Her voice was quiet, clear and monotonous. Everyone was believing her story. It sounded nothing like an invention: she seemed to draw on one of those minutely accurate memories, common among many people with an outwardly drab and uneventful life.
‘What did Mr Passant say?’
‘He argued for a while — he talked about the difficulties of raising the money. He said he didn’t propose to find himself the wrong side of the law.’
Getliffe made a note. She continued: ‘Mr Cotery said how easy it would be to raise the money. “You see,” he said, “as soon as we own the place we can kill two birds with one stone. We can make a good deal of money out of it ourselves. It would be a good investment for the people we borrow from. And it’s child’s play persuading them. We’ve got all the cards in our hands. We’ve been here more often than everyone else put together. No one else knows how many people might use a hostel like this. We can tell people what its possibilities are.”’
‘From that remark,’ Porson said, ‘you gathered Mr Cotery was suggesting they should give false information?’
‘I can’t say.’
‘That’s what you understood at the time, isn’t it?’
‘I’d rather not say. I may have got a wrong impression. I’m certain of what was said, though.’
‘Very well. What happened afterwards?’
‘Mr Cotery went on at Mr Passant. No one else said much. At last Mr Passant said: “It would be magnificent! It will have to be done! I’ve respected my obligations long enough and they go on ignoring me. Besides, the suspense is wearing us down.”’
‘We are hearing about this suspense again. What suspense did they both mean?’
Getliffe objected. He was getting on better with the judge than Porson was, and had begun to play on Porson’s truculence. He also knew that the case was important in Porson’s career, which hadn’t been a lucky one.
Porson turned to the judge. ‘I have just supplied what the jury will consider a discussion of a future conspiracy. I wish to carry this line further.’
The judge smiled perfunctorily. ‘You may ask the question.’
‘What suspense did they mean?’
‘He meant — they were afraid.’
‘What of?’
‘Some of their relations being discovered.’
‘You had no doubt of that at the time?’
‘None at all.’
Porson’s tone was comradely and casuaclass="underline" ‘You mean some of them had immoral relations with each other?’
‘Is this necessary?’ put in the judge. ‘I take it you only want to demonstrate that they had a strong reason for attempting to get this farm to themselves? Surely you have asked enough to make the position clear.’
‘I consider it’s desirable to ask one or two more questions,’ Porson said.
‘I don’t think I can let you proceed any further along this line,’ the judge said.
‘I wish to make the jury aware of certain reasons.’
‘They will have gathered enough.’
‘Under protest, I should like to ask one or two relevant questions.’
‘Go on,’ said the judge.
‘Well, Mrs Ward. I shan’t keep you long in the circumstances. Can you just tell us whether there was any change in the attitude of Mr Passant and his friends — the attitude of these people whom we have learned to call the group — when strangers came to the farm?’
The judge was frowning. Getliffe looked at him, half-rose, then did not object.
‘There was a great deal of talk about discretion after the scares began.’
‘What were these scares?’
‘You may not ask that,’ said the judge.
‘I should like—’
‘You may not ask that.’
Porson turned round to the witness box.
‘I hope the jury will have understood how afraid these people were of any discovery of their activities. Although I haven’t been permitted to establish the point to my own satisfaction. However, perhaps I’m allowed to ask you whether you thought any of them, Mr Passant for example, were afraid of having their careers damaged if their activities came out?’
‘I thought so.’
‘Would you say any of them felt an even more compelling fear?’
‘I can’t answer that,’ she said.
‘Why can’t you?’
‘I’m not certain.’
All of a sudden, Porson was back in his seat, leaning against the bench, his legs crossed and his lids half over his eyes.
Getliffe cross-examined at length. She had left the School and George’s company months before the farm was bought. This conversation was long before they made any attempt to raise money? She had not been in their confidence at the critical time? The conversation might have been utterly at random? Obviously this danger which had been so much stressed could not have been urgent — as they went on for months without acting on it?
She answered the questions as straightforwardly as Porson’s; she did not seem either malicious or burdened by her responsibility. I had learned only a few random facts about her; she had become a Catholic since she married, the marriage was apparently happy, she now lived in the school house of a country grammar school. She had always been intimate with her half-sister, Mona. None of us understood her part in the trial.
Getliffe finished by a number of questions on the after-supper conversation. Had she never heard people making plans for the fun of it? Had she never made plans herself of how to get rich quick? Had she never even heard people speculating on how to commit the ideal murder? For a moment, her answers were less composed than at the direct and critical points. Then Getliffe asked her about George’s remark: ‘I don’t propose to find myself the wrong side of the law.’ ‘You are quite certain that was said?’ Getliffe said.
‘Yes.’
‘You believed it at the time?’
‘It struck me as a curious remark to make.’
She replied to Porson’s re-examination just as equably. Now, however, with people excited by the scandal, he raised several bursts of laughter: it was, for the first time, laughter wholly on Porson’s side. It was a sound which George could not escape. A wind had sprung up, the windows rattled, and at times the sun shone in beams across the room; in that rich, mellow, domestic light the court grew more hostile through the afternoon.
34: Dinner Party After a Bad Day
AS soon as the court adjourned, we heard a great deal of talk upon Iris Ward’s evidence. Everyone who spoke to us seemed to have believed her account; there was a continuous stir of gossip and curiosity about the lives of George and his friends. They were disapproved of with laughter and excitement: people thought that Porson had been right to force a scandal into notice. ‘He’s won the case and shown them up at the same time,’ someone said in my hearing.
Getliffe himself was unusually grave. He kept talking of Iris’ evidence, and seemed both moved and despondent. He was anxious over the result, of course — but something else was taking hold of him.
Though we were to meet at Eden’s house for dinner, he kept on talking in the robing-room long after the court had cleared. Then I went straight to George’s and stayed for a couple of hours. The three of them were there alone; they had eaten every meal together since the trial began; only my presence tonight prevented an outburst of reproaches — my presence, and the state into which George had fallen.
He scarcely spoke or protested; yet, as his eyes saw nothing but his own thoughts, his face was torn with suffering — just as when he heard the call for Iris Ward.