Tragedy at Law

by Cyril Hare

  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 pond
erous 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.