Pray do, sweetheart,' said Sophie.
Very well,' said Jack 'I dare say the case needs one, just as sometimes a ship needs a pilot for what seems the simplest harbour'.
This was most decidedly Mr Lawrence's opinion He was a tall, dark man who not only looked and sounded very well in court but who also had a reputation for defending his clients with the most dogged tenacity, rather as some medical men fight tooth and nail for their patients' lives, making a great personal point of it He was not one to stand on his dignity nor on legal etiquette and after the first meeting in his chambers with Jack's solicitors he often saw Stephen informally, all the more so since they took to one another at once They had both been to Trinity College in Dublin, and although they had scarcely met there they had many acquaintances in common, they were both ardent champions of Catholic emancipation, and they both detested Lord Liverpool and most of his Cabinet colleagues 'I do not think the ministry set this matter on foot,' said Lawrence 'That would be too gross even for Sidmouth's myrmidons; but I am quite sure that they mean to take every possible advantage of the situation now that it has arisen, and I must tell you that if this Palmer is not produced - physically produced and identified as the man in the chaise, I mean, whether he denies the whole affair or not - then I fear for your friend.'
'For some time now we have had Pratt searching for him, as I told you,' said Stephen. 'And now there are several others. On Monday morning a man who had lost money to me at cards long ago sent me a draft on his banker, which pleased me, and on Monday afternoon I had an express from the country, telling me that a friend upon whom I had operated was quite recovered, was quite out of danger - a valued friend. So by way of a thank- offering I have put up this unexpected sum as a reward for the discovery of the man in the chaise.'
'A considerable sum, I collect, from your reference to several men?'
'I should be ashamed to tell you how much. We played piquet day after day in Malta, and throughout the whole period the law of averages was suspended in my favour; if he had a septieme I had a huiti?, and so it went for the dear knows how many tedious sessions. He could not win at all, the creature. I did not scruple to accept his draft, however; and I find it concentrates my searchers' minds to a wonderful degree. I am to see Pratt this afternoon.'
'How I hope he has good news for you. The eagerness of this prosecution - the steady refusal of bail, the hurrying forward of the case so that it shall be heard by a furious Tory, a member of the Cabinet - is something rare in my experience; and unless we have something solid to go upon it is hard to see any line of defence that can withstand their attack.'
Stephen was drinking his after-dinner coffee at Fladong's 'when he saw Pratt come in: the man looked pale, drawn, tired and discouraged. 'Here is a chair, Mr Pratt,' said Stephen. 'What will you take?'
'Thank you, sir,' said Pratt, letting himself down heavily. 'If I might have a glass of gin and water, cold, that would he prime. I believe we have found our man.'
But there was no exultation in his tone nor on his face -his was not a triumphant look - and Stephen called for the gin before saying 'Will you go on, now, Mr Pratt?'
'It was Bill Hemmings' friend Josiah. He was going over the river corpses with the Southwark coroner's man and he came across one that fitted my description - right for age, height, hair and build, dressed genteel, and had not been in the water above a dozen tides. But what fixed Josiah in his mind was that the coroner's man, name of Body, William Body, whose wife works at Guy's, had got hold of a paper, a little hand-bill passed about the hospitals and police-offices and so on asking for information for just such a gentleman - a Mr Paul Ogle, it said, that was likely to have been taken ill - and anyone who brought news of his whereabouts to N. Bartlet of 3, Back Court, Lyon's Inn, should be rewarded for his trouble. Lyon's Inn, sir.'
'Just so, Mr Pratt.'
I hurried round to 3, Back Court, in course, and in course I drew a blank again. Bartlet was gone and nobody knew where she was gone to. She was a whore, sir, and she was in the flogging line a quiet, plain woman, no longer young; had not been in the court long, and kept herself to herself, but was well liked, and it seems that Mr Ogle was her sweetheart. She was in a sad way about him.'
'What are the chances of finding her?'
Pratt shook his head Even if she could be found she would deny everything - refuse to speak. Otherwise she knows very well they would serve her out the same way they served Ogle.'
'True enough,' said Stephen. 'She would never stand up and swear to him in court. But this does not apply to the post-boys or the people of the inn at Sittingbourne. The young woman there took a good look at the man's face. She could identify him, which would at least be something. You said he had not been long in the water, I believe?'
'No more he had, sir, not above a dozen tides,' said Pratt. 'But -' he hesitated, '- there ain't no face.'
'I see,' said Stephen. 'You are sure of your identification, however?'
'Yes, sir, I am. I went over at once and picked him out among two score without being told,' said Pratt. 'You get the knack of these things with practice: but that would not answer for the young woman at the inn, nor it would not stand up in a court of law.'
'Well,' said Stephen, 'I will come and look at your cadaver. Perhaps it has some physical peculiarities that might be useful: I am, after all, a medical man.'
'Although I am a medical man,' said Stephen to Lawrence, 'I have not often seen a more saddening, shocking spectacle than the cellar where the river-dead are kept. In hard times they get as many as twenty a week, and now, with the coroner away... I examined the body - the keeper was most civil and obliging - but until we turned it over I found no particular marks by which a man could be recognized. On the back, however, there were the traces of habitual flagellation, and this I found perfectly convincing.'
'Certainly,' said Lawrence. 'It certainly reinforces our conviction, but I am afraid it would be useless or even damaging as evidence, even if it were admissible. Had we been able to find the living man and had we been able to look into his antecedents then he would have been an invaluable witness, however hostile; but a faceless corpse, identified by no more than hearsay, no, it will not do. No: I shall have to fall back on other lines of defence. You have great influence with him, Maturin: could not you and Mrs Aubrey persuade him to incriminate the General? Even just a very little?'
'I could not.'
'I was afraid you would say that. When I approached the subject at the Marshalsea he did not take it at all well. I am not an exceptionally timid man, I believe, but I felt extremely uneasy when he stood up, about seven
