CHAPTERXXIX.AT THE POLICE COURT.
Theplan devised by Beattie for securing a fortune for himself and one for his fellow-conspirator, at the expense of the Free Church of Scotland, had been skilfully devised and boldly carried out. Its weakness was due to a succession of unlucky circumstances which could hardly have been foreseen, and which neither Beattie nor James Semple could possibly avert. The clerk’s intention had been to draw the will himself, and alter the draft, after it came back from Mr. Lindsay, by taking out the page in which the all-important words appeared, and substituting a fresh page in which the bequest to theFree Church should be merely five thousand pounds. He would then have examined the draft with the engrossment along with MacGowan, gone to Mr. Lindsay with it, and read aloud ‘five hundred thousand pounds,’ instead of ‘five thousand.’ If Mr. Lindsay had insisted on reading the will himself, it would have been easy to pretend that the error was simply due to the carelessness of the clerk who copied it; and if necessary, he could have slipped the original page of the draft back into its place, and thus diverted suspicion from himself. In any case, no one was likely to suspect him, for he had no apparent interest in the matter, one way or the other. If the will were challenged after the old man’s death, it would be easy for Semple to say that his uncle had told him to instruct the lawyer’s clerk to alter the amount, and easy for Beattie to declare that he had called the testator’s attention to the matter when the will was signed.
The fraud seemed very easy of execution, the only real difficulty being the necessity of silencing MacGowan, which did not appear a very arduous undertaking. Beattie was congratulating himself already on his success, when the news that Mr. Lindsay specially desired that his nephew should prepare his will fell on him like a thunderbolt. Should he abandon the scheme? Abandon a hundred thousand pounds! It was not to be thought of. Was there any other method of carrying out the fraud? Beattie could think of none. On the spur of the moment he told Alec Lindsay not to send the draft to be settled by counsel, and not to send it to the law-stationers, hoping that some change in the old man’s plans might yet enable him to carry out his scheme.
While Alec was drawing the will, Beattie’s subtle brain was devising a way of overcoming this obstacle; and at length he hit upon theplan of getting hold of MacGowan while he was half tipsy, and making him copy the will over again. MacGowan would probably forget next day what he had done in a state of semi-intoxication; but to make sure, he would give him money and send him out of the country.
The strong point of the new scheme was that it involved no risk till the last moment. If it had been found impracticable to substitute the altered will (which Beattie had in his pocket when he went to Claremont Gardens for the second time) for the true one, before the latter was signed, no one could possibly tell that the attempt had been made.
The weak point of the plan was the difficulty of effecting the substitution. After long deliberation, Beattie came to the conclusion that the thing was quite practicable.
Clearly, Alec Lindsay’s attention must be diverted by some matter of sufficient importance, at the critical moment; and Beattiepartly arranged and partly invented an excuse for seeking him at Mr. Lindsay’s house, and making him write an affidavit then and there. Semple, he thought, might insist upon being present while the will was being executed on the score of jealousy of his cousin. He had only to lower the blind, and draw it up again, to make Beattie (who was waiting in a cab at the corner of the street) come upon the scene.
Alec, Beattie argued, was certain at least to come downstairs and see him. He would either leave the will upstairs in his uncle’s bedroom, or bring it down with him—probably he would leave it upstairs. Semple was to be in the library when Beattie was shown into it, ready to take the false will from his confederate, and leave the room before Alec entered it. He was then to go upstairs, and try to effect the exchange. If he failed, he failed, and no harm was done. If he found that the will was not there, he was to go backat once to the library, and hand the false will back to Beattie, who was to change one document for the other, while Alec Lindsay was busy with the affidavit.
Everything had been provided for; and everything was carried out according to the conspirators’ plans, except that James Semple, instead of fetching the will which Alec had read from his uncle’s room, prevailed upon Laura (who had her own reason for wishing to know its contents) to get it and bring it to him. The girl imagined that she was merely helping her lover to ascertain how his uncle had devised his property. Semple, of course, had changed the true will for the false one, as he pretended to read the former at the drawing-room window. When Laura asked him afterwards what he had learned, he replied:
‘I couldn’t make much of it. I think I shall have a good large sum; but I couldn’t be sure that I understood their lawyer’s jargon.’
Beattie had not forgotten that on him devolved the responsibility of Alec Lindsay’s defence. Thinking it wise to take time by the forelock, he went down to the Temple on the afternoon of the day after the will was read, and made his way to the chambers of Mr. Abel Corker. Mr. Corker’s practice lay chiefly in the Bankruptcy Court, but he had seen a good deal of criminal business in his time, and Mr. Beattie was satisfied that he could not intrust young Lindsay’s interests to more capable hands than his.
Passing through a very narrow lane, the lawyer’s clerk turned into a doorway in an old building, the bricks of which were black with soot. The sides of the doorway were adorned with fifty or sixty names belonging to men learned in the law. Glancing at these to assure himself of being right, Beattie ascended a dark old-fashioned staircase, till he reached the third floor, and stopped at a door embellishedwith half a dozen names in black letters, and a small knocker.
Mr. Beattie had no sooner rapped than the door was suddenly opened by a small boy who precipitated himself into the aperture, as if determined to block the way until due cause for admittance had been shown.
‘Can I see Mr. Corker? I want a consultation,’ said the visitor, plunging his hand into his trousers-pocket.
Without speaking a word, the boy led the way into a corner of the passage, boxed off so as to form a clerk’s room. This cheerful apartment contained a table and a gas-jet; and the boy watched the stranger in silence as he deposited the regulation sum, one pound six shillings, upon the table. Then, still without uttering a syllable, he went into the passage, and pulled open a door.
Mr. Corker had just come across the street from the Law Courts and had not yet divestedhimself of his wig and gown. He was standing with his back to the fire, his gown carefully tucked under one arm to save it from being scorched—a needless precaution, as no scorching could make it browner than it was already. His wig, very black, and very much battered, was awry; and his bands looked as if he had forgotten to take them off when he went to bed the night before.
Seeing his visitor, Mr. Corker grunted, left off stroking his chin, and held out two dirty fingers. Mr. Beattie bowed, totally ignoring the fingers, and seated himself without waiting for an invitation to do so.
‘I am managing clerk in the firm of Hatchett, Small, and Hatchett,’ he began; and went straight on with his story, telling, of course, only what was known to Mr. Hatchett and to Alec himself.
Mr. Corker’s keen black eyes were turned full upon the speaker; and as he concludeda benevolent grin overspread the old barrister’s sallow features.
‘Very neat—very pretty—very prettyindeed,’ he said. ‘This Mr. Lindsay must be a young man of ability. It was not expected, I suppose, that the Scotch minister should be present at the reading of the will?’
‘I should think not,’ said Mr. Beattie, with a smile.
‘And what do they charge him with, eh?’
‘They have not had time to charge him yet; but I thought it better to make you acquainted with the facts, sothat——’
Mr. Beattie stopped, for Mr. Corker was not listening to him. With one hand still holding up the tails of his gown, and the other caressing the lower part of his face, Mr. Corker was promenading the room, quite oblivious to all but the workings of his own brain.
‘And the draft’s lost?’ he asked suddenly.
‘It cannot be found,’ said Mr. Beattie gravely.
‘That’s a mistake. It ought to be found,’ said Mr. Corker sharply.
‘I’m afraid it cannot be found,’ replied Mr. Beattie, and the barrister recommenced his promenade without paying any more attention to his visitor.
Seeing this, Beattie quietly left the room, and after impressing upon the silent clerk the necessity of despatching his master in a hansom to Bow Street Police Court immediately on receiving a telegram, he took his departure.
Next morning Beattie had a note from Alec, posted the night before, telling him of the summons; and in consequence of the managing clerk’s forethought, Alec found his counsel awaiting him when he arrived at Bow Street.
The magistrate had not yet taken his seat,and there was time for a short interview. Etiquette did not require that Mr. Corker should appear in an inferior court such as a police court in professional costume; and this was a pity, for if the barrister had seemed but a faded flower in his wig and gown, he looked positively disreputable without them.
On his part Mr. Corker regarded Alec with considerable interest, very much as an R.A. might look on a young artist who had shown unusual talent.
‘There’s just one thing I want to say to you, Mr. Corker,’ said Alec hurriedly. ‘I am convinced now that I made a gross blunder in preparing the will. I could not believe it at first; but I see that I must have done so, and I suppose I must suffer for my carelessness. Whether, in reading the will, I read what was really there, or what I thought was there, I don’t know.’
As Alec had been speaking, Mr. Corker kept looking at him with a curious, half-amused, half-admiring expression in his beady black eyes; and when the young man ended his speech he turned slowly away, without answering a word, and began to tell an interesting story to the counsel on the other side. This was Mr. Champneys, a middle-aged man, with a hard, keen face, finely-cut features, and firmly-set thin lips. Mr. Champneys wore well-made clothes and fine linen, and looked like a gentleman. Everything about him was absolutely correct, everything he said was clearly yet cautiously expressed. He sat with unmoved features listening to Mr. Corker’s anecdote, when a sudden bustle in the region of the bench announced the arrival of Mr. Mallison, the magistrate. The two barristers and the half-dozen solicitors who were present stood up; and as Mr. Mallison slowly made his way tohis chair, Mr. Corker placed his hand over his mouth, and delivered the point of his story into Mr. Champneys’ ear, much to that gentleman’s disgust.
Alec was sitting beside Beattie at the solicitors’ table. He glanced behind him. The court was filled with frowsy women and beetle-browed men, the friends of the prisoners who were presently to appear in the dock, with here and there the tall form of a policeman. A few respectable-looking people were sitting in front; but the majority of those present evidently belonged to the criminal classes; and the unmistakable, sickening odour peculiar to such a crowd filled the air.
‘Are these the men with whom I am to live for the future?’ said Alec to himself, as a shudder passed over him.
But the magistrate had arranged his papers, and was now ready to begin.
‘Are you two gentlemen in the same case?’ he asked, with a glance at the two counsel.
‘I believe so,’ said Mr. Champneys.
‘Then we’ll take your case first,’ answered Mr. Mallison.
This was not pure good-nature on the magistrate’s part. He knew Mr. Corker well, and was anxious to get him out of the court as soon as possible.
Then Mr. Champneys rose, and ‘opened the case.’ Alec’s eyes wandered to a kind of box fitted with pews at one side of the bench. Half a dozen men and boys were sitting there, writing as fast as their pencils would go.
‘These are the reporters,’ thought Alec; ‘to-morrow morning my shame will be in every man’s mouth.’
As succinctly as he could, Mr. Champneys detailed the facts.
‘I shall only ask for a remand to-day,’ hesaid in conclusion, ‘as the documents we rely upon are not yet in our hands. Call the Reverend Dr. Mackenzie.’
Mr. Corker grinned, and looked the magistrate straight in the face.
‘I may save the court some trouble,’ he said, rising. ‘The will is here. The draft seems to have been destroyed as waste-paper. Messrs. Hatchett’s managing clerk is here; and he will tell you, sir, that he has searched everywhere for it, and it cannot be found. But to my mind that is of little importance. My client is accused of altering a will. Here is the will. It is evident on the face of it that it has not been altered.’
A long wrangle followed upon this point; and eventually the magistrate decided that he could not commit the defendant upon the charge of altering the will.
‘At least, sir,’ said Mr. Champneys, ‘as the defendant would have gained largely bythe fraud, had it not been detected, there was an attempt to obtain money by the false pretence, made in reading the will to his uncle, that the words in the will were “five hundred thousand pounds.”’
Another wrangle ensued upon this point, Mr. Corker arguing, with much scorn of his opponent’s contentions, that no attempt had yet been made by the accused to get the money, that it could only be obtained from the executors, whereas the alleged false pretence had been made to the testator, and so forth.
After half an hour’s argument, Mr. Mallison came to the conclusion that he could not commit the defendant for trial upon that charge, any more than he could upon that of altering the will; and Mr. Corker, muttering his satisfaction, began to fold up the sheet of paper which had done duty as his brief.
Dr. Mackenzie was amazed, bewildered,shocked. Was the culprit going to escape after all? Was he not to be allowed even to tell his story to the magistrate? He tried to speak to his solicitor; but the solicitor would not listen. He stood up, and laying his hand on his counsel’s arm, whispered:
‘It was the draft he altered, not the will.’
‘Pardon me, sir,’ said Mr. Champneys to the magistrate, after a moment’s thought; ‘it is at least clear that the defendant can be indicted for altering the draft (which would in the circumstances be forgery), and for uttering the forged draft.’
‘There’s nothing about forgery, or uttering a forged draft here,’ said Mr. Corker, with an angry frown, waving the summons in the face of the bench.
‘True; but now I apply for a summons. Perhaps your worship would order that it be served at once,’ and Mr. Champneys glancedin Alec’s direction with a look that was both uneasy and insulting.
Before Mr. Corker could intervene, Alec sprang to his feet.
‘I am perfectly willing that the summons should be issued and heard now,’ he cried.
Mr. Corker turned upon him with a scowl. Mr. Mallison regarded him gravely over the top of his spectacles.
‘You have no objection, I suppose, Mr. Corker,’ said the magistrate.
The barrister growled something by way of reply, as he turned to confer with Beattie.
‘Seems as if he rather wanted to be locked up,’ whispered Mr. Corker.
‘I fancy the charge must be heard some time. We gain nothing by delay,’ said Beattie, in a low tone.
Mr. Corker gravely unfolded hispro formabrief, and placed it before Mr. Beattie, with his finger laid impressively on the title ofthat document. The other smiled, and, taking up a pen, added the words, ‘For Forgery and Uttering a Forged Draft—Mr. Corker—five guineas.’ This little point having been satisfactorily settled, the new charge was formally made, and Dr. Mackenzie had the satisfaction of telling his story in the witness-box.
His evidence was evidently that of an honest man, and it told fatally against Alec. Mr. Corker fairly earned his fresh fee, bullying the witness, the counsel for the prosecution, and the magistrate impartially, and loudly contending that as the draft was lost, the evidence was totally insufficient to convict the defendant.
But Mr. Mallison, like many men who have no great strength of mind, was obstinate. He was convinced that a gigantic fraud had been attempted, and he was resolved that the case should go before a jury. Besides, he wasgetting angry at Mr. Corker’s scornful tone and arrogant manner.
‘There,’ he said, as he signed the warrant of commitment; ‘he’s fully committed. I suppose you will now conclude your argument, Mr. Corker?’
The barrister dashed the book he was quoting from on the table before him.
‘I apply that the defendant may be admitted to bail,’ he said. ‘I am prepared with bail to any reasonable amount.’
The magistrate shook his head.
‘I know Mr. Lindsay well. I will become his bail for twenty thousand pounds,’ said a voice from the body of the court.
Alec’s pale face flushed with pleasure. It was Blake who had spoken.
But Mr. Mallison had once more made up his mind, and was now immovable.
‘Who are you, sir? The defendant has one counsel, and that is enough,’ he said toBlake. ‘The case is too important to admit of my considering the question of bail,’ he added. ‘Half a million sterling, I think you said, Dr. Mackenzie?’
‘Half a million, sir.’
‘Couldn’t think of bail for a moment.’
Mr. Champneys gathered up his books and papers. Mr. Corker, very much disgusted with the turn matters had taken, pushed his way out of court. A policeman touched Alec Lindsay on the shoulder and led him away.