Beyond this place (20 page)

In the silence which followed, a vision of the prosecutor, supremely self-assured, rose before Paul's sight, and a strange fever began to throb within his veins.

Castles continued, his calmness apparently restored, as though thinking aloud.

"Yes, the others were merely stupid — Dale, for instance, is a blockhead, hidebound by his own professional prejudice. He probably convinced himself that he was right. You could not lower yourself to hate him. Oman, the judge, works by rule of thumb. But Sprott, ah, Sprott is different. Sprott's mind is brilliant. Sprott must have ripped through the pitiful tissue of evidence and known it, at a glance, to be utterly inconclusive. Yet Sprott

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went ahead, absolutely regardless, with every subtle word at his command. Sprott condemned your father to worse than hanging, to a living death, for fifteen years. He is the one who did it. Yes, he is the one."

Under this relentless logic, the fever in Paul's blood was mounting beyond endurance. He saw the case in clear perspective, and like a haggard shaft of light, there broke upon him anew the knowledge of the prosecutor's responsibility. Almost by accident, Castles let his hand rest, caressingly, upon the young man's shoulder.

"I understand how you feel. I'm sorry for you. How can you get at such a man? He is entrenched."

Paul raised his head, turned his burning eyes upon the other.

"There must be some way of reaching him."

"No, Paul . . . there isn't." Castles spoke in a tone of commiseration. Then he hesitated, concealing a sudden contortion of his •features. "At least, there's one way . . . but of course, it's impossible."

Paul's eyes were dark and glittering in his white face.

"Why impossible?"

Castles considered, in a strange manner, then seemed to dismiss his thought. o

"No. You're too young. You couldn't go to Sprott ... to his house . . . and square your account with him. . . ."

As Castles said this he glanced at Paul swiftly and his breath came faster, too fast indeed for one whose mood was so detached and calm. But Paul was now beyond perceiving this betrayal of the passion which shook the other. He muttered, with twitching cheek.

"Why shouldn't I go and face up to Sprott? I can do it."

"Can you?" Castles questioned with that same strange intensity.

Paul stared back at him, in a dim perception of his meaning. The blood was pounding in his ears, hammering through his head, like the beat of a hundred hammers.

"Can you?" repeated Castles in a more insistent voice.

Paul nodded his head.

"It's the only way left for you to get justice. To take the matter into your own hands. No one will blame you. All the facts will

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come out. If you do it . . . they can't hush up your father's case any longer. Everyone must hear about it. Just think of it. A complete exposure of everything they're trying to hide. What fools they'll look ... if you do it. The whole thing attributable to them . . . from first to last. And Sprott, the agent, the conniver of the injustice, out of the way, finished, done for ... if you do it. He richly deserved it . . . that's what they'll say. They won't hold it against you . . . they'll say you were justified ... if you do it . . . if only you do it. . . ."

Paul got to his feet, goaded beyond reason by these words, by all that he had witnessed at the trial, by the process of demoralization which for the past ten days had been brought to bear upon him. Flashes of light were darting through his brain. He poured himself another drink and swallowed it down.

"Here," said Castles in a hoarse whisper. "In case they try to stop you . . . take this."

It was a black Webley automatic. Paul experienced no surprise. Castles did not speak. Nor did he. Castles opened the door. Paul went out. Descending the steps, he could feel the heavy weight in his pocket bumping against his thigh. He entered the darkness of the street.

Alone in the room, his hand pressed against his side, Castles leaned for a moment against the doorway, as though gasping for breath, his mouth contorted, his cheeks strangely hollow. Then, with fingers that trembled slightly, he rolled and lit a cigarette, looked at his watch. A train for the North left in ten minutes. It was not wise to delay. He pulled on his overcoat, then stood hurriedly extracting the most he could from the cigarette. His thoughts, known only to himself, caused his lips to draw back from his pale gums. With a violent gesture he crushed the cigarette beneath his heel, swung round, and went out.

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CHAPTER XXVII

THAT same evening, when Sir Matthew Sprott left the robing-room of the Courts, he stood on the portico, debating how best to employ the two clear hours of leisure before his seven o'clock dinner. A snooker match was being played at Burrough's Hall, Smith against Davies. But although he liked the game and, as a skilful amateur, had his own full-sized table at home, he decided that the session must, by now, be nearly over. He resolved to go down to his club in Leonard Square, the Sherwood.

There was still a gleam of sunset in the west as he strolled along, a reddish afterglow which made the sky quite lurid, and in particular lit up one small purple cloud, low on the horizon, no larger than a man's hand. The prosecutor's eyes were caught and held, strangely, by this cloud, which lay, dark and brooding, like an omen of calamity, in the sky. Abruptly Sir Matthew shook himself. During these past weeks he had not been quite himself. Perhaps he had been overworking, planning ahead too arduously for the coming election. Although he often boasted that "he had not a nerve in his body," lately he had been inclined to worry, absurdly, over trifles. Why, for instance, should he take so much to heart these trivial dreams which had recently plagued his wife?

Sprott winced visibly as his thoughts reverted to this vexatious matter. These fantastic scraps of nonsense, apparently so meaningless — what was one to make of them? They had, however, a single point in common. All of them concerned him, and in every one he met with some preposterous misfortune. He was in court and had forgotten his brief; he rose to address the jury and broke down in his speech; he was rebuked in scathing terms by the presiding judge; then, as he left the court — and this image came most frequently of all — everyone rose to mock and disparage him. It was, indeed, this ending to the sequence which gave his dear wife the greatest pain, which had caused her to confide in him.

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The heavy colour of the sky was in Sprott's face as he turned, solitary and morose, into the Square. However he might pretend to despise the new psychology, he was forced to acknowledge that this subconscious mischief now affecting his beloved Catharine came as an echo of that long-past Mathry case. And a flame of anger leaped in his breast as he realized how disproportionate a havoc had been wrought by this little stinging gnat, arising, so outrageously, from the swamps of the past.

He had lied when he told the Chief Constable he had gone through the papers of the case. That had been quite unnecessary, his memory was faultless, and he remembered it in every detail. How indeed could he forget, even after fifteen years, that which had given him the first great impetus towards his present eminence?

Even now he could see Mathry's face, as the prisoner stood before him in the dock, a handsome "dago" face, the type of face that women always liked, to their sorrow and undoing. Yes, he had played upon this point, he freely admitted it . . . and upon other points, weaknesses if you like, evident in the prisoner's character, reducing him, when he entered the witness box, to utter and complete confusion. Well, why not? Was it not his duty to make his presentation as strong as possible, to gloss over its deficiencies, accentuate its strength ... in short to win his case?

Sir Matthew had by this time reached Leonard Square, its gracious central green bedecked with pigeon-haunted statues of past civic dignitaries, and, with an effort, he tried to shake off his annoyance. Entering the dignified portals of the club he gave up his hat and coat, found a corner in the lower lounge and ordered tea. While this was being brought, he looked about him.

The Royal Sherwood was an exclusive institution which drew its members from the old county families and the Midland aristocracy. Sprott was not a favourite here; indeed, before he had at last forced his way into membership he had been blackballed three times — an achievement that had singularly gratified his vanity. Since he felt that people envied him his success, for this reason he was inclined to glory in his unpopularity, in his power to break down all opposition. Often, as he stood before the pier-

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glass in his robes while Burr, his middle-aged, snuff-coloured clerk, obsequiously handed him his wig, he would smile complacently at his own reflection, and remark: "Burr! I'm the most hated man in the city of Wortley."

This evening, however, his attitude was strangely chastened, and as he viewed the sprinkling of members in the lounge, he wished that one of them might come and speak to him. Beyond a few distant nods he had received no acknowledgement of his entry. In the opposite corner four men were playing bridge, amongst them a member of his own profession whom he knew slightly, Nigel Grahame, a King's Counsel. Once or twice they glanced in his direction and, instinctively, he had a strange suspicion that they might be speaking of the Mathry case. No, no, that was impossible — he must really take a grip of himself. Yet why didn't Grahame recognize him? As he slowly drank his tea, he bent his gaze upon the other man.

' Grahame, in his opinion, was a queer individual, an exponent of odd and unaccountable beliefs. Son of a country rector, he had, as a boy, achieved the distinction of winning an exhibition to Winchester College. From this famous school, which had stamped him with its own particular mark of scholarship and manners, he had proceeded to Oxford University. A year after he had been called to the bar, his father died, leaving him a small income of two hundred pounds a year. After the funeral he had immediately gone abroad and for the next five years had lived an unsettled existence. Part of the time he spent as tutor to an Austrian boy suffering from tuberculosis and compelled to spend his days in the high altitudes of the Tyrol. For the rest, Grahame wandered about Europe, mainly on foot, with a knapsack on his back, wintering in the Juras, spending his summers on the Dolomites. He loved to walk among the mountains — in one day he had tramped from Oberwald to Innsbruck, a distance of fifty-two miles.

Naturally this apparently aimless life had caused his friends anxiety, but in the following year Grahame returned to Wortley, apparently sound in mind and body, and with complete unconcern, as though he had left only yesterday, addressed himself to his own profession. Gradually, he acquired a practice which,

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while not extensive, was in the highest sense distinguished. It was said that he owed much to his manner and appearance — tall and spare, with pale, regular features and dark, ascetic eyes, he was always immaculate, courteous, and reserved. Yet behind these superficial attributes there lay a particular integrity of purpose which formed the unseen structure, the very keystone of his reputation. He was fanatically honest. It was even whispered of him, often with a sidelong smile, that he would not accept a brief unless he knew it to be just.

This, in itself, was enough to cause Sprott to sneer. What rot indeed! How could the world go round if everyone behaved like a saint upon a gridiron. Yet, despite that disparagement, there was about Grahame, something untouchable and unfathomable, which had always baffled and disturbed Sir Matthew.

He recollected well, for instance, that occasion when, at one of his larger dinner parties at Grove Quadrant, knowing Grahame to be interested in art and wishing also to display his own possessions, he had taken him away from the other guests to show him his Constables. Grahame had behaved with perfect courtesy, yet all the time Sprott had sensed this strange fellow's indifference to his treasures — as though, almost, they were counterfeit. And, at last, provoked by this feeling, he had exclaimed:

"Well, my boy ... as a connoisseur, don't you envy me?"

Grahame had smiled pleasantly.

"Why should I . . . when I can see pictures, at least equally good, just across the park in the Municipal Gallery?"

"But damn it all, man . . ." Sprott had burst out, "in the Gallery they're not your pictures."

"Aren't they?" Grahame's smile had deepened, causing the prosecutor a strange disquiet. "Don't the greatest masterpieces belong to us all?"

A recurrence of this aggravation suffused Sprott now, and as, at this moment, the group of card players broke up, a perverse impulse made him signal to Grahame.

Almost imperceptibly Grahame hesitated, then he crossed the lounge.

"Join me," Sprott threw out the invitation with spurious heartiness. "I'm alone."

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"I've already had tea." Grahame smiled politely.

"Then sit down a minute. You and I don't see enough of one another."

Maintaining his polite, rather deprecating smile, Grahame seated himself on the arm of an adjoining chair.

"That's right," said the Prosecutor, helping himself, with a show of appetite, to a fresh muffin. "I don't bite, you know. In spite of all the tattle in this club."

"I assure you," said Grahame, in slight embarrassment, but with perfect good manners, "so far as I am aware . . ."

Sprout laughed, easily, but somewhat louder than he had intended.

"Weren't you discussing me a minute ago, over there, with those others? You can't deceive an old hand like me." Sprott knew he was going over the score, but something within him drove him to continue. "I haven't exercised my powers of deduction all these years for nothing."

There was a pause while the prosecutor raised his cup and drank some tea.

"You see, Grahame, a man doesn't reach my position without a multitude of back-biters collecting on his doorstep, waiting their chance to cry, 'Wolf!' It only takes an irresponsible half-wit like George Birley to start them off. Don't you agree?"