“Well, I mean if he was with the gang an’ that. The bike mob.”
“His friends, in short.”
“Well, I mean you go around, muck in, have a giggle, p’raps.”
“Exactly,” said Mr Plant-Huntleigh. He sounded pleased.
Delicately, the coroner intervened.
“Forgive me, but as the witness has no legal adviser with him here today, perhaps I might suggest he be asked forthwith if he was in the company of the deceased at the fair. He can scarcely be expected to help establish the circumstances if he was not.”
“I am obliged to you, sir,” said the barrister. “My instructions, however, are that no witness of the accident has come forward and that the police have been unable to solicit assistance in the matter even from such companions of this unfortunate young man as are known to have been present in the fair at the time.”
Purbright half rose. “That is so, sir.”
“In which case,” resumed Mr Plant-Huntleigh, “I think I may fairly say, with respect, that a lack of direct evidence must enhance the value of what we may learn about the deceased, his personality and habits, from an informed, articulate and intelligent witness such as Mr Tring here.”
Sergeant Malley gave a silent whistle in admiration of the London lawyer’s dazzling forensic mendacity. The witness, curling his lip, covertly sent a two-fingered signal to his friends and relations.
“Mr Tring,” said his champion, pleasantly, “we have heard the nice things you said about Digger—his readiness to be a good mixer, his high spirits, his love of ‘having a giggle’. Now, then, you must not be offended by this last question of mine. It has to be asked, you understand, and you should not regard it as an accusation. All I wish you to say is whether or not your brother was a drinking man.”
Mr Tring drew himself to full height and addressed the coroner, accompanied by a mutter of shocked rebuttal at the back of the court.
“Your Honour, as God’s my judge, that boy never went inside a pub in all his life and I can fetch parsons who’ll tell you that—parsons, not bloody policemen!”
“You sound, if I may say so, admirably confident in your brother’s sobriety, Mr Tring,” observed Mr Plant-Huntleigh.
“ ’Course I am.”
“So if, for the sake of argument, someone ever did persuade him to take alcohol...”
“What d’you mean, argument? Who’s been arguing?”
The balm of Mr Plant-Huntleigh’s smile flowed forth. His hand, like a guru’s, enjoined peace. “No, no, no, Mr Tring. I am putting to you an utterly imaginary situation. I am asking you—a sensitive and sensible person—what would be likely to happen if a teetotaller, a non-drinker, your late brother, for instance, were to be induced—against his will, perhaps—to imbibe alcoholic liquor.”
For a moment Tring pondered, frowning suspiciously. Then he shrugged.
“Well, he’d get pissed, wouldn’t he?”
Mr Plant-Huntleigh, suddenly transformed back into a remote eminence, no longer the kindly confidant of bereaved storekeepers, made curt intimation to the coroner that he had no further questions, and moved his seat to confer with the whiskered man in green velveteen.
Dr Heineman was called.
The pathologist from Flaxborough General Hospital was a brisk enthusiast who gave his evidence in the manner of a lecturer. He was lithe and bony, with remarkably mobile eyebrows. In his gracefully gesticulating right hand was an invisible scalpel with which he seemed all the time to be parting and excising layers of tissue. It seemed a pity, Purbright reflected, that so professional a performance could, in the end, produce nothing better than a report of a common or garden busted skull.
“And that was the cause of death, was it, doctor?” asked the coroner, also sensible of anti-climax.
“Thet,” responded Dr Heineman, “was the cows of dith. Igsectly.”
Mr Cannon looked inquiringly at Mr Plant-Huntleigh.
“If he would kindly reiterate one tiny point,” said the barrister, rising, “I should be most obliged. Purely a matter of confirmation of my notes, doctor.”
Dr Heineman smiled an Old Vienna smile.
“Analysis of a sample of the blood of the deceased disclosed—am I correct?—an alcohol content equivalent to that which would be produced by consuming five ounces of spirits.”
“One handred end forty grems. Five wunces. Shoor.”
“A quarter of a bottle of whisky, doctor.”
“Yis. Thet you could say.”
“Thank you, doctor.”
It took some time for the import of this quiet, businesslike exchange to register upon the Tring family. When it did, they voiced indignation so forcefully that the coroner sent Malley to give them the choice between silence and eviction.
Mr Cannon then announced his intention of adjourning the inquest for two weeks.
“I think there would be no point in an adjournment sine die,” he said, looking directly at Mr Plant-Huntleigh as if seeking his permission to use such a very legal phrase. “Police inquiries into the accident are proceeding, of course, but the view of the police is that if a witness does not come forward in the next week or so—while the fair is in the town, in fact—it must be considered unlikely that we shall ever know more than we do now about this unfortunate occurrence.”
“There is other testimony to be heard, though, is there not? Irrespective of what may or may not be offered by the hypothetical eye-witness.”
Mr Cannon hurriedly assured Counsel for the proprietor of Space Shot that there was indeed such testimony and that it would be put on record two weeks hence. Depositions had been taken from two fairground attendants and an engineer’s report on the equipment from which the man had fallen would also be entered as evidence.
“I have a copy of that report,” said Mr Plant-Huntleigh. “I think that in order to alleviate possible public anxiety I should be permitted to disclose that the ride known as Space Shot has been found to be absolutely safe.”
“Crafty sod,” murmured Malley to Purbright. “I’ll bet that’s the swiftest two hundred quid he ever earned.”
The coroner said he considered Mr Plant-Huntleigh’s application perfectly reasonable in the circumstances. Courteously, they bobbed at each other. Papers were gathered, chairs pushed back. Dr Heineman went bounding off towards his pickles and dissection slabs. Policemen loitered gravely, like museum attendants at closing time, until all the members of the public had departed; then they unbuttoned tunics and some lit cigarettes.
Chapter Three
Irreverence was not a charge that could fairly be laid against Detective Sergeant Sidney Love. So when on one occasion he described life in the highly priced houses on Oakland as “all single beds and dinner gongs”, he was expressing genuine admiration.