Tragedy at Law

by Cyril Hare

  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.”r />
  “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 d
uologue 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.