Brief Tales From The Bench (9 page)

‘I don’t like the way you said “slip”,’ said Mr Elgar.

‘Very well, Mr Elgar, I’m sorry. I’ll say “to put” two memo pads into his pocket. It’s quite another thing for a stranger to do that without the owner of the coat being aware of it.’

‘What is your question?’ asked Mr Elgar.

‘Don’t you think it would be a difficult thing to do?’

‘I don’t know if it’s easy or difficult,’ said Mr Elgar, ‘but it must have happened.’

‘Unless,’ said Mr Benton, ‘you put them in yourself.’

‘Well, I didn’t.’

‘Why do you think someone else should want to put two memo pads into your pocket?’

‘I’ve no idea.’

‘Well, try to think, Mr Elgar. You don’t suggest that some stranger, looking at you, said to himself: “Well there’s a poor fellow who could do with two memo pads, I’ll slip a couple into his pocket”.’

‘This may be funny to you, Mr Benton,’ said Mr Elgar, ‘but it means everything to me.’

‘I’m not trying to be funny,’ said Mr Benton, ‘I’m simply trying to examine the possibilities. I want to give you the opportunity of saying how and why someone else put these things into your pocket.’

‘It’s a strange world,’ said Mr Elgar, ‘and people do strange things. There are lunatics about. All I say is I didn’t take them.’

‘And now for the pencils,’ said Mr Benton. ‘You agree there was a tray in the shop of pencils just like this?’

‘Of course there was, as in many other shops.’

‘Doesn’t it strike you as a little odd, Mr Elgar, that on the same occasion when some stranger for no known reason puts two of the shop’s memo pads into your pocket, by coincidence you should also have in your overcoat pocket two pencils exactly like pencils which had been on sale in the shop, and which were missing?’

‘It’s a little odd, but so are a lot of things. I’d bought these pencils elsewhere.’

‘Was there anybody with you when you bought them?’

‘Yes, as a matter of fact there was.’

‘Is the witness here today?’

‘Yes, she is.’

‘Is she a relative or friend of yours?’

‘She’s just an acquaintance.’

That was all Mr Benton wished to ask Mr Elgar, and a few moments later he called his witness, Mrs Lydia Long. Now Mr Elgar struck me as a perfectly ordinary normal person, but his witness, Mrs Lydia Long, was something very different. When I asked for her full name, she seemed reluctant to give it. As an explanation she said that her father was rather odd.

‘Never mind your father, Mrs Long,’ I said, ‘I just want to know your full name.’

‘D’you mean that?’ she asked.

‘Of course I mean it,’ I said.

‘Well,’ said Mrs Long, ‘you’re in for a shock. I have twenty-five names. They had to issue a special birth certificate. I’m afraid I haven’t brought it with me, but I could get it, and they’re such odd ones. Some of them are places, some are things, some are ordinary names.’

‘I see, madam,’ I said. ‘What are you generally known as?’

‘Oh, I’m generally known as–’ she began. ‘D’you mean by the people in the street?’

‘I mean,’ I said, ‘by your friends and relatives and tradesmen and so on.’

‘Well, it varies a great deal,’ said Mrs Long. ‘I have a lot of nieces and nephews, and of course they call me Auntie.’

‘Tradesmen, then,’ I asked.

‘Oh, tradesmen. Most of them down my way call me “dear”.’

‘Very well,’ I said, ‘we shall call you Mrs Lydia Long.’

‘I could give you the other names if you really wanted them, but it does take rather a time.’

‘No, it doesn’t matter,’ I said.

‘You see words like “Tabernacle” come into it.’

‘Let’s forget about the name, Mrs Long,’ I said. ‘Now tell me, please, what street d’you live in?’

‘Well, it isn’t actually a street, I’m afraid.’

‘What is your address, please?’

‘I’ll give you a card,’ said Mrs Long.

‘Would you please say it out loud.’

Mrs Long then shouted: ‘Hassocks, Denby Place, SW4.’

‘There’s no need to shout,’ I said.

‘But you asked me to,’ said Mrs Long.

I realised that Mrs Long required rather gentle handling. I asked her if she remembered reading about Mr Elgar being prosecuted.

‘I should say I did,’ she said. ‘You could have knocked me down. I didn’t believe it. I thought it must be somebody else. He’s such a nice man. I know he’d never do anything like that. I’d trust him with anything of mine. He’s a good man. You can see it in him, and I know a good man when I see one. You’re a good man, your honour,’ she added, ‘I’d trust you anywhere too. Not as much as Mr Elgar, of course, but near enough. I’ve known him longer, you see.’

‘D’you remember,’ I said, ‘going into a shop with Mr Elgar a short time before he was prosecuted?’

‘That’s what I’ve come to say,’ she said.

‘Very well, Mr Elgar,’ I said, ‘would you like to go on examining the witness. And try not to put the words into her mouth.’

So Mr Elgar took up the examination.

‘You remember,’ he said, ‘coming into a shop with me, a stationer’s?’

‘Oh, very well,’ said Mrs Long. ‘As it happens, I remember what we were talking about. Of all the stupid things I said to you–’

But I intervened.

‘We don’t want to hear the conversation, Mrs Long.’

‘Oh do, it would amuse you.’

‘Behave yourself please, Mrs Long.’

‘I might just as well not have come,’ said Mrs Long.

‘Mr Elgar,’ I said, ‘please ask your next question.’

‘Did I buy any pencils?’ he asked.

‘Yes, certainly you did.’

‘Look at these pencils please, Mrs Long.’

I asked the usher to take them to the witness.

‘These are the pencils,’ said Mrs Long.

‘Those are the pencils you saw me buy?’ repeated Mr Elgar.

‘I wondered why you wanted two,’ said Mrs Long.

‘And those are the pencils?’ repeated Mr Elgar.

‘They are the pencils,’ said Mrs Long.

‘That is all I wish to ask, your honour,’ said Mr Elgar.

I invited Mr Benton to cross-examine.

‘Mrs Long,’ was his first question, ‘is there any mark on the pencils?’

‘Mark? How d’you mean?’

‘Is there any mark on the pencils?’

‘You said that before.’

‘I know I did, but you didn’t answer.’

‘I certainly did. I said what d’you mean by a mark?’

‘By a mark I mean a mark.’

‘What kind of a mark?’ asked Mrs Long.

‘Any kind of mark.’

‘Well, I don’t know what you’re talking about, I’m sure.’

I intervened.

‘All Mr Benton wants to know,’ I said, ‘is if you can see any mark on either of those pencils.’

‘Perhaps you can, your honour,’ said Mrs Long.

‘Can you?’ I asked.

‘Nothing special.’

‘Then,’ said Mr Benton, ‘how can you say those are the pencils?’

‘Because I’m on oath,’ said Mrs Long. ‘I’ve sworn to tell the truth, and those are the pencils.’

‘Are those the two pencils which you saw Mr Elgar buy?’ asked Mr Benton.

‘Now you’ve got it,’ said Mrs Long.

‘The exact same pencils?’ persisted Mr Benton.

‘Now you’re not starting all over again,’ said Mrs Long.

‘Are they the exact same pencils?’ said Mr Benton.

‘Isn’t it in the “Hunting of the Snark”,’ said Mrs Long, ‘that someone says, “What I tell you three times is true”?’

Again I intervened.

‘Mrs Long,’ I said, ‘I must kindly ask you once more to behave yourself.’

‘You said that before, your honour,’ said Mrs Long. ‘I thought I was. I’m wearing a hat and a decent length skirt, what should I have done?’

‘You should answer the questions properly.’

‘I thought I had.’

‘The “Hunting of the Snark”,’ I said, ‘has got nothing to do with the questions Mr Benton is asking you.’

‘You know it, then, your honour?’

‘Mr Benton, would you ask the question again, please,’ I said.

‘Are those two pencils the exact same pencils which you saw Mr Elgar buy on the occasion to which you have referred?’ asked Mr Benton.

‘If I answer you this time,’ said Mrs Long, ‘will you promise not to ask again?’

‘You mustn’t talk to counsel like that, Mrs Long,’ I said. ‘It’s for me to decide whether counsel asks the question too often, and I’ll protect you if he does.’

‘You’ll protect me, your honour?’ said Mrs Long.

‘Yes.’

‘That’ll be something to remember,’ she said.

‘Well, Mrs Long, are they the pencils?’ asked Mr Benton.

‘They are. They are, they are, they are. Is that enough times?’

‘Those pencils, madam,’ said Mr Benton, ‘are made in hundreds of thousands. How can you say that the two pencils in front of you are the very pencils which Mr Elgar bought, and not two like them.’

‘That’s what I mean,’ said Mrs Long.

‘You mean the pencils in front of you are like the ones you saw Mr Elgar buy?’

‘Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear,’ said Mrs Long, ‘haven’t I just told you so?’

‘What you said several times, madam,’ said Mr Benton, ‘is that these are the actual pencils, not just like the actual pencils, but the actual pencils.’

‘How can I tell one from another?’ said Mrs Long, ‘they’re all the same.’

‘So, Mrs Long,’ said Mr Benton, ‘you saw Mr Elgar buy two pencils. Did you by any chance see what he did with them?’

‘What he did with them?’ queried Mrs Long.

‘What he did with them,’ repeated Mr Benton.

‘Yes,’ said Mrs Long, ‘I heard you the first time. But what d’you expect him to do with them? I know some people eat pencils, but you don’t expect him to start doing that as soon as he’d bought them?’

‘Was there a rubber on the end?’ I asked.

‘I believe there was,’ said Mrs Long, ‘but you could take the whole thing off if you wanted to have a bite.’

‘Did you see whether the pencils were put in a bag before he took them away?’ asked Mr Benton.

‘It would have been a waste of time if they were.’

‘But were they?’

‘You must ask him that. After all, he was buying them and he might have wanted a bag too.’

‘Had he got an overcoat?’

‘Really,’ said Mrs Long, ‘I don’t own the man. How do I know what he’d got? You’ll ask me the colour of his shirt next. He’s an ordinary man dressed in the ordinary way, and he bought two ordinary pencils.’

‘And had he got two ordinary pockets in his ordinary overcoat?’ asked Mr Benton.

‘I can’t keep this up,’ said Mrs Long, ‘but I should imagine so.’

‘But what he did with the pencils you can’t say?’

‘Can’t I?’

‘Well, can you?’

‘Can’t I what?’

‘I said “can you”.’

‘And I said “Can’t I?”’

‘Mrs Long,’ I said, ‘I don’t know whether you are trying to be funny or have some kind of game with counsel, but I must warn you that I can’t allow that sort of thing in this court.’

‘I wouldn’t allow it myself in your place,’ said Mrs Long. ‘What’s the good of being up there if you can’t make people behave themselves?’

‘I take the hint, Mrs Long, and if this occurs again, I shall fine you for contempt of court.’

‘I shan’t come here again in a hurry,’ said Mrs Long.

‘Mrs Long,’ I said, ‘if you go on trying to be funny, first of all I shall fine you, and then I shall send you to prison.’

‘I knew I was wrong to come,’ said Mrs Long.

‘Go on, please, Mr Benton,’ I said.

‘Madam,’ said Mr Benton, ‘did you see what Mr Elgar did with the two pencils which you saw him buy?’

‘He took them away with him.’

‘In his hand or in his pocket, or how?’

‘I’ve already told you, that’s for him to say,’ said Mrs Long.

‘Very well then,’ said Mr Benton. ‘Now, Mrs Long, would you tell me something else. What day of the week was this on?’

‘I don’t keep a diary,’ said Mrs Long, ‘and if I had, I shouldn’t have written in it. Even Pepys wouldn’t have written “saw Mr Elgar buy two pencils, mighty strange”.’

‘When were you aware that Mr Elgar had been arrested?’

‘When I saw it in the papers.’

‘Are you able to swear positively that the day when you saw him buy the two pencils was a few days before he was arrested?’

‘That is what I’m here to swear.’

‘That may be, madam,’ said Mr Benton, ‘but how d’you know the day?’

‘Well, today’s Thursday, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, it is,’

‘Well, I got that right, why shouldn’t I have got the other right?’

‘Well, what day of the week was it, madam?’ said Mr Benton. ‘Was it Thursday, or Monday, or what other day?’

‘It was a few days before he was arrested.’

‘How d’you know?’

‘Because he told me so.’

‘When did he tell you so?’

‘Good gracious me, is this going on much longer?’

‘When did he tell you?’

‘I really couldn’t say.’

‘Was it on the day when you read about the case?’

‘No, I didn’t see him that day. Anyway he was locked up, wasn’t he?’

‘He was on bail as a matter of fact, madam,’ said Mr Benton.

‘You can’t tell by looking at a man whether he’s on bail or not,’ said Mrs Long.

‘Was it today that he told you?’

‘No.’

‘Was it yesterday?’

‘I didn’t see him yesterday.’

‘He could have told you on the telephone.’

‘I haven’t got a telephone.’

‘So it was on some day between the day of his arrest, and yesterday?’

‘That’s what you say.’

‘There isn’t any other possibility, is there?’ said Mr Benton.

‘Well, if you’re satisfied, so am I,’ said Mrs Long. ‘Can I go home now?’

‘I’m afraid,’ I said, ‘you’ll have to stay here until the end of the case.’

‘When will that be?’

‘I don’t know, but you’re prolonging the trial very considerably.’

‘I’m not used to courts,’ said Mrs Long.

‘That is all I wish to ask,’ said Mr Benton.

‘Mrs Long,’ said Mr Elgar, ‘you’re quite sure you saw me leave that shop with the two pencils in my pocket?’

‘That’s what you wanted me to say,’ said Mrs Long, ‘isn’t it?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, I’ve said it, haven’t I?’

‘Thank you, Mrs Long,’ said Mr Elgar, ‘I’ve no more witnesses, your honour.’

The defendants then called their evidence. First they called the shop manager, Mr Robinson. He hadn’t seen anything happen himself, but as the result of what he was told, he counted up the pencils and the memo pads, and he found that there were five pencils missing, and four memo pads. And he said that the pads and pencils were exactly the same as those found in Mr Elgar’s coat pocket. He was then questioned by Mr Elgar.