‘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 realise 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 realise 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.’
28: The Twenty-Ninth of December
THEY appeared before the magistrates’ court in the town hall on 29 December 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. I was contemplating a risk which, on the legal merits of the case, I should never have taken.
Eden was puzzled, for he knew that I had the case analysed and mastered. 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 pretending 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 singularly 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 had come into 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 twenty-ninth.
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 realise 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 5300; now it appeared as 6000. 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 6000. Mr Cotery had been a little too optimistic, it was just over 5000. 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?’