Brief Tales From The Bench

by Henry Cecil

  ‘Large or small?’

  ‘Small please. What time is dinner?’

  ‘It’s on now,’ said the girl. ‘If you don’t look sharp, you won’t get any.’

  ‘But it’s only just after half past seven,’ said Blandish.

  ‘That’s right,’ said the girl. ‘If you look up there, you’ll see dinner is at half past seven.’

  The plaintiff said that he then noticed that the girl had poured him out a glass of Italian dry vermouth.

  ‘But I asked for a dry Martini,’ he said.

  ‘Can you read?’ said the girl, and pointed to the bottle on which were the words ‘Martini Dry.’

  The plaintiff said that he then tried to explain to the girl the consistency of a dry Martini. To which she replied: ‘If you wanted a gin and French, you should have said so. We’ve no ice anyway.’

  ‘Well, I’ll skip the drink,’ said Mr Blandish, ‘and go into dinner.’

  ‘Wait a moment,’ said the girl, ‘that will be eight shillings, please.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Mr Blandish, ‘I’m not paying.’

  ‘Very well,’ said the girl, ‘it will be on your bill just the same.’

  The plaintiff said that he then went into the dining room where he tried to sit at an empty table.

  ‘You can’t sit there, sir,’ said a waiter. ‘It’s reserved.’ The plaintiff suggested another table. ‘That’s reserved too. Are you staying in the hotel?’

  The plaintiff said that he replied that he was sorry to say that he was.

  ‘Well, the beef’s off,’ said the waiter. ‘Will you have thick, clear or sardine?’

  ‘Would you repeat that?’ said Mr Blandish.

  ‘Thick, clear or sardine?’ said the waiter.

  ‘Can I see a menu?’ said Mr Blandish.

  ‘I’m reading it out to you. Thick, clear or sardine?’

  ‘Is that all there is?’

  ‘Yes, to begin with,’ said the waiter. ‘Then there’s curried mutton to follow or cold ham. The veg is included.’

  Once again, Mr Blandish asked to see the manager. About half an hour later he arrived.

  ‘You wanted to see me, sir?’ he said.

  ‘Yes, I did. Having regard to the service and the room and the food you are offering, do you consider the statements in your letters were justified?’

  ‘You needn’t have come here,’ said the manager, ‘if you hadn’t wanted to.’

  ‘How could I tell what it would be like,’ said Mr Blandish, ‘apart from what you told me in your letters?’

  ‘Well,’ said the manager, ‘we’ve never had any complaints before, and, if you don’t like it, you needn’t come again.’

  ‘Well, I can only tell you,’ said Mr Blandish, ‘that I’m not going to pay my bill, and you can sue me for it.’

  ‘We shouldn’t dream of suing you for it,’ said the manager. ‘We shall just hold on to your luggage.’

  ‘So in order to get my luggage,’ said Mr Blandish, ‘I had to pay the bill. But I told the manager that I should sue and I’m asking for my money back and damages for a most uncomfortable night and a most unpleasant dinner which I shouldn’t have experienced but for what the defendants had written in their letter. I may add that I could have cooked a far better dinner myself.’

  Mr Blandish was then cross-examined by counsel for the defendants, but, as Mr Carstairs hardly knew the rudiments of cross-examination, it is not surprising that the plaintiff’s evidence was not shaken. The defendants then started to call their evidence. And the first witness was the resident manager of the Excelsior Hotel. His name was Thomas Cutworthy.

  I had been impressed with the evidence of Mr Blandish. He seemed a truthful and accurate witness. Moreover I myself had had some bad experiences in hotels and restaurants, and I may have been consciously or unconsciously slightly biased against the defendants in consequence. Of course judges shouldn’t be biased. But, as we are only human beings, it must sometimes happen that we are, even if we don’t appreciate it ourselves. I certainly was prepared to make some pretty scathing remarks about the defendants, if, when I’d heard the whole of the evidence, I was satisfied that the plaintiff’s case was true. I was quite ready for Mr Cutworthy to make various excuses of a kind I’d heard before – about difficulties of getting staff, and all that sort of thing. I also expected that some of the plaintiff’s evidence would be contradicted, but by and large I felt that the picture painted by the plaintiff would be likely to stick, even after the defendants had called all their evidence. In consequence, I was wholly unprepared for Mr Cutworthy’s version of the story.

  ‘Well, Mr Cutworthy,’ asked Mr Carstairs, ‘what d’you say about the plaintiff’s evidence in this matter?’

  ‘What do I say?’ said Mr Cutworthy. ‘I say that I think he must have gone to a different hotel.’

  ‘D’you mean that?’ I asked.

  ‘Certainly, your honour,’ said Mr Cutworthy. ‘I’ve been to the sort of establishment which the plaintiff has described. It’s nothing like mine. For example, I’ve brought one of our menus to show your honour. You’ll see from this that even the most particular customer has a wide and varied choice. In fact, I heartily agree, your honour, with almost everything the plaintiff has said. If we’d treated him as he described, he would have been fully entitled to make the complaints which he has made. The conversations he says he had with me are pure inventions as far as I am concerned.’

  ‘Do you say that he never came to your hotel at all?’ I asked.

  ‘We have indeed got the registration of a Mr Blandish on the day that he said he stayed there,’ said Mr Cutworthy, ‘but either what he says is almost entirely a complete fabrication, or he’s mixed up our hotel with some other hotel at which he stayed on a different occasion.’

  ‘Well,’ I said, ‘this is extremely odd. Mr Benton, I don’t believe your client, when in the witness box, actually identified Mr Cutworthy. Don’t you think he’d better be recalled at once, in case there has been some mistake about it?’

  So Mr Blandish was recalled into the witness box and was asked to look at Mr Cutworthy and say if he was the man whom he’d described as being the manager of the hotel where he stayed on the night in question.

  ‘Yes,’ said Mr Blandish, and then paused. ‘I think so,’ he added.

  ‘You think so?’ I asked.

  ‘Well, your honour,’ said Mr Blandish, ‘I only saw him on one day and that was some little time ago.’

  ‘But your name is in the visitors’ book,’ I said.

  ‘It’s in the visitors’ book of a lot of hotels,’ said Blandish.

  ‘Any in the same neighbourhood?’ I said.

  ‘Quite possibly. But, your honour, I don’t think there is any doubt that this is the man. I must admit, however, I haven’t got a good memory for faces, and I’ve been asked on my oath if I can swear positively that he is the man. Naturally I want to be careful about this.’

  ‘You are quite right to be careful,’ I said, ‘but you described in detail your first entrance to the hotel and what you saw and heard. Have you any doubt about what you’ve told us?’

  ‘None at all, your honour,’ said Blandish.

  ‘Have you any doubt about the position of the hotel?’

  ‘No, your honour.’

  ‘Then,’ I said, ‘the only thing you are not absolutely certain about is whether the gentleman standing in the witness box is the manager of that hotel?’

  ‘That is so, your honour.’

  ‘But,’ I said, ‘he swears that he is.’

  ‘He also swears,’ said Mr Blandish, ‘that the conversations to which I referred didn’t take place. One of us must be wrong. Perhaps there has been a change of managers.’

  I went into that question but it became plain that Mr Cutworthy claimed that he was quite definitely the resident manager of the hotel on the date when Mr Blandish said he’d visited it. Mr Blandish was then asked if he recognised the young lady sitting in the third
row of the seats behind counsel.

  ‘Is that the young lady who was in the reception desk and behind the bar?’ asked Mr Carstairs.

  ‘This one seems better-looking, if I may say so,’ said Mr Blandish.

  ‘But,’ I said, ‘do they look about the same?’

  ‘Well,’ said Mr Blandish, ‘this young lady is really very attractive, I don’t think the other was.’

  ‘Perhaps it’s what she did that made her look less attractive?’ I said. ‘In the course of many years I’ve noticed that a woman who looks quite plain when you first look at her, begins to look extremely attractive when she says nice things about you. And to a lesser extent, vice versa.’

  ‘Well, Mr Blandish,’ said Mr Carstairs, ‘is it the same girl, or is it not?’

  ‘I can’t swear one way or the other.’

  ‘Have you more or less doubt about her than you have about Mr Cutworthy?’ I asked.

  ‘More doubt, your honour.’

  ‘Let us be clear,’ said Mr Carstairs, ‘that we are speaking about the same place? Mr Blandish, will you be kind enough to look at the menu which Mr Cutworthy has produced?’

  The menu was taken by the usher over to Mr Blandish. ‘Do you dispute,’ said Mr Carstairs, ‘that that was the menu which was placed in front of you?’

  ‘I’ve already told you,’ said Mr Blandish, ‘that no menu was placed in front of me. But I did see a card in the waiter’s hand. This menu is six times as large as that. This menu is the kind you might expect to find in one of the most exclusive London restaurants.’

  ‘Then you would approve of a place,’ said Mr Carstairs, ‘which had a menu like this?’

  ‘Not necessarily, by any means,’ said Mr Blandish. ‘On the whole, the places in the country which have these huge menus are pretentious and bad. They don’t get a call for half the food which is shown there, and either they can’t supply it when asked, or it’s been frozen and kept in a deep-freeze for months.’

  ‘Do you say,’ persisted Mr Carstairs, ‘that this is not the menu of the hotel you’ve been talking about?’

  ‘All I say,’ said Mr Blandish, ‘is that such a menu was not produced to me, and I did not see it in the waiter’s hands.’

  ‘What about the wine list?’ asked Mr Carstairs.

  ‘In view of everything else,’ said Mr Blandish, ‘I didn’t bother to ask for one.’

  ‘Have a look at this then, please.’

  A wine list was then handed to the witness. Mr Blandish looked at it.

  ‘Is this supposed to be the wine list of the hotel that I’ve been talking about?’

  ‘It certainly is,’ said counsel.

  ‘Well, all I can say,’ said Mr Blandish, ‘is this. I do not believe for one moment that the hotel which treated me in the way I was treated, which supplied the food with which I was supplied, and where the girl in the bar didn’t know what was meant by a dry Martini, I do not believe that such a hotel would have a wine list like this.’

  ‘How would you describe this wine list?’ I asked.

  ‘Very good indeed,’ said Mr Blandish. ‘Of course without trying the wine, I can’t say whether it comes up to the wine list, but from a casual glance, I should say it was one of the best wine lists that I’ve ever seen. And if you’ll give me a moment, your honour,’ he added, ‘I’ll say something about the prices.’ He paused. ‘They seem extremely reasonable. Of course anyone can print a wine list. Even in good places you sometimes find that the wine on the wine list is not available. In bad places this happens very frequently, particularly with regard to the vintages.’

  Mr Blandish then left the witness box, and Mr Cutworthy went on with his evidence. He was asked what he said about Mr Blandish’s further evidence.

  ‘I simply don’t understand it,’ he said. ‘I know the sort of place which Mr Blandish has described, and I sympathise with him on the treatment he received. But it simply cannot have been my place. Take only a tiny example. It’s quite true that one of my receptionists (and I have three) one of my receptionists does occasionally help behind the bar if the barman is off duty. But she knows her job extremely well. She makes as good a dry Martini as any barman that I know. We get a lot of Americans coming to our hotel, your honour, and they are delighted with our dry Martinis. Mr Blandish must have been talking about a different place.’

  I was extremely puzzled. And, when counsel suggested that they should all visit Mr Cutworthy’s hotel, it seemed to me that it was the only practicable solution to the problem. Mr Cutworthy then suggested through his counsel that we should all lunch there at his expense. I was prepared to lunch there with both parties and their counsel, but I said that I insisted on paying a proper sum for myself.

  So the case was adjourned and we all went down to the Excelsior Hotel. It was a very different place from that described by Mr Blandish. And he agreed that everything, service, food and wine was superb, and that the price, though high, was not at all unreasonable for what was provided. He further agreed that the place came fully up to the statements made in the letters written to him before he went there. After lunch, we returned to the court. Mr Blandish was invited to go into the witness box again. He stood in the witness box for a full half minute without saying anything at all. Eventually I said: ‘You seem at a loss for words.’

  ‘I am, your honour.’

  ‘You agree, then,’ I said, ‘that, what must have been obvious to all of us, this was one of the most splendid lunches you’ve ever attended.’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  ‘Then,’ I said, ‘you must answer this question. Is the hotel we went to the same place that you described to me this morning?’

  ‘I just don’t know what to say, your honour. I could have sworn it was, and yet it can’t be. And yet again, I registered there, and they still have my registration. And if it’s not the place I gave evidence about this morning, where is that place? I can’t have imagined it. I can only suggest that either as a result of my visit, or for some other reason, the proprietors or manager of this hotel suddenly had a change of heart, and completely altered the nature of the hotel. But I must admit, I shouldn’t have thought it possible for the man whom I saw to perform such a miracle of change.’

  ‘What about the young lady?’ I asked.

  ‘As to that,’ said Mr Blandish, ‘I can only say that her Martinis are excellent, and that her behaviour to us was the very reverse of what I experienced from the girl who attended to me. But undoubtedly they do look rather alike. On the other hand, I find it very difficult to think that such a metamorphosis can have taken place in her case either. It was the attitude of mind, your honour. Both the manager and the girl were surly-minded, and behaved accordingly. This gentleman and this girl are completely different people. Actors on the stage can play all sorts of different parts, but I can’t conceive it being done to such an extent in real life.’

  After all the evidence had been given, I invited counsel on both sides to my private room.

  ‘This is one of the most puzzling cases I’ve ever tried,’ I said. ‘As at present advised, I believe both your clients, yet they can’t both be right. I don’t think the explanation can be that there was a change of heart on the part of Mr Cutworthy and his staff. I think Mr Blandish is right when he says it’s an attitude of mind. To be quite frank with you, I have no idea what the explanation is.’

  Counsel admitted to me that they too were equally in the dark. I then suggested that, in view of the excellent lunch which they’d had at the expense of Mr Cutworthy, it might be possible for them to come to a solution of the case which would not involve a slur upon anyone. And eventually, after some little bargaining between counsel, a settlement was reached. The action was withdrawn, and each party paid its own costs. Which meant that both Mr Blandish and the Excelsior Hotel Company were each liable to their own solicitors for about £100. So in effect each party had lost. Only the lawyers had gained. Nevertheless it seemed to me the only practicable solution to the matter and I w
as glad that I did not have to give a decision myself.

  But for some time I remained extremely puzzled about it. I was used to cases where one party swore it was black, and the other party swore it was white, and the answer was grey. I was used to cases where one party swore it was black, and the other swore it was white, and the answer was black or white, or even orange, but this case didn’t fit into any category. I wondered about it for days, and, although after some time other problems and events drove thoughts of it out of my mind, my brain still went back to it from time to time and I tried to solve the mystery. But always without success.

  Then, one day, during a weekend when I was passing near the hotel in question, I decided to pay it a visit. The place was crowded. There is no doubt that in consequence of the excellent way in which it was run, coupled with the very great publicity which the case had attracted – ‘The Phantom Hotel Case’ it was called by some newspapers – the hotel had attracted a huge clientele. I managed to get a table for dinner but only because one had been cancelled. I found that everything was as perfect as it could be. When I had finished, I asked the waiter if I could see the manager. I wanted to congratulate him.

  ‘The manager, sir?’ said the waiter. ‘I hope there’s nothing wrong.’

  ‘Oh no,’ I said, ‘on the contrary.’

  ‘Very good, sir,’ said the waiter. ‘He’ll be with you in a moment.’

  A few minutes later the manager arrived. But it was not Mr Cutworthy, it was Mr Blandish. The case was a mystery to me no longer.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Retrial

  As a County Court judge I did not try criminal cases. But, oddly enough, in the story which I am going to tell you, that’s in effect what I had to do. As a barrister I should not have liked to have had a criminal practice. Of course there are interesting cases from time to time, but most of them have a certain sameness. You would soon get used to the following dialogue:

  Counsel: Did you steal it?

  Old Lag: What should I want to steal it for?

  It’s very odd the way even the most hardened criminal often tries to avoid giving the direct negative answer when it would be a lie. He prefers to parry the question by saying, ‘what should I want to steal it for?’ He funks the lie direct. ‘What should I want to steal it for?’ he says. And of course it isn’t only old lags who do this. Quite respectable people sometimes try to avoid telling a lie by this subterfuge.