_An Escape_
One night, in the following June, Priam and Alice refrained from going
to bed. Alice dozed for an hour or so on the sofa, and Priam read by her
side in an easy-chair, and about two o'clock, just before the first
beginnings of dawn, they stimulated themselves into a feverish activity
beneath the parlour gas. Alice prepared tea, bread-and-butter, and eggs,
passing briskly from room to room. Alice also ran upstairs, cast a few
more things into a valise and a bag already partially packed, and,
locking both receptacles, carried them downstairs. Meantime the whole of
Priam's energy was employed in having a bath and in shaving. Blood was
shed, as was but natural at that ineffable hour. While Priam consumed
the food she had prepared, Alice was continually darting to and fro in
the house. At one moment, after an absence, she would come into the
parlour with a mouthful of hatpins; at another she would rush out to
assure herself that the indispensable keys of the valise and bag with
her purse were on the umbrella-stand, where they could not be forgotten.
Between her excursions she would drink thirty drops of tea.
"Now, Priam," she said at length, "the water's hot. Haven't you
finished? It'll be getting light soon."
"Water hot?" he queried, at a loss.
"Yes," she said. "To wash up these things, of course. You don't suppose
I'm going to leave a lot of dirty things in the house, do you? While I'm
doing that you might stick labels on the luggage."
"They won't need to be labelled," he argued. "We shall take them with us
in the carriage."
"Oh, Priam," she protested, "how tiresome you are!"
"I've travelled more than you have." He tried to laugh.
"Yes, and fine travelling it must have been, too! However, if you don't
mind the luggage being lost, I don't."
During this she was collecting the crockery on a tray, with which tray
she whizzed out of the room.
In ten minutes, hatted, heavily veiled, and gloved, she cautiously
opened the front door and peeped forth into the lamplit street She
peered to right and to left. Then she went as far as the gate and peered
again.
"Is it all right?" whispered Priam, who was behind her.
"Yes, I think so," she whispered.
Priam came out of the house with the bag in one hand and the valise in
the other, a pipe in his mouth, a stick under his arm, and an overcoat
on his shoulder. Alice ran up the steps, gazed within the house, pulled
the door to silently, and locked it. Then beneath the summer stars she
and Priam hastened furtively, as though the luggage had contained swag,
up Werter Road towards Oxford Road. When they had turned the corner they
felt very much relieved.
They had escaped.
It was their second attempt. The first, made in daylight, had completely
failed. Their cab had been followed to Paddington Station by three other
cabs containing the representatives and the cameras of three Sunday
newspapers. A journalist had deliberately accompanied Priam to the
booking office, had heard him ask for two seconds to Weymouth, and had
bought a second to Weymouth himself. They had gone to Weymouth, but as
within two hours of their arrival Weymouth had become even more
impossible than Werter Road, they had ignominiously but wisely come
back.
Werter Road had developed into the most celebrated thoroughfare in
London. Its photograph had appeared in scores of newspapers, with a
cross marking the abode of Priam and Alice. It was beset and infested by
journalists of several nationalities from morn till night. Cameras were
as common in it as lamp-posts. And a famous descriptive reporter of the
_Sunday News_ had got lodgings, at a high figure, exactly opposite No.
29. Priam and Alice could do nothing without publicity. And if it would
be an exaggeration to assert, that evening papers appeared with
Stop-press News: "5.40. Mrs. Leek went out shopping," the exaggeration
would not be very extravagant. For a fortnight Priam had not been beyond
the door during daylight. It was Alice who, alarmed by Priam's pallid
cheeks and tightened nerves, had devised the plan of flight before the
early summer dawn.
They reached East Putney Station, of which the gates were closed, the
first workman's train being not yet due. And there they stood. Not
another human being was abroad. Only the clock of St. Bude's was
faithfully awakening every soul within a radius of two hundred yards
each quarter of an hour. Then a porter came and opened the gate--it was
still exceedingly early--and Priam booked for Waterloo in triumph.
"Oh," cried Alice, as they mounted the stairs, "I quite forgot to draw
up the blinds at the front of the house." And she stopped on the stairs.
"What did you want to draw up the blinds for?"
"If they're down everybody will know instantly that we've gone. Whereas
if I--"
She began to descend the stairs.
"Alice!" he said sharply, in a strange voice. The muscles of his white
face were drawn.
"What?"
"D--n the blinds. Come along, or upon my soul I'll kill you."
She realized that his nerves were in active insurrection, and that a
mere nothing might bring about the fall of the government.
"Oh, very well!" She soothed him by her amiable obedience.
In a quarter of an hour they were safely lost in the wilderness of
Waterloo, and the newspaper train bore them off to Bournemouth for a few
days' respite.
_The Nation's Curiosity_
The interest of the United Kingdom in the unique case of Witt _v_.
Parfitts had already reached apparently the highest possible degree of
intensity. And there was reason for the kingdom's passionate curiosity.
Whitney Witt, the plaintiff, had come over to England, with his
eccentricities, his retinue, his extreme wealth and his failing
eyesight, specially to fight Parfitts. A half-pathetic figure, this
white-haired man, once a connoisseur, who, from mere habit, continued to
buy expensive pictures when he could no longer see them! Whitney Witt
was implacably set against Parfitts, because he was convinced that Mr.
Oxford had sought to take advantage of his blindness. There he was,
conducting his action regardless of his blindness. There he was,
conducting his action regardless of expense. His apartments and his
regal daily existence at the Grand Babylon alone cost a fabulous sum
which may be precisely ascertained by reference to illustrated articles
in the papers. Then Mr. Oxford, the youngish Jew who had acquired
Parfitts, who was Parfitts, also cut a picturesque figure on the face of
London. He, too, was spending money with both hands; for Parfitts itself
was at stake. Last and most disturbing, was the individual looming
mysteriously in the background, the inexplicable man who lived in Werter
Road, and whose identity would be decided by the judgment in the case of
Witt _v_. Parfitts. If Witt won his action, then Parfitts might retire
from business. Mr. Oxford would probably go to prison for having sold
goods on false pretences, and the name of Henry Leek, valet, would be
added to the list of adventurous scoundrels who have pretended to be
their masters. But if Witt should lose--then what a complication, and
what further enigmas to be solved! If Witt should lose, the national
funeral of Priam Farll had been a fraudulent farce. A common valet lay
under the hallowed stones of the Abbey, and Europe had mourned in vain!
If Witt should lose, a gigantic and unprecedented swindle had been
practised upon the nation. Then the question would arise, Why?
Hence it was not surprising that popular interest, nourished by an
indefatigable and excessively enterprising press, should have mounted
till no one would have believed that it could mount any more. But the
evasion from Werter Road on that June morning intensified the interest
enormously. Of course, owing to the drawn blinds, it soon became known,
and the bloodhounds of the Sunday papers were sniffing along the
platforms of all the termini in London. Priam's departure greatly
prejudiced the cause of Mr. Oxford, especially when the bloodhounds
failed and Priam persisted in his invisibility. If a man was an honest
man, why should he flee the public gaze, and in the night? There was but
a step from the posing of this question to the inevitable inference that
Mr. Oxford's line of defence was really too fantastic for credence.
Certainly organs of vast circulation, while repeating that, as the
action was _sub judice_, they could say nothing about it, had already
tried the action several times in their impartial columns, and they now
tried it again, with the entire public as jury. And in three days Priam
had definitely become a criminal in the public eye, a criminal flying
from justice. Useless to assert that he was simply a witness subpoenaed
to give evidence at the trial! He had transgressed the unwritten law of
the English constitution that a person prominent in a _cause célèbre_
belongs for the time being, not to himself, but to the nation at large.
He had no claim to privacy. In surreptitiously obtaining seclusion he
was merely robbing the public and the public's press of their
inalienable right.
Who could deny now the reiterated statement that _he_ was a bigamist?
It came to be said that he must be on his way to South America. Then the
public read avidly articles by specially retained barristers on the
extradition treaties with Brazil, Argentina, Ecuador, Chili, Paraguay
and Uruguay.
The curates Matthew and Henry preached to crowded congregations at
Putney and Bermondsey, and were reported verbatim in the _Christian
Voice Sermon Supplement_, and other messengers of light.
And gradually the nose of England bent closer and closer to its
newspaper of a morning. And coffee went cold, and bacon fat congealed,
from the Isle of Wight to Hexham, while the latest rumours were being
swallowed. It promised to be stupendous, did the case of Witt _v_.
Parfitts. It promised to be one of those cases that alone make life
worth living, that alone compensate for the horrors of climate, in
England. And then the day of hearing arrived, and the afternoon papers
which appear at nine o'clock in the morning announced that Henry Leek
(or Priam Farll, according to your wish) and his wife (or his female
companion and willing victim) had returned to Werter Road. And England
held its breath; and even Scotland paused, expectant; and Ireland
stirred in its Celtic dream.
_Mention of Two Moles_
The theatre in which the emotional drama of Witt Parfitts was to be
played, lacked the usual characteristics of a modern place of
entertainment. It was far too high for its width and breadth; it was
badly illuminated; it was draughty in winter and stuffy in summer, being
completely deprived of ventilation. Had it been under the control of the
County Council it would have been instantly condemned as dangerous in
case of fire, for its gangways were always encumbered and its exits of a
mediaeval complexity. It had no stage, no footlights, and all its seats
were of naked wood except one.
This unique seat was occupied by the principal player, who wore a
humorous wig and a brilliant and expensive scarlet costume. He was a
fairly able judge, but he had mistaken his vocation; his rare talent for
making third-rate jokes would have brought him a fortune in the world of
musical comedy. His salary was a hundred a week; better comedians have
earned less. On the present occasion he was in the midst of a double row
of fashionable hats, and beneath the hats were the faces of fourteen
feminine relatives and acquaintances. These hats performed the function
of 'dressing' the house. The principal player endeavoured to behave as
though under the illusion that he was alone in his glory, but he failed.
There were four other leading actors: Mr. Pennington, K.C., and Mr.
Vodrey, K.C., engaged by the plaintiff, and Mr. Cass, K.C., and Mr.
Crepitude, K.C., engaged by the defendant. These artistes were the stars
of their profession, nominally less glittering, but really far more
glittering than the player in scarlet. Their wigs were of inferior
quality to his, and their costumes shabby, but they did not mind, for
whereas he got a hundred a week, they each got a hundred a day. Three
junior performers received ten guineas a day apiece: one of them held a
watching brief for the Dean and Chapter of the Abbey, who, being members
of a Christian fraternity, were pained and horrified by the defendants'
implication that they had given interment to a valet, and who were
determined to resist exhumation at all hazards. The supers in the drama,
whose business it was to whisper to each other and to the players,
consisted of solicitors, solicitors' clerks, and experts; their combined
emoluments worked out at the rate of a hundred and fifty pounds a day.
Twelve excellent men in the jury-box received between them about as much
as would have kept a K.C. alive for five minutes. The total expenses of
production thus amounted to something like six or seven hundred pounds a
day. The preliminary expenses had run into several thousands. The
enterprise could have been made remunerative by hiring for it Convent
Garden Theatre and selling stalls as for Tettrazzini and Caruso, but in
the absurd auditorium chosen, crammed though it was to the perilous
doors, the loss was necessarily terrific. Fortunately the affair was
subsidized; not merely by the State, but also by those two wealthy
capitalists, Whitney C. Witt and Mr. Oxford; and therefore the
management were in a position to ignore paltry financial considerations
and to practise art for art's sake.
In opening the case Mr. Pennington, K.C., gave instant proof of his
astounding histrionic powers. He began calmly, colloquially, treating
the jury as friends of his boyhood, and the judge as a gifted uncle, and
stated in simple language that Whitney C. Witt was claiming seventy-two
thousand pounds from the defendants, money paid for worthless pictures
palmed off upon the myopic and venerable plaintiff as masterpieces. He
recounted the life and death of the great painter Priam Farll, and his
solemn burial and the tears of the whole world. He dwelt upon the genius
of Priam Farll, and then upon the confiding nature of the plaintiff.
Then he inquired who could blame the plaintiff for his confidence in the
uprightness of a firm with such a name as Parfitts. And then he
explained by what accident of a dating-stamp on a canvas it had been
discovered that the pictures guaranteed to be by Priam Farll were
painted after Priam Farll's death.
He proceeded with no variation of tone: "The explanation is simplicity
itself. Priam Farll was not really dead. It was his valet who died.
Quite naturally, quite comprehensibly, the great genius Priam Farll
wished to pass the remainder of his career as a humble valet. He
deceived everybody; the doctor, his cousin, Mr. Duncan Farll, the public
authorities, the Dean and Chapter of the Abbey, the nation--in fact, the
entire world! As Henry Leek he married, and as Henry Leek he recommenced
the art of painting--in Putney; he carried on the vocation several years
without arousing the suspicions of a single person; and then--by a
curious coincidence immediately after my client threatened an action
against the defendant--he displayed himself in his true identity as
Priam Farll. Such is the simple explanation," said Pennington, K.C., and
added, "which you will hear presently from the defendant. Doubtless it
will commend itself to you as experienced men of the world. You cannot
but have perceived that such things are constantly happening in real
life, that they are of daily occurrence. I am almost ashamed to stand up
before you and endeavour to rebut a story so plausible and so
essentially convincing. I feel that my task is well-nigh hopeless.
Nevertheless, I must do my best."
And so on.
It was one of his greatest feats in the kind of irony that appeals to a
jury. And the audience deemed that the case was already virtually
decided.
After Whitney C. Witt and his secretary had been called and had filled
the court with the echoing twang of New York (the controlled fury of the
aged Witt was highly effective), Mrs. Henry Leek was invited to the
witness-box. She was supported thither by her two curates, who, however,
could not prevent her from weeping at the stern voice of the usher. She
related her marriage.
"Is that your husband?" demanded Vodrey, K.C. (who had now assumed the
principal _rôle_, Pennington, K.C., being engaged in another play in
another theatre), pointing with one of his well-conceived dramatic
gestures to Priam Farll.
"It is," sobbed Mrs. Henry Leek.
The unhappy creature believed what she said, and the curates, though
silent, made a deep impression on the jury. In cross-examination, when
Crepitude, K.C., forced her to admit that on first meeting Priam in his
house in Werter Road she had not been quite sure of his identity, she
replied--
"It's all come over me since. Shouldn't a woman recognize the father of
her own children?"
"She should," interpolated the judge. There was a difference of opinion
as to whether his word was jocular or not.
Mrs. Henry Leek was a touching figure, but not amusing. It was Mr.
Duncan Farll who, quite unintentionally, supplied the first relief.
Duncan pooh-poohed the possibility of Priam being Priam. He detailed all
the circumstances that followed the death in Selwood Terrace, and showed
in fifty ways that Priam could not have been Priam. The man now
masquerading as Priam was not even a gentleman, whereas Priam was
Duncan's cousin! Duncan was an excellent witness, dry, precise,
imperturbable. Under cross-examination by Crepitude he had to describe
particularly his boyish meeting with Priam. Mr. Crepitude was not
inquisitive.
"Tell us what occurred," said Crepitude.
"Well, we fought."
"Oh! You fought! What did you two naughty boys fight about?" (Great
laughter.)
"About a plum-cake, I think."
"Oh! Not a seed-cake, a plum-cake?" (Great laughter.)
"I think a plum-cake."
"And what was the result of this sanguinary encounter?" (Great
laughter.)
"My cousin loosened one of my teeth." (Great laughter, in which the
court joined.)
"And what did you do to him?"
"I'm afraid I didn't do much. I remember tearing half his clothes off."
(Roars of laughter, in which every one joined except Priam and Duncan
Farll.)
"Oh! You are sure you remember that? You are sure that it wasn't he who
tore _your_ clothes off?" (Lots of hysteric laughter.)
"Yes," said Duncan, coldly dreaming in the past. His eyes had the 'far
away' look, as he added, "I remember now that my cousin had two little
moles on his neck below the collar. I seem to remember seeing them. I've
just thought of it."
There is, of course, when it is mentioned in a theatre, something
exorbitantly funny about even one mole. Two moles together brought the
house down.
Mr. Crepitude leaned over to a solicitor in front of him; the solicitor
leaned aside to a solicitor's clerk, and the solicitor's clerk whispered
to Priam Farll, who nodded.
"Er----" Mr. Crepitude was beginning again, but he stopped and said to
Duncan Farll, "Thank you. You can step down."
Then a witness named Justini, a cashier at the Hôtel de Paris, Monte
Carlo, swore that Priam Farll, the renowned painter, had spent four days
in the Hôtel de Paris one hot May, seven years ago, and that the person
in the court whom the defendant stated to be Priam Farll was not that
man. No cross-examination could shake Mr. Justini. Following him came
the manager of the Hôtel Belvedere at Mont Pélerin, near Vevey,
Switzerland, who related a similar tale and was equally unshaken.
And after that the pictures themselves were brought in, and the experts
came after them and technical evidence was begun. Scarcely had it begun
when a clock struck and the performance ended for the day. The principal
actors doffed their costumes, and snatched up the evening papers to make
sure that the descriptive reporters had been as eulogistic of them as
usual. The judge, who subscribed to a press-cutting agency, was glad to
find, the next morning, that none of his jokes had been omitted by any
of the nineteen chief London dailies. And the Strand and Piccadilly were
quick with Witt _v_. Parfitts--on evening posters and in the strident
mouths of newsboys. The telegraph wires vibrated to Witt _v_. Parfitts.
In the great betting industrial towns of the provinces wagers were laid
at scientific prices. England, in a word, was content, and the principal
actors had the right to be content also. Very astute people in clubs and
saloon bars talked darkly about those two moles, and Priam's nod in
response to the whispers of the solicitor's clerk: such details do not
escape the modern sketch writer at a thousand a year. To very astute
people the two moles appeared to promise pretty things.
_Priam's Refusal_
"Leek in the box."
This legend got itself on to the telegraph wires and the placards within
a few minutes of Priam's taking the oath. It sent a shiver of
anticipation throughout the country. Three days had passed since the
opening of the case (for actors engaged at a hundred a day for the run
of the piece do not crack whips behind experts engaged at ten or twenty
a day; the pace had therefore been dignified), and England wanted a
fillip.
Nobody except Alice knew what to expect from Priam. Alice knew. She knew
that Priam was in an extremely peculiar state which might lead to
extremely peculiar results; and she knew also that there was nothing to
be done with him! She herself had made one little effort to bathe him in
the light of reason; the effort had not succeeded. She saw the danger of
renewing it. Pennington, K.C., by the way, insisted that she should
leave the court during Priam's evidence.
Priam's attitude towards the whole case was one of bitter resentment, a
resentment now hot, now cold. He had the strongest possible objection to
the entire affair. He hated Witt as keenly as he hated Oxford. All that
he demanded from the world was peace and quietness, and the world would
not grant him these inexpensive commodities. He had not asked to be
buried in Westminster Abbey; his interment had been forced upon him. And
if he chose to call himself by another name, why should he not do so? If
he chose to marry a simple woman, and live in a suburb and paint
pictures at ten pounds each, why should he not do so? Why should he be
dragged out of his tranquillity because two persons in whom he felt no
interest whatever, had quarrelled over his pictures? Why should his life
have been made unbearable in Putney by the extravagant curiosity of a
mob of journalists? And then, why should he be compelled, by means of a
piece of blue paper, to go through the frightful ordeal and flame of
publicity in a witness-box? That was the crowning unmerited torture, the
unthinkable horror which had broken his sleep for many nights.
In the box he certainly had all the appearance of a trapped criminal,
with his nervous movements, his restless lowered eyes, and his faint,
hard voice that he could scarcely fetch up from his throat. Nervousness
lined with resentment forms excellent material for the plastic art of a
cross-examining counsel, and Pennington, K.C., itched to be at work.
Crepitude, K.C., Oxford's counsel, was in less joyous mood. Priam was
Crepitude's own witness, and yet a horrible witness, a witness who had
consistently and ferociously declined to open his mouth until he was in
the box. Assuredly he had nodded, in response to the whispered question
of the solicitor's clerk, but he had not confirmed the nod, nor breathed
a word of assistance during the three days of the trial. He had merely
sat there, blazing in silence.
"Your name is Priam Farll?" began Crepitude.
"It is," said Priam sullenly, and with all the external characteristics
of a liar. At intervals he glanced surreptitiously at the judge, as
though the judge had been a bomb with a lighted fuse.
The examination started badly, and it went from worse to worse. The idea
that this craven, prevaricating figure in the box could be the
illustrious, the world-renowned Priam Farll, seemed absurd. Crepitude
had to exercise all his self-control in order not to bully Priam.
"That is all," said Crepitude, after Priam had given his preposterous
and halting explanations of the strange phenomena of his life after the
death of Leek. None of these carried conviction. He merely said that the
woman Leek was mistaken in identifying him as her husband; he inferred
that she was hysterical; this inference alienated him from the audience
completely. His statement that he had no definite reason for pretending
to be Leek--that it was an impulse of the moment--was received with mute
derision. His explanation, when questioned as to the evidence of the
hotel officials, that more than once his valet Leek had gone about
impersonating his master, seemed grotesquely inadequate.
People wondered why Crepitude had made no reference to the moles. The
fact was, Crepitude was afraid to refer to the moles. In mentioning the
moles to Priam he might be staking all to lose all.
However, Pennington, K.C., alluded to the moles. But not until he had
conclusively proved to the judge, in a cross-questioning of two hours'
duration, that Priam knew nothing of Priam's own youth, nor of painting,
nor of the world of painters. He made a sad mess of Priam. And Priam's
voice grew fainter and fainter, and his gestures more and more
self-incriminating.
Pennington, K.C., achieved one or two brilliant little effects.
"Now you say you went with the defendant to his club, and that he told
you of the difficulty he was in!"
"Yes."
"Did he make you any offer of money?"
"Yes."
"Ah! What did he offer you?"
"Thirty-six thousand pounds." (Sensation in court.)
"So! And what was this thirty-six thousand pounds to be for?"
"I don't know."
"You don't know? Come now."
"I don't know."
"You accepted the offer?"
"No, I refused it." (Sensation in court.)
"Why did you refuse it?"
"Because I didn't care to accept it."
"Then no money passed between you that day?"
"Yes. Five hundred pounds."
"What for?"
"A picture."
"The same kind of picture that you had been selling at ten pounds?"
"Yes."
"So that on the very day that the defendant wanted you to swear that you
were Priam Farll, the price of your pictures rose from ten pounds to
five hundred?"
"Yes."
"Doesn't that strike you as odd?"
"Yes."
"You still say--mind, Leek, you are on your oath!--you still say that
you refused thirty-six thousand pounds in order to accept five hundred."
"I sold a picture for five hundred."
(On the placards in the Strand: "Severe cross-examination of Leek.")
"Now about the encounter with Mr. Duncan Farll. Of course, if you are
really Priam Farll, you remember all about that?"
"Yes."
"What age were you?"
"I don't know. About nine."
"Oh! You were about nine. A suitable age for cake." (Great laughter.)
"Now, Mr. Duncan Farll says you loosened one of his teeth."
"I did."
"And that he tore your clothes."
"I dare say."
"He says he remembers the fact because you had two moles."
"Yes."
"Have you two moles?"
"Yes." (Immense sensation.)
Pennington paused.
"Where are they?"
"On my neck just below my collar."
"Kindly place your hand at the spot."
Priam did so. The excitement was terrific.
Pennington again paused. But, convinced that Priam was an impostor, he
sarcastically proceeded--
"Perhaps, if I am not asking too much, you will take your collar off and
show the two moles to the court?"
"No," said Priam stoutly. And for the first time he looked Pennington in
the face.
"You would prefer to do it, perhaps, in his lordship's room, if his
lordship consents."
"I won't do it anywhere," said Priam.
"But surely--" the judge began.
"I won't do it anywhere, my lord," Priam repeated loudly. All his
resentment surged up once more; and particularly his resentment against
the little army of experts who had pronounced his pictures to be clever
but worthless imitations of himself. If his pictures, admittedly painted
after his supposed death, could not prove his identity; if his word was
to be flouted by insulting and bewigged beasts of prey; then his moles
should not prove his identity. He resolved upon obstinacy.
"The witness, gentlemen," said Pennington, K.C., in triumph to the jury,
"has two moles on his neck, exactly as described by Mr. Duncan Farll,
but he will not display them!"
Eleven legal minds bent nobly to the problem whether the law and justice
of England could compel a free man to take his collar off if he refused
to take his collar off. In the meantime, of course, the case had to
proceed. The six or seven hundred pounds a day must be earned, and there
were various other witnesses. The next witness was Alice.
* * * * *