“Well, Sir Charles,” remarked Mr. Bradley, whose swelling bosom was threatening to burst his waistcoat. “Well, I wouldn’t have thought it of you. Murder, indeed. Very naughty; very, very naughty.”
For once Sir Charles took no notice of his faithful gadfly. It is doubtful whether he even heard him. Now that it had penetrated into his consciousness that Mrs. Fielder-Flemming really intended her accusation in all seriousness and was not the victim of a temporary attack of insanity, his bosom was swelling just as tumultuously as Mr. Bradley’s. His face, adopting the purple tinge that Mrs. Fielder-Flemming’s was relinquishing, took on the aspect of the frog in the fable who failed to realise his own bursting-point. Roger, whose emotions on hearing Mrs. Fielder-Flemming’s outburst had been so mixed as to be almost scrambled, began to feel quite alarmed for him.
But Sir Charles found the safety-valve of speech just in time. “Mr. President,” he exploded through it, “if I am not right in assuming this to be a jest on this lady’s part, even though a jest in the worst possible taste, am I to be expected to take this preposterous nonsense seriously?”
Roger glanced at Mrs. Fielder-Flemming’s face, now set in flinty masses, and gulped. However, preposterous though Sir Charles might term it, his antagonist had certainly made out a case, and not a flimsy, unsupported case either. “I think,” he said, as carefully as he could, “that if it had been anyone but yourself in question, Sir Charles, you would agree that a charge of this kind, when there is real evidence to support it, does at least require to be taken seriously so far as to need refuting.”
Sir Charles snorted and Mrs. Fielder-Flemming nodded her head several times with vehemence.
“If refuting is possible,” observed Mr. Bradley. “But I must admit that, personally, I am impressed. Mrs. Fielder-Flemming seems to me to have made out her case. Would you like me to go and telephone for the police, Mr. President?” He spoke with an air of earnest endeavour to do his duty as a citizen, however distasteful it might be.
Sir Charles glared, but once more seemed bereft of words.
“Not yet, I think,” Roger said gently. “We haven’t heard yet what Sir Charles has to answer.”
“Well, I suppose we may as well hear him,” conceded Mr. Bradley.
Five pairs of eyes glued themselves on Sir Charles, five pairs of ears were strained.
But Sir Charles, struggling mightily with himself, was silent.
“As I expected,” murmured Mr. Bradley. “There is no defence. Even Sir Charles, who has snatched so many murderers from the rope, can find nothing to say in such a glaring case. It’s very sad.”
From the look he flashed at his tormentor it was to be deduced that Sir Charles might have found plenty to say had the two of them been alone together. As it was, he could only rumble.
“Mr. President,” said Alicia Dammers, with her usual brisk efficiency, “I have a proposal to make. Sir Charles appears to be admitting his guilt by default, and Mr. Bradley, as a good citizen, wishes to hand him over to the police.”
“Hear, hear!” observed the good citizen.
“Personally I should be sorry to do that. I think there is a good deal to be said for Sir Charles. Murder, we are taught, is invariably antisocial. But is it? I am of the opinion that Sir Charles’s intention, that of ridding the world (and incidentally his own daughter) of Sir Eustace Pennefather, was quite in the world’s best interests. That his intention miscarried and an innocent victim was killed is quite beside the point. Even Mrs. Fielder-Flemming seemed to be doubtful whether Sir Charles ought to be condemned, as a jury would certainly condemn him, though she added in conclusion that she did not feel competent to judge him.
“I differ from her. Being a person of, I hope, reasonable intelligence, I feel perfectly competent to judge him. And I consider further that all five of us are competent to judge him. I therefore suggest that we do in fact judge him ourselves. Mrs. Fielder-Flemming could act as prosecutor; somebody (I propose Mr. Bradley) could defend him; and all five of us constitute a jury, the finding to be by majority in favour or against. We would bind ourselves to abide by the result, and if it is against him we send for the police; if it is in his favour we agree never to breathe a word of his guilt outside this room. May this be put to the meeting?”
Roger smiled at her reprovingly. He knew quite well that Miss Dammers no more believed in Sir Charles’s guilt than he, Roger, did himself, and he knew that she was only pulling that eminent counsel’s leg; a little cruelly, but no doubt she thought it was good for him. Miss Dammers professed herself a strong believer in seeing the other side, and held that it would be a very good thing for the cat occasionally to find itself chased by the mouse; certainly therefore it was most salutary for a man who had prosecuted other men for their lives to find himself for once in the dock on just such a terrifying charge. Mr. Bradley, on the other hand, though he, too, obviously did not believe that Sir Charles was the murderer, mocked not out of conviction but because only so could he get a little of his own back against Sir Charles for having made more of a success of his life than Mr. Bradley was likely to do.
Nor, Roger thought, had Mr. Chitterwick any serious doubts as to the possibility of Sir Charles being guilty, though he
