George Passant (29 page)

Olive said to Morcom: ‘You’re not looking well, Arthur. You must take care of yourself.’

‘I’m all right.’

‘Promise me you’ll look after yourself.’

‘If I can,’ said Morcom. Their manner to each other was still sometimes tender. Some casual remark made them smile together, and their faces, in that moment, rested in peace.

Soon Olive could not control her restlessness. She crossed to the window, and looked out into the dark; she returned to her chair again, and then got up to go. Her eyes caught the brief lying on the writing desk. She pointed to the words on the first page – Rex
v
. Passant and Ors.

‘Is that us?’ She was laughing without any pretence. ‘I’ve never seen anything that looked – so far away.’

She stood still for a moment, and said goodbye. She put her hand on the back of Morcom’s chair: ‘Goodbye,’ she said again.

As soon as the door closed, Morcom said: ‘I came to say – you must force George to escape.’

‘You think Jack has really gone?’

‘I don’t know. I advised him to.’

I broke out in angry recriminations, though as he spoke his face was torn with pain. I reminded him of my warning the night of the first inquiries: and how, after the police court, we agreed that I could not tell George to go.

‘It’s criminal to take the responsibility of persuading Jack – unless George was ready too,’ I said.

‘I had to speak,’ said Morcom.

‘You could not face telling me first.’

‘Don’t you understand that I was bound to speak to Jack?’ Morcom said. ‘You said I ought to have taken care of them before it happened. Do you think this was any more bearable? It means they will marry. They will stay abroad for years. They will be left with nothing but their own resources. That’s what she longs for, isn’t it? I’ve had to try to help it on.’

I looked at him.

‘Will you tell George to go now?’ he said at last.

‘I shall have to try,’ I said.

I took a taxi to George’s lodgings. He was alone, sitting in the same chair, the same position, as in the evening after the police court. He must have heard the taxi drive up outside, but he did not inquire why I had hurried.

He tried to stir himself for my benefit, however. Though his voice was flat, he asked after Sheila with his old friendly diffident politeness; he talked a little of a case that I had just finished in London.

Then I said: ‘What do you think of our case, George?’

‘It’s gone more or less as I expected.’

‘Has it?’

George nodded without any protest.

I hesitated.

‘Look, George,’ I said. ‘I’m going to offend you. You’ll have to forgive me. I don’t care what has actually happened in this business. You know that perfectly well. I can’t imagine any action you could do which would make the slightest difference to me. It wouldn’t either make me think worse of you or better – it works both ways. Well, I don’t know what’s happened, you may be technically guilty or you may not, I don’t know and, apart from curiosity, I don’t care. You’ve told me you’re not.’ I met his eyes. ‘I know you tell the literal truth more than most of us – but even so, I can imagine all sorts of reasons why you should lie here.’

He gave a resentful, awkward laugh.

‘So I’ve got nothing to do with what really happened,’ I said. ‘The essential thing is what other people will think happened. That’s all. I’m just talking as a lawyer about the probabilities in this case. You know them, you’re a better lawyer than I am, of course, whenever you care. What should you say the probabilities are?’

‘So far, they’re not much in our favour.’

‘If you came to me as a client,’ I said, ‘I shouldn’t be as optimistic as that.’

I went on: ‘Anyway, supposing you’re right, supposing the chances were even or a bit better – ought you to risk it? If it comes down the wrong side–’

‘We get a few months. And the consequences–’

‘Is the risk worth taking?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Jump your bail. I’ve spoken to the others who put up money. We all want you to please yourself.’

‘What should I do?’

‘You could be in South America in a fortnight. Nothing will touch you there, in this sort of case.’

There was a silence.

‘I don’t see how I’m going to live.’

‘We can provide a bit. It won’t be much, God knows – but it’d help you in a place where living’s cheap. And in time it would be possible to make a little money.’

‘It would be difficult.’

‘Not impossible. You could get qualified there – if there’s nothing else.’

‘I should never have any security.’

‘Think of the alternative.’

‘No,’ George burst out, in a loud, harsh, emphatic tone. ‘I’m afraid it’s completely impracticable. I appreciate the offer, of course.’ (That ‘of course’ of George’s which, as so often, was loaded with resentment.)

‘But it’s ludicrous to consider it. Apart from the practical obstacles – I should have to live in discomfort all my life, it isn’t pleasant to condemn oneself to squalid exile.’

He added: ‘And there’s the question of the others.’

‘I was coming to that.’

‘Well?’

‘Olive could go with a clear conscience. Her uncle’s wealthy, she has enough to live on.’

He did not reply.

‘I’ll promise to readjust things with the others so that you won’t have any responsibility,’ I said. ‘You come first. It’s more serious for you. You stand to lose most. For me – I needn’t tell you – you count very much the most.’

There was a silence before George replied: ‘I appreciate the offer. But I can’t take it.’

‘There is one other thing,’ I said.

‘What?’ His voice had returned to the lifeless tone with which he welcomed me.

‘Jack may have gone already.’

‘Are you inventing that to get rid of me?’

‘I didn’t want to tell you,’ I said. ‘But you’ve seen some indications, surely?’

‘I didn’t take them seriously.’

‘This you must,’ I said.

‘I want to know exactly what basis you’re going on.’

I told him the facts – that Olive believed Jack would return to stand his trial: that no one else did.

‘If he doesn’t,’ I said, ‘you recognise what your chances are?’

‘Yes,’ said George.

His face was heavy as he thought.

‘I don’t necessarily accept the view that he won’t come back,’ he said. ‘But if he doesn’t – I can’t alter my position. I shan’t go.’

‘For God’s sake think it over,’ I said. ‘We’ll make it as easy for you as we humanly can.’

He was silent.

‘I’ve a right to ask you to think it over tonight,’ I said. ‘I beg you to.’

‘I’m sorry. There is no point in that,’ George said. ‘I shall stay here and let them try me.’

The Trial

THE morning of the trial was dark, and all over the town lights shone in the shop windows. In front of the old Assize Hall, a few people had gathered on the pavement, staring at the policemen on the steps.

It was still too early. I walked into the entrance hall, which was filling up. George came in: when, after a moment, he saw me in the crowd of strangers, his face became suddenly open and bewildered.

‘There are plenty of people here,’ he said.

We stood silently, then began to talk about the news in the morning papers. In a few minutes we heard a call from inside which became louder and was repeated from the door.

‘Surrender of George Passant! Surrender of George Passant!’

George stared past me, buttoned his jacket, smoothed down the folds.

‘Well, I’ll see you later,’ he said.

In the robing-room Getliffe was sitting in his overcoat taking a glance at his brief. As I came in, he stood up hurriedly.

‘Time’s getting on,’ he said. ‘We must be moving.’

I helped him on with his gown; he chatted about Eden.

‘Pleasant old chap, isn’t he? Not that he’s as old as all that. He must be this side of sixty. You know, L S, I was thinking last night. First of all I was surprised he has been contented to sit in a second-rate provincial town all his life – and then I realised one could be very happy here. Just limiting yourself, knowing what you’ve got to do, knowing you’re doing a useful job which doesn’t take too much out of you. And then going away from it and remembering you’re a human being. Clocking in and clocking out.’

He was speaking more breathlessly than in normal times. This nervousness before a case – which he had never lost – was mainly a physical malaise, a flutter of the hands, a catch in the voice: perhaps it had once been more, but now it was worn down by habit. He was putting on his wig, which, although it was faintly soiled, at once gave his face a greater distinction. He stared at himself in the mirror; his bands were awry, he was still a little dishevelled, but he turned away with a furtive, satisfied smile.

‘All aboard,’ he said.

He led the way into court. Olive and George were in the dock, looking towards the empty seats on the bench, which spread in a wide semi-circle round the small, high, dome-shaped room. It had been repainted since the July afternoon when George won a verdict in it; otherwise I noticed no change.

We came to our places, two or three steps beyond the dock; I turned and glanced at it. Jack was not there. I heard Porson, the leader for the prosecution, in court ten minutes early, greet Getliffe, in a rich, chuckling voice: I found myself anxious about nothing except that Jack should appear for the trial.

The gallery was nearly full. The case had already become a scandal in the town. Suddenly, I heard the last call for Jack and saw him walk quickly towards the dock. The judge entered, the indictment was read, they pleaded. George’s voice sounded loud and harsh, the others’ quiet.

‘You may sit down, of course,’ the judge said. His eyes were dark, bright and inquisitive in a jowled, broad face. There was only a small bench in the dock, barely enough for three. ‘Why are there no chairs for them? Please fetch chairs.’ His voice was kindly but precise.

The voice of the clerk swearing the jury fell distantly on my ears, deafened by habit. I looked round the courtroom. Eden was sitting upstairs, near the benches set aside for the Grand Jury; Cameron, the Principal of the School, had a place close by. Beddow, the chairman of that meeting over seven years before, bustled in, fresh and cheerful, to an alderman’s seat. In the small public space behind the dock, several of George’s friends were sitting, Mr Passant among them; Roy Calvert was looking after Mr Passant, and stayed at his side throughout the trial.

Just before Porson opened, a note was brought to me from Morcom. ‘They say I’ve just missed rheumatic fever. There is nothing to worry about, but I can’t come.’ That was all. I kept looking at it; the oath had reached the last man on the jury. In the diffused light of the winter morning, added to by the single chandelier of bulbs hanging over our table, our fingers made shadows with a complex pattern of penumbra, and faces in the court were softened.

The case for the prosecution took up the first two days. It went worse for us than we feared.

Porson’s opening was strong. From the beginning he threatened us with George’s statement over the circulation of the
Arrow
.

‘We possess a piece of evidence that no one can deny,’ he said. He drew everyone’s attention to a sheet of notepaper which was to be produced at the proper time. He concentrated much of his attack on the agency; then he pointed out how, when they had ‘obtained some practice’ in their methods, George and the others had gone ‘after bigger game’. The farm business needed larger sums, but they had found it easy to misrepresent what its true position was. ‘They didn’t trouble to change their methods,’ said Porson. ‘They had learned after their little experience with the
Arrow
that it was child’s play to give false figures. This time they needed larger sums, and you will hear how they obtained them from Miss Geary, Mrs Stuart and–’

He finished by telling the jury that he would produce a witness, Mrs Iris Ward, who would describe an actual meeting at the farm when the three of them decided they must buy it – ‘decided they must buy it not only as a business, but because they had reasons of their own for needing somewhere to live in private, out of reach of inquisitive eyes’.

Porson did as he threatened.

The only point which Getliffe scored was made before lunch on the first morning. One of the witnesses over the agency, a man called Attock, said that, before he lent Jack money, he had looked over all the figures of the firm with an accountant’s eye. He was a masterful, warm-voiced man, with a genial, violent laugh: Getliffe saw through him, and brought off an ingenious cross-examination. In the end, Getliffe revealed him as a man always priding himself on his shrewdness and losing money in unlikely ventures: and as one who had never managed to finish his accountant’s examinations.

At lunch on that first day, Jack and Olive were more composed than before the trial. Even George, sunk in a despondency which surprised those who remembered his optimism but did not know him well, referred to Getliffe’s handling of Attock.

It was, however, a false start. First thing in the afternoon, Porson produced the quiet kindly witness of the police court, who told the same story without a deviation. Then two more followed him, with the same account of the acquaintanceship with Jack, the meetings with George, the statement of the circulation of the
Arrow
. They testified to a statement written by George, which now, for the first time, Porson produced in court. It read:

‘We are not in a position to give full figures of the Agency’s business. So far as we have examined the position they do not seem to exist. One important indication, however, we can state exactly. The advertising paper run by the Agency –
The Advertisers’ Arrow
– has had an average circulation of five thousand per issue. This figure is given on the authority of Mr Martineau, now retiring from the firm.’