Richardson Scores Again (17 page)

“You mean the charge of being in possession of a stolen car? Well, I've had some correspondence with my colleague at Portsmouth, and I may tell you at once that I propose to withdraw that charge altogether, but the assault—”

You propose to proceed with that?”

“I can't help myself. When a young naval officer allows himself the luxury of blacking a policeman's eye, he must pay for the entertainment. If I were to withdraw the charge, I should have unrest right through the Force. You can see that for yourself.”

“I quite understand,” said Dick, rising to go.

The Chief Constable walked with him to the head of the stairs.

“There's one hint I might give you, Mr. Meredith,” he said. “Don't let your client speak if you can help it. Some of the magistrates are touchy folk, very much on their dignity, and if he puts their backs up they might commit him for trial.”

Dick Meredith sought out Ronald Eccles when he got back to the hotel, and broke it to him that he must plead guilty to the assault; that he must be seen and not heard, even if the Bench asked him what he had to say in reply to the charge. “After all, the police are going to withdraw that charge about the car, and if you were to try to justify hitting a policeman in the face, you would put the magistrates' backs up, and they might send you for trial.”

“That's all very well, but the blighter I hit assaulted me first. If I plead guilty and say nothing, the Personal Service people at the Admiralty will say that a bloke who goes about assaulting policemen isn't fit to be put in charge of men.”

Meredith laughed. “If it comes to that, I shall have a word to say about the provocation you received, but take my word for it, it won't. I shall enter a plea of guilty for you, and you must promise to keep your mouth shut.”

“All right then; I promise.”

“Come on then; it's about time we started for the court-house.”

When the two entered the building they found a Bench of six magistrates dealing with cases of drunk and disorderly, and of dangerous driving. They were quickly disposed of. Then “Ronald Eccles” was called, and his name was taken up by a court official outside. Eccles surrendered to his bail and was ushered into the dock.

“I appear for the defendant, Your Worships,” said Meredith.

“Is this the case of stealing a motor-car?” asked the Chairman.

“It was, sir,” said the Chief Constable, “but we do not propose to proceed with that charge. Further inquiries that have been made—”

The flutter on the Bench became audible. A naval officer charged with stealing a motor-car did not come their way every day. It was as if the keeper of the lion-house had callously wheeled his barrow of raw meat past the den, leaving nothing but its scent behind him. A magistrate leaned across to the Chairman and prompted him.

“Surely, Chief Constable, this man was arrested while in possession of a stolen car? We ought to hear the evidence.”

“With all due submission, sir, it would greatly hamper the police in their efforts to discover the real thief, who had merely offered this prisoner a lift and whose identity was quite unknown to him. I do not propose to offer any evidence on that charge, but I will proceed with the second charge—that of assaulting the police.”

“Very well,” said the Chairman, after a moment's hesitation. “We will hear the second charge.” The clerk read it over, concluding with the words, “Do you plead guilty or not guilty?”

“I am instructed to plead guilty to a common assault, Your Worships,” said Meredith.

The detective with the parti-coloured eye was sworn. He said that while in the course of his duty he had had to take the accused out of a stolen car, using as little force as possible, he became “wiolent,” and struck him a “wiolent” blow with his fist on the eye, which he exhibited to the Bench; that he had seldom encountered such a “wiolent” prisoner in the whole course of his service.

Dick Meredith cross-examined him about the provocation he had given to the accused. Later he cross-examined the other detective, who was called to corroborate the evidence of the first, and when his turn came to address the Bench, he suggested that the police had used unnecessary violence as a provocation, and dwelt upon the fact that this naval officer had been the victim of a car-thief, who had left him stranded in the road and had gone off.

“He has pleaded guilty,” observed the Chairman when Meredith sat down. The heads went together on the Bench and, as one magistrate appeared to dissent from the proposal, whatever it was, the Bench filed out to their private room to consult.

Meredith went over to the dock for a whispered conversation with his client, who was in an aggressive mood. “I'd like to have five minutes with that aggressive beak when he was off the Bench,” was his first remark.

“Hush!” whispered his counsel. “If a policeman overhears you, you'll be for it.”

“What will they give me, do you think?”

“A stiffish fine and costs, I hope.”

The door leading to the magistrates' room opened and the procession filed in again. Dick Meredith observed with satisfaction that the aggressive one had his chin in the air like a man beaten, but defiant. The Chairman addressed the prisoner, deploring that an officer in the service of His Majesty should have so far forgotten his obligations as to commit a serious assault upon another servant of the Crown who was doing no more than his duty. “The police must be protected,” he said, “otherwise there would be an end to law and order in this country. You will pay a fine of ten pounds and costs, or go to prison for a month with hard labour.”

“The fine will be paid at once,” announced Meredith, going towards the clerk's table.

After paying the fine, he stopped at the table of the reporters, who were packing up their note-books, and pleaded with them not to make a feature of the case with leaded type, urging that Ronald Eccles was an ornament to the Navy, and that any exaggeration of the case might damage a distinguished career. Judging from a remark made by one of them he felt that he had not wasted his time. “I'd like to shake hands with him. I've often wanted to black the eye of that detective myself.”

On reaching the hotel, he found Eccles consulting a time-table in the hall. “Looking up our train back to town?” he asked.

Eccles hesitated a moment before replying, “Well, no; I'm afraid you'll have to travel alone. An old shipmate of mine is in hospital at Portsmouth, and now that I'm down in the West I feel that I ought to go and see him, poor devil. Look here, I haven't thanked you for pulling me out of this mess, old man. I think that you managed that gang on the Bench splendidly. At one moment I saw myself picking oakum in an underground dungeon swarming with rats! I shall have to push off now if I'm to catch my train to Portsmouth.”

On the journey back to London, Dick chanced upon a short paragraph in his evening paper about Mr. Vance's journey of inspection of foreign prisons and reformatories, and felt that Mr. Vance must have a very alert press agent in his pay. The paragraph went on to say that his many well-wishers in this country who had been active in helping prisoners after their discharge were attending a luncheon at an hotel in Holborn at which it was hoped to hear an address by that “distinguished speaker, Mr. Ralph Lewis,” on the lack of progress of prison reform in Great Britain. Since the episode in the Albert Hall, Dick had resolved to attend every meeting at which Ralph Lewis was to speak. He cut out the paragraph with his pen-knife and stowed it in his pocket-book.

His first act on returning to Chelsea was to climb one storey higher and tap at Patricia's door. She opened it in person.

“Why, they told me that you were away!”

“I've just come back from defending a case in Somersetshire.”

“I hope you got the poor man off. Had he done anything very dreadful?”

“That depends on what you would call dreadful. He had knocked down a policeman with his fist, but I haven't come to tell you about that. I've come to make a confession.”

“Then you shall make it over a cup of tea, however dreadful it may be. Tea will give me strength to bear it.”

“Thanks, though I'm not sure that it will give me strength to make it. It's about James.”

“You mean that something has happened to the little brute?”

“No, but don't let me stop you getting that strength-giving tea, and then I'll make a clean breast of it.”

Patricia hurried out to her tiny kitchen, and presently returned with a laden tray. While she was pouring out the tea, Dick asked when she expected Mr. Vance home from his travels.

“Oh, not for a week or two. I heard from him this morning. Why do you ask?

“Because I have been dishonest enough to plan a little deception on him in your interests—a plan to foist another parrot on him in place of James—a parrot who is now in training to say the word ‘Absolutely' in a Canadian accent without stopping to take breath for hours at a stretch.”

Patricia topped in the act of conveying her teacup to her lips and stared at him.

“You're not serious? Do you mean that there is no longer any hope of recovering James?”

“To be quite frank, I'm afraid that my hope gets weaker every day, and I wanted to have a second string to my bow in case Mr. Vance came back unexpectedly. I couldn't bear to think of you losing your job through my carelessness.”

“It was a mad idea. Mr. Vance would have spotted the fraud in the first five minutes. No, when he comes I shall have to make a clean breast of the business and stand the racket.”

“The man who is training James's understudy says that he would defy the bird's own mother to detect the change, but I'm not going to relax my efforts to find the little brute, so we'll talk of something else. I see that there is to be a sort of public luncheon to-morrow to discuss what is being done for discharged prisoners by Mr. Vance's supporters, and that Ralph Lewis is to speak at it. Do you think that you could get me a ticket?”

“To go and scoff at him?”

“Not at all. Your belief in Ralph Lewis is infectious. I want to go and hear him again.”

“I could give you a ticket and take you in, of course, because I am more or less in charge of the arrangements, but you wouldn't hear Mr. Lewis. His doctor has ordered him to go abroad for a change, and he is leaving by the boat-train to-morrow morning to join Mr. Vance in Germany.”

“Never mind. I should love to go if you will take me. Who is going to do the talking?”

“Mr. Gordon Pentland. He's to be chairman at the luncheon. He's not much of a speaker, they say, and he's a retiring sort of man—in fact, I had some difficulty in persuading him to preside—but he has been doing wonderful work for Mr. Vance in getting work for discharged convicts, and he ought to have some very interesting things to tell us.”

“Gordon Pentland? Who is he?”

“I don't know much about him except that he's keen on his work and a great believer in Mr. Vance.”

“And Mr. Vance finances his work?”

“Of course. I doubt whether he has the means for financing it himself. I have to look after his accounts: they mount up to a pretty stiff total, but Mr. Vance pays them with a sigh, and says in his defence that he has a wonderful influence over the convicts and keeps a number of them out of prison; that his office is entirely staffed by reformed convicts. After all, difficult work like that can't be done for nothing, can it?”

“I should like very much to go and hear him.”

“Very well. If you'll call for me at half-past twelve to-morrow, we'll go together. I ought to warn you that Mr. Pentland has nothing to do with the official Prisoners' Aid Societies. He says that the convicts don't believe in them, so he works only with the men who have failed to get work from the Central Aid Society after they've succeeded in getting their prison gratuities from the agent. Don't forget. Half-past twelve. I'll have your ticket ready for you.”

At a few minutes before one a taxi deposited Patricia and Dick at the door of the Holborn Hotel, where a crowd of people—mostly women—were exchanging greetings. Among the few men Dick recognized a face he knew: it was Detective-Sergeant Richardson, who was standing unobtrusively against the wall of the hallway, scrutinizing each new arrival. A tall, dark man rubbed shoulders with Dick as he paused for a moment to shake hands gravely with Patricia before he passed on towards the cloakroom.

“Who was your friend?” asked Dick.

That was Mr. Pentland, who is going to preside at the luncheon. He asked me how Mr. Lewis was, and seemed sorry to hear that he had been obliged to go abroad. Now I think that it's time for us to be going into the dining-room.”

“Then will you lead the way?”

It was not so easy to move on as it looked, for the whole assembly had begun to move in the same direction. While the traffic jam was at its worst, someone touched Dick on the shoulder. He turned to find his Scotland Yard acquaintance at his elbow.

“Excuse me, sir, but can you give me the name of the gentleman who shook hands with this lady as he passed in?”

“Gordon Pentland, I believe, is his name. He is going to preside at the luncheon. Why do you ask?”

“Because, sir, it is the same man that caused Mr. Lewis to break down in his speech at the Albert Hall the other night.”

“Are you quite sure?”

“Quite, sir. I should know him anywhere. You can see for yourself how he fits the description I read to you.”

Dick Meredith could not help being impressed by the obvious excitement of a man who had seemed so calm and business-like when he had seen him at Scotland Yard.

“Do you think that you could find out his address for me, sir? It would be a great help to me.”

“I will try my best, sergeant. I know that he runs an office somewhere for helping discharged convicts.”