Henry Northcote

By the time the waiter had returned, the young advocate was addressing himself to the bundle of papers with a remarkable energy. Already a fierce mental excitement had stirred him. His senses, overstimulated by a wine of great potency, and by a too sudden reaction from a state of actual bodily starvation, a fever had been kindled in his frame. And those high ambitions which had reconciled him to existence through so long a period of the most abject penury, yet whose only home had been his wild dreams, had suddenly, at the touch of the magic wand of the enchanter, acquired a name and a local habitation.

It was no wonder that to the eyes of the solicitor, that cool, mature, and rather cynical man of the world, this young man, in whom strong and deep emotions had been let loose, soon became an object of scientific interest. Mr. Whitcomb felt himself to be even a little disconcerted by the feverish manner in which the young advocate tossed about the pages of his brief. As he came to note the vivid pallor of the face before him, the burning of the eyes, the twitching of the lips, he felt a qualm of uneasiness. Perchance it had been neither wise nor kind to be so lavish of the Château Margaux. Blood which had been deteriorated by a course of insufficient food was only too likely to be over-charged by an unaccustomed accession of heat. Already it had seemed to be waxing too high.

“Here is your liqueur,” said Mr. Whitcomb, with a slight perturbation, “and here’s a cigar I’ve chosen for you. And here’s a nice black coffee that may steady you a bit.”

“Thanks, thanks,” muttered Northcote, nodding his head in a mechanical manner.

The solicitor gulped his liqueur, and cut off the end of his cigar.

“Well, old boy,” he said, letting a somewhat whimsical gaze fall upon the man who sat opposite, “do you feel like giving us a bit of a run for our money at the hour of ten-thirty at the Central Criminal Court on Friday morning next, or would you prefer that the chance should be offered to Harris?”

The advocate swallowed his coffee.

“You will have a run for your money all right,” said he, “on Friday morning next. Upon my soul, I believe you have given me a start with the most fascinating case in the world.”

The solicitor pursed up his lips in an expression of genial contradiction.

“If you find fascination in a thing like that,” he said, “you must look very deep. The whole business is sordid, atrocious, bestial. The crime is brutal and perfectly commonplace.”

“Is it not a mere question,” said the advocate, “of the fashion in which one uses one’s eyes, of the plane over which one permits them to stray?”

“There is only one plane, my friend,” said the solicitor, “over which an attorney permits his eyes to stray. That is the obvious diurnal one of matter-of-fact common sense.”

“Yet it may happen,” Northcote rejoined, “that the plane of matter-of-fact common sense may not be identical in the eyes of attorney and advocate.”

“Is not the hour somewhat advanced for a Socratic dialogue?” said the solicitor.

“Also,” persisted Northcote, “the plane of matter-of-fact common sense, in whatever it may consist, may not prove identical in the eyes of the jury and the judge; also in the eyes of the person who committed the crime, and the person who was the victim of it.”

“We are not here to traverse the moral code,” said the solicitor, “or to enter the domain of abstract reason. The English penal law is perfectly explicit upon the point at issue, as I think you will find on Friday.”

Of a sudden Northcote struck the table a violent blow.

“This unhappy woman has been deeply wronged by circumstance,” he said, with a vehemence that was totally unexpected.

“It will do your case no harm to show that to the jury,” said the solicitor, sucking quietly at his cigar. “There is not a scrap of evidence to support such a contention, but it might be of service if it could be upheld.”

“Is it not here that we enter on the higher function of the advocate’s art?” said the young man. “Does it not consist in the evocation of that which lies outside the obvious?”

“You must have it entirely your own way, my dear fellow,” said the solicitor warily. “I don’t propose to play the rôle of Adeimantus at this hour of the night. But I don’t mind remarking that you will have to evoke that which is very far outside the obvious to secure the acquittal of my client on Friday.”

“That is viewing the subject from the plane of matter-of-fact common sense which you are content to inhabit?”

“That is so; I can view it from no other. But may I remark in parenthesis that you are also likely to find the judge and jury inhabiting that plane on Friday.”

“You permit yourself a greater definiteness than I dare to employ,” said Northcote. “But the point I would like to fix is this: Assuming that I am able to evoke that which in your view lies so far outside the obvious as to be non-existent, will you countenance my so doing in the prisoner’s interest?”

The solicitor gave a short nervous jerk to his mustache.

“That is a rather extraordinary proposition to advance,” he said disconcertedly; “and as you are a young man, a beginner, perhaps you will forgive my saying that I consider you hardly wise to advance it.”

“Because we cannot contrive to keep our corns out of the way, eh? We would look upon equity as a sort of fruit of the gods, which mankind may eat of, but may not analyze.”

“I shall not attempt to follow you. But what I would like to say is this,—and I hope, my dear fellow, you, as an advocate, will not consider this as a breach of etiquette on the part of your client,—I don’t like your question at all. In a word, speaking with twenty years’ experience behind me, I hardly think it ought to have been put.”

The accession of somewhat strenuous solemnity to a manner which a minute ago had been grossly, carelessly genial, filled Northcote with a heavy mocking laughter.

“I don’t like it at all; oughtn’t to have been put,” Mr. Whitcomb reaffirmed, with a curious admixture of nervousness and sternness.

“I wonder if I shall ever acquire the most valuable of all the arts,” said the young man, with an arch smile; “the art of knowing where not to look.”

“That art comprises the first law of success,” said the solicitor sententiously.

“I omitted to append a rather important corollary to that extraordinary proposition of mine,” said Northcote, with a mischievous air. “It is this: Is the advocate entitled to evoke what is non-existent in the eyes of his client, providing it has an existence in his own?”

“I hope to be spared anything further upon the subject,” said the solicitor. “I don’t aspire to be a casuist; I’m a common lawyer. But I feel I am entitled to say this: use this subtlety of yours on Friday to a full advantage, and you will have no cause to regret having done so.”

“Yes, it’s the voice of the genie, right enough,” said the young man, in a hollow voice, as he toyed with an empty wine-glass.

“And I feel I am also entitled to say,” said the solicitor, with emphasis, “since your mind appears to be exercised by the question, that when an advocate accepts a brief, his whole duty is to his client.”

“And in the case of this unfortunate woman, will serve the interests of his client by securing her acquittal?”

“Unquestionably.”

“If the ends of justice are thereby defeated?”

“Well, since you force one to say it, the interests of the prisoner’s attorney may not always be coincident with those of justice.”

“My dear Adeimantus, that is well said,” the young man exclaimed. “Yet I have your assurance that the interests of client and advocate should be always identical?”

“Yes, I think you are entitled to say that,” said the solicitor; “although understand, if you please, I speak entirely in my capacity as an attorney.”

“From which I gather that as a unit of mankind, as a subscriber to the common equity, you reserve to yourself the right to appease your private gods subsequently in your own private fashion?”

“I suppose one does.”

“And in the meantime, you and I, attorney and advocate, must compass the liberation of this foul murderess, must, if we can, give her back to society?”

“Personally, I shall be content if we enable her to escape the extreme penalty.”

“You balk my question.”

“Pray have it as you choose. Thank God, I am only a common lawyer!”

“My dear Samuel Whitcomb,” said the young man, peering at him with gaunt eyes, “you would do well to get down here and now on your knees, and thank Him for a dispensation of that kind.”