Volume Two—Chapter Ten.
Markworth versus Hartshorne.
Markworth was as good as his word.
As soon as he saw that there was no chance of prevailing on the old dowager to pay over Susan’s inheritance without calling in the aid of the law, he quickly set the slowly-moving wheels of that ponderous and unwieldly machinery in motion.
The very day Mr Trump and himself both got back to London, Mrs Hartshorne was served, through her solicitors, with a notice to refund the sum of twenty thousand pounds cash, trust money held by her on behalf of her daughter, Susan Markworth née Hartshorne, and bequeathed by the late Roger Hartshorne, deceased, now claimed by Allynne Markworth on behalf of his wife Susan, as beforesaid.
This legal notice was sent to Messrs Trump, Sequence, and Co., by a firm of Jewish notoriety, Solomonson and Isaacs, unknown to Mr Trump, save through the columns of the “Law List”—although their names were frequently seen in the newspapers, under the head of “Police Intelligence,” as the defenders of low class criminals and receivers of stolen goods.
“Mishter Sholomonshon” had not only been willing to act as Markworth’s banker, “for a shtrong conshiderashun, ma dere shir,” pending the suit, but also agreed to act as his legal adviser in the matter, and instruct counsel for carrying on the case. As Markworth looked upon all attorneys as alike, they all being, in his estimation, “limbs of the devil,” without any distinction between them, he consented willingly to the arrangement, particularly as he knew Solomonson was as sharp as a needle, and he was not at all averse to his being a Jew; besides, he already knew all about the matter, and Markworth was not personally acquainted with any other lawyers.
“Sharp work!” said Mr Trump, rubbing his hands gleefully in anticipation of a lengthy suit and a long bill of costs when this notice was served. “Sharp work; but I don’t like to have to act with that rascally Jew firm; I wish the rogue had respectable solicitors. It can’t be helped though now—”
“Quite so,” murmured Mr Sequence, affirmatively, looking at his partner straight in the face, with his dull eyes and expressionless features.
“But we’ll stop their little game,” continued Mr Trump, as if speaking to himself, without taking any notice of Sequence at the moment. He presently turned to him, however, and the two, after some little deliberation, settled upon what course they should pursue.
Mr Trump was resolved, according to the dowager’s express wish and his own personal inclination—that fifty pounds rankled sorely in his breast!—to fight the case to the death.
The notice was answered by a peremptory refusal to pay over the trust money.
Whereupon Mrs Hartshorne was invited in judicial parlance through her solicitors to show cause why she should not refund the said sum of twenty thousand pounds.
The rule, “to show cause,” was retorted to by sundry pleas, the first of which averred never indebtedness, and the others that the plaintiff, Allynne Markworth, had coerced the said Susan Hartshorne, falsely termed Susan Markworth, on whose behalf the trust money was claimed, which claim was null and void, and without foundation in the eyes of the law, inasmuch as the said plaintiff “had entered into a conspiracy to obtain the money of a person of unsound mind, under the pretence of going through a marriage ceremony with a person who, in the eye of the law, could not make a binding contract.”
These pleas were replicated, and the whole thing resolved itself into a formal case at law—a very important case of medical jurisprudence, wherein the evidence for the defence was to impeach the sanity of the plaintiffs principal witness.
Everything was at length arranged. The preliminaries of the combat were all settled, and counsel were engaged on either side. The foemen were eager for the fray, a day was fixed for the trial, late in the Michaelmas term, and on the day of battle appointed, the lists would be lined by the partisans of the respectives combatants, who would then enter the arena with visors closed and lances couched—visors of legal dust with which to blind their opponent’s eyes, and not to save their own, and lances of parchment briefs with substantial butts of strong witnesses—to fight the be-wigged and be-gowned battle until either foe should fall. When “God defend the right,” or in the more colloquial language of the prize ring, “may the best man win.”
The case of “Markworth versus Hartshorne” created an immense sensation in legal circles when it was known that a day had been appointed for giving it a hearing.
The issues involved were very intricate; and, as in most cases based on a point of lunacy, the sympathy of the public, who, as yet, knew nothing reliable about the matter, was in favour of Markworth and his wife, the latter of whom would be, it was said, produced in court to testify her own sanity at the time she married the plaintiff.
The whole case, in fact, rested upon this point—whether the marriage was a real marriage or not—that is to say, whether Susan Hartshorne was sane or insane at the time she ran away with Markworth. If she was in her right senses at the time, then the marriage was bonâ fide, and the old dowager would have to hand over the nice little amount of her daughter’s inheritance that was due; if Susan was proved to be imbecile, then the marriage would be void, the dowager would still retain her hold of the twenty thousand pounds, and Markworth be indictable for conspiracy.
It was a civil suit, so to speak, based on criminal ends; so it would go worse with the plaintiff than the defendant should his case fall through.
Solomonson and Isaacs, however, were sharp practitioners, and one of their first proceedings was to subpoena Doctor Jolly, who had attended Susan so long as her medical adviser, and who, of course, would be a very material witness: this was in order to prevent the other side from getting hold of him; and Miss Kingscott was also favoured with a little oblong slip of paper and a guinea in order to insure her attendance to the same end.
They were sharp enough, as Mr Trump found out to his cost; for before the day fixed for the trial, the dowager’s lawyers were at their wits end how to support their case. They had got hold of Joseph Begg, who had witnessed the marriage, and the curate who solemnised it, to bear out the alleged charge of conspiracy against Markworth, but beyond that they felt they could do nothing. If Susan were placed in the witness-box, and stood her cross-examination so as to prove her sanity, the case would be all put out of court, or, as Mr Trump graphically expressed it, “it would be all up.”
Indeed, Mr Trump had such very serious thoughts about the termination of the case, after he had thoroughly gone into the evidence pro and con, that he took upon himself to advise Mrs Hartshorne to compromise the matter before it came on for trial. This was just after Tom came back from his visit to Susan and reported how happy and changed she was.
But the dowager would not hear a word of compromise. She was determined to “fight it out on that line,” as General Grant is reported to have said when besieging Richmond in the Southern States, not only “if it took all the summer,” but the winter too.
Accordingly the case of “Markworth versus Hartshorne,” was regularly put down for trial; and Sergeants Thickhyde, Q.C., and Silvertong retained for the defence. The Jew lawyers had got hold of the well-known Brassy, considered A1 at the criminal bar, and Serjeant Interpleader, to conduct their case on Markworth’s behalf.