Snow, C.P. - George Passant (aka Strangers and Brothers).txt

by Unknown

  Then Olive came in.

  She said: "I told you not to worry. You see how right I was."

  "It might have been better if you had told me the truth----" I was seeing her for the first time since the inquiries; but I was immediately at ease with her.

  "I didn't know----" Then she realized that George was sunk into himself, and she tried to restore his defiance.

  "It's nasty finding a traitor, George." With her usual directness, she went straight into his suffering. "But a man like you is bound to collect envy. The wonder is, there's not been more."

  She used also a bullying candour.

  "We may have weeks of this. We mustn't let each other forget it."

  I felt she had done this before. And, as George was fighting against the despair, her instinct led her to another move.

  She said: "It's not going to be pleasant, is it? The twenty-ninth. You know, I simply couldn't realize what it would be like. Being ashamed and afraid in public. Until this morning. Yet sometimes it seemed perfectly ordinary. I felt that, last night in jail. Of course, it hasn't properly begun to happen yet. I only hope I get through it when it really comes."

  "You'll be better than any of us," George said.

  "I hope I shan't let you down," she said. "You see"--she suddenly turned to me--"you can't believe how childish you find yourself in times like this. This is true, it happened this morning. I could face the thought that the worst might come to the worst. We might get twelve months. Then I felt a lump in my throat. I hadn't been near crying before, since it all began. Do you know why I was now? It had just occurred to me they might have had the decency to put it off until Christmas was over."

  She achieved her purpose; for George, with the curious rough comradeship that he had always shown towards her, made an effort to encourage her.

  As soon as Jack entered, I was able to discuss the tactics. I argued that we must keep our defence back: there was no chance of getting the case dismissed in the police court: we should only give our points away.

  In fact there was really no alternative: as a lawyer as able as George would have been the first to see. But tonight George broke out: "You've got to defend it in the police court. It's essential to get it dismissed out of hand."

  Several times he made these outbursts, damning the prosecution as "ludicrous," attacking it from all angles--as he had done since the alarm began. Some of his attacks were good law, and I had learned from them in my preparation of our case; some were fantastically unreal, the voices of his persecuted imagination. Tonight, however, there seemed another reason in the heart of his violence.

  Jack detected the reason before I did. He interrupted George brusquely; I felt, not knowing whether I was right, that some of their meetings had gone like this, when the three of them were actually conducting their business.

  Jack asked a few masterful, business-like questions: "You think there's no option? We've clearly got to let it go for trial?"

  "Yes."

  "There's no possible way of arranging it now?"

  "It's practically certain to be sent on."

  "Everyone else thinks the same? Eden and the others?"

  "Yes."

  "I entirely disagree," said George.

  Jack turned on him.

  "We know what you're thinking of," said Jack. "You're not concerned about getting us off. You just believe that will happen. What you're frightened of--is that your private life may be dragged out: and your precious group. The whole thing for you is wrapped up with your good intentions. You ought to realize that we haven't got time for those now."

  Jack had spoken freshly, intimately, brutally; George did not reply, and for minutes sat in silence.

  Jack walked up and down the room. He talked a good deal, and assumed that the tactics were settled.

  "If I'd had the slightest idea the hostels would come back on us--I could have worked it out some other way," he said. "It would have been just as easy. There was no earthly reason for choosing the way I did, If anyone had told me there was the faintest chance that I was letting us in for this--waiting----"

  "You needn't blame yourself. More than us," said Olive.

  "I'm not blaming myself. Except for not looking after everything. Next time I do anything, I shall keep it all in my hands."

  "Next time. We've got a long way to go before then," said Olive.

  "I'm not so sure," said Jack. He sat down by her side.

  She looked at him with the first sign of violent strain she had shown that night. I knew she feared that he was thinking of escape: as I had feared the moment she spoke of Morcom's offer.

  "We can make something of it," she said.

  "I suppose we can."

  "You're afraid there's a bad patch to go through first?"

  "I shan't be sorry when it's over." He laid a hand on her knee, with a gesture for him clumsy and grateful. He was dominating the room no longer. He said: "I always told you I should get into the public eye; but I didn't imagine it on such a grand scale."

  It surprised me that he, as much as George, was full of the fear of disgrace. Often of disgrace in its most limited sense -the questions, the appearance in the dock, the hours of being exposed to the public view. They would be open to all eyes in court. Jack could imagine himself cutting a dash--and yet he showed as great a revulsion as George himself.

  "Anyway, we've got some time," said Jack. "When are the assizes, actually?"

  Then George spoke:

  "I can't accept the view that this is bound to go beyond the police court. I have thought over your objections, and I refuse to believe that they hold water."

  "We've told you why you refuse to believe it," said Jack casually. But there came an unexpected flash of the George of years before; he said loudly: "I don't regard you as qualified to hold an opinion. This is a point of legal machinery, and Lewis and I are the only people here capable of discussing it. I don't propose to give you the responsibility."

  "Jack is right," said Olive. "You're thinking of nothing but the group."

  "I'm thinking of ending this affair with as little danger as possible to all concerned," said George. "It's true that I have to take other people into account. But, from every point of view, this ought to be settled in the police court. Of course, wherever it's tried, if they understood the law of evidence, our private lives are utterly irrelevant. But in certain circumstances they might find an excuse to drag them into the court. In the police court they can't go so far: Lewis can make them keep their malice to themselves."

  "Is that true?" said Olive.

  I hesitated.

  "I don't think they will bring it up there. They will be too busy with the real evidence."

  "You're still quite certain that, even if we show our defence, they'll clearly send us for trial?" said Jack.

  "You're exaggerating the case against us," said George. "And, even if you weren't, it's worth the risk. I admit that I want to save other people from unpleasantness as well as myself. But since you're so concentrated on practical results" -he said to Jack--"I might remind you that our chances are considerably better if that unpleasantness is never raised."

  Olive asked: "Do you agree?"

  "If there were a decent chance of finishing it in the police court," I said, "of course George would be right. But I can't believe----"

  "You can't pretend there's no chance of finishing it," George said. "I want you to give a categorical answer."

  The others looked at me. I said: "I can't say there's no chance. There may be one in ten. We can't rule it out for certain."

  "Then I insist that we leave the possibility open. I reject the suggestion that we automatically let it go for trial. If you see a chance, even if it's not absolutely watertight, we shall want you to take it." George raised his voice, and spoke to the other two in the assertive, protective tone of former days: "You've got to understand it's important for both of you. As well as myself. You must realize that the prejudice against us might decide the case."

>   "So long as they get us off the fraud----" Jack said.

  "I've got to impress on you that the sort of prejudice they may raise is going to be the greatest obstacle to getting us off the fraud," George said. "You can't separate them. That's why I insist on every conceivable step being taken to finish it before they can insult us in the open."

  Olive said to me: "George is convincing me."

  I said: "I can't go any further than this: if there's any sign of a chance on the twenty-ninth, I'll go for it. But I warn you, there's not the slightest sign so far."

  Jack said: "If we let you do that, it isn't for George's reasons. You realize that?" he said to George. "You can't expect----"

  George said: "I intend to be listened to. I've let you override me too easily before. This time it's too important to allow myself to be treated as you want."

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  THE TWENTY-NINTH OF DECEMBER

  They appeared before the magistrates' court in the town hall on December 29th, 1932.

  In the week before, I had gone over the whole case with Eden and Hotchkinson. I explained to them that, if the unlikely happened and a chance opened, I might risk going for an acquittal on the spot. They both disagreed; I knew that they were right and that they thought I was losing my judgment; for I could not give them the real reason why I was thinking of a risk that I should never have taken on the legal merits of the case.

  Eden was puzzled, for he knew that I had the case at my fingertips. It was not an intricate one, but slightly untidy in a legal sense. It depended on a few points of fact, not at all on points of law.

  The substance of the case was this: the evidence of fraud over the agency was slight, apart from one definite fact, the discordant information upon the circulation of the Arrow. The evidence over the Farm and hostels was much stronger, but with no such definite fact. There were several suspicious indications, but the transactions had been friendly, with no written documents except the receipts. (The largest loans were two sums of £750 each from acquaintances of Jack's, and £500 from Miss Geary.)

  There existed no record of the information which was supposed to have been given. This was, so the prosecution were to claim, deliberately untrue in two ways: (1) by the receipts of the hostels being falsely quoted--those of the Farm itself, by manipulating the figures of the money spent there by George and his friends from '24 to '31; (2) by Jack pretend ing to have managed such hostels himself and giving details on that authority.

  The prosecution could produce, over the Farm business, several consistent and interrelated stories. The total effect was bound to be strong. But they did not possess an indisputable concrete piece of evidence.

  It was that singularity which threw the story of the Arrow into relief. When Jack had approached people to borrow money to buy the agency, George had proved its soundness by showing them a definite figure for the circulation. He had put this figure on paper; and his statement, not vital in itself, turned out later to be in the hands of the prosecution. They were out to show that it was deliberately false.

  That figure was the most concrete fact they held. Apart from it, they might have omitted the count of the agency altogether.

  I have anticipated a little here. We did not possess the structure of the case so completely when we went into the police court on the 29th.

  Before we had been there an hour, I knew, as any lawyer must have known, that we had no choice. It would go for trial; we were compelled to reserve our defence.

  The man opposite built up a case that, although we could have delayed it, was not going to be dismissed. During the morning, everyone began to realize that nothing could be settled; Olive told me later that she felt a release from anxiety--as soon as she was certain that this could not be a decisive day.

  The prosecution ran through their witnesses. The first was one of the four whom Jack had induced to lend money to buy the advertising firm, a slow-voiced man with kindly and stupid brown eyes.

  "Mr. Cotery made a definite statement about the firm's customers?" asked T----, the prosecutor.

  "Yes."

  "He mentioned the previous year's turnover?"

  "Yes."

  "Also the number of advertisers the firm were agents for?"

  "Yes."

  After other questions, he asked whether Jack referred to the circulation of Martineau's advertising paper.

  "Yes."

  "Can you reproduce that statement?"

  "I made a note of it at the time."

  "Will you give me the figures?"

  He read them out. The figure of the circulation sounded unfamiliar: I remembered it in George's account as 5,300; now it appeared as 6,000. I looked up my own papers and found that I was right.

  "Didn't those figures strike you as large?"

  "They did."

  "What did Mr. Cotery say?"

  "He said they'd be larger still now Mr. Martineau had disappeared and his religious articles would be pushed out of the paper." There were some chuckles.

  "Did you ask for some guarantees?"

  "Yes."

  "Will you tell us exactly what you did?"

  "I asked Mr. Cotery if he could show me what these figures were based on. So he introduced me to Mr. Passant, who told me that he was a solicitor and had a good deal to do with figures and had known the former owner of the agency, Mr. Martineau. He said he had received a statement from Mr. Martineau giving the actual circulation. It was not 6,000. Mr. Cotery had been a little too optimistic, it was just over 5,000. He offered to show me his notes of this statement. And if I were doubtful he promised to trace Mr. Martineau, who had gone away, and get him to write to me."

  "Did you take advantage of that offer?"

  "No."

  "Why not?"

  "I didn't see any reason to. I had known Mr. Cotery for some time, I felt sure it was all above board. I could see Mr. Passant knew what he was talking about."

  The other witnesses followed with the information that T----had foretold in his speech; similar stories to the first, some including Olive. Then an accountant brought out some figures of the agency's business, in particular those of the Arrow: "What was the average circulation in the year 1927?"

  "Eleven hundred per week. So far as I can tell. The books are not very complete."

  "What would you say was the maximum possible for that year? Making every allowance you can?"

  "Perhaps fifteen hundred." This had been threatened in the speech.

  They brought up witnesses against the Farm. It was at this stage we realized for certain the legal structure of the case. Essentially the story was the same. George had taken a less prominent part, Olive naturally more. The information which Jack had given his investors was more complicated, not easy to contradict by a single fact; but several men attacked it piece by piece. Jack had asked advice about the business from a man who ran a hostel himself in another part of the country; the accounts he had given second-hand of this interview were different from the other's remembrance of it. The statistics of visitors to the Farm before 1929 were compared--though here there were some uncertainties--with those given by George and Jack to several witnesses.

  At lunch time I said to George: "If we defend it today--it is bound to go for trial."

  He argued bitterly, but his reason was too strong in the end.

  "You'd better play for safety," he said. "Though I still insist there are overwhelming advantages in getting it wiped off now."

  "If we try that," I said, "there'll be a remand for a week or two. We shall have to show our hand. And they'll still send the case on."

  "If these magistrates were trained as they ought to be," said George, "instead of amateurs who are feeling proud of themselves for doing their social duty, we could fight it out."

  He turned away. "As it is, you'd better play for safety."

  I told Eden and Hotchkinson. Eden said: "I always thought you'd take the sensible view before it was too late."

  When the prosecution's case was fin
ished I made the formal statement that there was no case to go before the jury, but that the nature of the defence could not be disclosed.

  The three were committed for trial at the next assizes; bail was renewed for each of them in the same amounts.

  TWENTY-NINE

  NEWSPAPERS UNDER A READING-LAMP

  The local papers were lying on a chair in Eden's diningroom when I got back from the court. Under the bright reading-lamp, their difference of colour disappeared--though I remembered from childhood the faint grey sheen of one, the yellow tinge in the other. On both of the front pages, the police court charge flared up.

  There was a photograph of Olive. "Miss Calvert, a wellknown figure in town social circles, the daughter of the late James Rist Mr. Passant, a qualified solicitor and a lecturer in the Technical College and School of Art"... a paragraph about myself. The reports were fair enough.

  Everything in them would inevitably have been recorded in any newspaper of a scandal in any town. They were a highest common factor of interest; they were what any acquaintance, not particularly friendly or malign, would tell his friends, when he heard of the event. But it was because of that, because I could find nothing in the reports themselves to expend my anger on, that they brought a more hopeless sense of loneliness and enmity.

  "Allegations against Solicitor." The pitiful inadequacy of it all! The timorous way in which the news, the reporters, the people round us, we ourselves (for the news is merely our own voice) need to make shapes and counters out of human beings in order not to endanger anything in ourselves. George Passant is not George Passant; he is not the man rooted in as many complexities as ourselves, as bewildering in action and yet taking himself as much for granted as we do ourselves; he is not the man with his own private history, desires, man nerisms, perversities like our own, cowardice and braveries odd habits of mind different from ours but of the same family, delights and, like us all, private oddities in love--a man of flesh and bone, as real as our selves. He is not that; if he were, our own identity and uniqueness would have gone.

  To most of the town tonight George is "a solicitor accused of fraud."