‘Judges,’ said Sir Magnus coldly, ‘are merely inexperienced lawyers.’
Adrian could not help feeling that this summary of the legal system left a certain amount to be desired, but having no experience himself, he was not in a position to argue. Sir Magnus went to the door of the dining room, flung it open and bellowed, ‘Screech!’
In response to this a shrivelled, bald individual cringed and undulated his way into the room.
‘Screech here,’ said Sir Magnus waving an airy hand at him, ‘will write suitable letters to all the people I want as witnesses. You will spend the morning closeted together giving him the necessary details.’
‘All right,’ said Adrian, ‘anything you say.’
It had suddenly occurred to him, and the thought suffused his whole body in a warm glow, that he could write to Samantha and get her as a witness. Sir Magnus cast a glance at the cherry brandy decanter as though he had noticed it for the first time.
‘You cannot, however,’ he said, ‘start work of this sort on an empty stomach. Have some cherry brandy.’
‘I don’t think I will, if you don’t mind,’ said Adrian, ‘If we have got to write all these letters, I’d like to keep a clear head.’
‘Well, please yourself,’ said Sir Magnus and he went across to the sideboard and mixed a liberal measure of cherry brandy with a beakerful of Irish whiskey and the juice of two lemons, tossed it down his throat and then stood shuddering for a brief moment.
‘Interesting,’ he said softly with his eyes closed. He then turned on the unfortunate clerk.
‘You know what to do, Screech,’ he barked. ‘Mr Rookwhistle here will give you the details and I shall expect all the letters in the post by twelve o’clock.’
‘But of course, Sir Magnus,’ said Screech. ‘Certainly, Sir Magnus.’
Sir Magnus strode out of the room and slammed the door behind him, leaving Adrian alone with Screech, who he soon discovered was a painstaking individual who wrote a beautiful copperplate hand, but whose personality was as exciting and ineffectual as cotton wool covered with glue. Finally, at ten to twelve, the last letter – the letter to Samantha – was written and as Sir Magnus came storming back into the room. Screech gathered up his papers and scuttled out obsequiously.
‘I have decided,’ said Sir Magnus, ‘that you are looking a little bit under the weather. I cannot have my prize client looking peaky in court.’
‘I think,’ said Adrian, stifling a yawn, ‘it is more lack of sleep than anything.’
‘Nonsense’ said Sir Magnus. ‘It is lack of stimulation. One can do without sleep, but one cannot do without stimulation.’
Adrian wondered dully what Sir Magnus would consider stimulation. He assumed it would be the fighting and killing of seventeen Spanish bulls before lunch.
‘You may be right,’ he said peaceably.
‘After lunch,’ said Sir Magnus rubbing his hands, ‘I propose you and I and Rosy take the air.’
‘Take the air?’ said Adrian startled.
‘Yes,’ said Sir Magnus. ‘We will take a walk along the sea front.’
‘Do you think that is a good idea . . . ?’ began Adrian.
‘I think it is an excellent idea,’ said Sir Magnus with satisfaction. ‘A light snack for lunch and then a brisk walk and you will find that the sea air does you a power of good.’
Once they had disposed of the light snack – which consisted of a dozen oysters apiece followed by a mushroom souffle as light and as yellow as a sunset cloud, a saddle of beef squatting regally in thick brown gravy, its melting slices as pink as coral, surrounded by all the appropriate vegetables and rounded off by a trifle whose basic ingredient appeared to be cherry brandy, aided and abetted by four or five pints of clotted cream – they went for a walk along the sea front, taking Rosy with them.
Adrian, bloated with food and dragged down by lack of sleep, could not help feeling that this exercise did his case no good in the eyes of the local inhabitants. Sir Magnus seemed completely oblivious to the effect that they were creating. He had placed his walking-stick across his shoulder and had hooked the end round Rosy’s trunk and so, thus linked together, they walked along very amicably. Every time a group of children, round-eyed and excited, appeared, Sir Magnus, doffing his top hat with a regal gesture, would pull Rosy forward with the aid of his walking-stick and allow them to pat her legs and fondle her trunk. Rosy who, like most good-natured animals, was under the impression that no human being could do wrong, was delighted and with the tip of her trunk, a weapon which could be so devastating when she cared to employ it, she delicately snuffled and explored the freckled faces, the grubby hands and the pigtails.
At five o’clock, to Adrian’s intense relief, after they had walked along the promenade fourteen times, they returned to Sir Magnus’s house, bedded Rosy down in her stable and retired to the library where they had tea. Sir Magnus, for some obscure reason, appeared to be delighted with their outing. As Adrian munched his way through acres of brown hot toast running with butter, crisp scones shrouded in cream and strawberry jam, and great moist black slices of fruit cake as fragrant as a whole forest in midwinter, he listened to Sir Magnus giving him a lecture on the legal system, ninety, per cent of which was incomprehensible to him.
‘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. Today we have been seen by a multitude of people, taking the air in a quiet, civilised 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 Magnus. ‘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 endi
ng ‘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 jellyfish. 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.
‘You’d be surprised,’ said Sir Magnus, ‘What you can get away with if you create enough confusion. It’s like a smoke-screen in battle.’
‘Oh,’ said Adrian. ‘I think I see what you mean.’
But inwardly he was resigning himself to the fact that with Sir Magnus defending him he would have to spend at least ten years in prison.
The clerk of the court got to his feet.
‘All rise,’ he said in a tremulous falsetto.
The court was filled with scrapings and rustlings as everyone got to their feet. A door opened and in shuffled a tiny, wizened little man, clad in red robes, who seated himself in the great carved chair and peered round, looking rather like a surprised mole. Everyone sat down and there was much throat clearing and rustling of papers.
The clerk of the court rose to his feet again.
‘My lord,’ he fluted, ‘the case of the Crown versus Adrian Rookwhistle. Adrian Rookwhistle,’ he said peering at Adrian, who had risen to his feet, ‘the charge against you is that on the 5th June at the Alhambra Theatre at Scallop in the County of Brockelberry you did in a public place, to wit the Alhambra Theatre at Scallop, cause a public disturbance in the aforesaid Alhambra Theatre and did thereby cause grievous bodily harm to one Emanuel S. Clattercup, using for this purpose a large wild pachyderm, to wit an elephant, to the aforesaid Clattercup in the aforesaid Alhambra Theatre. How do you plead?’
Adrian was so confused at the charge that he just stood there staring at the clerk.
‘Not guilty,’ said Sir Magnus.
‘Not guilty,’ said Adrian.
The clerk of the court sat down. A large and jovial constable who was sharing the dock with Adrian in a companionable fashion stuck a finger in his ribs.
‘Sit down, lad,’ he said in a whisper.
Adrian leant over the dock.
‘What happens now?’ he asked Sir Magnus.
Sir Magnus took a pinch of snuff and startled the entire court with a gigantic sneeze.
‘Old Gussy drones on for a bit,’ he said. ‘Just relax for a little. Doze if you feel like it.’
The judge had been peering about unsteadily to try and locate the precise area of the court from which the sneeze had emanated. Eventually he managed to fix his wavering eyes upon Sir Magnus.
‘Sir Magnus,’ he said.
‘M’lord?’ said Sir Magnus, rising to his feet and bowing with false obsequiousness.
‘I am aware of the fact,’ said the judge, ‘that you are addicted to taking snuff. I would be very grateful if you could inform me as to whether we are going to be constantly interrupted by that extremely startling noise that you seem forced to make every time you do so.’
‘Beg pardon, m’lord,’ said Sir Magnus. ‘I shall stifle it next time.’
‘See that you do,’ said the judge.
He looked at the prosecuting counsel.
‘Since Sir Magnus has finished clearing his nasal passages,
you may proceed, Sir Augustus,’ he said.
Sir Augustus Talisman rose to his feet, ducked his head in the general direction of the judge and spent several moments adjusting the sleeves of his robe and fiddling with a pile of notes on the table in front of him. Then he turned and had a whispered consultation with his clerk. The clerk dived under the table and reappeared clasping five or six massive volumes, each carefully marked with long strips of pink paper, which he placed on the table next to Sir Augustus. Both Sir Magnus and the judge, having settled the matter of the snuff, appeared to have dozed off. Sir Augustus rearranged his robe once more, cleared his throat, clasped his lapel firmly in one hand and spoke.
‘My lord,’ he said in a mellifluous voice, ‘the case before you is, to say the least, somewhat unusual. So unusual, in fact, that it has taken me considerable time and patience to find any precedent in the laws of this country.’ Here he paused and laid his hand affectionately upon the pile of calf-bound volumes on the table in front of him.
‘Briefly, m’lord,’ he continued, ‘for I have no wish to waste your lordship’s valuable time – nor indeed am I under the erroneous impression that your lordship prefers anything that is not succinct and to the point – I would say that this outrage (and I feel that by saying outrage I am not being in any way too harsh in my description) this outrage is one of the most extraordinary cases that I have come across in a long career at the Bar.’
He paused and glanced down at his notes, tapping them thoughtfully with a forefinger. Sir Magnus appeared to be in a deep and untroubled slumber. Adrian had expected him at this point to leap up and protest, and so was somewhat disappointed.
‘The defendant, Adrian Rookwhistle,’ continued Sir Augustus, ‘apparently inherited from his uncle a fully grown female elephant. The elephant’s name is apparently Rosy, and so, in order to avoid confusion, and with your lordship’s permission of course, I will refer to her by that name.’
‘On the evening of 31st May, Rookwhistle arrived in Scallop and the following day made his way to the Alhambra Theatre where he applied to Mr Clattercup, the owner, for a job. Mr lattercup, feeling that the introduction of a tame, and, my Lord, I stress the word, tame elephant, into his performance (which I believe was called Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves), would provide a strong appeal, engaged Rookwhistle and the elephant Rosy. Mr Clattercup had spent a considerable sum of money on the production of this pantomime. On the first night, the theatre was, as would be expected, full of our local inhabitants who hold culture so dear to their hearts. Half of the first scene was enacted without incident, but it was then that Rookwhistle, who had, according to witnesses, been imbibing and had encouraged the elephant to imbibe as well, lost control of the animal. It ran berserk.’