making those frankly absurd charges.”
“Gentlemen!” Rathbone demanded their attention. “It is you who are wasting our time. We are here to provide evidence and test it on exactly these matters. Please continue to do so, with facts, however tedious they may be to unravel. Mr. Gavinton, have you anything more to ask Mr. Knight?”
“I don’t think Mr. Knight can tell me anything at all,” Gavinton said ungraciously.
Warne raised his eyebrows. “I don’t think anyone can,” he responded.
There was a titter of amusement from the gallery, and one juror laughed outright.
Gavinton was far from amused.
Rathbone kept his face straight with something of an effort. “Have you anything to ask or redirect, Mr. Warne?”
“Thank you, my lord,” Warne said. “Mr. Knight, you deduce from these figures that a number of people, almost the same number every week, gave random amounts to Mr. Taft’s Church. The numbers vary from a few pence to many pounds, in fact whatever they could possibly manage. Is that correct?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And in what way is that a crime?” His voice was very light, curious, no more.
“It’s not, sir,” Knight replied. “So long as Mr. Taft used the money for exactly what it was given for.”
“Ah …” Warne breathed out slowly. “That is rather a big condition, is it not? If … it was used for that purpose, all of it, and that purpose alone.”
For the first time there was attention in the gallery. People moved, exchanged glances. Journalists were busy scribbling on their pads.
In the jury box more notes were made. Suddenly faces were grave, showing sharp interest. Several of them looked up at Taft with the beginnings of doubt and even dislike.
In her seat in the gallery, behind Gavinton, Mrs. Taft was clearly anxious.
The trial went on like that for three days. The facts and figures were boring even to the jurors, who were paying as much attention as they could manage. Many wrote things down, but there was far too much detail for anyone to record, and even then it would have meant little. It was the conclusions that mattered. Rathbone had thought at first that the detail would have affected them. There were no crushing boulders, only endless grains of sand, and the sheer volume of their assumed and monstrous weight. The figures all tallied at first glance, but time-consuming evidence showed again and again that they did so only through sleight of hand, duplicity, and shifting of the boundaries and the terms of reference.
Gradually the jury’s reaction of boredom and confusion changed to one of pure suspicion that they were being deliberately duped. They resented it, as if they had been patronized by someone who thought them too stupid to fathom a trick when they saw one, or too easily distracted to follow a trail of slow and well-concealed theft.
As Mr. Knight had said at the beginning, as much as you might deplore it, taking the last penny a man had to give, or even beyond that, sending him into debt, was not a crime. But when he had given it in trust for a specific and limited purpose, and it had been used for something else, then it assuredly was-and keeping it for oneself was fraud, pure and simple.
On Thursday, the fourth day of the trial, Warne presented Mr. Bicknor, the elderly father of a young man named Cuthbert Bicknor, who had apparently given to Taft a great deal more money than he had the right to dispose of. As a result of his mismanagement, he had lost his job and after that his health had suffered, and he was now confined to his bed with pneumonia.
Warne treated him as gently as he could.
“Mr. Bicknor, could you please tell the court of the change in your son after he joined Mr. Taft’s Church?”
Bicknor looked wretched. The whole situation obviously embarrassed him acutely. He hated being here, stared at by so many people and obliged to recount his family’s shame.
“He became totally absorbed in it,” he said so quietly Rathbone had to ask him to speak a little more loudly.
“I’m sorry,” Bicknor said, jerking his head up to stare at Warne. “He seemed to be able to think and talk of nothing else. He stopped going out to the theater or the music hall, or out to dinner with friends.”
“Did Mr. Taft’s Church teach against such things?” Warne asked gently.
Bicknor shook his head. “No-Cuthbert said he shouldn’t spend the money on such things, not when there were people cold and hungry in other places. It is unchristian to indulge ourselves, he said. He stopped even buying himself new shoes.”
Warne looked puzzled. “And did you not admire him for that, Mr. Bicknor? It sounds a most generous and truly Christlike attitude. Perhaps if more of us thought like that, the world would be a better place.”
There was a murmur of approval from the gallery, and some discomfort in the jury box. Several of the jurors looked intently at the woodwork, avoiding anyone’s eyes.
Rathbone wondered if Warne was really thinking about what he was saying. He seemed to be playing into Gavinton’s hands.
“If the whole world was like that, yes,” Bicknor replied, clearly distressed. He looked as if Warne’s question was unexpected. “But it isn’t, is it? My son’s going around with shoes that have holes in them, and a shirt with a frayed collar that’s already been turned once. Look at Mr. Taft. He’s got brand-new boots with a shine you could see your face in. And I’ve seen him myself in three different pairs. And I’ll wager he doesn’t have his wife turn his shirt collars so the frayed edges don’t show. He has a nice carriage and a matched pair of horses to pull it, while my son walks to save the omnibus fare.”
Warne nodded slowly. “Then Mr. Taft is a hypocrite. He does not himself do what he expects of others. But that is not a crime, Mr. Bicknor. Certainly it is contemptible, and repugnant to any decent man, but I’m afraid we find such people not only in the Church but in all walks of life.” He looked unhappy as he said it, his dark face rueful.
“We don’t give them our money!” Bicknor retorted angrily, his frustration at his inability to convey the injustice of the situation ringing in his voice. “He’s a cheat! He lied to us … in the name of God!” His cheeks were flushed and he was trembling, grasping the rail of the witness box with hands whose knuckles shone white.
Warne smiled, his lips drawn tight. “If Mr. Taft has asked for money in order to give it to the poor, and then taken it for his own use, then it is a crime, Mr. Bicknor, and we shall prove it so. It is particularly despicable if he has taken it from those who have little enough in the first place. Thank you for your testimony. Please remain there in case my learned friend has anything to ask you.”
As Warne returned to his seat, his limp a little more noticeable, Gavinton stood up. He walked across the open space of the floor as if he were entering an arena, a gladiator swaggering out to battle. He looked up at Bicknor, a lumbering man by comparison, who now was regarding him with apprehension.
“Mr. Bicknor, you are naturally very protective of your son. It sounds as if he is an unusually vulnerable young man, desperate to have the approval of Mr. Taft. Do you know why this is?”
“No I don’t,” Bicknor replied a little sharply. “The man’s a charlatan. Mind, my son didn’t see that. He thinks a man in the pulpit, preaching the word of God, has to be honest. We brought him up to respect the Church, and any man of the cloth. Maybe that was our mistake.”
“No,” Gavinton shook his head. “It is right to respect the Church, and those who represent it. But it seems your son’s emotions were far more radical than simple respect would dictate. Did you teach him to give all he possessed, more than he could possibly afford, to anyone who asked for it?”
“Of course not!” Bicknor was angry. Rathbone could see his self-control, which Warne had guarded so carefully, already beginning to slip out of his grasp. One should not underestimate Gavinton.
Gavinton smiled, flashing his teeth again. “I’m sure you didn’t, Mr. Bicknor. I imagine you are a great deal more careful with your money. You give what is safely within your means?” He made it sound somehow mean- spirited.
“Yes.” Bicknor could give no other answer.
“A pity you did not teach your son to do the same,” Gavinton shook his head. “Without offense, might I suggest it was your duty to have done that, not Mr. Taft’s?” He ignored Bicknor’s scarlet face and his hunched, shaking body. “How was Mr. Taft to know that your son was in financial difficulty? He has hundreds of
