Part 7 (1/2)

Finally, a foreman was elected, no one knew for what reasons, and all went back to the Court to be ”charged.” A gentleman in black-and-scarlet made an hour's speech, reviewing the princ.i.p.al cases with as much solemnity as if the Grand Jury's decisions would affect the Last Judgment, and Mr. Clarkson began to realise his responsibility so seriously that when the jurors were dismissed to their duties, he took his seat before a folio of paper, a pink blotting-pad, and two clean quill pens, with a resolve to maintain the cause of justice, whatever might befall.

”Page eight, number twenty-one,” shouted the black-robed usher, who guided the jurors as a dog guides sheep, and wore the cheerful air of congenial labour successfully performed. Turning up the reference in the book of cases presented to each juror, Mr. Clarkson found: ”Charles Jones, 35, clerk; forging and uttering, knowing the same to be forged, a receipt for money, to wit, a receipt for fees on a plaint note of the Fulham County Court, with intent to defraud.”

”This threatens to be a very abstruse case,” he remarked to a red-faced juror on his right.

”A half of bitter would elucidate it wonderful to my mind,” was the answer.

But already a policeman had been sworn, and given his evidence with the decisiveness of a gramophone.

”Any questions?” said the foreman, looking round the table. No one spoke.

”Signify, gentlemen, signify!” cried the genial usher, and all but Mr.

Clarkson held up a hand.

”Two, four, six, eight, ten, twelve,” counted the usher, totting up the hands till he reached a majority. ”True Bill, True Bill! Next case. Page eleven, number fifty-two.”

”Do you mean to tell me that is all?” asked Mr. Clarkson, turning to his neighbour.

”Say no more, and I'll make it a quart,” replied the red-faced man, ticking off the last case and turning up the new one, in which a doctor was already giving his evidence against a woman charged with the wilful murder of her newly-born male child.

”Signify, gentlemen, signify!” cried the usher. ”Two, four, six, eight, ten, twelve. True Bill, True Bill! Next case. Page fourteen, number seventy-two.”

”Stop a moment,” stammered Mr. Clarkson, half rising; ”if you please, stop one moment. I wish to ask if we are justified in rus.h.i.+ng through questions of life and death in this manner. What do we know of this woman, for instance--her history, her distress, her state of mind?”

”Sit down!” cried some. ”Oh, shut it!” cried others. All looked at him with the amused curiosity of people in a tramcar looking at a talkative child. The usher bustled across the room, and said in a loud and rea.s.suring whisper: ”All them things has got nothing to do with you, sir. Those is questions for the Judge and Petty Jury upstairs. The magistrates have sat on all these cases already and committed them for trial; so all you've got to do is to find a True Bill, and you can't go wrong.”

”If we can't go wrong, there's no merit in going right,” protested Mr.

Clarkson.

”Next case. Page fourteen, number seventy-two,” shouted the usher again, and as the witness was a Jew, his hat was sent for. ”There's a lot of history behind that hat,” said Mr. Clarkson, wis.h.i.+ng to propitiate public opinion.

”Wish that was all there was behind it,” said the juror on his left. The Jew finished his evidence and went away. The foreman glanced round, and the usher had already got as far as ”Signify,” when a venerable juror, prompted by Mr. Clarkson's example, interposed.

”I should like to ask that witness one further question,” he said in a fine Scottish accent, and after considerable shouting, the Jew was recalled.

”I should like to ask you, my man,” said the venerable juror, ”how you spell your name?” The name was spelt, the juror carefully inscribed it on a blank s.p.a.ce opposite the charge, sighed with relief, and looked round. ”Signify, gentlemen, signify!” cried the usher. ”Two, four, six, eight, ten, twelve. True Bill, True Bill! Next case. Page six, number eleven.”

Number eleven was a genuine murder case, and sensation pervaded the room when the murdered man's wife was brought in, weeping. She sobbed out the oath, and the foreman, wis.h.i.+ng to be kind, said, encouragingly, ”State briefly what you know of this case.”

She sobbed out her story, and was led away. The foreman glanced round the tables.

”I think we ought to hear the doctor,” said the red-faced man. The doctor was called and described a deep incised wound, severing certain anatomical details.

”I think we ought to hear the constable,” said the red-faced man, and there was a murmur of agreement. A policeman came in, carrying a brown paper parcel. Having described the arrest, he unwrapped a long knife, which was handed round the tables for inspection. When it reached the red-faced juror, he regarded the blade closely up and down, with gloating satisfaction. ”Are those stains blood?” he asked the policeman.

”Yes, sir; them there is the poor feller's blood.”

The red-faced man looked again, and suddenly turning upon Mr. Clarkson, went through a pantomime of plunging the knife into his throat. At Mr.

Clarkson's horrified recoil he laughed himself purple.