CHAPTER VIII
THE VAUX HOUSE CASE
THE Rullington case had come on, had dragged its ugly length through twenty sensational columns of print, and had ended with honours—or, rather, dishonours—easy. Incidentally, it sent Geoffrey Herriard several rungs up the ladder of success. His position now was enviable and seemed assured, thanks to the strong, acute brain which backed him. It was, perhaps, a cynical pleasure to Gastineau, lying helpless, to feel that, nevertheless, he was not entirely impotent, to strike vicious blows from behind his living mask; to make his personality still felt in a world to which it was dead. The lust for fighting still burned fiercely within him; he could indulge it, and grimly watch the effect of his tactics, his cunning lunges, his deft parries. Perhaps, too, there was a certain joy in holding a man’s career and reputation in the hollow of his hand. Herriard was an apt pupil; still, he was, after all, but a pupil. The clear grasp of the case or of a situation, the piercing, unerring insight into the legal and political complications, above all, the gift of forecasting probable developments, all these were not to be acquired: they could only be communicated from master to pupil as occasion arose. Herriard, with Gastineau’s guidance withdrawn, would have been left a man of fluency, of reputation, but with no administrative power behind them; one who would probably fail at a crisis, who at the parting of the ways would be as likely to take the wrong road as the right. Each man knew this, and each wondered at times whether the other knew it. Certainly Herriard never showed the slightest suggestion that he could get on without his mentor. On the contrary, now that his reputation at the Bar seemed established, he was just as assiduous as ever in paying his evening visits to the secluded house in Mayfair for instruction in the next day’s procedure. And Gastineau, on his part, never seemed to weary of taking his friend at great pains through the minutest convolutions and ramifications of his work. It was like an old chess-player instructing a prentice hand in the analysis of openings, moves, and counter-moves, of attack and defence.
But one day a strange thing happened. At the rising of the Courts a knotty legal point which had been sprung upon Herriard by the opening counsel remained undecided. Herriard was going to speak in the House that night, and so, being rather nonplussed by the point of law, and not knowing when he might get away from the division, he jumped into a hansom and drove off to Mayfair with the intention of putting the point to Gastineau while the arguments were still fresh in his mind, and so being put up to a telling reply.
To his surprise, and for the first time during their acquaintance, Gastineau was denied to him. The bolt of the latch was shot, and his key would not turn it. He rang, and Gastineau’s man, Hencher, who opened the door, said, with a manner of significant insistence, that his master could not see Mr. Herriard that afternoon.
Herriard stared. Such a reception was the last thing he would have looked for.
“Is anything the matter?” he enquired anxiously. “Mr. Murray is not ill, not worse?”
Yes; Hencher thought, his master was ill, at least he was in great pain. He could not bring himself to see any one just then; and hoped, if Mr. Herriard called, he would make allowances and forgive him.
There was no more to be said. The impulse of friendship and gratitude had at first prompted Herriard to go up and see whether he could be of any use or comfort in alleviating the stricken man’s sufferings, but Hencher stood uncompromisingly in the aperture of the half-opened door, and made no suggestion of admitting him. So Herriard, with a sympathetic message for his friend, turned away, puzzled and a little hurt. Pain? It was curious. Since the accident which crippled him he had never heard Gastineau complain of pain. His state had been one of sheer helplessness and, so far as his lower limbs were concerned, of complete insensibility. Then, even if Gastineau were in pain, why had he refused to see the man who obviously was his only friend? He could not understand it. Had Gastineau’s feelings changed towards him? He could think of no reason why that should be. The incident worried and depressed him more than he cared to own; anyhow, though, he would return that night when the House was up, and then doubtless would know the reason of that strange denial.
When at a late hour he drove up, the lock which he had half expected to find secured against him, yielded to his key, and Gastineau received him with all his usual suggestion of warmth, and with a laughing apology for what had happened in the afternoon. “But really, my dear Geof, I was not fit to receive a dog, let alone my best friend, my only friend. I can’t forget that, you know,” he added, with a fascinating touch of feeling; “and simply dreaded lest my pain might have driven me to an impatience, even with you, which might have cast a shadow between us.”
Herriard could scarcely feel aggrieved after that. Nevertheless two circumstances brought an uncomfortable shadow of doubt to his mind. One was the unusual symptoms of pain, of which he had never heard Gastineau complain before; the other was that, instead of, as he expected, finding his friend ill and exhausted from the afternoon’s attack, he seemed brighter and less helpless than usual. Still, Herriard told himself, he knew little of medical science, had no experience in the strange turns disease would take, and his doubts therefore might be groundless.
“Well, what news?” Gastineau asked.
“Rather good news,” Herriard answered. “I have got a provisional retainer from Bowyers for a big case.”
“What is that?” Gastineau enquired alertly.
“Nothing less than this Vaux House affair. I’m in luck. That will be a sensational case, if you like.”
“I should think so,” Gastineau replied, a peculiar gleam in his eyes contradicting the almost languid interest in his manner. “What is the case? Is the Duke bringing an action?”
“The Duke? No. Countess Alexia of Rohnburg is suing the Daily Comet for libel.”
“Ah! Yes; I anticipated that. The position has been forced upon her. The innuendoes were unmistakable. It is an ugly position for her, though.”
“Particularly, if, as Bowyer assures me, she is absolutely innocent in the matter.”
“So? He says that. And believes it?”
“Certainly, from his manner. The Countess is the victim, it appears, of a suspicion, coloured, unfortunately, by unlucky coincidences.”
“H’m! She is bound to make an effort to put herself right, even by challenging the Daily Comet to a legal duel, poor woman,” Gastineau commented thoughtfully, as he seemed to weigh the Countess’s chances in the professional balance. “You are, of course, briefed for her?”
“Yes; it is a fine opportunity for us—eh?”
“You could not wish for a better. You know the Countess?”
“I have met her and her brother, but don’t know much of them. They seemed very much liked and quite popular—but, of course, Gastineau, you must have known them. They have been over here a good many years now.”
The grey eyes from the couch shot a cross-examiner’s glance at Herriard; then reassumed their former expression of quietly alert interest.
“Oh, yes,” Gastineau answered, “I knew something of them in the old days in my earlier state of existence. It all seems so long ago, my former acquaintances are like the figures in a dream. Yes,” he continued reminiscently; “I recollect the Countess, a handsome, fair girl with a beautiful voice, and more character in her than one usually associates with those of her complexion. And the brother? Yes; more like an Englishman than a foreigner, with a taste for sport, natural rather than acquired; a man whom one would trust to play the game. Well, let’s hope he’ll win it this time. We will do our best, eh, Geof?”
“I hope we shall,” Herriard answered heartily, adding, “Your help will be very necessary here.”
“Of course, my dear boy, you shall have the best I can give you. Although it strikes me you can almost run alone now.”
“Not I,” Herriard protested, wondering whether he detected a note of unwillingness in the other’s speech. “Some cases, naturally, are plain sailing, and I have gained experience and profited immensely under your guidance; but here, I am sure, I should be utterly at sea without you. It will be a terribly delicate case to handle, and the slightest mistake in tactics may make all the difference.”
“No doubt,” Gastineau agreed. “Yet practically the onus probandi will be on the other side. If the Countess has nothing to fear from cross-examination, you ought not to have a very difficult task in getting a verdict. Always supposing, as I say, that she is keeping nothing back.”
“Bowyer is positive. She has at any rate convinced him. And he is no fool.”
“No, old John Bowyer can see farther into a client’s mind than most of his sort. Well, we shall see. Only don’t forget, my dear Geof, that a presumably innocent woman, with as fair and frank an appearance as this Countess Alexia, can be deeper than you and I and all the tribe of Bowyers put together. I am thinking,” he added quickly, “of your reputation. It would be bad for it if you made a mistake now.”
“Under your auspices I don’t think I shall. It looks like being the case of the century. Fancy the Duke in the box under fire from Macvee.”
“So Bowyer thought. The Duke will have a bad quarter of an hour on the subject of the hushing up of the result of the post-mortem.”
“Lucky for Blaydon that he is dead.”
“Yes. He has escaped his Nemesis.”
“It is the only way to escape our Nemesis,” Gastineau returned meaningly.