“And do you really imagine,” retorted Grail, “that this quite unfunny concoction of your mad mayor, or whoever, is going to receive some sort of formal reply?”
Mr Hoole raised a disclaiming hand. “Ah, you must not regard me as capable of imagining anything, Mr Grail. A second is an absolutely disinterested person, a cypher, one might almost say—a mere carrier of messages.”
“In that case,” said Clive, “kindly carry this one to your Mr Hockley: Go shoot your own silly brains out and stop wasting other people’s time.”
Kebble beamed at Birdie, then, expectantly, at the optician. Hoole, when he chose, could lay tongue to abuse of such refined indecency that it sounded to the uninitiated like a lecture in medical jurisprudence. But on this occasion he merely chuckled and nodded his head four or five times, as if eminently satisfied. Then he left.
“May we now,” said Grail to Kebble, “get back to the business that brought me here in the first place? This film, Joss. I take it that you won’t mind giving us a little help—purely in the matter of identification. The Herald does pay rather well, incidentally.”
On the London train that was drawing into Flaxborough Station at that moment, there happened to be three passengers whose first-class tickets bore witness to the generosity of the proprietors of the Sunday Herald.
They were, in order of costliness, Sir Arthur Heckington, Queen’s Counsel, retained by Herald Newspapers to defend photographer Robert Becket on a charge of aggravated assault with a motor car upon a police officer; Robin Marr-Newton, Herald representative in Baghdad, now on leave; and Mr Ben Suffri, of Haringey, an expert upon Islamic languages.
Sir Arthur, who was six feet and four inches tall, wore the full morning rig of a barrister. “To impress the natives,” he had remarked light-heartedly to Lady Heckington that morning on leaving his Kensington home. The first native to be impressed was the driver of the taxi which he hailed imperiously on emerging from the station. He showed his respect by elaborating a two-hundred yard journey to the offices of Mr Justin Scorpe, solicitor, into a sight-seeing tour of some two and a half miles.
The other two arrivals on Herald business were less splendidly attired. They were directed on foot to their immediate destination, the Roebuck Hotel, which was very little further distant than Mr Scorpe’s premises. There they registered, and drank some bruise-grey coffee while awaiting transport to Miriam Lodge.
Mr Scorpe received Sir Arthur Heckington with outstretched hand and an “Ah, Sir Arthur!” so expressive of admiring familiarity that the barrister doubted for a moment his own reasonable conviction that he had never seen this curious looking fellow before in his life.
For Scorpe unquestionably was easily memorable. He was tall, with a big and knobbly skull, and stood poised in well-worn and slightly too large clothes of courtroom black as if he had been hung up, suit and all, from the nape of his scraggy neck. His eyes were dark and deeply set, his nose long, his wide, thin mouth set in a grim smile of forensic omniscience. He carried in his hand a pair of spectacles, plainly too massive to be worn except for very short periods, but without equal in three counties as an instrument of eloquence, when waved; or, when shaken or jabbed, as a weapon of scorn and discomfiture.
“Morning, er, Scorpe,” said Sir Arthur. He spared the wonderful spectacles no more than a brief and quite sour glance. Scorpe put them on and lowered his head so as to peer over their frames, but the barrister was already engaged in his own ritual of clicking open his briefcase and sorting through a thin sheaf of foolscap. Off the spectacles came again. Scorpe grasped them closed, nibbled one side frame, and awaited developments.
Sir Arthur said he would have a word with Scorpe’s client before the case came into court again but thought there would be no point in going for anything other than a straight rebuttal.
“Exactly,” said Mr Scorpe, weightily.
“You’ll prepare on those lines, then, will you?” said Sir Arthur. He glanced at his watch.
The solicitor looked as if he were about to make a speech, but he got no further than pursing his lips portentously.
“Odd charge,” said Sir Arthur. “Wouldn’t stand up in a thousand years. Police here pretty incompetent, are they?”
A rumble came from the throat of Mr Scorpe. He tapped the furled spectacles against the side of his nose. “Ah, well...as to that, I can but offer...”
“I have been given very clearly to understand,” interrupted Sir Arthur, speaking now with greater deliberation, “that our main object—apart, of course, from demolishing this quite preposterous charge—is to reduce to a minimum the chances of publicity. Don’t ask me why; I thought newspapers liked publicity, good bad or whatever.”
Mr Scorpe’s lower jaw made movements suggestive of deep cogitation. He spoke. “The situation as, ah, I understand it, does happen to have...”
“Become difficult? Of course. A melodramatic indictment like this was bound to make things difficult to play down. You must keep your witnesses grey, Scorpe, grey. Nothing gaudy, you understand.”
Mr Scorpe hauled a large, cinnamon-tinged handkerchief from an inside pocket, flourished it and began to polish the spectacles, holding them to the light occasionally like a host lifted before a reverent congregation.
“The, ah, chief constable of Flaxborough,” he intoned, “did, as it happens, communicate by telephone with my clerk no more than, let me see, twenty minutes ago.” He paused to peer at the barrister as if challenging him to interrupt yet again.
Sir Arthur grunted but remained attentive in his fashion, which was by staring sternly through the window at some pigeons circling above the pantiled roof of the opposite building.
“The substance of the chief constable’s message, as I am led to believe by what my clerk reported, was to the effect, ah, that the police have decided to offer no evidence upon the charge of assault by motor car. They will, however, or so I gather, proceed summarily with the lesser charge of driving the, ah, said motor car without due care and...”
“Attention,” snapped Sir Arthur, with the air of locking Mr Scorpe’s verbosity inside a deed box. He consulted his watch once more. “I do think you might have told me that in the first place, Scorpe. When are they proceeding?”
“It appears that the chief constable holds the view—in deference to my client’s professional obligations, of which it seems he has been apprised—that Mr Becket’s case might now conveniently be brought to the front of the list and, ah, disposed of...just a moment, if you don’t mind, Sir Arthur...” Scorpe assumed the great spectacles and consulted a sheet of paper on his desk. “Ah, yes—on Thursday morning at ten of the clock. Subject always”—a crocodile grin—“to the convenient availability of learned counsel, naturally.”
Sir Arthur nodded and flicked a dust mote from the brim of his bowler with one wash-leather glove. “Have your clerk fetch a taxi, will you, Scorpe? I’d better go and have a word with this Becket fellow. Then all should be plain sailing, mmm?” And for the very first time since his arrival, Counsel released a tiny, four-guinea smile.