Part 74 (1/2)

Then Mr. Toogood explained as well as he was able that the dean might have something to say on the subject which would serve Mr. Crawley's defence. ”We shouldn't leave any stone unturned,” said Mr. Toogood.

”As far as I can judge, Crawley still thinks,--or half thinks,--that he got the cheque from your son-in-law.” Mr. Harding shook his head sorrowfully. ”I'm not saying he did, you know,” continued Mr.

Toogood. ”I can't see myself how it is possible;--but still, we ought not to leave any stone unturned. And Mrs. Arabin,--can you tell me at all where we shall find her?”

”Has she anything to do with it, Mr. Toogood?”

”I can't quite say that she has, but it's just possible. As I said before, Mr. Harding, we mustn't leave a stone unturned. They're not expected here till the end of April?”

”About the 25th or 26th, I think.”

”And the a.s.sizes are the 28th. The judges come into the city on that day. It will be too late to wait till then. We must have our defence ready you know. Can you say where my friend will find Mrs. Arabin?”

Mr. Harding began nursing his knee, patting it and being very tender to it, as he sat meditating with his head on one side,--meditating not so much as to the nature of his answer as to that of the question. Could it be necessary that any emissary from a lawyer's office should be sent after his daughter? He did not like the idea of his Eleanor being disturbed by questions as to a theft. Though she had been twice married and had a son who was now nearly a man, still she was his Eleanor. But if it was necessary on Mr. Crawley's behalf, of course it must be done. ”Her last address was at Paris, sir; but I think she has gone on to Florence. She has friends there, and she purposes to meet the dean at Venice on his return.” Then Mr. Harding turned the table and wrote on a card his daughter's address.

”I suppose Mrs. Arabin must have heard of the affair?” said Mr.

Toogood.

”She had not done so when she last wrote. I mentioned it to her the other day, before I knew that she had left Paris. If my letters and her sister's letters have been sent on to her, she must know it now.”

Then Mr. Toogood got up to take his leave. ”You will excuse me for troubling you, I hope, Mr. Harding.”

”Oh, sir, pray do not mention that. It is no trouble, if one could only be of any service.”

”One can always try to be of service. In these affairs so much is to be done by rummaging about, as I always call it. There have been many theatrical managers, you know, Mr. Harding, who have usually made up their pieces according to the dresses they have happened to have in their wardrobes.”

”Have there, indeed, now? I never should have thought of that.”

”And we lawyers have to do the same thing.”

”Not with your clothes, Mr. Toogood?”

”Not exactly with our clothes;--but with our information.”

”I do not quite understand you, Mr. Toogood.”

”In preparing a defence we have to rummage about and get up what we can. If we can't find anything that suits us exactly, we are obliged to use what we do find as well as we can. I remember, when I was a young man, an ostler was to be tried for stealing some oats in the Borough; and he did steal them too, and sold them at a rag-shop regularly. The evidence against him was as plain as a pike-staff. All I could find out was that on a certain day a horse had trod on the fellow's foot. So we put it to the jury whether the man could walk as far as the rag-shop with a bag of oats when he was dead lame;--and we got him off.”

”Did you though?” said Mr. Harding.

”Yes, we did.”

”And he was guilty?”

”He had been at it regularly for months.”

”Dear, dear, dear! Wouldn't it have been better to have had him punished for the fault,--gently; so as to warn him of the consequences of such doings?”

”Our business was to get him off,--and we got him off. It's my business to get my cousin's husband off, if I can, and we must do it, by hook or crook. It's a very difficult piece of work, because he won't let us employ a barrister. However, I shall have one in the court and say nothing to him about it at all. Good-by, Mr. Harding.

As you say, it would be a thousand pities that a clergyman should be convicted of a theft;--and one so well connected too.”

Mr. Harding, when he was left alone, began to turn the matter over in his mind and to reflect whether the thousand pities of which Mr.

Toogood had spoken appertained to the conviction of the criminal, or the doing of the crime. ”If he did steal the money I suppose he ought to be punished, let him be ever so much a clergyman,” said Mr.

Harding to himself. But yet,--how terrible it would be! Of clergymen convicted of fraud in London he had often heard; but nothing of the kind had ever disgraced the diocese to which he belonged since he had known it. He could not teach himself to hope that Mr. Crawley should be acquitted if Mr. Crawley were guilty;--but he could teach himself to believe that Mr. Crawley was innocent. Something of a doubt had crept across his mind as he talked to the lawyer. Mr. Toogood, though Mrs. Crawley was his cousin, seemed to believe that the money had been stolen; and Mr. Toogood as a lawyer ought to understand such matters better than an old secluded clergyman in Barchester. But, nevertheless, Mr. Toogood might be wrong; and Mr. Harding succeeded in satisfying himself at last that he could not be doing harm in thinking that Mr. Toogood was wrong. When he had made up his mind on this matter he sat down and wrote the following letter, which he addressed to his daughter at the post-office in Florence:--