Morton Harrogate smiled his maddeningly superior smile (he really was a most insufferable young man). 'Really, Sir Charles!' he mocked, stroking his little sleek object he wore on his upper lip. 'I'm not going to write a story about Lady Pennefather trying to murder her husband, if that's what you're warning me against. Or could it possibly be that you were referring to the law of slander?'
Sir Charles, who had meant slander, enveloped Mr. Bradley in a crimson glare.
Roger sped to the rescue. The combatants reminded him of a bull and a gadfly, and that is a contest which it is often good fun to watch. But the Crimes Circle had been founded to investigate the crimes of others, not to provide opportunities for new ones. Roger did not particularly like either the bull or the gadfly, but both amused him in their different ways; he certainly disliked neither. Mr. Bradley on the other hand disliked both Roger and Sir Charles. He disliked Roger the more of the two because Roger was a gentleman and pretended not to be, whereas he himself was not a gentleman and pretended he was. And that surely is cause enough to dislike any one.
'I'm glad you raised that point, Sir Charles,' Roger now said smoothly. 'It's one we must consider. Personally I don't see how we're to progress at all unless we come to some arrangement concerning the law of slander, do you?'
Sir Charles consented to be mollified. 'It is a difficult point,' he agreed, the lawyer in him immediately swamping the outraged human being. A born lawyer will turn aside from any other minor pursuit, even briefs, for a really knotty legal point, just as a born woman will put on her best set of underclothes and powder her nose before inserting the latter in the gas - oven.
'I think,' Roger said carefully, anxious not to wound legal susceptibilities (it was a bold proposition for a layman to make), 'that we should disregard that particular law. I mean,' he added hastily, observing the look of pain on Sir Charles's brow at being asked to condone this violation of a lex intangenda, '1 mean, we should come to some such arrangement as that anything said in this room should be without prejudice, or among friends, or - or not in the spirit of the adverb,' he plunged desperately, 'or whatever the legal wriggle is.' On the whole it was not a tactful speech.
But it is doubtful whether Sir Charles heard it. A dreamy look had come into his eyes, as of a Lord of Appeal crooning over a piece of red tape. 'Slander, as we all know,' he murmured, 'consists in the malicious speaking of such words as render the party who speaks them in the hearing of others liable to an action at the suit of the party to whom they apply. In this case, the imputation being of a crime or misdemeanour which is punishable corporeally, pecuniary damage would not have to be proved, and, the imputation being defamatory, its falsity would be presumed and the burden of proving its truth would be laid upon the defendant. We should therefore have the interesting situation of the defendant in a slander action becoming, in essence, the plaintiff in a civil suit for murder. And really,' said Sir Charles in much perplexity, 'I don't know what would happen then.'
'Er - what about privilege?' suggested Roger feebly.
'Of course,' Sir Charles disregarded him, 'there would have to be stated in the declaration the actual words used, not merely their meaning and general inference, and failure to prove them as stated would result in the plaintiff being nonsuited; so that unless notes were taken here and signed by a witness who had heard the defamation, I do not quite see how an action could lie.'
'Privilege?' murmured Roger despairingly.
'Moreover I should be of the opinion,' said Sir Charles, brightening, 'that this might be regarded as one of those proper occasions upon which statements, in themselves defamatory, and even false, may be made if from a perfectly proper motive and with an entire belief in their truth. In that case the presumption would be reversed and the burden would be on the plaintiff to prove, and that to the satisfaction of a jury, that the defendant was actuated by express malice. In that case I rather fancy that the court would be guided almost wholly by considerations of public expediency, which would probably mean that - - '
'Privilege!' said Roger loudly.
Sir Charles turned on him the dull eye of a red - ink fiend. But this time the word had penetrated. 'I was coming to that,' he reproved. 'Now in our case I hardly think that a plea of public privilege would be accepted. As to private privilege, the limits are of course exceedingly difficult to define. It would be doubtful if we could plead successfully that all statements made here are matters of purely private communication, because it is a question whether this Circle does constitute, in actual fact, a private or a public gathering. One could,' said Sir Charles with much interest, 'argue either way. Or even, for the matter of that, that it is a private body meeting in public, or, vice versa, a public gathering held in private. The point is a very debatable one.' Sir Charles swung his glasses for a moment to emphasise the extreme debatability of the point.
'But I do feel inclined to venture the opinion,' he plunged at last, 'that on the whole we might be justified in taking up our stand upon the submission that the occasion is privileged in so far as it is concerned entirely with communications which are made with no animus injuiandi but solely in performance of a duty not necessarily legal but moral or social, and any statements so uttered are covered by a plea of veritas convicii being made within proper limits by persons in the bonafide prosecution of their own and the public interest. I am bound to say however,' Sir Charles immediately proceeded to hedge as if horrified at having committed himself at last, ' that this is not a matter of complete certainty, and a wiser policy might be to avoid the direct mention of any name, while holding ourselves free to indicate in some unmistakable manner, such as by signs, or possibly by some form of impersonation or acting, the individual to whom we severally refer.'
'Still,' pursued the President, faint but persistent, 'on the whole you do think that the occasion may be regarded as privileged, and we may go ahead and mention any name we like?'
Sir Charles's glasses described a complete and symbolical circle. 'I think,' said Sir Charles very weightily indeed (after all it was an opinion which would have cost the Circle such a surprisingly round sum had it been delivered in chambers that Sir Charles need not be grudged a little weight in the delivering of it). 'I think,' said Sir Charles, 'that we might take that risk.'
'Right - ho!' said the President with relief.
CHAPTER VI
'I DARE say,' resumed Sir Charles, 'that many of you will have already reached the same conclusion as myself, with regard to the identity of the murderer. The case seems to me to afford so striking a parallel with one of the classical murders, that the similarity can hardly have passed unnoticed. I refer, of course, to the Marie Lafarge case.'
'Oh!' said Roger, surprised. So far as he was concerned the similarity had passed unnoticed. He wriggled uncomfortably. Now one came to consider it, of course the parallel was obvious.
'There too we have a wife, accused of sending a poisoned article to her husband. Whether the article was a cake or a box of chocolates is beside the point. It will not do perhaps to - - '
'But nobody in their sane senses still believes that Marie Lafarge was guilty,' Alicia Dammers interrupted, with unusual warmth. 'It's been practically proved that the cake was sent by the foreman, or whatever he was. Wasn't his name Dennis? His motive was much bigger than hers, too.'
Sir Charles regarded her severely. 'I think I said, accused of sending. I was referring to a matter of fact, not of opinion.'
'Sorry,' nodded Miss Dammers, unabashed.
'In any case, I just mention the coincidence for what it is worth. Let us now go back to resume our argument at the point we left it. In that connection, the question was raised just now,' said Sir Charles, determinedly impersonal, 'as to whether Lady Pennefather may have had not an innocent accomplice but a guilty one. That doubt had already occurred to me. I have satisfied myself that it is not the case. She planned and carried through this affair alone.' He paused, inviting the obvious question.
Roger tactfully supplied it. 'How could she, Sir Charles? We know that she was in the South of France the whole time. The police investigated that very point. She has a complete alibi.'
Sir Charles positively beamed at him. 'She had a complete alibi. I have destroyed it.'
'This is what actually happened. Three days before the parcel was posted Lady Pennefather left Mentone and went, ostensibly, for a week to Avignon. At the end of the week she returned to Mentone. Her signature is in the hotel - register at Avignon, she has the receipted bill, everything is quite in order. The only curious thing is that
