“Tell me,” he interrupted at last, “why were you so pleased that we went out for a walk?”
Sir Magnus with a critical and enquiring eye added a teaspoonful of cherry brandy to his cup of tea and stirred it thoughtfully.
“It may not have occurred to you, my dear boy,” he said fulsomely, with the air of one addressing a small and rather retarded child, “that the paths of justice are never smooth. To-day we have been seen by a multitude of people, taking the air in a quiet, civilized fashion, accompanied by Rosy. Rosy, as I thought she would, behaved in an exemplary fashion, while the gawping adult populace looked on. She, with a restraint that did her credit, nuzzled and cosseted the populace’s awful, snotty-nosed progeny. Do you think for one moment that Rosy’s apparent adoration and gentleness with children has not been reported in the humblest hovels in the town?”
Sir Magnus paused to engulf another cream and strawberry jam encrusted scone. He wiped his mouth and, speaking somewhat indistinctly, continued.
“I don’t care where they get their jury from,” he said with slight smugness, “but as soon as they arrive, they will be told by somebody what a civilised creature Rosy is.”
“But,” said Adrian aghast, “I thought the whole point of a jury was that you could not influence them.”
Sir Magnus drew himself up to his full height of four feet and looked at Adrian imperiously.
“You cannot,” he said harshly, “deliberately corrupt a jury. That would be unethical.”
“Yes,” said Adrian, “that’s what I thought.”
“You can, however,” said Sir Magnus smoothly, “since juries are notoriously ill-constructed mentally, tell them what to think.”
He poured some cherry brandy into his empty cup and drained it with a flourish.
19. THE LAW WORKING
The next few days Adrian found extremely exhausting Sir Magnus had insisted that he write to everybody, however remotely connected with Rosy’s case, in spite of Adrian’s protests. He was sure half of them would be of no value to his defence.
“You’ll let me make up my mind about that, my boy,” said Sir Magnus. “Now, this Filigree woman, what about her father.”
“Oh, God no. You don’t want him,” said Adrian panic stricken. “He does nothing but talk about his reincarnations?”
“Excellent,” said Sir Magnum. “Nothing like a reincarnation to create a little confusion among the jurymen. Suggest to this girl that she bring her father with her.”
Adrian was in despair. He felt that Mr Filigree in the witness box would be almost guaranteed to get him penal servitude for life. However, in due course a cold little note appeared from Samantha saying briefly that she and her father would be willing to attend as witnesses and ending “Yours sincerely” in a chilly sort of way.
Gradually the first witnesses arrived. Mr. Pucklehammer in a gay canary yellow and black check suit and a brand new brown bowler hat, delighted to see Adrian and Rosy once more. Black Nell, who had been tracked down with some difficulty, Honoria and Ethelbert, both enjoying the drama enormously, and Honoria periodically bursting into floods of gin-promoted tears at the thought of Rosy being shot and Adrian being imprisoned. Her histrionics impressed Sir Magnus tremendously as he was no mean performer himself and when the two of them got going, Adrian got the uneasy impression that it was a grand opera they were staging, and not a defence.
Then the Filigrees arrived, Samantha cool but beautiful, shaking Adrian gravely by the hand and saying that she was delighted with this opportunity of renewing her acquaintance with Rosy, a remark which cut Adrian to the quick. Mr. Filigree was in a transport of delight for he had never seen the sea before (except in his previous incarnations) and he danced along the shore waving his fat fingers in delight like a great jelly fish. Whenever Sir Magnus wanted to question him, he would be missing and search parties would have to go down to the beach and drag him away from what had become his favourite occupation, washing Rosy down in the shallows and building sand-castles with the neighbouring children. Through them all, roaring like a bull or cooing like a dove, Sir Magnus strode gathering up the threads of their various stories.
Screech scuttled cringing at Sir Magnus’s heels, his pen squeaking like a demented wren as he wrote copious notes. Adrian had made several attempts to try and see Samantha alone, but without any success. She was polite but distant, and with each passing day Adrian grew more and more miserable. By the time the trial arrived, Adrian was in the blackest depths of despair, whereas Sir Magnus, belligerent as a Christmas turkey, strode about engulfing vast quantities of cherry brandy and exuding goodwill and confidence.
After the drab school-room like appearance of the magistrates’ court, Adrian had imagined that the one in which he was to stand trial would be the same, but to his astonishment it was a beautiful room. The judge’s chair and desk were of heavy oak, intricately carved with oak leaves, acorns, and small dimpled cherubs dancing about. Even the front of the witness box was carved. The high ceiling was white with a blue and gold bas-relief.
The air was one of hushed reverence, but with an undercurrent of bustle and activity. Sir Magnus had discovered that Screech had left half his notes at the house, and had become so incensed that Adrian feared for the poor clerk’s life. He had been occupied in trying to calm Sir Magnus down, so it was not for some minutes that he realised the court had filled up and the air of expectancy had grown even stronger.
An immensely tall, angular figure had made his appearance. His gown hung round him in long folds like the wings of a bat, and his wig was perched slightly askew over a lantern-jawed face with a blue chin, soulful spaniel-brown eyes and a turned-down mouth like a slit. But for his garb, you would have said that he was a dyspeptic undertaker in a town where nobody ever died.
“Who’s that?” Adrian asked Sir Magnus.
“Him?” said Sir Magnus, peering ferociously from under his eyebrows. “That’s Sir Augustus Talisman. He’s the prosecuting counsel.”
“I don’t think I care for the look of him,” said Adrian.
“What, old Gussy?” said Sir Magnus in surprise. “Oh, he’s a nice enough chap in his way. But if you go through life prosecuting people, you are bound to end up looking like that.”
“Who’s the judge?” asked Adrian.
“Ah,” said Sir Magnus with satisfaction. “We’ve been very lucky. We have got old Topsy.”
“Topsy!” said Adrian. “That’s an unusual name for a judge.”
“No, no,” said Sir Magnus impatiently, “he’s just called Topsy. His real name is Lord Crispin Turvey.”
“I don’t understand,” said Adrian, bewildered.
“Good heavens, boy,” said Sir Magnus. “It’s obvious isn’t it? Turvey Topsy, Topsy Turvey. He’s the best judge on this circuit. He inevitably gets the wrong end of the stick. That’s why the prosecutor looks so depressed. That’s why he’s called Topsy.”
“Do you mean to say,” said Adrian in amazement, “that he doesn’t know what he’s doing, and he’s a judge?”
“Well, what he does is all right,” said Sir Magnus. “But he just does the opposite to any other judge. I should think he’s been responsible for putting more innocent people in jail than anybody else.”
“Well, I don’t see how that’s going to help me,” said Adrian.
Sir Magnus sighed with the air of somebody who is suffering a fool, if not gladly, with a certain amount of patience.
“Look,” he said kindly, “you start off with a confused judge, you see?”
“Yes,” said Adrian dutifully.
“Well, if your judge is confused before he even starts, you are half way home,” said Sir Magnus. “He will then confuse the jury and I will then confuse both of them.”
“I really don’t see . . .” began Adrian.