Troubled Waters

'They don't print their own,' Lewrie told him, happily drawing. 'But there are plenty of printers who do. Sayer and Bennett in Fleet Street are very good, very up-to-date, if they're still in business.'

'How large are they. Captain Lewrie?' MacDougall pressed.

'Oh, 'bout three foot square, most of 'em, though it depends,' Lewrie said, intent on his depiction of the reef and beach. 'Harbour charts and their approaches might not be more than eighteen inches by eighteen, some even smaller.'

'We must have one much larger,' MacDougall petulantly declared. 'A gigantic reproduction for all in the courtroom to be able to take in… judge, jury, and, most especially, the audience, ha ha! They, ah… ever make charts that large?'

'Doubt it,' Lewrie replied, looking up from his sketch. 'It'd be dear.' And, he wondered; will you be billing me for that?

'Hang the cost!' MacDougall exclaimed, leaping to his feet at last, unable to contain his urgency; which outburst made Lewrie wince. 'The Reverend Wilberforce will surely see the necessity. Cost is no object, compared to true justice… for you, the former slaves, and the cause of ultimate Empire-wide Abolition.

'Yes, Captain Lewrie, I, too, support the cause of Abolition,' MacDougall quite proudly stated, looking as if he was posing for an heroic portrait. 'In this ' one instance, I may not be quite the dry and objective lawyer who presents the most compelling argument in his client's best interests. I am enthusiastic in court, others tell me. Though, not to my detriment, nor to the interests of those who engage me. And I have found that visual evidence is more compelling than dull, yawn- inducing blather, d'ye see?'

'The 'picture's worth a thousand words,' d'ye mean, sir?' Lewrie supposed aloud.

'Exactly, my dear Captain Lewrie,' MacDougall replied, guffawing with great pleasure, abandoning his stiff 'noble' pose as quickly as a poster could be ripped from a tavern wall. 'If the printers cannot reproduce your charts large enough, perhaps a canvas, as big as a bedsheet, may serve, and a journeyman artist or sign painter could draw it all in broad strokes. Something on which the jury may gaze as any false evidence is reiterated. Do the Beaumans not bring their witnesses with them, and depend upon a dry reading of their testimony from the Jamaican transcript, well… there's confrontation standing mutely in the centre of the courtroom. Do they fetch 'em along, and testify anew, I'll present your officers, and that Mister Winwood, in stark rebuttal.'

'Or, tear them to pieces when you put your question to 'em?'

'Beg pardon, Captain Lewrie?'

'When you question them yourself,' Lewrie re-stated.

'Oh, heavens no, sir!' MacDougall pooh-poohed. 'The prosecuting attorney puts questions to his witnesses to form a case, then I, as a defence attorney, put our witnesses in the box to refute. Prosecutors under English Common Law cannot examine my witnesses or attestors, nor may I examine his!'

'What?'

'I fear you've had little exposure to the law, and courts, Captain Lewrie,' MacDougall said, with one of those simpering little 'how ignorant of you' laughs.

45

'Not 'til now, no,' Lewrie sarcastically replied. And, why that is, God only knows, the things I've got up to! he thought a tick later. 'Well, at least I'll have no fear of scathing questions from whoever it is the Beaumans hire as prosecutor,' he concluded with a resigned sigh.

'Uhm… beg pardon again, Captain Lewrie, but…,' MacDougall said, looking a bit sorry for his new client. 'The accused only speaks upon his own behalf after the verdict is announced… most usually in King's Bench cases to plead for mercy… transportation to Australia, 'stead of the New Market gallows.'

'What?' Lewrie gawped in alarm. 'I just sit in the dock, while everybody else gets t'lie their arses off? Stay mum as a tailor's dummy, while…?'

'That, ah… is the custom, Captain Lewrie,' MacDougall sadly informed him. 'Ah, look at the time!' he cried as a mantel clock atop the fireplace chimed the hours. 'I thought I was beginning to feel a tad peckish. Oh, there's an hundred, a thousand, more matters which I must ask of you in the short time allotted us, but I do believe we may repair to the most excellent chop-house… quite nearby… and take our mid-day meal. I took the liberty of reserving private rooms where we, and Mister Sadler, who shall prove to be instrumental to the preparation of our presentation, good fellow, may dine. I swear, all you have related to me, and what stir such has caused in my wits, has made me famished. Shall we adjourn for the nonce, Captain Lewrie?'

Sadler and his tape-worm, Lewrie morosely thought as he gathered up hat and sword in the outer parlour; and you, MacDougall, a dab-hand trencherman yourself. Still a growin lad, in need o' stuffin', hey? Good thing I brought a full purse t'London, 'cause I doubt any attorney treats, or even go shares! Can't speak for myself… my God, but I'm bloody doomed!

CHAPTER SEVEN

'I really can't…?' Lewrie whinged once they were seated in the small but well- appointed private dining room.

'Not a word, sorry,' MacDougall tossed off, intent on the hand-written day's menu and wine list. 'Aha! They've fresh oysters up from Sheerness, and a dozen apiece sounds lovely, don't you think, Sadler?'

'Capital, as you always say, sir,' his clerk happily seconded.

'Their veal's always toothsome, hmm…,' MacDougall mused aloud, 'perhaps only the brace of roast squab, before the main course. Rhenish with that, it goes without saying, and, I see they've still a few dozen of the Chateau Lafites to go with the veal. Any favourites, sir?' he asked Lewrie. 'Anything else catch your fancy? The lobster, perhaps? It is done to perfection, here.'

'Not all that hungry, really,' Lewrie replied, ready to finger his purse, to weigh what he had remaining, for the way MacDougall and his perpetually starved clerk were thinking, this mid-day meal might cost as much as the wedding breakfast for Langlie and Sophie down in Portsmouth. 'Soup, salad, perhaps the veal with some shore vegetables. Can't get fresh, at sea.'

'Nonsense!' MacDougall said with a snort. 'Can't think, can't plot, on an empty stomach, and we've a long afternoon ahead.'

A waiter arrived, took their orders, and set out glasses and chargers, silverware, and napkins, then re-closed the doors to scurry off. Not a tick later, another waiter arrived with a bottle of that grand St. Emilion Bordeaux for them to sample, then disappeared just as softly as the first.

'Now, sir,' MacDougall said, 'along with the transcript of your fraudulent trial, and the utter uselessness of your putative counsel dredged up from a Kingston tavern, your friend, Mister James Peel, of the Foreign Office, provided me with some even more intriguing information, most particularly the makeup of the jury that convicted you.'

MacDougall seemed to preen, and, like most people with a secret that you did not yet know, withheld his news with a most smug smile.

'And, pray, what is that, Mister MacDougall?' Lewrie enquired, fighting down his urge to grab the lout by the lapels and give him a brisk shaking. Why do I always run into the 'beg me to tell you ' type? Lewrie cynically asked himself. It was hard enough to tolerate it when it came from Peel, or Peel's former superior, the archly inscrutable Zachariah Twigg, but by God he didn't have to take it from a civilian!