In the morning a large constable made his appearance carrying a mug of tea and a hunk of black bread, and Adrian discovered that not only was he hungry, but his throat was so parched he could only talk in a croaking whisper.
‘How’s Rosy?’ he, asked the constable.
‘Don’t you go fretting about her, sir,’ said the constable comfortably. ‘She can look after herself, that elephant can. The station sergeant’s nearly gone mad keeping up with her appetite. It’s a wonderful beast, sir.’
‘In some ways I suppose she is,’ said Adrian.
‘You seem to have got up to some tricks with her,’ said the constable.
‘Yes,’ said Adrian shortly, not wishing to have to tell his story all over again. ‘What time do we go to the magistrates’ court?’
‘Ten o’clock, sir,’ said the constable.
‘I wonder,’ said Adrian, ‘if you could possibly lend me a razor? Mine got left behind in the rush.’
‘Surely, sir,’ said the constable, and went out, locking the door behind him. Presently he reappeared with a large razor, and stayed there watching while Adrian washed and shaved, then he retrieved the razor and disappeared.
Now, thought Adrian, I must work out my defence. He paced feverishly up and down the cell, occasionally pausing to gesture wildly at the walls as he endeavoured to persuade an implacable imaginary judge that he and Rosy were innocent of any crime whatsoever.
At the end of it, however, he was bound to admit that his defence, if it could be called that, was slender in the extreme. It was obvious that he must pin his faith on Sir Magnus. He was evidently well known to the police, judging by the looks of ill-concealed loathing that they gave him, presumably because of his successes in court. But in this case, Adrian felt, even the most brilliant of lawyers would be hard-pressed to prove his innocence.
At ten o’clock the constable reappeared jangling a rather ominous pair of handcuffs.
‘We’re off now, sir,’ he said cheerfully. ‘It’s only a step down the road, but if you don’t mind, sir, it’s just a formality, sir. If you’ll just slip these on.’
Adrian allowed him to fasten the handcuff to his left wrist and then the constable attached the other end to his own wrist.
‘There we are,’ he said paternally, ‘snug as a bug in a rug.’
‘Does Rosy have to come too?’ enquired Adrian.
‘No, sir,’ said the constable. ‘That’s not necessary. She’s more in the nature of an exhibit, as you might say. We won’t want ’er until your trial.’
In the charge room Sir Magnus awaited them. In the daylight his coat and hat and his extraordinary shoes looked even more decrepit than they had done the previous night and it was obvious that several moths who had had the courage to get on the wrong side of Sir Magnus had wrought havoc with various parts of his moleskin waistcoat.
‘My dear Adrian,’ he said, waving his walking-stick amicably, ‘I trust you had a good night’s rest, although I fear in these places the accommodation is a little limited.’
‘Oh, it was comfortable enough,’ said Adrian, ‘but I didn’t get much sleep.’
Sir Magnus cast him a ferocious look from under his white eyebrows.
‘Don’t you trust me?’ he asked fiercely.
‘Why, yes, of course,’ said Adrian startled.
‘Well, then, stop getting yourself into a turmoil,’ said Sir Magnus. He picked up his top hat and set it at a jaunty angle on his head with a loving pat.
‘Come,’ he said, waving his cane, ‘let us take the air.’
He led the way out of the police station as though he were leading a parade and the constable and Adrian, clanking musically, followed behind. For the first time Adrian began to realise what Rosy must have felt like when she was shackled. As people in the streets turned to stare, Adrian felt himself getting redder and redder and shrivelling up inside. It was an immense relief when they finally turned into a doorway to the magistrates’ court.
For some obscure reason, Adrian had imagined that he would be tried by the magistrates’ court, condemned, and carried out from there loaded down with chains, but to his astonishment justice did not appear to work in this swift and exemplary fashion. The magistrate, who looked, Adrian thought, an exceedingly good example of the criminal type, listened patiently while the constable who had arrested Adrian began his evidence. The constable, who was basso profundo in the police choir, read from his notebook slowly and ponderously, annunciating each word with relish.
‘Police Constable Emanuel Dray, 124, Island of Scallop Constabulary. Sir, on the evening of the 5th June I was proceeding along the dockside at Scallop when my attention was drawn to a crowd that had gathered and was staring into the harbour and appeared greatly excited. Proceeding to the edge of the docks, I perceived the accused disporting himself in the waters with a large and unidentified object, which later, on closer inspection, proved to be an elephant.
‘Having previously been informed that a man in possession of an elephant was wanted for questioning in connection with certain disturbances which had taken place in the County of Brockelberry I came to the conclusion that this must be the gentleman in question. When he and the elephant landed on the docks, I approached him and asked if the elephant was his.’
At this point the magistrate raised his eyebrows and cleared his throat with a dry rustle like a small lizard wriggling between two tightly wedged stones.
‘Constable,’ he said, ‘why did you ask him whether it was his elephant? I would have thought that if you find somebody disporting themselves in the harbour with an elephant it is fairly obvious that the elephant is his?’
The constable, slightly thrown off course by this interruption, shuffled his feet.
‘Well, sir,’ he said reddening, ‘I thought as how it might be somebody else’s elephant what he was looking after.’
The magistrate gave a tiny sigh.
‘An extremely unlikely hypothesis,’ he said. ‘Do continue.’
It took Constable Dray a moment or so with the aid of a stubby finger to find his place in his notes, and then he cleared his throat, threw back his head like a choirboy and proceeded.
‘The accused said, ‘It is mine.’ I then asked him if his name was Adrian Rookwhistle, to which he replied, ‘That is my name’. I then asked him if he would step down to the station with me to help us in our enquiries, to which he replied, ‘Look officer, I can explain everything’.’
Here Constable Dray paused and beamed at the magistrate. This was, as far as he was concerned, a clear confession of guilt.
‘Well?’ said the magistrate coldly.
‘Well, sir,’ said Constable Dray, his moment of glory shattered, ‘I then took him down to the station where he was cautioned and later charged.’
‘I see,’ said the magistrate. ‘Thank you, Constable.’
Constable Dray shuffled out of the witness box with the ponderous care of a Shire horse and the magistrate flipped through some papers and then looked up.
The police inspector rose to his feet.
‘I ask, sir,’ he said, ‘that the prisoner be remanded in custody to appear before the magistrates in a week’s time.’
The magistrate looked enquiringly at Sir Magnus Ramping Fumitory who, throughout the procedure, had been sitting there apparently sound asleep. Sir Magnus rose to his feet.
‘Sir,’ he said, fishing out his snuff box and tapping it gently with his forefinger. ‘Sir, my client has been charged by my friends the police’ (a faint growl from the inspector was quelled by a look from the magistrate) ‘with these paltry trumped-up charges.’
Sir Magnus threw out his arms.
‘Sir Magnus,’ interrupted the magistrate, ‘we are all not only conscious, but envious, of your powers of oratory. However, I would like to point out to you that at this precise moment your client is not on trial.’
‘Sir,’ said Sir Magnus, ‘this noble young stripling who, as you kindly pointed out, is not on trial, against who
m, as yet, no proof of guilt has been offered, is, should my friends the police have their way, to be incarcerated, cut off from friends and family, cut off from the gay hurly-burly of life, cut off indeed from that magnificent dumb creature who, in times of stress, is his only consolation, cut off I might say . . .’
‘Sir Magnus,’ said the magistrate sharply, ‘I would be grateful if you would get to the point. What is it you wish?’
‘Bail, sir,’ said Sir Magnus profoundly. He made a grandiloquent gesture which inadvertently scattered half an ounce of snuff over the table in front of him.
‘My client, sir,’ he said, ‘is not a vagrant, a vagabond, a gypsy, a tramp, nor is he a mountebank . . .’
The magistrate was by now beginning to lose his temper. ‘Sir Magnus,’ he said, ‘we are not gathered here to construct a dictionary of synonyms.’
‘In short,’ continued Sir Magnus, not in any way put out, ‘I would say that my client is a man of substance, perfectly able – indeed I would say willing – to stand bail, so that, for however brief a period, he may return to the outside world.’
‘Spare us,’ said the magistrate acidly. ‘I have grasped your point.’
He sat back and surveyed Adrian briefly with a cold stare.
‘It is not customary in cases like this for us to go against the recommendation of the police. However, this is a case which appears to have many unusual features, so I will grant your client bail in his own recognisance in the sum of fifty pounds.’
‘I am deeply grateful to you, sir,’ said Sir Magnus, bowing low. And then, opening his snuff box with great care, he brushed all the snuff on the table back into the box, to the accompaniment of ‘God Save the Queen.’ Adrian by now was completely confused and was, indeed, under the firm impression that by some miracle he was being discharged, having suffered no greater penalty than the loss of fifty pounds. The Clerk of the Court fixed him with a puppeteer’s eye.
‘Stand up, Rookwhistle,’ he said.
Adrian rose somewhat shakily to his feet.
‘Adrian Rookwhistle, you are bound in the sum of fifty pounds, in your own recognisance, to appear before the magistrates in this court on Tuesday next. Do you understand?’ the magistrate said.
‘Yes, sir,’ Adrian replied.
Adrian left the court in a daze of delight. He was free, Rosy was free, and with a bit of luck he would be seeing Samantha very shortly. After all the ghastly experiences to which he had been subjected, this was a moment of triumph to be savoured to the full. As they reached the pavement, he seized Sir Magnus Ramping Fumitory’s hand and pumped it up and down.
‘My dear Sir Magnus,’ he said, ‘how can I thank you? To think that you, with your brilliant mind, should have come to my rescue in this fashion, and saved me and Rosy from what would assuredly have been a terrible fate. I cannot thank you enough.’
Sir Magnus, with the long-suffering air of one extracting himself from the exuberant gambols of a puppy, disengaged his hand from Adrian’s and stepped back.
‘What?’ he said, glowering from under his eyebrows, ‘are you talking about?’
‘Why, the verdict,’ said Adrian.
‘What verdict?’ enquired Sir Magnus.
‘But . . . they let me loose,’ said Adrian. ‘They only fined me fifty pounds.’
Sir Magnus closed his eyes as though in pain and took a short walk up and down the pavement. Then he came up to Adrian and glowered into his face, tapping him on the chest with his snuff box.
‘Endeavour,’ he said bitingly, ‘not to be as cretinous as the forces of law and order. I have merely got you out on bail. In a week’s time you will have to appear before the magistrates and they will send you to the Assizes, and it’s at the Assizes that you will stand or fall.’
‘Oh,’ said Adrian dismally, ‘I didn’t realise.’
His bright cloud of happiness had suddenly evaporated and he was back with his nightmares of Rosy being shot at dawn and Samantha making an unsuitable alliance.
‘Well,’ he said dolefully, ‘what do I do now?’
‘Do!’ said Sir Magnus reddening and starting to twitch like an indignant turkey. ‘You will fetch Rosy and come to a tiny place I have not far from here, and there, if you show a little spirit, we will prepare your defence.’
‘Do you know,’ said Adrian helplessly, ‘I don’t think I understand quite how the law functions.’
‘You can’t expect to,’ said Sir Magnus crisply. ‘After all, we who administer it don’t understand how it functions, so one can hardly hope you to.’
‘It is rather like getting on a train,’ said Adrian, ‘without knowing how to drive it.’
Sir Magnus took a pinch of snuff and sniffed violently. ‘I shouldn’t worry,’ he said. ‘On a train journey the vital thing is to get out at the right station.’
18. The Law
Sir Magnus’s ‘tiny place’ turned out to be a fairly newly erected mansion, done in the Tudor style, set in its own grounds up on top of the cliffs just outside the town. Rosy was installed in a large shed in the stable yard, and Adrian took up residence with Sir Magnus.
Sir Magnus was, to say the least, an exacting host. To begin with he had a deep and abiding passion for cherry brandy which he consumed (and insisted that Adrian consume) in vast quantities. With the cherry brandy he played a sort of chess game by mixing it with various other substances to see what effects he could achieve. After a couple of days Adrian’s stomach was suffering from the endless permutations that Sir Magnus managed to achieve, and he had definitely decided that cherry brandy mixed with stout and milk and consumed out of a tankard was not really his drink at all.
Sir Magnus also appeared to be able to exist without any sleep. For the first three days he insisted that Adrian tell him the story of his adventures over and over again, while he paced up and down his study or stood at the table mixing a new variation on the cherry brandy theme. At two or three in the morning Adrian would stagger to bed, more dead than alive, and no sooner had his head touched the pillow than Sir Magnus – in a fascinating nightshirt constructed of broderie anglaise – would be standing by his bed shaking him awake to get him to repeat a certain portion of his story.
On the fourth morning Adrian dragged himself down to breakfast, his head throbbing and ringing with the chimes of cherry brandy and his eyelids glued together with lack of sleep. He found Sir Magnus, looking as perky as though he had just returned from a long and luxurious holiday, consuming a mammoth omelette.
‘Now,’ said Sir Magnus, as though the conversation of the previous night had not ceased, ‘what we have got to do is this. We have got to get everybody, but everybody connected with this trail of carnage that you have left, as witnesses.’
‘I really don’t see what good that is going to do,’ said Adrian dispiritedly.
‘Think,’ said Sir Magnus, scattering a handful of black pepper on a forkful of omelette and shoving it into his mouth. ‘Think of the jury, dear boy.’
Adrian, toying in a slightly nauseated fashion with a lightly boiled egg, was in no condition to think of the jury. ‘What about them?’ he asked.
Sir Magnus leant back in his chair, wiped his mouth with a damask napkin, pulled out his snuff box, applied snuff to his nostrils, sneezed volcanically and then blew his nose.
‘The beauty of the English legal system,’ he said, his voice growing rich and fruity, ‘is that it is built up upon two completely illogical maxims. Firstly, everyone imagines that they are tried by a jury, and this of course is ridiculous. In fact, you are tried by a judge who instructs the jury. Now, let us take the jury themselves. Working on the extraordinary system that twelve men are better than two or six or four, nobody takes into consideration that twelve imbeciles might be more dangerous than two. In my experience all judges and all juries are imbeciles. Therefore the average honest-to-god criminal hasn’t got a chance and the innocent man is doomed before he even steps into the dock.’
Adrian was puzzled.
&nbs
p; ‘I thought it was a very fair system’ he said.
‘It’s about as fair as a particularly savage rugby match,’ said Sir Magnus coolly.
‘I still don’t see,’ said Adrian, ‘how dragging a lot of people from all over the country to this case is going to help me.’ Sir Magnus took another pinch of snuff and sneezed.
‘That, my dear boy, is because you don’t apply your mind to the problem,’ he said. ‘Now, imagine that I am a sheep dog.’ He leaned forward and glared at Adrian under his eyebrows, looking if anything more like a malevolent cairn terrier than a sheep dog. However, Adrian dutifully tried to imagine him as a sheep dog.
‘And imagine,’ continued Sir Magnus, waving a finger at him, ‘that the jury are a flock of sheep, and when I say a flock of sheep I am putting their collective intelligence at a much higher level than they normally display.’
He paused and cast a thoughtful look at the large flagon of cherry brandy which stood on the sideboard, then glanced at his watch and sighed in a dispirited manner.
‘Now,’ he said, ‘you have got me as a sheep dog, the jury as the flock of sheep and the judge as a sheep stealer.’ On these last words his voice sank to a hissing whisper. He got up and paced up and down the length of the breakfast table. ‘So,’ he said suddenly wheeling upon Adrian, ‘what is the system, eh? It is my job as sheep dog to savage the sheep stealer and herd all my little curly jury lambs into the fold of right decision. D’you take my point?’
‘Well, roughly,’ said Adrian, ‘yes, but I don’t think you can be so high-handed with a judge, can you?’