McBride, the philosopher, was the host of the great man; and he felt bound to interfere, partly from a sense of hospitality, and partly because he always likes to be desperately just. (Nobody, it has been said, has seen more points of view than McBride, or adopted less.) “I was just thinking,” he said, “that perhaps you could put up an apology for Sir Leonard’s point of view if you claim that Law should be regarded as one of the sciences. You see, it’s notorious, isn’t it — I think even Cowan here will agree with me — that science owes some of its greatest developments to the influence of theories which have proved quite false, but were suggestive nevertheless, and put people on the track of the truth. Isn’t it arguable, I mean, in the same way, that my friend here is justified in putting forward a hypothesis, which will help forward the cause of truth if only by eliminating error?”
Penkridge, who hates dons, was evidently preparing to say something unpleasant; but Sir Leonard forestalled him by disowning the proffered help. “It’s not a scientific mind you need in the legal profession,” he insisted; “it’s a kind of artistic gift. You’ve got to be imaginative; to throw yourself into the business of picturing the story happening as you want it to have happened; with your client innocent, of course. Probably, if we knew, we should find that the truth in many cases is even stranger than all our imaginings. But imagination is what you must have — did I ever tell you the story of a client of mine, a man by the name of Westmacott?”
Several voices demanded that the story should be told; better to have Sir Leonard being prosy, than Penkridge being unmannerly. And Sir Leonard, when his cigar was going, went ahead with the story.
“I first came across Westmacott,” explained Sir Leonard, “over a business that never came into court, though it precious nearly did. I was only called in on a minor point to give counsel’s opinion. He was a man in late middle age, with an unhealthy look about him, as if you wouldn’t give him a very long life, and a depressed, restless sort of manner, as if his mind was preoccupied with something else than what he was talking about at the moment. He had done well on the Stock Exchange, and had retired just lately, with a considerable income he hardly knew what to do with. At least, it was a surprise to his friends when he went to stay over Christmas at one of those filthy great luxury hotels in Cornwall. It was the kind of place that tried to make you believe you were on the Riviera, with any amount of central heating and artificial sunlight, and a covered-in bathing-pool where the water was kept at a temperature of eighty or so, night and day. Of course, he might have gone to Cornwall for his health; but one didn’t see why he should have gone to a place like that, because he was well known to be old-fashioned in his views and conservative in his opinions, whereas the Hotel Resplendent was all full of modern people, a cosmopolitan and rather Bohemian crowd. Among the rest there was a well-known literary man; he’s still alive, and you’d all know his name, so I’ll call him just Smith.
“I’m speaking of some years ago, you’ll understand. Nowadays, of course, it doesn’t matter what anybody writes, or what sort of opinions he puts forward; it’s all art. But at the time of which I’m speaking, there were still people going about who were capable of being shocked, and they were shocked by Smith. It wasn’t so much his indecency, though every book he wrote looked as if it was meant to be seized by the police. He was really, if an old fogy like myself can be allowed to use such forgotten language, a bad influence on the young people; everybody admitted it, though already most people rather admired him for it. Westmacott had never met him before, and the other people in the hotel felt pretty certain that the two wouldn’t hit it off. The curious thing is, they were wrong. Westmacott hadn’t read any of Smith’s stuff, it appeared; indeed, he read very little except detective stories, which he devoured at the rate of one a day. And — well, strange acquaintances do ripen, and ripen fast, in a god-forsaken place like the Hotel Resplendent.
“It was a bad season; money wasn’t being thrown about that year as much as usual; and the management tried to make the best of the position by encouraging the guests to be a sort of family party, with any amount of ‘olde-worlde’ festivities. Naturally, they concentrated on Christmas Day; crackers and Christmas presents, and a synthetic boar’s head, and a Yule-log specially imported from Sweden; and a set of waits who’d been in training under an opera expert for months past. By half-past ten the company — between twenty and thirty of them, when you’d counted out the invalids who’d gone to bed early, and the idiots who’d gone out in cars for no reason whatever — found themselves set down by the master of the revels to play ‘blind man’s buff.’ This didn’t go too well, especially as the great hall in which they played it was heated like a crematorium. It was Westmacott, people remembered afterwards, who made the suggestion you would have expected to come from anybody but Westmacott — that they should all go and play ‘blind man’s buff’ in the swimming-bath.
“Well, they got some kick out of it after that. Westmacott didn’t go in himself, but he hung about on the edge; as a matter of fact, it was only pretty strong swimmers who did go in, because the bath was a matter of twelve feet deep at the shallowest part, and there was nothing but a hand-rail to lug yourself out by. Smith and Westmacott got into an argument, Westmacott saying he didn’t believe you could know what direction you were swimming in when you were blindfolded, and Smith (who was an exceptionally good swimmer himself) maintaining that it was perfectly easy, unless you’d got a bad sense of direction anyhow. It was nearly midnight when the party went away, and it seems that Smith and Westmacott stayed behind to settle their differences with a practical try-out and a bet; Smith was to swim ten lengths in the bath each way, touching the ends every time, but never touching the sides. They were quite alone when Westmacott adjusted the handkerchief on his new friend’s forehead, to make sure that everything was above-board.
“Well, Smith did his ten lengths each way, and by his own account made a good thing of it. As he swam he didn’t bother to touch the handrail, which was rather high out of the water; but when he’d finished he naturally felt for it — and it wasn’t there! He tore the handkerchief off his eyes, which wasn’t too easy, and found the whole place was in the dark. The rail wasn’t within his reach anywhere, and he tumbled to what must have happened. Somehow a goodish lot of water must have been let out of the bath while he wasn’t looking; and there was nothing to do but go on swimming about until somebody came to put things right for him; or, alternatively, until the level of the water fell so much that he was able to stand on the bottom.
“Other things began to occur to him before long. For one thing, he knew, more or less, where it was that the water escaped when the bath was changed, and he knew that there was a considerable undertow when it happened. He found there was no undertow now, which meant that the water wasn’t escaping any longer, and there was no chance of finding that he’d got into his depth. Also, he remembered that the swimming-bath was a long way from anywhere, and it wasn’t very likely that he would he heard if he shouted. Also, he couldn’t quite see how the water could have started emptying itself and then stopped, unless somebody was controlling it.
“Well, they say the devil looks after his own, and it so happened that the night watchman, whom they kept at the Hotel Resplendent (chiefly to keep out of the way when he wasn’t wanted), had spotted that the water was running away, and mentioned it to somebody; a search was made, and Smith was pulled out of the water with a rope, none too soon for his peace of mind. Smith was positive, of course, that he had been the victim of a particularly cunning murderous attack. I say particularly cunning, because, once he had drowned, it would have been easy for Westmacott (he assumed Westmacott was the villain) to have let the water into the bath again; and all the world would have been left supposing that Smith had committed suicide — how else could a strong swimmer have drowned with a handrail in his reach all the time? It looked as if it was going to be a very nasty business, and what didn’t make it any better was Westmacott’s own explanation, made privately to his lawyers, that the whole thing was a joke, and he had been meaning to rescue Smith later on. Nothing, it was explained to him, is more difficult to predict than a jury’s sense of humor. Enormous efforts were made to hush the thing up, chiefly by the hotel people, who thought it meant the end of their business if they were involved in a scandal; I’m not sure they were right there, but, as I say, this happened some years ago. The difficulty of Smith’s case was that there was no proving it was Westmacott who had tampered with the water apparatus (as a matter of fact, anybody could have done it), and it was that hitch that induced the police to let it go; and Smith to be content with a handsome compensation.