My opinion of legal procedure, never high, sank to zero before the trial
at the London Sessions ended. The absurdity of some of the questions
asked by counsel; the impossible inferences drawn from quite ordinary
occurrences; the endless repetitions of the same questions, but in
different sets of words; the verbal quibbling and juggling; the
transposing of statements made in evidence and conveying a meaning
obvious to the lowest intelligence; the pathos indulged in when the old
man's end came to be described; the judge's weak attempts at being
witty; the red-tapeism; the unpardonable waste of time--and of public
money. No, I shall never forget those days.
It lasted from Monday till Thursday, and during those four days I spent
eleven hours in the witness-box. Ah! what a tragic farce. I received
anonymous letters of encouragement, and, of course, some offensive
letters. I even received a proposal of marriage from a forward minx,
who admitted that though still at school, in Blackheath, she had "read
every word of the trial," that she "kept a dear portrait" of me, cut out
of the _Daily Mirror_, under her pillow at night. I felt I must indeed
have reached the depths of ignominy when my hand was sought in matrimony
by an emotional Blackheath flapper. A pretty flapper, I admit. She
sent me five cabinet portraits of herself, in addition to a miniature of
herself as a baby. Phew! What are our young people coming to?
Well, in the end I was acquitted, and told that I might leave the Court
without a stain upon my character.
Certainly that was in a sense gratifying. In the face of acrobatic
verbal feats Counsel representing the Director of Public Prosecutions
had indulged in during the trial, I felt that anything might have
happened, and was fully prepared to be branded a felon for life. The
drug, the jury decided, had been administered without any intention
whatever to do more than send the old man to sleep for an hour or so,
and an analysis of the tea left in the cup proved beyond a doubt, that
this tea could not possibly have caused death, which had been due to
heart-failure. I had been traced, it seemed, by my gloves and umbrella
left in the old man's room. Other details--long-winded ones--I need not
describe.
The problem now was, what to do next. My name, Richard Ashton, had
become a sort of butt. Everybody knew it, had seen it in print twenty
times during the past week. Mentioned by the comedian in a music-hall,
it at once created laughter. I laughed myself--not uproariously, I
admit--when a comedian at the Alhambra compared me to an albatross,
thereby causing the entire audience to shake with merriment, and a
stranger to turn to me with the remark--
"Richard Ashton! What a Nut, eh?"
Now the vulgar term "Nut" was in its infancy then, and new to me. I
pawed the air in a vain endeavour to grasp the point of comparing me
first to an albatross, and then to a nut. Nuts don't grow on ash trees,
or I might have thought the "ash" of "Ashton" bore some kind of
relationship to a nut. Finally I gave it up, convinced that I must be
deficient in a sense of humour.
Meanwhile, my beloved had disappeared. To my chagrin I ascertained at
the hotel at Hampstead that a man had called on the day following my
arrest, and that she had gone away with him, taking all her luggage.
A description of the man failed to help me to identify him. From it I
decided, however, that it was not Sir Charles who had called for Vera,
nor yet the mysterious Smithson. My natural inference, therefore, was
that the fellow Paulton had discovered her hiding-place, and compelled
her to go away with him.
I tried hard to put into practice my theory that it is useless to worry
about anything, and for some days I remained passive, watching, however,
the advertisement columns in the principal daily newspapers, for during
our evening at the hotel, Vera had incidentally remarked that she had,
while at Brighton, advertised for a bracelet she had lost, and by that
means recovered it. I advertised for news of her. But there was no
response.
On the Sunday, having nothing particular to do, I looked in during the
afternoon at one of my usual haunts, Tattersall's sale yard. I thought
it probable I should there run across somebody or other I knew, and I
was not mistaken. At the entrance I overtook a little man whose figure
I could not mistake. The little sporting parson from a village outside
Oakham was a great friend of mine, and he had told me that, whenever in
town for a week-end he invariably went to Tattersall's on the Sunday
afternoon to see what horses were to be sold there next day.
"Not that I can afford to buy a horse, oh dear no!" I remembered him
saying to me in the drawing-room at Houghton. "You know what parson's
families are. Mine is no exception to the rule!"
I had upbraided him for his lack of forethought, and he had chuckled,
adding seriously that in his opinion the falling birth rate spelt the
downfall of the Nation, a point upon which I had differed from him more
than once.
"Hullo, Rowan!" I exclaimed, as I overtook him, and quietly slipped my
arm into his from behind, making him start. "I see you spoke the truth
that day."
He was frankly delighted to see me. I knew he would be, for he is one
of the few Rutlanders I have met who are wholly devoid of what some
Americans term "frills." I believe that if I were in rags and carrying
a sandwich-board and I met little Rowan in the streets of London
to-morrow, he would come up to me and grasp me by the hand. There are
not many men of whom one can say that. I don't suppose more than ten
per cent, of my acquaintances, if as many, would look at me again if
next week I became a pauper.
"What truth, and when?" he asked, in answer to my remark.
"Don't you remember telling me," I said, "I believe it was the last time
we hunted together, that when in London you always do two things? You
said: `I always attend service on Sunday morning, and Tattersall's on
Sunday afternoon.' How is the old cob?"
"Getting old, Dick, getting old, like his master," Rowan said with a
touch of pathos. "I hear the Hunt talk of buying me another mount. It
is good of them; very good. I am not supposed to know, of course."
"And so you have come to find something up to your weight, eh?" I went
on. He does not, I suppose, ride more than eight stone twelve in his
hunting kit. He is the wiriest little man I have ever seen.
"No," he answered. "I have come to have a last look at Sir Charles
Thorold's stud. It comes under the hammer to-morrow, as, of course, you
know."
"Thorold's horses to be sold!" I exclaimed. "I had no idea. Then he
has said good-bye to Rutland for good and all. I am sorry."
"So am I, very. He is a man I have always liked. Naturally his name is
in rather bad odour in the county just at present, but that does not in
the least affect my own regard for him."
"It wouldn't," I said to him. "You are not that sort, Rowan. It is a
pity there are not more like you about."
He changed the subject by asking if I had seen Sir Charles and Lady
Thorold lately.
"I have not seen Lady Thorold since the Houghton affair," I answered.
"I have seen Sir Charles, but not to speak to."
I recollected how I had caught a glimpse of him in that house in
Belgrave Street.
"You have heard the latest about Miss Thorold, of course?" he said, as
we passed into the Yard, which at this hour--about four o'clock--was
crowded with well-dressed men and women.
"The latest? What do you mean?"
"Dear me," he exclaimed, smiling. "Why, we country cousins know more
than you men about town after all, sometimes. She's at Monte Carlo."
"At Monte? Vera Thorold!"
"Yes."
"What is she doing there? Who is with her?"
"I don't know who's with her, or if any one is with her. She is pretty
independent, as you know, and well able to take care of herself--a
typical twentieth century girl."
"But who told you she was at Monte?"
"Several people. Ah! there's Lord Logan! He'll tell us. He was
speaking of her yesterday. He returned from the Riviera only a couple
of days ago."