As Berry and I Were Saying by Dornford Yates Read Free Book Online

on it, lolling and smiling and watching Gill.
    “The Crown presented its case, and it was painfully clear that the jury was unimpressed. I never remember a jury that looked so bored.
    “The last witness we called was Cammy’s enemy. Humphreys was as good as his word and took the greatest care to ‘keep his nose to his proof’.”
    “What does that mean?” said Jill.
    “A witness’ proof is a statement of what he is going to say. It is by no means a statement of all he knows. But it is a statement of all that he is allowed to say in any particular case.
    “Now the evidence he gave was not of great importance: it certainly rounded our case, but it did Cammy’s next to no harm. It was very short, and very soon Humphreys sat down. And then Gill made a mistake…
    “I know that’s a big thing to say, for Gill was a brilliant man, whose little finger was thicker than my loins. But I can’t help that. Perhaps it was Homer nodding. Be that as it may, he made a bad mistake. He failed to leave well alone. In other words, he rose to cross-examine a witness who had done his case no harm, who he knew was dangerous.”
    “But that’s elementary,” said Berry.
    “I know. I hate to say it of Gill, for nobody could have been kinder than he was to me. He asked me to enter his Chambers, which I always felt was a very high compliment. He was almost the finest cross-examiner of his day. But that was nothing. I have sat beside him and seen him extended. And Gill extended made a man hold his breath. By the sheer force of his tremendous personality, I have seen him bend to his will five most hostile Justices of the Peace. Not a jury, mark you. Five cultured English gentlemen, accustomed to dispensing justice. And against their better judgment, he made those men grant bail. It was a great achievement, and only a very great man could have brought it about.
    “And now we’ll go back to Cammy.
    “Gill rose to cross-examine. And these were his only words. ‘In fact, you know very little about it?’ The witness laughed. Then he pointed at Cammy. ‘I only know he’s the biggest receiver in London – an’ so does everyone else.’
    “‘Stand down,’ says Bosanquet, sternly.
    “The witness left the box.
    “But the damage was done. At the witness’ words, the jury sat up as one man. It was just as though they had had an electric shock. And Cammy turned a very unpleasant green.
    “When he summed up the case, the Judge did his best. He told the jury plainly that the witness had no right to say what he did and that they must put his words right out of their minds. But he might as well have told the sun to stand still. At any rate, good as he was, he wasn’t up to Joshua’s standard.
    “The jury retired, and Gill sat comforting himself with the reflection that he would have little difficulty in getting the conviction quashed by the Court of Criminal Appeal.
    “And then the jury returned – and blew his hopes sky-high. They found Cammy guilty, of course. But they added a rider. ‘We should like to say,’ said the foreman, ‘that the irrelevant remark made by the witness – has in no way influenced the decision to which we have come.’ Well, no one – not even Gill – could have won an appeal after that. If you remember, I said that City of London juries were very shrewd.”
    “My God, what a show,” said Berry. “What did Bosanquet give him?”
    “As far as I can remember – eighteen months.”

3
    “I always find it,” said Berry, “matter for regret that I have never been accorded the privilege of observing an apparition. All sorts and conditions of people, whose qualifications and merits in no way compare with mine, have been so accommodated. But though, on more than one occasion, I have passed lack-lustre hours in the most sinister surroundings – because, of course, I had accepted some liar’s advice – never has any apparition stalked or stumbled or floated into my view. Once I undoubtedly heard the