The Tumbled House

by Winston Graham

  “What did you do then?”

  “Lord Kinley’s comment was so much in line with these other rumours I had heard that I consulted my editor. He agreed that it was a matter of some public interest and suggested I should make further inquiries.”

  “Which you did?”

  “Which I did. And as a result of them I interviewed a Mr Malcolm Sunway, a barrister of the Upper Temple. Mr Sunway occupied chambers near to those of Sir John’s, and he confirmed the unsavoury rumours that had been current at the time of Sir John’s retirement. He was not able to give me precise details, because he asserted that the whole scandal had been carefully hushed up, but he said it was common knowledge that Sir John had been forced to resign. He thought that most of the trouble derived from Sir John’s imprudent friendship with a Mrs Delaney and a Mr Stanley Salem.”

  “Then?”

  “I tried to trace Mrs Delaney but failed. However I learned that she was a woman of doubtful repute whose husband had been warned off the turf. Sir John acted for Mrs Delaney when she divorced her husband. I later interviewed a Miss Dolly Riley, who is a close friend of Mr Robert Delaney, and she informed me that Mrs Delaney became Sir John’s mistress during or at about the time of her divorce. In confirmation of this a letter came into my hands, written to Sir John Marlowe by Mrs Delaney in March, three years ago.”

  “Is this the letter?” Copies of a slip of paper that Mr Lytton held were passed to the judge and the foreman of the jury. Lytton read out:

  “Darling John, I’m so desperately looking forward to seeing

  you again after last week. I never remember a happier or more

  wonderful rime. For me it was like the beginning of a new

  life. Phone me, please.

  Narissa.”

  Lytton looked up. “ Narissa, my Lord, is Mrs Delaney’s first name.”

  The judge said: “ That was written on the twelfth of March? When was Mrs Delaney’s divorce made absolute?”

  “On the twenty-ninth of March, my Lord.… What was your next move, Mr Shorn?”

  “I then tried to trace Mr Stanley Salem. I discovered that he was in prison. He had been a notorious shady financier and confidence trickster and he was serving a sentence for fraud. I interviewed him when he came out. He had been one of Mr Delaney’s greatest friends and also of course he was well known to Mrs Delaney.”

  “So?”

  “In the course of other inquiries, I went down to Cheltenham where Sir John held the office of Recorder. I found that in one case, in October 1956, Salem had come up before Sir John on a charge of false pretences. After strong evidence for the prosecution had been heard, Sir John abruptly ruled on a very unconvincing technical point that there was no case to answer and ordered the prisoner to be discharged.”

  “I don’t quite follow you,” said Mr Justice Alston. “ I thought you said this Salem had just come out of prison.”

  “Yes, my Lord. Six months later he was arrested on another charge and sent for trial at the Old Bailey and sentenced to a term of imprisonment. He was released in March of this year. I saw him then before he left for the Argentine.”

  “What did you ask him?” said Lytton.

  “I asked him about the earlier prosecution when he had been discharged at Cheltenham. He was naturally reluctant to talk about it, but when he saw he had nothing to lose he frankly admitted that Sir John Marlowe had been an old friend of his and had taken the opportunity of doing him a good turn.”

  Mr Lytton pulled out a handkerchief and dabbed his lips. “Now tell us about Sir John’s book.”

  “Well … it was while I was making inquiries about Sir John’s professional reputation that other information came into my hands, and I decided to interview Miss Chislehurst whose brother wrote the original book, Man and the Future. She said she was utterly disgusted with John Marlowe’s behaviour and at the shameless way in which he had stolen her brother’s work. She told me of the worry which was induced by this plagiarism and which preyed on the Reverend George Chislehurst’s mind and resulted in his last illness.”

  “Were you able to obtain any outside confirmation of what she said?”

  “Yes. At about this time, quite by accident, a letter from George Chislehurst to John Marlowe came into my possession.”

  “Yes.”

  “Is this it?”

  More papers were passed round. “As you will see, my Lord, it is dated September of two years ago—the month before Mr Chislehurst died. It begins:

  “Dear John Marlowe, I have given your letter the fullest

  possible consideration, but I cannot change by one degree my

  attitude as to the entirely unauthorised use you have made of

  my ideas in your book. What you have done, in view of our

  one-time friendship, is utterly unethical. Above all it is

  un-Christian. I cannot protest too strongly against it. I can no

  longer believe that you are a man of honour.

  Yours etc. George Chislehurst.”

  Lytton went on: “Did you obtain a copy of George Chislehurst’s book?”

  “Yes. I compared it page by page with John Marlowe’s. The plagiarism is most flagrant and obvious.”

  Mr Lytton fumbled the handkerchief away under his shabby bombazine gown. “Were these the facts that induced you to write your two articles about Sir John Marlowe?”

  “Yes. I was convinced that it was my duty to the public as a journalist to publish what I had discovered.”

  “May I ask what your feelings were as you proceeded with your investigations?”

  Roger glanced briefly across to where Don and Joanna and Bennie were sitting. It was the first time he had looked their way.

  “Reluctance—particularly when so much more was unearthed than I had ever expected I very much regretted that I had to make these charges. I never felt any ill-will towards any of the Marlowes living or dead.”

  “Why did you choose the columns of The Gazette for your exposure?”

  “Because it was The Gazette that instructed me to make the inquiries in the first place.”

  “Did you, when the Marlowes found out your identity, make any attempt to heal the breach?”

  “Yes. I met Mr Don Marlowe several times—also his wife once or twice. On all occasions I did what I could. Even when these verses had been written I tried to prevent the quarrel being dragged into court.”

  “Was that because you were afraid of the outcome?”

  “Not for a moment. I only wanted to save them the needless pain of hearing my evidence and of having all this unpleasant publicity over again.”

  “Thank you, Mr Shorn.” Aubrey Lytton lowered himself back on to his seat.

  There was no question about the impression Roger had made on the court. Mr Justice Alston pulled at his bottom lip and looked across at Mr Doutelle. Mr Doutelle got up, stretching his body like a jackdaw on a branch, flapped his black gown once or twice and then was still.

  “Tell me, Mr Shorn, do you regard yourself as a responsible journalist?”

  “Certainly I do.”

  “You write what you believe to be the truth.”

  “Yes.”

  “The whole truth and nothing but the truth?”

  “I try to.”

  “You try to. Even when it gives great pain and offence to people whose friendship you purport to value?”

  “There are things I have been taught to value more.”

  “Such as what?”

  “My duty to the public as a journalist.”

  “Do you think, supposing these charges you made are true, that the public is any happier for knowing of them?”

  “I think it is better informed.”

  “Oh, yes, the sacred cause of information. Now tell me, just now you said you would gladly have avoided this action if you could, in order to spare your one-time friends the Marlowes the needless pain it would cause them.”

  “Yes.”

  “Did it not occur to you t
hat the needless pain would never have arisen if you had not written these pieces of cheap journalism?”

  “That may be your view of them. It’s not mine.”

  “Would you not agree that the editorial policy of The Gazette has been strongly antagonistic for several years, not only to Sir John Marlowe personally but to his philosophy?”

  “Wouldn’t it be better to ask the editor that?”

  “I am asking you.”

  Roger hesitated. “In our view Sir John Marlowe was in danger of becoming a legendary figure. On insufficient grounds. It was necessary to see him in perspective.”

  “To debunk him.”

  “To put him in perspective by publishing the facts that had come into our possession.”

  Mr Doutelle rubbed his long nose. “ Mr Shorn, if by any chance these articles were not true, if they were all based on a few bits of erroneous information carelessly compiled and insufficiently checked, would you agree with me that they were scurrilous and disgraceful?”

  “They were not so written.”

  “But if they had been so written, would you not agree that the writer was a disgrace to his profession?”

  “I would say that he wasn’t doing his job.”

  “No more than that? Come, Mr Shorn, you are on your own estimate a journalist of repute. Would you not say that a man who maligned another man after his death, on the strength of a few bits of unconfirmed tittle-tattle, should be ‘classed with the skunk and the liar and the funk and expected to live with the same’? Doesn’t that really sum up the situation very well?”

  “I would call him careless and cruel. But that is not the——”

  “Careless and cruel. Thank you.”

  “But that is very far from being the case here.”

  Mr Doutelle brooded a moment, as over an inedible crust. “ Now you say you chose The Gazette in which to publish these relevations, because it was The Gazette which instructed you to make these inquiries in the first place?”

  “Yes.”

  “Your column in The Gazette also no doubt had the advantage over your column in The Sentinel in that it enabled you to remain anonymous.”

  “That did not enter into it.”

  “But if your identity had not been discovered, would you not have maintained your friendship with Mr Don Marlowe, even while in the process of making these terrible accusations against his father?”

  “I did have the hope that my relationship with the living Marlowes would continue unimpaired because I bore them no ill-will and indeed valued their friendship.”

  “Is it not your avowed duty in your column to expose hypocrisy, Mr Shorn? Standing here in this court of law, are you not embarrassed to tell us of your own?”

  “My Lord,” said Mr Lytton, rising, “I must protest most strongly against the manner in which my learned friend is conducting this cross-examination.”

  His Lordship raised his lids an inch. “What have you to say to that, Mr Doutelle?”

  “If your Lordship pleases, I will ask the witness a different question.… Mr Shorn, at the time you wrote these articles Sir John Marlowe had been dead only four months. If you felt the way you do, why didn’t you attack him while he was still alive?”

  “Exactly what I said,” muttered Sir Percy Laycock.

  “Shh,” whispered Marion.

  “I thought nothing at all of it until the time of his death when I had that conversation with Lord Kinley.”

  “But it’s very convenient for you, isn’t it, that he cannot now defend himself?”

  “It would have made no difference.”

  “Not even to The Gazette?”

  “Whatever its shortcomings, The Gazette isn’t afraid of trouble, Mr Doutelle.”

  “According to your conversation with Lord Kinley Sir John Marlowe confessed to being a fraud because his retirement was not voluntary. Did that surprise you?”

  “At the time very much.”

  “Did you express your surprise to Lord Kinley?”

  “Yes, I think I said something to him.”

  “You don’t remember?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “Do you remember if Lord Kinley made any attempt to explain his extraordinary statement?”

  “Isn’t Lord Kinley going to be called?”

  “Yes, but we are concerned at the moment with your processes of thought. I am anxious to know how it is that you can apparently quote this bald statement out of context and nothing more. Where were you at the time? What was happening?”

  “It was at a dinner of the Clothworker’s Guild. After dinner we were talking and smoking, and Sir John’s death came up. Lord Kinley made that remark, but I believe before much more could be said the conversation was turned.”

  “There were others present who heard this remark?”

  “Oh, yes, four or five others.”

  “Mr Shorn, you have just told the court that whether Sir John was alive or dead made no difference to you or to The Sunday Gazette.”

  “That’s true.”

  “Are you suggesting that if Sir John had been alive you would have written or The Sunday Gazette would have dared to publish such articles on so little evidence?”

  “You were asking me what led to our inquiries. Obviously if Sir John had been alive we would have sent a man round to get a statement from him right away.”

  “Did it ever occur to you that, Sir John being dead, the nearest person from whom you could have inquired would have been his son?”

  “It occurred to me, but I felt that he would probably not be in a position to know the facts. Indeed that has proved to be correct. I also felt that even if he was aware that something was wrong he would naturally try to cover up for his father.”

  “But you know Mr Marlowe. You were a friend of his. No reporter was necessary. You only had to ask him the next time you met him at the club. Could you not have gone on to other sources if that one failed?”

  “For the reasons I have told you I did not do so. Sometimes it is essential for a journalist to write on behalf of his paper, however individually responsible he may wish to be.”

  By one-thirty there was a long queue outside the court, and when the principals returned it was crammed with people standing four deep at the back. “ There’s Warner Robinson,” said Don. “The big chap with the loose jowls and the thin hair.”

  “Is he going to give evidence?”

  “I don’t know. That’s Laurence Heath, secretary of the Hanover; he’s evidently got away from his operating table. And Knowles; and I think that’s the Editor of The Sentinel. Behind him is Lord Queenswood, the man with the pince-nez; I don’t see Michael here, Bennie.”

  “No, he’s in Liverpool.”

  The court-associate was motioning Roger to re-enter the witness-box. He had just got there when the judge entered and they all rose. When he had bowed to the court and sat down they seated themselves again, all except Roger—and Mr Doutelle, who was bent over his brief.

  After a minute he straightened up and gave his wings a flap.

  “Now, Mr Shorn, let us get on with these other accusations which you have brought. You said you were told by a Miss Dolly Riley that Mrs. Delaney became Sir John Marlowe’s mistress. When were you told that?”

  “I had heard it from other sources. She confirmed it when I interviewed her in August of this year.”

  “Did you know that Miss Riley was born near Aintree and that until twelve months ago had never been to London except on a visit?”

  Roger smiled slightly. “ I know that Miss Riley is at present living with Mr Robert Delaney, Mrs Delaney’s ex-husband.”

  “Do you think that establishes her as an authority on something that happened in London two years before she left the North of England?”

  “I should have thought even you would agree that she would be likely to have first-hand information on it from Mr Delaney.”

  “And you think her testimony is sufficient evidence on which to base your charge that
Sir John Marlowe and Mrs Delaney were intimate at a time when Sir John was appearing professionally on Mrs Delaney’s behalf?”

  “I never said that.”

  His Lordship turned over his papers. “‘During or at about the time of the divorce’, were his words, Mr Doutelle.”

  “Yes,” Roger said. “That was in my examination today—not in the articles. I think there is sufficient totality of evidence that that was true. At or about the time.”

  “What other evidence is there?”

  “The evidence of the letter which has been read you, from Mrs Delaney to Sir John, written before her divorce was made absolute. The fact that Mrs Delaney and Sir John became engaged to be married soon afterwards. The help he gave Stanley Salem. All these add up to the one general conclusion.”

  “It seems to me, Mr Shorn, that you do not appreciate the difference between evidence and assumption. Do you, for instance, when you look down the announcements of forthcoming marriages in The Times every morning—do you necessarily assume that all those couples have been sleeping together for six months already?”

  “No. Only a certain proportion of them.”

  There was a murmur of amusement.

  Mr Jusnce Alston moved his head. “Are you asking us accept that answer, Mr Shorn, as evidence of your attitude mind when you sit down to write your articles?”

  “No, my Lord,” said Roger quickly. “ I’m afraid I allow myself to be provoked into making that remark.”

  Mr Doutelle tipped his wig forward. “In fact, Mr Shorn isn’t it true that your whole approach to your column in The Gazette is precisely summed up by what you have just said namely that you are ready on all occasions to believe the worst of your fellow men?”