Deco diamond pendant on a silver chain. This man has good taste.” The detective looked pointedly at the diamond studs in Harry’s dress shirt.
Harry realized the file must contain details of dozens of crimes committed by him. He knew also that he would eventually be convicted of at least some of those crimes. This shrewd detective had put together all the basic facts: he could easily gather witnesses to say that Harry had been at each location at the time of the theft. Sooner or later they would search his lodgings and his mother’s house. Most of the jewelry had been fenced, but he had kept a few pieces: the shirt studs the detective had noticed had been taken from a sleeping drunk at a ball in Grosvenor Square, and his mother had a brooch he had deftly plucked from the bosom of a countess at a wedding reception in a Surrey garden. And then how would he answer when they asked him what he lived on?
He was headed for a long stretch in jail. And when he got out, he would be conscripted into the army, which was more or less the same thing. The thought made his blood run cold.
He steadfastly refused to say a word, even when the detective took him by the lapels of his dinner jacket and slammed him against the wall; but silence would not save him. The law had time on its side.
Harry had only one chance of freedom. He would have to persuade the magistrates to give him bail, then disappear. Suddenly he yearned for freedom as if he had been in jail for years instead of hours.
Disappearing would not be simple, but the alternative made him shiver.
In robbing the rich, he had grown accustomed to their style of living. He got up late, drank coffee from a china cup, wore beautiful clothes and ate in expensive restaurants. He still enjoyed returning to his roots, drinking in the pub with old mates or taking his ma to the Odeon. But the thought of prison was unbearable: the dirty clothes, the horrible food, the total lack of privacy and, worst of all, the grinding boredom of a totally pointless existence.
With a shudder of loathing he concentrated his mind on the problem of getting bail.
The police would oppose bail, of course; but the magistrates would make the decision. Harry had never appeared in court before, but in the streets from which he came, people knew these things just as they knew who was eligible for a council house and how to sweep chimneys. Bail was automatically refused only in murder trials. Otherwise it was up to the discretion of the magistrates. Normally they did what the police asked, but not always. Sometimes they could be talked around, by a clever lawyer or by a defendant with a sob story about a sick child. Sometimes, if the police prosecutor was a little too arrogant, they would give bail just to assert their independence. He would have to put up some money, probably twenty-five or fifty pounds. This was no problem. He had plenty of money. He had been allowed to make a phone call, and he had rung the newsagent’s shop on the comer of the street where his ma lived and asked Bemie, the proprietor, to send one of the paper boys to fetch Ma to the phone. When finally she got there, he told her where to find his money.
“They’ll give me bail, Ma,” Harry said cockily.
“I know, son,” his mother said. “You’ve always been lucky.”
But if not ...
I’ve got out of awkward situations before, he told himself cheerily. But not this awkward.
A warder shouted out: “Marks!”
Harry stood up. He had not planned what he would say: he was a spur-of-the-moment improviser. But for once he wished he had something prepared. Let’s get it over with, he thought edgily. He buttoned his jacket, adjusted his bow tie and straightened the square of white linen in his breast pocket. He rubbed his chin and wished he had been allowed to shave. At the last minute the germ of a story appeared in his mind, and he took the cuff links out of his shirt and pocketed them.
The gate was opened and he stepped outside.
He was led up a concrete staircase and emerged in the dock in the middle of the courtroom. In front of him were the lawyers’ seats, all empty; the magistrates’ clerk, a qualified lawyer, behind his desk; and the Bench, with three nonprofessional magistrates.
Harry thought: Christ, I hope the bastards let me go.
In the press gallery, to one side, was a young reporter with a notebook. Harry turned around and looked toward the back of the court. There in the public seats he spotted Ma, in her best coat and a new hat. She tapped her pocket significantly: Harry took that to mean that she had the money for his bail. He saw to his horror that she was wearing the brooch he had stolen from the Countess of Eyer.
He faced front and grasped the rail to keep his hands from trembling. The prosecutor, a bald police inspector with a big nose, was saying: “Number three on your list, your worships: theft of twenty pounds in money and a pair of gold cuff links worth fifteen guineas, the property of Sir Simon Monkford; and obtaining a pecuniary advantage by deception at the Saint Raphael restaurant in Piccadilly. The police are requesting a remand in custody because we are investigating further offenses involving large sums of money.”
Harry was studying the magistrates warily. On one side was an old codger with white sideburns and a stiff collar, and on the other a military type in a regimental tie: they both looked down their noses at him, and he guessed they believed that everyone who appeared before them must be guilty of something. He felt hopeless. Then he told himself that stupid prejudice could quickly be turned into equally foolish credulity. Better they should not be too clever, if he was going to pull the wool over their eyes. The chairman, in the middle, was the only one who really counted. He was a middle-aged man with a gray mustache and a gray suit, and his world-weary air suggested that in his time he had heard more tall stories and plausible excuses than he cared to remember. He would be the one to watch, Harry thought anxiously.
The chairman now said to Harry: “Are you asking for bail?”
Harry pretended to be confused. “Oh! Goodness gracious! I think so. Yes—yes, I am.”
All three magistrates sat up and began to take notice when they heard his upper-class accent. Harry enjoyed the effect. He was proud of his ability to confound people’s social expectations. The reaction of the Bench gave him heart. I can fool them, he thought. I bet I can.
The chairman said: “Well, what have you got to say for yourself?”
Harry was listening carefully to the chairman’s accent, trying to place his social class precisely. He decided the man was educated middle class: a pharmacist, perhaps, or a bank manager. He would be shrewd, but he would be in the habit of deferring to the upper classes.
Harry put on an expression of embarrassment, and adopted the tone of a schoolboy addressing a headmaster. “I’m afraid there’s been the most frightful muddle, sir,” he began. The interest of the magistrates went up another notch, and they shifted in their seats and leaned forward interestedly. This was not going to be a run- of-the-mill case, they could see, and they were grateful for some relief from the usual tedium. Harry went on: “To tell you the truth, some of the fellows drank too much port at the Carlton Club yesterday, and that was really the cause of it all.” He paused, as if that might be all he had to say, and looked expectantly at the Bench.
The military magistrate said: “The Carlton Club!” His expression said it was not often that members of that august institution appeared before the Bench.
Harry wondered if he had gone too far. Perhaps they would refuse to believe that he was a member. He hurried on: “It’s dreadfully embarrassing, but I shall go round and apologize
The old codger said: “Are you saying you didn’t
His tone was incredulous, but nevertheless it was a good sign that they were asking questions. It meant they were not dismissing his story out of hand. If they had not believed a word of what he was saying they would not have bothered to challenge him on the details. His heart lifted: perhaps he would be freed!
He said: “I did borrow the cuff links—I had come out without my own.” He held up his arms to show the unfastened cuffs of his dress shirt sticking out from the sleeves of his jacket. His cuff links were in his pocket.
The old codger said: “And what about the twenty pounds?”
That was a harder question, Harry realized anxiously. No plausible excuse came to mind. You might forget your cuff links and casually borrow someone else’s, but borrowing money without permission was the same as stealing. He was on the edge of panic when inspiration rescued him once again. “I do think Sir Simon might have been mistaken about how much there was in his wallet originally.” Harry lowered his voice, as if to say something to the magistrates that the common people in the court ought not to hear. “He is frightfully rich, sir.”
The chairman said: “He didn’t get rich by forgetting how much money he had.” There was a ripple of
