'The court was not told the reasons for his size.'
'Then the law is an ass,' says Horace, who has recently learned the phrase.
'Had he ever done it before?' asks Maud.
'Now that's an excellent point,' says George, nodding like a judge. 'It goes to the question of intent. Either he knew from previous experience that he was too fat to enter a third-class compartment and bought a ticket despite this knowledge, or he bought a ticket in the honest belief that he could indeed fit through the door.'
'Well, which is it?' asks Horace, impatiently.
'I don't know. It doesn't say in the report.'
'So what's the answer?'
'Well, the answer here is a divided jury – one for each party. You'll have to argue it out between you.'
'I'm not going to argue with Maud,' says Horace. 'She's a girl. What's the real answer?'
'Oh, the Correctional Court at Lille found for the railway company. Payelle had to reimburse them.'
'I won!' shouts Horace. 'Maud got it wrong.'
'No one got it wrong,' George replies. 'The case could have gone either way. That's why things go to court in the first place.'
'I still won,' says Horace.
George is pleased. He has engaged the interest of his junior jury, and on succeeding Saturday afternoons he presents them with new cases and problems. Do passengers in a full compartment have the right to hold the door closed against those on the platform seeking to enter? Is there any legal difference between finding someone's pocketbook on the seat, and finding a loose coin under the cushion? What should happen if you take the last train home and it fails to stop at your station, thereby obliging you to walk five miles back in the rain?
When he finds his jurors' attention waning, George diverts them with interesting facts and odd cases. He tells them, for instance, about dogs in Belgium. In England the regulations state that dogs have to be muzzled and put in the van; whereas in Belgium a dog may have the status of a passenger so long as it has a ticket. He cites the case of a hunting man who took his retriever on a train and sued when it was ejected from the seat beside him in favour of a human being. The court – to Horace's delight and to Maud's dissatisfaction – found for the plaintiff, a ruling which meant that from now on if five men and their five dogs were to occupy a ten-seated compartment in Belgium, and all ten were the bearers of tickets, that compartment would legally be classified as full.
Horace and Maud are surprised by George. In the schoolroom there is a new authority about him; but also, a kind of lightness, as if he is on the verge of telling a joke, something he has never done to their knowledge. George, in return, finds his jury useful to him. Horace arrives quickly at blunt positions – usually in favour of the railway company – from which he will not be budged. Maud takes longer to make up her mind, asks the more pertinent questions, and sympathizes with every inconvenience that might befall a passenger. Though his siblings hardly amount to a cross-section of the travelling public, they are typical, George thinks, in their almost complete ignorance of their rights.
Arthur
He had brought detectivism up to date. He had rid it of the slow-thinking representatives of the old school, those ordinary mortals who gained applause for deciphering palpable clues laid right across their path. In their place he had put a cool, calculating figure who could see the clue to a murder in a ball of worsted, and certain conviction in a saucer of milk.
Holmes provided Arthur with sudden fame and – something the England captaincy would never have done – money. He bought a decent-sized house in South Norwood, whose deep walled garden had room for a tennis ground. He put his grandfather's bust in the entrance hall and lodged his Arctic trophies on top of a bookcase. He found an office for Wood, who seemed to have attached himself as permanent staff. Lottie had returned from working as a governess in Portugal and Connie, despite being the decorative one, was proving an invaluable hand at the typewriter. He had acquired a machine in Southsea but never managed to manipulate it with success himself. He was more dextrous with the tandem bicycle he pedalled with Touie. When she became pregnant again, he exchanged it for a tricycle, driven by masculine power alone. On fine afternoons he would project them on thirty-mile missions across the Surrey hills.
He became accustomed to success, to being recognized and inspected; also to the various pleasures and embarrassments of the newspaper interview.
'It says you are a happy, genial, homely man.' Touie was smiling back at the magazine. 'Tall, broad-shouldered and with a hand that grips you heartily, and, in its sincerity of welcome, hurts.'
'Who is that?'
'The Strand Magazine.'
'Ah. Mr How, as I recall. Not one of nature's sportsmen, I suspected at the time. The paw of a poodle. What does he say of you, my dear?'
'He says… Oh, I cannot read it.'
'I insist. You know how I love to see you blush.'
'He says… I am "a most charming woman".' And, on cue, she blushed, and hurriedly changed the subject. 'Mr How says, that "Dr Doyle invariably conceives the end of his story first, and writes up to it". You never told me that, Arthur.'
'Did I not? Perhaps because it is as plain as a packstaff. How can you make sense of the beginning unless you know the ending? It's entirely logical when you reflect upon it. What else does our friend have to say for himself?'
'That your ideas come to you at all manner of times – when out walking, cricketing, tricycling, or playing tennis. Is that the case, Arthur? Does that account for your occasional absent-mindedness on the court?'
'I might have been putting on the dog a little.'
'And look – here is little Mary standing on this very chair.'
Arthur leaned over. 'Engraved from one of my photographs – there, you see. I made sure they put my name underneath.'
Arthur had become a face in literary circles. He counted Jerome and Barrie as friends; had met Meredith and Wells. He had dined with Oscar Wilde, finding him thoroughly civil and agreeable, not least because the fellow had read and admired his Micah Clarke. Arthur now reckoned he would run Holmes for not more than two years – three at most, before killing him off. Then he would concentrate on historical novels, which he had always known were the best of him.
He was proud of what he had done so far. He wondered if he would have been prouder had he fulfilled Partridge's prophecy and captained England at cricket. It was quite clear this would never happen. He was a decent right-hand bat, and could bowl slows with a flight that puzzled some. He might make a good all-round MCC man, but his final ambition was now more modest – to have his name inscribed in the pages of Wisden.
Touie bore him a son, Alleyne Kingsley. He had always dreamed of filling a house up with his family. But poor Annette had died out in Portugal; while the Mam was as stubborn as ever, preferring to stick in her cottage on that fellow's estate. Still, he had sisters, children, wife; and his brother Innes was not far away at Woolwich, preparing for an army life. Arthur was the breadwinner, and a head of the family who enjoyed dispensing largesse and blank cheques. Once a year he did it formally, dressing as Father Christmas.
He knew the proper order should have been: wife, children, sisters. How long had they been married – seven, eight years? Touie was all anyone could possibly want in a wife. She was indeed a most charming woman, as The Strand Magazine had noted. She was calm and had grown competent; she had given him a son and daughter. She believed in his writing down to the last adjective, and supported all his ventures. He fancied Norway; they went to Norway. He fancied dinner parties; she organized them to his taste. He had married her for better for worse, for richer for poorer. So far there had been no worse, and no poorer.