MR ERNEST GILBERT
Miss Arnott wrote to Mr Ernest Gilbert--the famous lawyer whose name Mr
Stacey had given her--asking him to make all necessary arrangements for
Jim Baker's defence. She expressed her own personal conviction in the
man's innocence, desiring him to leave no stone unturned to make it
plain, and to spare no expense in doing so. In proof of her willingness
to pay any costs which might be incurred she enclosed a cheque for
L500, and assured him that she would at once forward any further sum
which might be required. Mr Gilbert furnished himself with a copy of
the depositions given before the committing justices, and also before
the coroner; and, having mastered them, went down to see his client in
Winchester Gaol.
He found Mr Baker in very poor plight. The gamekeeper, who probably had
gipsy blood in his veins, had been accustomed from childhood to an open
air life. Often in fine weather he did not resort to the shelter of a
roof for either sleeping or eating. Crabbed and taciturn by
constitution he loved the solitude and freedom of the woods. On a
summer's night the turf at the foot of a tree was couch enough for him,
the sky sufficient roof. Had he been able to give adequate expression
to his point of view, his definition of the torments of hell would have
been confinement within four walls. In gaol--cribbed, cabined and
confined--he seemed to slough his manhood like a skin. His nature
changed. When Mr Gilbert went to see him, the dogged heart of the man
had lost half its doggedness. He pined for freedom--for God's air, and
the breath of the woods--with such desperate longing that, if he could,
he would have made an end of every soul in Winchester Gaol to get at
it.
Mr Gilbert summed him up--or thought he did--at sight. He made it a
rule in these sort of cases to leap at an instant conclusion, even
though afterwards it might turn out to be erroneous. Experience had
taught him that, in first interviews with clients of a certain kind,
quickness of speech--and of decision--was a trick which often paid. So
that the door had hardly been closed which left the pair together
than--metaphorically--he sprang at Mr Baker like a bull terrier at a rat.
"Now, my man, do you want to hang?"
"Hang? me? No, I don't. Who does?"
"Then you'll tell me who stuck a knife into that fellow in Cooper's
Spinney."
"Me tell you? What do you mean?"
"You know what I mean, and you know who handled that knife; and it's
only by telling me that you'll save your neck from the gallows."
Baker stared with tightened lips and frowning brows. This spruce little
gentleman was beyond him altogether.
"Here! you go too fast for me. I don't know who you are, not from Adam.
Who might you be?"
"My name's Gilbert--I'm a lawyer--and I'm going to save you from the
gallows, if I can."
"A lawyer?" Baker put up a gnarled hand to rasp his stubbly chin. He
looked at the other with eyes which trouble had dimmed. "Has she sent
you?"
"She? Who?"
"You know who I mean."
"I shall know if you tell me. How can I know if you don't tell me?"
"Has Miss Arnott sent you?"
"Miss Arnott? Why should Miss Arnott send me?"
"She knows if you don't."
"Do you think Miss Arnott cares if you were strung up to the top of the
tallest tree to-morrow?"
"She mightn't care if I was strung up, but I ain't going to be strung
up; and that she does know."
The lawyer looked keenly at the countryman. All at once he changed his
tone, he became urbanity itself.
"Now, Baker, let's understand each other, you and I. I flatter myself
that I've saved more than one poor chap from a hempen collar, and I'd
like to save you. You never put that knife into that man."
"Of course I didn't; ain't I kept on saying so?"
"Then why should you hang?"
"I ain't going to hang. Don't you make any mistake about it, and don't
let nobody else make any mistake about it neither. I ain't going to
hang."
"But, my good fellow, in these kind of affairs they generally hang
someone; if they can't find anyone else, it will probably be you. How
are you going to help it?"
Baker opened and closed his mouth like a trap, once, twice, thrice, and
nothing came out of it. There was a perceptible pause; he was possibly
revolving something in his sluggish brain. Then he asked a question,--
"Is that all you've got to say?"
"Of course it's not. My stock of language isn't quite so limited. Only
I want you to see just where you're standing, and just what the danger
is that's threatening. And I want you to know that I know that you know
who handled that knife; and that probably the only way of saving you
from the gallows is to let me know. You understand that it doesn't
necessarily follow that I'm going to tell everyone; the secret will be
as safe with me as with you. Only this is a case in which, if I'm to do
any good, I must know where we are. Now, Baker, tell me, who was it who
used the knife?"
Again Baker's jaws opened and shut, as if automatically; then, after
another interval, again he asked a question.
"You ain't yet told me if it was Miss Arnott as sent you?"
"And you haven't yet told me why Miss Arnott should send me?"
"That's my business. Did she? Do you hear me ask you--did she?"
Baker brought his fist down with a bang on to the wooden table by which
he was standing. Mr Gilbert eyed him in his eager, terrier-like
fashion, as if he were seeking for a weak point on which to make an
attack. Then, suddenly, again his manner altered. Ignoring Baker's
question as completely as if it had never been asked, he diverted the
man's attention from the expected answer by all at once plunging into
entirely different matters. Before he knew what was happening Baker
found himself subjected to a stringent examination of a kind for which
he was wholly unprepared. The solicitor slipped from point to point in
a fashion which so confused his client's stupid senses that, by the
time the interview was over, Jim Baker had but the vaguest notion of
what he had said or left unsaid.
Mr Gilbert went straight from the gaol to a post-office from which he
dispatched this reply-paid telegram:--
"To HUGH MORICE, Oak Dene.
"When I was once able to do you a service you said that, if ever the
chance offered, you would do me one in return. You can do me such a
service by giving me some dinner and a bed for to-night.
"ERNEST GILBERT.
"GEORGE HOTEL, WINCHESTER."
He lunched at the George Hotel. While he was smoking an after-luncheon
cigar an answer came. Hugh Morice wired to say that if he arrived by a
certain train he would meet him at the station. Mr Gilbert travelled by
that train, and was met. It was only after a _tete-a-tete_ dinner that
anything was said as to the reason why the lawyer had invited himself
to be the other's guest.
"I suppose you're wondering why I've forced myself upon your
hospitality?"
"I hope that nothing in my manner has caused you to think anything of
the kind. I assure you that I'm very glad to see you."
"It's very nice of you to say so. Still, considering how I've thrown
myself at you out of the clouds you can hardly help but wonder."
"Well, I have taken it a little for granted that you have some reason
for wishing to pay me a visit at this particular moment."
"Exactly. I have. It's because I find myself in rather a singular
situation."
"As how?"
The lawyer considered. He looked at his host across the little table,
on which were their cups of coffee, with his bright eyes and the
intensely inquisitive stare, which seemed to suggest that curiosity was
his devouring passion. His host looked back at him lazily,
indifferently, as if he were interested in nothing and in no one. The
two men were in acute contrast. The one so tall and broad; the other so
small and wiry--in the scales possibly not half Hugh Morice's size. The
solicitor glanced round the room, inquiringly.
"I suppose we're private here?"
They were in the billiard-room. The doors were shut, windows closed,
blinds drawn--the question seemed superfluous.
"Perfectly. No one would hear you if you shouted."
"It's just as well to be sure; because what I have to say to you is of
a particularly private nature."
"At your leisure."
"You and I have had dealings before--you will probably remember that,
under certain circumstances, I'm not a stickler for professional
etiquette."
"I remember it very well indeed."
"That's fortunate. Because, on the present occasion, I'm going to outrage
every standard of propriety which is supposed--professionally--to hedge me
round. Now listen to me attentively; because I don't wish to use plainer
speech than I can help; I don't want to dot my 'i's,' and I want you, at
a hint from me, to read between the lines. This is a ticklish matter I'm
going to talk about."
"I'm all attention."
"That's good; then here's what I've come to say."