spotless lawn and bright silver before him, the starving man enveloped
his nostrils in the delicious fumes that arose from his plate. These
aromatic vapors seemed to pervade his being like some intoxicating
hashish, or a pungent but subtle Arabian tobacco. He toyed with the
pepper and salt, and crumbled his bread with a devouring eagerness,
which he kept in check sufficiently to refuse at first to swallow a
spoonful of the magic food, in order that he might obtain this sense
of inebriation to the full. His companion, whose perfectly normal and
healthy hunger permitted no such refinements as these, had already
tasted and enjoyed.
“Excellent soup,” he said. “It’s got quite a bouquet to it. I’m almost
glad I missed my dinner. One of these days I shall do it again.”
The satisfaction which in these circumstances consumes the average
sensual person grew so acute, that by the time he had swallowed
half of his plateful, he cried out to the nearest waiter: “Hi! you,
Alphonse--have the goodness to tell the chef to step this way, will
you?”
Northcote placed the first spoonful on his tongue, and indescribable
pangs seemed to mount to his brain. A fierce desire overpowered him. He
devoured another spoonful, and then another. Suddenly he was overcome
by a strange fury of greed. His plate was empty, and his palate had
lost its original fineness, before he was able to impose a check upon
his passion.
Great, however, as his expedition had been in its later stages, it
had scarcely surpassed that of Mr. Whitcomb, who from the first had
been devouring steadily. No sooner had that gentleman eaten his final
mouthful than he ordered both plates to be replenished.
At this moment, by one of those significant coöperations of events
which form the basis of the drama, a large, fat, frock-coated, and
pomatumed gentleman appeared, a little sheath of quiet smiles twinkling
all over his person, as though the playful god of love was in hiding
behind his ample shirt-front and slyly tickling his bosom with feathers.
“Hommage, monsieur le chef, hommage!” cried Mr. Whitcomb. “Cette
consommé est délicieuse. Vous êtes un vrai ruban bleu.”
The chef emitted a loud purr of satisfaction like an unusually large
Persian cat. And then by a still more exquisite coöperation of events
than that which had already preceded this incident, who should appear
but Jools, behind whom his attendant satellite was mincing with a
warmed decanter of wine.
“Two more glasses, Jools, if you please,” said the solicitor. “Monsieur
le chef and your worthy self will honor us, I hope. The first
product of your country will not prove unworthy of two of its most
distinguished sons.”
A look of rapture sprang to the proud eyes of Jools, and he measured
four glasses of wine with an agitation that was more dignified than
perfect composure.
“To l’Entente Cordiale, messieurs,” said Mr. Whitcomb, raising his
glass.
“L’Entente Cordiale!” chimed the others.
“It is part of my religion,” said Mr. Whitcomb, “never to encounter
the artistic temperament without rendering my homage. If we had only a
trace of it in this country to fuse and rarefy our other manifold gifts
and blessings, I believe we should become the most perfect nation upon
the earth.”
“Is it not, sir, the absence of it that makes you English so perfect?”
said the chef, who had all the alert intelligence of his race.
“That is not a thrust, monsieur?”
“Ah, no. As a citizen of the world I make it my duty never to wound the
English. I respect your country; there are seasons when I adore it.”
“Ees it not the land of justice, order, and liberty?” said Jools.
“Justice we have for those who can afford to pay for it,” said the
solicitor; “that is to say, the poor man is quite unable to purchase
it, and even the rich finds it costs a great deal of money. Order we
have; it is the birthright of us all--an adumbration of our exaggerated
reverence for mud, and stones, and bricks, and mortar. Liberty, Jools,
I regret to say, we have not. We are all base slaves--”
“Of the External,” said Northcote, with a lustre in his eyes that the
wine had kindled. “There is no slave like a Saxon. In his scheme of
sense the eye takes precedence. Even his religion is Money.”
“Ah, no,” said the chef, with much amiability, “you English have no
avarice like we have in my native Normandy.”
“An Englishman’s avarice is not of the heart, but of the spirit,” said
Northcote, with the melancholy calmness of one who knows everything.
“You haf your Shakespeare, your Milton,” said Jools.
“I think sometimes we could afford to exchange them both for your
Honoré Balzac,” said Northcote.
“You would be unwise to do so,” said the chef. “Your Shakespeare is
among the first order of mankind. He is greater than Molière; my faith!
he is as great as Napoleon.”
“Perhaps you are right, but your Honoré Balzac showed the bourgeoisie
its every form and feature.”
“Truly,” said the chef, with a sly laugh; “but you have ceased to be
bourgeois in your England nowadays.”
“Since when, sir?” said the young advocate, with a flame in his eyes.
“Since we have learned the trick of calling our mean ambitions by
high-sounding names?”
The solicitor filled up the glasses of Northcote and the chef.
“You speak well, my friends,” he said, with his richest chuckle;
“although myself being a middle-class Englishman, I am sorry to say
your discourse is over my head. But if it is to be my privilege to
maintain the talk upon this extremely high level, it will cost me,
Jools--”
“It will cost him, Jools,” interrupted Northcote, with a truculent
glance at the waiter.
“It will cost me, Jools,” said the solicitor, with an imperturbable
smile, “an extra quart at least of your Château Margaux.”
At the moment this order fell on deaf ears, for the lips of Jools were
trembling with speech like those of Socrates.
“We will give you our Honoré de Balzac, sare,” he said, with a heavy
sigh, “ef you will part wiz your Shikspeare.”
“Also our Voltaire,” said the chef, with a leer at his melancholy
compatriot, “if they will part with their Shakespeare.”
“Your Honoré Balzac is only just coming into his own,” said Northcote,
with immense solemnity.
“That is to say, sir,” said the chef, “a reputation must be established
at least a hundred years in the arts before the world can be decorated
with the radiance that proceeds from the enormous fire it holds in its
bowels.”
“True, monsieur,” said Northcote. “It is like a new-born planet. It has
to be allowed to cool a little before it can assume a shape, and the
wonderful vegetation begins to appear upon it. It cannot be approached
at first; it is a mere ball of fire in the heavens, without form and
without meaning to the human eyes.”
“Or it ees like a young wine, sare; it must be allowed time to mature,”
said Jools.
“It is the worst feature, Jools,” said the solicitor, “of this claret
of yours, that it always unlocks the door for these pleasantries.
And this British skull of mine is so packed with business, that with
our shopkeeping instinct of transacting a little of it whenever and
wherever we can, before we fall upon the latest theories in regard to
the composition of matter, with every reluctance, I shall ask you and
your distinguished compatriot to withdraw for the space of one hour.”
“Personally,” said Northcote, “I believe the universe is not made up of
matter at all.”
“In other words, sir,” said the chef, “matter is--”
“I ask your pardon, my friends,” said the solicitor; “but with true
Britannic effrontery, this business of mine even seeks to take
precedence of the mystery of the universe.”
“There is no such thing as the universe,” said Northcote, draining
his glass with great decision. “The whole of it is contained within
ourselves.”
“Peace, peace!” said the solicitor. “We will resume our speculations,
with the permission of our good friends, in the space of one hour.”
Filled with every fraternal and complacent feeling, Jools and his
distinguished compatriot bowed smilingly, and with a profound regard
for the solicitor and the advocate, retired, in opposite directions,
to those spheres of activity in which there was none to dispute their
supremacy.
VI
A PROPHECY
“And now,” said the solicitor, “as the decks are clear, let me say this
is a rather odd affair which has sent me hungry about the streets of
London at an unpleasant hour.”
“Am I not surprisingly cool about it?” said Northcote, with a flushed
face, balancing his empty wine-glass on the handle of a knife,
“considering that this business of yours is destined to mark the
turning-point in my career.”
“When a man begins to talk of his career,” said the solicitor, “it is
safe to infer that he has taken the wrong quantity of liquor. Waiter!”
“Sare?”
“Tell Jools we want another pint of this filthy stuff--this
what-do-you-call-it?--with which he is poisoning us. And, Alphonse,
have a couple of Welsh rarebits ready by the time we want them.”
The waiter withdrew, walking delicately; and the solicitor bent across
the table towards his companion in a manner of confidential gravity.
“Correct me if I am wrong,” said he, “but you have done no circuit
work?”
“Hitherto I have not soared beyond a police-court,” said the young
man, with perfect frankness. “And even there I have only made a public
display of my incapacity on half a dozen occasions.”
“A beginner one might say, yet an ambitious one.”
“Where do you get the ambition from?”
“It is in the color of your eyes. Besides, have you not a habit of
turning your phrases?”
“If I did not know you to be a connoisseur in men of promise I should
not be convinced.”
“That’s my foible, right enough,” said the solicitor, with a laugh. “A
connoisseur in men of promise. Samuel Whitcomb owes his own reputation
to that, and he is proud to believe that the reputations of half a
score of those who are in every way his superiors are to be traced to
that source.”
“Laying aside the question of superiority, all the world knows it.”
“I gave Finnemore Jones his first brief,” said the solicitor,
immodestly. “I provided Cooper, Howard, and Harrington with the
opportunities that made them famous.”
“And above all,” said the young advocate, measuring with a stealthy eye
the man before him, “are you not the discoverer of Michael Tobin?”
“Ha!” cried the solicitor, as he brought his fist upon the table with
an air of unmistakable triumph, “I was holding that back.”
“As the crown of your achievement?”
“Yes; Michael Tobin is almost here. But how do you come to suspect it,
when at present his quality is only known to the few?”
“I am one of them,” said Northcote, looking his companion imperturbably
in the eyes.
Such a cool affirmation seemed to delight the solicitor.
“Well, I should not be surprised if you were,” he said, with a violent
chuckle. “If I had not had some such suspicion I might not have climbed
up all those dark stairs at a quarter-past ten of a winter’s night.”
“Without your dinner.”
“Without my dinner. Why, if that fellow hasn’t forgotten the black
currant jelly. But here he comes with his poisonous claret.”
“Tobin is a brilliant man,” said Northcote, poising his glass after
having replenished it. “Irish to the bone; a real discovery; ought to
go far. But far as he ought to go and will go, there is one name in
your list that will surpass him.”
“That is where I cannot agree with you, my son,” said the solicitor,
with confidential and parental bonhomie, for this subject lay at the
source of his intellectual pride. “You must know somewhat to have found
out about Tobin; but when you name his superior you betray your youth.”
“I concede it is quite impossible for me to name Tobin’s superior
without betraying my youth.”
“Go to,” said the solicitor, with an air of indulgence that he
reserved for the young and promising. “Don’t labor the point. It wants
experience to detect greatness in the shell. Michael Tobin will easily
be the first upon my list.”
“There is one who will surpass Michael Tobin,” said the young man.
“Not among those I have mentioned.”
“True. As is usual with the prophet, you don’t dare to affirm the
authentic name.”
“Upon my word I can’t think who you mean!”
“One Henry Northcote.”
The solicitor broke forth in a suppressed shout of laughter.
“Good!” he said; “you’ll do. Fill up your glass and we’ll get to work.
And I’m glad your talent is so remarkable, because I’ve got some
business here that is likely to tax it.”
“It is increasingly clear to me that you are the genie,” said the young
advocate in a low voice, and fetching a deep breath.
VII
THE OFFER OF A BRIEF
The solicitor drew from an inner pocket of his coat a bundle of papers
tied with red tape. He placed them on the table at the side of his
plate.
“At the eleventh hour,” he said, speaking coolly and distinctly, “I am
going to ask you to undertake the defence in a trial for murder.”
Northcote was conscious of no more than a slight sharp throb of the
pulses as he met the shrewd, even cunning, eyes of the man who sat
opposite.
“Yes, that’s a chance for Henry Northcote,” were his first words,
uttered under the breath.
“The fee is not much,” said the solicitor, with the precision of the
man of affairs entering his fat voice. “You will not be briefed at more
than twenty guineas.”
“To-night I think I would sell my soul for half that sum,” said the
young man, with an excited laugh.
“Is not that a somewhat damaging admission for you to make?” said the
solicitor.
“I agree, I agree,” said the young man; “but the truth is never
discreet.”
“There’s no money in this case,” said the solicitor, “and I’m afraid
there is no kudos. It is one of those disagreeable cases which are not
only irreclaimably sordid, but also as dead as mutton. In order to
obtain a small sum of money, a woman of the ‘unfortunate’ class has
poisoned a man with whom she lived. She is one of those cold-blooded
persons who are born for the gallows. There is enough evidence to hang
her ten times. We shall be forced to submit to the inevitable.”
“You disappoint me,” said Northcote. “I was thinking of a real fighting
case.”
The solicitor smiled, with a faint suggestion of patronage.
“I beg your pardon, I’m sure,” said the young man, quickly. “Had
there been any life in the case you would not have carried it to one
so obscure. Even as it is, I ought to be grateful to you--and I am
grateful indeed--for putting it in my way.”
“The circumstances of this case are somewhat peculiar,” said the
solicitor. “We are under rather severe pressure in the matter of time.
The case will be called on the day after to-morrow at the Central
Criminal Court.”
“That hardly explains away your kindness towards myself. Even at this
short notice you could have got plenty of men to have consented to a
verdict.”
“I am aware of it, but then it is not quite the method of Whitcomb and
Whitcomb. We like ‘Thorough’ to be our motto. If we accept a client, we
feel we owe it to ourselves to leave no stone unturned, irrespective of
position or emolument.”
“But I understand this case is too dead to be fought?”
“Ah, we are now about to approach the first of the ‘peculiar’
circumstances. At five o’clock this evening Tobin himself was holding
this brief, but at that hour his bicycle had the misfortune to collide
with a motor-car, and the poor fellow now lies in hospital with a
compound fracture of the right thigh.”
“Poor fellow, poor fellow!”
“I think you and I are agreed that Tobin is without a rival in a case
of this nature.”
“You must forgive me if I express surprise that Tobin should have
accepted the brief.”
“That is easily explained. Tobin is the generous-hearted Irishman who
is never weary of affirming that Whitcomb and Whitcomb gave him his
start. He never refuses us, and I am afraid we, in the interests of a
client, trade occasionally on his good nature.”
“Then the practitioners of law are sometimes more disinterested than
they seem.”
“My dear fellow, among a considerable body of men must there not be a
leaven of human nature? And my own experience is that human nature is
so much more disinterested than the young and cynical like to consider
it.”
“That is well said,” replied Northcote, feeling the rebuke to be
merited.
“And so you see,” said the solicitor, “in regard to this wretched woman
whom we had undertaken to defend, we were in the position of being able
to brief a first-rate man for a third-rate fee.”
“Yet a third-rate man would have served your purpose equally well, if
one is allowed to hazard the remark.”
“No; for this reason: the woman has long been of intemperate habits.
Prior to the commission of the crime she was known to be drinking
heavily, and Tobin, who is a real fighting man, if ever there was one,
had decided to take the line of insanity.”
“As the only possible means of saving her neck?”
“There is no other. And even in the hands of such a man as Tobin, the
chance is remote. He has his witnesses to call, of course, in support
of his plea, but they cannot be considered as entirely satisfactory.
And, unfortunately, their evidence will be rebutted by that of the
prison doctors, who are against us.”
“Then, after all,” said the young man, with a sunken eagerness
appearing in his eyes, “there will be opportunities for advocacy.”
“Pretty considerable opportunities, if we are to save her neck.”
“Then forgive me if again I put the question, Why did you come to a
tyro with a case of this nature?”
“How can you ask,” said the solicitor, with an arch smile, “when the
tyro happens to be one Henry Northcote?”
“Upon your own admission that is a name that has no particular
significance for you.”
“Nay, you go too fast, my friend. It must be left to the future to
place the name of Henry Northcote, but let me confess that in the
meantime the bearer of it has not wholly escaped my vigilance.”
“In your capacity as a connoisseur in young men of promise?”
“Precisely.”
“Upon what data have you built, when you have never seen him in open
court?”
“My dear fellow, you are as curious as a woman.”
“Every comprehensive mind is partly feminine.”
“No mind can be in any sense feminine. It is a contradiction in terms.”
“Well, well! From what data have you derived the courage to entrust an
untried man with the defence in a trial for murder?”
“To be perfectly frank, it was Tobin who found the courage for me.”
“Tobin!”
“No less.”
“Why, Tobin doesn’t know me from Adam.”
“Not so fast, my friend; don’t come to conclusions so abruptly. Tobin
has his eyes about him.”
“Well, yes, that is an attribute that is common to all who become
first-rate in anything.”
“Let me tell you exactly what occurred. I was on the point of leaving
Chancery Lane about six, and beginning to think about my dinner, when
I received poor Tobin’s telegram to say he was tucked up in hospital
with a broken thigh, and would I come to him at once. Of course I went;
and there the poor fellow was in a devilish uncomfortable attitude, as
white as the sheets, face drawn with pain, but himself as cool as ice.
“‘We shall have to apply for a postponement,’ were his first words.
“‘In any case, old boy,’ said I, ‘I shall relieve you of further
responsibility.’
“‘Not much!’ said he. ‘Get a postponement until next sessions; I am
going to save the poor beggar’s neck.’
“‘Why, old boy,’ I said, fixing him up with a cigarette, ‘you will be
lying here in your little bed until next sessions.’
“‘Not for me,’ he said; ‘not for Michael. I shall be in court on two
sticks a-saving the poor beggar’s neck.’
“‘Now, look here, old son,’ said I, ‘just let the whole thing go, and
we’ll put up somebody else.’
“‘If you do,’ said he, ‘as sure as a gun she’s a gonner.’
“‘I am afraid I agree,’ said I; ‘but if our fair client is not a fit
subject for the rope, upon my soul there’s no need to hang anybody.’
“Well, the next thing I saw was that his eyes were full of tears.
“‘Oh, damn it all!’ he said, ‘I can’t stand this hanging of women.’
“‘She’s an out-and-outer,’ said I.
“‘That doesn’t alter her sex,’ said the Irishman.
“‘Well,’ said I, ‘who can you suggest to put up in your stead with your
plea of insanity? The difficulty is the brief is only marked twenty
guineas, and you can’t get much for that money with you fellows.’
“‘You can’t,’ said he; ‘besides, this is a case for Michael. Unless
it is handled in a certain way she is certain to hang. Apply for a
postponement.’
“‘Why, you old sentimentalist, I don’t think we could get one,’ said I,
having pretty well made up my mind that we could not.
“‘Who is the judge?’ said he.
“‘Bow-wow Brudenell,’ said I, ‘the most pedantic and cantankerous old
man on the bench. And Weekes is leading for the Crown. There will not
be much in the way of accommodation in that quarter.’
“‘Oh, come, old Bow-wow is not such a bad old sportsman,’ said the
Irishman. ‘Tell him just how it is; tell him I’m suddenly laid by the
wing, and it will be all right.’
“‘But,’ said I, ‘even if we get a postponement, we shall be none the
better for it. It can’t be extended indefinitely; and I am afraid, old
boy, this is going to be a long business of yours. I think I shall hand
the brief over to Harris.’
“At first I was afraid the wild Irishman was going to jump out of his
plaster of Paris.
“‘Harris!’ said he. ‘My aunt! I wouldn’t brief Harris to defend a
fox-terrier for worrying a tortoise-shell kitten.’
“‘I’ll admit,’ said I, ‘that Christopher is not a genius, but at least
he will get our unfortunate client hanged like a Christian and a
gentleman.’
“I spent nearly an hour arguing the point with the poor old fellow.
‘I don’t hold with dumb animals performing on the stage, and I don’t
hold with the hanging of women,’ he kept saying, in that odd way of his
which one doesn’t know exactly how to take.
“‘Look here, old son,’ I said at last, growing impatient, ‘this will
have to be fixed up with Harris to-night; and if I can’t get Harris, I
shall get Westby.’
“‘She can hand in her checks if you get either,’ said he. ‘She’ll be
hanged by the neck without even a run for her money.’
“‘Well, you can’t get “silk” for twenty guineas,’ said I; ‘and you
can’t get a really useful junior.’
“Now, here follows another of the ‘peculiar’ circumstances. Suddenly
the wild Irishman lifted himself in his bed, and again there was that
odd look in his eyes.
“‘I’ll tell you who you _can_ get,’ said he; ‘he’s come to me in a
flash. Get that fellow Northcote.’
“‘Northcote?’ said I; ‘never heard of him.’
“‘Never mind, get him,’ said the wild Irishman. ‘He’s young, and they
say he’s mad, but he might bring us luck.’
“‘For a chap with as brilliant a set of brains as are to be found in
London,’ said I, ‘you do come out with some of the oddest suggestions.
How did you come to think of this fellow Northcote, when you won’t
allow Harris and Westby to be good enough?’
“‘Oh,’ said he, ‘he’s one of my inspirations,’
“‘Inspiration my foot!’ said I. ‘I’m off to Christopher Harris.’
“Well, as I was about to go, poor Tobin raised himself again, and those
queer eyes came at me in a way I don’t like.
“‘Look here, Whitcomb,’ he said; ‘you were a pal to me when I had
hardly a boot to my foot, but if you go to Harris I’ll never speak to
you again.’
“‘Lie down, you damned Celt, and go to sleep,’ I said, ‘and I’ll come
and talk to you another day.’
“‘I won’t lie down until you promise to go to Northcote at No. 3
Shepherd’s Inn.’
“‘King’s Bench Walk,’ I assured him, ‘will be far better. If I can’t
have a reckless fellow like you, I mean to play for safety.’
“‘All the safety in the world,’ said he, ‘won’t save the poor beggar’s
neck.’
“‘That’s all very well,’ said I, ‘but an inexperienced man might
come a dreadful cropper in a case of this kind. I believe myself in a
moderate amount of speculation, but not in a capital charge.’
“‘It’s her only chance,’ said the Irishman.
“‘I am afraid,’ said I, ‘her attorneys are not willing to provide her
with it at the risk of decency.’
“‘There’s your Saxon,’ said he. ‘Even when they hang a woman, they
insist on decency. Praise be to the saints, we haven’t got any decency
in our dirty old island.’
“‘No,’ said I; ‘but you’ve got a good deal of superstition. Whatever
put this fellow Northcote into your wild head? I never remember to have
heard of him in court.’
“‘I don’t care what you’ve heard of him,’ said the Irishman, ‘this is
where he gets his chance. He’ll bring us luck.’
“‘Luck!’ said I. ‘A lawyer’s luck is based on common sense and the
capacity to see into the future.’
“‘We crack-brained Celts possess that capacity,’ said Tobin. ‘You can
come and tell me on Monday whether I’ve been wrong.’