Chapter 23
“With regards to the slander you mentioned, Lord Ravenscar, that remains a civil suit and not under my jurisprudence,” said Justice Henbury.
“With respect, your honour, not in this case, since the slander involved touches upon the succession of my house and the ability of my bride to provide a suitable heir,” said Julian. “The grounds of the slanders passed around suggest that she is not able to bring a competent child to term which would give grounds for divorce, calling the succession into question.”
“I see,” said Henbury.
“It’s not as bad as what you did to me!” howled Denver. “All those mice all over the place, and writing letters purporting to be from a mistress!”
“I have no idea what you are talking about,” said Julian.
“You wrote them! You wrote steamy letters about tying up my member with a garter, and other very intimate things!” cried Denver.
Julian’s face took on the Stormcrow look.
“Your honour, this further public slander, indeed, libel, since it will be recorded, suggesting that I have engaged in the crime of intimacy with the defendant, is a further attack upon the succession,” he said.
“A very serious crime with which to accuse you,” said Henbury, coldly. “Mr. Denver! Are you seriously accusing Lord Ravenscar of engaging in intimate acts with you?”
“God, no!” said Denver. “Only of writing the letters as if from a woman suggesting intimacy.”
“Did you do such a thing, Lord Ravenscar?” asked the judge.
“No, my lord; I wouldn’t know how to set about the task,” said Julian. It was true; he would not. It was why he had hired a professional to do so.
“I think we will turn next to the matter of the housebreaking at the house at Finchley,” said Henbury. “The property belonging to Lady and therefore Lord Ravenscar, but you may sit down, my lord as you were not personally involved. Call Mr. Jilkins."
By the end of the day, Mr. Knightley was looking rather harrowed. His client had picked up a year’s worth of gaol time for contempt of court so far, and the matter of the slander.
“I hope he paid you in advance,” said Julian.
Mr. Knightley looked at him severely.
“Mr. Denver is a gentleman,” he said.
“No, he ain’t,” said Julian. “Not when it comes to paying bills. Good luck!”
Mr Knightley gave him a jaundiced look.
“I have no doubt that I will be paid,” he said, loftily.
“Of course,” said Julian.
The trial took three days. Judge Henbury wanted every matter addressed and considered in relation to everything else. He was pernickety and wanted detail.
Amelia Denver testified against her husband, and tearfully declared that trying to burn her in her own bed surely counted as cruelty worthy of a divorce being granted.
“I would be prepared to sign an affidavit to that effect assuming your husband is found guilty,” said Henbury, cautiously.
“He is the bane of my life! Him with his ideas of making it seem that Anne was insane to have power of attorney on her money, but did he check that she was already betrothed with a prenuptial giving control to Ravenscar? Of course he didn’t!” cried Amelia. “And then when there was notice that the plantation he owned so much of had been struck by a hurricane, and he sets out to cheat someone with a straight exchange of shares, and does he remember the spelling of the place the broker said was valuable? No, of course not, he lets the other party cheat him by giving him worthless shares with a different spelling. He isn’t even efficient when he’s being crooked!” she was ignoring Denver’s frantic signals to be quiet.
“The plaintiff moves to have Mrs. Denver as a witness in the defamation case,” said Julian.
“Granted,” said Henbury. “The defence should consider her a hostile witness.”
“Of course I’m hostile! He tried to burn me in my own bed! And he’s a poor sort of husband anyway, and I should not have believed for one minute that he had a mistress who would write him steamy letters, she’d be too busy laughing at him and his little winkle which isn’t much good at anything. I had to screw a footman to get my daughter! If you ask me, he stole those letters to pretend he had a mistress to make himself seem bigger, and maybe to bring his winkle to over three inches!” declared Amelia. “He had an insurance policy on my poor Clarinda and me, and he took it out three days before he set fire to the house! But he bungled that, as well, thank God, he can’t get anything right, he can’t even manage to be a monster, he’s too pathetic!”
“The jury should disregard Mrs. Denver’s polemic,” said Henbury, whose mouth was twitching again.
“Don’t you dare!” said Mrs. Denver to the jury. “Don’t you let him go making light of my woes, men are all the same, they hang together and if you ask me they should all be hanged together for there’s no use to be had of him that a woman can’t get from a dildo.”
“Madam, I was not making light of your considerable woes,” said Henbury. “Merely pointing out that your comments were not wholly germane to the case currently under consideration. You will have full rein on the subject when covering your husband’s indictment for fraud, and for the defamation case.”
Somewhat mollified, Mrs. Denver allowed herself to be ushered off the witness stand when Mr. Knightley indicated an unwillingness to cross examine.
He was afraid that whatever she said would be even more damning.
The fire brigade gave evidence.
The insurance broker gave evidence.
Dr. Matheson took the stand.
“Tell us about the night of sixteenth inst,” said Henbury.
“Indeed; what a night that was,” said Matheson. “I had been dining with Ravenscar in St. James’ Hotel, a very fine meal it was, beef with mushrooms and a delicate pepper sauce with creamed potatoes and turnips, cabbage, leeks, and peas, as a remove after a very fine salmon en croute with cream cheese and dill, with spinach tossed in butter with a touch of garlic, green peas, and celery. We had a plum pudding to conclude, with a creamy sauce made, I believe, with cream and brandy.” He absently rubbed the belly which still remembered the repast. The Judge cleared his throat and got out his watch, ostentatiously. Matheson flushed. “Anyway, after the meal, Ravenscar’s man drove me home, which is in the same street as that in which Mr. Denver resided, and Ravenscar came in for brandy and coffee, whilst his men went to the kitchen; and we discussed Plato. A most enjoyable evening, up to the time when he came to leave, when we perceived fire. His men left the carriage in the street to accompany us in running towards the fire to rouse all the residents in the street to the danger ensuing, and to get servants out, his coachman going to the back mews which he knew, and pretty soon we had a chain gang with buckets going. Mr. Denver tried to jump out of a downstairs window, but it was over the area, and smoke was billowing out of the coal hole, and he dared not risk it so he went back in to exit via the front door. Lord Ravenscar and I followed Lord Ravenscar’s man into the house, and Lord Ravenscar brought out Miss Denver, whilst I helped Mrs. Denver and her dresser, then we all went back for the servants upstairs, the staircase falling in moments after we had run up it to the first floor. I confess my prayers were fervent but not coherent,” he added. “We got up to the top floor and Ravenscar said we should go to the house next door, the one to the door side, not the one to the coal cellar side, and we did, and went through the box-room window, and down the stairs and onto the street. I might note that there was a powerful strong smell of lamp oil in the vestibule, and I saw stains laid on the stairs on my first trip up, which I avoided, and where flames leaped up as it collapsed. I could not swear that was lamp oil, but I cannot think what else it might be.”
“Anyone who was involved is to be commended that there was no loss of life at all in the conflagration,” said Henbury. “Yourself, Lord Ravenscar, Mr. Watkins and Mr. Hobson as well, of course, as the fire brigade, whose prompt arrival means, I understand, that no harm came to either of the adjacent houses, and that the structural integrity of the building is unharmed. You may cross examine, Mr. Knightley.”
Knightley mopped his brow.
“Are you in the habit of dining with Lord Ravenscar?” he asked.
“No, sir, not at all; it was, however, a dinner in which he wished to obtain my advice and testimony in a civil case against Mr. Denver, with relation to the supposed madness of Lady Ravenscar. As a man of letters, I was able to demonstrate that I had noted in my diary that the lady’s symptoms, as Miss Anne Bonnet, seemed most odd, though I fear I did not follow that thought through, to my guilt and distress on behalf of the poor young lady.”
“Yes, well, that is beyond the question that I asked,” said poor Knightley. “Do you not consider it a coincidence that Mr. Denver’s house….”
“Objection; it’s my house,” said Julian. “He merely lived there and was under foreclosure.”
Knightley cleared his throat.
“The residence of Mr. Denver, then… do you not think it a coincidence that it went on fire the night Ravenscar was dining with you, in light of the belief of my client that Ravenscar was the author of some nasty practical jokes on him?”
“You can object on the grounds that it calls for speculation on the part of the witness, if you wish,” said Henbury.
“I have no need to object; I was with Dr. Matheson all evening, and after we retired to his house, my men were in the company of his man and his curate,” said Julian.
“Is it not true that Mr. Denver had invited you to dinner that night, and you declined?” Asked Knightley.
“I did; I did not put it past him to drug me,” said Julian. “You ain’t supposed to be questioning me yet.”
“And is it not odd that both dinner appointments should fall on the same night?” Knightley persisted to Matheson.
“Why? The sixteenth was a perfectly natural night for any party,” said Matheson.
“May I ask how you come to that conclusion?”
“It was full moon, of course,” said Matheson. “Come, sir, is your social calendar so sparse that you do not consider the state of the moon as a matter of course?”
“I object, the witness should not be questioning me,” said Knightley.
“Sustained,” said Henbury. “Limit your answers to the questions, please, Mr. Matheson.”
“Of course, your honour,” said Matheson. “I might speculate that it pleased the viscount to wreak some childish revenge upon Mr. Denver in terms of schoolboy-type pranks, but there is a big step from hiding a few dead fish about the place or letting mice loose to arson. And moreover, given leave to speculate, I would speculate that whoever took out extra insurance would be seen to be more likely to be the culprit in what is a crime, not a prank. We must consider Cicero, and as ‘Cui bono?’ who benefits? Surely Ravenscar is not the beneficiary of the life insurances on Mrs. and Miss Denver? And I also heard Denver arguing with the Sun Alliance as he was convinced, he was to get the insurance on the house as well as its contents.”
“Well played, Ravenscar,” said Knightley, ruefully. “This is why we don’t like witnesses speculating.”
Julian smirked.
The fire brigade were off the opinion that lamp oil had been splashed liberally about the coal cellar, kitchen, and up the stairs into the vestibule and main stairs.
Their conclusion was that it was arson, and that it would be virtually impossible for anyone not of the household to set the fire.
“Mr. Denver was up and dressed, in his study with a banyan on but over his clothes,” said the leading fireman.
A surprise witness was a doctor whom Julian had called for Mrs. and Miss Denver at the hotel, before he retired to the country.
“It is my opinion,” said that worthy, “That both ladies showed signs of Laudanum use, and both deny taking it voluntarily. I am told that the cook also slept soundly and had to be dragged out of the house leading to speculation that laudanum was introduced via a dish which one person plainly did not partake of.”
“He didn’t touch the goose!” shouted Mrs. Denver from the gallery.
“You must not shout out or I will hold you in contempt,” said Henbury.
“But you need to know!” said Mrs. Denver.
Henbury sighed, and pinched the top of his nose with an incipient headache.
It was one of those cases.
“I call the cook and Mrs. Denver,” he said.
It was officially recorded that the cook had eaten the left overs of the goose, as had Mrs. and Miss Denver; and that Mr. Denver had not.
“No further questions,” said Mr. Knightley.
