‘And you changed into your reading glasses in order to stand and give evidence in court?’
‘I changed into my reading spectacles in order to read the oath, which I take seriously.’
‘Oh, quite,’ said Martin. ‘Did you,’ he said, ‘when you were examining the documents, notice any peculiarities in the formation of the letter “o”?’
‘Yes,’ said Fairley. ‘In Exhibit B the “o” has been started from the top. In Exhibit D the “o” has been started from the right hand curve.’
‘Does that not suggest to you that these letters have been formed by different hands?’
‘Not necessarily. There is always the possibility that the writer was at one moment in a disposition to start from the top, and at another time disposed to begin elsewhere.’
‘Do you agree that there are other inconsistencies similar to those which relate to the letter “o”?’
‘Yes.’
‘Do you agree that the peculiar formation of many letters in Exhibit B — the document which is alleged to be a forgery — coincide with peculiarities of formation in Exhibit C — the example of the accused’s handwriting?’
‘There are many similarities but not enough, in my opinion, to permit the inference that B and C are the work of the same hand.’
‘Did you observe in the course of your examination of the signature the effect of trembling in some of the upward strokes?’
‘No,’ said Fairley.
‘You did not find anything to suggest that the signature had been traced?’
‘No,’ said Fairley.
‘You are aware that an eminent graphologist, Mr. Ronald Bridges, has submitted that the effect of trembling in the upward strokes is an indication of tracing.’
‘I was not present at Mr. Bridges’ evidence. But I agree that an effect of trembling in handwriting is sometimes due to a process of tracing. Sometimes it is due to sickness, fear, or old age.’
‘You agree that forgers commonly trace the signatures on false documents?’
‘Oh, yes.’
‘You did not notice an effect of trembling in some of the upward strokes of the signature on the document alleged to be forged?’
‘No, I did not observe any effect of trembling.’
‘Did you look for it?’
‘Oh, yes, it is part of the routine.’
‘How does the scientific equipment available to Mr. Bridges compare with that available to yourself?’
‘We use the same laboratories and stuff.’
Ronald saw how vexed Martin was. He had told Martin that Fairley used private equipment, believing this to be so.
‘But you did not notice this trembling effect, while Mr. Bridges did?’ Martin said crossly.
Oh, shut up, Ronald thought.
‘There is room for varying opinion as to what is an effect of trembling,’ said Fairley.
‘It couldn’t be a question of eyesight?’
‘The documents are greatly enlarged by the microscope,’ Fairley drawled wearily.
‘Thank you,’ said Martin.
Fairley smirked slightly at Ronald as he left. Ronald winked. A member of the jury noticed this and whispered to his neighbour. They are saying, Ronald thought, that we are in our racket together, regardless of the law. But perhaps that’s not what they are whispering.
The door through which Fairley had passed now admitted Father Socket in black suit and clerical collar, the last witness for the defence. As he was shown up to the witness box, the main door on Ronald’s right opened, and Elsie came in. She moved in beside Ronald and started to whisper to him. The attendant policeman placed a finger to his lips. Ronald pushed his note pad and pencil towards her. On it she wrote, ‘I’ve come to give evidence against Father Socket.’ Ronald wrote, ‘You’re too late,’ and pushed it back.
‘Isn’t Father Socket marvellous?’ whispered Alice.
‘Father my eye,’ said Matthew.
Father Socket described himself as a clergyman.
‘Of what religion?’ said the judge.
‘Of the spiritualist religion and allied faiths.’
‘Spiritualism has already this afternoon been described as a science. Is it a science or a religion?’
‘It is a scientific religion, my lord, and has been recognised as such by countless eminent citizens including—”
‘Yes, quite,’ said the judge, ‘I only want to get our definitions clear so that the jury can see what it is dealing with. There has been a great deal of mystification in this case.’
Elsie was scribbling away on the note pad.
Socket’s eye was on the jury.
‘You remember the morning of 12th August?’ said his Counsel. ‘Where were you…? What were you doing…?’
‘At Mr. Seton’s rooms… a private séance… he was in a trance, a deep trance. I am, if I may say so, something of an authority on the conditions of a spiritualistic trance…. I left Mr. Seton at ten minutes to twelve, he was in a state of complete exhaustion and insensibility to external surroundings.’
Alice looked over from the gallery.
‘Elsie’s going to make trouble,’ she said. ‘What is she writing, down there? She wouldn’t come and keep me company as a friend, but she’s come to make trouble.’
‘She should have come up here with you,’ Matthew said, ‘but never mind, you’ve got me.’
Elsie folded her note and gave it to the policeman, indicating Martin Bowles.
Father Socket kept his eye on the jury. The blonde woman looked impressed.
‘As I left the building after the séance I noticed a police car containing two police officers draw up outside the front door. This was just after ten minutes to twelve….’ Socket said.
‘In your opinion, Mr. Socket,’ said Patrick’s counsel, ‘was it likely that by twelve noon, less than ten minutes later, Mr. Seton would be in a reasonable and clear state of mind?’
‘Certainly not. It is impossible. He would be in a state of semi-trance, perhaps not discernible at a casual glance, but certainly apparent to anyone attempting to question him. He would be in a suggestible condition….’
‘We’ve won the day!’ said Alice.
Martin was looking at Elsie’s two scribbled pages torn from the note pad.
The blonde jurywoman spoke to her neighbour.
Patrick’s barrister sat down. Martin got up.
‘I suggest,’ said Martin to Socket, ‘that your evidence is a pack of lies from start to finish.’
The jury seemed offended. Socket’s white collar gleamed round his throat. It seemed a tasteless attack.
‘It is nothing but the truth,’ said Socket, with a look of ministerial reproach.
‘I have a witness in court,’ said Martin, ‘who is prepared to swear that you were not with the accused between the hours of ten a.m. and twelve noon on August the 12th.’
‘Mr. Bowles,’ said the judge, ‘are you wanting to put in additional evidence at this stage?’
‘I was about to ask…’
The judge looked at his watch. Then he looked hard at Socket.
‘Yes, I’m quite sure it was the twelfth of August because it was my birthday, and that’s why I took the day off,’ Elsie said.
‘What time did you arrive at Mr. Socket’s flat?’ Martin said.
‘Ten o’clock in the morning.’
‘What time did you leave?’
‘One o’clock.’
‘Mr. Socket was present all morning?’
‘Yes, he gave me dictation, and he read some poetry.’
She started to leave the witness box immediately she had answered all Martin’s questions. It was indicated to her that she had to remain for cross-examination. Patrick’s counsel was conferring with Socket in whispers. Presently he straightened up.
‘You say you took the day off from your work because it was your birthday?’ Patrick’s counsel hammered out.
‘Yes.’
‘Was it not an odd way in whic
h to spend your day off — going to work as a typist in a voluntary capacity?’
‘Well, I was taken in by Father Socket. I thought he was doing good work and I thought he was a fine person.’
‘On what date did Mr. Socket dismiss you from his service?’
He didn’t dismiss me. I never went back after I sensed something wrong.’
‘I suggest that Mr. Socket dismissed you on or about the 20th of July, and asked you not to come again.’
‘No, I left two weeks ago because I sensed something wrong.’
‘I suggest he dismissed you, and that you are embittered.’
‘Yes, I was embittered all right after I sensed something wrong,’ said Elsie like a needle.
The barrister became irritated. ‘You keep saying you sensed something wrong. What do you mean? —Let’s have it. Did you sense something wrong with your sight, hearing, smell, touch, taste — which sense did you sense something wrong with?’
‘I sensed it with my common sense,’ said Elsie, ‘when I went there and found a man with lipstick and a dressing-gown that looked like—’
‘Miss Forrest, you are an impulsive girl, aren’t you? ‘said this counsel of Patrick’s who now roused himself for work.
‘Yes, fairly,’ she said, rather put out by his new intimacy of tone.
‘You did not come forward with this evidence at the proper time. And yet you have seen fit to dash in at the last minute with accusations against a man whom up to two weeks ago, according to your own evidence, you thought to be a fine person. Why is that?’
‘Well, I thought about it, and I decided it wasn’t my business. Then this afternoon I decided to come along.’
‘On an impulse of malice?’
‘Yes, if you want to put it like that,’ said Elsie.
‘You admit to malice against Father Socket.’
‘I don’t see why he should get away with his sin.’
‘You realise, Miss Forrest, that you have not brought a scrap of evidence to this court to support your story —apart from malice?’
‘Well, you can take it or leave it,’ Elsie said. ‘I was with him all morning on August the 12th.’
‘And you have no evidence to support your statement?’
‘No,’ said Elsie, ‘there’s only my word.’
Alice said, ‘That girl’s treacherous. Why did she have to mention the man with lipstick?’
Patrick’s counsel told the jury that there could be no end to the calling of one witness to discredit another.
He asked them to ignore the extraordinary and, on the face of it, wild accusations of Father Socket’s former and, on her own admission, embittered typist, Miss Elsie Forrest. She had admitted to malice.
The extremely dubious evidence of Mrs. Freda Flower…. Everything to show that she was in the habit of trances….
The clear evidence of the accused… his insistence that the statement was not made while he was in a responsible condition…. Reflecting, as it did on our ancient liberties….
The case of forgery was wiped out by the evidence of Mr. Fairley. Particularly to be noted was Mr. Fairley’s insistence on the effects of variable human moods on handwriting….
The jury must rid itself of prejudice against spiritualism.
Patrick’s counsel then listed a number of prominent persons, dead and alive, who had adorned the spiritualist movement. He looked at his watch and sat down.
Martin Bowles rose to recite the discredit of all witnesses except his own. ‘The letter is undated,’ said Martin, ‘Why? — Because when he forged that letter he forgot the exact date of the cheque which Mrs. Flower had given him, and which he now claims accompanied the letter.’ He repeated Elsie’s story. He reminded the jury that Fairley was getting on in years, and though must be respected, could hardly compete with a younger mind. He started to ridicule all references to the mediumistic trances which had cropped up in the case — ‘foaming mouths, upturned eyes, twitching limbs and so forth’ but seemed suddenly to be visited by a deterrent thought, which Ronald assumed to be a mental image of himself lying kicking and foaming only a few hours ago under the witness box.
Martin switched away from trances and weighed into Patrick and his influence on Mrs. Flower.
‘You will recall that this man affected a certain delicacy in revealing his intimate relations with Mrs. Flower. Yet he did not hesitate to defraud her….’
Ronald, heavy with the effects of his fit, sat with his eyes on Martin.
‘He did not hesitate to rob her, he did not hesitate to exert his influence by means of those intimate relations with Mrs. Flower.’
With Isobel Billows, thought Ronald.
‘And yet he stands here and poses as her protector. You observe the irony, ladies and gentlemen of the jury.’
The irony, ladies and gentlemen, thought Ronald. It was a very disreputable case, said the judge in his summing up, and in some respects a nauseating one. It was his duty to direct the jury to rid their minds of all prejudice against spiritualism as such…. It was his duty to define both fraudulent conversion and forgery…. Forgery was…. Fraudulent conversion was….
This was a case which. if there were any substance in it, could have grave and serious implications. Detective-Inspector Fergusson had sworn on oath that the accused had made a certain statement while in a lucid condition of mind. That statement had been produced in court. It contained an admission of the charge of fraudulent conversion. It bore the signature of the accused.
Moreover, Detective-Inspector Fergusson had denied that the accused had at any subsequent time applied to withdraw the statement. The jury should give these facts their weightiest consideration.
‘They always stand by the police,’ Alice whispered, ‘but the jury knows different.’
The judge looked at his watch. Much, however, he was saying, hinged on the question of forgery.
The evidence of the two graphologists tended to cancel each other out and, if he might say so, was less than useless. No prejudice should obtain in the case of Mr. Ronald Bridges whose unfortunate collapse in court, he understood, had been due to an inherent disease and was in no way connected with the dis-edifying trances described by various witnesses.
Mrs. Flower appeared to be a very foolish woman. It must be taken into account that she had strongly indicated in her evidence the possibility of having written the letter while in a state of insensibility. The jury would have the opportunity of examining the letter and forming their own conclusions on this point. But while such a doubt was present in Mrs. Flower’s mind it must certainly receive every consideration…. The letter was undated. It had been suggested that the accused forgot the date of the cheque….
A man was innocent until he was proved guilty. While there was reasonable doubt that the accused was the author of the letter he could not be found guilty.
The jury must be clear that if they brought in a verdict of Not Guilty for forgery they could not logically bring a verdict of Guilty for fraudulent conversion. Everything hung on the question of forgery….
The evidence of Mr. Socket must be weighed against the evidence of Miss Elsie Forrest, and vice versa. The fact that Miss Forrest had offered evidence at the last moment must not be allowed to weigh against that evidence. She was, on her own admission, impulsive by nature. On the other hand she admitted to a motive of malice against Socket, and this, whether justified or not, must be taken into account.
‘Whatever your sympathies in this case,’ he said, ‘it is the evidence that counts. I will run over the evidence once more….
The jury withdrew at twenty minutes to five. ‘We’ll have time for tea,’ said Matthew. ‘They’ll be out for at least an hour.’
‘The judge was against us,’ Alice said, ‘but the jury can’t find him guilty if there’s a reasonable doubt about the forgery. The judge said so himself.’
‘Come on,’ said Matthew.
She was looking at Patrick and he at her before he turned through the dock doo
r. His face was radiant. The bags packed, the insulin.
‘Our bags are all ready packed,’ said Alice. ‘We can leave in the morning.’
‘The blonde woman was looking pretty nasty about Socket after Elsie had finished.’
‘I’ll never speak to Elsie again. The whole court was with us after Father Socket’s evidence. The whole court. No matter what they say about evidence.’
They sat over their hot canteen tea. ‘It’s kicking,’ said Alice. ‘Oh, God, I wish this was over.’
Patrick looked up at Alice. It was the only thing, to look and look at Alice. Imprisonment was not the end of the world, he had always found a niche in prisons. But now, this thirst for Alice. She is mine, I have paid…. She would probably twitch before she died. She had agreed by acquiescence.
The jury were filing in. It was twenty past five.
To make Alice into something spiritual. It was godlike, to conquer that body, to return it to the earth….
‘On the charge of forgery.’
‘Guilty.’
‘On the charge of fraudulent conversion.’
‘Guilty.’
‘I don’t believe in God,’ said Alice. ‘There will have to be an appeal.’
‘Quiet, now,” said Matthew.
‘It was Elsie mentioning the man with lipstick,’ Alice said. ‘That did it. I knew!’
‘It was a help,’ said Matthew.
Fergusson was up in the witness box again. He was reading out a list. At Canterbury in May 1923 … three months for larceny. At Surrey Quarter Sessions in 1930, six months for obtaining on false pretences … in 1932, six months … in 1942, eighteen months and six months to run consecutively for fraudulent conversion … Maidstone Assizes, in 1948, three years for forgery and fraudulent conversion. He is described as a spiritualistic medium, unmarried, resident at …
‘What’s this all about?’ said Alice.
‘They call it the antecedents. It’s Patrick’s criminal record.’
‘I don’t believe it,’ she said. ‘There’s got to be an appeal.’
‘He can’t appeal with that record.’