in any way that he
wished his Lordship to do anything so derogatory to his dignity as to
"make a statement", he contrived to extract from him a very detailed
account of the whole occurrence, which Barber, on his side, was
perfectly ready to give. The whole conversation, in fact, was a pleasant
little comedy, played on both sides with perfectly grave faces.

When this part of the colloquy was over, the Chief Constable, with a
slightly too obvious sigh of relief, blew out his cheeks, sat back in
his chair, and accepted the cigarette which the Judge offered him. He
had still something further to say, and Barber appeared to be in no
hurry to be rid of him.

"You haven't told me," said the latter, "how is the poor fellow--what is
his name, by the way?"

"Sebald-Smith," said the Chief Constable.

"Sebald-Smith," repeated the Judge. "An unusual name. I seem to have
heard it somewhere."

"Not a native of this city, my lord. He was staying with friends. We had
a little difficulty in tracing them."

"Indeed? I trust his injuries are not serious?"

"Quite light, I am glad to say, my lord. A mild concussion, the doctor
says, and a finger crushed. Actually the little finger of his left hand.
That is all, apart from a few small bruises and some slight shock."

"Wounds, bruises and contusions generally, and a severe shock to the
nervous system." Barber's mind went back to the formula with which he
used to conclude the particulars of damage in the old days when he
turned out pleadings in accident cases by the score.

"He should be out and about in a couple of days," the Chief Constable
was saying.

Barber sighed in relief. Apart from his salary, he was a poor man. He
knew--none better--the scale of damages normally awarded to plaintiffs
in such cases. This sounded like a case that could be settled--it would
have to be settled, of course--quite cheaply. "Provided they don't have
to amputate the finger," he thought. "That always inflates the damages
in a ridiculous way." He remembered with regret the substantial solatium
that he had awarded a young woman only the previous term for the loss of
a big toe. Hilda had said at the time that he had been influenced by the
fact that she was not only young but extremely pretty. That was
nonsense, of course, but all the same it was unfortunate. The case had
attracted some attention in the papers, too . . . still, at the worst,
it could not amount to a very large sum. He rapidly ran over in his mind
the economies he would have to make if he were called upon to find, say
200 at short notice; and was a little uneasy to discover that the
majority of them would have to be at the expense of the dress and
amusements of Lady Barber. On the whole, he concluded, his wife's
reception of the night's adventure was going to be one of the most
unpleasant sides of the whole affair.

"I am very glad to hear that it is no worse," he said. "Very glad
indeed. It is a great load off my mind. Well"--he rose to his feet--"we
must both be starting our day's work, I suppose. I am very much obliged
to you for coming round to see me about this--this unlucky affair."

"Not at all, my lord, not at all," murmured the Chief Constable
confusedly. He also stood up, but seemed somewhat loth to go.

"There is one other little matter, my lord," he said.

"Yes?"

"The anonymous letter which your lordship received yesterday. The County
Chief showed it to me."

"Yes, yes! What of it?"

"Well, my lord, we have some reason to think that it may have emanated
from a man named Heppenstall. Your lordship will perhaps remember the
name----"

"Heppenstall! Oh, yes, quite! Heppenstall!" the Judge murmured. He was
not looking at the Chief Constable as he spoke and there was a pained
expression on his face that suggested extreme distaste for the name and
the subject.

"We know that he was in this city the day before yesterday," the Chief
Constable went on hurriedly. "He is out on ticket of leave, of course,
and should have reported to the police."

"Then why can't you do something about it?" said Barber irritably.
"Arrest him, or something? After all, it's your duty----"

"Quite so, my lord, I appreciate that. Unfortunately, we have lost sight
of him, for the time being. It is very difficult to keep touch with
people in this blackout, and at the moment I have a number of men on
special duty for the Assizes. But there it is. This man is at large and
we can't help being a little uneasy about it."

"I should have thought I was the one to be uneasy," said the Judge with
a short barking laugh.

"That is just the point, my lord--to save you from uneasiness. Now of
course normally, our axiom is that people who intend crimes of violence
of this kind don't advertise the fact beforehand. But this man, since
his imprisonment, is not quite normal. So far as--so far as his
particular grievance is concerned, if you follow me, my lord."

From Barber's expression it was plain that he followed him perfectly,
and that he did not greatly enjoy the journey.

"Well?" he said.

"All that I was going to suggest, my lord, was that in the circumstances
it might be advisable for us to afford you police protection--in
addition, I mean, to the ordinary escort to and from the court. The
Lodgings here are rather easily accessible, for instance. I should like
to post a man at the door and another at the back of the house. They
would be quite unobtrusive--in plain clothes, if your lordship prefers
it. Then, in addition, when your lordship goes out for a walk after the
court rises, it would be as well to have a man to follow, just in
case----"

"I have my Marshal," the Judge objected.

The Chief Constable's face showed fairly clearly that he did not think
much of Marshals.

"I should be happier in my mind if you had police protection as well,"
he said. "After all, it is only for a day or two, and it is my
responsibility. If anything were to happen----"

"Very well, if you think it necessary. You have, of course, no proof
that the ridiculous letter I received was in fact from this fellow?"

"Not the smallest, my lord. But it is a coincidence which we can't
overlook. I only hope we may be wrong. Very likely we shall hear no more
about him."

At this point Savage entered the room, and humbly suggested that it was
time his lordship robed for Court. The Chief Constable accordingly took
his leave.

                 *        *        *        *        *

Pettigrew reached the Lodgings while Barber was in conference with the
Chief Constable. He asked for Marshall, and found the young man in a
somewhat depressed state of mind.

"So the Judge is talking it over with the Chief, is he?" said Pettigrew
cheerfully. "I suppose they're putting their heads together to keep
things quiet?"

"That is the idea, I take it," answered Derek in an unexpectedly bitter
tone.

"Well, isn't it everyone's?" said Pettigrew. "I imagined it was yours
when you suggested it to the constable last night."

"Mine? I simply wanted to get away from the place as soon as I could. I
hate hushing things up."

"But my dear fellow, it would never do to have a thing like this
proclaimed from the house-tops. Surely you can see that?"

"Things oughtn't to be hushed up," said the young man obstinately.
"After all, if there is such a thing as justice----"

"Good Lord! This sort of talk will never do if you mean to be a lawyer,"
Pettigrew reproved him. "I'm afraid you suffer from ideals."

"I am an idealist, sir, and I'm not ashamed of admitting it."

"Please don't call me 'sir', it makes me feel even older than I am. But
seriously, what had you in mind? Having the Judge tried before the local
beaks for offences against the Road Traffic Act?"

"Well, yes, I suppose so. I don't see why he should be treated
differently, because he is a judge."

Pettigrew shook his head.

"It wouldn't do," he said. "Don't you see, the whole system depends on
their being treated differently from ordinary people? It's apt to be
rather bad for them as individuals, and to give the weaker brethren
swollen heads, but it's good for the administration of the law as a
whole, and that's why we've got to back it up for all we're worth. No,"
he continued, "the problem that really interests me is whether any court
would be competent to try a Judge for an offence committed on circuit.
You see, he's supposed to be the equivalent of the King, and all that,
and the King can do no wrong, but I don't think the question has ever
been tried out. Nobody's ever had the courage to prosecute in such
circumstances."

"I don't suppose any Judge has ever done such a thing before," suggested
the Marshal hopefully.

"For Heaven's sake don't run away with that idea! Judges in the past
have done the most outrageous things on circuit. Haven't you ever heard
the story of Mr. Justice----"

He launched out into a series of scabrous anecdotes, which left Derek
deeply shocked, but helpless with laughter.

"And the moral of that is--hush it up!" he concluded. "None of these
stories ever got out. In fact the last one I told you never has got out
until this moment, because I made it up for your benefit as I went
along. And in return for that kindness I want one from you. Will you
keep your mouth shut about this business to all and sundry?"

"Of course I will," said Derek, somewhat hurt. "You needn't really have
asked me that."

"Good! I thought there was a limit to your idealism somewhere. Well, I
must be off. I'm afraid this business has been rather upsetting to
everybody. I shall be surprised if it doesn't leak out somewhere, but if
we all keep it under our hats and lie like troopers if necessary there
shouldn't be too much harm done. The great thing is there weren't any
independent witnesses of the poor Shaver's confession of his identity."

                 *        *        *        *        *

The confidence which Pettigrew had instilled into Derek's mind on this
last point was not long-lived. A few minutes later, his lordship, wigged
and robed, was about to leave the house, when Beamish handed him another
letter. It was similar in appearance to the former one, but its
substance was a good deal pithier. It consisted, in fact, of one word
only: "_Murderer!_"

Barber read it and shrugged his shoulders. He did not on this occasion
show it to anyone else, but crumpled it up and thrust it into his
trousers pocket. With a serious expression he climbed into the Rolls
Royce, and was driven to the court. There, the criminal business having
been disposed of on the previous day, he sat in simple state for the
trial of civil actions. The first two cases in the list were actions for
damages arising out of motor accidents. Barber tried them admirably, but
the damages which he awarded were perhaps rather on the small side.




                               Chapter 5
                              LADY BARBER


The Judge had intended to travel to Southington, the next circuit town,
in his own car, but in the circumstances this was clearly out of the
question. The guilty vehicle was left behind in a garage at Markhampton
until such time as it could be moved without offence to the law, and he
and his Marshal went with the rest of the ponderous machine of justice
by train. It was a tiresome journey. The progress of the Southern
Circuit from county to county was still along the path that had seemed
good to it since the reign of Henry II. Unfortunately, the railway
speculators of the Victorian age, actuated by sordidly commercial
considerations, had laid down their lines with little regard for the
convenience of the judiciary. Their ideas did not soar beyond the
provision of a main line between Markhampton and London, and another
from London to Didbury Junction, whence a branch line meandered slowly
to Southington. Their soulless, urban minds, preoccupied with the
problem of moving passengers and goods to and from the capital, had
never entertained the idea of anybody seriously wishing to travel direct
from Markhampton to Southington. At all events, perhaps because the two
towns were on different railway systems, they made it as difficult as
possible. The circuit, which moved with the times, but a pace or two
behind them, had discovered, during the course of the nineteenth
century, that travel by rail, even along this route, was somewhat
quicker than by coach, and had accepted the railwaymen's grudging
facilities. Nowadays, the Southington bus, which does the journey in an
hour and a half, passes the Judge's lodgings at Markhampton three times
a day, but this development of civilization has so far escaped its
official notice.

If the journey was tiresome, involving as it did two changes and a wait
of forty minutes at Didbury Junction, it was at least made in comfort. A
first-class carriage was reserved for the Judge and his Marshal. Another
contained the Clerk of Assize, the Clerk of Indictments, and the
Associate. Beamish and his myrmidons, as was only proper, travelled
third class, but in equal seclusion. The luggage of the party, personal
and official, absorbed the services of several porters and almost the
whole of a guard's van. The railway authorities had raised objections to
reserving carriages, pleading wholly irrelevant considerations of the
difficulties of wartime, but Beamish had soon put an end to them. "I
just said to them," he explained to his admiring audience, as he dealt
the hands for a quiet game of nap, "if anyone was to get into the same
carriage as one of His Majesty's Judges!----!" There was no need for him
to finish the sentence. Everybody present knew that such an event would
be enough to blow the whole British Constitution sky-high.

                 *        *        *        *        *

The caravan reached its destination in the early afternoon. In the hour
that remained before tea, Derek decided that he ought to write a letter
home. Before starting out, he had, of course, promised his mother to
tell her "all about it"; and equally of course, had failed to keep his
promise. For one thing, he told himself in excuse, it wasn't so easy to
tell "all about it". Like many other people, Mrs. Marshall imagined that
business in the criminal courts was a succession of breath-taking
thrills, that every case was a drama, every counsel a cross-examiner of
genius "who could get anything out of you if he tried", every speech a
torrent of eloquence, every Judge a Solon. If he were to set down a day
to day record of his actual experiences so far, she would be, Derek
felt, extremely bored and, for she was a prudish woman, not a little
disgusted. The only event of real importance that had occurred was the
one which he was under an obligation not to mention. For himself,
looking back on his experiences so far, he had nothing to complain of.
He had learned a good deal and shed quite a number of illusions. His
relations with the Judge were as friendly as could be wished,
considering the disparity in their ages. At the same time, he had to
admit that a prolonged _tte--tte_ with him could become somewhat
tiresome, and he was secretly rather disappointed that, whether because
of the Chief Constable's precautions or not, the Markhampton Assizes had
ended as tamely as they had begun. He felt himself to be in need of some
diversion and wondered idly whether Lady Barber, who was to join them at
Southington, would supply it. Derek had reached this point in his
meditations, and the letter to his mother was still not begun, when
Greene stole softly into his room and announced that tea was ready
downstairs and her ladyship had arrived.

                 *        *        *        *        *

Lady Barber was small, dark, streamlined, and good-looking. She talked a
good deal, in clipped, commanding tones, and was obviously accustomed to
saying what she thought and to having what she said attended to. Without
being aggressively smart, she contrived to make the tall, shambling
figure beside her look even shabbier than usual. Derek judged her to be
about twenty years younger than her husband. He was, in fact, about
eight years out in his guess, but more experienced men than he might
well have made the same mistake. She greeted him in a brisk, friendly
manner, which just escaped being patronizing.

"How do you do, Mr. Marshall? No, I'm not going to make the obvious
joke. I dislike obvious jokes and I am sure you have heard that one
quite enough already. Let's have some tea at once. I'm chilled to the
bone by that wretched train. You must pour out, please! Marshals always
do, you know. Milk and two lumps for me, please, even if it is wartime.
Now tell me, how are you enjoying this comic existence?"

Derek declared that he was enjoying it very much, and by the time that
he had finished his second cup of tea was fairly convinced that he was
going to enjoy it a good deal more, so long as the circuit was enlivened
by Lady Barber's society. He experienced the slightly exhilarating
feeling that in her hands the stately but somewhat lethargic tempo of
life in Judge's lodgings would be accelerated into something brisker.
She was not a particularly witty woman, nor, to Derek's mind at least, a
particularly attractive one; it was simply that she had an immense fund
of vitality which stimulated everybody with whom she came into contact
to put his best foot foremost in thought or conversation, whether
attraction or repulsion was the governing impulse. Derek reflected,
after she had left the drawing-room, that he had talked more during the
last half-hour than he had done during the whole of the last week; and
further that he had talked with unexampled intelligence and wit. It was
only later that he realized that he had given himself, his deeds,
thoughts and aspirations, completely away under the spell of Lady
Barber's practised "drawing out". He had, in fact, been very skilfully,
relentlessly cross-examined, and without in the least realizing what was
going on. Like many other ingenuous people, he prided himself on being
reserved and even a trifle secretive, and the discovery was somewhat
painful. Remembering his mother's belief in the capacity of
cross-examiners to get "anything out of you if they tried", he told
himself, somewhat ruefully, that her ladyship would certainly have made
a very good lawyer. This opinion, as it happened, he shared with a
number of other people--of whom Lady Barber was certainly one.

Lady Barber's husband (it was curious how easily the embodied majesty of
the law shrank in her society to "Lady Barber's husband") appeared to
enjoy her presence at the lodgings as much as did his Marshal, though in
a different way. At tea, he sunned himself in the light of her radiance,
chuckled at her sallies, and thoroughly relished the spectacle of the
young man being put through his paces. At the same time, a closer
observer than Derek might have observed that behind his enjoyment lurked
a certain apprehension. It would be a gross slander to say that he was
afraid of his wife. Rather, he was extremely reluctant to find himself
in opposition to her, and if anything had occurred which was likely to
cause her annoyance he was in the habit of going to considerable lengths
to prevent her knowing it. Experience had told him that as a matter of
fact she sooner or later got to know anything of any importance, but at
least he did all he could to postpone and so to mitigate the hour of
reckoning. It followed that he had said nothing as yet about the
accident to his car at Markhampton, and he still hoped against all
reason to be able to avoid doing so.

The blow fell sooner than he expected. He had just finished dressing for
dinner when his wife came into his room, a packet of letters in her
hand.

"These came for you this morning," she said. "I wish you could persuade
people to send all your correspondence to the Courts. It is such a
nuisance having to forward them when you are away. They don't look
particularly interesting."

They did not. Two were obviously circulars, and the rest typewritten
envelopes which presumably contained bills. Barber looked at them
casually, turning them over in his hand. He had to make one of those
minute decisions on which important consequences sometimes
depend--whether to stuff them into his pocket or to deal with them at
once. He glanced at the clock. There were still five minutes to go
before dinner. He decided to open them there and then. By an irony which
the Judge, a lover of Hardy, would have appreciated in other
circumstances the clock subsequently turned out to be five minutes slow.

He opened one letter and then another, scanning them hurriedly and
dropping them into the waste-paper basket. Her ladyship meanwhile made
use of his looking-glass to remove some imperceptible blemish in her
make-up. He opened the third letter, just as the gong sounded from
below. Unfortunately, at the same moment his wife looked up from her
labours and caught sight of his expression in the glass.

"What is the matter?" she asked, turning round sharply.

"Nothing, dear, nothing," said the unhappy man in unconvincing tones.

"Nothing? You looked quite upset. Who is your letter from?"

"Oh, nobody in particular. And I'm not upset," he hastened to add. "You
always will jump to conclusions, Hilda. I was only puzzled by a name
that seems familiar, and I can't place it, that is all."

"What name?"

"Not one that you would know, I expect. It's a curious
one--Sebald-Smith."

"Sebald-Smith? My dear, I'm not a complete Philistine. Of course I know
the name. He's about the best-known pianist alive, I should think."

"A pianist? Dear me!" For all his efforts at self-control the Judge's
dismay was manifest.

"What on earth is all this about?" said her ladyship pettishly and with
a superbly graceful movement was across the room and had removed the
letter from her husband's nerveless fingers before he was even aware of
what had happened.

She read:

    My Lord,

    We are acting on behalf of Mr. Sebastian Sebald-Smith, who as
    your lordship will be aware, was injured on the evening of the
    12th instant as the result of being knocked down by your
    lordship's motor-car in Market Place, Markhampton. Our
    instructions are that the accident was caused solely by the
    negligence of the driver of the vehicle in question. While we
    are unable at the moment of writing to make any estimate of the
    full extent of our client's injuries, it appears clear that he
    has suffered, among others, a serious damage to the
    knuckle-joint of one finger which may entail its amputation--a
    matter which, to a person in our client's position is, of
    course, one of grave consequence. We should be glad to know the
    name of your lordship's Insurance Company as soon as possible,
    and meanwhile must formally put on record our client's intention
    of claiming damage in respect of his injuries.

                                Your lordship's obedient servants
                                   Faraday, Fothergill, Crisp & Co.

Lady Barber was some time in commenting on the letter. It was as if she
were debating what attitude to take up towards her husband's latest
misdemeanour. When she spoke, it was evident that she had decided upon
that of one more in sorrow than in anger.

"Really, William, you are incorrigible!" she said. "You were driving the
car, I suppose?"

"Yes, I was."

"And I suppose you were entirely to blame?"

"Well, as to that----"

"Of course you were!" she interrupted impatiently. "I've told you often
enough that you are not fit to drive at night. It really is lamentable
for anybody in your position. Thank Heaven, your name hasn't got into
the papers about it. I saw a paragraph to say that Sebald-Smith had been
knocked down by a car, but of course I never associated it with you. You
never go to concerts, I know, but this escapade of yours is going to
make a nasty hole in the musical life of London, whenever that revives
again. Sebald-Smith! He's the sort of man who insures his hands for
thousands of pounds."

At this reference to insurance the Judge winced.

"Don't you think we had better discuss this after dinner?" he said.

"I don't see that there is anything to discuss," said his wife, sweeping
out of the room in front of him, with glorious disregard of circuit
convention.

                 *        *        *        *        *

Derek, who had come down to dinner eager to resume the sparkling
conversation that he had enjoyed so much at tea, had to confess himself
by the end of the evening somewhat disappointed. The fault, so far as he
could see, lay with the Judge. Not only had he nothing to say for
himself, but his silence succeeded in throwing a gloom over the whole
table. Her ladyship, indeed, seemed to be as vivacious as usual. If
anything, her colour was a trifle higher, her eyes even brighter than
before. But on this occasion her talkativeness seemed to be the result
of a deliberate effort and not the delightfully natural ebullience that
had so charmed him. Moreover, he observed that she was making no attempt
to draw her husband into the conversation. She addressed herself
exclusively to the Marshal and for much of the time appeared to be
talking at random, with her mind elsewhere. Once or twice he suspected
her of talking at the silent figure on the other side of the table.
Altogether it was an uncomfortable meal. Derek, oppressed with the
uneasy feeling that something was "up", found himself relapsing into
tongue-tied awkwardness, and was thoroughly glad when Savage placed the
port on the table and Lady Barber left the room.

The Judge drank three glasses of port. As he filled each glass, he
looked towards Derek and made as though he were about to say something
of importance. Each time, he balked at the fence and ended by making
some trivial observation about the work of the forthcoming assize.
Finally, as though surrendering to the inevitable, he threw his napkin
on the table, observed, "Well, I suppose we had better join my wife,"
and made for the door.

In the drawing-room, the atmosphere was even more oppressive than at
table. There were long periods of silence, broken only by the vicious
click of her ladyship's knitting needles. She appeared to be sulky, and
her husband to be nervously awaiting something to happen. For all his
inexperience, it was not difficult for Derek to guess what that
something was. He was waiting to be alone with his wife, and he was not
looking forward with any pleasure to the experience. Derek took the
hint, though he would have been hard put to it to say exactly how the
hint had been conveyed. Pleading the necessity of writing his
long-promised letter home, he left the drawing-room as early as he could
with decency.

As the door closed behind him, Lady Barber looked up from her knitting
and remarked:

"That's a nice boy. Was he with you in the car the other night?"

"Yes, he was," said the Judge, snatching eagerly at the opportunity thus
presented to him. "And while we are on that subject, there were one or
two matters I wanted to discuss with you, Hilda."

"If he was with you, and knows all about it," went on her ladyship,
still pursuing her own line of thought, "I don't see why you had to send
him out of the room beforehand."

"I did nothing of the sort, so far as I am aware."

"My dear, I never saw anything done more blatantly in my life. However,
that's your affair and not mine. As I said before dinner, I don't see
that there is anything to discuss about this business. Goodness knows,
I'm the last person to wish to make a mountain out of this rather
unfortunate little molehill."

The Judge remained silent, and she went on:

"If you give me the letter, I'll deal with it for you. There's no
earthly reason why you should bother yourself about it, and you know how
unpractical you always are about your own affairs. You've sent in your
claim to the insurance people, I suppose? It's the Empyrean, isn't it?"

Still silence.

"Isn't it?"

The Judge cleared his throat.

"That", he croaked, "was the matter I wanted to discuss with you."

Nobody could say that Lady Barber was not quick in the uptake. She laid
down her knitting, opened her fine eyes very wide, and sat up straight
in her armchair.

"_William!_" she said in an ominously quiet voice, "are you trying to
tell me that you are not insured at all?"

"I--I'm afraid that that is the fact, Hilda."

There was a silence during which it was only too apparent that Lady
Barber was several times on the point of saying something and thought
better of it each time. Finally she rose to her feet, moved to the
fireplace, took a cigarette from the mantelpiece, lighted it, and stood
for a moment or two with her back to her husband, looking down into the
fire. When she turned round he had begun to speak but she took no
notice.

"Have you considered," she asked, "exactly what this is likely to mean
to you--to us?"

"Naturally," said the Judge in a somewhat peevish tone, "I have
considered the matter in all its aspects. But I must admit that what you
told me before dinner does put rather a different complexion on the
case. I mean, the fact that this fellow is a pianist."

"Sebald-Smith!" exclaimed her ladyship, allowing her feelings to break
through her self-control for the first time. "Why if you must run
somebody down with a motor-car you should go and select Sebald-Smith, of
all people----"

"It is unfortunate," Barber admitted. "It has--quite frankly--rather
upset my calculations as to how--that is----"

"It means that he will want about ten times as much in the way of
damages as any ordinary person would," his wife cut in.

"Precisely. I am afraid his demands for an injured finger may be
somewhat exorbitant."

Neither spoke for a time, and then Lady Barber said, somewhat
pointlessly:

"I cannot understand how you came to be so foolish, William!"

The Judge wisely said nothing, and her ladyship, realizing perhaps that
her remark was rather beneath her usual level, tried again.

"I suppose the accident _was_ your fault?" she said. "You couldn't plead
contributory negligence, by any chance?"

"My dear Hilda, we need hardly consider that aspect of the case. In my
position, I can't afford to fight it. That is obvious. I shall have to
settle on the best terms I can."

"But, William, this may ruin us!"

"We should be very much more thoroughly ruined if by reason of this
matter being litigated I had to resign my appointment."

"Resign!"

"Well, Hilda, we must face facts."

There was another rather bleak silence before Lady Barber spoke again.

"William, just how much money have you in the world, apart from your
salary?" she asked.

"My dear, we went into that subject very fully only a month or two ago."

"I know we did, but then it was only a question of paying a few wretched
bills of mine. This is serious."

The Judge unexpectedly uttered a loud, creaking laugh.

"You imagined that I was painting things blacker than they really were
for your benefit, I suppose," he said. "That in fact I had a few
thousands tucked away which I had never told you about?"

"Of course," replied her ladyship simply. "It seemed only common sense."

"Common sense or not, I was perfectly honest with you. The position is
now exactly as I explained it to you then--as, indeed, I have explained
it at intervals throughout our married life. For many years past we have
been spending practically every penny I have earned." There was a slight
emphasis on the contrasted pronouns which was not lost on his hearer.
"Apart from my modest insurance policy there is nothing to fall back on.
Apart from my still more modest pension--if I am permitted to earn
it--there is nothing to look forward to. If anything were to happen to
me----"

"Thank you, I have heard that bit before," said Lady Barber hastily.
"The question is, where are you going to find the ten thousand pounds or
so which Sebald-Smith will certainly expect for his finger?"

The Judge gulped. At the worst, he had not envisaged such a sum as this.
It was on the tip of his tongue to remind his wife that she knew less
about awarding damages than he did, but he remembered in time that she
certainly knew a great deal more than he about the earning capacities of
pianists.

"We shall have to cut down our scale of expenditure very drastically, I
am afraid," he said.

Her ladyship looked at her elegant reflection in the glass over the
mantelpiece and made a face. "It's a grim prospect," she remarked. Then,
pulling herself together, she went on in a crisp, practical manner:
"Well! Faraday's letter will have to be answered, I suppose, and it had
better be done professionally. Shall I write to Michael and ask him to
do it on your behalf? You will want him to act for you, I suppose?"

"I suppose so," said the Judge without enthusiasm. He did not greatly
care for his brother-in-law, but he was unquestionably a competent
solicitor.

"I shall tell him just to acknowledge the letter formally, and then when
I can find time I'll go up to London and explain the whole thing to
him," she went on. "The longer we can keep Sebald-Smith hanging about,
the better. People like him haven't any staying-power. After a month or
two he'll be much more reasonable in his ideas than he is now, I'm sure.
Besides"--she smiled a delightful unexpected smile--"it will give us
time to start saving."

                 *        *        *        *        *

Shortly afterwards Judge and Lady went to bed, both in somewhat better
temper than had seemed probable half an hour before. Hilda's active
mind, though fully aware of the extent of the disaster that loomed over
them, was almost happy in the prospect of employment in urgent practical
affairs. As for the Judge, he was conscious of the relief which he
always felt whenever, as so often happened, he allowed some personal
problem of his own to be taken into his wife's competent hands. He felt
too the virtuous pleasure which comes from confession, now that he had
made a clean breast of his escapade. This latter feeling, however, was
not unalloyed. It occurred to him, as he made his way upstairs, that so
far he had said nothing to his wife about the threatening letters which
had reached him at Markhampton. With the unquenchable optimism that
always marked his behaviour in these matters, he decided that he would
save trouble by saying nothing to her about the question. Barber's habit
of concealing things from his wife was as instinctive as that of the dog
who hides bones under a sofa cushion, and about as effective.




                               Chapter 6
                              CIVIL ACTION


Southington assizes took their normal course. The formalities of the
opening day were, with a few local variations, the formalities of
Markhampton. Derek, who already felt himself to be an old hand at the
game, performed his part in the ceremonies with what he felt to be the
proper blend of dignity and detachment. The presence of Lady Barber made
little or no difference to the proceedings, he observed. She kept
herself well in the background and so far as the spectators were
concerned was merely an inconspicuous black-clothed figure in a back pew
at the church or in a remote corner of the bench. On the second day of
the assize, indeed, she did not even appear in court. Crime, she
declared, bored her. She had read the depositions and there was nothing
in any of the cases of the faintest legal interest. On the other hand,
in the civil list that came after there were several actions which she
intended to follow. One in particular, which raised for decision for the
first time an obscure question of construction in a new Act of
Parliament, promised to be fascinating. Hearing her utter this opinion
in decided tones at dinner on the second evening in lodgings, Derek
understood how the nickname "Father William" came to be attached to the
Judge.

Hilda Barber, in fact, was that rare being, a woman with a real talent
for law. She had been, she told Derek, called to the Bar, but had never
practised. The latter statement was true in the sense that like many
other women barristers she had never succeeded in acquiring a practice.
Without any exceptional influence behind her she had been unable to
overcome the prejudice which has kept the Bar an essentially masculine
profession. But for two years she had haunted the Temple, listened to
every case of importance--as distinct from cases of mere notoriety--and
studied assiduously in the library of her Inn. During this period she
read as a pupil in the chambers of William Barber, then at the height of
his practice as a junior. It was not long after her term of pupilage
expired that Barber celebrated a double event by taking silk and
marrying within the same month. It was currently rumoured that both of
these important steps had been taken on the initiative of the lady.
Certainly, from the professional point of view, he had no cause to
regret either of them.

After her marriage, Hilda Barber was seen no more in the Temple. The
snowy wig and still glossy gown were put away, monuments to unrealized
ambition. Thenceforward she devoted herself to the twin objects of
fostering her husband's career and spending gracefully his steadily
increasing earnings. It would be hard to say in which she was the more
successful. She brought to Barber the social contacts which he had
hitherto lacked and which he needed to put the seal upon his
professional reputation. Solicitors who had fought shy of the learned
Miss Hilda Matthewson, barrister at law, competed for invitations to the
cocktail parties and dinners given by the smart Mrs. Barber. The evening
papers which carried in one column the account of a speech by the
"eminent K.C." in the fashionable cause of the day, were sure to report
in another that his wife had been prominent at a first night or charity
ball, in a dress which would probably be more faithfully described than
her husband's argument; and each piece of publicity reacted favourably
on the other.

But it would be a mistake to suppose that because she was now in a
position to exercise her social talents to the full, her interest in the
law had in any way diminished. Where other women in like case would have
taken to charity or politics as an outlet for their superfluous
energies, she remained faithful to jurisprudence. The amount of work
that she did for Barber behind the scenes as a "devil" was unsuspected
by anyone, except perhaps his clerk, but it was undoubtedly
considerable. Barber was a man of a mental calibre that would inevitably
have carried him to the bench sooner or later, but his wife was probably
justified in her belief that her assistance had shortened the period by
several years, while at the same time making it possible for him to cope
with an enormous pressure of work which would otherwise have overwhelmed
him.

Hilda was not unnaturally pleased when Barber K.C. was in due course
transformed into Mr. Justice Barber. The elevation, however, was not
without its drawbacks. Particularly, she discovered, as many have done
before her, that a judicial salary is a poor substitute for the income
of a leader in the first flight of his profession. It was agreeable to
be announced at parties as "Lady Barber", but slightly less so to be
compelled to greet her hostess in a frock that had already done duty for
half a season. The change had another consequence which she had not
foreseen, indeed, it is probable that she never became fully aware of
it. Judges, if they do not exactly live in the fierce white light that
beats upon a throne, are public figures, and within a limited circle
there is very little about their lives that fails to become public
property sooner or later. Hence it came about that whereas nobody was
ever aware how much Barber K.C.'s opinions owed to the criticism and
counsel of his wife, it was not long before quite a number of initiates
were saying among themselves that Barber J.'s reserved judgments were
written by her ladyship. On one occasion, when one of these was the
subject of an appeal, the _sotto voce_ question of one Lord Justice to
his brother, "Is this one of Hilda's?" had unluckily reached some quick
ears in counsels' seats. Fortunately for her peace of mind, this episode
was not reported to her. She had learned, however, of her husband's
nickname and magnanimously professed to be mildly amused at it. So far
as the public at large was concerned, however, she continued to remain
well in the background and, except that she was perhaps a shade too
decorative, played the role of Judge's wife to perfection.

                 *        *        *        *        *

Derek was quick to observe that Lady Barber's submissiveness in public
did not extend to her private life. She soon took charge of the domestic
arrangements in the Lodgings, harried Mrs. Square in a manner to which
that autocratic lady was utterly unaccustomed, criticized Greene for
lack of proper attention to the Marshal's top hat, trod the submissive
Savage under her feet, and had more than one passage at arms with
Beamish himself. Dislike between her ladyship and the clerk was mutual.
Beamish had not served the Judge prior to his appointment. Barber's
former clerk had, much to his master's annoyance, declined to follow him
to the bench, preferring to continue to take his chance in the Temple.
The new Judge had therefore to content himself with the best man he
could find at short notice. Unfortunately his choice had not commended
itself to Hilda, and during the period that had since elapsed she had
succeeded in making her opinion only too plain.

So far as the Judge was concerned, the element of discord so introduced
into his surroundings did not seem to affect him greatly. He turned a
blind eye to the upheaval among his staff and firmly refused to allow
Beamish to be discussed at all. Obviously, this was a sore subject of
long standing on which he had wisely taken a decision and he was not to
be moved from it. Apart from this, relations with his wife since his
confession on the first evening at Southington were perfectly
harmonious. Any reforms which she might think fit to enforce in the
household were directed to increasing his comfort rather than her own,
and he obviously enjoyed to the full the little attentions which she
lavished upon him. The consequence was that Derek found the atmosphere
of the Lodgings once more warm and friendly, besides a good deal more
lively than it had been before her arrival.

Hilda galvanized the Judge into giving several dinner parties at
Southington. These were merely official affairs, at which such
dignitaries as the High Sheriff, the Mayor and the local County Court
Judge attended with their wives, discussed local affairs and departed
punctually at a quarter past ten. But they served, if nothing else, to
demonstrate Hilda's admirable tact. She would manage her party with
discretion, never allow the conversation to degenerate to the mere
maundering of the average official gathering, and at the same time
subdued her own brilliance to the level of the company. More to her
taste, however, were the lunches to which the Judge invited from time to
time the members of the bar engaged in the criminal cases. She was at
her best with the young men. Derek observed with rueful amusement others
undergoing the same process of drawing-out that he had endured. He
noticed also that neither to them nor to their elders did she admit to
the faintest knowledge of their trade. On one occasion she sat without
moving a muscle while a very young man, holding his first brief,
laboriously explained for her benefit an elementary point of
procedure--and incidentally explained it wrongly.

The criminal business at Southington drew to a close and the time fixed
for the hearing in which Hilda had taken such interest drew near. On the
day before, she went to London. Her purpose in going, she told her
husband, was to see her solicitor brother about the Sebald-Smith affair.
On her return that evening, she said no more than that she had had a
useful day. The Judge, to whom any reference to the Markhampton affair
was acutely distasteful, asked no questions and the subject dropped. At
dinner that evening, she referred once more to the case that was to be
heard next day.

"I see by the pleadings that Frank Pettigrew is appearing for the
defendant," she remarked. "We'll ask him to dinner. It will be a change
to have somebody entertaining as a guest."

"My dear," objected Barber heavily, "I have already had Pettigrew to
lunch at Markhampton. I deprecate showing favouritism among the Bar,
except in very special cases, and, frankly, I do not think this is one
of them."

Her ladyship pouted.

"I want to see Frank," she said. "He amuses me, and I haven't set eyes
on him for ages."

"That does not altogether surprise me," retorted the Judge. "And I must
say that I do not think it would be in the very best of taste----"

"My dear William, if you are going to set up as an arbiter of taste----"
she began in a tone of mockery which caused him hastily to shift his
ground.

"Besides," he went on, "it would be against my principles to entertain
counsel on one side of a case only. Even if the arguments are concluded
by to-morrow evening, as seems probable, the objection still stands."

"Then that is simple," said Hilda in decided tones. "We will ask them
both. Flack is for the plaintiff, isn't he? He is quite presentable.
Then we shall be able to make up a four of bridge--you play, I suppose,
Mr. Marshall?"

Derek, a somewhat embarrassed auditor of the discussion, admitted that
he did.

". . . And then we shan't bother you with our chatter. I've brought down
some new library books for you which you will like. That's settled
then."

And settled it was.

                 *        *        *        *        *

The action which had been so much canvassed in lodgings, proved, to
Derek's mind at least, one of unexampled dullness. In a court completely
empty save for officials and reporters, Flack, an earnest middle-aged
man with a particularly ugly voice, occupied the whole morning with his
opening. This consisted, so far as Derek could see, in repeating in
various tones of emphasis, the words of a section of an Act of
Parliament which appeared to have been composed by an illiterate with a
talent for obscurity, and reading passages from judgments in other cases
on other Acts which seemed to have no bearing on the matter whatever. At
the conclusion of his performance, he called two formal witnesses whom
Pettigrew declined to cross-examine, remarking that he was relying on a
pure point of law.

What had reduced the Marshal almost to tears of boredom, had, however,
apparently stimulated Lady Barber to an ecstasy. She returned with the
others to lunch in the highest spirits. Indeed, she reminded Derek of
nothing so much as a young girl during the entr'acte of an exciting
mystery play. Presently it was revealed that part of her pleasure, at
least, was due to the fact that she had, or at all events thought she
had, solved the mystery.

"Flack doesn't know his job," she announced at lunch. "He hasn't cited
the only case which bears on the matter at all."

The Judge looked up from his plate with interest.

"Indeed?" he asked. "What case do you mean?"

"Simpkinson and the Haltwhistle Urban District Council," replied her
ladyship with her mouth full. "It's reported in 1918 Appeal Cases, and
it's----"

"My dear Hilda, I know the case perfectly well. It is merely one of the
line of cases on the emergency legislation of the last war. How it can
help me to determine the construction of this statute I cannot imagine."

"Then you don't know the case perfectly well. It lays down a general
principle which is dead in point here. The Lord Chancellor makes it
quite plain."

Barber, who was listening to his wife's remarks with evident respect,
permitted himself a dry laugh.

"I suppose you were getting some assistance from your brother
yesterday," he remarked.

Hilda flushed.

"Certainly not!" she exclaimed. "Michael is hopeless at case law, though
he's got a good enough brain. He's much too busy making wills for old
ladies and helping his clients to dodge their income-tax. I simply asked
him to give me the run of his library while I was in his office. I knew
there was a decision that helped somewhere and it was just a matter of
ferreting it out."

"I am very much obliged to you, Hilda," said the Judge. "I shall look
the case up when I get back to London and see if it bears out what you
say."

"You needn't bother to do that. Frank has got it with him. I was looking
at the Reports on his desk this morning. He won't cite it unless you
make him because it's clean against him. But there it is."

"It would be most improper for counsel, knowing that there is a reported
case bearing on the matter in hand, not to bring it to the notice of the
Court, whether it is in his favour or not," pronounced his lordship
pompously.

"Oh, well, I only meant that I shouldn't if I was in his shoes," replied
Hilda airily.

After that the conversation became merely technical and so continued
until the end of the meal.

After lunch, a curious little incident occurred which, though apparently
insignificant, was to have important consequences. The Judge had a
passion for sweet things. After every meal he invariably ate three or
four chocolates or caramels with all the gusto of a schoolboy, and a
regular supply of these delicacies was a feature of the economy of the
lodgings. On this particular occasion, after lunch, Savage produced a
full box of chocolates with the name of a famous London firm upon the
lid.

The Judge's eyes sparkled.

"Bechamel's!" he exclaimed. "This is a pleasant surprise! Where do these
come from, Savage?"

"They arrived by this morning's post, my Lord."

"Indeed? Hilda, I perceive that your business in London yesterday was
not entirely concerned with legal research. This was a very kind thought
on your part, my dear."

"But I never ordered them," said Lady Barber in surprise. "I was never
near the West End all day. They must have been sent by mistake."

"A very intelligent mistake, then. They're the kind that I always have
for Christmas--with lemon centres, which you will improvidently bite,
while I more delicately suck. You must try one, Marshal."

Hilda interposed.

"Not now," she said primly. "If somebody has sent us a box of Bechamel
chocolates, they must be kept for this evening. A box like that gives a
touch of distinction to any dinner--and goodness knows Mrs. Square's
dinners need it."

"I'm sure I don't know what you have against Mrs. Square's cooking,"
said the Judge mildly. "But in any case, there will be plenty left for
this evening if we have one or two now."

"Certainly not," said Hilda firmly. "Nothing looks more _mesquin_ than a
half eaten box of chocolates handed round after dinner. If you can give
them a fresh box of Bechamels, your guests will feel that you have
really taken some trouble for their sake, and that's half the secret of
entertaining."

Derek made bold to say:

"Even if the trouble is not really of your taking, Lady Barber?"

Hilda flashed a brilliant smile at him. She was delighted to find that
the young man could stand up to her.

"Especially if it is not of your taking," she said. "The effect is the
only thing that matters. But in this case, I am taking considerable
trouble--the trouble of persuading my husband to abstain. Put the lid
back on the box, William, and tie the ribbon on again. Have one of these
caramels instead."

The Judge meekly did as he was told, and shortly afterwards the party
returned to Court.

Derek found the afternoon's sitting a good deal less boring than the
morning had been, although nothing could have made the arid subject an
interesting one. Pettigrew had a natural gift for a turn of phrase that
served to make any argument attractive and even contrived to extract
some humour out of the forbidding subject. Barber, whatever his
failings, possessed the great, if negative, merit of not being a
talkative judge. He sat quite silently and suffered Pettigrew to develop
his theme without interference for three quarters of an hour, making an
occasional note in the large book in front of him. He showed no sign of
appreciating Pettigrew's little jokes, but it is always possible that
these were also recorded in the notebook.

By the end of that time, even Pettigrew had become thoroughly dull.
Having made his main submission with lucidity and force, he was as a
matter of duty, referring to the authorities cited by his opponent and
disposing of the contentions which had been founded on them. Then, with
an apology for what he feared might be a waste of the time of the Court,
he proceeded to quote one or two further cases which might possibly be
of assistance. Presently, with an ill-disguised yawn:

"I ought perhaps to refer your Lordship to Simpkinson and the
Haltwhistle Urban District Council," he remarked, "though perhaps your
Lordship may not think it carries the matter any further."

Barber's face showed no trace of interest as he wrote down the name and
reference of the case in his book. His wife, on the other hand, drew in
her breath sharply and clenched her gloved hands in excitement. It may
have been fancy, but Derek thought that Pettigrew's eyes glanced in her
direction at the tiny sound. Then he began to read.

Simpkinson and the Haltwhistle Urban District Council seemed to Derek
exactly like all the other many cases that had been cited that day, only
perhaps slightly more incomprehensible. He was just beginning to wonder
what on earth all the bother had been about when the Judge opened his
eyes, which up to that time had been half closed, and remarked:

"That passage you have just read seems to be against you, Mr.
Pettigrew."

"My lord, I don't think so," Pettigrew said easily. "I don't think the
Lord Chancellor was purporting to lay down a general rule here, and your
lordship will see from what he says a little further on----"

"Very well. Go on, Mr. Pettigrew."

Pettigrew finished reading the Lord Chancellor's observations, and then
put the book down.

"I don't know if the case is really of very much assistance to your
lordship one way or the other," he said. "But as it seemed to be _in
pari materia_ to some of those cited by my friend, I thought I was bound
to bring it to your lordship's attention."

"Quite," said the Judge drily. "Will you hand me the report, please?"

He took the volume in his hands, turned over the leaves, and read aloud
the passage to which he had already referred. With this as his text, he
proceeded to expound. He analysed it, compared it with other passages in
the same judgment, linked it up with other cases already cited in
argument before him, referred it to principles laid down in authorities
and text-books. He made of this apparently harmless and casual paragraph
a deadly instrument which, inserted delicately into the structure of
Pettigrew's argument, split the defendant's case wide open. It was a
brilliant performance, all the more so considering that he had had only
the merest hint to go upon. What rather detracted from its merit was the
obvious relish with which it was done, and the quite unnecessary
brutality with which the fallacies involved in Pettigrew's submission
were exposed. Barber made it only too plain that in his view counsel for
the defendants had been not only wrong in law, but grossly ignorant of
his trade. Needless to say, not a single discourteous word passed his
lips, but the implication was there, none the less.

Pettigrew took his defeat with resignation, with apparent good humour
even. He put up some semblance of a fight, but he knew when he was
beaten, and it was not his habit to prolong the agony in hopeless cases.
In this, perhaps, he was unwise. Clients are human, and derive much
consolation from "a good fight", however vain. Not a little of his lack
of success was due to his mistaken belief that other people would be as
reasonable as he was himself. Accordingly, a few moments after the
Judge's intervention he concluded his address, sat down, and listened to
the Shaver, without calling upon Flack to reply, deliver judgement for
the plaintiff.

Beneath his mask of courteous indifference, however, Pettigrew was sick
with anger. He did not mind losing a case--that was all in the day's
work--but he felt strongly about the manner in which he had been
treated. The point on which he had failed was an obscure one, and
anybody might have been forgiven for failing to appreciate it. In point
of fact, his opponent, Flack, though no fool, had overlooked it
entirely, while he, Pettigrew, had known of it and advised his clients
that their chances of success were small upon that very ground. But
would they be likely to remember that, in the face of Father William's
attitude? Much more likely that they would recollect that he had lost
their case and that Flack's clients had succeeded and arrange their
future business accordingly. Quite probably, they would blame him for
having done his duty in citing the fatal authority which would otherwise
never have been brought to the attention of the Court at all. Then he
recollected the slight sound that had come from the bench at the mention
of the name of the case, and he began to realize how it was that the
Judge had been lying in wait for him, his arguments already furnished,
his poisoned arrows tipped and barbed. His sense of humour came to his
rescue and he laughed aloud. Even the fact that he had probably lost a
client that afternoon could not blunt his appreciation of the
ludicrousness of the position. And he began to look forward to his
dinner in lodgings that evening more than he had thought possible.

                 *        *        *        *        *

The party, in fact, might be accounted a success. There were no other
guests at dinner and Hilda permitted herself a professional hostess's
wail at the lopsidedness of her table. But this, in the event, hardly
proved a drawback. The Judge and Flack had been pupils in chambers
together and had many reminiscences in common which the rest could not
share. Hilda contentedly allowed them to develop a duologue of their
own, while she and Pettigrew talked with each other. But she knew her
business far too well to leave Derek in the cold. Indeed, with
Pettigrew's co-operation, she succeeded in making him feel at times that
he was the focal point of the conversation. He was commiserated with on
the absence of a suitable partner at table, rallied for his inattention
to the important legal discussion that had taken place that day, and was
made to feel thoroughly sheepish when Pettigrew appealed to him to
verify a quotation from the Book of Judges--"or hadn't you time to get
so far to-day?" he blandly asked. At other times, as the meal proceeded,
he began to feel almost in the position of a chaperon, listening to a
colloquy rich with overtones of intimacy which he could apprehend but
could not share. It was obvious to him that the couple knew each other
well--too well, perhaps, for either to be entirely comfortable in the
presence of the other, but he was puzzled to determine the precise
relationship between them. They were able to speak to some extent in
shorthand. Allusions, half expressed, were taken up and answered in
terms equally cryptic to the outsider. It seemed as if their minds were
attuned together, so that the ordinary laborious process of explanations
was unnecessary. But beneath it all the listener was conscious of a
latent sense of hostility and wariness on either side. Their talk was a
fencing bout between friends, in which neither desired to hurt the
other--but there were no buttons on the foils.

In an oblique indirect fashion, Pettigrew let it be known that he
attributed to Hilda his downfall in Court that afternoon. Derek observed
that on this occasion she made no secret of her special knowledge.
Indeed, she described in some detail the process of reasoning by which
she had been led to seek out this particular point of law, and gave an
entertaining enough account of her researches in the dusty volumes at
her brother's office.

"His managing clerk thought it all most improper," she said. "Clients
who look for their own law are not encouraged."

"Quite rightly. The proper place to look for law is in barrister's
chambers, and on payment of a suitable fee. I expect he was wondering
how he could make the service he was doing you into an appropriate item
on the bill of costs. By the way, you didn't go up to your brother's
office simply to find a case to floor me with, I hope?"

She shook her head.

"M'm. It was the Markhampton affair, I suppose?"

"You were in the car, too, weren't you?"

"Yes. Unfortunately I was."

"Do you know that it was Sebald-Smith?"

"_The_ Sebald-Smith?" Pettigrew pursed his lips for a soundless whistle.
"This is likely to be a nuisance. . . . His little finger may well prove
thicker than another man's loins. First Book of Kings, Marshal--you'll
hardly have time to reach that before the end of the circuit. Unless you
skip the genealogies, of course. Personally, I always find them most
entertaining, but I fancy I am in a minority in that respect. Haven't I
met him at your house, by the way?"

"Possibly. I rather lost touch with him since my marriage, but I fancy
someone brought him to a cocktail party once."

"No doubt. Sally Parsons is an old friend of yours, isn't she?"

"I haven't seen anything of her for some time," said Hilda in a manner
that indicated that the friendship was decidedly a thing of the past.
"Was she----?"

"She is," said Pettigrew firmly. "After much striving she has reached a
position where you could hardly ask her to a party without receiving
Sebald as well, and _vice versa_. A dull relationship, one would have
thought--all the tedium of marriage without its respectability, but it
appeals to some temperaments, and Sally, as you are no doubt aware, has
several."

"Disgusting!" said her ladyship. "And to think that she and I----"

"Much better not think of it. It is a sordid subject, and I don't know
how I came to introduce it. Moreover, we are shocking the Marshal. To
return to the matter we were discussing, I'm afraid this may be rather
serious."

He looked round the table.

"I know," she said, answering his unspoken thought. "We oughtn't to be
giving dinner-parties with this sort of thing hanging over us, ought we?
And this is the fourth I've had this assize. It's time I turned over a
new leaf."

"Economy is the very devil when you're not used to it," he said. "I
should hate to see you starting."

"I started the day William became a judge."

Pettigrew made a wry little face.

"I meant--_economy_," he said drily, "after all, even Becky Sharp didn't
ask for more than a judge's salary. Do you read Thackeray, Marshal?"

"Yes," said Derek, and wished immediately that he had had the assurance
to say "Of course". "But values have changed since then, haven't they?"
he added. "Not to mention taxation."

"And '_even_ Becky Sharp' was not fair, Frank," her ladyship murmured.

"You are both right. They have and it was not. I spoke at random, as
usual. At all events, I am relieved to find that you have decided to
postpone economizing for to-night. This, for example!"

He indicated the other side of the round table, where Savage was
ceremoniously handing to the Judge the still virgin box of Bechamel
chocolates.

"Not an extravagance of mine," Hilda protested. "A gift from an unknown
admirer."

The Judge, with a sigh of pleasure long-deferred, popped one of the
round little sweetmeats into his mouth and began to suck vigorously.
Savage moved round the table to Hilda, who also took one. The two elder
men refused. Derek was just stretching his hand out to help himself from
the box when there was a sudden disturbance at his side.

"Stop!" screamed Lady Barber at the top of her voice. "There's
something--something wrong with these----"

In her hand was one half of the chocolate, its hard core bitten clean
through by her even, powerful teeth. The other half lay on the table
before her, where she had spat it out. She had risen from her seat, and
stood there for a moment, very pale, her free hand clutching her throat,
while the four men sat gaping at her in motionless astonishment. Before
anyone could move, she had leapt, rather than run, round the table to
where her husband was sitting, inserted her finger into his mouth, like
a nurse whose charge has swallowed an inedible toy, and neatly fished
out the chocolate from between his jaws.

The Judge was the first to break the silence.

"My dear Hilda," he said, contemplating the diminished brown sphere on
his plate, "you need hardly have done that. I should have spat it out in
any case."

Hilda said nothing. She grabbed the glass of water which Pettigrew had
ready for her, drank it off, collapsed on the nearest chair and burst
abruptly into tears.

                 *        *        *        *        *

There was, after all, no bridge after dinner that night.




                               Chapter 7
                           CHEMICAL REACTION


"Why didn't you tell me anything about this before?"

"My dear, I didn't want to worry you."

"Worry me!" Hilda's laugh was always an exceptionally pleasant and
musical one, but on this occasion it seemed a little forced. "My dear
William, what extraordinary ideas you have! You nearly caused us both a
good deal more than worry this evening."

"I am sorry, Hilda," said the Judge humbly, "but I really could hardly
have expected such a thing to follow on an ordinary anonymous letter.
And, after all, it was your suggestion that we should have the
chocolates for dinner."

"That is simply childish of you, William. Do you imagine that I should
have dreamed of letting you or anyone else touch a box of sweets
arriving in this mysterious way if I had had any idea that your life was
being threatened?"

"But it wasn't a threat to my life, exactly," the Judge objected. "And
after all, there's no evidence that the two were in any way connected."

"Evidence!" said her ladyship in a tone of scorn that showed that for
once the woman in her had got the better of the lawyer. "It's perfectly
obvious. There must have been." She switched suddenly to another line of
attack. "Now is there anything else about Markhampton that you haven't
told me?" she demanded.

"No, no!" Barber replied a little testily. "Really, Hilda, anyone would
think I spent my life keeping secrets from you. I repeat, it was merely
out of a very natural desire to save you anxiety----"

"You say the police at Markhampton arranged to give you special
protection?"

"Yes."

"Then why haven't the police here in Southington done the same?"

"I understand that they were informed of the position and didn't think
it necessary to do more than keep a special look out for--for the
fellow."

"What fellow are you talking about?"

"Oh! Didn't I tell you? Well, the fact is, Hilda, the Chief Constable at
Markhampton seemed to have an idea that this fellow, the one who wrote
the letters, I mean----"

"I _knew_ there was something else you were hiding!" said Hilda
triumphantly. "Go on--was who?"

"It was only a theory of course, but he had a notion that it was
Heppenstall. He is out, you know."

"Heppenstall! But you gave him five years."

"I know I did." The Judge's tone was sombre. "But there's always
remission for good conduct and so on, you know."

Hilda was silent for a moment.

"I wish you hadn't tried the case," she said finally.

"My dear Hilda, I had no option but to try it."

She shook her head.

"It was at the Old Bailey," she reminded him. "There are four Courts
there. There was no reason why it shouldn't have been tried by the
Recorder. I've never mentioned this before, William, but people said you
had Bob--Heppenstall's case put into your list on purpose. Was that
true?"

Barber waved a deprecating hand.

"It is no good going back on these things now," he murmured.

"And I wish you hadn't given him five years."

"I did my duty," said the Judge. And seeing that this assertion produced
no response, he added, with a certain sense of bathos, "And the Court of
Criminal Appeal declined to interfere with the sentence."

Her ladyship interjected a comment upon the Court of Criminal Appeal
which, in deference to that august institution, may here be omitted.

"They didn't know him and you did, that's the point," she added. "Has it
ever occurred to you that he may have thought he was going to get off
lightly because you were trying him?"

"It would be highly improper----" Barber began.

"I know, I know," said his wife impatiently. "And that's the very reason
why I wish----But as you say, it's no good going back on things.
Heppenstall is at large, and trying to kill you----"

"But I repeat, Hilda, there is no evidence----"

". . . And we must protect ourselves in every way until the police lay
him by the heels. And now I'm going to bed, and so are you. You're
trying the libel action to-morrow, aren't you? On the pleadings it looks
to me like an undefended case. Ten to one you'll find that the defendant
has paid something into Court."

"I'm inclined to agree with you, my dear. Good night."

                 *        *        *        *        *

The inquest on the Bechamel chocolates, to which this conversation
formed a pendant, had been a lively, but unprofitable affair. The
closest of inquiries entirely failed to clear up the mystery of their
origin. Savage, Beamish and Greene were all appealed to in vain. Savage,
who was sent for first, merely said that the parcel in which they were
contained had been handed to him by Beamish. Beamish was summoned and
somewhat sulkily reminded her ladyship that she had given him a number
of packages which had arrived for her by that morning's post. He
understood that they were different things which she had ordered in
London the day before. He had, naturally, given them in his turn to the
butler. It was not the place of the Judge's clerk, he implied, to attend
to such things. One of the bones of contention between the two was that
Hilda persisted in regarding him as a species of superior domestic
servant and he was not sorry to remind her of the fact. Any knowledge
of, or responsibility for the chocolates, he loftily repudiated. There
were some parcels which had been put into his hands. No, he could not
trust his memory to say how many. He had, he hinted, disembarrassed
himself of them as soon as possible by passing them to the proper
quarter. And now, if his lordship would excuse him, he had some rather
pressing work to do. . . .

Savage gloomily took up the tale again. He had unpacked the parcels
given him, he explained in an injured tone. He thought he had been doing
the right thing and he was sure he had no reason to suppose there was
anything wrong. In all his experience, nobody had ever suggested. . . .
Reassured on this point, he went on to say that the parcels which he had
opened, besides the chocolates, had contained two books from the
library, a pair of gloves for her ladyship, and a bottle of preserved
plums. He had disposed of all these goods in the appropriate manner. The
books he had put in the drawing-room, the gloves he had handed to the
maid to be bestowed in her ladyship's bedroom, the plums went into the
kitchen and the chocolates into the dining-room. That was all that he
could say and he humbly suggested that he had done his duty.

It was Pettigrew who had raised the next point.

"The most important evidence is the wrapping the things came in," he
remarked. "Where is that?"

Savage could not say. He had done his unpacking in his pantry. He had
hardly finished before it had been time to robe his lordship for Court.
He had left it to Greene to clear up the mess. Perhaps Greene could
help.

Greene was an expressionless manservant, who carried taciturnity to the
verge of dumbness. Derek, who, with memories of Dumas, had long since
privately christened him Grimaud, had been interested to see whether
even such an emergency as this could induce him to utter more than two
words together. As it proved, the examination of Greene rather resembled
the kind of Christmas game in which questions may only be answered "Yes"
or "No". Little by little, the facts were dragged from him that he had
removed the wrappings from the pantry, that while some of these
survived, those which had contained the chocolate box had not, that he
thought he must have used them to relight the Marshal's fire which had
gone out and that he could not remember what they were like, but fancied
that the paper was thin and brown. He could not say whether it had a
label on it or not, or whether the address was written or typed. And
there the evidence ended.

"Really, Hilda," Barber had said, "I think you are properly the next
witness. After all, you handled this mysterious consignment. Didn't you
take any notice of it?"

"No. I saw there were three or four parcels, and as I had ordered a lot
of things over the telephone in London, I thought they were them. I
didn't bother to look at them at all closely. But I think I should have
noticed Bechamel's name on the outside if the chocolates had come direct
from them."

"Obviously they didn't," Pettigrew put in. "But weren't you surprised
when you found that somebody had sent you such a welcome present?"

"More pleased than surprised. People do still send me presents
sometimes, you know, Frank."

Pettigrew wrinkled his nose in acknowledgement of the thrust and the
talk then turned to what action should be taken.

"Obviously, we must tell the police," said Hilda. "Put it straight into
the hands of Scotland Yard, William. These country people won't be the
least good."

"The first thing to do will be to get the chocolates analysed." Flack
made his first contribution to the discussion.

"Of course. The police will have that done. Then I suppose they can make
inquiries at Bechamel's and try and trace the recent purchasers of these
chocolates. That's all a matter for them."

"I should like to avoid bringing the police into this, if possible,"
said the Judge.

"My dear William, why? When an attempt is made on your life----"

"It is a little difficult to explain, but at this stage at all events, I
should rather favour some private inquiry."

"But William----"

"The first thing to do is to get the chocolates analysed."

"_Dear_ Mr. Flack, you have said that once already. The police will know
just how that should be done."

". . . And I should very much like to perform the analysis myself."

"You perform it?"

"I am interested in chemistry in a mild way, you know, Lady Barber. In
fact, I have quite a well fitted-up little laboratory at home. My
'stinks room', my wife calls it--she has a great sense of humour, I
should so like you to meet her----"

"She sounds delightful," Hilda murmured with a shudder.

". . . And I should be delighted to try my hand at a piece of detective
research for once. It is an opportunity one could hardly expect to
recur."

In spite of his wife's obvious disapproval, Barber had eagerly accepted
the offer. The evening ended with Flack departing in triumph bearing the
box of chocolates and the two half-eaten ones, carefully wrapped in an
envelope. He promised to call at the lodgings the next morning with what
he described as his "preliminary observations".

"I can get some simple reagents in the town, I expect," were his parting
words. "Most poisons are of a fairly ordinary character and easily
detectable. I can do a little investigation in my bedroom at the hotel.
Anything more elaborate will have to wait till I get back to town."

No sooner were husband and wife alone together than Hilda said
challengingly:

"And now, William, perhaps you will explain why you prefer to leave
things in the hands of that ridiculous creature than to call in
experts?"

And from the Judge's consequent denials, evasions and confessions ensued
the scene already described.

                 *        *        *        *        *

True to his promise, Flack was round at the lodgings next morning. He
was early. Indeed, the Judge was still at breakfast when he was shown
in, looking extremely pleased with himself.

"I must apologise for this unseasonable intrusion, Judge," he said. "But
I am catching the ten o'clock train up, and I wanted to make my report
at the earliest opportunity."

He produced with great solemnity a small brown paper parcel, which he
handed to Barber.

"I return the exhibits," he said. "With the exception, that is, of one
half chocolate, which I fear has perished in my experiment."

"But I thought you were taking them up to London with you?" the Judge
said in surprise.

"That has proved to be unnecessary. The resources of my--ah!--stinks
room will not have to be called upon. My investigations were completed
last night before I went to bed. They proved very simple--very simple
indeed," he added with a touch of disappointment.

"Indeed?" said Barber.

"Are you quite sure, Mr. Flack?" Hilda put in. "Don't you think that if
the police were to send them to a proper--I mean, their laboratories
must be so very well equipped, they might perhaps find something you had
overlooked."

"Possibly, Lady Barber, possibly, though I do not think it very
probable. In any case, the exhibits are here at the service of the
police or anybody else, quite intact--subject, as I said just now, to
one half chocolate, which I do not think they will grudge me. Their
disposition is entirely a matter for you--and for the Judge, of course."

"Don't you think, Hilda," said Barber, swallowing the last of his
coffee, "that it would save time if Mr. Flack were allowed to tell us,
quite briefly, what he has discovered so quickly?"

Without waiting for her ladyship's approval, Flack proceeded to unburden
himself of his views.

"Last night," he said, "in the privacy of my own apartment, I dissected
one of the chocolates which you handed to me. In point of fact, I chose
the very one, I think, which had been, ah! extracted from your mouth,
Judge, if you will excuse my mentioning it. With the aid of a safety
razor blade I removed the outer coating of chocolate, which as you may
readily imagine, had already been worn to approximately one half of its
original thickness (not more, I should judge, than one and a half
millimetres) by the ordeal to which it had been subjected. Within this
covering, I discovered a hard white substance. To this, I applied the
commonest and most readily available form of reagent, namely ordinary
tap-water----"

He paused for dramatic effect.

". . . With immediate, and, I may say, startling results."

Another pause, which was evidently designed to be broken by the excited
ejaculations of his audience. As these, however, were not forthcoming,
he went on:

"The substance hissed, sizzled and disintegrated before my eyes! A
pungent and unmistakable odour arose. The application of water to the
substance had produced no other than acetylene gas. In other words, the
contents of this sweetmeat proved to be----"

"Carbide?" said the Judge.

Flack beamed. His audience, though less responsive than the chocolate,
had at last shown signs of reaction.

"No less," he said. "Ordinary, or, as my dear wife would put it, common
or garden carbide."

"But how very extraordinary," said Hilda.

"Remarkable, is it not? But naturally my researches did not stop there,"
Flack went on hastily, determined to finish his story. "I proceeded to
examine the remaining contents of the box (taking pains, needless to
say, to avoid obliterating any finger-prints there might be upon them)
with a view to ascertaining (_a_) the _modus operandi_ of the individual
who had tampered with them in this extraordinary fashion, and (_b_) the
number which had been so treated. Taking (_b_) first--if I may be
excused the departure from chronological order--I found that of the
three layers contained in the box the uppermost alone had apparently
been touched by any hand since they left the shop. I can guarantee that
you will be perfectly safe, Lady Barber, in indulging your taste for
confectionery so long as you confine your attentions strictly to what I
may describe as the ground and first floors."

He smacked his lips in appreciation of his own witticism and continued:

"It is in the _attics_ alone that danger resides. Close examination--and
this is not a matter demanding any chemical knowledge--it is perfectly
visible to the unaided eye of Scotland Yard, or if you will, of a High
Court Judge (which, personally, I should, if I may say so, rate far the
higher of the two) close examination, I repeat, shows quite clearly--I
am dealing with (_a_) now, Judge--that each of these chocolates has at
some time been neatly bisected at the circumference by some sharp
instrument (such as, for example, the humble but efficient razor blade
which I employed myself) and that thereafter the two halves have been
replaced, the resulting point of junction being secured by the
application of sufficient heat at that point to make the union (or
reunion, rather) binding. Do I make myself clear?"

Silence being traditionally taken to mean consent, he went on.

"When I say that the chocolate had been bisected, I must not be taken as
meaning more than I literally say. I do _not_ mean that the original
interior--which was, I understand, of a hard and brittle nature, had
also been divided. That would have been to impose upon the operator an
arduous and unnecessary labour, besides entailing the risk of blunting
the delicate instrument which I premise as having been employed. No! It
was merely the carapace (if I may use the term, somewhat inaccurately, I
admit, to describe a soft covering to a hard interior) that had in all
probability been severed, thus reversing the operation of the original
craftsman, who doubtless imposed upon his filling--as I believe it is
termed--two hemispheres of chocolate, which, pressed together, united
with each other to produce the complete article of commerce. The
irresistible inference, in short, is that the malpractor in this case,
having removed one half of the external covering in the way that I have
described, extracted the edible core, and replaced it with the noxious
substance which I have identified."

Flack mopped his brow, and bobbed to the Judge in the manner in which he
invariably concluded his address in Court.

Derek was the first to break the restful silence that succeeded Flack's
flow of words.

"But why carbide?" he said. "It seems an odd choice for a poisoner."

"Why indeed? Odd, my young friend, is the word. So odd indeed, that we
find ourselves confronted with the problem--which, I admit, is not
strictly one for me, but perhaps I may be permitted to speak in this
matter as _amicus curi_--is this a poisoner at all? Does this not
rather bear the stigmata of a rather cruel and stupid practical joke?"

"A joke?" said Hilda angrily.

"Consider," Flack went on, wagging a fat forefinger in her direction.
"Consider. It is perhaps a matter for an expert toxicologist, such as I
do not claim to be, to decide, but I should judge that swallowed whole,
in the fashion of a pill taken medicinally, a quantity of carbide such
as this might be attended with disagreeable, possibly even fatal
results. I cannot say, but it is possible. I do not seek to put it
higher than that. But who ever heard of anyone ingesting chocolates in
this manner? The very _raison d'etre_ of such articles is the pleasure
to the palate, which would be wholly circumvented by such a procedure.
No! There are two methods only of consuming sweets. One, the procedure
which I fancy you favour, Lady Barber, that of biting and _munching_--I
apologise for the crudity of the phrase but I know no other way of
expressing it--the other, the slower and gentler technique adopted by
the Judge, namely that of _sucking_ and slow absorption. Now it is clear
from your own very unpleasant experience of last night (I trust you are
quite recovered by the way? Forgive me for not having made the inquiry
sooner) it is clear that at the very first moment of _biting_, the
contact of the saliva with the carbide releases acetylene gas, the fraud
is exposed and the intruder summarily ejected. On the _sucking_
principle, on the other hand, discovery is slower, but none the
less----" he shook his head solemnly "--none the less sure. Possibly
before the moment of revelation and repudiation there would be time for
a minute quantity of carbide to be absorbed into the system--enough I
dare say to set up very unpleasant internal reactions, but not, I am
convinced, sufficient to be a lethal dose. I repeat, as a medium for
what is so strangely and inaptly termed a practical joke, carbide is all
that could be desired. As a poison, it is simply not in the picture."

As though taken aback by his descent into colloquial English, Flack
stopped abruptly, murmured, "I shall miss my train, I must be off," and
vanished.




                               Chapter 8
                           ON TO WIMBLINGHAM


"So all it amounts to is this," said the Judge placidly as he drank his
tea that evening. "Somebody has chosen to play a rather ill-natured
practical joke on me. Somebody else has written me a couple of abusive
anonymous letters. Yet a third somebody who--who may be taken to have a
grudge against me--is at large. There is not the slightest reason to
suspect that any of these three facts are in any way connected. None of
them, either separately or taken together, need cause the slightest
alarm. I don't propose to take any notice of them."

"I think you are wrong, William," said his wife firmly.

"My dear, I have thought this matter over very carefully since Flack's
exposition this morning--I know you are inclined to belittle him, but he
is a sound person and I believe he knows what he is talking about--I
have, I say, thought it over carefully----"

"I could see that you were thinking about something on the bench this
afternoon," said Hilda tartly, "and I wondered what it was. But so far
as I am concerned it is not a matter of thinking. I _know_ that all
these things are not mere coincidences. It is no good arguing about it.
My instinct tells me----"

"Instinct!" The Judge threw up his hands in polite mockery.

"Instinct," she repeated firmly. "I feel instinctively that from the
very beginning of this circuit there has been an atmosphere of danger
threatening you, and I think we ought to do something to combat it."

"It's very difficult to combat an atmosphere, I should think," Barber
answered. "My own instinct, if that is the right word, leads me to
precisely the opposite conclusion. I believe that the circuit from now
on will be perfectly peaceful and normal--unless, of course, these air
attacks people talk about so much do develop, which I don't believe they
will. Marshal, another cup of tea, if you please."

Derek poured out the cup, and took the occasion to suggest that the
question might be left open for a little longer.

"We are going to Wimblingham to-morrow," he said. "So far, there has
been a suspicious incident at each of two places. If anything happens at
a third, then I think we can be fairly sure that it's not a
coincidence."

The Judge was loud in his approval of the suggestion.

"By all means let us suspend judgment," he said. "And if I rejoin you
after Wimblingham safe and sound we shall hope that this spell of ill
luck--as I regard it--is broken."

"Very well," said Hilda. "But there is no question of rejoining you. I
am coming on with you to Wimblingham."

Barber showed an astonishment which Derek did not at first understand.

"You are coming to Wimblingham?" he said. "Surely you are not serious,
Hilda. Surely you know that no judge's wife ever comes there."

"I am coming to Wimblingham," she repeated. "And to every other town on
the circuit. I feel that it is my duty to look after you."

"I am flattered at your concern for my safety," said her husband, "but I
don't think you realize what you are letting yourself in for. The
Lodgings there are really----"

"The Lodgings are lousy," said her ladyship tersely. "That is notorious.
None the less, I prefer to put up with a little discomfort to taking any
risks where your safety is concerned."

Barber shrugged his shoulders.

"Very well," he said, "since you insist. But don't say you haven't been
warned. Mercifully, we shall only be there for a very short time.
Feeling as I do that there is nothing whatever behind these different
occurrences, I am only sorry that you should disarrange your plans for
nothing."

"There are no plans to disarrange. It isn't as if there were any
entertaining in London worth speaking of just now. I had intended to go
to see Michael again, but that can wait. Which reminds me, I have had a
letter from him, which I must discuss with you some time."

The hint was too broad to be disregarded, and Derek tactfully left the
room shortly afterwards.

Hilda followed the Marshal's progress out of the room with her eyes, and
as soon as he had gone produced a letter from her bag.

"Michael has heard from Sebald-Smith's people," she said.

"Yes?"

"He's asking for fifteen thousand pounds."

"Fifteen thousand!" The Judge started so violently that he almost fell
from his chair. "But this is preposterous!"

"Obviously. The argument is, apparently, that he is maimed for life, and
that his career as a pianist is at an end. Of course, Sebald's fees of
recent years have been----"

"I dare say. But fifteen thousand----!"

"I shall write to Michael, of course, and tell him that it is out of all
reason. He wants to know what counter offer we should suggest."

Barber rubbed the top of his head in perplexity.

"It's a very difficult situation," he said.

"I know it is, but saying so doesn't take us much further." Then, as he
remained in a dejected silence, she went on impatiently, "After all,
William, you must have often had to advise clients in cases like this.
Try and think of it as a case brought to you for an opinion. What would
you advise?"

The Judge shook his head mournfully.

"It's no good," he groaned. "There has never been a case like
this--never!"

"Every litigant thinks that about his own troubles. I've often heard you
say so."

"And that is perfectly true. But this case _is_ different. After all,
Hilda, I am a High Court Judge."

"I've heard you say, too," she went on, pursuing her own line of
thought, "that nobody is competent to advise in his own case. Why
shouldn't you get advice--from one of the other judges, for instance?"

"No, no!" Barber almost shouted. "Don't you understand, Hilda, that if
once this matter becomes known I am lost? That is why this wretched
pianist has me at his mercy. He knows that I can't possibly afford to
fight the claim, and he can fix the damages at any figure he pleases.
The long and the short of it is that if he can't be got to see reason,
we are ruined."

"Then he _must_ be made to see reason," Hilda answered. She tried hard
to imagine how Sebastian Sebald-Smith would react to the present
situation. She had known him well enough once, but had never had to
consider him as a prospective litigant. For an artist, she believed him
to be a reasonable man, and that was something. Then her mind went to
Sally Parsons, that most unreasonable woman, and her heart misgave her.
But she went on bravely, "Obviously this is only a bargaining figure.
Even Sebald-Smith's earnings must be comparatively small during the war.
Suppose we can beat him down to five thousand--a year's income----"

"Two years at least, with taxation at its present level, and it is
certain to go higher."

"Well, two years if you like. We could arrange payment by instalments
and"--her voice faltered--"live very simply. . . ."

The Judge shook his head.

"You don't appreciate the position, Hilda," he said. "The moment that
anything of this becomes public property, I shall be forced to resign.
There will be no question of two years' income or one. Sebald-Smith has
only to issue a writ to make my position intolerable. And," he added, "I
have not earned my pension by ten years."

"They gave Battersby a pension, though he had only been on the bench
four years," Hilda remarked.

"That was a different case. Battersby resigned merely because his health
broke down."

"Why shouldn't you resign for ill health too? After all, you had some
nasty colds last winter and I'm sure Dr. Fairmile would say anything if
I asked him to."

"Really, Hilda! Have you no conscience?"

"Of course not, where this is concerned. And I shan't allow you to have
one either. William, I think I have found the solution. I shall write to
Fairmile to-morrow. It will be a hideous strain trying to live on the
pension, but it will be better than nothing, and after a decent interval
to get better I dare say you could get some war work, or sit as Chairman
of Commissions and things. Once you are safely resigned we can bargain
with Sebald-Smith on more or less equal terms. If he does get a judgment
against you, he can't attach the pension, can he? I must look it up when
I get home."

At this point Hilda became aware that her husband had been saying
something several times over, which she had been too engrossed in her
theme to attend to. As she paused to take breath he seized the
opportunity to repeat it yet again.

"Stop!" said the Judge. "Stop, stop, _stop_!"

"What is the matter?"

"The matter is that your scheme is hopelessly unpractical, besides being
flagrantly dishonest. Even if Fairmile were prepared to jeopardize his
professional reputation by assisting in such a fraud, I am quite certain
that the Treasury would not sanction the payment of a pension that had
not been earned at such a time as this. It would immediately put
everyone on inquiry. There would be questions asked in the House." Never
having been a Member of Parliament, Barber was nervously sensitive to
questions asked in the House. "And in any case," he added, "you may take
it that I could not possibly be a party to such a scheme."

"Really," said Hilda, "you are most depressing. I cannot understand you,
William. You make light of all these determined attempts on your life,
but when it is a question of money you collapse entirely."

"That is because I see things in their proper perspective," the Judge
replied. "I do not believe that there have been any attempts on my life,
determined or otherwise. But this is serious, and I confess that I am
perturbed at it--gravely perturbed."

And he gloomily went upstairs to dress for dinner.

                 *        *        *        *        *

Derek wondered why, when that evening he happened to mention to Greene
that Lady Barber was coming to Wimblingham, the latter greeted the news
with such obvious disfavour. He said nothing, it was true--it was hardly
to be expected that he would--but his look was eloquent of disapproval,
in which seemed blended a quite personal distress at the prospect. To
probe the matter further, he tested the reactions of Savage to the same
question, and found that normally gloomy individual positively
sepulchral when the subject was touched upon. Beamish, however, without
being approached, brought enlightenment. Rather to Derek's embarrassment
Beamish had elected to make something of a confidant of the Marshal. He
seemed to regard him in the nature of a go-between, through whom his
views could at need be discreetly conveyed to higher authority, and
nothing that Derek could say or do could persuade him that he was not
prepared to take his side in any domestic row that might be going. On
this particular evening he buttonholed Derek when he was on his way to
bed, drew him into the comfortable little sitting-room which he occupied
on the ground floor, and settled down to a chat.

"So we're leaving Southington to-morrow, Marshal," he began. "I dessay
you'll not be sorry to go either. I can't say I care much for the place
myself, for all the Under Sheriff is quite a decent gentleman. But
things haven't been too easy on the domestic side here, as you are
aware. And I was looking forward to a little peace and quiet at
Wimblingham."

Derek said nothing. Beamish smoked a pipe in short angry puffs for a
moment or two. Obviously he was nursing a grievance, and presently it
burst out.

"And now her ladyship's coming to Wimblingham!" he exclaimed. "Well, I
wish her joy of it, Marshal, that is all--I wish her joy of it. Do you
know, sir, that no judge's lady has stayed at Wimblingham since nineteen
nought twelve? Except Lady Fosbery, and she, of course, doesn't count."

Derek was torn between a desire to find out why Mr. Justice Fosbery's
wife did not count and a feeling that it was time that he attempted the
difficult task of putting Beamish in his place. Pride won by a short
head.

"Really, Beamish," he said, "you can hardly expect me to discuss Lady
Barber's decision with you."

"I am not discussing her ladyship," Beamish answered with some hauteur.
"I am discussing the Lodgings at Wimblingham. And that's a matter that
concerns us all, as you will discover to your cost. What I say is, it's
not fair to the Marshal or the Judge's Clerk, let alone the domestic
staff, for a judge's lady to foist herself on those Lodgings."

"I understand that they are very uncomfortable," said Derek, "but I
still don't see why----"

"You heard her ladyship say that they were lousy," Beamish interrupted,
"and we will let that word pass for want of a better. That's not the
point--at least not the whole of the point, if you follow me. What you
don't realize, Mr. Marshall, is this: there are only two decent bedrooms
in those Lodgings, and one just passable."

And then the whole mystery was made plain, and with it Beamish's
grievance, Savage's gloom, and Greene's mute despair. In a bachelor
establishment, which had become the normal rule at Wimblingham, the
larger of the two decent bedrooms was naturally appropriated to the use
of the Judge. His Marshal occupied the other. The Clerk, next in the
hierarchy, took the one which Beamish described as passable. The butler
and marshal's man made shift in the least unattractive of the remaining
rooms. Now, with the advent of a lady who would have to be accommodated
in one of the two best rooms, the rest of the household would be
compelled to take a step down. Derek would oust Beamish from the
second-class room, Beamish in turn would have to put up with what had
been barely good enough for Savage, and finally Greene would be expelled
by Savage to seek some nameless dog-kennel beneath the rafters,
untenanted since nineteen nought twelve. Such are the penalties involved
in departing from precedent in any matter affecting the administration
of justice.

The Fosbery case, Derek also learned, did not in any way impair the
chain of authority which was now to be so rashly broken. The simple
reason was that this affectionate couple, though well-stricken in years,
had never abandoned the habit of sharing the same bed. Lady Fosbery's
presence, therefore, made no difference to the billeting arrangements.

"Of course, they're old-fashioned," Beamish commented. "He doesn't even
ask for a dressing-room of his own. Why, they tell me. . . ."

He launched into details of a surprisingly intimate character. Derek,
somewhat against his will, was so enthralled by these that he quite
forgot for the time a question that had been puzzling him ever since
Beamish began his exposition.

He remembered it again just as he was getting into bed. How did Beamish
know that Lady Barber had called the Lodgings "lousy"?

Nothing could be higher testimony to the power of local government in
England than the accommodation provided for His Majesty's Judges in the
county town of Wimbleshire. In the Lodgings there, as in all similar
establishments on the circuit, a book was provided in which each
visiting judge inscribed his name and was invited to add such comments
as to him seemed fit upon the hospitality afforded. For upwards of
thirty years judges had availed themselves of the invitation, and
without exception their comments had been to the same effect. Ranging
from querulous protest through bitter sarcasm to straightforward abuse,
the entries made an interesting contribution to the literature of ill
temper. Yet, throughout thirty years the county authorities of
Wimbleshire, through sheer British determination, had succeeded in
resisting the clamant demands of their exalted guests. In the spirit
which had inspired the Wimbleshire Fencibles to stand fast against the
Old Guard in their squares at Waterloo, they had withstood the massed
assault of almost the entire strength of the King's Bench Division of
the Supreme Court of Judicature. In 1938, however, their resistance
seemed at an end. Authority launched its ultimate irresistible attack,
and the fiat went forth that unless new accommodation for His Majesty's
Judges was made available, Wimblingham should cease to be an assize
town. Its ancient rank and dignity should be taken away and transferred
to its hated rival, the upstart borough of Podchester. Sullenly, the
County Councillors prepared to surrender. After one long last glorious
debate in the Council Chamber they accepted the enemy's terms. At
enormous cost a site was bought and cleared, plans were prepared by the
most expensive architect who could be found, and already the foundations
of the new building had been laid when, for the second time in history,
the Prussians arrived upon the stricken field and the tide of battle
turned once more. For the duration of the war, at least, the Lodging's
book of Wimblingham was saved for a few more pages of vituperation.

That the authorities of Wimbleshire had been able to carry out their
successful defence so long was largely due to the fact that the Lodgings
did not constitute a separate building but formed part of a large block
which held also the Council Chamber itself and the Court in which the
Assizes were held. It was a picturesque pile. Resting on foundations
reputed to be Roman, and with stonework in its walls that was
unquestionably Norman, it had been remodelled and patched by different
hands to suit the tastes and needs of succeeding generations until, in
the late seventeenth century, somebody, whom local tradition firmly but
incorrectly declared to be Wren, masked the congeries of buildings with
the charming faade which now fronts the central square of the town.
After that beyond the provision of a little early Victorian plumbing, no
further structural alterations were ever made, and behind the orderly
Renaissance screen a labyrinth of passages and staircases gave access to
offices, chambers, and halls, amongst them the suite of rooms which had
been the subject of so many indignant memoranda.

Derek prided himself on being able to rough it when necessary, but he
gave a gasp of dismay when Greene opened the door of his room and with
mute eloquence displayed what lay beyond. It was a gaunt, cold
apartment, far too high for its size. It was illuminated by a dormer
window out of which Derek, by standing on his toes, was just able to
verify the fact that the metallic clamour which filled the room
proceeded from the municipal tram terminus immediately beneath. The
ceiling showed ominous stains of damp and the sagging wire mattress of
the bed uttered a tired protesting creak when Derek incautiously tried
it with his hand. Remembering that this was the room that Beamish had
described as "passable", he shivered as he thought of the descending
degrees of discomfort to which the staff would be subjected.

Leaving the room, Derek duly fell down the two steps outside the door
into the dark corridor beyond. He recovered himself and picked his way
down three or four further steps into a broader passage, out of which
the main rooms of the lodgings opened. This passage apparently served
other uses as well. The first door that he tried led him straight into
the public gallery of the Court, the second into what had once been the
Grand Jury room and was now apparently a depository for babies'
respirators. Finally, guided by the sound of voices, he reached the
drawing-room. Here, in a decor that had changed little since it was
originally ordered in the year of the Great Exhibition, he found Lady
Barber, in surprisingly high spirits.

"Isn't this too exquisitely foul?" she said. "William and I have been
trying to concoct something really stinging to put in the book. I'm sure
there are rats in my room. I feel that I'm the bravest woman in England,
venturing where no judge's wife has ever dared before."

"Except Lady Fosbery," said Derek. He repeated the gist of what Beamish
had told him and was rewarded with a burst of laughter in which the
Judge, who looked depressed and out of sorts, joined rather grudgingly.

"Divine!" said Hilda. "I shall dine out on that story for months--I
mean, I should if there were any dinner-parties left to go to. Talking
of dinners, I don't know what sort of food we shall get here. Mrs.
Square says that the kitchen range is completely beyond control. Thank
Heaven, the calendar here is very short, with no civil work, so a couple
of nights will see us through. I expect you'll be glad of a day or two's
rest from your duties before the next assize, won't you, Mr. Marshall?
It's a mercy that next to nobody seems to commit any crimes in
Wimbleshire."

"It is a singular thing," observed Barber, "but I have often observed
that this county is comparatively free from serious crime."

The event was to prove that there were exceptions to this rule.




                               Chapter 9
                           A BLOW IN THE DARK


Derek turned over in bed for the twentieth time, and for the twentieth
time his bed registered a tinny protest. The movement had no effect on
his comfort, as owing to the deep trough in which he lay his body
returned always to exactly the same spot. The knobs and protuberances
which variegated the surface of the mattress went into his right side
instead of his left, and that was all. Dismally comparing himself to St.
Lawrence on his gridiron, Derek prepared to await the dawn.

Like most healthy people, who do not know what insomnia really is, Derek
viewed the prospect of a sleepless night with horror. He would have
found a book to occupy the time, but he shrank from the labour involved
in replacing the cumbrous black-out curtains which he had incautiously
removed before retiring. Besides, he reflected, the light was so placed
as to make it impossible to read in bed without straining his eyes.
There was nothing for it but to endure his fate with hardihood. It was
his second night at Wimblingham, and, he was thankful to think, his
last. The assize, no less grandiose and expensive than its predecessors
at Markhampton and Southington, had barely filled a short working day.
Three prisoners only had appeared and two of these had obligingly
pleaded guilty. In the remaining case, Pettigrew, holding a brief for
someone much junior to himself who was serving in the army, had
skilfully jollied the jury into an acquittal in the face of determined
opposition from the Bench. There had, Derek remembered, been more than a
hint of personal antagonism towards Pettigrew in the summing up, and
undisguised malice in the smile with which counsel had bowed to the
Judge when, at the conclusion of the case, he formally asked for his
client to be discharged. Why, he wondered, did the two men dislike each
other so much? Had it anything to do with Hilda? (He had already reached
the stage of thinking of her by her Christian name, and he vaguely
wondered whether he would ever have the courage to call her by it
openly.) Certainly she appeared to manage to remain on the friendliest
possible terms with them both. Was there, his rambling thoughts
continued, anything at all in Hilda's idea that any danger threatened
the Judge? And who was this person Heppenstall whose name kept on
cropping up whenever the subject was discussed? Heppenstall, in a way,
had been responsible for the accident at Markhampton. At least, it was
after his name had been mentioned that the Judge had started drinking
all that brandy. Perhaps Beamish could explain. He seemed to have all
sorts of private knowledge at his fingers' ends. But one didn't like to
encourage Beamish too much. He was quite familiar enough already. Queer
fish, Beamish. Can't say I like him much. Hilda can't bear the sight of
him. Should like to know exactly what she has against him. Don't expect
she would ever say outright, though. She's marvellous at just indicating
her feelings without any direct words. Like the quotation: "Just hint a
fault and indicate dislike." That's wrong--not "indicate", some other
three syllable word . . . "Intimate"? No. . . . I forget. . . . Odd,
what Pettigrew said to Beamish this morning, just before the Court sat.
"Been playing darts much, lately?" Seemed to annoy Beamish, too. . . .
Darts. . . . Beamish. . . . "Institute dislike?" Silly idea, of course
not. . . . You institute proceedings, not dislike. . . . Proceedings for
darts in the King's Bench Division. . . .

Derek slept.

Some time later he awoke with a start. His sleep had been a light one,
and troubled with fantastic dreams, and he seemed to jump into full
consciousness all at once in a manner quite different from his usual
slow, reluctant morning wakening. He sat up in bed. Apart from the
inevitable noise occasioned by the movement, he could hear nothing. The
last Wimblingham tram had long since clanked its way to rest and the
street outside was completely quiet. None the less, Derek felt certain
that it was a noise that had roused him, and further, something told him
that the disturbance, whatever it had been, had come, not from outside,
but a good deal nearer at hand. He continued to listen for a moment or
two, and had just decided to try to go to sleep again when the silence
was broken quite unmistakably by a whole series of different sounds.
Afterwards, Derek was annoyed to find a good deal of uncertainty in his
recollection of the precise order in which these sounds occurred, but of
their nature there was no doubt. Somewhere a door slammed sharply,
footsteps moved hastily along the corridor--the main corridor, Derek
thought, and not the little passage outside his room--there was a bump
that quite certainly indicated that somebody had stumbled over one of
the concealed flights of steps, and, at some point or other in the
jumble of untoward noises, there was a loud, high-pitched scream. It was
this last that brought Derek in a bound from his bed.

He fumbled in the dark for his dressing-gown and slippers, groped for,
but failed to find, his torch, and opened the door of his room. He
listened for a moment, and heard the confused hum of a household
suddenly roused from sleep. Taking a step forward into the darkness he
once again missed his footing on the steps so ingeniously provided
immediately outside the door. This time he almost fell prone in his
haste, and as he tried to right himself he was knocked into by a heavy
unseen form coming from further up the side passage. Derek went down to
the floor and the newcomer tripped over him, in so doing kicking him
firmly in the ribs. It was, Derek felt, rather like falling on the ball
in front of an advancing pack of rugger forwards.

Derek, badly winded, prepared to grapple with his unknown assailant, but
at that moment an electric torch was flashed in his face and Beamish's
voice said, "Oh, it's you, Mr. Marshall! You nearly gave me a nasty
fall."

Derek made no reply to what he felt to be a gross understatement. "What
is the matter?" he asked.

"That's what I came to find out," said Beamish. "It's a fair disgrace
there being no lights in this passage. It's all skylights above, see?
And the Council won't go to the expense of doing the black-out
properly."

Waving his torch, Beamish preceded him down the passage into the main
corridor, which was dimly lighted enough, but seemed by contrast a blaze
of illumination. In it Derek recognized the other members of the
household--figures familiar enough, but strangely transmogrified in
their night attire. The Judge looked gaunter and gawkier than ever in an
unexpectedly gaily patterned dressing-gown. Mrs. Square, was positively
Dickensian in curl-papers. Savage, dishevelled but infinitely
respectful, contrived still to look unmistakably a butler. Beamish,
Derek now perceived, was closely buttoned into a huge check ulster which
reached almost to the ground and gave him a singularly rakish
appearance. A surly looking individual, whom he presumed to be a night
watchman, stood rather helplessly by. All this he observed with the
unreal clarity of things seen in a nightmare, before he became aware of
the cause and centre of the whole uproar. When he had once seen this,
however, he no longer had eyes for anything else. On the floor, her head
supported by her husband's arms, lay Hilda Barber. She was very pale.
One eye was half-closed and blood was trickling from a cut just beneath
it. She held her hand to her throat and appeared to be breathing with
difficulty. She was not unconscious, for from time to time she muttered
words which Derek could not catch.

For a time that could not have been longer than a few minutes but seemed
endless, everyone seemed stricken with the paralysis that sudden
emergency sometimes produces. It was a paralysis, however, that did not
affect their tongues. Everybody was talking at once. Mrs. Square was
repeating over and over again, "Poor lady!" and "Did you ever!" The
Judge said several times, "Hilda! Can you hear me?" as if he was talking
on an unsatisfactory telephone. Then he added, "Fetch a doctor,
someone!" and "Where are the police?" The night watchman rejoined in an
aggrieved tone, "I've rung down for the police. They'll be 'ere in a
minute."

Derek broke into this dialogue by boldly coming forward and seizing Lady
Barber round the ankles.

"We ought to put her to bed, sir!" he fairly shouted at the bemused old
man who still had hold of the other end of the patient.

"Yes, yes, of course!" said the Judge, coming suddenly to life.

Together they lifted her and carried her into her bedroom, a little
further along the corridor. The spot where she lay, Derek noticed, was
outside the Judge's room, next to it. As they laid her on the bed, Hilda
lifted her head and said, quite distinctly, "Are you all right,
William?"

"Yes, yes!" answered Barber. "Can you hear me, Hilda?"

"He hit me," she said, and then appeared to lose consciousness.

Through the open bedroom door, Derek could see that the passage had
suddenly become crowded with policemen.

                 *        *        *        *        *

Ages later, as it seemed to Derek, he was sitting at breakfast with the
Judge. After the turmoil of the night, which had seemed positively
endless, the breakfast table, with its coffee and bacon, appeared
refreshingly normal. The Judge was already seated when he came in,
reading _The Times_ as usual, and apparently with his appetite
unimpaired. His eyes were somewhat bloodshot, but otherwise he showed no
traces of what must have been a sleepless night.

Derek inquired after Lady Barber.

"As well as could be expected," was the reply. "Of course she must be
kept very quiet." His eyes returned to his paper. "I don't like the look
of things in Finland," he announced. "Another cup of coffee, please,
Marshal. It seems to taste very peculiar, I don't know what's wrong with
it. The water can't have been properly boiling when it was made." He
took the cup and went on, "How did that man get in here last night, I
want to know? I shall have a word or two to say to the Chief Constable
when he appears." He drank a mouthful of the coffee, made a grimace into
the cup, looked back at his paper and concluded, "It's a shocking
business altogether."

Derek murmured agreement, although from the context he was left in some
doubt whether the last words referred to the state of affairs with
regard to Finland, the unsatisfactory nature of the coffee, or the
adventures of the night before. He was trying to find some comment which
would be equally appropriate to all three subjects when a diversion was
effected by the door opening to admit Hilda.

"My dear!" cried the Judge, starting to his feet. "What does this mean?"

"I'm sorry if I startled you," said Hilda, calmly. "I know I look a
hideous spectacle, but I thought you would be prepared for it. Now Mr.
Marshall takes it all quite coolly."

She turned towards Derek a face disfigured by an enormous black eye.
Beneath her make-up she was pale, and round her neck she wore a chiffon
scarf which could not wholly conceal some ugly bruises on either side of
her throat.

"But, Hilda, you ought to be in bed! The doctor said positively----"

"The doctor doesn't know what the beds in these Lodgings are like," said
Hilda, helping herself to toast and butter. "I lay there as long as I
could bear it and then I decided to get up. It was all I could do to get
outside my door, though. There was a great fat policeman blocking it. On
the stable-door principle, I suppose."

"The Chief Constable will be here shortly," said the Judge. "He sent a
message just now to ask if you would feel equal to making a statement. I
told him----"

"I'm quite ready to make any statement to anybody, so long as I can get
away from Wimblingham this morning and never see the place again," said
Hilda firmly.

"But tell me, what actually happened?"

"My dear William, what happened was exactly what I had warned you might
happen. Somebody made an attack on you last night and I got in his way,
that's all. No details, please! If I've got to tell the whole story to
the policeman I don't want to go all through it twice. It was quite
unpleasant enough without that."

"An attack on me?"

"Certainly. You don't imagine anybody's going to take the trouble to
break in here just for the fun of blacking _my_ eye, do you?
Besides--you'll hear all about it directly. May I have a look at _The
Times_, if you've done with it?"

Barber meekly surrendered the paper.

"When I think", he observed, "of the fuss that the average woman makes
about the smallest misadventure and how gladly she will seize the
opportunity to tell her story twenty times over if possible, I--I am
really impressed by you, Hilda."

Hilda, rustling the pages of _The Times_, looked up with what would have
been, but for her disfigurement, a charming smile.

"That", she observed, "is as it should be."

Ten o'clock brought the city Chief Constable, an amiable but badly
worried man. With him came a detective inspector and a doctor. The
latter was professionally shocked at finding his patient out of bed, but
on examining her could do no more than congratulate her on her splendid
constitution. He wrote out a prescription which Hilda light-heartedly
made into a spill for her cigarette as soon as his back was turned and
left her to the two policemen.

Lady Barber's statement was quite short and to the point.

"I woke up in the night," she said. "No, it's no use asking me what the
time was. I didn't look at my watch, and in any case it's hopelessly
unreliable. I thought I heard someone moving in the passage outside, so
I went along to my husband's room to investigate. It was quite dark and
I was feeling my way along the wall. Just as I got to his door I bumped
into someone. I said, 'Who are you?' or something like that. The next
thing I knew was a torch being flashed in my face. The man, whoever he
was, caught me by the throat--here"--she indicated the bruises beneath
the scarf--"and then I felt a terrific blow in the eye. I think he must
actually have hit me with the torch, because everything went dark. He
let go of me as he struck and I fell down. Then I suppose I screamed.
And that is really all I can remember."

There was a pause, and then the inspector said softly, "Why did you go
to your husband's room, Lady Barber?"

"Because I suspected that there was somebody about, and I thought he
might make an attempt on my husband's life--and I was right," she added
triumphantly.

"Had you any reason to fear for his lordship's safety, then?"

"Certainly I had. Otherwise I shouldn't have come to Wimblingham--odious
place."

The city Chief Constable blenched at this slur on his own town, of which
he was oddly proud.

"Perhaps it would help us if you would tell us your reasons," he said.

Hilda nodded towards the Judge.

"You tell," she said.

Somewhat haltingly, Barber related the story of the anonymous letters at
Markhampton and the incident of the poisoned chocolates.

"I freely admit", he added, "that I did not take any of these incidents
particularly seriously. But it seems that I was wrong."

The Chief Constable looked wise and said nothing. Rather diffidently,
the inspector took it upon himself to speak.

"It seems a strange business," he said. "It doesn't seem to hang
together, if I may say so. I mean, the person who sent the threatening
letters might follow it up by sending poisoned chocolates--though it was
a crude kind of poison, admittedly--or he might attempt a crime of
violence, but hardly both. I mean, sir," he addressed his superior, "we
don't generally find one man attempting two different classes of crimes,
do we? Criminals generally tend to keep to a groove."

"That is so," said the Chief Constable. "Of course, we have no proof
that the assailant in this case came here with the intention of
committing an act of violence. He might have been merely a thief. Had
you any articles of particular value in your room, my lord?"

The Judge shook his head.

"I had not," he said. "And frankly, what the man intended to do here is
a question that does not interest me very much at the moment. What I
want to know is, how was it that he got into these Lodgings and how did
he get out again without being apprehended? It is a somewhat
extraordinary state of affairs if the lodgings of His Majesty's Judge of
Assize can be visited by a marauder with apparently complete impunity,
and one which, I must say, appears to me to reflect very little credit
on the police force of this city."

The Chief Constable's face bore the expression of a man who had long
foreseen a blow which he could not avoid. In his distress the mask of
officialdom dropped off and he became quite human.

"I can only say, my lord," he said, "that if I had had any warning at
all that particular precautions were necessary--any hint of the story
you have just told me, for instance--I should have stationed a constable
outside your lordship's room all night. Short of that, honestly there is
nothing I can do to make this place safe--nothing! I have spoken to the
Clerk of the Peace about it time and again, but nothing has been done.
It is hopeless!"

He went on, with an eloquence born of deep feeling, to enlarge upon the
peculiarities and disadvantages of the building in which they were. It
had twenty different recognized entrances and exits. Apart from these,
two of its irregular sides fronted on to narrow alleys, from which it
would be the simplest matter to break into one of the ill-protected
ground-floor windows, and in the blacked-out streets it would be mere
chance if a patrolling constable happened to catch him in the act. Once
inside, there was nothing to prevent the intruder from rambling all over
the building.

"There are night watchmen, of course," the Chief Constable added, "but
there never were enough of them, and a good half have been taken for war
service of one kind or another. Doors are locked, but there's not one in
the place I wouldn't undertake to force with a hairpin."

"It would be pretty difficult for anyone to find his way about the
place, though," Derek pointed out. "Unless he knew it fairly well to
start with. I know I lost my way completely between here and my bedroom
on the day we arrived. Don't you think that points to a man with local
knowledge?"

"It ought to, but it does not," said the Chief Constable more
despondently than ever. "For sixpence you can get at any bookshop in the
city a local handbook with a complete plan of the building, showing all
the principal rooms, including, of course, the Judge's lodgings. That's
because this is an Ancient Monument. All I can say is, Ancient Monuments
are all very well in their proper places, which is museums, but they
have no call to put Judges in them and expect the police to guard them.
If you'll excuse my saying so, my lord."

"And", the inspector put in by way of rubbing it in, "I ought to point
out that it would be quite unnecessary to break into the building at
all. All that anybody need do would be to come in during the day on one
of a dozen pretexts--to make an inquiry about his rates, or A.R.P., or
what not--and conceal himself somewhere in the place till nightfall.
It's as easy as pie."

Derek had an inspiration.

"The public gallery of the Court opens out of this corridor," he said.

"Exactly. And a very likely place to choose. I'm obliged to you for the
suggestion, sir."

"Well," said Barber, "this certainly reveals a very unsatisfactory state
of affairs. I am not at all sure that it is not my duty to make some
official representations upon the matter. But I can quite see that in
view of what you tell me, my strictures upon the police force which you
command, Mr. Chief Constable, may have been somewhat--ah!--more severe
than was appropriate to the circumstances. Meanwhile----"

"Meanwhile," said the Chief Constable, looking a good deal more cheerful
than he had been at any time since the interview began, "meanwhile, we
shall of course do all we can to bring this man to justice. If he is a
local man, there won't be much difficulty. By midday to-day every man in
the city with a record of violence against him will have been pulled in
and we shan't let any of them go until they have fully accounted for
every minute of last night. I have spoken to the Chief Constable of the
County and he is doing the same for his jurisdiction. If he's not a
local, then it's a different matter altogether. But we'll do our utmost.
You would wish the Yard to be notified, my lord?"

The Judge hesitated for a moment and then nodded.

"Yes," he said, "I think that that will be necessary."

The Chief Constable rose and was about to leave the room when his
subordinate murmured something in his ear which caused him to turn back.

"There is one further possibility, my lord," he said, "which you may
think very far-fetched, but I feel bound to mention it. Do you consider
that this assault could have been committed by someone _inside_ the
lodgings, a member of the household, I mean, and not an intruder at
all?"

There was a moment's stupefaction and then the Judge laughed.

"Apart from ourselves, there are only four persons who were sleeping
here last night," he said, "and one of them is a woman. I think I can
safely say that from what I know of them you can discard that theory."

"Thank you, my lord. That is as I expected but I thought I ought to
mention it."

                 *        *        *        *        *

Later that morning the party left for London. Hilda had contrived a
rakish veil which fell over one side of her hat and completely concealed
her black eye while looking exceedingly becoming. She need hardly have
bothered, however, so far as any spectators at Wimblingham station were
concerned, for an impressive body of police kept nearly half the
platform free until they were safely in their carriage. Evidently the
Chief Constable was taking no chance. Looking out of the window, Derek
could see his broad chest heave with a sigh of relief as the train
steamed out.

"Shut the window, Marshal," said Barber.

As he tugged at the strap, Derek was conscious of a sharp pain in his
side. He realized that he was still sore from his encounter with Beamish
of the night before. How hard he had kicked him! You wouldn't have
thought bedroom slippers could hurt so much. He put his hand to his ribs
and winced. Could they have been bedroom slippers? And if they were not,
why not? He tried to recollect Beamish's appearance. There had been a
big ulster which had hidden everything else. He had been too busy to
look at his feet. . . . A fantastic notion, born of the Chief
Constable's last words, floated into his mind, and refused to be
dislodged.

"Mr. Marshall, you look quite distraught," said Hilda kindly. "Have one
of the Judge's caramels. They're quite safe. I bought them myself."




                              Chapter 10
                             TEA AND THEORY


"Will you come to tea with me to-morrow?" Hilda said abruptly to Derek,
just before they parted at the station.

It was more than an invitation, Derek felt. A command? Not exactly. An
appeal then? Something between the two, perhaps. In any case, without
knowing exactly why, he accepted, simply because he felt that he had no
option in the matter. It was not in the least what he wanted to do. He
was going home to his mother in Hampshire that evening and he did not at
all enjoy the prospect of breaking into his short holiday. But when a
hostess of Lady Barber's calibre looks a young man firmly in the
eyes--even though she may happen to have only one eye of her own
available at the moment--it takes a very determined young man to refuse
her proferred hospitality.

As it turned out, he found himself next day only too glad to have the
excuse to return to London. Since he had been away, he had to some
extent forgotten the maddening feeling of uselessness which had
oppressed him ever since a medical officer had told him brutally that he
was hopelessly unfit for active service. At home once more, it returned
to him in full measure. All his friends in the village had disappeared
into some form of war work or another. His mother was spending all her
days at an A.R.P. centre, waiting patiently at the telephone for
warnings of air raids which never seemed to come, and had no time for
him. Moreover, the two spare rooms of the small house were now occupied
by a couple of London mothers and their small children, with whom with
the best will in the world he could not get upon speaking, let alone
upon friendly terms. He had been accustomed to leading the rather
spoiled life of the only son of a widowed mother and the contrast was
somewhat painful.

Derek spent his evening composing yet another letter to somebody who he
hoped might be able to find him a job in the ranks of the temporary
Civil Service and in filling up yet another form supplied by that
disheartening institution, the Central Registry of the Ministry of
Labour. Next day he took an unnecessarily early train to London.

Hilda had appointed the meeting at her club. Derek went there vaguely
expecting something in the nature of a party. He found his hostess by
herself, in a small room which she appeared to have secured for her
exclusive use, to judge by the fact that while they were together only
two other members intruded and straightway tiptoed out again with
muffled apologies. She greeted him in her usual friendly fashion and
rang for tea. While this was being brought she chattered away amusingly
enough but to little purpose. Derek began to wonder whether her
seclusion was merely due to her disfigurement, as to which she made
various more or less facetious allusions. But as soon as tea had been
brought in and the waitress had withdrawn, her manner changed to one of
seriousness, almost of solemnity.

"I asked you to come here," she said, "because I wanted to talk to you
without being disturbed."

She did not say by whom she was afraid of being disturbed, but it was
obvious to whom she was referring. Indeed, her next words showed in what
direction her thoughts were running.

"Derek," she went on earnestly, "this is serious. William does not
appear to me in the least to realize how serious it is."

Derek was so impressed by being addressed by his Christian name that for
the moment he paid little attention to what she was saying, and during
that moment looked, for him, uncommonly stupid. Hilda instantly noted
his lack of attention and apparently guessed the meaning of it, for she
coloured slightly and then continued, frowning in the effort to
concentrate upon her subject.

"He doesn't--he never has--pay any regard to his personal safety," she
said. "For that matter, in his own affairs he has always been quite
childishly careless. You've had some experience of that already. And it
puts a very heavy responsibility on you."

Derek shifted rather uncomfortably in his chair under her purposeful
gaze. Nobody had hitherto indicated to him that the position of Judge's
Marshal entailed any particular responsibility, apart from wearing a top
hat and pouring out tea, and he had some difficulty in adjusting his
mind to the idea.

Hilda, as usual, seemed to divine what was going on in his thoughts. "Do
you know what the Marshal originally was?" she said. "A bodyguard for
the Judge. In the old days it was part of his duty to sleep across the
door of the Judge's room to protect him from any intruders."

Derek was moved to say that he could hardly have slept worse at
Wimblingham if he had followed the old custom, but his levity was not
well received.

"A bodyguard," Lady Barber repeated. "That is what the Judge needs, and
that is what you and I together have got to supply during the rest of
this circuit."

"Then you really think there is still danger of some attack on him?"
Derek asked.

"I have not the smallest doubt of it. Has anybody? It isn't only that
from the very beginning of the circuit things have been happening, it is
that they have been getting more and more serious each time. Just
consider. First we have an anonymous letter. Then comes the motor
accident----"

"But that surely can't have had anything to do with it," Derek objected.

"Followed immediately by another letter," Hilda went on triumphantly.
"That means at least that whoever is planning all this knew about the
accident and means to use it for his own purposes. As for the accident
itself--even there I am not sure. You may think it absurd of me but I
have a very strong feeling that all these things hang together in some
way, and that means that we have to deal with a very subtle, dangerous
person. Then come the poisoned chocolates, and finally this assault on
me, which of course was intended for him. What is coming next? For that
something will come, I am absolutely certain, and we have got to be on
our guard against it."

"Of course I am ready to do anything I can," Derek said, "but I should
have thought a Judge on circuit was about as well guarded as anyone
could be. And isn't this a job for the police, in the first place?"

Hilda smiled.

"I haven't forgotten the police," she said. "You may have wondered why I
have come out alone to-day instead of keeping an eye on him while he is
in London. Well, the answer is that he has been followed all day by a
plain-clothes man from Scotland Yard. He's probably waiting for him
outside the Athenum at this moment. William doesn't know anything about
it. I arranged it myself. One of the Assistant Commissioners happens to
be a friend of mine, you see. And that reminds me----" She looked at her
watch. "I am expecting someone here directly, whom I want you to see. He
should be here by now. And meanwhile"--she smiled her most winning
smile--"will you help me--Derek? It means a lot to me, you know."

Somehow or another, Derek found her hand in his. In a voice suddenly
gone very husky, he grated:

"I'll do my best--Hilda."

The brief moment of emotion passed as suddenly as it had arisen. An
instant later Hilda was sitting back in her chair, talking in a
business-like fashion about the precautions which would have to be taken
to safeguard the Judge during the rest of the circuit.

"We don't know where the next attack may come from," she said. "And
after my experience at Wimblingham I feel that we have got to be
prepared for anything. The only safe way will be for us to agree that at
any time, day or night, he should be under the protection of one or the
other of us. We should take it in turns, of course, like sentries, and
there's no reason why, if we do it properly, he should even know that
there is anything unusual going on. Perhaps you think all this rather
absurd?"

Derek protested that he did not.

"Very well then. I will work out a little scheme between now and Monday,
and----"

There was a knock on the door, and a servant appeared.

"A gentleman has called to see you, my lady," she said.

A mountain of a man appeared behind her.

The newcomer stood quite silent in the middle of the little room, which
his great bulk made to appear even smaller than it was, until the
servant had withdrawn, taking with her the tea things. When the door had
closed behind her, he said in a quiet voice, "Detective Inspector
Mallett, of the Metropolitan Police."

At Hilda's invitation he brought forward a chair and sat down. Derek
noticed that for all his size he moved as lightly as a cat. He found
himself looking into a pair of very bright grey eyes, set in a large red
face the geniality of which was oddly contradicted by a fierce, pointed
military moustache. It was a brief scrutiny, friendly but appraising,
and at the end of it Derek felt that he had been sized up, noted,
described and docketed for future reference. A good many people had
reason to remember--and to fear--that quick, purposeful glance.

"Have you had tea, Inspector?" Hilda asked.

"I have, thank you, my lady," said Mallett in a polite voice, in which a
keen ear might nevertheless have detected a tinge of regret.

He cleared his throat, and became at once the official.

"On the instructions of the Assistant Commissioner," he said, "I made
certain inquiries this morning in Bond Street, at the shop occupied by
Messrs. Bechamel's."

He pronounced the name unashamedly, "Beechammle". In the rather stiff,
police tone which he had adopted, any but a purely British pronunciation
would, one felt, have been ridiculous.

"I was directed to report the result of my inquiries to you," he went
on, "and to take your further instructions in the matter--as to which I
am at the moment very largely in the dark. Perhaps it will be most
convenient if I make my report in the first place. You will then be able
to judge to what extent it affects the other matters on which police
assistance is required."

He took from his pocket a regulation police notebook, carefully found
his place in it, and then laid it down on the table beside him. Somewhat
ostentatiously, he never glanced at it again during the course of his
recital. Mallett was pardonably vain of his powers of memory and the
presence of the notebook might be explained as a sort of vestigial
survival from an earlier stage in his evolution as a detective.

"At eleven a.m. to-day I visited Messrs. Beechammle's shop in New Bond
Street," he said. "I had with me a one-pound box of chocolates handed to
me that morning by the Assistant Commissioner, with the information that
he had received it from Lady Barber in the same state in which it was
given to me. At the shop I saw the manageress, a Mademoiselle Dupont. I
informed her that I was a police officer and that I was making inquiries
concerning the box which I then produced to her. I explained that there
was reason to suppose that the contents had been tampered with and that
it was required to ascertain if possible the date on which the box had
been sold and the person to whom the sale had been effected.
Mademoiselle Dupont informed me that chocolates of the type in question,
known by the name of _Bouches Princesses_ were made and sold by the
firm in comparatively small quantities only, approximately fifty pounds
a week. Of these about half went to restaurants and other customers who
gave regular orders. A list of these was furnished to me. So far as the
date of purchase was concerned, she was in the position to say that the
box in question had been packed in the factory on or after the 2nd
instant. She was able to establish this from the paper wrapping of the
individual chocolates. Due to difficulties of supply following on war
conditions, paper of a slightly inferior quality was employed on and
after that date. Chocolates are normally on sale in the shop on the day
following the packing of the box in the factory. It follows therefore
that the box in question must have been purchased between the 3rd
instant and the day on which they arrived at Southington, namely the
7th."

"Unless they had been repacked," said Hilda sharply.

"I invited Mademoiselle Dupont to deal with that possibility," Mallett
went on smoothly. "She informed me that so far as the upper layer of
chocolate was concerned, they had undoubtedly been repacked, though in
paper identical with, or similar to, the original. The lower layer,
however, with two exceptions, was to all appearances untouched, and she
expressed the view that nobody other than an expert in the firm's own
factory could have arranged the packing in the state in which it then
was. I then inquired as to the sales of chocolates of this type during
the period in question. I was supplied with a list of firms and
individuals to whom boxes of one pound capacity had been sent by post on
those days. I have it here. Perhaps you will tell me whether any of
these convey anything to you?"

He handed to Hilda a slip of paper with a short list of names and
addresses on it. She examined it briefly and shook her head.

"So far as cash sales over the counter were concerned," Mallett went on,
taking back the list, "no record was kept of the names of the
purchasers, naturally, and the assistants were unable to supply me with
the description of any of them. I was, however, able to ascertain the
numbers of boxes sold on the different days. They are as follows: on the
3rd, three boxes; on the 4th, one; on the 5th, being Sunday, there were
of course, no sales; on the 6th, four boxes; and on the 7th, two."

"That makes ten boxes altogether," said Hilda. "And you say there is no
means of saying who bought any one of them?"

"That is so."

"Then I don't see that your inquiries have been very much use."

"I wouldn't go so far as to say that," Mallett replied politely. "We
have been lucky enough to narrow down the date on which this box was
bought to one of four days. That cuts both ways. It means that we can
eliminate from our reckoning any suspect who could not have been in Bond
Street during that time, and it means further that we know exactly to
which period we must confine our attention when we come to investigate
the movements of any particular person. And that, believe me, is a good
deal more than the police have to go upon in the great majority of their
inquiries. I ought to add," he went on after a pause, "that we have had
the contents of the box examined in our laboratory, and the results
entirely confirm the analysis which I understand has already been made
privately."

"Oh!" said Hilda in a somewhat disappointed voice. That the odious Mr.
Flack should have been proved to be correct was evidently not entirely
to her taste.

"I think that that concludes the matter of the chocolates," said the
Inspector, putting away his notebook. "We shall, of course, continue our
inquiries, but it does not look as if we shall be able to go much
further at the moment. Now we come to the other matter on which I am
told you wished to give instructions."

"As I was explaining to Mr. Marshall just now, I think it is all part
and parcel of the same matter," said Hilda.

The Inspector looked somewhat doubtful.

"Indeed?" he said. "We have received a report from the police at
Wimblingham on the occurrence there, and at first sight there would not
seem to be any connection between them."

"But you haven't heard the whole story yet," Hilda objected.

"That is so, of course," said Mallett, and he sat back patiently in his
chair, while Hilda related once more the whole catalogue of misfortunes
that had marked the progress of the circuit.

When she had finished her story, the Inspector said: "And have you any
suggestions to make as to who is responsible for all this--supposing
that one person is responsible?"

"I should have thought that there was one perfectly obvious suspect,"
Lady Barber said.

"You mean Heppenstall?"

"Yes. Once lay your hands on Heppenstall----"

"But we have done so. That is to say, he has been interviewed. I saw him
myself this morning."

"Do you mean to say that he has not been arrested?"

"Unfortunately, my lady, there was no charge on which we could arrest
him."

"But he is a convict on licence----"

"Exactly, and even in such a case our powers are very limited. They are
laid down by Act of Parliament."

"I know," said Hilda quickly. "The Prevention of Crimes Act, 1871."

Mallett looked at her with respect.

"Precisely," he said. "All that is required by that Act is for a man in
Heppenstall's position to notify the authorities of his address and to
report once a month. This he has done. He admits that he went to
Markhampton at the time of the Assizes there, and he gave me what
appeared to me genuine reasons for his visit. He denies being in or near
Wimblingham at any time and I am not in a position to disprove it. I am
checking up on his statements, of course, but that is as far as I can
go."

"Do you mean that this man is at liberty to murder my husband whenever
he pleases, and you don't propose to do anything whatever about it?"

"Oh, no." Mallett smiled indulgently. "I don't mean that exactly. All I
said was that we have no evidence on which we can arrest Heppenstall.
But that doesn't mean that we shall not continue to keep him under
observation."

"Then you can guarantee my husband's safety?"

"So far as any danger from Heppenstall is concerned, I think I can, for
the present."

"You mean that you think that there is danger from some other source?"

Mallett shrugged his shoulders.

"I am not satisfied," he said simply. "You see, we have here three
distinct things to be considered. First, there are the anonymous
letters. Second, the chocolates. Third, the assault on you. Either all
three are part of a concerted plan or they are not. If they are, and
Heppenstall is at the back of them, then we can eliminate the
probability of another attempt being successful--but only if both these
suppositions are correct. I don't like to give any guarantee based on a
double supposition like that. Now, let us consider the probabilities.
Heppenstall may have written the anonymous letters--it seems to me quite
in keeping with what I know of his character. I can't exclude the
possibility of his having been at Wimblingham. On the other hand, the
case of the chocolates seems to me to be quite apart, and I don't
personally believe that he had a hand in it. None of the assistants in
the shop could recognize his photograph when I showed it to them this
morning, though that is of course far from conclusive. He may have
bought them through an intermediary. But would he have had the necessary
knowledge that this particular brand was likely to appeal to the Judge?"

"If he had an exceptionally good memory--yes," Hilda put in.

Mallett raised his eyebrows, but did not put the surprise which he
evidently felt into words.

"Even so," he went on, "I do not think that the man who committed the
violent assault at Wimblingham last week would be likely to have
preceded it by what was really not much more than a very stupid
practical joke. I may be wrong, but the two things just don't seem to me
to hang together."

"And I think you are wrong," said Lady Barber firmly. "I feel convinced
that all these things do hang together, as you put it, and that my
husband is being subjected to an organized persecution."

"Well, let's look at it from that point of view," said the Inspector
good-humouredly. "Leaving Heppenstall out of it, I mean. Is there any
common feature in the three cases--or rather in the four, for we must
remember that there were two letters? Was there any one person who could
physically have been responsible for all four occurrences?"

There was a pause and then Derek said:

"Let me see. To start at the beginning, the first letter was left at the
Markhampton Lodgings while we were having lunch."

"Who was we?"

"The Judge, myself, the High Sheriff and his wife, the chaplain, and Mr.
Pettigrew."

"The staff was also in the house at the time, I suppose?"

"Yes, that is, Beamish, the clerk, the butler, the Marshal's man, and
Mrs. Square, the cook."

"Nobody actually saw the letter delivered, I think?"

"No."

"So it is possible--we are only testing possibilities--that it might
have been introduced into the house--or prepared in the house itself by
any of these people?"

"Yes. I suppose so."

"And the same applies to the second letter?"

"I think Beamish found it in the letter-box--or perhaps Savage did. I
forget."

"And had anybody been to the house that morning before the letter
arrived?"

"Only the Chief Constable and Mr. Pettigrew. The Under Sheriff came a
little later to take the Judge to Court."

"One other point about that second letter. It seemed to refer to a
rather unfortunate incident of the night before. Who knew of what had
occurred?"

"Well, nobody, except the police and the three of us who were in the
car. There was, too, the man I saw in the street just afterwards who
made off."

"We mustn't forget him. The three of you in the car were the Judge,
yourself and----?"

"Mr. Pettigrew."

"Really----" said Hilda, but Mallett with less than his usual good
manners brushed her on one side.

"Coming now to Southington," he went on. "We are on rather different
grounds there. The chocolates came by post, did they not?"

"Beamish said they did, but the wrapping of the parcel was destroyed and
both he and the other servants seemed very vague about it."

"At any rate, they came from London, and had been bought not more than a
few days previously. Who was there at Southington who had been in London
just before?"

"Lady Barber."

"Anyone else?"

"Nobody else in the Lodgings."

"That excludes all the people we have been considering in the
Markhampton case, with the exception of----"

Hilda would be denied no longer.

"Inspector Mallett," she said, "I can't listen to this nonsense any
longer. It is utterly absurd to suppose that Mr. Pettigrew could
possibly have had anything to do with this! You are simply wasting our
time."

"I hope not, my lady," said Mallett with great urbanity. "All that I am
trying to do is to test your theory that these matters are in some way
connected and see what the possibilities are. If they lead us on to an
absurd conclusion, so much the worse for the theory. Just to follow it
out for the moment, was Mr. Pettigrew at Wimblingham, by any chance?"

"Yes," Hilda admitted. "He was. But that doesn't prove----"

"Oh, we're a long way from proof yet. Now suppose we eliminate the
chocolates, can we extend the possibilities at all?"

"I don't want to eliminate the chocolates," said Hilda obstinately. "You
said yourself just now that they could have been bought through an
intermediary. Surely that means that anybody in the lodgings could have
arranged for them to have been sent there?"

"Certainly. Anybody in or outside the lodgings, for that matter. But if
we are to confine ourselves to the people who had the opportunity also
of being concerned in the affairs at the other two towns, that means
only Mr. Marshall and the members of the staff. Is there any particular
individual whom you suspect?"

"There is one whom I certainly distrust," said Hilda at once. "And that
one is Beamish."

"His lordship's clerk?" said Mallett in surprise. "Surely his bread and
butter depends on his master remaining alive and on the bench?"

"That may be so, but I distrust him all the same. He is a thoroughly
unreliable, dangerous man."

"What precisely led you to form that opinion of him?"

But Hilda would not, or could not, be precise in the matter at all. She
could only repeat in general terms that she was sure that if a potential
murderer was among the circuit household, it could be no other than
Beamish.

"And it is no good suggesting that he could not have written the second
letter," she concluded. "I am sure he knew all about the accident as
soon as it happened. The lawyer isn't born who could keep a secret from
his clerk."

Mallett did not attempt to dispute this piece of legal lore, but
continued to press for concrete facts.

"Can you recall any occasion at the period of these incidents in which
Beamish's behaviour struck you as suspicious or unusual in any way?" he
asked.

"I can," said Derek. "The night of the business at Wimblingham."

He went on to describe his painful encounter with Beamish in the passage
and his reasons for thinking that the clerk had not in fact been in bed
and asleep when the household was roused.

"I can still feel the place in my ribs where he kicked me," he
concluded.

"There you are!" said Hilda, triumphantly, turning to the Inspector. "I
always knew there was something fishy about that man, and now we've
proved it!"

"It certainly sounds strange," said Mallett doubtfully. "But you say,
Mr. Marshall, that apart from the long ulster you mention you can't say
how he was dressed?"

"No. I took no notice at the time. It was only next day that I began to
try to think things out."

"I think I can help you there," Hilda said. "I remember next day the
Judge saying to me how comic Beamish looked with a pair of green pyjama
trouser legs showing underneath his overcoat. Oh!" she added, in a
disappointed tone. "That's rather against our case, isn't it?"

"Not necessarily," said Mallett. "It is just what one would expect in
the case of a man, fully dressed, who wants to look as if he has just
got out of bed. He pulls on his pyjamas over his outdoor clothes and
then puts an overcoat on top to hide what he doesn't want to show."

"That's all right, then," said Hilda.

"What troubles me," the Inspector continued, "is the very fact that
originally started Mr. Marshall's suspicions. I mean the boots, or
shoes, which did the damage. If a man is going to creep about the house
in which he is sleeping to commit a crime one would not expect him to
wear outdoor footgear. He would be much more likely to put on soft,
rubber-soled shoes, if he had them, and if not, to go about in his
stockinged feet. No, I'm afraid that Beamish's clothes tell against the
theory of his being the person who assaulted you, Lady Barber."

"Then what was he doing being dressed at all at that hour in the
morning?" Lady Barber demanded.

"That is another question altogether, which may have all sorts of
interesting answers. All I am saying is that it is not an argument in
favour of his having committed this particular crime."

"Really!" said Hilda pettishly. "I thought that you were coming here to
help us, Inspector. Instead, you seem to do nothing but raise
difficulties all the time."

"I am sorry you should think that, my lady. As I said, all that I have
been doing is to test the probabilities of different theories, and I am
afraid that that is bound to give the impression of raising
difficulties, as you put it. You see"--here the Inspector rose to his
feet and began to pace the room with long strides--"you see, this isn't
an ordinary case, by any means. In the general way, we are called in
when a crime has already been committed and it is our job simply to
identify the person who is guilty of the crime. Sometimes we have reason
to think that someone is contemplating a crime and we have to keep an
eye on him and see that he doesn't put his design into execution. But
here is something more indefinite--a great deal more indefinite. What
are we being asked to do? To prevent someone, unknown, from doing
something, we don't know what. It isn't easy, you know. But we'll do our
best."

And then, almost before they were aware of it, this big, substantial man
had melted away, leaving Hilda and Derek alone in the room.

Derek left the club about ten minutes later. The ten minutes were
occupied by a good deal of somewhat inconsequent conversation, during
which the same ground was covered again and again without any tangible
progress being made. Before he left, Hilda once more exacted and he
reiterated his promise to help her in guarding the Judge from all the
perils which might beset him. But he found it impossible to recapture
any of the emotion which had accompanied the first giving of the
promise. In the dry light of Inspector Mallett's reasoning, the whole
affair seemed to have dwindled to a rather tiresome problem to which the
Inspector might find the key but which was obviously insoluble to him.
As he came out of the club into the growing darkness of Piccadilly
Derek's thoughts were mainly occupied with the reflection that he was
going to earn his daily two guineas more hardly than he had been led to
understand when he consented to become Marshal to Mr. Justice Barber.




                              Chapter 11
                        WHISKY AND REMINISCENCE


Derek bumped into somebody on the pavement as he turned from saying
good-bye to Lady Barber. Automatically he murmured an apology and passed
on, but he had not taken two steps before he felt his arm gripped, and a
voice said quietly in his ear, "Not a word! We may be observed!"

Looking round Derek saw that it was Pettigrew. He held one finger to his
lips in the manner of a stage conspirator. Then he glanced over his
shoulder, still keeping his hold on Derek's arm, and went on in his
natural voice,

"It's all right! She's getting into a taxi. Now we can go and have a
drink."

"It's awfully kind of you," said Derek in some confusion, "but I'm
afraid I can't. I've got to get to Waterloo to catch a train."

"Nonsense! There are plenty of trains from Waterloo, and it can't be of
any consequence to you which you catch. You will be travelling in the
black-out in any case, so it won't make a ha'p'orth of difference. Is
your presence very urgently required at wherever it is?"

Derek, the memory of his disappointing holiday strong within him, felt
impelled to answer, "No."

"Very good. Well, your presence is urgently required by me. Because I am
going to have a drink. Several drinks. In fact, by the end of the
evening I should not be surprised if I were verging on the blotto, in a
quite gentlemanly way, of course, but definitely verging."

"But----" said Derek.

"I know what you are going to say. As a purist, not to say an idealist,
you object that a verge cannot be definite. And you are, of course,
perfectly right. Nothing could be less definite than this particular
verge. I have often tried myself to distinguish the precise moment when
one goes over it, but in vain. At one moment you are depressingly,
stupidly sober, at the next you are gloriously, happily tight. But where
exactly the transformation takes place, I never can determine. And
goodness knows, I have tried often enough.

"However," Pettigrew continued, hurrying Derek along and completely
disregarding his attempts to protest, "I am not asking you to accompany
me as far as the verge. For one thing, a young man of your obvious
attainments will almost certainly have a very good head for liquor, and
it would be much too expensive. For another, the spectacle of their
seniors upon the verge or--who knows what the evening may
bring?--actually over it, is not good for persons of your age. All that
I require from you is your company on the first stage of the journey. I
always find", he said, turning a corner, going up a flight of steps and
pushing open a door, "that the first few drinks of the evening are cold
and unsatisfying affairs unless one has a friend to share them.
Later--put your hat and coat over there--a man is his own best company,
perhaps. That depends on the man of course. I can only speak for myself,
and even then without much assurance. I am having a double whisky. What
about you?"

Derek found himself in a comfortable arm-chair in the smoking-room of
what was evidently Pettigrew's club--a shabby little place about as
different from the smart establishment which he had just left as could
well be imagined. While the drinks were being brought, he had for the
first time the opportunity of seeing clearly the face of his host.
Pettigrew's flow of words had come to an abrupt end. He looked tired,
Derek thought, and wore an expression of discouragement which he had not
seen before. He sat silently, staring into the fire, as if he had
forgotten the existence of the guest upon whom he had forced himself a
moment or two ago.

The appearance of the whisky recalled Pettigrew to his surroundings.

"Your health!" he said, taking a long drink. "And how are the ideals?
Still as rampant as ever?"

"I haven't lost them yet, anyhow," said Derek.

"Quite right. I had them too at your age. Ideals and ambitions and oh!
lots of things. They don't last, though. Have you seen the evening
paper, by any chance?"

"No. Is there anything about ideals in it?"

"Not exactly. About ambitions, though. I don't mean your ambitions, of
course. I expect they are front page stuff with headlines. This is very
small beer--merely a small paragraph in a corner somewhere."

He took another drink.

"They've gone and made Jefferson a County Court Judge," he said.

Derek tried to look intelligent.

"Jefferson!" Pettigrew repeated in a tone of contempt.

"Was that a job you--I mean, had you expected----?" Derek began
diffidently.

"Had I applied for the job? is what you are trying to say. Certainly I
had. It's an ingrained habit of mine. To be accurate, it is the fifth
County Court Judgeship which I have applied for. The fifth and last."

Pettigrew put down an empty glass.

"Oh, well," Derek said, "I don't see why it should be the last. It's
rotten luck, of course, but next time----"

"No!" said Pettigrew in an irritated tone. "My young and unlearned
friend, you miss the entire point. (Just touch the bell beside you, will
you?) It is not the fact that I haven't got the job that distresses me
and causes me to drink, but the fact that Jefferson has. Now do you
see?"

"Not knowing Jefferson, I can't say that I do."

"Quite right. In not knowing Jefferson you have a very decided advantage
over me. (Two more double whiskies, please, waiter.) But I don't want to
prejudice you against him. After all, you are thinking of coming to the
Bar and may have to appear before him. The essential odiousness of
Jefferson--and he is odious--is not the point. Neither is the fact that
the public has been presented with a thundering bad judge when it might
have had an average good one. The point is that nobody, not even the
rummiest Lord Chancellor, is ever going to make me a County Court Judge
after Jefferson. D'you see? If he and I are on a list of possibles
together and they choose him, with all his imperfections on his wig and
five years my junior, well, it simply means that next time I'm not a
possible at all. If only because, as you will have occasion to observe
one day, one does not grow any younger. It was bound to happen sooner or
later, I suppose, but I had rather it was anybody than Jefferson. (Thank
you, waiter.) Well, let's forget about him."

He raised his second glass to his lips.

Derek did not often drink two whiskies so close together, and he found
that their effect, at first at any rate, was to produce an unusual
clarity of mind. He was not particularly interested in Jefferson, but he
was interested in Pettigrew and in a good many things with which
Pettigrew was in some way connected; and this seemed to be a good
opportunity for improving his knowledge of them. His host's next words
gave him the opening he sought.

"Well," he said, "and how is her ladyship? Have you been enjoying an
afternoon's poodle-faking?"

"She is quite well," said Derek. "But rather badly worried."

"That I can quite believe. A black eye is a very worrying thing for a
good-looking woman."

"How did you know about that?" Derek asked in surprise. The events at
Wimblingham had, at the Judge's particular request, not been made public
in any way.

Pettigrew grinned.

"Things do get about you know," he said. "Besides, I was at Wimblingham
myself."

"I know," said Derek rather uncomfortably. "But of course it isn't only
the black eye that is worrying Lady Barber."

"No. One way and another Father William has been having a fairly
uncomfortable circuit. What does Hilda think about it all?"

"She thinks that there is someone behind it all."

"All?"

"Yes--the letters, the chocolates, her black eye. She thinks that one
person is responsible for them."

"M-m." Pettigrew wrinkled his nose. The second half of his whisky
remained forgotten at his elbow. "Well, that's always possible, of
course. And who does she think this one person is?"

"Well, the first name she suggested to the detective was Heppenstall."

"The detective? So this wasn't a _tte--tte_? Scotland Yard was
represented too?"

"Yes. A fellow called Mallett came along."

"Oho! That looks as if somebody was really worried. And what did Mallett
think about Heppenstall?"

"Not very much. In fact, he didn't seem to be very much impressed by the
whole theory. But I found it all very difficult to follow, I'm so much
in the dark. I wish you'd tell me who this Heppenstall is. His name
seems to keep on cropping up and I don't know what it's all about."

Pettigrew emptied his glass and leaned back in his chair, his legs
stretched out, looking at the fire. He seemed to be seeing something
there and to be intent on what he saw.

"Just ring the bell again," he said. "This confounded waiter never seems
to be about when you want him. Thanks. Heppenstall? Oh, he was just a
solicitor who went wrong. He misappropriated some of his client's money,
came up before Father William at the Old Bailey, and got a pretty stiff
sentence. That's all."

"Oh," said Derek in a disappointed tone.

"Yes. Oh, here you are, waiter. Will you have another? Well, perhaps you
are wise. One more double, then, please. What were we talking about? Oh,
yes, Heppenstall. A sad case, as these cases always are."

Nothing further was said until the fresh whisky had been brought.
Pettigrew put into it the smallest possible dash of soda, drank it off
at a gulp, set down the glass and said violently, "_No!_"

Derek looked at him in surprise and began to wonder whether the "verge"
had been reached. But Pettigrew was now talking as collectedly as ever,
though, if possible, with even greater fluency.

"There is something about the third glass of whisky," he said, "which
makes it quite impossible to tell a lie, even by implication. For me, at
any rate, the third glass is the third degree. The last barriers go down
and I come clean--or dirty, as the case may be, but at least I come
true. I told you a thumping lie, just now."

"About Heppenstall?"

"Yes. He _was_ a solicitor and he _was_ sentenced by the Shaver for
pinching his client's money. But that's not all, by a very long chalk.
If it were, nobody would be bothering about him. I don't see why I
shouldn't tell you about it. If I don't somebody else will, and I can do
it very much better than anyone who is likely to talk about it. And
since you are more or less mixed up in his affairs, I'm not at all sure
that it's not my duty to tell you."

Pettigrew lit a cigarette.

"Heppenstall was a client of mine in my early days," he said, idly
watching the smoke curl upwards. "I rather liked him. He was smart--in
both senses of the word--clever at his profession and by way of being a
man about town, both the City and the West End. He put quite a lot of
work in my way. It was mostly small stuff, but Heppenstall was a small
man then. I was in the same chambers as the Shaver. The head of them
was--but that wouldn't interest you. The Shaver was senior to me and a
cut above the kind of stuff Heppenstall was handing out then. Well, the
war came, and of course I went. It was while I was away that his
practice really began to grow."

"Whose practice do you mean?" asked Derek. "Heppenstall's or Barber's?"

"Both. Simultaneously and conjointly. Heppenstall began to get into a
really big class of business. He acquired some important City clients,
and at the same time managed to collect some flashy society litigation
of the kind that makes a splash in the newspapers. And my clerk--who was
also, of course, the Shaver's clerk--saw to it that he remained faithful
to the chambers. Not that he wanted much persuading, I fancy, after the
first two or three briefs had been dealt with. The Shaver did him
well--and Heppenstall did the Shaver well. It's not too much to say that
Heppenstall made him. He came along at just the critical moment, you
see, when the Shaver was too senior to be seen messing about with the
small stuff which I had been only too glad to do, but hadn't properly
established himself among the heavy-weight juniors. It was Heppenstall
who just gave him the push that put him where he belonged, among the
people who counted. And when the big boom in litigation developed
immediately after the war, the pair of them were right in the thick of
it, and Heppenstall must have put thousands of pounds into the Shaver's
pockets while it lasted."

He yawned and threw his cigarette into the fire.

"I was back from the war by then, of course," he said. "Naturally I went
back into the old chambers--of which the Shaver was the head by
then--but I didn't stay there long. I--I didn't find it altogether
agreeable, so I took myself off elsewhere. I never had another brief
from Heppenstall again. I can't blame him--he was very well off where he
was. And when the Shaver took silk, there was another perfectly
competent junior in the same stable to carry on. However, that is
neither here nor there. This isn't my history, but Heppenstall's. After
the Shaver went into the front row, he continued to brief him. He dined
and wined with him, he held Hilda's hand after dinner, discussing, no
doubt, the Rule in Shelley's Case and other subjects dear to the heart
of that learned lady----"

"And all the time he was stealing his client's money?" said Derek,
horrified.

"My dear idealist, these things happen, you know. As a matter of fact,
it was not until 1931 that Heppenstall began to be a little
unconventional in his treatment of other people's funds. He had been
speculating a good deal--the man about the City working overtime to keep
up the appearance of the man about the West End, I suppose--and the
slump caught him short. He borrowed a little from one account to put
himself right, helped himself out of another to get the first account
straight, and so it went on. Then just when the Law Society was
beginning to interest itself in the _affaire_ Heppenstall, the Shaver
went on to the Bench, and the pair of them met again at the Old Bailey.
_Comprenez?_"

"Yes. It must have been a pretty dreadful moment for them both."

"If you think that, you miss the whole point of the story. It was
dreadful enough for Heppenstall, no doubt. He pleaded guilty, of course,
and somebody or other put up the usual palaver in mitigation. But the
Shaver--who, if he had had any bowels, would never have allowed himself
to try the case at all--he positively gloated over the wretched man. It
wasn't only the sentence he gave him, though that was stiff enough in
all conscience, but the way in which he behaved. I wasn't there
myself--thank goodness; but I have talked to people who were, and I read
the reports in the papers afterwards, and I tell you it was
beastly--beastly--_beastly_!"

Whisky had made Derek bold.

"Is that the reason why you dislike him so much?" he asked.

Pettigrew seemed to shrink into himself.

"I said just now that this isn't my story but Heppenstall's," he
answered stiffly. "But I'll go this far--that if Heppenstall is giving
him a few bad nights, I shan't be sorry, and I don't think I'm the only
person to feel that way, either. Can you wonder?" He looked at the
clock. "What about your train?" he added.

Derek saw that he was dismissed, and rose to his feet.

"I must be going," he said. "But I ought to mention that the Inspector
didn't take very kindly to the notion that Heppenstall was responsible
for everything that has happened."

"So you've said already. Did he suggest anybody who was?"

Derek began now to regret that he had spoken, but it was too late to
draw back.

"Well," he said. "He went through all the possibilities in a methodical
sort of way, and he seemed to think that if one person was at the back
of everything--which he didn't altogether believe----"

"Yes?"

"The one person must be you."

For the life of him, Derek could not say whether Pettigrew was amused or
not. Certainly his lips twitched at the corners as though he were about
to laugh, but his eyes remained grave and his voice, when he finally
spoke, was quiet and serious.

"Thanks," he said. "I'll remember that."

"But please don't think that I----" Derek stammered in confusion.

"My dear chap----!"

"It was only just a suggestion of the Inspector's. I don't think he
meant it seriously. And Hilda wouldn't hear of it for a moment. She
fairly snapped his head off."

"Oh, Hilda did, did she? That was kind of her. You might thank her for
me. No, on second thoughts, better not. By the way, have there been any
more developments in that unfortunate affair with the car at
Markhampton?"

"None that I know of. I think the Judge has had some letters about it,
but of course I haven't been told anything----"

"H'm. For what it's worth, I have a notion that that's a good deal the
most serious thing threatening the Shaver at the present moment. In his
position, a writ can do more damage than a dozen poisoned chocolates.
Well, good night, and thank you for your company. I've enjoyed our talk.
In fact, I've enjoyed it so much that I don't somehow think I shall want
now to get anywhere nearer the verge than I am at this moment, and
that's a long way off. So if anybody asks you why you're so late home
to-night, you can explain that you've been occupied in saving an old
gentleman from a nasty headache to-morrow morning. Good night!"

                 *        *        *        *        *

Derek travelled home on a slow train in utter darkness. He felt that he
had spent an interesting day. His one regret was that it was to be
followed by another day of boredom and stagnation at home. Never was
regret less justified. For on the next morning, chance brought him into
contact with Sheila Bartram, and his whole world was instantly
transformed.




                              Chapter 12
                           SOMEONE HAS TALKED


Sheila Bartram was tall and fair, with large, rather protuberant, grey
eyes and a pale complexion which some would have classified as anaemic
but which others found "interesting". She was nineteen and was occupied
in trying to qualify as a Red Cross nurse. Her father was the managing
director of an important manufacturing firm and spent most of his time
travelling about the country from one branch to another superintending
its different Government contracts. Sheila and her mother meanwhile had
been evacuated from London to the house of an aunt in the neighbourhood.
All this, and a great deal more Derek learned within the first half hour
of their acquaintance. He had been with difficulty induced to drive his
mother over to the next village for a committee meeting which was to
deal with comforts for the forces, he had been left hanging about for
most of the morning and had there encountered Sheila, who was in much
the same case. Before either of them knew what had happened, the
morning's boredom had become an enchantment, and Derek drove his mother
home and Sheila returned to her hospital, each in a condition utterly
besotted, entirely natural but completely inexplicable, to be envied or
pitied by the rest of the world according to the rest of the world's
taste or experience.

That was on a Saturday. Derek was due to rejoin the Judge at the station
on Monday afternoon when the circuit would resume its travels. He
contrived to spend almost the whole of Sunday in Sheila's company and
the hours when he was not actually with her in meditating on her
perfection and marvelling at his good fortune in meeting her. How Sheila
spent the same hours can only be judged by her surprising and disastrous
failure to pass her examination a few days later. On Monday, after a
leave-taking as intense in its affection as if Derek had been _en route_
for the Western Front, the lover reluctantly returned to London.

Seeing Hilda, elegant and slim, chatting to an obsequious guard at the
door of the reserved carriage, Derek felt a slight but unmistakable
qualm. It was a qualm which he instantly suppressed, but the memory of
it lingered, and with the memory a faint sense of guilt. For in the
state of mind in which he then was (if indeed his mind could be said to
have anything to do with his condition) it was inevitable that the sight
of Hilda, or any other woman, necessarily provoked a comparison with his
adored. And the first fruits of comparison, in this instance, were
something very near to disloyalty to Sheila--or rather, to the idea of
Sheila which he had been occupied in building up during the last two
days. He had forgotten quite how attractive Hilda was. Of course, she
was a much older woman--positively elderly, in fact. There was no true
comparison possible. At the same time, judged by the touchstone of
Hilda's poise and tact, her cool assurance in any surroundings, was
there not something a little too nave about Sheila, was not her
delightful ingenuousness just the least bit lacking in savour?

The suspicion disappeared almost as soon as it had arisen and long
before Derek's conscious mind had acknowledged its existence. Five
minutes later he would have conscientiously taken his oath that it had
never been. But its passage was not after all without its effect. Deeply
embedded beyond the reach of memory it remained thenceforth as a minute
source of irritation, while over it the compensating forces of
imagination laid layer after layer of glamorous fancy, producing in the
end a pearl of inhuman perfection--an ideal Sheila, whom the flesh and
blood article would in time discover to be her most dangerous
competitor.

                 *        *        *        *        *

Meanwhile, the source of all this disturbance was not without troubles
of her own. If to Derek's eyes she appeared at this moment calm and
serene, it was a greater tribute to her self control than he imagined.
She had, indeed, spent an agitating weekend. She had returned home from
her club, feeling a good deal more reassured by the placid stolidity of
Mallett than she had thought fit to acknowledge at the time, only to
find the Judge, just back from the Athenum, sunk in utter dejection. A
letter from his brother-in-law, in which he expressed the gloomiest
views on the prospect of negotiations with Sebald-Smith's solicitors,
was open before him; but he soon made it clear that this, though serious
enough, was the least of his anxieties. What really preyed upon his mind
was an incident which had occurred that afternoon within the quiet
precincts of the club itself. Over the tea-cups, he had been engaged in
conversation by a brother Judge, Barber's senior by several years, a man
whose immense fund of learning he openly admired and whose caustic
tongue he secretly feared. In the course of a few casual words, which to
any third party would have conveyed nothing beyond a friendly interest
in the doings of the Southern Circuit, the hapless Barber had been given
quite clearly to understand that the speaker was perfectly familiar with
all that had passed at Markhampton. Having instilled the poison in the
mild and paternal manner for which he was famous, the torturer had
callously lighted a cigar and departed, leaving behind him an infuriated
and badly frightened man.

"Someone has talked!" Barber groaned, as he recounted this to his wife.
"After all our precautions, someone has talked!"

"Well, that seems obvious," said Hilda, rapidly making up her mind that
an air of brisk efficiency on her part would be the best antidote to her
husband's collapsed condition. "After all, that was to be expected,
wasn't it? Things like this are certain to get round sooner or later."

"Who could it have been?" Barber went on. "I could have sworn that that
boy was reliable. And Pettigrew went out of his way to insist on his
anxiety to keep the thing quiet. . . . Of course, the police officer was
very young and inexperienced, but still. . . . You don't think Pettigrew
could have let me down, do you, Hilda? After all, we are such old
friends. . . ."

Hilda's lips tightened.

"No," she said. "I don't think he would have let you down. In my opinion
since the affair has come out, it doesn't seem to me to matter in the
least who was responsible for it. But if it is of any interest to you,
William, I should have thought the answer was fairly obvious."

The Judge looked at her in surprise.

"You seem entirely to have forgotten that there are two parties to an
accident," she said impatiently. "And of the two, it is the person who
is knocked over and his friends who are the most likely to do the
talking. Sally Parsons has a pretty large acquaintance and I have no
doubt that she has let them all know about it."

Barber threw up his hands in despair.

"It will be all over the Temple by now," he moaned. "All over the
Temple!"

"William! You must really pull yourself together! If it is all over the
Temple, what substantial difference is it going to make? You can be
quite certain that if this can be settled without an action, it will
never get into the papers, and that is the only thing that matters.
Really, you are behaving like a child!"

Under her chiding, Barber recovered some of his dignity.

"There are things that matter quite as much to a man in my position as
an open accusation in the newspapers," he said. "Don't you understand,
Hilda, what an intolerable situation it will be for me, with this thing
a subject of common gossip among my brother judges? How far it has gone
yet I don't know, but at any moment now I may have the Lord Chief
Justice sending for me and suggesting----"

"Suggesting what?"

"Suggesting that I should resign."

"Resign?" said Hilda in spirited tones. "Nonsense! He can't make you
resign. Nobody can. Nothing can."

"Except a resolution by both Houses of Parliament."

"Well, there you are."

But the Judge refused to be comforted.

"I could never face that," he said. "It would only want a question in
the House to make my position untenable. And not only myself, but the
whole judiciary would suffer. . . ."

He shuddered at the prospect.

"All that this amounts to," said Hilda crisply, "is that we have got to
settle Sebald-Smith's action, and we knew that already. Once that is out
of the way, neither the Lord Chief Justice nor anybody else will want to
rake up any scandal. And people's memories are very short for this kind
of thing, as you know yourself--particularly now they have the war to
think about. Let me have a look at Michael's letter."

The letter was certainly not calculated to give any comfort. The injured
man's solicitors, it reported, were not showing any signs of abating
their demands. A letter from them demanding an early reply was enclosed.
A consultation had been held between medical men nominated by both
sides, and the report submitted by the doctor who had examined the
patient on the Judge's behalf was, if anything, worse than had been
feared. Besides the amputation of the little finger, there was present
damage to the muscles of the hand which would for the time being
seriously restrict its use and might prove permanent. In any event,
remedial treatment would be prolonged and expensive. An opinion from a
distinguished musician had reinforced the plaintiff's contention that
the absence of one finger would almost certainly reduce his earning
powers as a pianist to zero. There was more to the same effect. The
letter concluded by asking for instructions.

Hilda put down the letter with a sinking heart. She stood up and smoked
a cigarette half through before coming to a decision. Then she said:

"I think I shall have to go and see him."

"Perhaps that would be best," her husband replied. "But in view of his
letter I am afraid that there is little more that he can do for us."

"Who? Michael? I didn't mean him, though I shall probably see him in any
case. I mean to go and see Sebald-Smith."

"Hilda! You are not serious?"

"Of course I am serious."

"But it is out of the question. You--you can't do a thing like that."

"Why not?"

"Why, to begin with, you know as well as I do that when matters have
passed into the hands of legal advisers it is most improper for a party
to the case to go behind their backs and----"

"I don't care what the proprieties are. Something must be done and this
seems to me the only thing to do. And if you insist upon technicalities,
I am not a party to the case."

"Hilda, I implore you to think twice about what you are doing. An
intervention of this kind can do no good--may, indeed, do irreparable
harm. What do you imagine would be the reaction of a complete
stranger----"

"He's not a complete stranger."

"I grant you that he has been to this house once or twice though I
personally was unaware of the fact, but for all practical purposes he is
a stranger."

"I used to know Sebald-Smith pretty well," said Hilda slowly. "In fact,
at one time, very well indeed."

The Judge looked at her in surprise, a shocked suspicion dawning in his
face.

"Oh, no! Not as well as all that!" Hilda protested with a laugh, and
kissed the top of his head. Then she sat down on a footstool beside his
arm-chair and said coaxingly, "So we can consider that settled, shall
we?"

"If you go," the Judge protested feebly, "it is entirely without my
sanction."

"And you can repudiate me if necessary. Very well, that will have to do.
Now the next point to settle is, what terms can we offer him?"

From this point on the tone of the discussion degenerated, as the tone
of discussions is apt to do when money becomes their subject. From a
consideration of the Judge's present financial position it passed to the
grisly subject of possible economies in the future. Hilda was
unexpectedly resigned on this point where her personal expenditure was
concerned, though pertinacious in what her husband thought unreasonable
demands as to his own. But the colloquy became positively acrimonious,
and Hilda increasingly vocal, when it drifted, as it did inevitably, to
the utterly sterile region of the past. What had become of the huge fees
which he had earned in his last years at the Bar, when income-tax and
surtax were less than they were to-day, and as nothing compared with
what they might be to-morrow? Hilda, her nerves unstrung by an agitating
afternoon, lost her usual self-control when she found old accusations of
extravagance being raked up afresh. Instead of letting these pass, she
began angrily to justify the cost of frocks worn out years ago and
dinners long since digested. She became first indignant, then shrill in
her self-defence. Every penny that she had spent had been to his honour
and glory, had assisted in the furtherance of his career to which she
had devoted--her astonished ears heard herself uttering the clich--the
best years of her life. Had it not been for her wise outlay, as he very
well knew, he would never have been in the position he was now, a
position which his criminal carelessness had put in jeopardy. And if it
came to extravagance--Here it was Barber's turn to repel an attack
which, truth to say, was not very well-founded, for his own tastes had
always been simple enough.

The injustice of it stung him to make some retorts which were in their
turn wholly unjustified and brought the sorry scene to a climax with
Hilda in floods of angry tears, the Judge stammering apologies and the
original subject of debate wholly forgotten.

By next morning, peace had been restored, but the problem from which the
dispute had developed was no nearer solution. If Sebald-Smith did not
abate his demands, Barber was financially a ruined man. If the demands
could not be met, and an action resulted, he was ruined not only
financially but professionally. The only hope appeared to be that the
plaintiff, or his advisers, would realize in time that it was not to his
interest to push matters to extremities and that a judge of the High
Court, drawing his salary and paying a reasonable sum by instalments,
was a better debtor than a broken man without income or prospects. And,
as Barber eventually agreed with reluctance, a direct approach by Hilda
was perhaps the best chance of inducing him to see reason.

Hilda put her plan into execution without delay; but she met with a
check at once. Sebald-Smith, she had ascertained, was staying at his
country cottage, and she put a telephone call through that day. But she
did not speak to Sebald-Smith. The voice that answered the call was the
voice of Sally Parsons, and Hilda put down the receiver at once without
disclosing who she was. Not for anything would she speak to, or risk a
meeting with, that woman. The memory of certain social snubs which she
had had occasion to administer to her came clearly to her mind--and she
could be perfectly certain that Sally Parsons had not forgotten them
either. The thought made her shiver slightly. If the attitude of
Sebald-Smith, as reflected in his solicitor's letters, was a vindictive
one, was her influence the cause? But all was not lost. If she could but
get at him alone, she might displace that influence long enough to
snatch a victory. His cottage was close to Rampleford, the next town on
the circuit, and Sally Parsons could never bear the country for more
than a day or two at a time. She would surely be able to find an
opportunity to slip over there--that is, if it were safe to leave the
Judge unprotected. . . .

The recollection of the other dark and more mysterious danger that
threatened them returned with added force for having been temporarily
forgotten. She threw it off with an effort, and went back to the
telephone. This time she spoke to her brother's office and made an
appointment to see him on Monday morning.

                 *        *        *        *        *

Michael was younger than his sister, though he looked several years
older. Like her, he was short and dark, but unlike her, he had allowed
himself to run to fat. He had a subtle, intelligent mind and was capable
of great charm and tact, which he knew how to vary from time to time
with brutal frankness. On this occasion, he chose to be frank.

"Your worthy husband is on a spot, Hilda," he said. "They've got us by
the short hairs and they know it."

"You needn't show quite so much relish about it," his sister complained.
"Even if you don't like William."

Michael let the remark pass without comment.

"Something has got to be done, you know," he said. "People are beginning
to gossip already."

"I know."

"Well, what does he propose to do about it?"

"I propose to go and have a talk to Sebald-Smith," Hilda replied, with a
slight emphasis on the pronoun.

"The direct approach, eh? I expect that shocks him a bit, but I'm not
sure it's not the best thing to do. When will that be?"

"In the next few days. I hope."

"There's not much time to lose. Meanwhile, this last letter of theirs
has to be answered. Otherwise they are quite capable of issuing a writ
straight away."

"I've thought of that," said Hilda. "I think the best thing to do will
be simply to tell them that the Judge is on circuit and that you will
communicate with them as soon as you can get instructions."

"Well, let's hope that will keep them quiet for a bit. Luckily they're a
fairly sleepy firm and may not tumble to the fact that he's had some
days off in which he could have given all the instructions he liked. In
fact, it's damned lucky for us that they aren't really wide awake. If
I'd been handling this case for the other side, I'd have dropped a few
hints into the ear of the Markhampton Police."

"Why?"

"Why? I'd have only had to suggest that they were suppressing
proceedings for an undoubted breach of the law and they'd have been
compelled to prosecute. That would have turned the screw with a
vengeance. Mind you, they may do it yet. There's always a risk."

"Let me see," said Hilda. "Under the Act, proceedings for dangerous
driving have to be begun within fourteen days, unless there is a warning
at the time that they are being contemplated--and in this case there
wasn't. So we're safe so far as that goes, anyway. It is still open to
them to prosecute for driving an uninsured car, though. They have six
months for that, and more in some circumstances."

Michael grinned.

"Good old Hilda," he said. "You always were the best lawyer of any of
us. I'd quite forgotten that, and I should have had to look it up to
make sure, anyway. But I'll accept it from you."

"I think you can," said Hilda primly. "Limitation of actions was always
a subject that interested me and I made particular study of it."

"You would. What an inhuman brute you always were, Hilda."

"I don't see that there is anything inhuman about being a lawyer."

"There is--for a woman, at all events. Tell me, was that what you
married William for--so as to become a successful lawyer by proxy?"

"Are you always as rude as that to your clients, Michael?"

"Good Lord! Of course not!"

"Well, I am consulting you as a solicitor at this moment, and that's not
a question I should expect my solicitor to ask unless I was wanting a
divorce, which I am not."

"You win," said Michael good humouredly. "Well, I'll do my best for you,
and for William. I'll send a letter on the lines you suggest, and
meanwhile you will let me know if you have any luck with Sebald-Smith.
God bless you."

                 *        *        *        *        *

Hilda caught Derek's eye as he advanced along the platform and waved to
him with a smile. Her black eye was by now completely cured, or at all
events masked under an efficient make-up. She was looking as carefree
and sure of herself as a woman of good looks and assured position has a
right to be. A moment later, Derek climbed into the carriage and was
greeted with a handshake that was the least trifle more warm than
politeness demanded--sufficiently so to remind him of the friendly
conspiracy that had been sealed between them, and no more. Five minutes
later, the plain clothes man on the platform turned upon his heel as the
train steamed out, bearing the strangely assorted group of human beings
who composed the Judge's party, and with them a yet stranger medley of
hopes and fears, ambitions and anxieties.




                              Chapter 13
                             CAT AND MOUSE


It is unnecessary to describe Rampleford. The place is in all the
guide-books. A thriving city in the seventeenth century, a decaying and
corrupt corporation in the eighteenth, it began to acquire merit as a
quaint survival in the nineteenth, until the dawn of the great tourist
industry set it on a new career of prosperity. The fortunate discovery
that one of the signatories of the Declaration of Independence was born
in the city and the still more fortunate, if not quite fortuitous,
identification of his birthplace with the most picturesque house in the
High Street, put Rampleford in the very first class in this important
branch of commerce. There were some who declared that in a good season
Rampleford's turnover of picture postcards exceeded Stratford's. This,
no doubt, was an exaggeration, but the very fact that the claim could be
seriously made was sufficient indication of the city's standing in the
trade.

Rampleford in wartime, on the other hand, was a depressed and depressing
place. Its only overseas visitors now were bored Canadian soldiers,
quartered, to the city's disgust, in the best hotels, who knew not
Jonathan Pennycuick, founder of the Constitution, and were openly
critical of the olde worlde tea-shops which lined the High Street. A
heartless government having chosen to build a vast munitions works two
miles away, the district could not even replace its vanished tourists
with evacuees from target areas. Grimly facing the worst, the
shopkeepers of the stricken city put away their stocks of souvenirs and
memorial china and prepared to face the siege until better times came.

No economic distress, however, could affect the real beauty of
Rampleford Cathedral or the charm of the Close in which it stood. By
ancient custom, the Judge was lodged in the house of one of the minor
Canons. Derek was enchanted with his surroundings. For a young man in
love, it would be difficult to find a place more congenial. In the
morning he would be awakened by the clatter of jackdaws in the Cathedral
spire from a sleep which the chimes of the belfry never seemed to
disturb. At night, when the gates of the Close had been shut, and the
great bulk of the Cathedral loomed black against the stars over the
darkened town, he could imagine himself back in the Middle Ages. Such
conditions are apt to be productive of bad poetry, and at Rampleford
Derek contrived to write a good deal.

Hilda was quick to notice that the situation of the lodgings had other
advantages besides their romantic appeal. The Close gates were shut and
barred at sunset, and anybody seeking entry after that time had to pass
the scrutiny of the doorkeeper who had for the duration of the assizes
been reinforced by a plain clothes policeman. In addition, a constable
in uniform was continually on duty at the door of the lodgings. At
night, Derek could hear his measured footfall on the gravel outside.
Obviously, no risks were being taken with the Judge's safety.
Nevertheless, Hilda did not allow herself to be content with official
precautions. On the evening of their arrival at Rampleford, she outlined
to Derek a system which she had prepared by which one of them should be
continuously on guard over the Judge by day and night--particularly by
night. A year later, when fire-watching had become commonplace, Derek
could recall with amusement the hardship which this proposal seemed to
him at the time. He hinted that this was a duty which should be shared
by Beamish or Savage, but Hilda rejected the suggestion with contempt.
They were not to be trusted. Nobody could be trusted. The work devolved
on them alone.

In the result, on alternate nights thereafter Derek kept watch over his
lordship's slumbers from eleven till three, and from three till seven.
Contrary to his expectations, it did not turn out so irksome after all;
but for this some credit is due to his state of mind at the time. To sit
up for a few hours, writing yet another interminable letter to Sheila,
or trying to coax into rhyme sentiments which if not exactly original
were at least sincere, was no very heavy task, even though it had to be
varied every half hour or so by creeping stealthily down the corridor
and listening to the reassuring vigour of the Judge's snores.

By day, the matter was simple enough. The weather was cold and the Judge
showed no disposition to take any form of exercise. It was simply a
question of accompanying him to the Courts and back again. Whether from
new-found motives of economy or not, he invited no guests to the
lodgings, and apart from the Sheriff or his Chaplain (who did not look
as though they were disposed to perpetrate a criminal assault on the
Judge) no outsider penetrated into the lodgings. Within the Court
itself, one glance at the ranks of policemen at every conceivable point
of vantage made it clear that any amateur bodyguard was quite
unnecessary.

In short, Rampleford assizes proved to be not only quite uneventful but
intolerably dull. Indeed, if it had not been for the distraction
afforded by Sheila's letters--and these, though fairly frequent, were
somewhat disappointingly short and uncommunicative--Derek would have
been more thoroughly bored than at any time on the circuit. Even Hilda's
vivacity, he noticed, had flagged a little. She was often listless and
silent for long periods at a time. Inaction rather than the sleepless
nights which she had imposed on herself, obviously preyed on her. As for
the Judge, the realization of the peril in which his professional career
stood had produced a curious reaction. As though determined in any event
to go down with his colours flying, he assumed a manner that was an
exaggeration--almost a caricature--of his every-day self. Never had he
been so dignified, so pompous, so loftily condescending to the junior
Bar, so icily critical of the leaders. His allocutions to convicted
prisoners were longer than ever and, as the prisoners found to their
cost, were followed by sentences proportionately long. The whole system
of English justice depends upon the immunity and security of those who
administer it. A psychologist would have observed with interest the
effects of threatening one of these with loss of his position. Perhaps
the only person with knowledge of the facts who could thoroughly have
appreciated the position was Pettigrew, and he, to Derek's regret, did
not attend the assize.

                 *        *        *        *        *

After the first week Hilda considered the position at Rampleford to be
sufficiently secure to justify her in leaving her husband for the day.
She did not say where she was going; she simply hired a car and had
herself driven from the lodgings. Barber displayed an almost
ostentatious lack of interest in her movements, but it might have been
observed that his manner on the bench that morning was even more
pontifical than usual. It was as though he strove to project the sense
of his power and importance beyond the narrow confines of his court, to
influence in some fashion the drama that was being played out ten miles
away, on which his fate depended.

Hilda had chosen her time well. She had seen advertised for that day a
concert at the National Gallery which she knew Sally Parsons would be
bound to attend, and an examination of the railway guide had assured her
that she would be well on her way to London by the time of her arrival.
She left her car at the gate of Sebald-Smith's house (which was in
effect a huge music room with a minute cottage attached) and walked
boldly in. The maid who opened the door to her had obviously had
instructions to admit no visitors, but took one frightened glance at
Hilda's determined face and surrendered at discretion. Hurriedly she
flung open the door of the music room, mumbled, "Lady Parker, sir!" and
fled back to the kitchen.

Sebastian Sebald-Smith was lying on a sofa in the centre of the great,
bare room. His left arm was in a sling and with his free hand he was
turning the pages of a music score. He raised his head as Hilda entered
and looked up at her with his disturbing, yellow-brown eyes.

"Hello, Hilda!" he said with no trace of surprise or embarrassment in
his voice. "I'm just looking at this new suite of Katzenburg's. Have you
heard about it?"

"No," said Hilda. She remembered how absentminded Sebastian could be
when he was absorbed in anything that interested him, and realized that
he was for the moment quite unaware of anything unusual or unexpected in
her presence. "No," she repeated. "Do you like it?"

"M-m, I'm not sure yet. I'm pretty sure the Great British Public won't.
I've been asked to conduct it at Bristol in January, if I'm fit enough."

"Mitigation of damages!" was Hilda's instant mental reaction. Aloud she
said, "That sounds splendid, Sebastian! It's quite a new departure for
you, isn't it? I'm sure you'll be a tremendous success as a conductor."

"I'm sure I should be, if I knew the first thing about the orchestra,
which I don't. I can only imagine the B.B.C. thought of me because I
played in Katzenburg's piano quintet the first time they did it over
here. But one must do something."

"Of course, of course," Hilda cooed. Then in an anguished tone she went
on, "Sebastian, you can't think how _miserable_ this dreadful accident
has made me!"

"It's bloody, bloody, bloody!" exclaimed Sebald-Smith with sudden
violence, banging his fist upon the open pages beside him. "God! when I
think what this swine has done to me----I say, Hilda! I'm sorry, I clean
forgot! You----I----"

"Go on!" said Hilda in tragic tones. "You needn't mince your words so
far as I am concerned. We deserve it. If saying anything would help----"

She went through the motions popularly known as wringing one's hands.
Her hands were long and beautifully shaped, and the effect was very
attractive.

There was a moment's silence. Sebald-Smith, sitting up on the sofa, was
looking at her with close attention.

"It's awfully good of you to come and see me, considering everything,"
he said at last, in a somewhat embarrassed tone.

"It was the least I could do."

The pale eyes narrowed.

"But I don't quite see what you have come for," he went on, with a
perceptible hardening of his voice.

"Come for? But Sebastian, I _had_ to come. Ever since I heard about this
awful affair, I've been thinking of you, lying here, eating your heart
out----"

"It won't do, Hilda! We'd much better not beat about the bush. You've
come here for a purpose. Hadn't you better tell me what it is?"

Hilda dropped her hands to her sides and raised her head.

"You are perfectly right," she said steadily. "It was silly of me to try
and pretend to you. I have come for a purpose. Can't you guess what it
is?"

"If it is to ask me to let your husband off, you had better think
again."

Hilda's manner underwent yet another change. This time she became the
business woman, brisk and sensible.

"Sebastian," she said. "We are grown-up people. Can't we discuss this
reasonably, without indulging in schoolboy talk about 'letting people
off'? I simply want to see what can best be done in everybody's
interests."

"'Everybody's interests' is good. Your interests aren't mine. In fact
they are the exact opposite. Your husband has sent you here, to see how
cheaply he can get out of this mess."

"That isn't true, Sebastian. As a matter of fact, I didn't even tell him
I was coming to-day. I wanted to put the position squarely before you as
it affects William."

"Why should I be interested in how this affects him? It's myself I'm
thinking about."

"I'll show you why in a moment. If you insist on the demands your
lawyers have been making, William will be ruined."

"I am sorry, Hilda," said Sebald-Smith coldly, "but much as I like
you--very much as I used to like you--nothing would give me greater
pleasure than to ruin your husband."

"And ruin me?"

"Aha! Now we are getting to the point!"

"No, we are not. It's a side issue, really. I only asked out of
curiosity."

"Very well, then. Personally, I should be sorry to see you deprived of
the flesh-pots you always longed after." Hilda thought she could detect
a significant emphasis on the "personally". She knew only too well that
there was another member of the household who would wish to see nothing
better; and it was against her unseen influence that she was striving.
"But one can't make an omelette without breaking eggs, and you, my
pretty egg, will have to go the same way as that precious bad egg, your
husband. So the answer is--Yes, and ruin you!"

"And ruin yourself?"

"My good woman, I am ruined already--and for life, I may remind you. All
I want to do now is to get what compensation I can for it."

"Which is precisely what you won't get if you go on the way you are
now," snapped Hilda. "Let's leave sentiment out of this, and discuss it
as a pure matter of business. Everybody knows that you are the standing
example of an artist who is a good business man too."

Sebald-Smith, who had dissipated most of his very large earnings in the
wildest speculations, swallowed this gross untruth with gusto.

"Very well," he said. "Let's talk business, by all means. But I warn
you, I set a pretty high value on this hand of mine."

"It's not a question of how much it is worth, but how much there is to
give you. A bankrupt debtor is no use to anyone. Now listen. Either you
force my husband off the Bench or you let him stay there, earning his
salary. I'm going to tell you just how much you can expect in either
event, and your solicitors can satisfy themselves that I am speaking the
truth."

Hilda had her case cut and dried. Into the pianist's ears she poured an
endless stream of figures and calculations, entering into every detail
of the Judge's past, present and future financial position, providing
for every possible contingency. The gist of her argument was, of course,
the impossibility of the Judge's being able to provide immediately any
sum remotely approaching adequate damages for the injury he had
inflicted, and the folly of taking action which would deprive him of the
only source of income from which future payments could be made.

Sebald-Smith listened, at first incredulously and rather resentfully,
then with interest and finally with resignation as the flood of words
poured over him. It was obvious to Hilda that what she said was taking
effect. He was evidently beginning to look upon the matter in a new
light. For the time being, at any rate, he had laid aside the crude
ideas of revenge which had at first obsessed him, and was considering
the question from a purely financial aspect. To give their due to the
solicitors acting for either side, very much the same arguments had
already been quietly suggested by Michael to Messrs. Faraday,
Fothergill, Crisp & Co., and they had in their turn passed these on to
their client. The fact remained that Sebald-Smith had been impervious to
words of reason when expressed by his advisers and a good deal more
prepared to attend to them when spoken by Hilda. Hilda, while giving
herself due credit for her charm and persuasiveness, knew quite well
what was the main reason for her success. She was able to develop her
argument unopposed. The lawyers' letters, on the other hand, were read
by somebody else besides the man to whom they were addressed--a somebody
who could be relied upon to garnish them with a spiteful commentary of
her own; a somebody, moreover, who would certainly be even far more
interested in humiliating Hilda through her husband than in securing
damages for Sebald-Smith. It was Hilda's one hope that she could succeed
in so far convincing Sebastian of the good sense of what she was now
saying that he would stand up to the pressure which Sally Parsons was
certain to put upon him as soon as she returned.

In all, Hilda's interview with Sebald-Smith lasted for the best part of
an hour. When she left, it was with the feeling that she had succeeded
in her mission. Sebastian had been brought to agree in principle that it
would be futile in his own interests to make public property of the
Judge's fall from grace. He had promised to write to his solicitors
instructing them to settle the matter on the best terms possible. He was
naturally unwilling to take on trust the figures with which Hilda had
plied him (a neatly written copy of which she was careful to leave with
him) but she assured him that Faraday and Co., would be given the
fullest opportunity to verify them at their leisure. She had been unable
to extract a final decision from him, but this was more than she had
ever allowed herself to hope for. He had promised to consider the
question afresh in the light of her arguments and to take proper advice
upon it, and with this she was well content.

Hilda thought it wise to refuse Sebastian's invitation to stay to lunch,
but she accepted a glass of sherry, and they parted good friends. His
parting words to her stuck in her mind.

"You have certainly fought the good fight for that husband of yours," he
said. "I'm glad to think you find him worth all the trouble. Or is it
only your own flesh-pots you are fighting to preserve?"

It was the second time in a few days that someone had suggested to her
that the bond between her and the Judge was essentially only one of
common interest.

"At any rate," she reflected with pride, "nobody has ever suggested that
I haven't been faithful to him."

                 *        *        *        *        *

The party at the lodgings that evening was more cheerful than it had
been for some time. It was as though a dark shadow had been lifted from
the household. Hilda, on her return, had said two words in private to
the Judge which had caused his frozen dignity to thaw into something
approaching common humanity. He was unusually talkative at dinner and
alluded more than once to the fact that Derek was Marshall by name and
Marshal by occupation. As for Derek, he had his own sources of
contentment. He had successfully completed a sonnet which embodied two
new and highly effective similes, and he had received an exceptionally
long letter from Sheila. True, the letter was chiefly remarkable for an
exhaustive account of an embittered dispute between the Sister at the
hospital and the Red Cross Commandant concerning some missing Thomas's
splints, which to an unprejudiced mind would not have seemed of any
great or general interest; but Derek's mind was highly prejudiced, and
he was happy. The general atmosphere of relaxation affected even Savage,
who served the port with an air of cringing geniality. Whether it
extended to Beamish was known only to the contestants at a dartboard
near by, whither he had repaired very early in the evening.

That night it was Derek's turn for the second watch. Consequently he was
awake when the rest of the household was beginning to stir. It naturally
followed that he was shaved, bathed and dressed by the time that the
postman made his early morning delivery. It was, of course, pure
coincidence that he happened to be standing in the hall at the moment
when the letters were pushed through the slit in the front door. A man
of mature years does not hang about waiting for the post in that way,
even if he does happen to be in love. At the same time, he felt that it
was a very fortunate coincidence indeed when the first thing that he
saw, lying face upwards on the mat, proved to be a deliciously fat
envelope addressed to him in Sheila's straggly hand. He picked it up and
then glanced cursorily at the rest of the post. There was nothing else
for him, but he observed with interest a very small, untidy brown paper
packet, addressed to the Judge in roughly printed capitals. He examined
it with interest. After the episode of the chocolates, anything coming
through the post for the Judge was, he felt, a proper object of
suspicion, and this, for some reason or other, seemed to him
particularly suspicious. He was trying to decipher the postmark when he
heard footsteps approaching.

One does not want to be found at an unreasonably early hour
investigating postal matter addressed to somebody else. Acting on the
spur of the moment, Derek slipped the little parcel into his pocket and
was half-way up the stairs before the approaching servant had reached
the hall. Once in his room he naturally enough turned his attention
first to his letter.

It is, perhaps, always a mistake to read letters on an empty stomach
unless one is quite sure that their contents will be agreeable. Derek
had every reason for expecting nothing but the purest pleasure from this
particular letter, but by the time he had finished reading it he had no
appetite for breakfast left. It was not that it was lacking in
affection. On the contrary. It began with the words, "Derek _darling_,"
the adjective being underlined twice. But it continued ominously, "We
are in _awful_ trouble!" and this time the adjective received three
underlinings. Derek's natural disquiet at this introduction was not
allayed by the fact that when he had finished the letter he was still
entirely in the dark as to what the nature of the trouble was. It
related to Daddy--hitherto a dim figure on the horizon, whom he had
never met and to whom he had given little thought--so much was clear.
But what Daddy's trouble was, and why it should affect Sheila and
apparently Derek himself, even a second and third re-reading of the
letter failed to determine. It was, according to Sheila, "too Dreadful",
apparently too dreadful to be put into precise words. She asserted
several times that so far as she was concerned it would make No
Difference to her feelings for him but at the same time she gloomily
contemplated the possibility of never being able to look him in the Face
again. If on his side, he never wanted to have anything more to do with
her she would absolutely Understand. Which was considerably more than
her correspondent did.

The only conclusion that Derek could come to was that in some
unspecified way Daddy had succeeded in bringing disgrace upon his
family. He tried to fortify himself with the reflection that, as Sheila
said of herself, it would make no difference to him. At the same time,
he would have felt a good deal more confident even on that point, if he
had known what it was that was to make no difference. It is somewhat
difficult to disregard with lofty chivalry a blot on the family
scutcheon unless you can see the blot. Daddy might merely have run off
with somebody else's wife. On the other hand he might have been arrested
for murder, or, worse still, have been discovered to be a fifth
columnist in disguise. It was all most unsettling.

Gloomily Derek descended for breakfast, gloomily he toyed with his food
and gloomily accompanied the Judge to Court. It was not until, sitting
in his place on the bench, he put his hand in his pocket to take out and
read once more the mystifying letter, that he found the parcel which he
had put there some hours before. Until that moment he had entirely
forgotten its existence.

Having found it, he was rather at a loss to know what to do with it.
Obviously, he had no right to have it in his possession at all, and the
morning's spirit of suspiciousness which had induced him to examine it
in the first place had long since evaporated. If he were to be found
waylaying what was probably a perfectly normal and innocent package
intended for the Judge, his position would be, to say the least of it,
awkward. Meanwhile, what the devil was he to do with the thing?

He took it out of his pocket, and under cover of the ledge in front of
him stole a look at it. He noticed that the string, which was loosely
tied, had nearly slipped off one corner. It would obviously be perfectly
easy to take it off without even untying the knot. Well, since he had
already gone so far, he might as well go the whole hog. After all, there
was always a chance. . . .

He left the bench quietly and went into the stuffy little apartment at
the back which was his lordship's retiring room. There was the
inevitable policeman at the door, but luckily the authorities had not
gone so far as to station one inside. As Derek expected, the string
slipped easily off the brown paper. Inside the paper was a cardboard
soap-box. Inside the box was the corpse of a mouse. Attached to its neck
by a piece of string was a label on which, written in the same crude
capitals as the address, Derek read:

                        "WHEN THE CAT'S AWAY----"

"Anyhow," Derek said to himself a few minutes later, as he listened to
one of Flack's most florid speeches, "I bet I'm the only man who ever
sat on the bench of a Court of Justice with a dead mouse in his pocket."




                              Chapter 14
                       REFLECTIONS AND REACTIONS


It was the interval between tea and dinner. Barber, who had declared his
intention of preparing a reserved judgment, was (as a stealthy
reconnaissance proved) slumbering in an arm-chair in the smoking-room.
Derek judged this to be a good opportunity to show the parcel and its
contents to Hilda. She examined it with the greatest interest and, he
was glad to note, seemed to think that he had acted quite properly in
waylaying it on suspicion. It was clear that she attached a certain
significance to the unpleasant little incident, which to Derek was as
pointless as it was disgusting; but she seemed unwilling to tell him
what it was.

Hilda looked first at the legend on the label (which Derek had at her
request removed from the mouse before she would consent to touch
anything) and, having read it, said significantly, "Ah!"

Derek waited for something more enlightening, but in vain.

Next she examined the brown paper wrapping. This time she observed,
"Addressed to him and not to me. Typical!"

Derek was more and more puzzled.

Hilda then turned her attention to the rather smudged postmark. "Can you
make it out?" she asked.

"I'm not sure," said Derek, but it looks like 'Rampleford'."

"Yes. I believe you're right. And the time is--what?"

"Something 45 p.m. It looks like a six to me."

"Six or eight," said Hilda doubtfully. "We can find out what the time of
the last collection is from the post-office here."

"Perhaps the police would do that for us," Derek suggested.

"I don't think this is a matter we need trouble the police about. If it
is what I think it is, I am sure we needn't."

"Then you don't think----?"

"Would you be very kind, Derek, and fetch me a Bradshaw? Beamish has got
one in his room, I know. And do dispose of that horrible object
somewhere. It makes me quite sick to look at it."

Derek incinerated the mouse in the dining-room fire and duly fetched the
Bradshaw. When he had brought it, Hilda thanked him prettily, begged him
quite unnecessarily not to mention the affair to the Judge or anybody
else, and retired with it and the exhibits in the case to her own room,
leaving Derek gloomily wondering why females always had such a passion
for secretiveness.

Hilda had decided in her own mind at her first sight of the message
attached to the mouse that Sally Parsons had sent it. It remained to see
whether or not it was physically possible for her to have done so. If
not, she concluded, so much the worse for possibility. But fortunately
for her faith in her own instinct Bradshaw appeared to bear her out. She
found that by leaving Trafalgar Square punctually at 2.15, Sally could
have caught a fast train which would bring her in to Rampleford at 4.35.
Supposing that she was met at the station, she would be home by five
o'clock. Allow her half an hour in which to extract from Sebald-Smith an
account of his visit from Hilda that morning, another half-hour in which
to decide on a suitable retort and to prepare the parcel, she would be
left with just sufficient time to make her way back to Rampleford in the
dark and to reach the head post-office before 6.45.

None the less, though the scheme seemed possible in theory, Hilda was
doubtful whether it could have been accomplished in practice. For one
thing, it allowed hardly any time for catching the mouse--unless,
indeed, the charming creature kept a store of them all ready for
distribution among her friends. More important, perhaps, was the obvious
fact that however anxious Sally was to show her opinion of Hilda's
interference, and however nimble in devising her retort, she would be
most unlikely to do anything about it until she had had some tea. After
all, she had probably eaten nothing for lunch beyond a hasty snack at
the National Gallery canteen; and Bradshaw did not credit the train with
a restaurant car. Everything, therefore, depended on whether Derek was
right in reading the postmark as 6.45. Until that could be determined
the matter was still uncertain.

Carefully locking away the label, box and paper, she went back to the
drawing-room. There Derek looked up from the evening paper to inform her
with an air of sulky martyrdom (which was completely lost on her) that
he had rung up the post-office and discovered that the last collection
for local delivery was, in fact, at 8.45. This put the matter beyond any
doubt in Hilda's mind. She received the news with such complacency that
Derek, who had firmly determined not to oblige her ladyship by showing
any curiosity at all, was provoked into asking further questions.

"Do you think you know where this parcel came from?" he asked.

"Yes. I am quite sure."

"And you still don't want to tell the police about it?"

"No, I don't. Because, Derek, knowing what I know, I am certain that it
has nothing to do with the threats against the Judge which we have been
watching. This is just a nasty piece of vulgarity, directed against me,
really--and I'm afraid that's all I can tell you about it now."

"I must say I should have thought there wasn't a great deal of
difference between sending a dead mouse to a person and sending him a
box of chocolates stuffed with carbide. But I dare say you know best."

And thereupon, somewhat moodily, Derek went upstairs to dress for
dinner.

Hilda had been so pleased at her own perspicacity in detecting the
identity of the sender of the mouse (though, candidly, this was obvious
enough, and obvious also that the sender had intended it to be so) that
she had not yet seriously considered its implications. Now that she
began to do so, however, she found some course for disquiet. In the
first place, Derek's comparison of this parcel with the other one which
had caused so much trouble at Southington was clearly a justifiable one.
There was an obvious difference between them. The first had been a
carefully disguised form of attack, though not perhaps a very serious
one; the second was an open piece of bravado. But none the less it
certainly looked probable enough that one mind had conceived the two.
And if so, that mind was the mind of Sally Parsons.

From this it followed (Hilda's thoughts ran on) that Inspector Mallett
was right and she was wrong. Her theory that everything untoward which
had happened during the course of the circuit must be traced to one
source would not stand. Obviously, Sally Parsons was not responsible for
an anonymous letter sent before the motor accident; and Hilda doubted
whether she was likely to have procured someone to come to Wimblingham
to give her a black eye. It was sufficiently galling to have to admit
that her instinct had played her false. The fact also that there were
now at least two enemies in the field gave her the uneasy sensation of
being compassed about with dangers.

But it was when she began to consider the significance of the message in
the parcel itself that she really felt unhappy. Obviously, it was a
message of defiance. But was it not also one of triumph? Hilda had been
positive, when she returned from her visit to Sebald-Smith, that she had
been successful in persuading him to come to a reasonable compromise in
his claim for damages. Now she was not so sure. Her enemy's impudent
gesture seemed to suggest that she had already won back the vacillating
Sebald-Smith and that Hilda's arguments of reason and interest alike
would be forgotten under her influence. And if that were so, the outlook
for herself and her husband was black indeed. She was under no illusions
as to the intensity of Sally Parson's dislike for her. If she had been,
this latest manifestation of it would have opened her eyes. Moreover,
the fact that she had addressed her disgusting communication to the
Judge made it clear that she was anxious to lower Hilda in the eyes of
her husband and add domestic unpleasantness to all their other troubles.
Thank Heaven, that part of the scheme at least had miscarried.
Meanwhile--and to Hilda's active nature this was the hardest part to
bear--there was nothing to be done except to await events. She had the
night before written to Michael, telling him of what she then believed
to be the success of her negotiations, and asking him to put forward a
proposal to the solicitors on the other side. She could do nothing now
until their reply was received, although she was only too sure in her
own mind what it would be.

Fortunately for her peace of mind, dinner that evening provided Hilda
with some distraction, and distraction of the kind which she most
enjoyed. Her husband, having slumbered away the time which he had
intended to devote to his judgment, made up for his neglect by
discussing the points at issue during the meal. Hilda, more to keep her
mind off other subjects than for any better reason, debated each turn in
the argument with vigour and the result was that Derek was treated to a
first-rate exposition, by experts, of, among other things, the
liabilities of innkeepers at Common Law and the precise meaning and
effect of trespass _ab initio_. It is to be feared, however, that his
private preoccupations prevented him from profiting as he should have
done from what should have been a valuable contribution to his legal
education.

By the end of dinner, the case in all its aspects, both of law and fact,
had been thoroughly debated, the Judge had stated what his decision
would be, her ladyship had been good enough to concur with him, and
there, it might have been imagined, the matter would have ended. But
just as Pettigrew drank whisky to try to forget the fact that Jefferson
had been preferred to him as a Judge of the County Court, so Hilda
plunged into legal argument in an endeavour to dull her mind to the fact
that Sally Parsons had got the better of her. It was the distraction
from disagreeable reality to which she instinctively turned, just as
more ordinarily constituted people turn to the cinema, the pub, or the
lending library. Her means of escape certainly was more intellectual
than the normal ones. On the other hand, it had the disadvantage that,
given time, it became extremely boring to anyone else who happened to be
in her company.

The Judge displayed exemplary patience for some time while Hilda
continued to hold forth on a subject which had long since lost its
interest. Sitting back in his chair, he was content to utter
monosyllabic words of agreement in the intervals of eating chocolate
caramels. Finally, however, he evidently thought it time to create a
diversion.

"I think, my dear, since you are so interested, that you ought to
refresh your memory of the original authorities," he said. "Marshal, you
will find some books on my desk. Would you mind bringing them here?"

From that moment, silence reigned in the drawing-room. Hilda buried her
head in the heavy volumes of the Law Reports as though they had been the
most enthralling of adventure stories. Presently Barber went upstairs to
bed, and presumably also to write his judgment, for it was duly
delivered next morning. Not long afterwards Derek followed him. His last
sight was of Hilda, still preoccupied in her reading, and apparently
forgetful of the fact that according to their agreement she was to be
called at three o'clock for her turn of duty. She was sitting with a
volume of the King's Bench Reports on her knee. Apparently she had
strayed beyond the subject which had originally brought it there, for
she was turning its pages, reading here and there as a lover of poetry
might dip into first one and then another of the contents of an
anthology. It was an odd spectacle, he thought at the time, and one that
he had reason to call to mind long afterwards.




                              Chapter 15
                           INSIDE OR OUTSIDE?


Rampleford Assizes lasted for another week. To Derek, at least, it was
one of the dullest weeks of his life. The long night watches, which
Hilda continued to insist upon, although there did not seem to be the
smallest purpose in them, had become a weariness to the flesh. His
anxiety over Sheila had not been relieved by any message from her, and
he spent the hours of watching in a state of gloomy impatience. By day,
matters were not much better. The Judge was so aloof and Olympian as to
be scarcely human, and since the incident of the dead mouse Hilda had
become quite unsociable, preoccupied with thoughts and calculations
which she did not choose to share.

Indeed, the only member of the household who seemed to be perfectly
contented with his lot was Beamish. Rampleford, he confided to Derek,
suited him. In fact it suited him Right Down to the Ground. Apart from
the fact that the High Sheriff was a Decent Gentleman, he did not say in
what the peculiar suitability of the town consisted; but Derek observed
that he had formed the habit of slipping out of the lodgings soon after
the party returned from court each day and coming back sometimes quite
late in the evening in an unusually genial state. More from boredom than
from any other motive, Derek found himself beginning to cultivate the
clerk, or rather to allow himself to be cultivated by him. Against his
will, he had to admit that he was quite an entertaining companion. He
had a store of anecdotes connected with judges and counsel, which were a
kind of servant's hall edition of Pettigrew's stories on the same
themes. But what struck Derek chiefly about them was the underlying
malice which seemed to characterize them all. Beamish's pig-like little
eyes never seemed to gleam with such pleasure as when he was recounting
the story of someone's discomfiture or humiliation. There was, Derek
felt, a strong vein of cruelty somewhere in his conceited, self-centred
little character.

One evening, after the Judge and Hilda had gone to bed, Derek, whose
turn it was to take the first watch, was in the hall about to go
upstairs when Beamish let himself in at the front door. He greeted him
in the tone of mellow friendliness which Derek had learned to associate
with his evening expeditions. It occurred to Derek that he was on this
occasion slightly more mellow than usual. As a matter of fact, this had
been a somewhat notable evening for Beamish. After a period of
comparative failure, he had suddenly run into irresistible form at the
darts' board, and his defeat of the champion of the local Canadian
forces had just been celebrated as it deserved.

"Come into my room a minute, won't you, Marshal?" said Beamish. "Have a
quiet chat and a pipe."

"No, thank you very much," said Derek. "It's rather late, and I was just
going up."

Dominion hospitality had loosened Beamish's normally well guarded
tongue.

"Going up, eh?" he repeated. "Don't tell me you're going to bed, though.
It's your turn on, isn't it?"

"What do you know about that?" said Derek in surprise.

Beamish chuckled.

"Good Lord!" he said. "D'you think I don't know all about it? I wasn't
born yesterday, you know."

So saying, he made his way to his sitting-room. After a little
hesitation, Derek followed him.

"I should have been a pretty poor sort of clerk if I hadn't spotted it,
with all the goings on there've been this circuit," Beamish went on,
throwing himself into an arm-chair and filling his pipe as he spoke.
"It's a clerk's job to know things, Marshal, don't forget. I dare say I
could tell _you_ a thing or two you don't know."

Derek was always somewhat irritated when Beamish addressed him as
"Marshal". True, he had been careful to explain before that in doing so
he was calling him by the title of his office and not by his surname,
and that no disrespect was intended, but it continued to jar on Derek's
ear. So his reply was in somewhat sulky tones.

"I suppose everybody in the house knows all about it," he said.

"Well, I wouldn't answer for Mrs. Square," said the clerk. "She not
interested in anything much outside her kitchen. And as for the two
resident maids here, they wouldn't notice anything if it wasn't right
under their noses. And they don't even notice that, if it happens to be
something that wants dusting. If her ladyship was in anything like her
usual form she'd have been at them long ago."

He gave up the attempt to light his pipe and closed his eyes.

"Where was I?" he went on suddenly, sitting up with a jerk. "Oh yes!
Savage knows all about it, Marshal, you may be sure, and Greene too. Not
that _I've_ gossiped with 'em. I know my place, and I've taught them
theirs. But in a small commun-community like ours, things get about,
y'know."

Derek said nothing. He was trying to think out the implications of this
surprising news when Beamish began to speak again.

"Personally, I think you're wasting your time," he said. "And I'm sorry
to see a young gentleman like yourself losing your beauty sleep for
nothing. Not but what you may not have other things to keep you awake o'
nights, for all I know." There was a knowing leer in his face as he said
this that brought the blood to Derek's cheeks. "Y'see," he went on,
"it's like this, Marshal. Either this is an outside job, or it's an
inside one--if it's a job at all and not just a hallu-hallucination. If
it's an outside job, what are the police for? They're all on the Kee
Veev--the Close is stiff with 'em this minute. And if it's an inside
job, well there's only me and Greene and Savage to do it, and what any
of us would want to lose our position for, I don't know. However, if it
amuses her ladyship, I suppose it's all right. And if she was to get
another black eye one of these nights, as the result, I for one wouldn't
grieve."

He shut his eyes again and Derek began to think that he had gone to
sleep. But presently he added, with his eyes still closed: "And in any
case, Marshal, I could've told you in advance that nothing would happen
this assize. There's one great diff'rence between thisassize and any
other so far. Great diff'rence."

"What difference?" Derek asked impatiently.

Beamish opened one rather bleary eye.

"Can't you guess?" he said thickly. "The diff'rence in the
comp-composition of the Bar. Pettigrew isn't here. Thatsall."

"What the devil do you mean?" Derek shouted at him angrily.

"Y'needn't make s'much noise, Marshal. I'm just making a nobservation,
thatsall. There's Bad Blood between those two--always has been. Known it
a long time. Clerks know--everything. Their business, know everything.
Bad Blood. . . ."

This time Beamish was certainly asleep.

                 *        *        *        *        *

Neither on the next day, nor on any subsequent days did Beamish by word
or sign allude to this discreditable episode. Derek, for his part, was
only too glad that it should be forgotten--which meant, of course, that
it remained in his memory, along with that brief instant at the railway
station, as something that refused to be altogether forgotten. To Hilda,
naturally enough, he said nothing at all; except, indeed, to suggest
diffidently that the watchkeeping system might be relaxed--a suggestion
which was promptly turned down.

At all events, Beamish proved right, so far as Rampleford Assizes were
concerned. Nothing whatever occurred to vary the monotonous course of
Justice. Nothing, that is, except for two incidents, the one so trivial
that in normal circumstances it would have escaped notice, the other so
late in time as barely to belong to the assize at all.

Two days after Beamish's alcoholic confidences, and the day before the
assizes were due to end, the Under Sheriff called as usual to escort the
Judge to court. Criminal business being at an end, he came alone, but
apart from this the procedure was exactly the same as it had been on
every previous day. Punctually at ten o'clock, the Under Sheriff would
arrive, be received by Greene and shown into a small room on the first
floor which was used apparently for this purpose only. Here he would be
engaged in conversation which, as the days went on, became more and more
desultory, by Derek and, if she chose to appear, by Hilda. Savage,
meanwhile, would be in his lordship's room, arraying him in wig, bands,
gown and that odd, transverse piece of material known to initiates as
"the gun-case". After the proper interval of time, the Judge, in the
full panoply of his office would descend to his expectant acolytes. The
Lodgings being built on several levels, the corridor in which Barber's
room was situated communicated directly with the waiting-room, by a
short flight of steep stairs. Down these it was the Shaver's custom to
descend with slow and solemn gait and a ceremonious expression on his
face as though to emphasize the fact that whereas at breakfast a short
hour ago he had been merely a rather peevish elderly gentleman, he was
just now His Majesty's Judge of Assize. It was evident that the little
ceremony gave him a good deal of harmless pleasure.

What happened on this particular occasion can be very briefly told. The
Judge was about four steps from the bottom in his progress, one hand
clasping his white kid gloves, the other delicately hitching up the
skirts of his robe when Hilda, who happened to be present, gave a sudden
cry of alarm and dashed forward just as he lost his footing and pitched
head first into the room. For a moment it looked as if there was going
to be quite a nasty accident, but his wife's presence of mind prevented
what would have been an ugly fall for a heavy, stiff-jointed man. As it
was, she was in time to receive his weight on her shoulder, and the pair
of them tumbled ignominiously but unhurt to the floor.

The Marshal and the Under Sheriff helped them to their feet, the Judge's
wig was recovered from the floor and restored to his head, his gown was
hastily brushed down, and the usual ejaculations were made by those
present that are commonly made on occasions of minor disasters. Hilda,
however, did not ejaculate. After assuring herself that her husband was
unharmed and having answered rather petulantly to inquiries that she was
all right but her dress wasn't, she cut short the flow of commiseration
and congratulation by saying firmly, "What I want to know is, how did
this happen?"

She was answered from the head of the stairs, where Savage had all this
time been a spectator of the mishap.

"I think a stair rod has come away, my lady."

"But why on earth should a stair rod come away?" she asked, going to the
foot of the steps to see for herself. Nobody was in a position to answer
this.

"Dangerous things, stair rods," observed the Under Sheriff, "I
remember----"

"Mr. Under Sheriff, if you are ready, I think we ought to be going,"
said Barber, who was in no mood to listen to reminiscences of other
people's accidents.

"I don't think I shall come to court this morning," said Hilda.

"As you please, my dear. I dare say you would like to lie down, for a
little. You must have been rather shaken, I'm afraid."

"No, I'm perfectly all right, as I've said already. I've just changed my
mind, that's all."

As the party left the room, Hilda caught Derek's eye and gave him what
is generally described as a meaning look. Derek had no difficulty in
recognizing it as such, but unfortunately he was not able to determine
for himself exactly what it meant. She certainly looked very purposeful,
and somewhat excited, but what about? Surely she could not have got into
her head that this accident had anything to do with the supposed
conspiracy against the Judge?

But this, it appeared, was exactly what Hilda had got into her head.
That evening, she took him aside.

"Derek, I want to talk to you," she said seriously. "I looked at the
stair rods very carefully this morning. They were all perfectly firm.
They were quite difficult to move. This one had been deliberately pulled
right out."

"But that's not possible," Derek objected. "Who on earth could have
wanted to do such a thing?"

"That is what I am asking myself," said Hilda solemnly.

"Well, I can only suppose it must have been the housemaid. They have to
take these things out to clean them, don't they?"

"I have spoken to the housemaid. She is quite positive that she has not
touched the stair rods since we have been here."

Derek, remembering Beamish's comments on the servants in the Lodgings,
had to admit to himself that this sounded probable enough. He tried to
reckon up the possibilities, supposing that Hilda's astounding suspicion
was well founded. The last person to use those stairs had, presumably,
been Savage. Would he not have noticed the missing rod? Not necessarily,
perhaps, if he was going up them. He certainly looked astonished enough
when he witnessed the Judge's fall from above. Or was it really
astonishment that he had shown? It was hard to remember a man's
expression afterwards. Perhaps there had been something peculiar about
it. . . .

"Now do you see why I feel that we must always be on our guard?" Hilda
was saying. "We know now that we must be prepared to meet danger from
within as well as without. It's a horrible situation, and I don't know
whom I can trust."

Again Beamish's remarks came back to Derek's mind. "An inside job" or
"an outside job?" And if "an inside job", then why not Savage as well as
another? But why Savage any more than anyone else? What did he really
know of these people with whom he had been leading a peripatetic
existence during the past few weeks? What really lay behind Greene's
taciturnity, Savage's humility, Beamish's familiarity? Or was the whole
affair, to borrow Beamish's expression again, a hallu--hallucination?
Certainly it seemed too absurd to be true, the incidents too unrelated
to each other, the theory too unrelated to ordinary life. The one
undoubted fact was that her ladyship was in a highly nervous condition.
A little more of this and he felt that he would be not much better
himself.

                 *        *        *        *        *

Derek was heartily glad to leave Rampleford. His last day there had been
distinguished, if not greatly cheered, by a letter from Sheila, in which
she told him that she found it Too Difficult to explain in a letter, but
if they could only Meet Soon, she would be able to tell him Everything.
The move was at least a stage on the road towards that desirable, if
anxious moment, and not even the fact that Beamish tersely described
Whitsea, their next stopping place, as "fierce", prevented him from
looking forward to it with impatience. It was therefore with genuine
relief that he found himself once more in the reserved carriage,
watching through the window the inevitable guard of police and the Under
Sheriff dutifully making conversation against a background of Canadian
soldiers who seemed to find the whole spectacle a source of great
amusement.

The whistle had been blown and the last of the unprivileged many had
been stowed somewhere in the overcrowded train when a police officer
appeared running on the platform. He saluted the Chief Constable
hastily, handed something to him and said a few inaudible words. The
Chief Constable in his turn hammered on the Judge's window which Derek
had just shut.

"This has just come from the lodgings, my lord," he said, when the
window had at length been persuaded to open again. "It must have arrived
after you left. I hope it is nothing important."

Through the window he handed a letter. The Judge took it, opened it, and
glanced at its contents.

"Here!" he cried angrily. "How did this. . . ?"

He was too late. The train had started. The Chief Constable, his hand at
the salute, a fixed grin on his face, had glided backwards behind them.
The Under Sheriff, thankfully replacing his topper on his head, was
already almost out of sight. And on the Judge's knees lay a little
typewritten slip of paper, and an envelope without a stamp.

Hilda picked up the paper. It did not take long to read. It ran:

    "_You're not going to get off as easy as this again, you know._"

Once more Hilda gave Derek a meaning look. This time it was quite simple
to see what it meant.




                              Chapter 16
                                  GAS


Whitsea was, as Beamish had foretold, "fierce". A greater contrast to
the serene and self-conscious beauty of Rampleford it would have been
hard to imagine than that grim, unlovely and, in wartime, desperately
hard-working seaport. In place of the monastic seclusion of the Canon's
house in the Close, the Judge's household was lodged in a gaunt
Victorian mansion, with vast ill-furnished rooms which contrived to be
at once chill and stuffy, whose huge plate-glass windows gave on to a
wilderness of smoky chimneys by day and raised perpetual difficulties
over the black-out at night.

Blackness, indeed, was Derek's principal impression of Whitsea. By now
the days were short. Work at the assizes was heavy, and in consequence
the hours of sitting were long. Barber, who seemed to have become all
the more conscientious with the threat to his position, sat late each
day in an endeavour to finish his list, and never rose until long after
sunset. It seemed to Derek that the only daylight which he saw was
through the windows of the High Sheriff's car at lunch-time, driving to
and from the murky court where yet murkier crimes were investigated. He
found himself envying Beamish, trudging through the rain which fell
unceasingly--for, to cap everything, was not the Sheriff a Mean
Bastard?--almost as much as that harassed man undoubtedly envied him.

By now, he was heartily sick of the circuit and all that appertained to
it. He was sick of the top hat which he had to lug about everywhere with
him, sick of the tail-coat which never had room in its pockets for
anything that he wanted. The ceremonies and formalities which had amused
him so much at first became stale with repetition. He knew now just
where the Clerk of Assize would lose his way in the reading of the
Commission, every modulation in Beamish's Court voice. He knew almost to
a phrase the admonition which the Judge would address to the first
offender about to be bound over to keep the peace, the biting scorn
which he reserved for the swindler, the mournful severity with which he
would send the habitual thief down for his tenth term of hopeless
imprisonment. Even the criminals and their offences began to wear an air
of sameness. The varieties of wrong-doing are limited, and older and
wiser men than he have sat longer in Courts of Justice without realizing
that the varieties of human nature are not.

The only cases from which he derived any enjoyment were those in which
Pettigrew was engaged. He, at least, could always be relied upon for
some fresh turn of phrase, some unexpected quip to relieve the monotony.
And Whitsea Assizes, fortunately, were the sheet anchor of Pettigrew's
practice. Here he had first begun to make his mark, and here several
clients remained faithful to him. Not so long ago, indeed, he had
confidently hoped for the Recordership of Whitsea. But when the vacancy
occurred, the wrong Home Secretary happened to be in office, and this
prize, like so many others, had eluded him.

Within the Lodgings, life was almost as drab as it was outside them. The
social jollities which Hilda had introduced to the circuit at
Southington were past and over. Almost the first letter to reach her on
her arrival at Whitsea was one from her brother, indicating only too
clearly that her mission to Sebald-Smith had been a failure. No
arrangement now would be acceptable at any but a ruinous figure, and his
solicitors were becoming more and more pressing for a speedy settlement.
"Luckily," Michael wrote, "they are an old-fashioned and respectable
firm, and I think they are rather awed at the prospect of suing a High
Court Judge. If it were not for that we should have had a writ before
now. But I have the definite impression that they are being pushed by
their client and it can only be a question of time before their respect
for his lordship gives way." Hilda, knowing only too well who was
pushing the client, began despairingly on a course of rigid economy. She
attempted the impossible, the unheard of thing, to live within, even to
make money out of, the lodging allowance granted by the State to Judges
of Assize. To Mrs. Square's horror, the standard of meals was reduced to
a level which in her eyes was barely above starvation. Hilda was
unfortunate in that her necessity arose some six months before the
country's, and what a little later would have been the highest
patriotism, looked now very like cheese-paring.

One traditional piece of entertaining which could not be avoided was the
dinner which custom enjoined the Judge to give the Mayor of Whitsea.
What Hilda endured on that evening was known only to herself. She had a
double reputation to keep up--that of the Bench for hospitality, and her
own, of which she was acutely conscious, as a hostess of charm and
brilliance. To scintillate as a woman of London society should among the
provincial dignitaries, to be witty, tactful and agreeable all at once,
and at the same time to grudge her guests every morsel they ate and
every drop they sipped, to sit in the drawing-room inwardly praying that
her husband would not think it necessary to order another bottle of port
to be decanted, was a strain which even her resilient spirit could
hardly bear. When it was all over, and the company had gone, she
confessed to an overpowering headache.

The sentry system was, of course, still in full vigour. It was, as it
happened, her turn to watch for the first period. Derek, moved to pity
by her wan cheeks, took advantage of an opportunity when the Judge was
out of the room to propose that he should make himself responsible for
the entire night. He was not, he declared, suppressing a yawn, at all
sleepy. But Hilda shook her head.

"I shall be all right," she said, "if I can only lie down for a few
hours. Do you mind, Derek, if you take first go again to-night? Just
knock at my door and wake me at----"

"I shan't wake you at all," Derek protested chivalrously.

"That's sweet of you," Hilda smiled. "Then I shall wake myself. It's
become second nature to me now. But if I should be half an hour late or
so, you _will_ understand, won't you?"

And Derek, his heart beating warm with altruism beneath his white
waistcoat, said he would understand perfectly.

In point of fact, she was not half an hour late, but almost exactly an
hour and a quarter. By that time Derek, if not by the strictest
standards sound asleep, was sufficiently so to be quite unconscious of
anything taking place within more than a very few yards of him. The
second bottle of port had been ordered up that evening, when it had
become apparent from the Mayor's glazed expression that the reputation
of the whole Judiciary was at stake, and Derek had taken his full share.
This contributed to make the long, still hours a grim struggle against
sleep in which sleep was very nearly the victor. In the early part of
his vigil he was watchful enough. For the first time since this nightly
task had been imposed upon him, he was conscious of a feeling of
apprehension. Since the arrival of the last anonymous letter, he had
reluctantly begun to believe in the bogeys that haunted Hilda. It was no
longer to his mind a question as to whether anything would happen at
Whitsea, but when it would happen, and what. And on this particular
evening, for no definite reason, he felt that danger in some form or
another was very near. But if and when the danger arose, would he be in
a condition either to recognize or to combat it?

Just when he was beginning to wonder how much longer he could keep
awake, he was startled by the ringing of a bell and a loud hammering at
the door. Going downstairs, he found outside a deferential but
determined constable. A light was showing at the back of the house, and
would he remedy it at once, please?

Derek went outside with the officer and after some difficulty found the
small chink of light which was the course of the trouble. It came from
one of the few rooms which had hitherto given no anxiety--a little-used
library which was provided with heavy outside shutters. The high wind
which was blowing at the time had evidently broken the fastenings of
these, so that they gaped in the middle. The door of the room, which
opened on to the hall, having been left open, some light was reflected
from the upstairs landing, where Derek was keeping his watch. This
having been established, the trouble was simply rectified for the time
being by going back into the house and shutting the library door.

After bidding the constable good night, Derek returned to his post. This
little episode, he told himself, was just what he needed. Now he would
have no difficulty in keeping awake. No difficulty at all. He never felt
less like sleep in his life. . . .

At the moment when Hilda's near approach roused him, he was sitting
slumped in a chair outside his own bedroom door, a position from which
(when his eyes were open) he had an excellent view of the door of
Barber's room. Hoping that his drowsiness would not be perceived, he
struggled hastily to his feet.

"Here I am at last!" she said softly. She seemed to be quite recovered.
Her cheeks indeed were flushed rather than pale, and she looked
undeniably handsome in a garment which, though technically known as a
nglige, had nothing negligent whatever about it, either in its design
or the manner in which it was put on.

"It was good of you to let me sleep," she went on. "You must be
dreadfully tired. Is everything all right?"

"Oh, yes," said Derek. "Nothing's happened at all."

"That's good. I don't know why, but I felt particularly nervous
to-night."

She went towards the Judge's room, while Derek followed, reflecting as
he did so that at all events her nerves had not prevented her from
sleeping pretty well. From some distance he could hear quite distinctly
Barber's heavy breathing, even louder and deeper than usual, he thought.
No occasion for alarm there!

He was just about to say good night and return at long last to his own
bed, when he saw that Hilda had stopped outside her husband's door, a
peculiar expression on her face.

"Come here a moment, Derek," she said in an uncertain voice. "Do you
smell anything?"

Derek sniffed. His senses were rather muzzy, whether from sleepiness or
from the effects of the port, and he could not be positive.

"I--I don't think so," he mumbled.

But Hilda by now was down on the floor, her nose to the bottom of the
door.

"Gas!" she exclaimed, scrambling to her feet. "I was certain I smelt
something! Quick!"

She flung open the door and Derek followed her into the room, which was
in complete darkness.

"He always _will_ sleep with his windows shut!" she said crossly, and
indeed the room, besides being dark, was distinctly frowsty. But Derek
was now conscious also of a quite unmistakable heavy odour, and through
the stertorous breathing from the bed he could hear a continuous, quiet
hiss which came from the opposite side of the room.

The two of them fell over one another in the blackness as they fumbled
for the tap of the gas fire. Eventually, after what seemed a maddening
delay, Hilda found it, and the snake-like hissing sound ceased. Then
Derek went to the window, pulled back the heavy curtains and flung it
wide open. A fresh cold wind blew into the room, bringing with it a
spatter of rain. Hilda meanwhile had gone to the bed, and was vigorously
shaking the still sleeping man.

"William!" she called urgently. "William! Are you all right?"

The snores stopped, and after a pause Derek heard a sleepy voice say.
"What is it? What the devil's the matter?" Then the bed creaked as the
Judge sat up. "What have you opened my windows for?" he asked peevishly.

Hilda drew a deep sigh of relief.

"There was an escape of gas," she said. "You might have been killed."

"Oh?" said the sleepy voice. "Silly of me. I thought I turned it off all
right. All right now? Thanks, Hilda."

There was another creak, as he sank back into bed. In a moment or two
the snores were resumed.

Derek and Hilda tiptoed out of the room with unnecessary caution.
Outside she turned to him, her eyes very bright, her breath coming fast.

"Thank God!" she said. "We were just in time."

"Yes," said Derek. "It was lucky you noticed that smell." He spoke at
random, his mind preoccupied with the thought that if he had been
keeping his watch properly this danger would never have been incurred.

"Will he be all right, do you think?" Hilda asked anxiously. "Ought we
to get a doctor?"

By this time Derek's mind was beginning to function properly.

"I don't think so," he said. "There wasn't much gas in the room, really,
or we should have been affected. And by the time we came out, the air
was perfectly clear. I think he may wake up with a bit of a headache,
but apart from that I'm sure he won't be any the worse. It's odd," he
went on, his brain beginning to assume the unnatural clarity that
sometimes comes to the fatigued, "that there wasn't much more gas. The
tap must have been only a very little on."

"I didn't notice," Hilda said. "I just turned it as far as it would go
until the noise stopped."

"I don't know much about these things," Derek went on, "but he's been in
bed now for well over five hours. I should have thought that if he had
simply not turned the fire off properly when he got into bed, the whole
place would have been reeking of gas by now, even if it was quite a
small escape. But there was a distinct hiss when we went into the room."

"That means that it must have been turned on quite a short time before,"
said Hilda.

"It looks like it, doesn't it?"

"That somebody got into the room and did this"--her voice rose
ominously--"while you were supposed to be watching--while you were
asleep----"

"I wasn't asleep," Derek objected.

"I could have come right up to you without your knowing, if I had cared
to walk quietly just now. Anybody could have gone in and out of the room
and you would have been none the wiser."

This accusation was, as Derek knew, not far from the truth, but coming
from her in the circumstances in which it did, it seemed to him grossly
unfair. This led him to say something which he afterwards was to regret.

"I don't think anyone could possibly have done that," he said. "After
all, the fact that it wasn't an accident doesn't mean that he didn't do
it himself."

He did not need to look at Hilda's face to know that she was mortally
offended. After a frozen silence, she said simply, "I think you had
better go to bed now. We can discuss this better in the morning
when--when you are more yourself."

Without another word said, Derek went to his room, but it was some time
before he slept. The whole episode troubled him very much--far more,
indeed, than anything that had gone before in the troubled history of
the circuit. Here, for the first time, was something that could not be
dismissed as a mere threat, or a vulgar joke. It could only be explained
as a deliberate attempt on the Judge's life. If Hilda had not come on
the scene when she did and detected the smell of escaping gas, he would
have been asphixiated. Derek had always been reluctant to believe in the
possibility of genuine danger, and this feeling, as well as his wish to
excuse his undoubted slackness as a guard, had led him to make his rash
suggestion of attempted suicide--a suggestion in which he did not really
believe himself.

But if this was indeed an attempt to kill Barber, the fact had to be
faced that it had been made by some member of the household. The
lodgings were well guarded, and the chances of an outsider penetrating
in were very small. He passed in review once more the men of whom he had
seen so much and knew so little. To connect any one of them with a crime
which, to say no more, would bring on all of them immediate loss of
particularly snug and comfortable jobs seemed on the face of it absurd.
He remembered, too, that Beamish (Suspect No. 1, as he felt sure his
favourite detective novelist would christen him) knew quite well of the
watching system in vogue. Was it likely that in that case he would incur
the risk of being caught in the act, when he must in the ordinary course
of his work have innumerable opportunities far better suited for an
intending murderer?

An odd theory floated into Derek's head at this point. Suppose Beamish
had crept into Barber's room and turned on the gas, not with any
murderous intention, but simply as a crude joke, to show up the
inefficiency of the Marshal's guard, with the intention of coming back
later to turn it off and to have the laugh of the sleepy sentinel?
Fantastic as it was, the notion seemed in accord with what Derek had
learned of his malicious sense of humour. If that were so, then the joke
had been spoiled by Hilda's unexpected appearance. He made up his mind
to watch Beamish carefully next day to see if he betrayed any knowledge
of the night's events.

He passed to a fresh consideration of Savage and Greene and was annoyed
to find that their characters as potential assassins still remained as
blank as ever in his mind. He decided that he should henceforth
cultivate them, and make a study of them as individuals; but how to set
about it he had not the least idea. Mrs. Square, he felt, might
immediately be dismissed from the reckoning. One had only to look at her
to see that she was not the woman to leave her bed at three o'clock in
the morning in order to murder anyone, or for any other reason, except
under dire compulsion. And the only other possible suspect was--Hilda
herself. Here another even more far-fetched idea occurred to him--that
she had turned on the gas in her husband's room merely to have the
satisfaction of "discovering" the danger and averting it. Apart from the
pleasure of demonstrating the necessity of keeping a watch at night, he
could not imagine the object in such behaviour, but he was quite
prepared to credit her with motives beyond his comprehension. Perhaps
she was slightly mad, and her madness had taken the form of inventing
the whole story of a plot against the Judge and the concoction of
incidents to support it. After all, persecution mania was a recognized
aberration and this might be merely an unusual form of it. Derek toyed
with the idea for some time and for a moment almost believed that he had
the clue to the whole mystery. But he soon saw that it would not do. He
had seen Hilda's face at the moment when she tasted the poisoned
chocolate, and he had seen her immediately after the assault at
Wimblingham. She had not invented either of those two misfortunes. Of
that he felt quite positive.

Derek gave it up. As he finally drifted off to sleep, he thought of
something else. If an outsider, Inspector Mallett, for example, were to
investigate the case of the attempted gas poisoning of Mr. Justice
Barber, his list of suspects would contain one name additional to those
he had been considering--the name of Derek Marshall. And this, oddly
enough, seemed to Derek the most fantastic notion of all.




                              Chapter 17
                              REFLECTIONS


Hilda did not fulfil her promise, or threat, to discuss the events of
the night next morning. Indeed, it was a curious aftermath of the affair
that none of the three persons involved showed any disposition to refer
to it. Whether or not Derek was right in prophesying a headache for the
Judge could not be determined from his demeanour. Certainly he was
rather glum at breakfast, but scarcely more so than usual. It was
equally impossible to say if he had any recollection whatever of having
been roused in the night to be told that he was in danger of gas
poisoning. The consequence was that the breakfast table was the scene of
an odd little conspiracy of silence, with two of the conspirators
wondering whether the third member of the party was really a fellow
conspirator or not.

During a particularly dull day on the bench, however, Derek (in the
intervals of dipping into the First Book of Samuel) had leisure to
ponder further on the whole matter, and as a result made up his mind to
speak to Hilda that afternoon. He began somewhat awkwardly, remembering
the terms on which they had broken off the discussion in the small hours
of the morning.

"There was something I meant to tell you about last night," he said.
"I'm very sorry I----"

"I'm very sorry I----" said Hilda at the same moment. They both laughed,
and the ice was effectually broken.

It was impossible, Derek felt, to be angry with Hilda for long. And he
felt, too, quite childishly glad that she was no longer angry with him.

"Something happened before you came which I didn't mention," he went on.
"It didn't seem important at the time, but thinking it over, I feel that
it may be."

He went on to recount the visit of the constable and his discovery of
the defective shutter in the library. Hilda was puzzled.

"Very annoying," she commented. "We shall have to see that the shutter
is put right, of course. But I don't see what this can have to do with
what happened in the Judge's room. You don't think anybody could have
got into the house that way, do you? If so, how did he get up the stairs
without your seeing him?"

"No," said Derek, "I'm pretty sure nobody came in that way. The library
windows were shut and the bolt wasn't disturbed. But what was to prevent
anyone coming in by the front door, while I was round at the back with
the policeman? I had to leave it open, you see, because I hadn't a key
with me."

"I see," Hilda reflected doubtfully.

"Suppose someone was hanging about on the offchance of getting in, he
might quite well have jumped at the opportunity."

"I suppose it is just possible," said Hilda, plainly unconvinced. She
thought for a moment, and then her puzzled expression suddenly cleared.
"No!" she said abruptly. "I have a much better idea than that. It was an
outside shutter, wasn't it? Isn't it far more likely that this man
deliberately broke the fastening so as to produce the light? He would
know that that would draw the constable away from the front door and
give him his chance."

"And I made the chance a certainty by going outside and leaving the door
open for him. You're right, Hilda. He would have plenty of time to go
upstairs and be down again and away before I came back. You see what
this means? I've been worrying for hours, wondering who in the house
could have done such a thing. Now it's obvious that this need not have
been an inside job, after all."

"And someone outside is still at large, trying to kill my husband," said
Hilda bitterly. "So much for Scotland Yard! All the same, it is a weight
off my mind, in one way. It's not very pleasant to be driven to believe
that someone in the house _must_ be either a criminal or a maniac. But
I'm not going to let your theory run away with me, Derek. After all,
there is absolutely no proof this was done in the way you suggest. We
still have to be on our guard in every direction, and more so than ever
now."

"In the meantime," Derek said, "I suppose you will want to put this
matter into the hands of the police."

Hilda shook her head.

"No," she said. "I can see that this means more work and more anxiety
for us, but that's just what we can't do."

"But surely," Derek objected, "if there really is, as you say, somebody
at large trying to kill the Judge, we ought to do all we can to protect
him."

"I know," said Hilda. "But I've been thinking over this, as well as you.
There's one great objection to telling the police about this particular
business which you don't realize. If we did, what do you think their
first action would be?"

Derek had by now read sufficient depositions of witnesses to have some
idea of how the police go to work.

"I suppose they would begin by taking statements from all the
witnesses," he said.

"Exactly. And who would be the first person they would approach for a
statement?"

"The Judge, I suppose."

"Exactly."

"Of course," said Derek, still rather fogged, "we don't know whether he
could say anything about it. Unless, perhaps, he has told you----?"

"No. He has told me nothing. Very likely, he remembers absolutely
nothing of what happened last night."

"I see. And naturally, you don't want to give him anxiety by telling
him."

"Yes," said Hilda slowly. "There is that, of course. But there is
another reason why I don't want the police to come round taking
statements about this. Suppose after all, he _does_ remember--all about
it?"

"I don't quite understand," said Derek.

"Don't you? I wish you did, Derek, it would make it a bit easier for me.
You see--last night you made a suggestion as to how this might have
happened. I was rather rude to you about it, I'm afraid. But
suppose--just suppose that you were right--that he really meant to--oh!
Derek, I needn't say it outright, need I?"

She was very near to tears. Derek, made terribly uncomfortable by the
spectacle, blundered hastily in to comfort her.

"But look here," he said. "I didn't really mean what I said last night.
It was only that I was annoyed at your saying I had been asleep--and so
I had been, as near as anything. Please don't take it seriously. I never
really thought that the Judge was trying to kill himself. After all,
there's not the smallest reason to suppose that he should do such a
thing."

"Thank you, Derek," said Hilda, wiping her eyes. "It's sweet of you to
say that. But I'm afraid it's not so easily got over as that. You see,
you don't know my husband as well as I do." She contrived a wan smile.
"That's not very surprising, is it? Really, it is an odd situation. We
have only known each other a few weeks, and now I find myself having to
talk about things that I never thought I should discuss with anyone.
Well, there's no good beating about the bush. What it comes to is this:
I do think that my husband is a man who might in some circumstances want
to kill himself."

Derek was about to speak, but Hilda stopped him with a gesture.

"Now that I have started you must let me go on," she said. "You see, he
is, as you must have seen for yourself, a very proud man, intensely
proud of himself and his position. You know the danger that he is in of
losing that position because of what happened at Markhampton--or perhaps
you don't, but the danger is there, and a very real one. He has been
terribly worried by it, though he has not shown it openly. And that,
added to the anxieties which this other matter must have given him,
might drive him to--I don't know. It's fearfully difficult to guess what
really goes on in his mind. He is in many ways a very reserved man. I
said just now that you didn't know him as well as I did. But when I come
to consider, I begin to wonder whether I have ever known him properly
myself."

To Derek, with his small experience in the ways of the world, it came as
something of a shock to realize that it was possible for two persons to
live together for years and still to be in all essentials ignorant of
each other's true natures. Unbidden, the image of the ideal Sheila
floated into his mind. How different, he felt, the perfect communion of
mind and soul that marriage to her would be!

"Well, so there you are!" Hilda concluded, with a sudden air of
brightness that did not quite convince. "I've said my say, and it had to
be said, but you needn't take it too much to heart. And now we must both
fly, if we are not to be late for dinner."

Derek studied the Judge with interest that evening. Indeed, it might be
said that he really looked at him for the first time. At the end of his
scrutiny he had to admit that he found nothing in his appearance
suggestive of a disposition to commit suicide. True he had equally to
admit that he had no very clear idea of what an intending suicide
normally looked like. So far as he could judge, however, there was
nothing remarkable about him at all, unless it was that the moroseness
which had become habitual with him was perhaps a shade deeper than
usual.

Hilda, however, who might be presumed to be the better judge in this
matter, evidently thought otherwise. Her anxiety manifested itself in a
determined attempt, which ultimately proved successful, to cheer his
lordship up. It was the first time for many weeks that Derek had seen
her exercising her social talents on her husband, and he found it an
enthralling spectacle. Putting into the task every ounce of tact and
charm that she possessed, little by little she contrived to dissipate
the gloom that enveloped him. By the end of the meal Barber, to his own
obvious surprise, had become talkative and almost cheerful. Derek, who
had been carried along by Hilda's stream of gossip, comment and
allusion, so that almost without knowing it he had contributed not a
little to the success of the attempt, realized suddenly that he too was
actually enjoying his evening. Really, he thought, as he drank his
coffee after dinner and listened to a judicial anecdote which, though
technical, was not unamusing, if every evening on circuit were like this
he would have no reason to complain. Savage came in to remove the coffee
tray and before doing so, piled the fireplace high with the Whitsea
Corporation's coal. A mellow glow began to spread even through the
chilly acres of the drawing-room. The Judge produced a cigar and began
to discuss with enthusiasm the impregnability of the Maginot Line.
Hilda, her purpose accomplished, had fallen silent. From the corner of
his eye, Derek could see that she looked tired but content. He fancied
that she was holding her husband's hand. It was a moment of peace and
comfort.

Looking at them now, it seemed to Derek impossible that only a short
time before he had been seriously discussing with one of the pair the
probability of the other's committing suicide. After all, whatever Hilda
might say, people positively did not commit suicide. People, that is,
whom one knew. But if suicide seemed a ridiculous notion, sitting there
amid the Victorian splendours of Whitsea Lodgings, it seemed even more
absurd to think that this lank long man, pulling at his cigar on the
other side of the fireplace, could conceivably be in danger of being
murdered. After all, murder was one of those things that simply did not
happen, except in books and newspapers. The fact that since the Circuit
began he had heard three or four trials for murder did not shake this
conviction in the least. People in the dock were not real, that is,
ordinary people--else why should they be there? And as for their
unfortunate victims, photographs of whose mangled remains the police
exhibited with such relish--fortunately for Derek's peace of mind they
remained photographs.

                 *        *        *        *        *

The improvement in the Judge's spirits, obtained at the cost of such
exertion, did not last long. For the rest of the Assize he was once more
remote, pontifical and irritable. On the very last day of work at
Whitsea he indulged in a quite gratuitous and somewhat painful
altercation with Pettigrew during the hearing of an undefended petition
for divorce. Derek never wholly comprehended what it was about (except
that it involved one of those wholly artificial rules of evidence which
are the very breath of the nostrils of the true lawyer), but from a mild
difference of opinion it developed into what the local press next day
inevitably described as a Scene. For once Pettigrew lost altogether his
usual air of ironic deference. He raised his voice, went rather pink in
the face, interrupted his lordship without ceremony, and, when the
decision had been given against him, slammed his brief upon the desk and
strode out of court without the slightest pretence of a bow towards the
Bench. He was not without excuse, for he had been treated with the
grossest discourtesy, but it was a surprising outburst for a man of his
usually restrained temperament.

Apart from this unhappy incident, there was little of moment to record
of the concluding days at Whitsea. The shutter of the library was
mended, and there were no further complaints from the police. The
nocturnal watchers added to their routine an occasional sniff under the
Judge's door, without ever again succeeding in detecting the least trace
of escaping gas. No further hint of danger appeared to vary the monotony
of the days and nights of the household.

One effect of the events which had followed the dinner to the Mayor and
Corporation, for which Derek was grateful, was to bring him and Hilda
more closely together. Although the subject of their talk on that
occasion was never alluded to again, the fact that a confidence had been
given and received remained as bond between them. He found himself
talking to her quite freely on all sorts of subjects and almost on equal
terms, an experience which was quite new to him. He no longer felt in
awe of her greater knowledge of the world. Quite abruptly, he realized
that at long last he had grown up. But although he found himself in this
new position of confidence with her, it remained, in diplomatic jargon,
a unilateral confidence. Never once did he feel in the least inclined to
unbosom himself as to his own romance. With a new-born faculty of
insight, he saw quite clearly that while Hilda had a wide range of
interests there were some things that did not interest her at all, and
that among these things other women were included.

Derek had all the more leisure to cultivate his friendship with Hilda in
that he was no longer subjected to any of Beamish's less welcome
familiarities. For some reason or another, Beamish's attitude towards
him and the rest of their little world had undergone a distinct change.
Hitherto, whatever his failings, he had been consistently cheerful, or
at all events serene, as though buoyed up against all difficulties by a
sense of his own importance. But as Whitsea Assizes were on, it was
noticeable that he had become care-worn and haggard to an extent which
was not to be explained merely by the indignities put upon him by the
Sheriff. He became unusually taciturn and spent long hours alone in his
room. Derek suspected that he drank a good deal, but if so, it had not
the mellowing effect upon him that he had observed before. Indeed, his
temper had deteriorated badly. He lost no opportunity to snap the heads
off Savage and Greene and he went out of his way to have several
acrimonious little disputes with the Clerk of Assize. Derek had never
liked him when he had been ostentatiously friendly and condescending. In
his new guise, however, he found himself unexpectedly sorry for the man.
It was so plain that his ill-temper was due to some hidden cause of
unhappiness and anxiety that Derek almost wished that he was in a
position to console him, or at least to talk over his troubles with him.
The glimpse that he had had into the frustration and dissatisfaction
that underlay Hilda's marriage had produced in him a general feeling of
charity towards the world at large, and it positively hurt him to see
this bumptious, assured little man so obviously the prey to
wretchedness.

Naturally enough, Hilda was also not unaware of the change in Beamish's
manner. But her attitude towards it was very different from Derek's. To
her, Beamish was merely an objectionable person who had now added to his
other offences an extremely bad temper. This lack of charity on her part
gave Derek a somewhat priggish but none the less satisfying sense of
superiority. All in all, a growing sense of the little drama of human
relationships within the lodgings kept Derek more interested and amused
than he had ever expected, and the last week of Whitsea Assizes was for
him by no means the least entertaining of the Circuit. None the less did
he look forward to the return to London and the end of his servitude
with all the enthusiasm of a schoolboy towards his holidays.




                              Chapter 18
                           REX v. OCKENHURST


By working hard himself, and exacting hard work from everybody around
him, Barber contrived to finish the Assizes at Whitsea just before those
at Eastbury were due to begin. In so doing, he found it necessary to
break into the "travelling day", which should have been consecrated to
the task of conveying the paraphernalia of justice from one county to
another. This, it appeared from the comments of the Circuit officials,
was a breach of tradition barely to be excused even by the exigencies of
war. The two towns lay less than twenty miles apart and upon the same
main railway line. It was not, therefore, an altogether impossible
proposition to finish work at Whitsea on one day and start again at
Eastbury on the next. None the less, everybody, from Clerk of Assize to
Marshal's Man, agreed that as a matter of principle an attack on the
travelling day was an attack on the very soul of English Justice. Derek,
listening to these opinions very firmly expressed by persons of
experience, could only conclude that there were good reasons behind
them, but he did not pretend to understand what they were.

Eastbury is an unpretentious market town, the centre of a small and
sleepy county. Its criminal calendar is usually equally unpretentious.
Coming at the end of the circuit, the Assizes there are in the nature of
a light savoury to supplement the heavy and often indigestible judicial
fare provided by Rampleford and Whitsea. It is at once inconvenient and
unusual to conclude a circuit with the town where the least work may be
expected. The Southern Circuit is naturally extremely proud of the fact
that it does things differently from any other, and has firmly resisted
any attempt to alter the arrangement.

On this occasion however, the calendar at Eastbury, though as short as
usual, was anything but unpretentious. It consisted of three cases only,
but of these one sufficed to prolong the period of the Assizes to the
unprecedented length of four days. They were four days of intense
interest to those who were present, and of equally intense discomfort.
The Court, as though designed to match the volume of work which was to
be anticipated, was minute. Bench, jury-box, dock and witness-box were
huddled together on the four sides of a tiny hollow square within which
counsel jostled with solicitors and one another, and manoeuvred
purposefully for the one corner from which it was possible to examine a
witness without turning one's back on the jury. On the outer fringes of
the square, the rest of those whom duty or inclination compelled to
attend sat in varying degrees of misery--mostly upon hard, backless
benches.

It was in this setting that for three and a half days John Ockenhurst
was tried for the murder of his wife's lover. The case never attracted
very much attention. Possibly if the accommodation for the gentlemen of
the press had been less exiguous, or if Ockenhurst had been of better
social standing, it would have been more widely reported, even in the
middle of a war. But to the people of Eastbury and its neighbourhood it
was of passionate interest and the little Court was packed to
suffocation from start to finish of the trial. In the village where the
prisoner laboured as a blacksmith, indeed, the interest has survived
both the trial and its subject; and it will be many years before a
visitor cannot rely on producing a stormy discussion in the bar of its
inn by raising the question whether Ockenhurst was properly hanged or
not.

The story which Sir Henry Babbington K.C. rose to open for the Crown in
the afternoon of the first day of the Assizes, was at once simple and
melodramatic. Sir Henry, who had a leaning towards melodrama himself,
recounted it with impressive power. In that small arena every modulation
of his beautifully resonant voice, every fleeting expression on his
mobile countenance was given full value. Any who listening to him could
so far resist the spell as to glance from him to Pettigrew, sitting in
the corner, his wig tip-tilted till it almost touched his wrinkling
nose, must have felt a certain sympathy for the man who had to cross
swords with such an opponent, and who had to meet a case so
overwhelmingly strong.

Pettigrew, indeed, had reason to be anxious. He was not in the least
afraid of Babbington, whom he knew and liked, and whose weaknesses he
had often explored. But he was very much afraid of the line which the
defence was compelled to take, all the more so because he more than half
believed in it himself. "On the whole," a sarcastic senior had observed
to him when he was newly called to the Bar, "it is sometimes not a bad
thing for a young man to believe in his client's innocence." Pettigrew
was no longer young, and he felt that this was decidedly one of those
times when he would have been happier if he could be fairly certain that
his client deserved to be convicted. A better judge of a case than most,
he knew that the odds were against him, and he strongly disliked the
feeling that here there was a possibility of an innocent man being found
guilty.

"To conclude, members of the jury," Babbington was saying, "the
prosecution will prove to you that the victim of this crime had over a
long period of time indulged in an unlawful passion for the prisoner's
wife; that this was, if not known to, at least strongly suspected by the
prisoner; that he had threatened the deceased on more than one occasion;
and that on the night in question the deceased was found outside the
back door of the prisoner's cottage, stabbed in the back with a weapon
actually manufactured by the prisoner in his own smithy. You will hear
the evidence, which I need not now recapitulate, of the sounds and
voices heard by the neighbours on the day of the tragedy. You will
consider, and weigh carefully, the statements made by the prisoner to
the police officers charged with the investigation of this
crime--statements, I am bound to suggest to you, at once ambiguous and
self-contradictory. And taking that and all the other matters into
consideration, it will be for you to say, when all the evidence on both
sides has been given, whether or not the prosecution has discharged the
burden of satisfying you that this grave accusation has been made out.

"And now, with the assistance of my learned friend, I shall call the
evidence."

"I think," said Barber, glancing at the clock, "that this would be a
convenient moment to adjourn."

"As your lordship pleases."

Pettigrew had expected nothing else, but none the less he swore quietly
under his breath while the Judge explained to the jury that although
under the system introduced by reason of the war they were permitted to
return to their homes during the course of the trial, they were in
honour bound not to discuss the case with anyone. He knew, none better,
the anodyne effect, when counsel's opening was concluded, of calling the
two or three formal witnesses who always came first and how the matter
of fact discussion of photographs and plans would have instantly lowered
the emotional atmosphere engendered by Babbington's fine phrases. If
Father William had consented to sit for another twenty minutes the jury
would have gone away with a vague feeling of anticlimax, and a sense
that the case before them, though concerned with life and death, was,
like most of life itself, essentially humdrum. As it was, they would
leave the court with the echo of that beautiful voice ringing in their
ears, and return to it next morning with their view of the case firmly,
and, perhaps, irrevocably fixed. "And don't you know it, you old brute!"
said Pettigrew under his breath, as he bowed respectfully to Barber's
retreating figure. Wherein he did him an injustice. The Judge was
thinking only of his tea.

Anybody who wishes to read a full report of the case of _Rex v.
Ockenhurst_ must search for it in the files of the _Eastbury Gazette and
Advertiser_, where alone it is set out verbatim. It is sufficient here
to say that the evidence for the Crown bore out all that Sir Henry had
said in his opening address, and--since he well knew the value of
understatement--a good deal that he had left unsaid, or only lightly
touched upon. Young Fred Palmer, to whom Alice Ockenhurst had turned
when tired out by her husband's continual ill-treatment and
infidelities, had undoubtedly been murdered. The weapon used was a
peculiar one--the blade of an old knife, skilfully enough fitted into an
iron handle to make an effective little dagger; and there was not
lacking evidence that this work had been done by Ockenhurst at his
forge. There was evidence, too, of a bitter quarrel between the prisoner
and his wife, overheard by neighbours on the afternoon preceding the
night of Palmer's death. So bitter was it, alleged the prosecution, that
she fled the house for her own safety, and it was while she was absent
that Palmer, coming there at the hour when Ockenhurst was normally at
the public house, met instead of his mistress the husband, madly jealous
and armed with the home-made dagger.

"You know," Pettigrew had said in conference to the solicitor who
instructed him, "this doesn't ring quite true to me. I know our client's
a bad hat, and I wouldn't put it past him to kill anybody. But what's a
blacksmith doing with a stiletto, as if he was an Italian bravo? Why
didn't he use one of his hammers, or something more in keeping?"

"It does seem odd," was the reply. "But we can't get over the fact that
he made the thing. And his explanation for that is desperately thin."

"So thin that I'm half inclined to believe it. He says he saw a dagger
hanging up in an old curiosity shop priced ten pounds, and being hard
up, with little work coming in at the forge, he thought he could make
something like it and pass it off as a genuine antique. It's the sort of
imbecile thing a fat-head like that would think of! But what on earth
will a jury make of it?"

"From what I know of juries in this county," the solicitor had said,
"I'm afraid they'll say: 'If Jack Ockenhurst didn't kill Fred Palmer
with that there knife, perhaps you'll tell me who did?'"

By the time that Alice Ockenhurst, pale, handsome and unexpectedly
distinguished in appearance, had finished her evidence in chief, the
moment had arrived for Pettigrew to answer that unspoken question. And
the answer, as conveyed by a cross-examination as suave as it was
pertinacious, provided the real sensation of the trial. At first the
drift of the questions was not altogether clear. The jury were plainly
puzzled, as it was intended that they should be. They realized, as
question succeeded question, that Mrs. Ockenhurst was not quite so white
as she had been painted, that she had treated her husband badly, and
perhaps Fred Palmer too. Indeed, if all that was being suggested to her
was true, she had been playing fast and loose with Palmer. The gentleman
was making out that she was a light woman and wanting to be rid of him
to take up with someone else. Certainly it did seem to put the matter in
a rather different light, but still. . . .

"Are you suggesting, Mr. Pettigrew," said his lordship suddenly, "that
this witness murdered the deceased?"

From the point of view of the defence, it was the wrong question, asked
at the wrong time and in the wrong tone of voice. A plan of campaign,
thought out with infinite pains and being executed with great skill, was
violently disorganized. Pettigrew had set himself to instil into the
jurors' minds by slow degrees a suspicion which might lead them to a
rational doubt of his client's guilt. Sooner or later, the accusation
against the wife would have to be made, but not until her composure had
been sapped by a multitude of cleverly designed attacks, her credit
weakened by a score of forced admissions on minor matters. By then, the
jury would have been prepared to believe the worst of a woman already
exposed as a worthless character. But at this point, the naked
accusation, abruptly plumped down before them, obviously shocked and
frightened them.

"My lord," said Pettigrew with such calmness as he could command, "it is
no part of my duty to suggest that anybody is guilty of this offence. My
submission will be, at the proper time, that the prosecution have not
proved to the reasonable satisfaction of the jury that the prisoner is
guilty. I am entitled to put such questions to the witness as will
assist the jury in coming to that conclusion."

"No doubt," said the Shaver drily, "but certain suggestions have been
made to this witness that, to my mind, at least, can lead only to one
result. In justice to her, if to nobody else, they should be made
plainly. However, if you are reluctant to put the question, I will do so
myself: 'Mrs. Ockenhurst, did you kill Palmer?'"

"No, my lord."

"Very well. Go on, Mr. Pettigrew."

And Mr. Pettigrew, sick at heart, went on. The art of cross-examination
is pre-eminently the art of timing. The question that would be deadly if
asked at its proper place in the sequence falls completely flat if
interjected out of its turn. That was what had happened here. Moreover,
the Judge's interposition had forewarned the witness what was coming.
She had time to brace herself to meet the blow, and when it came she met
it with perfect composure.

And that, as Pettigrew and Babbington, talking over the case afterwards,
agreed, was the real turning point of the trial. It continued to be hard
fought up to the end, but the jury never forgot, and Barber in his
summing-up did not allow them to forget, the impression that a baseless
accusation had been made against a wronged (and, incidentally, extremely
good-looking) woman. Next to his wife's evidence, perhaps what really
contributed most to Ockenhurst's conviction was his own. She had made an
excellent witness. He, ugly, hulking, slow-witted and obviously
insincere, was a very bad one. None the less, the issue still hung in
the balance when the concluding stages of the trial were reached.
Babbington's final speech was a masterpiece. It was reasoned, cogent and
perfectly fair. Only in its closing passages did he insensibly allow his
leaning for the dramatic to get a little the better of him. There was a
trace too much warmth in those periods, too much energy in those
gestures to be quite in place for counsel for the Crown. It was not
Babbington's fault, it was the way he was made. With whatever good
intentions he might start, by the time he had been long on his feet the
old daemon would take possession of him, and he would once more be
Babbington of Magdalen, President of the O.U.D.S. and destined, so
everyone believed, to a tremendous career on the boards.

Pettigrew, jotting indecipherable notes on the paper in front of him,
wondered whether he dared to use the exordium with which he had once
blown Babbington sky high in a libel action:

             _As in a theatre, the eyes of men_
             _After a well-graced actor leaves the stage,_
             _Are idly bent on him that enters next----_

He looked at the jury. No, they wouldn't relish Shakespeare. They would
think it flippant, too, and for once he must abjure flippancy. Damn it,
this case was serious, in all conscience. It was absurd, at his time of
life, to feel nervous about a case, but on this occasion he positively
did. He wished he didn't want so desperately to get his man off, and he
wished too that he didn't feel that he was battling against odds, one
man against three--Babbington, now mopping his face after his exertions,
the prisoner himself, his villainous face his own worst enemy, and the
Shaver, sitting tight-lipped above him.

Wisely, he made no attempt to outdo Babbington in eloquence. The amount
of rhetoric which any audience can absorb at a given time, as Pettigrew
well knew, is strictly limited; and this particular audience was drugged
not only by the flow of words to which it had been subjected, but by the
foul air which it had breathed for the last three days. If he had
subjected them now to an emotional appeal, the jury would merely have
sunk back in a bemused trance from which they would have emerged with a
deep respect for the learned gentleman's gift of the gab but no notion
of what the defence was. Some great reputations have been made by
speeches delivered in like circumstances, but a surprisingly high
proportion of those on whose behalf they were made have been executed.
So on this occasion the usual roles of prosecutor and defender were
reversed. Pettigrew was dry, unemotional, at times almost
conversational. And before long, he was aware that his method was having
its effect. The jury, disappointed at first that they were not going to
be treated to another fine speech, began to sit up and take notice. They
found to their own surprise that they were beginning to think. And
little by little, in plain, commonplace phrases, Pettigrew spun a thread
that led them to think upon the lines he wished.

And then came disaster--disaster in such trivial, unheroic guise that
probably not more than half a dozen people in Court knew it for what it
was. Pettigrew was discussing the evidence of the threats alleged to
have been made by the prisoner against the deceased, and dealing
seriatim with what he suggested were a few hasty words, recollected long
after the event by unreliable witnesses and exaggerated out of all
recognition in the telling. "And then we come," he said, "to Mr.
Greetham's evidence. He said, you will remember, that he met the
prisoner outside his forge on the Monday before the night of the
tragedy, and----"

"Tuesday," interjected Barber suddenly. "It was on the Monday that Mr.
Rodwell saw the knife. Mr. Greetham's evidence relates to the Tuesday,
the day following."

"I'm obliged to your lordship," said Pettigrew, somewhat nettled by the
interruption. "Members of the Jury, you will recollect the incident of
which I am speaking. Monday or Tuesday, it makes no difference, but Mr.
Greetham----"

"I think it does make a difference," Barber persisted. "In a case of
this gravity, it is important to be accurate above all things. My note
distinctly says Tuesday: Sir Henry, do you recollect which it was?"

Sir Henry, with deep regret, did not, and said so.

"My note says Tuesday," the Shaver repeated. "Of course, I may be wrong,
but----"

At this point, Mr. Greetham himself rose from his seat in the obscurity
at the back of the Court and tried to make an observation, but was
indignantly shushed into silence.

"My lord, whether Monday or Tuesday----" Pettigrew began.

"I think it would be as well to ascertain exactly what the witness did
say, since we seem to be at variance. Mr. Shorthand Writer, will you be
good enough to turn up your notes of Mr. Greetham's evidence and give us
his exact words?"

There followed an embarrassed silence while the shorthand writer
struggled with a mass of paper and finally, after several false starts,
succeeded in finding the passage he wanted.

"It was on a Monday or a Tuesday, I am not sure which but I think it was
Tuesday," he read in a thin Cockney voice.

"Ah! 'I think it was Tuesday.' Thank you, Mr. Shorthand Writer. Proceed,
Mr. Pettigrew."

The whole incident had not lasted more than two or three minutes, but it
had been enough fatally to break the thread of Pettigrew's discourse.
Worse still, it had broken the invisible thread that binds speaker and
listener together. The relationship which with such care he had been
building up between himself and his hearers was dissipated and all was
to do again. It would have mattered less if he had been less nervous,
less anxious not to put a foot wrong on the difficult path which he had
to tread. That the interruption had been so irrelevant and unnecessary
added to his annoyance. The fact that it had come from Barber, of all
men, irritated him profoundly. He had appeared in his time before judges
who simply could not stop talking. Words bubbled from them irresistibly,
whether in the middle of the speech for the defence on a capital charge
or on less grave occasions. For them he had learned to make allowances,
to bear with equanimity a burden which fell upon everybody's shoulders
as much as on his own. But Father William was not ordinarily a talkative
judge. During the course of this particular trial he had said little,
and that to the point. This meaningless and aggravating incursion might
have been made expressly for the object of putting him, Pettigrew, out
of his stride.

It was a badly rattled Pettigrew that resumed his speech when the
question of Mr. Greetham had been settled at last. And a badly rattled
man does not make a good speech. Having once allowed himself to be
caught out in a minor inaccuracy, he became nervously anxious over small
points of detail, and in consequence naturally found himself making
further blunders of equal insignificance, each of which was gravely
corrected from the Bench. The jury, he was aware, began to lose
interest. He could feel them slipping away from him as the clock ticked
on. If he had had at his command Babbington's mighty organ stops of
eloquence, it might still have been possible to recover them with a
burst of fine phrases in his peroration. But he could not do it. He gave
them all he had--sincerity, plain speaking, an argument closely knit. He
had done his best, but he sat down at last, discouraged and with a
sickening sense of inadequacy.

Barber's summing up was a masterly performance. Pettigrew, who read and
re-read it later when he was seeking to find grounds on which to launch
an appeal, had to admit that, technically speaking, it was faultless.
Yet nobody who heard it delivered could doubt that essentially it was a
strong recommendation to the jury to convict. And the recommendation was
conveyed largely by means which did not appear on the shorthand note--by
subtle inflections of the voice, by pregnant pauses, by expressive
glances.

Perhaps the most deadly moment in the summing-up, from the point of view
of the defence, came near its end. The Shaver had reserved till the last
consideration of the theory that the prisoner's wife was in fact the
guilty person. He discussed the suggestion in clear, cold phrases that,
read afterwards, seemed quite colourless and academic; but the tone of
scorn which he injected into them left no doubt as to what he thought of
it, and what he desired the jury to think. Finally, with the only
dramatic gesture that he allowed himself during the course of his
observations, he picked up from the desk in front of him the home-made
dagger which had figured so prominently in the case and displayed it to
the jury.

"It has been argued," he grated, holding up the wicked little object,
its blade still rusty with poor Fred Palmer's blood, "it has been argued
that this is not the kind of weapon that one might expect a blacksmith
to use if he were minded to commit murder. You are twelve reasonable men
and women of the world, and you can judge for yourselves whether that is
a reasonable argument or not. This at least you do know, because it has
been proved in evidence and the defence has not sought to deny it, that
it is the kind of weapon that a blacksmith might make, and that this
particular blacksmith did in fact make this particular weapon. For what
purpose? You have heard his explanation, and it is for you to say
whether it satisfies you. And you may go further, and ask yourselves
whether it is the sort of weapon that Mrs. Ockenhurst, whom you have
seen in the witness-box, would be likely to use; or whether she is the
sort of woman likely to use a weapon of any kind. It is entirely a
matter for you, but if you are satisfied upon the rest of the evidence
that the prosecution are right in pointing to the prisoner as the man
responsible for the death of the deceased, I do not think that you will
attach much weight to the circumstance that the means by which he
elected to fulfil his criminal purpose, instead of being one of the
hundred and one means that might have been chosen, happened to
be--this."

The dagger fell to the desk with a little clatter.

A few general words completed the summing-up, and the jury retired.

                 *        *        *        *        *

Three quarters of an hour later, all was over. The crowded court had
emptied itself, the jury were on their several ways home and the
prisoner was on his way to the condemned cell. The Clerk of Assize was
wrangling about the costs of the prosecution and the witnesses in the
case were impatiently waiting until the wrangle should have settled
itself and the County Treasurer be at liberty to pay them their
expenses. Babbington and his Junior were gossiping over the case in the
robing-room and the Judge was enjoying the cup of tea which Greene had
ready for him in his room behind the bench. In the court itself the
police officers in charge of the case were clearing up the _dbris_ of
the trial.

"That's all the lot, then," said a cheerful sergeant, cramming a
bloodstained waistcoat into a bulging suitcase. "All except Exhibit 4.
Have you seen Exhibit 4 anywhere, Tom?"

"Which is that, Sergeant?" asked his assistant.

"Why, the blinking knife that made all the trouble, of course. Where is
it?"

"Must be up on the bench still. His lordship was waving it about when I
saw it last. I'll have a look."

But the bench was bare of everything except a few torn scraps of paper.

"I expect it got mixed up with his books and things," said the sergeant.
"Ask that clerk of his if he's seen it."

Beamish was sent for, and made his appearance in very ill-humour.

"Everything that came up on to the bench came down off the bench," he
said testily. "It's no part of my business to dry nurse the police.
There aren't any exhibits up here, nor in his lordship's pockets
neither. You must find your own nasty knives. I'm off home."

"That's funny, then," said the sergeant good-humouredly, after he had
gone. "I could have sworn the Judge had it last. Not that I mind what's
become of it, but we ought to account for it. Perhaps Sir Henry took a
fancy to it?"

But Sir Henry, who was caught just as he left the Court, was equally
ignorant, though a good deal more polite about it than Beamish had been.

"I remember now," Tom said. "I heard Mr. Pettigrew's solicitor asking
him whether he'd like it for a souvenir."

"That's it!" said the sergeant. "I saw him going up to the bench when
the Judge went out after his summing-up. I'll just ask him to make
sure."

But Pettigrew was not to be found anywhere. He had left the court
immediately after the jury had returned their verdict and subsequent
inquiries showed that he had left the town also.

"Well, that's that," said the sergeant resignedly. "Wherever it is, it's
gone. It isn't worth worrying about, and I don't expect anybody will
ever ask any questions about it."

Events were to prove him a false prophet.




                              Chapter 19
                         THE END OF THE CIRCUIT


There was an end-of-term atmosphere at dinner in the lodgings that
evening. The peripatetic little household, so often dissolved, so often
renewed against a fresh background, was now to break up for good and
all. It was an occasion at once joyful and mildly sentimental, to which
each member of the party reacted in a different way. Savage, without
going so far as to be cheerful, laid aside his usual cloak of gloom.
Greene, after being presented by Derek with the guinea which immutable
custom prescribes as the due of the Marshal's man, had become positively
talkative about the near approach of Christmas and waited at table with
the air of a kindly ministering angel. Derek himself had his own reasons
for being glad that his period of exile was over.

For Hilda, although she doubtless had troubles enough to look forward
to, the fact that the Circuit with all its dangers and misadventures had
ended without disaster was, she confessed to Derek, the one thing that
mattered. She felt that it was a result upon which they could properly
congratulate themselves and each other and one which had earned a mild
celebration. Mrs. Square, without seeking for reasons, rejoiced that her
ladyship had at last seen fit to order a dinner that was a dinner, and
the resulting meal, if not quite on the lavish scale of her banquets at
Markhampton and Southington, was a good deal more in the true Circuit
tradition than its predecessors for some time back.

After dinner, one of the last rites of the Circuit remained to be
performed. This was that known as "settling the circuit accounts". Among
his other multifarious duties, a judge's clerk on circuit acts as what
in even more exalted circles is known as a Comptroller to his employer.
The degree of responsibility enjoyed by him in this capacity naturally
varies with the individuals concerned. With Barber, as careless of his
personal affairs as he was punctilious over legal technicalities,
settling the accounts had been reduced to a very simple formula. On the
last day of the Circuit, Beamish would leave upon his desk a neatly kept
account book and a bundle of receipted bills and cheque counterfoils.
With them would be a short balance sheet, showing the amounts expended,
cheques cashed during the progress of the Circuit and the sum now
necessary to balance the account. The Judge would glance at this last,
groan heavily, sign the cheque already drawn for him, and return the
whole mass of documents to Beamish. The whole process usually took about
a minute and a half.

This time, however, matters did not go according to precedent. The fact
that she had allowed herself a certain extravagance over dinner had not
blinded Hilda to the pressing need for economy which had obsessed her
for so long. Rather it had by reaction stimulated her to an even
livelier appreciation of the value of money than ever. Consequently,
when on entering the drawing-room she saw the usual little pile of
papers neatly laid out with the cheque awaiting signature beside it, she
forestalled her husband before he could reach for his pen and said
firmly, "I'll go through these first, William, if you don't mind."

Barber uttered a mild protest, to which no attention at all was paid. A
minute later Hilda was sitting at the desk, subjecting every item of the
accounts to a severe and rigid scrutiny. For nearly half an hour she
toiled, checking figures and verifying additions with the air of a
professional auditor. At the end of that time she looked up, and said:

"William, there are one or two items here which I don't altogether
understand."

The Judge reluctantly put down the book he was reading and came over to
her side. As he did so, he gave Derek a look that said: "This is the
kind of thing one must expect when women start concerning themselves in
matters they don't understand." Such at least was the interpretation
which Derek, who was beginning to feel himself an expert in meaning
looks, put upon it. It cannot be positively asserted that Barber
succeeded in conveying this rather complicated sentiment by expression
alone.

It is always a little embarrassing for a third person when a married
couple discuss their financial affairs in his presence; and Derek
scrupulously refrained from listening to the colloquy that ensued. But
he could not avoid hearing a good deal of it, and it was only too
apparent that from the start the Judge was undergoing something very
like a stringent cross-examination. Moreover, before very long it was
borne in on Derek that he was not standing up to it very well. Clearly,
there were quite a number of things that were wrong in the accounts.
Equally clearly, they were things which his lordship was quite unable to
explain. Finally, Hilda reached an item near the end of the account
which caused her to exclaim: "But this is outrageous!" And the Judge had
nothing to say in reply but:

"Well, my dear, I know that I gave Beamish a cheque."

"You gave Beamish a cheque!" said her ladyship scornfully. "You mean,
you signed whatever he chose to put before you!"

"But, I was going on to say, I certainly didn't think it was for as much
as that. I think", he went on, in a rather firmer voice, "that this is a
matter which Beamish should be asked to explain."

"Wait a minute, before you do anything else. Have you got your paid
cheques here? You should have."

"Yes. You will recollect that you asked me to get my passbook from the
bank while we were at Whitsea. I have it here."

"Let me see." Hilda took the book, and turned rapidly over the bundle of
paid cheques. She pulled out one and scrutinized it carefully. "This
cheque has been altered!" she pronounced. "Do you see? the 'ty' of sixty
is in a different coloured ink from the rest, and an extra nought has
been added on to the figures. When Beamish gave you this to sign it was
for six pounds only. Now it reads for sixty. He has defrauded you of
fifty-four pounds and faked the account to hide it. And if I hadn't
insisted on going through the figures----"

"Marshal, will you touch the bell?" said the Judge with awful calm. "And
Hilda, you will please be good enough to leave me to deal with this
matter myself."

Savage answered the bell, and was ordered to tell Beamish that his
presence was required immediately. It seemed to those who waited quite a
long time before Beamish made his appearance. When he came in he had a
rather dishevelled air and his face and hands were dirty. But more than
this, Derek noticed something about his expression which put him in mind
of the occasion at Rampleford when he had been so unexpectingly
confiding. And when he spoke there was a distinct trace of huskiness in
his mellifluous baritone.

"I must apologize for being so dirty, my lord," he said. "But I've been
packing up the books and things."

He advanced with steps that were rather too carefully steady towards the
desk, where the cheque to balance the account should normally have been
awaiting him.

"Beamish!" said the Judge in a tone that brought him up short in his
tracks. "Will you be good enough to explain the meaning of this?"

And he extended at arm's length the paid cheque for sixty pounds.

"This cheque, my lord?" Beamish said flatly, taking it from him. He
looked stupified, standing in the middle of the room, turning it over
and over in his dirty hands.

"I wish to know how it comes about that that cheque is made out for
sixty pounds."

"I'm sure I couldn't say off-hand, my lord. It's all in the account
there, I've no doubt."

"Do you desire any time to consider your answer? If so, you are at
liberty to take these papers away with you and give such explanation as
you can to-morrow. I must tell you now, however, that the cheque you are
holding bears signs of having been altered. Do you wish to consider?"

Beamish did not lift his eyes. He was still studying the piece of paper,
which he held in one hand while with the other he ruffled his normally
sleek dark hair. By now, he was visibly swaying on his feet.

"No," he muttered in a low voice. "I don't think it would be any use."

"Do you mean that you have no explanation to offer?"

This time Beamish lifted his head and answered in a loud, almost defiant
voice, "I mean just that, my lord."

"You are dismissed," said Barber in a tone in which sorrow and sternness
were mingled.

Beamish opened his mouth as if to say something, evidently thought
better of it, and walked with faltering footsteps to the door.

And there the ugly little episode might have ended if Barber had not
been moved by some evil genius to speak again.

"Beamish!" he said just as the clerk reached the door.

Beamish turned and stood silently looking at him. He still wore the same
dazed expression, but the colour was beginning to come back into his
cheeks, and his mouth was set in a firm, hard line.

"I am not at all sure," said his lordship, "that it is not my duty to
prosecute you. But I do not propose to do so. I do not wish to add to
the punishment that you have brought upon yourself by your criminal
misconduct. You have betrayed the trust--the implicit trust--which I,
perhaps foolishly, have placed in you over a number of years. Whether
this is an isolated incident or not, I shall not seek to determine. The
blow that it has been to me to find faithlessness where I had expected
faith is not to be measured by the amounts or the numbers of your
defalcations. Neither shall I inquire into the reasons which led one in
your position to jeopardize everything a man should hold dear for the
sake of----"

"That's enough!" Beamish shouted suddenly.

There was a horrified silence.

"You're not going to treat me to one of your blasted sermons," he went
on truculently. "I'm not in the dock now, and if I ever get there, it
won't be you that tries me, that's certain, thank God! I'm sacked, I
know that. Well, what of it? I'm not the only one that's due for the
sack, that's all. I shouldn't have kept this lousy job for another six
months anyway, and you know it! You're a fine one to talk about not
prosecuting as if it was a favour. You ought to be in the dock yourself,
and if there wasn't one law for the rich and one for the poor, that's
where you would have been."

"Be silent!" roared the Judge.

"Prosecute me?" Beamish went on, undeterred. "You daren't! Just you try
it, that's all. There's a lot I could say about the goings on on this
Circuit if you did, about you and that fine lady of yours who put you up
to this. And you won't be a judge by the time my trial comes on, don't
you forget it. I'm not the only one that knows things, I can tell you.
I----"

"Leave the room at once!"

"All right, my old cock, I'm going. But just don't you forget this.
You've had plenty of warnings, and here's the last of them. _You've got
something coming to you!_"

And the door banged behind him.

                 *        *        *        *        *

It was a subdued party that returned to London next day. It would be
hard to say in which part of the train the atmosphere was more
oppressive--in the third class carriage where Savage, Greene and Mrs.
Square discussed the downfall of their colleague in shocked whispers, or
in the first class one where Derek, Hilda and Barber sat in embittered
silence. The tension was aggravated by a number of minor mishaps which
marred the normally smooth transit of the King's representative from one
place to another. Such mundane matters as the taking of tickets, the
provision of porters, the proper bestowal of luggage, which had been
managed with such slick efficiency by Beamish that they had appeared to
be performed of themselves, now obtruded themselves with disagreeable
insistence. Savage, when appealed to, protested with humility but
firmness that it was not his place to do a clerk's work, and Derek in
the end had to attend to most of these affairs himself. He made a number
of minor blunders, which the Judge, wrapped in a gloom alleviated only
by slabs of milk chocolate, did not seem to notice and which Hilda bore
with martyred resignation.

The journey was over at last. Derek had seen the pair into a taxi and
watched them drive away--a worried elderly gentleman and his young and
handsome wife. The Commission was over and His Majesty's alter-ego was
no more, until the next Circuit--if there was to be another Circuit.

His train home was from the same station, and he had an hour or so to
wait. He told his porter to put his luggage in the cloakroom and was
just moving in that direction when a quiet voice spoke at his elbow:

"I wonder whether you can spare me a moment or two, sir?"

Derek turned round in surprise. A moment before he had been looking in
that direction and he could have sworn that nobody was there. Moreover,
in the bare expanse of the station, there was no cover to hide anyone,
let alone the huge man who now strolled beside him. He seemed to have
materialized out of nowhere. It was a disconcerting habit of Inspector
Mallett, and one of which he alone knew the secret.

Derek explained that he had some time to kill.

"I thought you would be catching the 12.45 if you were going straight
home," observed the inspector. "That will just give us time for a quiet
chat, if you've no objection."

Mallett's tone was so casual that it did not strike Derek at the time as
at all remarkable that his probable movements should be known to
Scotland Yard. When, later on, he realized it, he was conscious of an
uncomfortably cold feeling down his spine. But by then it was far too
late to do anything about it.

He walked with the inspector to the cloakroom in silence. He wondered
where in the echoing din of the terminus it was proposed that they
should have a quiet chat. But Mallett had thought of this also.

"The stationmaster has been kind enough to lend us his room," he said,
and led the way into a quiet little office.

"I saw your little party got back all right," he went on, as he sat down
and began to fill his pipe. "All except the Judge's clerk, I noticed.
What's happened to him?"

"He isn't the Judge's clerk any more. He was dismissed last night. For
embezzlement."

Mallett's face, so far as it could be seen through a thickening cloud of
tobacco smoke, showed no surprise.

"That would explain it," was his only comment.

He smoked in silence for a moment or two. Then he said, "Well, Mr.
Marshall, the last time we met we were discussing unpleasantness on the
Circuit of a rather different kind. Lady Barber was decidedly anxious
about it then. I haven't heard anything further about it since from her.
But it did occur to me to wonder whether anything had happened at all
abnormal during the rest of the Circuit, and I thought perhaps you could
help me."

"I'm not sure that I know what you mean by abnormal," said Derek. "You
see, I've never been on a Circuit before, so I hardly know what to
expect."

Mallett took the evasion in good part.

"Oh, well, you know the sort of thing I mean," he said. "There was that
anonymous letter at Rampleford, for instance----"

"You know about that?"

"Surely. In fact, I've got it about me somewhere, I think." He pulled
out a wallet bursting with papers from the inside pocket of his coat.
"The Judge sent it back to the Rampleford Police as soon as he got to
Whitsea and they sent it on to us."

"I didn't know he'd done that," said Derek.

"Didn't you? Well it's only to be expected that he should. He's been
just a little nervous of anonymous letters ever since Markhampton, you
see. But there's no reason why he should mention it to you, after all. I
dare say there was a good deal that went on which you wouldn't know
about."

"I should think I knew a good deal more than the Judge about what went
on," said Derek rashly.

"Well, it's very satisfactory to hear that," said Mallett. "Because,
after all, that's just what I was after. What exactly did go on?" Then,
seeing that Derek was still hesitating, he added, "I shall be having a
talk with her ladyship shortly, of course. Only I thought it would be a
good plan to get the point of view of an outsider, so to speak, and by
catching you now I can get it while it's still fresh in your mind."

Derek had had a vague idea that he should not, in Hilda's absence, say
anything to anybody about the misadventures of the latter part of the
Circuit, but the inspector's last words effectually loosened his tongue;
and by the time that his train came in he had told him everything that
he remembered. Indeed, as he settled back into the unaccustomed
discomfort of his third-class carriage, he had leisure to reflect with
surprise on how much he had remembered. Under the inspector's tactful
guidance he had found that all sorts of details had returned to his
memory which left to himself he would never have thought of. Not that
any words had been put into his mouth. On the contrary, nothing could
have been less like a cross-examination than was the friendly interview
just concluded. It was simply that by some kind of instinct Inspector
Mallett seemed to know exactly what was missing from any description or
account, for all the world as though he had been there himself, so that
his questions always came pat to stimulate the sluggish memory. And the
questions had been surprisingly few. For the most part he had been
content to listen in silence. To Derek's surprise, he had taken no
notes. None the less, he was perfectly certain that nothing he had said
would go unremarked. He had had the impression of feeding facts into a
sort of machine, which would in due course produce--what sort of
finished product, he wondered?

                 *        *        *        *        *

About the same time next day, Mallett was making his report to the
Assistant Commissioner who ruled his department.

"I saw Lady Barber this morning, sir," he was saying. "Her story is very
much the same as Mr. Marshall's, with one or two variations."

"That's to be expected," said the Assistant Commissioner. "But were any
of the variations at all important?"

"Only one seemed to me significant. She made no mention at all of the
dead mouse incident."

"Indeed? Did you ask her about it?"

Mallett smiled.

"No, sir. On the whole I thought it better not to."

"I suppose it did happen? Or do you think that boy could have invented
it?"

"No, I shouldn't say he has a very inventive mind. I think it happened
all right."

"Then why should she have suppressed it?"

"I think, sir, mainly because it didn't fit in with her theory about the
rest of the affair."

"Well, that's only human nature, I suppose. What is her theory,
exactly?"

"It isn't one theory precisely," Mallett explained. "There are several.
Her favourite one is still that all these different incidents are the
work of Heppenstall."

"Then you didn't tell her----?"

"No, sir. If you recollect, we agreed at the time that no mention should
be made of Heppenstall's arrest until after the Circuit was over. I
ventured to extend the time a little so far as these two persons were
concerned, because I thought it would only start putting ideas into
their heads--and after all, it is facts we're after just now, and not
ideas, isn't it, sir?"

The Assistant Commissioner nodded. Then he said, with a sigh, "It's an
odd position altogether. You don't think it advisable to try to get a
statement from the Judge himself?"

"In the circumstances, no, sir. There is only one other person I should
like to talk to--for various reasons."

"You mean Beamish, I suppose?"

"Exactly, sir. I dare say we shall be able to pick him up before long.
He must be short of money."

The Assistant Commissioner smiled and glanced at a file of papers in
front of him.

"Yes," he said. "I've just been going through the report on the affairs
of Corky's Night Club. The raid there must have hit him pretty hard."

"I fancy that was where all his savings, legal and otherwise, have been
going for a long time," said Mallett. "It's a funny sort of sideline for
a judge's clerk, isn't it? He certainly covered his tracks pretty well.
Even the manager didn't know who his principal was. I think that the
closing of the club has left him badly in debt, and that would explain
why he tried to help himself to a slice of the Judge's money in the
rather crude way he did."

"No doubt. Well, that's a side issue, really. What I am mainly
interested in is this series of attacks on the Judge. What is your
theory about it?"

The inspector was silent.

"You have one, haven't you?" said his superior reproachfully.

"Well, yes, sir, I have," Mallett said hesitantly. "Only I'm afraid
you'll think it rather ridiculous. I mean, I think I know what the facts
are, but I can't understand the reason for them. And without the reason,
it just makes nonsense. Logically, it's sound, but psychologically it's
all wrong. Unless, of course, we're dealing here with one of these funny
mental cases which----"

"That's enough!" said the Assistant Commissioner. "We're policemen, not
mental specialists. Cut the cackle, and tell me what your notion is."

Mallett did so.

"Absurd!" was the comment.

"Yes, sir," said Mallett meekly.

"Quite absurd!"

"I agree, sir."

The two of them contemplated the absurdity together in silence for a
full half minute.

"And suppose you are right" said the Assistant Commissioner abruptly,
"what is to be done?"

"Nothing, sir."

"Nothing?"

"Nothing at all, sir. Logically, it seems to me to follow that all these
threats, attacks and so forth which have recurred so regularly all
through the Circuit will stop now that the Circuit is over, and the
particular--er--predisposing cause is removed."

"I only hope you're right. We can't afford to take any risks where a man
of this sort is concerned. You really think he is safe from now on?"

"No, sir. I don't go so far as that. I wouldn't care to say that of any
man, let alone Mr. Justice Barber. All I do say is that if any danger
does threaten him it will be from a different quarter altogether.
Unless, of course, there's some element in the whole story which we
don't know about. But you are the best judge of that, sir. I've given
you all the facts and I think they are complete."

"Thank you, Mallett. You have told me a most extraordinary story, and
propounded a most ridiculous theory to account for it. I accept the
story, of course, and I'm hanged if I can see any flaws in the theory.
That being so, I can only hope that your prophecy is equally sound. What
about Mr. Justice Barber's next Circuit, by the way? Have you any
prophecy about that?"

"I understand that he is one of the judges to stay in town next term,"
said the inspector. "And after that----"

The two men looked at each other with pursed lips and understanding
eyes. Both were well aware that Barber's judicial career hung upon a
thread.




                              Chapter 20
                              TOUCH AND GO


About two months later, Derek Marshall was walking eastwards along the
south side of the Strand. He was just opposite the Law Courts when he
noticed Pettigrew crossing the road towards him, accompanied by his
clerk. Pettigrew waved to him to stop and a moment later reached the
pavement at his side.

It was the first time that they had met since the end of the autumn
circuit, and each looked at the other as though to see how he had fared
in an interval that was nearly as long as their previous acquaintance
had been. Pettigrew was pleased by what he saw. Derek looked older, more
assured. There were unfamiliar lines about his face that seemed to tell
of long hours of hard work, but at the same time he looked decidedly
happier than he had been dancing attendance on the Shaver. Derek, on his
side, noticed that Pettigrew was looking extremely pleased with himself.
There was a jauntiness in his gait which was matched by the demeanour of
his clerk, who was grinning broadly beneath the burden of a large bundle
of papers and half a dozen calf-bound books.

"Well," he said after they had exchanged greetings, "and what are you up
to now? To what fields have you carried your idealism?"

"I've got a job," said Derek proudly.

"So much I gathered from your almost aggressive air of importance. What
is it? Obviously you must be adorning some Ministry or other. I always
knew that you were born to write ingenious little minutes on official
files."

"I'm in the Ministry of Contracts," Derek explained.

"I breathe again. For a moment, I was afraid you were going to say the
Ministry of Information. And what are you doing just at this moment?"

Derek explained that he had come out for lunch.

"The office is just round the corner," he said. "And as I don't know
this part very well, I thought I would go and try the----"

He named an establishment which journalists are fond of referring to in
print as "a celebrated hostelry" but which in practice they are careful
to avoid.

"That place!" said Pettigrew in horror. "My dear fellow, it is obvious
that you don't know this part of London. It's bogus, completely bogus!
Even the Americans had begun to tumble to it before the war. No, I can't
allow that. You must celebrate the new job by lunching with me."

"It's very kind of you," Derek began, "but----"

"I won't listen to any objections. Do you always have to have
hospitality forced on you in this way? Besides, this will be a double
celebration. I too have my little triumphs, ephemeral though they be.
This morning", he said proudly, as he led the way beneath an ancient
brick archway, "I've been upsetting Hilda."

"Upsetting Hilda?"

"Precisely. In the Court of Appeal. Don't tell me you have forgotten the
great cause at Southington Assizes? Between you and me and this
gatepost--which, by the way, is not Christopher Wren's, as the
guide-books will tell you, but James Gibb's--Hilda's judgment, as
rendered by Father William, was perfectly sound, but I contrived to
persuade their lordships otherwise. Here we are."

Derek had never been in the Temple before. He gaped like any tourist at
the mellow, placid Courts, ghost-haunted by the illustrious dead, which
next year were to vanish into ugly heaps of charred timber and
brickdust. After a lunch eaten beneath the famous carved rafters of
Outer Temple Hall, he fell in with Pettigrew's suggestion of a digestive
stroll twice round the as yet inviolate garden, which sloped down
towards the river. The charm of his surroundings, his congenial company
and the excellent meal combined to loosen his tongue, and before they
had completed their first circuit he had confided to Pettigrew the
reason why, apart from his new-found employment, he found life
particularly good at the moment.

Pettigrew was ideally sympathetic.

"Engaged!" he exclaimed. "Engaged, as well as employed! You certainly
don't do things by halves. My congratulations! You must tell me all
about her."

This Derek, in halting tones but with suitable enthusiasm, proceeded to
do.

"Splendid, splendid!" Pettigrew ejaculated at intervals as the portrait,
admittedly imperfect, of a she-seraph gradually unfolded itself.
"Splendid! All the same----" he stopped abruptly and looked narrowly at
his companion. "I may be wrong, but you don't look to me quite as
cock-a-hoop as in the circumstances you should. Care sits upon that
brow. Are the minutes at the Ministry really as troublesome as all that?
Or can it be that there is a snag somewhere?"

Derek, at once annoyed at having given himself away and relieved at
being able to share his anxieties, admitted that in truth a snag
existed.

"It's nothing to do with Sheila, really," he hastened to explain. "It's
her father. You see, he's in rather bad trouble. With the police."

Pettigrew clicked his tongue sympathetically.

"That sort of thing doesn't make matters easier with one's own family,"
he observed.

"No, of course not. Though Mother's been awfully good about it. Anyhow,
it's not anything dishonest, or really bad like that. But he knocked a
man down with his car----"

"Well, well! Even judges have been known to do that, as we know."

"Yes. But this is worse in a way, because now the wretched man has died,
and they are going to prosecute him for manslaughter."

"Bad luck--very bad luck. But I shouldn't let it worry you too much.
There's many a slip, you know. Any lawyer will tell you that the
percentage of convictions for motor manslaughter is lower than for any
other offence. Besides, juries in wartime don't consider human life
quite so important as in times of peace. And who shall blame them?
Still, it's an unfortunate business, and you have my sympathy. Which
reminds me," he went on, as though anxious to change the subject, "have
you been approached to give evidence in the Markhampton affair?"

"Yes," said Derek. "I had a letter from some people called Faraday
something or other. I told them I didn't want to have anything to do
with it."

"A mistake. You'll only be subpoenaed. Do as I did and give an identical
statement to both sides. But mind you, the action won't ever come into
Court. It'll have to be settled, _pro bono publico_."

Derek flushed angrily.

"It's all wrong," he muttered.

"What is?"

"That Sheila's father should be prosecuted, and that man get off scot
free, just because----"

"My dear chap, we had all this out before, you remember! Don't let your
ideals run away with you, or Heaven knows what contracts you'll be
sanctioning at the Ministry. Besides, don't forget this sort of thing
cuts both ways. I shouldn't mind betting that the Shaver is going
through a worse time at this moment than your father-in-law elect. Let
that comfort you. There are rumours floating round the Temple
that----But we'll talk about that another time. I can see that you're
champing to get back to your files. And I ought to be in my Chambers.
After this morning's miracle, anything might happen. Even a new client
calling with a brief wouldn't surprise me."

                 *        *        *        *        *

Pettigrew was right. The anxieties of an ordinary man expecting a charge
even of a serious nature in the criminal courts probably seldom reach
such acuteness as those with which Barber awaited the prospect of a
civil action for negligence. The action indeed was not yet started. By
one means or another, Hilda, to whom in his misery he had virtually
surrendered the conduct of the affair, had so far succeeded in
postponing the evil day. By proposal and counter-proposal, by every
device of delay and temporization, she and her brother contrived to keep
the matter hanging on from month to month. It was certainly a fine
delaying action, fought out with skill and tenacity, but it could be no
more than a delaying action. He knew only too well that the struggle
could end in only one of two ways--either in a resounding scandal in the
Courts, or in a settlement that would completely ruin him.

Since his return from circuit, the sequence of threats and misadventures
which had followed him had abruptly ceased. Always indifferent to
personal danger, he positively regretted the placidity of his life.
Possibly it was with this in mind that he firmly insisted on the
withdrawal of the two Scotland Yard men who for the first few weeks of
the new term ostentatiously dogged his footsteps to and from the Law
Courts. It made no difference. Nobody, it appeared, thought it worth
while to threaten his life any more, and he continued, unhappy and
unmolested, to carry out his judicial duties in a mood that grew ever
more embittered and morose.

During this period, as the hard winter began to give place to the
lovely, agonizing spring of 1940, he became acutely aware that by now
his misfortune had become more and more generally known. Since his
memorable encounter with his brother judge in the Athenum, nothing
whatever had been said in his hearing which remotely hinted at the
affair, but with nerves made more sensitive than usual by unhappiness he
could feel the knowledge of it ever present. He was conscious of
embarrassment among his fellow Benchers at the Inn when he joined them
at the High Table at lunch. He felt certain that the very ushers in his
court looked at him in a peculiar way. His new clerk--and he had
experienced unexpected difficulty in replacing Beamish--seemed to show
less than the proper respect due to him, as though he knew that he had
taken service on a sinking ship. And from time to time, as he made his
way about the Temple, he had caught sight of Beamish himself, no doubt
haunting the precincts in search of a job, and at the same time busily
engaged in spreading the poison of gossip among his former associates.

Gossip, however widespread, takes some time to permeate to official
quarters. Or possibly it may be that those who move in official quarters
prefer not to notice gossip until it has been confirmed by discreet
inquiry. For whatever cause, it was not until the last week of the law
sittings that Barber knew that his fall from grace had passed beyond the
stage of gossip to become a matter of concern to persons of high
importance. He had long been aware that this was bound to occur sooner
or later, but this did not in any way lessen the shock when a very
exalted Judicial Personage sought him out and tactfully broached the
question of his resignation.

The Personage was extremely considerate about it. He did his best to
soften the blow. He referred several times to Barber's health, which,
indeed, had distinctly deteriorated under the strain to which he had
been subjected during the past few months. At the same time, he made his
meaning only too clear. A man in Barber's position could not continue to
be a judge. If this unhappy affair could be settled quickly and finally,
well and good. The scandal might still be hushed up and forgotten before
public confidence in the administration of justice was hopelessly
shaken. But if an action should be commenced, or the matter allowed to
leak into the press--well, the Personage could not answer for the
consequences. On the whole, the Personage, who seemed surprisingly well
informed, thought the chances of an immediate settlement very remote.
Would not the best solution be to resign now, before the rot had time to
spread further? Surely Barber must see that in the interests of the
Bench as a whole, indeed of the whole fabric of British Justice. . . .

The hapless Shaver found himself pleading desperately for a reprieve. He
could not resign now, in the middle of the legal year. To do so, he
argued, would almost amount to a public confession of misconduct. It
would provoke the very scandal which everyone was so anxious to avoid.
Besides, he still had hopes of meeting his opponents half-way--indeed,
he was sure that the matter would be settled amicably at quite an early
date. In any case, he must have time to consider. . . .

The Personage continued to be considerate. He had, he protested, no
desire to exercise any undue pressure on Barber. "Indeed," he pointed
out, "constitutionally I have no power to do so. At the same
time. . . ." It boiled down to this. Subject to no writ being issued,
when the position would obviously become immediately untenable, Barber
might remain at his post until the end of the summer term. Unless by
that time the Sebald-Smith affair was dead and buried beyond all chance
of revival, then his resignation would be expected during the vacation
following.

"They can't make you resign!" Hilda's defiant words came back to him as
he made his way homewards. Couldn't they? Perhaps not, if you were as
tough and indomitable as Hilda. Not for the first time, as he dragged
his weary feet up the steps of his house and let himself in at the front
door, he wished he had her vitality, her indifference to anything but
her own ambitions and well-being. In his heart he knew that they could.
Of what avail were the constitutional safeguards, the Bill of Rights,
the cherished inviolability of his position, against _them_, whose
weapons were the irresistible pressure of public opinion, the unwritten
laws by which he and his predecessors were governed and which they
transgressed at their peril?

He ate a solitary dinner, wrapped in dejection which only increased as
the evening wore on. Hilda, as it happened, was away for the night. She
had gone down to the country to attend the wedding of her brother's
daughter, and at the same time, he suspected, to discuss with him once
more plans for the appeasement of the implacable adversary. The house
seemed cold and silent. Barber drank two glasses of port, looked at the
decanter and decided that one more glass would about empty it and that
it was not worth while preserving such a small quantity. He found that
he had underestimated the remaining contents of the decanter by more
than one half, but he finished it all the same. The effect of the drink
was only to depress him still further. When it was finished, he sat
long, staring into the mouldering embers in the grate, thinking of his
future. What future was there for an ex-High Court Judge, retired under
a cloud? When Sebald-Smith had taken his pound of flesh, how was he to
live? The Personage had made it perfectly plain that at the present
juncture it would be out of the question to ask the Treasury to sanction
the payment of a pension after only five years' service. Perhaps it
would have been different if he had been popular, like poor old
Battersby, and not merely a good judge. And he had been a good judge, he
told himself in angry defiance, ten times as capable as Battersby had
ever been. Nobody could deny that. And now, just because of a ridiculous
accident that might happen to anybody, the whole of his career was to be
shattered, and he could starve for all that anyone cared. The
hypocrites! he thought angrily, apostrophizing the whole legal system,
from the Personage down to the lowliest clerks in the Temple.

The spurt of anger died down, to be succeeded by a mood of yet deeper
depression. "This is the end," he told himself, over and over again.
"This is the end." He sat on over the remains of the fire, no longer
thinking but simply enduring, his mind a blank to everything except the
fact that his world had collapsed about him. And then, quite suddenly,
he knew what he had to do.

                 *        *        *        *        *

At the last moment Hilda decided not to stay the night away after all.
Subsequently she declared that it was her instinct which told her that
she should be at home. Nobody could ever disprove this assertion,
naturally, but it is possible to suppose that in this case instinct was
reinforced by her strong dislike for one of the relations who had also
been asked to stay and who had been given the best spare bedroom.
Whatever the cause, she left her brother's house immediately after
dinner and caught the last train to London. She had some difficulty in
finding a taxi at the station, and did not finally reach home until
nearly midnight. To her surprise, the electric light was still burning
in the drawing-room. Going in, she found her husband unconscious in his
arm-chair. An empty glass was on the floor beside him and on a table
near by were two letters in his handwriting. One was addressed to Hilda
herself, the other to the coroner.

The doctor whom, after maddening delay, she was finally successful in
summoning declared subsequently that without question Hilda's
promptitude and presence of mind alone saved her husband's life. By the
time that he arrived on the scene, everything that an unskilled person,
fortified only by recollections of the First Aid Manual, could do had
been done. It was touch and go. For half an hour she worked desperately
at artificial respiration and was almost at the point of physical
collapse when signs of life flickered back. Even in the reaction that
followed the knowledge that victory had been gained she did not lose her
head. Pale but calm, she assisted the doctor with all the steadiness of
a professional nurse, and when all was over had sufficient control of
herself to tell him a coherent and plausible story of how the affair
must have occurred. Her husband, it appeared, had been sleeping badly.
He had formed the habit of taking sleeping draughts. His
shortsightedness had led him on more than one occasion to misread the
directions on bottles of medicine. Obviously on this occasion he had
taken an overdose by accident. Did not the doctor agree?

The doctor, more impressed than ever, agreed wholeheartedly. None the
less, before he visited his convalescent patient next morning, he
thought it his duty to report the matter at the local police station. He
was an elderly practitioner, called out of retirement to take the place
of younger men on war service, but he had his wits about him. And he had
noticed out of the tail of his eye the letter to the coroner which Hilda
had left on the drawing-room table.




                              Chapter 21
                            END OF A CAREER


Hilda capped her triumph in saving her husband's life by another, less
spectacular but more difficult. By the beginning of the next term, the
Shaver was back on the bench, carrying out his duties to all outward
appearance as though nothing had happened. The tongues which had wagged
everywhere when it was published that Mr. Justice Barber was suffering
from indisposition were abruptly stilled. Everybody who professed to be
in the know had read into the announcement a forecast of his impending
resignation. His reappearance had the effect of stifling the rumours for
the time being.

By what means Hilda succeeded in injecting into her husband sufficient
vitality to enable him to carry on his normal life under the shadow of a
threat which had utterly overwhelmed him remained her own secret. It was
certainly not by appealing to the Bill of Rights. Barber had given his
word to the Personage, and he intended to keep it. Whether she had
contrived, against all the evidence, to persuade him that the position
might yet be restored by a last minute change of heart on the part of
Sebald-Smith and the woman who controlled him, or whether it was merely
that she had convinced him that the manlier course was to play the game
out to the end, the fact remained that she succeeded. The result was not
obtained without some cost to herself. During the next few weeks it was
remarked that she had grown pale and listless. It was as if she had
surrendered some of her own vital force to animate the automaton who
still went daily to and from the Courts, sat and heard argument, gravely
gave judgment as though his position was as secure as that of any live
judge, with ten years between him and his pension.

Accordingly, on a fine April morning, while the British public was
anxiously discussing remote Norwegian place-names that had with
terrifying suddenness become household words, Barber, still Mr. Justice
Barber, was driven in a hired car to the Central Criminal Court, where
it was his turn to be the presiding Judge. He did not care for the
place. The synthetic atmosphere of the Court, he would complain, always
ended by giving him a headache. For some reason of his own he even took
exception to the traditional posy of flowers, with which the City still
protects its lawgivers from the menace of gaol fever. In previous years,
he had seldom let a visit there pass without some covert expression of
his distaste. On this occasion he said nothing at all. He was being
taken to occupy one more judgment seat, to try one more case, and it was
of little consequence to him, under suspended sentence of death, where
or what it was.

Hilda, who sat beside him, was as silent as he. She regularly went to
Court with him now, as though afraid to let him out of her sight. That
morning she had hardly glanced at the newspaper. The map of Norway had
been spread before unseeing eyes. All her attention had been given to a
letter which had come by the first post. She had read it without comment
before folding it up and carefully putting it away. Barber had asked no
questions about it, or shown any sign that he was in any way interested.
Now, however, as the car crossed the traffic lights at Ludgate Circus,
he suddenly broke silence.

"You had a letter from your brother this morning, didn't you?" he asked.

"Yes," said Hilda flatly.

"What does he say?"

"Faradays have made a final offer. It is exactly the same as their last
one."

"Yes?"

"They give us until the day after to-morrow to accept it. If not they
issue their writ," Hilda went on, as the car turned the corner into the
Old Bailey. "Michael says they mean business this time."

Barber sighed. It sounded almost as if a weight had been lifted off his
shoulders. He said no more until just as the car was drawing up at the
Judge's entrance in Newgate Street. Then he said very quietly, "In that
case, Hilda, it rather looks as if this will be the last Old Bailey
Sessions I shall ever have to attend."

The policeman who opened the door of the car for him nearly forgot to
help his lordship to dismount. The appearance of her ladyship, as he
said afterwards, gave him quite a turn. She looked as though she was
about to faint. But she recovered herself and walked into the building
with a firm step.

                 *        *        *        *        *

The dock in No. 1 Court at the Old Bailey is an enormous affair. It
occupies so much floor space that from the seats behind and beside it it
is difficult to get more than a partial glimpse of what is going on at
the business end of the Court. Derek Marshall, without influence, or the
wit to employ what influence he could have mustered, had not been able
to find a seat in front of the obstruction. By attaching himself to a
friendly barrister's clerk he had managed to get inside the Court, and
here he squeezed into the end of a row rightly reserved for jurors in
waiting. He could hear well enough, but it was maddening not to be able
to see better. Above all was it maddening to be utterly out of touch
with Sheila, who was with her mother in places reserved for those with a
legitimate interest in the case. Sheila had forbidden him to come with
them, and he had perforce obeyed, but he had counted at least on being
able to give her encouragement from afar.

"Let Herbert George Bartram surrender," said the clerk, and Derek was
treated to a fine view of the back of his future father-in-law's neck as
he pleaded not guilty to the charge of feloniously killing Edward
Francis Clay. Then, after the usual preliminaries which he knew by
heart, he heard a rustle in the far right-hand corner of the Court as
counsel for the Crown rose to open what, from his experience, Derek told
himself sounded like a pretty bad case of motor manslaughter.

At the end of the day, the case was still unfinished. Derek had a
fleeting glimpse of his adored as she went away on the arm of her
father, whose bail had been renewed. On the whole, he considered, it had
not gone too badly. Remembering what Pettigrew had said to him, he felt
that the chances of an acquittal were good. He had not realized until he
came into court who the presiding judge was, and it had been a shock to
him when he heard those familiar tones creaking across the air. An
insane impulse had seized him to get up and protest that this man of all
men was not fit to try such a case. But on reflection he had to admit
that, so far, the conduct of the trial had been perfectly fair and
impartial. If anything, the Judge had leaned towards the defence.
Perhaps after all it was a blessing in disguise that had brought the
Shaver to these Sessions. Would he not, would not anybody in his
position, feel that there but for the grace of God----? This thought
comforted him until he remembered Pettigrew's account of the trial of
Heppenstall. With that, his anxieties began to return.

                 *        *        *        *        *

"Excuse me, my lord, but could your lordship allow me just a few
minutes. Just a short interview, my lord----"

Barber, on the pavement outside his house, looked round slowly. It was
some time before he could drag himself from the abstraction which had
settled upon him the moment he rose at the end of the day's sitting. He
looked at the man who addressed him with eyes that were perfectly blank
and expressionless. He might have been seeing a complete stranger.
Indeed, it was not until the pressure of Hilda's hand upon his arm
recalled him to himself that he recognized who had spoken to him. Then
in a dry, flat voice he uttered eight short words.

"I have nothing to say to you, Beamish."

It was as if a corpse had spoken. There was a dreary finality about his
tone that froze the carefully prepared supplication upon Beamish's lips.
He took one look at the weary, withdrawn face and hurried away. Not
until he had turned the corner did he so much as remember to swear. It
must be recorded that when he did he amply made up for lost time.

"I have nothing to say." It seemed to epitomize Barber's attitude
towards existence ever since he had seen Hilda reading the fatal letter
that morning. After all their arguments and wordy discussions, the
ultimate decision was taken in the fewest words possible.

"I shall send in my resignation at the end of the week," he said. "It
would inconvenience everybody if I were to retire in the middle of a
session. The work should be ended by then, and I can arrange with the
Recorder to take anything in my list that may be left over."

"Yes," she said. "That sounds the best plan."

Later he broke silence to remark, "You had better tell Michael to enter
an appearance to the writ. It may be the cheapest way out not to take
any further step and leave a sheriff's jury to assess the damage."

"I'll ask him what he thinks."

Later still, as they were going to bed, he said in a tone that was
almost tender, "I'm sorry it has ended this way, for your sake, Hilda.
It might have been better if you had let me----"

"Don't say that, William!" she answered quickly, and turned away so that
he could not see her face.

                 *        *        *        *        *

By arriving early, Derek was able to secure a rather better place for
the concluding stages of George Bartram's trial next morning. The
evidence had been finished overnight, and there remained only the
speeches and the summing-up. The effect of these was to increase his
confidence in the result. The defence was in the hands of John Fawcett
K.C., an impressive speaker, whose weakness was a tendency to be
overwhelmed by his own volubility. Derek was reminded of a jest of
Pettigrew's at the expense of "the faucet in full spate", as one
crashing period succeeded another, without pause for reflection, or, as
it seemed, even for breath. But so far as he could tell it was having
its effect on the jury, and the summing-up that succeeded it seemed tame
and ineffectual in comparison. The Shaver, indeed, spoke like a tired
man, almost as if he had lost interest in the case. As the jury filed
out, Derek was able to catch Sheila's eye. She too seemed to have lost
her strained look of anxiety, and they exchanged a glance that spoke of
a hope almost amounting to certainty.

The jury was out for over half an hour. During that time, Derek, afraid
of losing his place, was compelled to listen to the opening of another
case in which he could not feel the smallest interest. Sheila and her
mother meanwhile were engaged in close confabulation with their
solicitor in the corridor outside. At last the jury returned. Derek
strove to read in their faces what their decision could be, but in vain.
They looked as wooden as all British citizens contrive to do the moment
they undertake jury service. The proceedings in the succeeding case were
interrupted. Mr. Bartram was reinstated in the dock while his jurors
propped themselves uncomfortably in front of the box now occupied by
their successors.

A moment later the suspense was over. The foreman in a firm voice had
pronounced the blessed words, "Not Guilty", and the Clerk, as though to
make assurance double sure, had echoed, "You say that he is not guilty
and that is the verdict of you all." Derek felt like cheering. He could
see Sheila with her handkerchief to her eyes, and Mrs. Bartram turning
round to wring Fawcett by the hand.

Then ensued a pause which Derek did not at first understand. Instead of
ordering the prisoner's discharge, the Judge was indulging in a
whispered colloquy with the Clerk. Counsel for the prosecution was
exchanging words with Fawcett. What had happened? Then Derek remembered
that he had heard Mr. Jenkinson, the solicitor for the defence, say
something about a second indictment, some minor charge to follow the
main one. In the excitement of following the trial for manslaughter he
had quite forgotten about it. He had not been told what it was, and,
indeed, nobody had seemed to take it very seriously.

The Clerk, having finished his conversation with the Judge, turned round
again. The jury, who had been lingering disconsolately, looking rather
like a troupe of actors who, having finished a play in which the curtain
refused to come down, were told that their services were no longer
required. The second indictment was then read to the prisoner. It
charged him with having on such and such a day driven a motor-car at
such and such a place without possessing a valid certificate of
insurance against third party risks. He pleaded Guilty.

Little was said by counsel on either side. The offence was undisputed
and the facts had all been thoroughly threshed out during the preceding
trial. Fawcett ventured to remind his lordship of what he knew already,
the important war work which his client was performing at the time of
the offence, the strain which everybody was undergoing at the present
time and which might well lead anyone to overlook the requirements of
the Road Traffic Acts, and the defendant's immaculate character
hitherto, both as a man and a car-driver. The court fell silent while
the Judge considered his sentence. Looking up, Derek saw that Barber's
usually pale complexion was faintly pink. Suddenly he began to feel very
much afraid.

"George Herbert Bartram." The voice sounded harsher than ever. "I cannot
take the view that has been represented to me that the offence to which
you have pleaded guilty is a merely technical one, such as can be passed
over lightly. On the contrary, I regard it as a very serious offence
indeed. The consequences of the breach of this section of the
Act. . . ."

The voice grated on. Derek began to think that it would never stop. It
seemed as though Barber was deliberately working himself up to a pitch
of anger as he rehearsed and enlarged upon the heinousness of the crime.
Knowing what he did, it seemed to him a monstrous parody of justice. He
wondered why somebody did not get up and denounce this hypocrisy. In
that moment he hated Barber more than he had ever hated anyone in the
world.

If Derek had happened to be a trained psychologist, and not merely a
very young man very much in love, he could perhaps have understood the
inner meaning of the Shaver's intemperate tirade. For it was not Bartram
that he was denouncing, but himself. In his mind's eye he was the
culprit whose delinquency he was reproving. It was in a mood of
self-abasement that he magnified the grossness of his own offence, and
at the same time he was bitterly aware how small was the penalty that he
could inflict compared with the one that he was called upon to undergo.
How willingly would he have changed places with the man in the dock
before him! But Derek could know nothing of this. So far as he could
tell, Barber was simply being grotesquely unjust. As for the prisoner,
it is to be imagined that the only matter which concerned him was that
he was finally sentenced to the maximum amount prescribed by law, namely
a fine of 50 and three months imprisonment.

Derek met Sheila outside the court. Her rather prominent blue eyes were
dry, and there was a glassy look in them which he had never seen before.
Her pale face was set and her mouth was a thin, hard line. Derek had for
some time been aware that his fiance was a young woman of determined
character, but on this occasion there was a look of angry resolution
about her that positively frightened him. She was alone.

"Where is your mother?" he asked.

"She's down--down there with Daddy. I wouldn't go. It would only upset
him. She'll be going back to the hotel afterwards. Mr. Jenkinson will
look after her. I want to talk to you, Derek. No, not here. You must
give me lunch somewhere."

Derek began to explain that he had only had one day's leave from his
office and that he should be getting back, but in face of Sheila's
determination he saw that it would be useless to persist. Even at the
risk of hazarding his hard-won job he could not leave her now.

They fed miserably at the first restaurant they could find. Although she
had said that she wished to talk to him, he could not for some time get
a word out of her. When the meal was over, she looked at him for the
first time.

"What are we going to do, Derek?" she asked. She said it in a way that
made it sound less like an appeal than a challenge.

"It's not going to make any difference to us," Derek assured her, for
the twentieth time.

"Oh, us!" Sheila said impatiently. "I'm thinking of Daddy."

"I expect he'll appeal," said Derek. "It's a monstrous sentence. He
ought never to have been sent to prison."

But Sheila's thoughts had taken another turn.

"What made that brute of a judge behave in such a beastly way?" she
exclaimed. "Anybody would have thought that Daddy was a real criminal.
Listen, Derek, you know him, don't you? Can't you see him and tell him
that he's made a horrible mistake? Tell him the sort of person Daddy
really is and that he's simply got to change his mind and let him out?"

"But Sheila, I couldn't possibly! It's--it's simply not done, that sort
of thing."

"Not done!" Her tone was scornful. "What does it matter whether it's
done or not? I thought you cared for me, and I'm asking you to do it for
me, now."

"But Sheila, honestly, I can't!"

"You mean you won't. All right. I know what that means. It's all very
well for you to say that this won't make any difference to us, when you
won't do the least thing to help."

Derek realized with a sinking heart that Sheila really believed what she
was saying. He saw too that in her present mood it would be quite
impossible to explain to her the hopeless impossibility of what she
proposed. Desperately he cast about in his mind for some argument that
would convince her, and in an evil hour he found it.

"Look here, Sheila," he said. "You know I'd do anything in the world to
help you. If talking to Barber would be any use, I'd do it like a shot,
whatever anybody thought about it. But it's just because I do know him
that I can see it would be hopeless. You see--you don't understand just
how rotten it was of him to say the things he did and pass that
appalling sentence. And I don't expect anybody in court knew either,
except just me and him."

"What on earth are you talking about?"

"Just this." And Derek in the fewest words possible revealed exactly
what had happened on the night of the circuit dinner at Markhampton.

"Of course," he concluded, "I promised not to say a word about this to
anyone, and I haven't up to now, but----"

"That's all right," Sheila interrupted him. "I'm not going to tell
anybody else, if that's what's troubling you. But I'm very glad you told
me." She was breathing hard and looked more fiercely determined than
ever.

"So you see it wouldn't be much good my trying to do anything."

Sheila did not answer. Instead she got up abruptly from the table.

"Let's go, shall we?" she said.

Derek offered to find her a taxi, but she shook her head.

"Aren't you going home?" he asked in surprise.

"No. You needn't wait, Derek. I know you want to get back to your old
office."

"But what are you going to do?"

"Never you mind. If you can't help me, I'd rather be alone. Oh, Derek,
darling, I know that sounds horrid. I don't want to be a beast to you,
but if anything's to be done, I can see I must do it myself. No!" she
went on hastily, as he began to speak, "please don't ask me anything. I
don't know what I'm going to do. Go away now and leave me. Only say that
you love me, whatever happens!"

This Derek proceeded to say several times and sufficiently loudly to
surprise a number of passers-by, before he caught a west-bound bus,
leaving her standing, a forlorn but resolute figure on the pavement of
Holborn. He did not, however, go back to his office. He knew that he was
quite incapable of doing any work that afternoon. In his angry, unhappy,
bewildered state he would be unable to give his mind to anything outside
his own affairs. He might as well be hung for a sheep as for a lamb, he
thought, and take the day off altogether. But equally the prospect of
spending the afternoon in solitary idleness appalled him. Suddenly, he
felt the urgent need of confiding in someone, who would help him to see
his troubles in their proper perspective. Acting on impulse, he got off
the bus at the top of Chancery Lane and walked down to the Temple.

He met with disappointment. Pettigrew, the clerk informed him, was out.
He could not say exactly when he would return, but he expected him in
any moment. Perhaps Mr. Marshall would wait? And wait Mr. Marshall did,
for what seemed an endless time, in those dusky, dusty Chambers, until
he could bear it no longer.

When he finally decided to go, he left in what Pettigrew's clerk thought
at the time a most unreasonable hurry. As if he had suddenly remembered
a pressing appointment, he fairly sprinted out of the place, with a
purposeful expression on his face, in odd contrast to the aimless manner
in which he had entered it. The Law Courts' clock was striking four as
he crossed the Strand. He waited impatiently for a moment or two for a
bus, and then, as none appeared, turned and set off down Fleet Street as
fast as he could walk.

By the time that he reached the Old Bailey, a steady procession out of
the main doors told him that the Courts were "up". He looked round
everywhere for Sheila, but she was not to be seen. Inquiring from a
doorkeeper, he learned that No. 1 Court, in which the Judge sat, had
risen a good ten minutes ago. The present exodus was from the two other
courts, which had just finished their business. The Common Serjeant was
still sitting, he believed. Derek was not interested in the Common
Serjeant, except to wonder for an irrelevant instant how he came by his
uncommon title. He pressed on to the top of the street and turned to his
right round the angle of the great building. On this front three doors
from the Courts give into Newgate Street. From one, a few black-coated
men were emerging--counsel and their clerks, obviously. From another,
providing access to the public galleries, came a stream of those odd
beings who find free entertainment in contemplating the misfortunes of
their fellows. They crowded the narrow pavement and momentarily
obstructed Derek's view of the third door, the Judge's entrance. Then he
caught a glimpse of what he thought to be Sheila's hat ahead of him and
quickened his footsteps.

As he approached, he saw a car drawn up outside. Somebody, evidently
Barber's new clerk, ran out, deposited a bundle of papers in the car,
and disappeared again. A moment later, just as Derek came level with the
door, Mr. Justice Barber, his wife close beside him, stepped out and
across the pavement.

The police subsequently took statements from thirty-three individuals
who claimed to have been eye-witnesses of the events of the next few
seconds. After eliminating from these the inevitable half-wits,
publicity-seekers and deliberate or unconscious liars, they arrived at
the conclusion that twelve sane and sober persons, including two police
officers, had in fact seen some part or another of what occurred. Not
one of these selected statements agreed exactly with any other; and
indeed this was to some extent a guarantee of their truthfulness. By
careful checking, however, they succeeded at last in arriving at a
fairly reliable account of the order of events during those crowded
moments.

The pavement was full of passers-by at the moment when Judge and lady
emerged from the building. A constable on either side held up the
traffic to form a narrow lane between the door and the waiting car. It
was the kind of thing that happens daily when the Central Criminal Court
is in session, and it may be inferred that to neither of these men was
their duty more than a matter of routine. The Judge was half-way across
the pavement when the first abnormal event occurred. From under the arm
of the officer holding up the pedestrians on the east side of the
entrance a small, stout man wriggled his way forward and approached the
Judge. This was made the more easy for him because, as the constable
pointed out, that arm was at the moment quite properly raised in salute.
He was heard to say a few words beginning, "My lord, I must insist----"
He had got no further when police officer number two, from the west,
made a dive at him and seized him by the arm. At this point, as if
profiting by the interruption on her side, a young woman ran forward
from the opposite direction. Dodging round Lady Barber, who was standing
close behind her husband's left shoulder, she reached the Judge
unobserved. She was heard to say something. Reports were at variance as
to whether this was, "Listen to me, you beast!" or "Take that, you
beast!" but at least one reliable witness observed that her hand was
seen to be upraised. Whatever she said, it was immediately followed by a
cry of "Sheila, come back!" This apparently came from a young man, who,
perhaps finding his approach in front blocked by what was now an excited
crowd, had slipped round on the outside of the pavement and suddenly
appeared between the car and the Judge, forcing him back towards the
door from which he had come. The young man reached the girl at the same
moment as the two officers, who had made a concerted dive towards her.
There were a few moments during which the Judge and Lady Barber were the
centre of a violent struggle. Both policemen had hold of the girl and
the young man had hold of all three. Each was pulling in a different
direction. A tall, middle-aged man had somehow become inextricably
mingled in the confused group. The young man was heard to say,
apparently to him, "Pettigrew, don't let them----" Then superior weight
and training told and he and the girl were dragged by main force away
from the car. The fat man who had begun the disturbance had disappeared
while the officer who had seized him was otherwise engaged. The crowd
which had surged in from both sides parted for a moment. Then a woman
screamed, and those nearest to him heard Mr. Justice Barber utter a low
moan and saw him pitch forward and fall to the ground in a crumpled
ungainly heap.




                              Chapter 22
                        THE FORCES IN CONFERENCE


Three days later, Inspector Mallett was summoned to the room of the
Assistant Commissioner in charge of his department at Scotland Yard.

"I've rather an unusual job for you," he was told.

"Sir?"

"I think that you know all about Mr. Justice Barber?"

"I know that he has been murdered, sir, naturally," said Mallett
non-committally.

"Well, somebody in the City Police seems to have an idea that you know a
little more than that. Anyhow, I've had a formal request that we should
lend you to them to assist in their investigations."

"_Sir?_"

Mallett's astonishment was genuine and profound. The relations between
the City of London Police and the Metropolitan Force were at that
moment, as it is to be hoped they always have been, correct, friendly
and even cordial. But they were definitely the relations of two
distinct, if allied, Powers. For the City to ask for the assistance of
Scotland Yard in the matter of a murder committed literally on its own
doorstep was a portent, even in the age that was to produce the Lend
Lease Act.

The Assistant Commissioner was smiling.

"Well?" he said.

"Of course I shall go, sir, if I am wanted," said Mallett. "I should
hardly have thought I would be of any use in a case like this, but----"

"Have you seen this?" his superior interrupted him, holding up a
photograph.

Mallett looked at it.

"Yes, sir. I understand that was the weapon employed in this case. An
unusual looking object. The photograph has been circulated widely, I
believe."

"Exactly. And it has now been identified. A report has come in from the
Eastbury police to say that it is identical with the dagger used by a
man named Ockenhurst to commit a murder in their part of the world last
September."

"Eastbury!" said the inspector. "Was this man tried there, then?"

"He was. And this knife was naturally an exhibit at the trial. And when
the trial was over it had disappeared. _And_ it reappeared between Mr.
Justice Barber's shoulder blades outside the Central Criminal Court.
Therefore," concluded the Assistant Commissioner, who believed in
rubbing things in, "it occurred to somebody in the City C.I.D. that this
business might have something to do with what happened on the Southern
Circuit. And it further occurred to him that you knew rather more about
that than most people."

Mallett said nothing. He was standing, very square and solid, in front
of his chief's desk, pulling vigorously at the long points of his
moustaches and frowning. His gloomy appearance impressed the Assistant
Commissioner.

"Well?" he said sharply.

"I'll go, of course, sir," said Mallett. "This afternoon."

The Assistant Commissioner looked at the clock on the wall.

"It is now 10.32 in the morning," he said reproachfully. "You are
usually quicker off the mark than that, Mallett."

"It's no use my going down to the City empty handed, sir," Mallett
pointed out. "With your permission, I propose to spend a few hours
assembling all the information bearing on this matter that I can."

"Quite so. And then there is your lunch to be considered, isn't there?"

Mallett sighed.

"Lunch is hardly worth considering these days, sir," he said. "I'm
positively losing weight every day."

                 *        *        *        *        *

Superintendent Brough, of the City of London Police, made Mallett
welcome at Old Jewry. He was a level-headed, broadminded man, who seemed
positively to enjoy the prospect of working with Scotland Yard. It was
even rumoured that in his very early youth he had been heard to suggest
that it was ridiculous to maintain two entirely separate police forces
in the capital, but he had managed to live down the memory of this
subversive remark, as his subsequent promotion showed.

"First you'll want to see what we've got, and then we'll see what you've
got," he began briskly, laying before the inspector a pile of neatly
arranged witnesses' statements.

Mallett sighed as he looked at the mass of paper.

"You've got plenty," he said. "But I understand you have something more
than this, haven't you? Three persons in custody, I'm told."

"Yes. All three remanded in custody for a week from yesterday. Charged
with breach of the peace and obstructing the police. It seemed the best
thing to do with them. Besides, it really was a breach of the peace all
right. One of my constables has a beautiful black eye. They have all
made voluntary statements. Perhaps you would like to look at them first.
One in particular will interest you very much."

He pulled out three sheets of paper.

"Here you are. Beamish, the girl Bartram and Marshall."

Mallett read them one after another. Beamish's statement was florid in
style but succinct enough. Having explained that he had lost his
position through an unfortunate misunderstanding which he was anxious to
clear up with his late employer, he went on to describe the vain effort
which he had made on the previous day to speak to him. Then, according
to his account, despairing of any other means of attracting his
attention, he had formed what he described as "the desperate resolve" of
accosting his lordship outside the court and so attracting attention to
his just grievance. He deeply regretted the disturbance of which he had
been the cause and desired to plead guilty to the charge. As to the
death of his lordship, which had shocked him beyond all measure, he was
as innocent as the babe unborn.

"Yes," said Mallett gravely, as he put down the paper. "By the way, did
you know that Beamish was known as 'Corky'?"

"No," the superintendent confessed. "I didn't."

"Corky's Night Club, you know. That's him. And that reminds me of
something--something----" He beat upon his forehead with the knuckles of
his fist. "Lord! My memory's going! It must be because I never get any
proper meals these days. Never mind! I'll think of it soon. Meanwhile,
let's see what Miss Bartram has to say."

Sheila's statement was quite short. Like Beamish, she admitted the
offence of obstructing the police and disturbing the peace of which they
were the guardians. Like him, but in simpler terms, she denied all
knowledge of, or connection with the Judge's death. As to her part in
the affray outside the Old Bailey she said:

"I was frightfully upset about Daddy being sent to prison and I thought
I would see the Judge and tell him he must change his mind. I had been
told it was the wrong thing to do, but I couldn't stop myself. When I
came close to him and saw his face I knew it wouldn't be any good
appealing to him and I'm afraid I lost my temper. I think I called him a
beast, but he didn't seem to take any notice. There was a lot of noise
going on behind me and I was afraid someone would stop me before I had
done anything, so I hit at him with my fist. Then a policeman got hold
of me and there was an awful mix up. I was winded and my hat was knocked
over my eyes. I don't really know what happened after that."

Mallett put the document down without comment, and extended his hand for
the third statement. He read the first sentence and whistled aloud.

"I thought that would interest you," said Brough with a grin.

The statement opened with the words: "I killed Mr. Justice Barber."

"You haven't charged him with murder yet, have you?" Mallett asked in a
tone that sounded almost anxious.

"We have not. You see, we considered----However, read the rest of it,
and tell me what you think."

Mallett read on.

"I killed Mr. Justice Barber. I was disgusted with his outrageous
conduct at the Old Bailey to-day. Knowing what I do of him, I considered
his attitude towards Mr. Bartram a travesty of justice. After thinking
the matter over during the afternoon I procured a knife and went to the
Judge's entrance. I arrived there just when he was leaving. I saw my
fiance, Miss Bartram, endeavour to speak to him. She was seized by a
constable before she could get near him. This made me lose my head
completely, because I knew that he was solely responsible for the
trouble in which she was. Acting on an impulse, I took the knife and
stabbed him between the shoulders. I told nobody of what I was going to
do, and I am solely responsible for all that occurred. I did not know
that I should see Miss Bartram there. She has nothing whatever to do
with the Judge being killed. I decline to say where the knife came from.
I am quite prepared to take full responsibility for what I did."

"Very interesting," said the inspector.

"Interesting and rather puzzling too," Brough remarked. "You see how
full of contradictions it is. First he says that he was disgusted with
the Judge's behaviour, and therefore got a knife 'after thinking the
matter over' and went to the Court--with the intention of killing him,
presumably. But then a moment later he is saying that he lost his head
because he saw his young lady being held by an officer and acted on
impulse. It can't very well be both."

"True," said Mallett. "And you will have noticed, no doubt, that he goes
out of his way to say that Miss Bartram never got near the Judge.
Whereas we know from her own admission that she got close enough to
strike him." "Exactly. The whole rigmarole has just been made up to
shield Miss Bartram, if you ask me."

"I quite agree."

"Which doesn't of course mean", Brough pursued, "that he isn't
necessarily responsible."

Mallett did not answer. He was studying the document afresh.

"'I decline to say where the knife came from'," he repeated.

"The knife! Yes," the superintendent put in. "We've got some very
interesting information about that from the Eastbury police. Let me show
you what they----"

"Wait a moment, Super! Let's have one thing at a time, if you don't
mind. Tell me something else first. Was Marshall told that this was the
Eastbury knife?"

"No. We hadn't found that out at the time this statement was taken."

"Of course not. Well, was he shown the knife?"

"No. It was being examined for finger-prints, I remember. Incidentally,
there weren't any."

"I see. Well, I suggest it would be rather a good plan to see him again,
show him the knife, and ask him if he recognizes it. If he doesn't, tell
him what it is and where it comes from. Then see what his reactions
are."

"And what do you expect them to be?"

"If this confession is a fake, made up because he thinks Miss Bartram is
guilty, he'll withdraw it."

The superintendent looked puzzled, and Mallett went on:

"Because, you see, he'll tumble at once to the fact that she couldn't
possibly have got hold of it. She wasn't at Eastbury Assizes."

"But he was," Brough objected. "He might have given it to her."

"Granted. But that's not the point. If he did give her the knife, then
she is probably guilty, with or without his assistance. In that case,
he'll stick to his story. But if he didn't, then he'll know that she
must be innocent. And he'll change his tune at once."

"But suppose his story is true, and he really did kill the Judge?"

"All the more reason for changing it. He won't want to hang himself any
more than the next man, once he knows that there's nothing to be gained
by it. You see, if I'm right, and he denies it, it won't prove his own
innocence, but it will prove hers. And we shall be that much further on,
by eliminating one suspect straight away."

Mallett pulled his moustaches in a satisfied manner.

"And now," he said with a sigh, "I suppose I'd better tackle this little
lot." And with the superintendent assisting him to separate the wheat
from the chaff, he rapidly mastered the accounts given by the
eye-witnesses of the tragedy. Over only two of them did he linger. The
first of these was Hilda's. It was short and uninformative enough. Like
everybody else, she had had her attention distracted from her husband by
the successive appearance of Beamish, Sheila Bartram and Marshall. The
last of these had, she thought, separated her from the Judge, although
she had tried to keep hold of his arm. Then she had got into touch with
him again, and at that moment she felt him stagger and he had collapsed
in her arms. That was all.

"We couldn't very well ask her any questions about it," the
superintendent explained. "She was very distressed. But I doubt whether
in any case she would have much to add to her story."

"Quite," said Mallett. "By the way," he added suddenly and after a
pause, "I wonder whether you happen to know whether she had been in
Court that afternoon?"

"As a matter of fact, I happen to know that she wasn't. I got a routine
statement from the attendant in the Judge's room, and he mentioned that
she was waiting there all the afternoon until his lordship rose."

"I see. Now the other statement that interests me is _this_ one."

"Mr. Pettigrew's? Well, it's certainly rather more intelligible than
most of them. But he didn't really see more than the rest--less, if
anything, being mixed up in the middle of things, so to speak."

"It's Mr. Pettigrew himself that interests me more than what he says.
Also what he doesn't say."

"For instance?"

"Well, you will note that he doesn't say what he was doing there. His
statement just begins: 'At about 4.20 p.m. on the 12th April 1940, I was
outside the Judge's entrance of the Central Criminal Court'."

"They all begin that way, more or less," Brough pointed out. "The
officer who took the statement would probably ask a leading question to
get the witness going. In any case, Mr. Pettigrew is a member of the
Bar, and I suppose the neighbourhood of a court of law is where one
might expect to find him."

"But I've never heard that Mr. Pettigrew had any practice at the Central
Criminal Court," Mallett objected. "He's certainly not a member of the
mess there. Of course, anybody might happen to have an odd case there
now and again, especially in wartime, with so many regular practitioners
away, but I shouldn't have expected to find him at this particular place
at this particular time. I think it will be worth looking into."

He made a note, and continued:

"Now about this knife. You've got a report from the Eastbury police,
haven't you?"

"We have, and a very good one too. Read it for yourself."

"It comes to this," the inspector said, when he had read and re-read the
papers which Brough put before him. "This nasty little tool was an
exhibit in the trial of Ockenhurst at Eastbury last December. After the
hearing it disappeared, and turned up four months later between Mr.
Justice Barber's shoulder blades. The last time anybody can positively
speak to having seen it was during the Judge's summing-up and then it
was on the Judge's desk. H'm. And they very thoughtfully give a list of
the people on the bench at the time. From left to right--Captain Trevor,
Chief Constable; Beamish, Judge's clerk; Marshall; the Judge in the
centre; then Sir William Candish, the High Sheriff; Lady Candish; Lady
Barber; and the Under Sheriff, who was--_phew_!"

"What's up?" said the superintendent.

"I dare say there's nothing in it, but it gave me quite a start. Mr.
Victor Granby is the Under Sheriff. That will be the senior partner in
Granby and Co. of course. They are the principal solicitors for that
part of the world, I remember. He has been Under Sheriff for years."

"What of it?"

"Only that the firm used to be Granby, Heppenstall in the old days.
Heppenstall senior died, and young Heppenstall took his capital out of
the firm and set up on his own in London. That's all ancient history.
You remember the Heppenstall case, of course?"

The superintendent nodded. "And----?" he said.

"And Granby married Heppenstall's sister. That's all. But it won't do,
of course. The Judge has been in that circuit half a dozen times since
he sentenced Heppenstall and Granby doesn't seem to bear him any
malice."

"We'll have his movements for the day in question looked into, to be on
the safe side," Brough said. "But I can't see why, if he took the knife
to kill the Judge with, he should wait four months to use it."

"And that applies to every soul in court that day," said Mallett. He
paused, and said deliberately, "Tell me why the Judge was killed on the
12th of April and I will tell you who did it."

"Well," he went on. "What else do the Eastbury fellows tell us? Oh, yes.
Entry and exit to the Bench immediately behind the Judge's desk. That
means that anybody leaving the Bench would pass by the place where the
knife was last seen and would have an equal opportunity of picking it
up. Others who might have had an opportunity of getting hold of it
without attracting comment--Counsel on both sides, namely Sir Henry
Babbington and his junior, Mr. Pott, and Mr. Pettigrew; the solicitors
instructing them; the police themselves, who hunted for it afterwards
and couldn't find it; and the Clerk of Assize, Mr. Gervase, who sat just
in front of and beneath the Judge. I don't think we need worry about old
Mr. Gervase. Oh, yes! and Greene, the Marshal's man, who served the
Judge his tea, and was flitting about between his lordship's room and
the Bench after the case was over. That's the lot."

The superintendent was doing some calculating.

"Of the people who could have taken that knife," he said, "the
following, so far as we know, were within striking distance of the Judge
when he was killed with it: Marshall, Pettigrew and Lady Barber."

"And Beamish," Mallett added.

"No," Brough corrected him. "All the evidence goes to show that at the
exact time when the Judge collapsed, Beamish must have been some
distance away. In fact, he never got within arm's length of him. He was
the first, you remember, and the constable pounced on him as soon as he
appeared."

"Quite right," said the inspector. "He freed himself when the officers
were going for the other two, but he never seems to have got any closer.
So it looks as if----" He stopped suddenly, and then exclaimed in a tone
of immense satisfaction, "_Darts!_"

"Eh?"

"I've just remembered. That's what Corky's club was famous for. They had
a lot of dart boards there. It was quite a centre for the sport, if
that's the right word for it. The London championships were held there.
Now suppose Corky himself was an expert dart thrower? What easier than
to throw this little knife at a few feet's range, while the police were
dragging the other two away? In doing so, they made a clear space on the
pavement, remember. The Judge filled it up when he fell."

Superintendent Brough did not believe in displaying emotion. If he was
excited at the new suggestion, he did not show it.

"Very well," he said. "Then we add Beamish to the list. That makes four
altogether. I think we know more or less all we want to know at the
moment about Marshall and Beamish. What about the other two?"

"Pettigrew and the Judge had been on notoriously bad terms for years,"
said Mallett briefly. "Lady Barber was--well, she was his wife. As I
expect you have heard, Barber was supposed to be on the brink of having
to retire because of that scandal at Markhampton. I'll tell you all the
details of it directly. She may well have thought it wasn't much catch
being married to him if he was going to lose his job. She was also an
old friend of Pettigrew's. They may have been in it together."

There was something cursory and unenthusiastic in the way in which he
recited these facts that made the superintendent look up at him with a
question in his eyes.

"But . . . ?" he said.

"But, perhaps someone will tell me why, if all that is so, her ladyship
should put herself to enormous trouble to save his life when he tried to
commit suicide only a few weeks ago?"

"Suicide?" said Brough. "This is new to me. What was the motive, do you
know?"

"I have every reason to suppose that it was because he couldn't face the
prospect of having to leave the bench, and the scandal I was talking
about just now. We can verify that by further inquiry from her ladyship,
no doubt."

"You're sure it was a genuine attempt? If his wife really meant to get
rid of him, she might perhaps have faked something----"

"Oh, it was genuine all right. You see----But I'm putting the cart
before the horse. All this relates back to the very odd things that
happened while the Judge was going circuit last autumn. I understand
that's what you called me in about, wasn't it?"

"Quite right," said the superintendent. "Let's hear all you have to
say."

What Mallett had to say took up some considerable time. His account of
the troubles that had pursued the Judge during the progress of the
circuit interested his colleague a great deal. The conclusions that he
drew from the facts interested him even more. They also surprised him
very much indeed.

"Frankly," he said. "I don't quite see what you are getting at."

"Equally frankly," Mallett answered, "neither do I. I have given you the
facts, so far as I know them, and I fancy they are pretty accurate.
Also, I feel fairly confident that I have interpreted them accurately.
But I still don't see where they are leading me--or rather, if I let
them lead me in the direction they seem to point, I come up against a
plumb absurdity. So what?"

"I'm beginning to wonder," said Brough, "if we're not exploring a blind
alley all this time. As matters stand, we have a signed confession by
Marshall. Suppose it is true, and neither the girl nor Pettigrew, nor
anyone else had anything to do with it? In that case, this crime was
quite unpremeditated, and all that happened between October and the day
before the murder is quite irrelevant."

"If this was unpremeditated, why did he pinch the knife at Eastbury?"
asked Mallett.

"As a souvenir, very likely. After all, whoever took it can hardly have
been intending to commit a crime with it four months later. I think he
made up his mind to kill the Judge that afternoon, and then, remembering
the knife in his possession, went and fetched it----"

"Where from?"

"I expect from his home. We will try to get some evidence of that, of
course."

"Do so. He's in lodgings in Kensington, isn't he? We ought to be able to
establish whether he came back there during the course of the afternoon.
But don't forget that you are going to show him that knife and see what
effect it has on him."

"That will be done this evening. What is your next step?"

"My next step," said Mallett, "will be in the direction of Mr.
Pettigrew's chambers. There are several matters I want to discuss with
him. I have a strong feeling that he is the clue to the whole matter.
Ring me up at the Yard this evening when you have seen Marshall again
and that may help me as to what line I take with Pettigrew."

And upon this, the detectives parted.




                              Chapter 23
                        INQUIRIES IN THE TEMPLE


Mallett was at Pettigrew's chambers early next morning. He was received
with a grave courtesy, not unmixed with suspicion, by John, Pettigrew's
elderly clerk, who told him that his master had not yet arrived. The
inspector amiably said that he would wait, and set himself to occupy the
time in conversation with John.

"We've had a young man from the City Police round here already," the
latter said in a somewhat aggrieved tone. "It's a bit unpleasant for us,
being mixed up in this kind of thing, you know."

"I can quite understand that," said Mallett soothingly.

"As if it wasn't a nasty enough shock for us," John went on, "we being
such an old friend of her ladyship and all. It's a bit too bad being
brought in as a witness as well."

"Very bad luck," the inspector agreed. "But these things will occur, you
know. It was just Mr. Pettigrew's misfortune that he should happen to be
at the Old Bailey that afternoon. I suppose he was holding a brief
there?"

John looked at him with suspicion.

"And I suppose if I said 'Yes', you'd want to look at our engagement
book," he said. "Well, I'll save you the trouble. He was not. Yesterday
afternoon, he was doing a little arbitration over the way. We thought it
would be finished by half-past three or earlier, but it wasn't till just
gone four o'clock that he came back."

"Four o'clock! Then he must have gone straight down to the Old Bailey
from here?"

"It's no part of my business to tell you where he went to. For another
thing, I don't know because I didn't inquire."

"But he did leave from here to go somewhere as soon as he came back?"

"I wouldn't say as soon as. We had a bit of a chat after he came in.
About the arbitration, and appointments for the next day, and who had
been in while he was out, and so on."

"And had anyone been in?" Mallett asked at random.

"There'd only been one caller that afternoon. Mr. Pettigrew just missed
him. That was a young gentleman who had been here before. Marshall, the
name was."

"Marshall. What was he doing here?"

"I'm sure I couldn't tell you, except that he called to see Mr.
Pettigrew. It was none of my business to ask him."

"But this may be important," the inspector insisted. "You know that
Marshall is in custody for assaulting the police at the Old Bailey when
the Judge was killed?"

"Indeed?" said John in apparently genuine surprise. "No, that's news to
me. You see, I don't much care for reading the reports of police courts
in the papers, unless we happen to be professionally concerned. I find
them rather too low for my taste, if you'll excuse my saying so. But
that is interesting, as you say, really very interesting indeed."

"What did he do while he was here?"

"Why, nothing in particular. He just hung about most of the afternoon,
and then, just before four, he left in a hurry. If he'd waited another
five minutes he'd have seen Mr. Pettigrew."

"Did he go into Mr. Pettigrew's room at all while he was here?"

"Certainly, I let him sit there. It's got the only comfortable chair in
the chambers."

"You didn't happen to miss anything after he had gone?"

"Miss anything? Certainly not! Mr. Marshall is hardly the sort of
gentleman you'd expect to miss anything after he's been. I shouldn't
have let him into Mr. Pettigrew's room else, I can tell you."

"You're quite sure?" Mallett persisted. "Mr. Pettigrew hasn't mentioned
to you that he has lost anything?"

"He has not--and if you want to pursue that inquiry you had better ask
him yourself," John added, as a footstep was heard outside the door.
"Good morning, sir!"

"Morning, John," said Pettigrew, entering at that moment. "Good morning,
Mr.--Mallett, is it not? Did you want to see me?"

"If you can spare me a few minutes of your time, sir."

Pettigrew preceded Mallett into the shabby but comfortable room, and sat
down behind his desk with a sigh. He looked tired and dispirited.

"Well?" he said. "You have come about this wretched Barber business, I
suppose? You have seen the statement I gave to the police immediately
afterwards? If so, I don't think there is anything I can add to it."

"There is only one point in your statement which I should like
amplified," said the inspector. "You didn't say exactly why you were
outside the Old Bailey on that particular occasion."

"Quite right, Inspector, I didn't. It did not appear to me to affect the
value of my evidence one way or the other. And", he added as the
detective was about to speak, "it still does not appear to me to do so."

"You decline to answer the question?"

"Yes."

Mallett said nothing for a moment or two. Then he asked abruptly,

"You remember the case of Ockenhurst at Eastbury Assizes?"

Pettigrew raised his eyebrows.

"Of course," he said.

"Do you know that the knife with which Mr. Justice Barber was murdered
has been identified with the knife that was exhibited at that trial?"

"Oh?" said Pettigrew slowly, his nose wrinkling.

"After the trial, the knife could not be found. The Eastbury police were
under the impression that you might have taken it. I have been speaking
on the telephone to-day to the officer in charge of that case, and he
tells me that he looked for you, but you had left the Court, somewhat
hastily, it seems."

"Yes, I remember. I wanted some exercise and I went for a walk before
catching my train. I wanted to walk off my bad temper."

"Your bad temper with the Judge?"

"Certainly," Pettigrew smiled. "I was in a shocking temper over that
case."

"Did you take the knife with you, Mr. Pettigrew?"

"No."

"Mr. Marshall spent a good deal of the afternoon of the twenty-second in
this room. From here he went down to the Old Bailey."

"Yes. I saw him there."

"He has since made a confession that he killed Mr. Justice Barber."

Pettigrew's face took on an expression of pain.

"The poor boy!" he said. "The poor, wretched boy! This is really
horrible, Inspector!" He was silent for a moment or two, and then added,
"In that case, there seems to be no reason why I should not now answer
the question you asked me just now. I went down to the Old Bailey
because I had a suspicion that he might do something silly."

"Indeed?" said Mallett.

"Yes. You see he had told me some time ago about this case, and I knew
that he was in rather a state about it. Yesterday morning, I happened to
see on the notice board in the Cloisters that it was being heard in No.
1 Court, where I knew that Barber was sitting, and this morning I saw
that it was part heard. I took no particular interest in it until at
lunch-time when I happened to sit next to Fawcett in hall, and heard
from him that Barber had--not to put too fine a point on it--behaved
outrageously. That worried me quite a bit, because I am really quite
fond of young Marshall, and I knew he would take it badly. Then when I
got back here in the afternoon, John told me that he had been trying to
see me. He told me, too, that he was obviously in a very nervous and
excited state, and had left abruptly just before four o'clock. I
suddenly had a horrible feeling of anxiety about him. I remembered his
absurd idealism about judges and justice--rather engaging in its way,
but confoundedly dangerous--and it crossed my mind that he might have
gone back to the court, and that if so, I really ought to try to head
him off. So, on the spur of the moment, I took a taxi and dashed down
there. I was just too late, as it turned out. Poor chap!"

"Thank you," said the inspector. "And now, Mr. Pettigrew, having told me
so much, would you like to reconsider another of your answers?"

"I don't quite follow you."

"If I am right, you declined at first to tell me why you went to the Old
Bailey because you were afraid that by doing so you might throw
suspicion on Marshall?"

"Quite right."

"I was wondering whether you denied having had possession of that
interesting souvenir from Eastbury for the same reason."

"I am afraid I am very dense this morning, but I still don't
understand."

"If you had taken it as a souvenir," the inspector explained, "it might
have been expected to be lying about somewhere in this room--on your
desk, for example, as a paper-knife. What more likely than that the
sight of it should have suggested to Marshall how he could get even with
the Judge and sent him hurrying down to the Old Bailey just ahead of
you?"

"I see," said Pettigrew slowly. "Very ingenious, if you will allow me to
say so. But it won't do, I am afraid. I can assure you that young
Marshall didn't get that knife from this room."

Mallett nodded. "I am not altogether surprised to hear that," he said.
"You see, Marshall was shown the knife last night for the first time
since he was taken into custody. He was reminded what it was and where
it came from, and as soon as he saw it----"

"Yes?"

"He immediately withdrew his confession."

"Withdrew his----! Really, Inspector! Have you been making a fool of
me?"

"I hope you won't think that, Mr. Pettigrew," said Mallett
apologetically. "You see, I was really anxious to know your explanation
for being at the Old Bailey that afternoon. In fairness to yourself,
some sort of explanation had to be made. And I thought the quickest way
of getting it was to lead you to believe that it was no longer necessary
to shield anybody else."

Pettigrew seemed to be undecided whether to be annoyed or amused.

"This is most immoral," he said finally. "And now will you tell me what
induced Marshall to behave in this way?"

"I think that he made his confession originally because he was under the
impression that the police suspected Miss Bartram."

"Miss----? Oh, of course, the young lady of his affections. That must
have been the blonde person I last saw indulging in an all-in contest
with the two Roberts. And the reason why--No, don't tell me, let me work
it out for myself. Marshall knew that she could not have had the
Eastbury poignard because she wasn't there to take it, unless he had
given it to her himself and he knew he hadn't. _Ergo_, she was innocent,
to the knowledge of the police. Hence the necessity for protecting her
disappears. Am I right?"

"Quite correct."

"There seems to have been a lot of unregulated quixotry about this case.
I suppose the young woman hasn't dashed forward to shield her fianc
with a bogus confession, by any chance?"

"No," said Mallett gravely.

"I thought not. The female of the species usually has a more realistic
outlook in such matters, I fancy. Meanwhile, it still remains possible
that Marshall, not knowing that you had identified the dagger, really
had--but you have worked all that out for yourself no doubt. Who am I to
do Scotland Yard's cerebrations? By the way, I understand that friend
Beamish is also in custody?"

"He is."

"One tip about him I can give you. I am tired of shielding people, and
it's time I took a hand in giving my fellow man away. He's a perfectly
miraculous dart thrower."

"I thought as much," said Mallett. "But I'm interested to have positive
evidence of it. Have you actually seen him play?"

"I have, indeed. It was a most impressive sight."

"When was that?"

"Oh, quite a long time ago now. The night of a certain motor accident.
The night when it all started."

A long pause succeeded the remark. Mallett stared into the fireplace,
pulling at the ends of his moustaches, as though uncertain how to
proceed. Pettigrew was lost in reverie.

"Well, that's that!" he said at last. "I think we have covered the list
of suspects, have we not, Inspector? I suppose, for form's sake at
least, I must include myself among them?"

"Yes," said Mallett absently. It was not clear from his tone which of
the two questions he was answering. "I was wondering," he went on,
"about what you said just now--'the night that it all started'. That was
Lady Barber's idea, you know, that all the unpleasant things that
happened to the Judge on the circuit were in some way
connected--including the motor accident at Markhampton on the 12th of
October 1939."

"How precise you detectives always are," said Pettigrew. "I couldn't
have given the date to save my life. Well, there's no doubt that it was
the accident that put the Judge in the very nasty hole in which he was
at the time of his death. This is a breach of confidence on my part,
Inspector, but I think it is justified in the circumstances. Barber was
virtually ordered to send in his resignation during the vacation, and he
was so upset at the prospect that he actually attempted to commit
suicide."

"I knew it already," said Mallett. "That is to say, I was aware of the
attempted suicide. I had guessed at the cause, but I didn't know the
precise details."

"Well, you can verify them for yourself, if you care to refer to certain
exalted quarters. I had rather you didn't quote me as your source of
information, however. I heard of it in strict confidence from--from the
person chiefly concerned."

"Quite," said the inspector. "There is no doubt, according to the
medical evidence, that Lady Barber saved her husband's life on that
occasion. It is a pity she was less successful on the other."

"I don't want to seem callous," Pettigrew observed, "but to me it is
nothing less than astonishing that any woman could be married to Barber
for so many years and still want to save his life." He glanced hastily
at the detective and went on, "At all events, in the circumstances, I am
extremely glad for her sake that she did."

Mallett nodded silently and rose to his feet.

"I have taken up a great deal of your time, Mr. Pettigrew," he said,
"and I must thank you for bearing with me so long."

"Not at all. It has been a most interesting chat, for me, at any rate,
but not, I fear, very useful to you. I don't honestly think that I can
give you any further assistance. I could let you have a list of people
who disliked Barber sufficiently to want to put him out of the way, if
you like. It would be a very long one, and would contain some quite
distinguished names, but I dare say you have enough suspects already,
and except to save my own neck I don't want to cause anybody else any
trouble."

"I should be quite satisfied," Mallett replied, "if you could give me
the name of one person who had a motive for killing the Judge on the
12th of April 1940, long after the circuit was over--if the circuit had
anything to do with it, beyond supplying the knife."

"The 12th of April!" said Pettigrew. "So it was! Dear me, yes! Well,
good-bye, Inspector. Let me know if I can help you any further."

He held out his hand. Mallett did not take it. Instead he looked
searchingly at the barrister.

"Yes, Mr. Pettigrew," he said. "The 12th of April. May I ask what there
is about that date that impresses you?"

"Nothing," Pettigrew assured him in some confusion. "Nothing at all. It
was only that--that you detective fellows are always so precise about
your dates, as I said just now."

"But there seemed to be something about this particular date that
attracted your attention," the inspector persisted.

"No, no," Pettigrew protested. His usual self-assurance seemed to have
deserted him entirely. "To-day's the sixteenth, isn't it? I was
surprised that it should have been such a short time ago. It seems
longer. This business has been a fearful shock to me, as you can
imagine, and I had quite lost count of the days. . . ."

His voice trailed off uncertainly. Mallett looked at him for a moment in
silence, and then with a curt, "Good day, sir!" turned on his heels and
left the room.

After he had gone, Pettigrew went back to his desk. He consulted the
calendar as though to make certain of the date. Then he went to a
bookshelf and pulled out a volume of law reports. After studying this
for a moment he sat down and wrote a very short letter, which he took
out to the post himself.

Mallett meanwhile was in a telephone kiosk. He rang up Old Jewry and was
immediately connected with Superintendent Brough.

"That's you at last, Inspector?" said Brough excitedly. "I've been
trying to get hold of you all morning. This is important. I've just
ascertained that Granby was in town during the whole of April the
twelfth."

"Sorry, but I'm not interested," said Mallett. "But can you find out for
me the name of the firm of solicitors acting for Mr. Sebastian
Sebald-Smith?"




                              Chapter 24
                       EXPLANATIONS IN THE TEMPLE


Pettigrew was late at his chambers next morning. John, who was a
stickler for punctuality, whether the work in hand necessitated it or
not, greeted him with reproachful looks and was barely propitiated by
the explanation that the Underground train by which he had travelled had
been for some reason or another held up outside South Kensington station
for three quarters of an hour. Grudgingly John admitted that there were
no appointments that morning and only one set of papers which had come
in over night and were not pressing. He had hardly left the room before
he was back again.

"That Mr. Marshall is here, wanting to see you, sir," he announced. "He
has a young lady with him."

Pettigrew, who had arrived at the chambers looking more harassed and
care-worn than seemed warranted even by a breakdown on the Underground,
cheered up at once.

"My dear fellow!" he cried, as the door opened to admit Derek and
Sheila. "This is an unexpected pleasure indeed. I thought you were still
in fetters. And Miss Bartram too--the last time I saw you, you were
looking distinctly dishevelled. Congratulations on your release. Or are
you only on bail?"

"No," said Derek. "It's all over and done with so far as we are
concerned. I thought I must come round and tell you at once. We both
came up before the Lord Mayor this morning. The case didn't take more
than a minute, and he was really very decent about it. He fined me forty
shillings and Sheila was bound over."

"Gross partiality. If I had been called as a witness I should have had
to say that of the two of you Miss Bartram was far the more determined
in her assault on the police."

"The one snag about it all is," said Derek, "that I'm not likely to keep
my job at the Ministry after this."

"We must do something about that. I have a few friends at court, you
know, and it so happens that one of them is a high-up in your show. I
think I can save your services for your country yet. But tell me about
Beamish. Was he dealt with in the same charitable spirit?"

"No." Derek looked serious. "His case was put back for seven days. They
said something about a further charge being preferred."

"I suppose that means he killed that beastly old Judge," Sheila put in.

"H'm. I shouldn't jump to conclusions about that. I've a notion that
quite a number of charges could be preferred against Beamish. It would
be rather a sell for the great British public, all agog to hear a man
accused of murder, if he's only run in for dispensing drink without a
licence at Corky's night club, or something like that."

"But then who did kill him?" Sheila asked.

Pettigrew did not reply. His ear was cocked towards the door behind
which sounds of altercation could be heard. Presently John came into the
room, a pained expression on his face.

"Excuse me, sir," he said, "but the inspector from Scotland Yard is back
here again. He's got another man with him and they want to see you at
once. I told them you were engaged, but----"

Pettigrew's face was rather white as he replied. "Show them in, John. If
Mr. Marshall and Miss Bartram like to stay, perhaps it would be as
well."

Mallett and Superintendent Brough entered. They both looked grave and
purposeful.

"You know this lady and gentleman, of course," Pettigrew said to them.
"I think that they will be interested to hear what you have to say. In
fact, if it is what I expect, I'm not sure that they haven't a right to
hear it."

The superintendent looked at Mallett, who nodded his head slowly,
pulling at his moustache. Nothing was said for a moment, and then the
inspector, clearing his throat, spoke abruptly.

"I have come to tell you, Mr. Pettigrew, that Lady Barber threw herself
under an electric train at South Kensington station this morning."

Pettigrew, who was standing beside his desk, felt with his hand for the
chair behind him and then collapsed into it.

"So that's why my train was late this morning," he murmured.

"I'm afraid this is rather a shock for you," said Mallett
sympathetically.

Pettigrew raised his head.

"On the contrary," he said, "I am very much relieved. I was afraid you
had come to tell me that she had been arrested."

"A note was found in her handbag," Mallett went on, "I think it is in
your handwriting?"

Pettigrew glanced at the slip of paper which the inspector placed before
him.

"Yes," he said. "It is. I suppose I am responsible for what has
happened."

"It is a very heavy responsibility," said Brough, speaking for the first
time.

"I recognize that," Pettigrew replied. "But I am quite prepared to face
it. That is--I suppose you were intending to arrest her for murder,
weren't you?" he asked almost anxiously.

"Our inquiries were not complete," said the superintendent. "But in the
normal course, I should probably have applied for a warrant during the
next few days."

"Then I did right," Pettigrew said firmly. "Because, God help me! I
loved the woman."

"Are you telling us," Mallett put in, "that this note was the cause of
Lady Barber making away with herself?"

"Certainly." Pettigrew's brief outburst of emotion had passed, and he
was once more his controlled, sardonic self. "I thought our discussion
had been upon that basis."

"Because if so, I should like to know what it means."

Pettigrew glanced at the note again and smiled wryly.

"It is a little cryptic to the layman, I agree," he said. "But to anyone
who could understand it, it is very much to the point. It simply refers
to----But aren't we putting the cart before the horse, Inspector? And
worse, aren't we talking in riddles in front of Mr. Marshall? He has
been trying to read this document upside down for the last five minutes,
and he still can't make out what it's all about. As one who was very
recently a self-confessed murderer, I think he should know the whole
story, and you are certainly the only person who knows it. I can add my
little piece of exegesis at the end if you wish."

Mallett hesitated for a moment.

"You will understand, of course, that all this is entirely
confidential?" he said.

"We do, indeed. So far as I am concerned, Mr. Marshall will tell you
that I long ago impressed upon him the virtue of hushing things up. He
didn't altogether agree with me at the time, but I think that subsequent
events have rather tended to change his views on the matter. As for Miss
Bartram----"

"I shan't breathe a word," said Sheila earnestly.

"I trust not. Your chances of a wedding present from me depend entirely
upon your discretion. I hope the threat is sufficient. Now, Inspector,
make yourself comfortable and light your pipe if you wish. We are all
ears."

"It is a little difficult to know where to start," said Mallett. "But
perhaps the best way to begin is to explain how this case struck me when
I was called upon to consider it the first time. You will recollect
sir,"--he turned to Derek "that when Lady Barber asked me to come to her
club to discuss the unpleasant events that had occurred at the first
three towns on the Circuit, she was rather annoyed with me for
suggesting that she might be wrong in supposing that they were all due
to one cause. My reason for so thinking was that there was one incident
which quite clearly did not fit in with the others. I mean, of course,
the chocolates filled with carbide which were sent to the Lodgings at
Southington. I had very little doubt that the two anonymous letters,
sent one before and one just after the motor accident, were the work of
Heppenstall, whom we knew to be in the neighbourhood at the time. There
seemed every reason to believe that he was also responsible for the
assault on Lady Barber at Wimblingham."

Mallett paused and tugged at his moustache points. He looked
embarrassed.

"As a matter of fact, I proved wrong there," he said. "Not that it made
any difference to the argument, as it turned out. But Heppenstall was
entirely innocent of what occurred at Wimblingham. He has succeeded in
satisfying us of that beyond any doubt."

"Then who was it?" asked Derek in some eagerness. Mallett smiled.

"You were perfectly right in your guess, Mr. Marshall," he said. "It was
the person who kicked you so severely in the ribs that morning."

"Beamish?"

"Yes."

"But you said yourself that if he had wanted to attack anyone at night
he would have put on rubber shoes or something like that," Derek
objected.

"Quite. But Beamish didn't want to attack anybody. His assault on Lady
Barber was really in the nature of an accident. He only committed it in
order to get away from the corridor before his identity could be
discovered."

"What was he doing there at that time in the morning, then?"

"We have been at a good deal of pains to discover that. He was simply
making his way back to bed after breaking into the Lodgings. You see, he
had been----" Mallett glanced at Sheila and coloured
slightly--"_elsewhere_ most of that night, if you follow me. I am afraid
his moral character was----"

"Well, well," said Pettigrew tolerantly. "We mustn't be too hard on him.
After all, the beds in Lodgings were notoriously uncomfortable. One can
hardly blame him for seeking softer lying somewhere else. But go on,
Inspector."

"As I was saying," Mallett resumed, "I thought that I could refer all
the other events to a single source. But not the affair of the
chocolates. That was a totally different type of crime. In fact, it was
less like a crime than a particularly malicious practical joke.

"Now in the ordinary way, practical jokers are very difficult to detect,
because the whole essence of the game is irresponsibility and absence of
motive. But in this case, there was this much to go on. The Judge was
already involved in a trouble unconnected altogether with Heppenstall's
release from prison--the motor accident in which Mr. Sebald-Smith was
injured. Simply because on the balance of probabilities it was more
likely that he should have two ill-wishers than three, I set about
connecting the affair of the chocolates with the accident. I made some
discreet inquiries about Mr. Sebald-Smith, ascertained his connection
with a lady named Parsons, satisfied myself as to her character and that
she would have a certain degree of familiarity with the Judge's taste in
confectionery, and as a result came to the conclusion that she was the
person responsible for that episode."

"Apart from that, you took no steps in the matter?" Pettigrew asked.

"No. There were really no steps to take. I had no evidence then on which
to arrest Heppenstall, and I knew that I could keep an eye on him and
see that the Judge came to no further harm through him. As a matter of
fact, we pulled him in a few weeks later on a charge of fraud, but that
was incidental. So far as the lady was concerned, I didn't look on her
as a potential danger, although she might prove herself a nuisance from
time to time.

"That was the position up to the end of Wimblingham Assizes. During the
rest of the Circuit, I received reports from the police forces at the
various towns, which worried me a good deal. I therefore took the
opportunity of seeing Mr. Marshall immediately on his return and getting
an account from him while the facts were still fresh in his memory. This
time, the incidents which had to be considered were, successively, the
dead mouse in the parcel, the Judge's fall downstairs and the third
anonymous letter, all at Rampleford and finally the gas escape in the
Judge's room at Whitsea. There was in fact another incident which was
not reported to me until long after but which proved to be the most
sinister of all--the disappearance of the knife from the court at
Eastbury. But I doubt whether I should have been much the wiser if I had
been told of it.

"The dead mouse, of course, gave no trouble at all. It fitted in
perfectly neatly with the poisoned chocolates, and confirmed me in my
views about them. But the other matters were altogether different. They
fitted in with nothing at all. Most emphatically, they did not fit in
with the incidents on the earlier part of the Circuit. And above all in
contrast to those incidents, they seemed to me on examination to show
every sign of being bogus."

"Bogus?" said Derek. "What made you think that? After all, the Judge was
twice in quite serious danger. He did fall downstairs and he was nearly
gassed that night at Whitsea. Nothing that happened before came anything
like so close to killing him as that."

"Exactly," said Mallett. "They both looked like quite determined
attempts on his life. But they both failed. In each case, Lady Barber
was at hand to save him--and to save him before witnesses, too. The fact
did not of course prove that she was responsible for them, but it did
look as though whoever had made these pretended attempts had so arranged
matters that somebody would be at hand to see that they failed in their
object. The next thing I noticed about them, of course, was that while
the earlier incidents _might_ have been the work of a member of the
Judge's household, these almost certainly _must_ have been. As for the
anonymous letter, it seemed to prove the point up to the hilt. It was
found at the Lodgings, you will remember, after the Judge's party had
left. Now no outsider, going to leave a letter of that description,
would hand it in at the door when he could see for himself that the
person it was intended for had gone or was in the act of going. The
writer of that letter meant it to be found at the last possible moment,
but in time for it to reach the Judge before his train left. I concluded
that in all probability it had been left on the hall table by one of the
party while actually leaving the house. In the hurry of departure it
would be very easy to do, especially if the writer arranged to be one of
the last to go."

"I remember now," Derek put in, "Lady Barber kept us all waiting while
she ran back into the house for her bag, which she said she had left in
the drawing-room. She insisted on going herself, although I offered to
get it for her."

"No doubt that was how it was managed," said Mallett. "Well! There I was
left with a very odd case on my hands. On the one hand, I had been
appealed to by Lady Barber to protect her husband against attack from
outside, and on the other I found somebody inside engineering a series
of sham attacks, and, after a careful process of elimination, I was
driven to the conclusion that that somebody was Lady Barber herself. Yet
I was quite convinced of the sincerity of her appeal in the first place,
and from what Mr. Marshall told me I was equally convinced that during
the second part of the Circuit she was still genuinely doing all that
she could, with his assistance, to guard her husband against any further
assaults of what I may call the Wimblingham type. Why?

"In seeking for some explanation, I naturally tried to find something
which one could mark as a turning-point between the two phases. I
thought I could distinguish it in what appeared at first sight the most
trivial incident of all--the dead mouse which came through the post at
Rampleford. From what Mr. Marshall told me and from my own inquiries, I
determined that up to that point Lady Barber had hopes of settling the
action which Mr. Sebald-Smith was threatening on terms which would not
ruin her husband completely. After that, it was apparent to her that
Miss Parsons was not going to allow her to do any such thing. The
thought crossed my mind that in such circumstances she might decide that
it was better to kill her husband and live on what he had to leave her
rather than allow his whole estate to be swallowed up in the enormous
damages which Mr. Sebald-Smith was demanding."

"Aha!" said Pettigrew.

"The theory left a good deal unexplained, of course. If that was right,
why should she be going to such immense trouble to safeguard her
husband's life, and why should she be careful to see that her own
attempts were unsuccessful? I thought, however, that all this might be
put down to a very elaborate scheme to distract suspicion, and I decided
that the theory was worth pursuing. But first I had to make sure that it
was really to Lady Barber's interest to kill her husband. I made
inquiries from our legal department and I found out that if the Judge
died, there was nothing whatever to prevent Mr. Sebald-Smith from
pursuing his action at the expense of the estate, so that by killing her
husband she would be no better off financially. That is the result, they
told me, of a fairly recent change in the law."

"Law Reforms (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act, 1934," Pettigrew
interjected.

"Thank you, sir. Unfortunately, as it turned out, I didn't pursue my
legal inquiries quite far enough. But with that information before me,
it seemed to me that my theory must be wrong. For some reason or
another, Lady Barber was pretending to try to kill her husband, while
all the time only too anxious to keep him alive. Only two explanations
seemed to me possible. Either she was deliberately interested in
frightening him, for some obscure purpose of her own, or she was
suffering from some kind of mental strain. The second alternative seemed
to me the better of the two. I don't know much about such matters, but I
could well imagine that a rather highly strung woman, genuinely afraid
for her husband's safety, losing her sleep in watching for the assault
that never came, might in the end be so mentally affected as to start
faking attacks upon him as though to justify the trouble that she was
putting herself to. If I was right, I thought, then as soon as the
strain of the Circuit was removed, and she was living a more or less
normal existence in London again, all these odd manifestations would
stop. And so it turned out.

"At the same time, I was not absolutely easy in my mind about the matter
at first. Then, as time went on and there did not seem to be the least
sign of any danger threatening the Judge, I felt that I must have been
right. Heppenstall had been put out of harm's way, and the first series
of threats and attacks had stopped. Lady Barber had returned to London,
and immediately the second, faked, series had stopped also. It all
seemed too easy. Then, as though to clinch the matter, came the Judge's
attempted suicide. There was no doubt that it was a real attempt, and
equally no doubt that Lady Barber had done everything in her power to
save his life. Indeed, the doctor told me that but for her promptitude
he would infallibly have died. That cleared my mind of my last,
lingering suspicion. There could be no doubt that so far from desiring
his death she was prepared to go to all lengths to preserve his life.

"Then, only a few weeks later, the Judge was killed, in circumstances
with which you are all familiar. There were five obvious suspects. Three
of them are in this room. The fourth was Beamish. The other, of course,
was Lady Barber. The fact that the crime had been committed with a
particular weapon which we could identify with the one last seen at
Eastbury Assizes, led me to eliminate Miss Bartram at once and, after a
little further inquiry, Mr. Marshall also. But that merely put me in
this difficulty--that in so doing, I had eliminated the only two people
with a motive for committing the crime _at that particular moment_. Yet
it was plain that whoever had done so had taken a very considerable
risk. The whole thing spoke not only of considerable daring and
efficiency--how different, you will notice, from the half-hearted,
bungling attempts on Circuit!--but also of great urgency. It looked as
if the murderer had been under a compulsion to seize that one momentary
chance rather than wait for a better opportunity. Looking at the three
remaining suspects, two of them with not inadequate motives for murder,
I could not find any such compulsion, and so far as Lady Barber was
concerned, there was the added absurdity that an anxiety to keep alive
must have been suddenly changed into what I have called a compulsion to
kill. And yet, on the grounds of opportunity alone, it was impossible to
shut one's eyes to the fact that she was by far the likeliest of the
three.

"That was my state of mind yesterday, when you, Mr. Pettigrew, gave me
the key to the whole mystery, by drawing my attention to the fact that
the day of the murder was exactly six months after the day of the
accident at Markhampton."

"Any competent lawyer could see the point of that," said Pettigrew. "But
I must say I was astonished that you tumbled to it so quickly. Quite
candidly, I hoped you wouldn't."

"I didn't see the point of it," said Mallett modestly. "But I did see
that there was a point somewhere. The date of the murder was in some way
connected with the date of the accident. Very well. The only thing to do
was to start all over again from the beginning, and find out what I
could about the accident. Accordingly, on leaving you, I went straight
to Faradays, Mr. Sebald-Smith's solicitors. And there, almost the first
question I asked brought the explanation which I had been seeking for so
long. I asked what stage the action against the Judge had reached at the
time of his death, and the partner whom I interviewed told me that in
fact it had never got beyond the stage of negotiations. The writ in the
action was actually to have been issued on the day after the Judge died.
I noticed that he seemed very upset about it."

"I bet he did," said Pettigrew. "Are Sally and Sebald suing the firm for
negligence?"

"He indicated that there was a possibility of that occurring."

"An odd little epilogue to a murder!"

"But I don't understand," said Derek. "What had all this to do with the
murder?"

"The answer," said Pettigrew, "is in Sub-section three of Section one of
the Act of Parliament I quoted just now. Put into non-technical
language, it amounts to this: You can maintain an action against a chap
for running you down even if he's dead. _But_ to do so you must fulfil
one of two conditions. Either you can start your action while he is
still alive, in which case John Brown's body can moulder in the grave,
but your case goes marching along and you cash in on the executors. Or
you can start your action with J.B. already mouldering, but in that case
you have only got six months to do it in, counting from the time his car
hit you. If you choose to spend six months palavering about the rights
and wrongs of your case before you kick off and the man dies on you,
then your action descends into the grave and moulders also. And serve
you right."

"And that is what happened in this case?"

"That is what happened in this case. And it happened because Hilda--God
rest her soul!--meant it to happen. She was a lawyer, you see, and it so
chanced that her pet study was what is known as the Limitation of
Actions--a subject I used to think dull, but never will again. She knew
that Sebald-Smith's action would ruin her husband completely if it was
fought. She knew also that if he died, she would be ruined by it just
the same. So she set herself to keep him alive and the plaintiff's
solicitors at bay until the six months were up. That was why she had to
stop him from committing suicide last month. And that was why, the
moment the period had gone by, she had to kill him before the writ could
be issued. She must have thought it all out as soon as she was certain
that Sally meant to have her pound of flesh--that day at Rampleford when
the fatal little mouse turned up in your pocket, Marshall. I apologize,
Inspector," he added. "I'm afraid I've taken the words out of your
mouth."

"Not at all," said Mallett. "You have put it all much more clearly than
I could have done. I think that that is the whole of the story--except
for _this_, Mr. Pettigrew." He indicated the note on the table.

"That? My little footnote to the Act of Parliament? Well, it's a very
succinct missive, is it not? A mere reference to the Law Reports."

He took the paper and read aloud:

    "Dear Hilda,

    (1938) 2 K.B. 202.

                   F."

"That, my lord and members of the jury, is simply the reference to the
case of _Daniels v. Vaux_, which decided a different point of law
altogether, but in which the facts were rather similar to these. A well
to do young man, who had omitted to insure himself, ran into a policeman
and injured him badly. There was no real defence to the policeman's
claim, and the solicitors on both sides settled down to argue the amount
of the damages. They were on the point of agreement when the young man
himself was killed--how, history does not relate, but since all this
happened in pre-bomb days, I assume either by his own car, or someone
else's. That occurred six months after the first accident, and nobody
had thought of starting an action. And so the poor plaintiff had none.
You will find all that set out, as my hieroglyphics indicate, in Volume
Two of the King's Bench Reports for the year 1938, at page two hundred
and two. I happened to refer to it yesterday morning, and that was why
the coincidence of the dates struck me so forcibly."

Pettigrew's face, which had been animated during his exposition,
suddenly looked very tired. He reached for the note and tore it slowly
into pieces.

"I suppose," he said bitterly, as he dropped the fragments into the
wastepaper basket, "I suppose that it is the first time on record that
anyone has ever been driven to commit suicide by a quotation from the
Law Reports."






[End of Tragedy at Law, by Cyril Hare]
