by Max Hennessy
‘Yes, it was, I suppose.’
‘Why?’
‘It was difficult to control.’
‘Why? Did it buck or rear or throw you?’
‘No. It had a habit of following Colonel Prideaux’s horse everywhere. I think at some time in its transport days it had been a team-mate of the Colonel’s horse and it had got into the habit of going where its lead-horse went.’
‘This must have been disconcerting on parade?’
‘For the most part we tried to keep them apart but there was a great shortage of horses and it wasn’t always possible.’
‘Did the horse follow Colonel Prideaux’s mount on parade?’
‘Yes. I had a few names for it myself at times.’
There was another ripple of laughter from the gallery, but there were a few puzzled expressions, too, as everyone wondered what Moyalan was getting at.
‘I’m sure you had a few names for it,’ Moyalan said. ‘It followed the Colonel’s horse everywhere?’
‘Yes. I suppose it did.’
Kirkham was frowning, puzzled, and there were a lot of curious glances from the public gallery. Women’s heads bent together as they began to wonder what Moyalan was up to.
He made no attempt to enlighten them, however, and called off the questioning abruptly, just when they were beginning to speculate on its direction, and nodded shortly at the witness.
‘Thank you, Mr. Murray-Hughes,’ he said quietly. ‘That is all.’
7
The search – 1
Moyalan’s face was worried as he sat at his desk in his chambers, talking quietly with Higgins over the documents. Potter lounged in the overstuffed armchair by the window and listened to the tugs on the river outside as he read the evening paper.
The case was already becoming quite a cause célèbre, he noticed. People had been talking about it in the Strand as they had emerged from the Law Courts and he had little doubt, in spite of the international news, that it was occupying the attention of the home-going thousands on the Underground. With the case for Prideaux concluded, London seemed already to have split up into two camps. For the most part, public opinion seemed to favour Prideaux, and the newspapers, though unable to comment on the case itself, seemed to be similarly taking sides.
‘It will be a discussion,’ said one of them, which was backing as hard as it could go the mechanisation of the remaining British horsed cavalry regiments, ‘on the merits of mechanisation or non-mechanisation.’
‘Damned if it will,’ Potter commented bitterly. ‘Far more than mechanisation involved.’
It was only when Moyalan stopped muttering that he realised his indignation had caused him to speak aloud, and he turned and smiled with disarming apology. Moyalan stared at him for a second, his face grave, then he indicated a tray that had been placed on his desk.
‘I think we’re all getting a little worked up,’ he said calmly. ‘I suggest we have a cup of tea to cool off and then we can consider where we go next.’
Potter put the paper aside. The tea was served in thin china cups and arranged on the tray, he thought wryly, in a way that no tea ought ever to be served in a hard-working office. It smacked somehow of decadence and over-indulgence.
Nevertheless, when they had finished, Moyalan’s summing up of the day’s events was by no means the work of an amateur. It was shrewd and intelligent and it gave points of success to Kirkham where he deserved them.
‘The onus,’ he said, ‘is now on us to prove them wrong. It’s no good Comment saying, as they wished to say, that these are momentous days, and, with all the uproar that was going on about Munich at the time, the contents of the letter were not noticed and that a careless junior allowed it to go through. We’ve got to put that sort of thinking aside. We must brazen it out.’ He paused and turned over papers. ‘I’ve had a lot of difficulty persuading the directors of Comment of this,’ he went on, ‘because they felt they’d be wiser to throw themselves on the mercy of the court and plead special circumstances. This seemed to suggest guilt on the part of the other defendant, however, and I can’t allow it. Our best answer is simply to prove counsel for the plaintiff wrong.
‘However…’ he paused ‘…it’s never enough for any counsel to say simply that a man behaved out of character. Juries just won’t accept it, and even if ours will, the judge will probably direct that it mustn’t, because we have here a man with a good record as a soldier before Dankoi and a good record afterwards, doing something that just doesn’t seem to fit. We must show why he so behaved, because, otherwise, the jury will take the more straight-forward view that he didn’t. They’ll consider instead that the defence witnesses are merely a lot of men who stood against him in Russia because they were prompted by jealousy or resentment and that, therefore, their evidence is not to be trusted.’
He paused and looked up, and Potter glanced at Higgins and rubbed his nose.
‘Doesn’t look a very rosy picture,’ he admitted ruefully.
Higgins sat quietly, a little out of his depth in the byways of the law.
Moyalan gazed at him for a moment, frowning in bewilderment at his stillness and anonymity, then he drew a deep breath and went on quickly, staring at a list of witnesses. ‘I have perhaps,’ he said, ‘with the aid of Professor Forrest – and even with Murray-Hughes, too, I suppose – put the idea into the minds of the jury that something rather odd was brewing up in Russia, but we still need someone else to confirm what we’ve so far only suggested.’
‘What about Finch?’ Potter suggested.
‘That’s what I was thinking,’ Moyalan admitted. ‘But my clerk tells me that the private enquiry agent I put on to him hasn’t been able to turn him up. He’s separated from his wife, it appears, and she has no idea where he is, and hasn’t had for some time. And the army seems to have a habit of looking after its own and hasn’t been very helpful in the matter.’ He paused and looked at Potter who gazed back at him and smiled.
‘Know what you’re after,’ he said cheerfully. ‘Want me to look for him.’
Moyalan’s eyes wrinkled gratefully. ‘Yes, Willie,’ he said. ‘I do. You’re a half-colonel now, you must know people at the War Office. You must be able to find out things that other people can’t.’
‘Yes. Suppose I can.’
‘Then the ball seems to be in your court.’
Potter rubbed his nose and pulled a face. ‘Hell of a job to have thrown in your lap,’ he murmured. ‘Could be at the other side of the world.’
‘On the other hand, he could be here in London. I’d be glad if you’d start at once. Tonight, if possible.’
Potter grimaced. ‘They’re not in the habit of working late at the War House,’ he pointed out.
* * *
Fortunately for Potter, the recent news from the Continent had changed the situation at the War Office a little and a few people had begun to form the habit of working late.
His face was unusually grave as he left Moyalan’s chambers. He watched Higgins’ cab move off in the direction of Trafalgar Square, staring after it with a puzzled expression on his face, his mind busy, then he tapped with his umbrella on the pavement, considering what he had agreed to do.
‘Must be barmy,’ he decided. ‘Getting myself involved in this.’
For a moment, he felt overwhelmed by the size of the task, then he turned and walked towards a telephone box he could see through the home-going crowds.
* * *
Meg Danielsson answered his call.
‘Why me, Mr. Potter?’ she asked, puzzled, when he explained what he wanted. ‘How can I help?’
‘Don’t know really.’ Potter was irritatingly vague. ‘Sure you can, though. Finch was a great one for the ladies and I’m sure having one around would come in useful. It’s just a feeling I’ve got.’
‘What about the office?’
‘It’ll work out. In the meantime, you might dig out all that stuff we turned up on Finch. I’ve got to find him and it might suggest a le
ad. Take it home where it’s quiet and have a glance through it. See if you can find anything that’ll help.’ He paused. ‘There’s just one other thing – as I look like being busy for a day or two, you might make a point of ringing my flat from time to time. Just in case.’
‘Just in case what?’
‘Rather expecting some papers and I might not get back to pick ’em up.’
‘Won’t they come to the office?’
‘Not these papers.’
He could almost hear the bewilderment in her voice as he brushed the subject aside.
‘What’s it all about, Mr. Potter?’ she asked. ‘Why are we looking for this Finch?’
‘Moyalan wants us to.’ Potter gestured in the privacy of the phone booth. ‘Might need him. You’ve been long enough in a solicitor’s office now, Danny, to know there are two views to every truth – your own side and the other side’s. And Murray-Hughes’ evidence this morning turned out to be sufficiently different from our truth to be not the truth. Finch might be able to put the picture straight.’
She was silent, as though trying to understand, and he went on to explain.
‘All those books and histories and things about Russia that were published by Murray-Hughes and other people since it happened, are going to take some getting round,’ he went on, in what was for him an extremely long and coherent speech. ‘People believe ’em and what people have come to believe is hard suddenly to disbelieve. F’r’instance, if there were a case tomorrow touching on the death of Nelson, counsel would find it damned hard to convince the jury after all these years that he never said “Kiss me, Hardy.” Someone at the time said that he did, and it’s been repeated again and again and, after all these years, everybody’s come to accept it as a fact; so that if what he actually said was “God damn you, Hardy, it was all your fault,” it would need at least a dozen good witnesses to say so, before the jury would be prepared to change their minds about it. See what I mean?’
‘I suppose so.’ She still sounded puzzled and, realising he could never explain properly over the telephone, he stopped trying and gave her final instructions instead.
‘Anything you find out on Finch,’ he said, ‘make a note of it for Moyalan. I’ll call in at your flat after I’ve finished what I’m doing.’
* * *
In spite of Potter’s gloomy predictions, the War Office was humming with life and Brigadier Hector James Dartwell Brice, an old friend of his, was still sitting behind his desk staring at papers, a puzzled frown on his face. With one hand he held the telephone to his ear.
‘No,’ he was saying loudly into it. ‘The bloody man can’t go on leave. The Judge-Advocate’s Department would throw a duck-fit. Use your loaf, old man, for God’s sake! We’ve other things to think about than that just now!’
He slammed the telephone down, closed the file in front of him with a look on his face that suggested he was glad to be rid of it for a while, and smiled at Potter.
‘Hello, Willie,’ he said. ‘How’re the Saturday afternoon soldiers?’
Potter grinned. ‘Exhausted and jaded from doing nothing by numbers.’
‘Take a pew. What have you come about this time? Business?’
‘In a way.’
‘No need to rush, you know,’ Brice advised. ‘It hasn’t started yet. We’ll let you know when you’re needed. Are your lot ready?’
Potter’s smile faded. ‘We’re ready,’ he said. ‘When will it be, Hector?’
Brice grimaced. ‘I’ll put it at not later than two months from now,’ he said. ‘That bloody baboon in Germany’s not going to be satisfied with what they gave him at Munich any more than he was last time. We’re chewing on a tough tit, Willie.’
Potter stared at his feet. ‘Two months, eh?’ he said slowly. ‘Funny feeling, isn’t it? Two months from now everything comes to a stop again.’
Brice shrugged, with the indifference of a man who was used to having his life turned upside-down by inconvenient postings. ‘We survived last time,’ he said shortly. ‘We’ll survive next time, too, in spite of the spineless bastards in the Commons who’ve never had the guts to stand up to him.’ He paused and drew a deep deliberate breath. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘It always gets me going and I don’t suppose you came to hear a lecture from me. What’s it about? Hitler or,’ he looked up, ‘or Prideaux?’
‘Prideaux.’ Potter’s face was blank but Brice was not put off. He had known Potter long enough to be aware that his off-hand manner was a carefully cultivated pose.
‘Thought it might be,’ he said. ‘Knew you were involved.’ He paused. ‘What are you trying to do, Willie? Crucify him? What’s this damned Higgins got against him, because it’ll do you no good. The army takes a dim view of slanging matches between officers. Doesn’t like people rocking the boat.’
‘I have to accept that,’ Potter pointed out quietly.
Brice peered at him through narrow eyes. ‘Come on, Willie,’ he urged. ‘What happened at Dankoi?’
Potter laughed. ‘Sub judice, Hector,’ he said. ‘Can’t really discuss it.’
Brice gestured. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Ours not to reason why. Though it’s a hell of a time to come worrying me, and I’m not entering into any plots to pull the plug on Prideaux. Not even for you, Willie.’
Potter’s face was grave. ‘It’s no plot,’ he said. ‘I’m looking for someone, that’s all.’
‘Who?’
‘Charles Thomas Entwistle Finch.’
‘Christ! Who’s he when he’s at home?’
‘Lieutenant-colonel. Retired.’
‘Is he, by God? What outfit?’
‘Some four-legged crowd. He was at Dankoi. Prideaux’s second-in-command.’
Brice stared at Potter, then he went on abruptly. ‘I expect we can turn him up for you. What do you want him for?’
‘Corroborative evidence.’
‘To do Prideaux down?’
‘Finch’s the man I want,’ Potter said mildly.
Brice gazed at him. ‘Not giving away much in return are you?’ he commented. ‘When do you want to know?’
‘Now, if you can tell me.’
Brice frowned. ‘Well, I can’t,’ he said. ‘You’ll have to see Rutherford in Records. And he’s busy as hell. You can imagine.’
‘Suspect Records can’t help,’ Potter said gently. ‘Finch’s disappeared.’
‘What about Pensions then? Try Athill. Not that he’s here at the moment. He nips off early to Surrey every other evening to see the wife of a chap who’s been posted to Egypt.’
Potter laughed and Brice gestured ruefully.
‘It’s a dog’s life really, old man,’ he said heavily. ‘However, I’ll carry out a reccy for you first thing Monday morning. I’m away till then. R.A.F.’s flying me up to Scotland on business. You’ll have noticed things are happening.’
Potter was drooping a little by the time he reached his secretary’s flat later in the evening. She was struggling through a pile of papers when he arrived, an empty glass alongside her elbow, and she got to her feet at once. ‘What happened?’ she asked, handing him a drink.
He shrugged. ‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘Dead loss. Hitler’s getting in the way a bit. Find anything on Finch?’
‘Not really,’ she said apologetically. ‘He left the army after the war. He never seems to have done much work since, though. Married, 1922…’
‘Who?’
‘A Maisie Dugan, of Birmingham. Her father kept a hotel.’
Potter smiled. ‘Doesn’t sound exactly like Finch’s type.’ He paused and sipped at his drink. ‘On the other hand, however, she’s probably just his type. Any addresses?’
‘Not really. His last was a hotel in Russell Square but they don’t know where he went. His wife lives in Leamington Spa. Two, Acacia Avenue, Enderby. I’ve looked it up. It seems to be a housing estate.’
‘What it is to have an efficient secretary.’ Potter pulled a face. ‘Friend Finch seems to have come down in the w
orld a bit, though, doesn’t he?’ he said. ‘He’ll probably take a bit of finding. Nothing more?’
‘No. There was a solicitor’s address and I rang them but they’ve not been in touch with him for years.’
‘Seems we’re drawing a blank.’
She was silent for a moment then, as though the Higgins-Prideaux case had been on her mind ever since he’d rung her, she brought it into the conversation.
‘Mr. Potter,’ she said. ‘I’ve been thinking about this business. Why did Higgins write that letter? He must have been mad. It was asking for trouble. He must have known that Prideaux would bring an action against him.’
Potter nodded. ‘He knew all right,’ he agreed.
‘But he still went ahead?’
Potter shrugged. ‘Time had arrived, I suppose,’ he observed. ‘Knew Prideaux was a great one for going to law. He knew he’d not be able to resist this one.’
She indicated the evening paper. ‘Mr. Potter,’ she said. ‘Moyalan’s going to have an awful job to prove that comment wasn’t libellous.’
Potter smiled. ‘According to Moyalan,’ he said cheerfully, ‘that’s largely up to me and Colonel Charles Thomas Entwistle Finch.’
Part Two
1
Busby
Moyalan opened quietly for the defence the following morning. He stood up among the black-gowned, bewigged figures before the judge – small, slight, and at first unimpressive. But his voice was deep and incisive, in direct contrast to Kirkham’s actor’s delivery.
‘There is no dispute, my lord,’ he said at once, ‘about the fact that the defendants were the authors and publishers of the words complained of by the plaintiff. The issue before us rests, in our view, not on that fact, but on the interpretation put upon the words. The plaintiff has claimed through counsel that these words suggest that he wasn’t present at Dankoi when the fight there took place, and that therefore they can have nothing but a significant effect on his career. The defence, my lord, claims that the words suggest something entirely different. The defendant did not, and still does not, attempt to suggest that General Prideaux was not present at Dankoi or did not order the charge there to take place. These facts are accepted. We do suggest, however, that in view of his actions before and after the affair at Dankoi, the words are a true representation of the facts. The defence will seek to prove this.’