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Authors: Henry Cecil

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BOOK: Brothers In Law
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‘Well,' said Roger, ‘I wish you luck. But if you did get a brief, would you know what to do with it?'

‘As much as anyone else, old boy. Just get up and spout to the jury. Can't come to much harm. They're all guilty. So it doesn't really matter what happens. Feather in your cap if you get them off. Inevitable if they're convicted.'

‘I wonder they bother to try them,' said Roger.

‘Must go through the motions, old boy,' said Peter. ‘And anyway, where would the legal profession be? Justice must not only be done but must appear to be done and, may I add, must be paid for being done. Bye, bye, old boy. Hope you like Mrs Biggs' letters. Some of them are a bit hot. I tried a bit on one of my girlfriends. Went down very well. Breach of copyright, I suppose. But who cares? So long.'

For the next hour Roger was left alone and he devoted himself to the study of
Biggs (married woman) v Pieman
. He found it enthralling – not so much in the way that Peter did, but because he felt so important to be looking into the intimate affairs of other people and, in particular, people of some prominence. Here he was, only just called to the Bar, and he knew things about a Member of Parliament which hardly anyone else knew. And then, supposing by one of those extraordinary coincidences that do take place, he happened to meet Mr Biggs! He might be a member of his uncle's club. And suppose his uncle introduced him and they had dinner together. He'd have to listen while Biggs extolled the virtues of his wife.

‘A sweet little woman, though I say it myself who shouldn't,' Mr Biggs might say.

‘I don't know whether you should or you shouldn't,' Roger would think to himself. ‘Fortunately you didn't say good little woman.' Mr Biggs would go on: ‘Pretty as a picture – but I'd trust her with anyone. It's not everyone who can say that, these days.'

‘Indeed not,' Roger would think. ‘Not with accuracy, anyway.'

At that moment, Mr Grimes came into the pupils' room.

‘How are ye, my dear fellow? What are ye looking at? Oh, dear, dear, dear. That kettle of fish. Well, the fellows will be fellows and the girls will be girls. They will do these things, they will do these things.'

‘D'you think the action will come into Court?'

‘Oh, dear me no, my dear fellow. We can't have that, can we? Dear, dear, dear. Our husband doesn't know of our goings on and we don't want him to. We don't want him to, my dear fellow.'

‘Then why did she bring the action?'

‘Just a try on, my dear fellow, just a try on. He might have paid up. You can never tell, my dear fellow, you can never tell. There's only one motto I know of that's any good. “Never go to law,” my dear fellow, “never go to law”. And then where should
we
be, my dear fellow? We shouldn't, should we? So it's just as well they will do these things, isn't it, my dear fellow, just as well.'

Then Alec came in.

‘Can you see Mr Wince, sir? He was just passing and wanted to have a word with you about Cooling and Mallet.'

Mr Grimes immediately left the pupils' room. It was not far enough to run but he went as fast as he could. Roger imagined that he would be pretty good at getting to the bathroom first in a boarding house.

‘And how's Mr Wince?' Roger heard him say. ‘How's Mr Wince today? Come along in, my dear fellow, come along in,' and then Mr Grimes' door closed and Roger heard no more. He wondered what Mr Wince wanted. What was Cooling and Mallet about? He looked on his table. What a piece of luck. There it was. He quickly tied up the bundle he had been reading and opened Cooling and Mallet. At that moment Alec came in.

‘Mr Grimes wants these, I'm afraid, sir,' he said and took them away.

Roger went back to the sins of Mr Pieman and Mrs Biggs. Even at his age he found it a little sad to see how the attitude between men and women can change. The letters, which in the early correspondence started and ended so very, very affectionately, full of all the foolish-looking but (to them) sweet sounding endearments of lovers, gradually cooled off. ‘My dearest, sweetest turnip, how I adore you' became ‘Dear Mr Pieman, if I do not receive a cheque by return I shall place the matter in other hands.' Is it really possible that I could ever hate the sight of Joy or Sally as undoubtedly Mr Pieman now hates the sight of Mrs Biggs? Perhaps it only happens, he thought, when the relationship has been that of husband and wife, or worse. At twenty-one these things are a little difficult to understand.

Roger had an hour more with Mr Pieman and Mrs Biggs when Charles returned. The Court he had attended was some way away, but he was still hot and flushed.

‘Hullo,' said Roger. ‘How did you get on? I hear you've been doing a judgment something or other. I wish you'd tell me about it.'

‘I wish you'd asked me that yesterday. Then I might have had to look it up. As it is, I have lost my one and only client.'

‘I'm so sorry. What happened?' asked Roger sympathetically.

‘I'd learned the ruddy thing by heart. There wasn't a thing I didn't know.' He broke off. ‘It really is too bad.'

‘Do tell me, unless you'd rather not.'

‘I think I'd like to get it off my chest. I was doing a js – a judgment summons. That's an application to send to prison a person who hasn't paid a judgment debt, but you can only succeed if you can prove he has had the means to pay the debt or at any rate, part of it since the judgment. The debtor has to attend and my job was to cross-examine him for all I was worth to show that he could have paid. I went to the Court with my client and I told him the sort of questions I was going to ask and he seemed very impressed. “That'll shake him,” he said several times. I was really feeling confident. And what d'you think happened? The case was called on and the chap didn't turn up. Well, that was bad enough, but it was after that that the trouble really began. After all, I can't know everything, can I, and I
had
read that brief. If the chap had been there I'd have knocked him to bits. But he wasn't. “Well,” said the judge, “what do you want me to do?” Well, I ought to have looked it up, I suppose, but I hadn't. I'd no idea what I wanted him to do. Fortunately my client knew more than I did. “Have him fined,” he whispered. “Would Your Honour fine him?” I said.

‘“Your client wants his money, I suppose,” said the judge. “What good will fining him do?”

‘I had no idea. Again my client prompted me. “If he doesn't pay, he goes to prison.”

‘I repeated this to the judge.

‘“But surely that isn't right,” said the judge. “You've got to prove means before he goes to prison.”

‘“Not in the case of a fine,” whispered my client.

‘“Not in the case of a fine, Your Honour,” I repeated, like the good parrot I had become.

‘I was already beginning to feel extremely small, particularly after the exhibition I'd given to my client in the train as to what I was going to do with this judgment debtor. Here I was, just repeating what he was feeding me with. But even that wouldn't have been so bad if it had been right.

‘“Nonsense,” said the judge. “You can't commit a man for non-payment of a fine unless you can prove he has the means to pay. Do you know what is meant by an argument in a circle?”

‘“I think so, Your Honour,” I said.

‘“A good example,” said the judge, “is the law relating to judgment summonses. If a judgment debt isn't paid, the debtor can only be sent to prison if you can prove he has had the means to pay. Usually you can't do that unless he's present to be cross-examined about his means. If he doesn't obey the summons to appear, he can be fined, but you can't do anything about the fine unless you can prove he has the means to pay it. But he doesn't come. So you can't ask him questions or prove anything. So you're back where you started. Of course, if he's got any goods on which distress can be levied, it's different, but then you'd have tried execution and wouldn't have bothered about a judgment summons in that case.”

‘Meantime I'm standing there, getting red in the face.

‘“Well, Mr Hepplewhite, what would you like me to do?”

‘Someone in the row – a barrister or solicitor – whispered to me. “Ask for a 271.”

‘Again I did as suggested.

‘“What on earth's that?” asked the judge.

‘Well, what could I say? The chap next to me might have been pulling my leg. I didn't know. I didn't know anything. So I said so. You can hardly blame the judge.

‘“Really,” he said. “This is too bad. Summons dismissed.”

‘My client said something to me about looking up the rules another time and added that he wouldn't be coming back my way. On the way home I started looking it up – and, blow me, if there isn't a thing called a 271. The chap was quite right. It was the only thing to do. Even the judge didn't know it. It's certainly a lesson to look up the rules another time. But it takes it out of you, a thing like that.'

‘It must have been awful,' said Roger. ‘But you can't look up everything before you go into Court,' he went on. ‘How d'you know what to look up?'

‘Well, I suppose,' said Charles, ‘if you have a judgment summons, you ought to look up the rules which govern them. And I suppose, too, one ought to visualize the possibility of a man not turning up and find out what you can do then. I shan't forget 271 in a hurry. I feel like writing to the judge about it. After all, he ought to have known it.'

‘What is a 271?' asked Roger.

‘It's an authority to arrest the debtor and bring him before the Court if he doesn't pay a fine within the time he's been given to pay it. So it isn't an argument in a circle. You can get the debtor there. Funny the judge didn't know.'

‘I suppose there are things judges don't know,' said Roger, ‘Henry's got a case in a County Court tomorrow. D'you think it would be a good thing if I went with him? He said I could.'

‘I should. You'll learn a lot from Henry. And, apart from that, he'll tell you stories on the way. He's got an unending fund of them. And they'll all be new to
you
. I expect that's one of the reasons he asked you to come.'

Roger spent the rest of the day reading the papers in
Biggs v Pieman
and the case about drawing pins. The evening he spent with Sally.

‘It's amazing to think what's going on and no one knows it. I saw a case today about a Member of Parliament.'

‘Who?'

‘Oh, I couldn't tell you that. One of the first things Grimes told me was that anything I learn I must treat with confidence.'

‘Then why did you tell me about the case at all?'

‘You couldn't possibly identify the parties.'

‘What's it about then?'

‘Well, I suppose there can't be any harm in that. There are over six hundred MPs and an infinite variety of married women.'

So Roger told her the facts as well as he remembered them.

‘Humph!' said Sally. ‘It
is
quite interesting. Sounds like old Pieman. I wouldn't put it past him.'

‘What did you say?' said Roger, so horrified that he was unable to stop himself from asking the question, or from showing in his voice the surprise he felt.

‘Roger – it is – it's old Pieman. Mother will be thrilled.'

‘Sally, you're not to.'

‘Then it is. How extraordinary.'

‘The other thing I was looking at,' said Roger, lamely, ‘was about drawing pins.'

‘It's much too late now, Roger. I know all about it.'

‘Sally, you mustn't tell anyone. Promise you won't.'

‘You didn't tell me in confidence, Roger.'

‘But I learned it in confidence.'

‘Then you shouldn't have told me in the first instance. Now, let's think who I've seen about with old Pieman.'

‘Sally, you mustn't. How was I to know you knew him?'

‘How were you to know I didn't.'

‘I never thought for a moment – oh, Sally, please promise you won't tell anyone. I've done the most terrible thing.'

‘I know who it is,' said Sally. ‘A very smart woman – now what's her name? Let me think.'

‘Please, Sally, please. I'm sure it isn't, anyway.'

‘How can you possibly tell? I know, Anstruther, that's the name, Mollie Anstruther.'

‘No,' said Roger.

‘Roger,' said Sally, ‘I'm sorry to have to tell you this – I do it more in sorrow than in anger and all for your own good – but it'll hurt you more than it hurts me all the same – you're an ass – an unmitigated ass. Why on earth did you say “no” when I mentioned Mollie Anstruther? That eliminates one possibility. Now I can try to think of someone else. I thought that was the sort of trick barristers played on other people.'

‘Well, I didn't think it would be fair on the woman to let you think it was her.'

‘Then it must be Dorothy Biggs. I've often seen them about together.'

Roger said nothing for a moment. Then: ‘How on earth could I tell you'd guess?' he said miserably.

‘What'll you do if I promise not to tell anyone?'

‘I'll be more careful in future.'

‘Is that all? You'll do that anyway, I hope.'

‘There won't be any necessity. If you go telling people about it, it'll quite likely become known that it came out through me and then I shall be disbarred. After three days, too. I'm in your hands, Sally.'

‘Don't be silly,' said Sally. ‘Of course I shan't tell anyone.'

‘You're a darling. I don't know what I should do without you.'

‘Well, you'd have told someone else, I suppose.'

‘Yes, I suppose I should. I am an ass. You're quite right, Sally. How lucky it was you.'

BOOK: Brothers In Law
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