Part 27 (1/2)

”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 cas.h.i.+er at the Hotel de Paris, Monte Carlo, swore that Priam Farll, the renowned painter, had spent four days in the Hotel 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 Hotel Belvedere at Mont Pelerin, 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 princ.i.p.al actors doffed their costumes, and s.n.a.t.c.hed 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 princ.i.p.al 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 s.h.i.+ver of antic.i.p.ation throughout the country. Three days had pa.s.sed 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.

n.o.body 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 att.i.tude 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. a.s.suredly 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 a.s.sistance during the three days of the trial. He had merely sat there, blazing in silence.

”Your name is Priam Farll?” began Crepitude.