Buried Alive: a Tale of These Days - Arnold Bennett (books to read for self improvement txt) 📗

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.

* * * * *


CHAPTER XII


Alice's Performances

When Alice was called, and when she stood up in the box, and, smiling indulgently at the doddering usher, kissed the book as if it had been a chubby nephew, a change came over the emotional atmosphere of the court, which felt a natural need to smile. Alice was in all her best clothes, but it cannot be said that she looked the wife of a super-eminent painter. In answer to a question she stated that before marrying Priam she was the widow of a builder in a small way of business, well known in Putney and also in Wandsworth. This was obviously true. She could have been nothing but the widow of a builder in a small way of business well known in Putney and also in Wandsworth. She was every inch that.

"How did you first meet your present husband, Mrs. Leek?" asked Mr. Crepitude.

"Mrs. Farll, if you please," she cheerfully corrected him.

"Well, Mrs. Farll, then."

"I must say," she remarked conversationally, "it seems queer you should be calling me Mrs. Leek, when they're paying you to prove that I'm Mrs. Farll, Mr.----, excuse me, I forget your name."

This nettled Crepitude, K.C. It nettled him, too, merely to see a witness standing in the box just as if she were standing in her kitchen talking to a tradesman at the door. He was not accustomed to such a spectacle. And though Alice was his own witness he was angry with her because he was angry with her husband. He blushed. Juniors behind him could watch the blush creeping like a tide round the back of his neck over his exceedingly white collar.

"If you'll be good enough to reply----" said he.

"I met my husband outside St. George's Hall, by appointment," said she.

"But before that. How did you make his acquaintance?"

"Through a matrimonial agency," said she.

"Oh!" observed Crepitude, and decided that he would not pursue that avenue. The fact was Alice had put him into the wrong humour for making the best of her. She was, moreover, in a very difficult position, for Priam had positively forbidden her to have any speech with solicitors' clerks or with solicitors, and thus Crepitude knew not what pitfalls for him her evidence might contain. He drew from her an expression of opinion that her husband was the real Priam Farll, but she could give no reasons in support--did not seem to conceive that reasons in support were necessary.

"Has your husband any moles?" asked Crepitude suddenly.

"Any what?" demanded Alice, leaning forward.

Vodrey, K.C., sprang up.

"I submit to your lordship that my learned friend is putting a leading question," said Vodrey, K.C.

"Mr. Crepitude," said the judge, "can you not phrase your questions differently?"

"Has your husband any birthmarks--er--on his body?" Crepitude tried again.

"Oh! Moles, you said? You needn't be afraid. Yes, he's got two moles, close together on his neck, here." And she pointed amid silence to the exact spot. Then, noticing the silence, she added, "That's all that I know of."

Crepitude resolved to end his examination upon this impressive note, and he sat down. And Alice had Vodrey, K.C., to face.

"You met your husband through a matrimonial agency?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Who first had recourse to the agency?"

"I did."

"And what was your object?"

"I wanted to find a husband, of course," she smiled. "What do people go to matrimonial agencies for?"

"You aren't here to put questions to me," said Vodrey severely.

"Well," she said, "I should have thought you would have known what people went to matrimonial agencies for. Still, you live and learn." She sighed cheerfully.

"Do you think a matrimonial agency is quite the nicest way of----"

"It depends what you mean by 'nice,'" said Alice.

"Womanly."

"Yes," said Alice shortly, "I do. If you're going to stand there and tell me I'm unwomanly, all I have to say is that you're unmanly."

"You say you first met your husband outside St George's Hall?"

"Yes."

"Never seen him before?"

"No."

"How did you recognize him?"

"By his photograph."

"Oh, he'd sent you his photograph?"

"Yes."

"With a letter?"

"Yes."

"In what name was the letter signed?"

"Henry Leek."

"Was that before or after the death of the man who was buried in Westminster Abbey?"

"A day or two before." (Sensation in court.)

"So that your present husband was calling himself Henry Leek before the death?"

"No, he wasn't. That letter was written by the man that died. My husband found my reply to it, and my photograph, in the man's bag afterwards; and happening to be strolling past St. George's Hall just at the moment like--"

"Well, happening to be strolling past St. George's Hall just at the moment like--" (Titters.)

"I caught sight of him and spoke to him. You see, I thought then that he was the man who wrote the letter."

"What made you think so?"

"I had the photograph."

"So that the man who wrote the letter and died didn't send his own photograph. He sent another photograph--the photograph of your husband?"

"Yes, didn't you know that? I should have thought you'd have known that."

"Do you really expect the jury to believe that tale?"

Alice turned smiling to the jury. "No," she said, "I'm not sure as I do. I didn't believe it