Read Online B-Berry and I Look Back by Dornford Yates - Free Book Online

bring in. I have come down to see that the chauffeur’s case is fairly and squarely presented, to show that he did his utmost to save this valuable life. And don’t forget, gentlemen, that he would be dead himself, if he hadn’t had that canopy over his head.’”
    “That was very skilful,” said Berry. “And now tell me this – if you’d failed, and they’d returned a verdict of manslaughter, he’d have been committed for trial. Would he have got off at the Assizes?”
    “I think he would. There wouldn’t have been the same prejudice there, you see. And counsel would have lammed in the fact that the cyclist never gave him a chance – which was, of course, perfectly true. But that was a card which I was afraid to play, because of the prejudice.”
    “I give you best,” said Jonah. “It was a very good win. Even better than it looks.”
    “Why d’you say that?” said Daphne.
    My cousin looked at me and smiled, and I smiled back.
    “He said it, my darling, because he is very shrewd. I concentrated the Court’s attention upon the accident itself. I did my utmost to keep their eyes fixed upon that – because I was deadly afraid of one very awkward question.”
    My sister leaned forward.
    “What was that question, Boy?”
    “Well, supposing somebody’d asked the chauffeur this – ‘You tried to save the man’s life by putting your foot right down. Why didn’t you try to save it by applying your brakes?’”
    My sister clapped a hand to her mouth.
    “Exactly,” said I.
    “D’you know,” said Daphne, “it never occurred to me.”
    “For the same reason,” said I, “that it didn’t occur to the jury. I kept your eyes on the accident all the time.”
    “Talking of Coroners,” said Jonah, “what is ‘The Coroner of the Verge’?”
    “‘The Coroner of the Verge’ was the Coroner of the Royal Household. I use the past tense, because I believe the old title is now no longer used. ‘Within the Verge’, originally meant ‘Within ten or twelve miles of the Sovereign’s Court’; but by the time of HM King Edward the Seventh, ‘The Verge’ had come to mean ‘The precincts of the Sovereign’s residence’. If anyone died in those precincts and a doctor felt unable to give a death certificate, an inquest was held by ‘The Coroner of the Verge’. The idea was, no doubt, to preserve the privacy of the Court. I think the office survives, but that its holder is now known as ‘The Coroner of the Queen’s Household’.
    “I remember Montague Guest’s sudden death in King Edward the Seventh’s reign. He was a very nice man, a close friend of the King’s, and was staying at Sandringham. One day he went out with the guns, though he wasn’t shooting himself: and he had a heart attack and died on the spot. It was expected that an inquest would be held by The Coroner of the Verge: but Guest’s doctor came down to Sandringham and signed the death certificate, because he had been attending him for heart trouble for a long time and was not at all surprised by his sudden death. Walking over the fields had been too much for him.”
    “Were you often in the Coroner’s Court?”
    “Only about half a dozen times, I’m thankful to say. It’s atmosphere is unpleasant, as you may well believe.”
    “Sordid,” said Berry.
    “It’s not exactly sordid. At least, it’s no more sordid than that of some Metropolitan Police Courts I could name. But the raison d’être of the Coroner’s Court is death – sometimes a dreadful death. And many tears are shed there, and painful evidence is heard. The only occasion on which I didn’t notice the atmosphere was at the inquest on Belle Elmore.”
    “The Crippen Case?”
    “Yes. It was all so dramatic and there was so much excitement that it didn’t seem like a Coroner’s Court. Then again there were no relatives. Even Crippen wasn’t there.”
    “Why not?”
    “I think he was on the high seas. There was no reason why he should be there. Human