“What’s this Hackleton case that you were talking about?” he inquired with a certain dull interest.
Neville looked at his brother with an expression half quizzical and half contemptuous. For days the Hackleton case had extended in sordid detail over a good many columns of most daily newspapers, for its intricacy had been enlivened by frequent dramatic interchanges between witnesses and counsel. It had shown Neville Shandon at his best, relentlessly driving the defendants into one damaging admission after another.
“Do you never read newspapers, Ernest?” the barrister demanded, quite unnettled by his brother’s ignorance of one of the greatest cases in which he himself had taken a leading part. Ernest’s interests were limited, as Neville knew; and it was useless to expect him to go outside his normal range merely from family concern. Wide-ranging curiosity was the last quality one could expect from him.
Ernest blinked, took off his glasses and cleaned them, then replaced them carefully before replying.
“No. At least, not all of them. (Confound these glasses, they won’t grip my nose today, somehow. This is the fifth time they’ve fallen off.) I often look at the newspapers, Neville. I glance through the sporting news every day. I never read the law column, though. I can’t understand it, usually; and when I do understand it, it seems so damned dull. At least, it’s dull to me; so I don’t look at it, usually.”
The barrister shrugged his shoulders slightly. He was above petty vanity, and he felt no sting from his brother’s lack of interest in his work.
“Just as well you left the Hackleton case alone, then,” he said. “It’s an infernal tangle. It’s taken me months of work to see my way through it; and if I happened to break down before it comes to a finish, I doubt if a junior could take it on with anything like success. But I think this week will see the end of it.”
Roger had listened to the dialogue without moving a muscle. Ernest’s complete incuriosity was no surprise to him. He could almost have predicted it. The youngest brother had never had the slightest interest in anything which did not touch himself. Family triumphs meant nothing to him, except that indirectly they contributed to his welfare.
The barrister moved again to the window and looked out over the landscape. A cloud of rooks caught his eye, sailing together and then breaking up into a mass of wheeling individuals.
“After this sort of thing, the very thought of the air in the Law Courts makes one sick,” he said at last.
“Hackleton’s coming up for the rest of your cross-examination the day after tomorrow, isn’t he?” Roger asked.
“Yes. He’s a clever devil—sees a concealed point as well as I do myself, and generally manages to skate round it more or less. He’s just scraped through, so far; but I’ll have him yet. It’ll be a bad business for him if he makes a slip. This civil suit for breach of contract is only a preliminary canter, if things turn out as I expect. One single breach in his case, and the Public Prosecutor will be down on Hackleton instanter. There’s ever so much in the background which we can’t bring to light in this particular suit, but it would all come out if the thing were to be transferred to the Criminal Court. Then we could really get to the bottom of the business.”
“So I gathered, by reading the case. Anyone could see that there was a lot in the background that you couldn’t touch on.”
“Once it all comes out, it’ll be the end of Hackleton. Five years penal is the least he could look forward to. Pleasant prospect for a man who lives on champagne. He’s an amazing fellow: drinks like a fish and yet has almost as good a brain as I have.”
“And you think you’ll get him? Does he realise that?”
“I expect he does.”
“From all I’ve heard of him he hasn’t much to boast of in the way of scruples. He started his career by speculations in coffin ships, didn’t he? I seem to remember some trouble with the insurance companies in more than one case.”
The barrister nodded:
“Constructive murder, simply. But that would be a trifle to Hackleton. He’d do anything for money.”
Roger seemed to turn this over in his mind for a moment or two before he spoke again.
“If he’s as hard a case as all that, I think I’d put on my considering-cap if I were in your shoes, Neville. It seems to me that you’re the weak joint in the harness.”
“I? How do you make that out? I’ve got this case at my finger-ends, I tell you. No one knows it inside out as I do.”
“That’s precisely what I mean. Suppose he loosed a gang of roughs on you before this cross-examination comes off? A good sandbagging would put you out of action for just the time necessary to keep you out of the case; and that’s all he needs. You say yourself that you have all the strings in your hands, and I don’t suppose you’ve brought every card out of your sleeve even for the benefit of your junior. It wouldn’t be like you if you have. You were always one to keep a good deal in reserve.”
“That’s true enough,” Neville conceded with a grim smile. “No one could handle Hackleton in just the way that I shall this week. But I’m not particularly afraid of sandbags or that sort of thing. No one could tackle me here, so far as I can see. One can’t do that kind of business in broad daylight on the Whistlefield lawns. And there won’t be much chance of getting at me on the way up
