THE WITNESS FOR THE DEFENCE
BY A.E.W. MASON
1914
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I. HENRY THRESK
II. ON BIGNOR HILL
III. IN BOMBAY
IV. JANE REPTON
V. THE QUEST
VI. IN THE TENT AT CHITIPUR
VII. THE PHOTOGRAPH
VIII. AND THE RIFLE
IX. AN EPISODE IN BALLANTYNE'S LIFE
X. NEWS FROM CHITIPUR
XI. THRESK INTERVENES
XII. THRESK GIVES EVIDENCE
XIII. LITTLE BEEDING AGAIN
XIV. THE HAZLEWOODS
XV. THE GREAT CRUSADE
XVI. CONSEQUENCES
XVII. TROUBLE FOR MR. HAZLEWOOD
XVIII. MR. HAZLEWOOD SEEKS ADVICE
XIX. PETTIFER'S PLAN
XX. ON THE DOWNS
XXI. THE LETTER IS WRITTEN
XXII. A WAY OUT OF THE TRAP
XXIII. METHODS FROM FRANCE
XXIV. THE WITNESS
XXV. IN THE LIBRARY
XXVI. TWO STRANGERS
XXVII. THE VERDICT
THE WITNESS FOR THE DEFENCE
CHAPTER I
HENRY THRESK
The beginning of all this difficult business was a little speech which
Mrs. Thresk fell into a habit of making to her son. She spoke it the
first time on the spur of the moment without thought or intention. But
she saw that it hurt. So she used it again--to keep Henry in his
proper place.
"You have no right to talk, Henry," she would say in the hard practical
voice which so completed her self-sufficiency. "You are not earning your
living. You are still dependent upon us;" and she would add with a note
of triumph: "Remember, if anything were to happen to your dear father you
would have to shift for yourself, for everything has been left to me."
Mrs. Thresk meant no harm. She was utterly without imagination and had no
special delicacy of taste to supply its place--that was all. People and
words--she was at pains to interpret neither the one nor the other and
she used both at random. She no more contemplated anything happening to
her husband, to quote her phrase, than she understood the effect her
barbarous little speech would have on a rather reserved schoolboy.
Nor did Henry himself help to enlighten her. He was shrewd enough to
recognise the futility of any attempt. No! He just looked at her
curiously and held his tongue. But the words were not forgotten. They
roused in him a sense of injustice. For in the ordinary well-to-do
circle, in which the Thresks lived, boys were expected to be an expense
to their parents; and after all, as he argued, he had not asked to be
born. And so after much brooding, there sprang up in him an antagonism to
his family and a fierce determination to owe to it as little as he could.
There was a full share of vanity no doubt in the boy's resolve, but the
antagonism had struck roots deeper than his vanity; and at an age when
other lads were vaguely dreaming themselves into Admirals and
Field-Marshals and Prime-Ministers Henry Thresk, content with lower
ground, was mapping out the stages of a good but perfectly feasible
career. When he reached the age of thirty he must be beginning to make
money; at thirty-five he must be on the way to distinction--his name must
be known beyond the immediate circle of his profession; at forty-five he
must be holding public office. Nor was his profession in any doubt. There
was but one which offered these rewards to a man starting in life without
money to put down--the Bar.
So to the Bar in due time Henry Thresk was called; and when something
did happen to his father he was trained for the battle. A bank failed and
the failure ruined and killed old Mr. Thresk. From the ruins just enough
was scraped to keep his widow, and one or two offers of employment were
made to Henry Thresk.
But he was tenacious as he was secret. He refused them, and with the
help of pupils, journalism and an occasional spell as an election
agent, he managed to keep his head above water until briefs began
slowly to come in.
So far then Mrs. Thresk's stinging speeches seemed to have been
justified. But at the age of twenty-eight he took a holiday. He went down
for a month into Sussex, and there the ordered scheme of his life was
threatened. It stood the attack; and again it is possible to plead in its
favour with a good show of argument. But the attack, nevertheless, brings
into light another point of view.
Prudence, for instance, the disputant might urge, is all very well in the
ordinary run of life, but when the great moments come conduct wants
another inspiration. Such an one would consider that holiday with a
thought to spare for Stella Derrick, who during its passage saw much of
Henry Thresk. The actual hour when the test came happened on one of the
last days of August.