“Really, Frank! You’re imagining things.”

“I’m certainly not. I’m beginning to remember them, though. The day after the inquest, Mallett said he had to go to Wiveliscombe. He didn’t go in his own car. Someone called for him. The next day he was out all day. I thought at the time that he was sheepish and silent about where he’d been and what he was doing. It’s perfectly obvious. He was the only available person with the knowledge and the intelligence to ferret this matter out. Someone took him to see these solicitors at Wiveliscombe and from then on he was employed by them to cook up this case. He must have felt rather uncomfortable having us in the house all the time.”

“I thought he seemed quite relieved when we went,” Eleanor remarked. “That would explain it. But that was nearly six months ago. Why has it taken all this time to bring it to court?”

“All this time? Good heavens, woman, this is a Chancery suit. It’s the nearest thing to greased lightning in my experience. What I can’t make out is how it has got to this stage so quickly.”

CHAPTER XIII. Re Gorman, Deceased

To a layman, there is probably little to choose between the various courts of law that are to be found in the vast Gothic pile at the eastern end of the Strand. They vary somewhat in size, but, large or small, they are alike in their dingy livery of grey stone and fumed oak, in their austerely uncomfortable furnishings, in their lancet windows, ingeniously designed to exclude any stray shaft of light that might wander into this quarter of London. To the connoisseur, however, distinctions, invisible to the outsider, leap to the eye. To him, the difference between a Court of Queen’s Bench and one of Chancery is as obvious and as pronounced as the difference between Oxford and Cambridge.

Pettigrew was a common law man to the marrow of his bones, and when, a few weeks later, he pushed open the door of Chancery Court VI, he wished with all his heart that it was Queen’s Bench Court IV just round the corner. The whole atmosphere was alien. The very usher’s shoes squeaked equity. For all the superficial familiarity of his surroundings, he felt a stranger in a strange land.

At least, there were plenty of familiar faces in the body of the court. Not without surprise, he saw Mrs. Gorman sitting in a corner near the back. Her quiet, patient face seemed in some way altered, but he could not determine in what the change consisted. He looked round for Mr. Joliffe, and found him in the opposite corner, at the furthest possible remove from his daughter that was consistent with sitting in the same row. They were ignoring one another’s presence with an intensity possible only to close relations. Further forward, just behind counsel’s seats, was Tom Gorman, stiff and uncomfortable in a new suit. Sitting with Tom was another, smaller man with a strong family likeness to him. He was whispering to a man with a bright-red west-country complexion whom Pettigrew took to be the solicitor from Wiveliscombe. Then Mallett appeared silently in the doorway and padded quietly down to take his seat behind Tom. Mallett seemed out of place in these surroundings. Still more so did the man who followed him-a plain-clothes policeman if ever Pettigrew saw one.

The stage seemed to be set. Pettigrew, waiting patiently for the curtain to go up, wondered what the play was to be about. He had forfeited the opportunity of finding out, because, from a mixture of motives which he had never brought himself to analyse, he had declined Mr. Fitzgibbon’s pressing invitation to give him a proof of his evidence. He was attending obedient to his subpoena to testify in a cause the nature of which he could only guess. Even the parties were uncertain. The cause list stuck up in the corridor outside the court told him that the Plaintiff was Gorman, R. P., and the initials meant nothing to him. He derived a certain amusement from the situation.

Manktelow came in, talking to another counsel, evidently his opponent, whose face was unfamiliar to Pettigrew. While his clerk deposited on the desk in front of him a formidable brief and half a dozen volumes of Law Reports, he looked round the court and caught Pettigrew’s eye. But before he could do more than smile his recognition, the door at the back of the bench was opened, and the court rose as Mr. Justice Pomeroy entered to take his seat.

“May it please your lordship,” said Manktelow. “In this case I appear on behalf of the Plaintiff, Mr. Richard Petherick Gorman, who is a party interested in the settlement to which I shall have to refer your lordship in a moment. My learned friend Mr. Twentyman appears for the Southern Bank Ltd., who are the trustees of the settlement and the first Defendants in the action. The second Defendant, Mrs. Edna Mary Gorman”-he lowered his voice to break the shocking news-“she, my lord, is not represented. She has entered an appearance but taken no further part in the proceedings. She appears here in person.”

“In person, Mr. Manktelow? In a case of this nature, that is very unusual.”

“Unusual and unfortunate, my lord. I think I should tell your lordship that those instructing me have more than once urged Mrs. Gorman to take advice in the matter. So far as the costs were concerned my client was prepared to give an undertaking-”

“Is Mrs. Gorman present?”

“I am here, my lord.”

Mrs. Gorman stood up, a not particularly good-looking woman, dressed in country-made black clothes, her low voice barely carrying across the court. Once more, Pettigrew was struck by a change in her appearance. He could not determine what it was, but for some reason or another she seemed a far more impressive personality, now than he remembered her.

“I am here, my lord,” she repeated.

“Mrs. Gorman, I understand-”

“As this gentleman says, I haven’t got a lawyer,” Mrs. Gorman went on as though the Judge had not spoken. And for some reason her calm insistence on saying her piece in complete disregard of the fact that he was addressing her did not seem to savour of disrespect. “I don’t think I need a lawyer, seeing that all I want is for the truth to be known. I’m sure you’ll help me over that, my lord. I only hope the truth won’t hurt my children, but if it does it can’t be helped.”

She sat down again. There was an awkward little pause. Then the Judge cleared his throat and said, “Very well, Mr. Manktelow.”

“As your lordship pleases. My lord, if I may come at once to the point of this action, it is to determine the order in which two of the persons named in the settlement died. One of them is Gilbert Amos Gorman, and he died, according to his Death Certificate which is before me, on Sunday, September the 10th. My lord, no question arises as to that death. It was a natural one-polycystic disease of the kidneys, I observe-and nobody doubts that he did in fact expire on that date. The other person is John Richard Gorman, the husband of the second Defendant, and the cause of his death is described as shock and internal haemorrhage, the date being recorded in the Certificate as Tuesday, September the 12th. My lord, the contention of the Plaintiff is that that date is wrong. His case will be that John died on or before Saturday, September the 9th.”

“You say that the Death Certificate is wrong, Mr. Manktelow?”

“My lord, I do, and in order that I may put the difficulties before me as clearly as possible, let me add that the Certificate was issued in accordance with the instructions of the coroner after an inquest with a jury. My task is to persuade your lordship that the coroner was wrong. I say that he was wrong, that the witnesses, lay and medical, called before him were wrong, that they were deliberately misled and deceived in the interests of the second Defendant and to the prejudice of my client, the Plaintiff.”