The Black Diamond

by Francis Brett Young

The landlord trembled with rage. He pushed Abner’s glass at him, spilling a quarter of the whisky. ‘I hope I’ve seen the last of you,’ he said.

The jurymen now congregated in the other corner of the room as though they realised that it was not fitting that they should mix with such important figures in the affair as George and his friend. They talked together in low voices. Abner and George sat quietly listening, but only instinctive glances in their direction told them when George’s name was mentioned. At the end of the bar was another door, leading into the club-room, generally used for the meetings of friendly societies, in which the inquest would be held. Abner wondered if the body of Bastard lay inside it; for heavy steps were heard from time to time through the closed door. At last the door was opened and the sergeant of police from Lesswardine appeared in it.

He stood there very erect and official, bending stiffly to recognise the more important of the group of jurymen. Then his eyes fell on George and Abner. He beckoned to them and called them into the second room. Abner had expected that Bastard’s bony carcass would be revealed lying in state, but instead of this he saw a long deal table with an arm-chair at the head of it and six other ordinary chairs on either side. In front of the coroner’s seat were spread a pile of official papers, ink, blotting-paper, and a selection of equally impossible pens. On the wall above it hung a trophy, the horns of a North American bison with a boss of black hair between them, which, in a more savage age might well have symbolised the official’s power of life and death, but, in fact, represented those that were vested in the master of the local branch of the Ancient Order of Buffaloes. The sergeant looked at his watch. It was already past two o’clock. He went out to look down the road to see if the coroner was in sight. The young constable who had delivered the warrants earlier in the day was busy placing a copy of the New Testament in front of each of the jurymen’s seats. When the sergeant’s back was turned he winked at George and Abner. Then he closed the door and left them alone.

‘They’ve summonsed fourteen for the jury,’ said George. ‘I’ve counted ’em. There’s three good friends to me: Mr Prosser of The Dyke, Jones of Pensilva, and Watkins the tailor. The one I’m frightened of is the big chap with the red face. Williams, his name is. He fell out with mother over a hogshead of cider five years ago and haven’t spoken to me nor her since. He’d be glad enough to see me swing! Well . . . what’s coming’s bound to come. ’Tis no good thinking on it.’

He said no more, but began to beat out the rhythm of a music-hall song on the floor with the end of his stick, staring straight in front of him at the bison’s head. Abner wished that something would happen. He hated this mechanical tapping.

A loud voice was heard in the bar and with it the scraping of feet. The coroner had arrived. The sergeant threw open the doors with a flourish and Mr Mortimer entered. He was a big man, with a handsome, rather heavy face, bushy white eyebrows over pale blue eyes, and a pointed beard in which a yellow, like that of tobacco stains, was mingled with white. He walked quickly to the head of the table, his coat-tails flapping behind. Under his arm he carried a sheaf of papers that he spread out flat in front of him. Then he patted the table on either side of them with his hands and took up a pen. The sergeant stood stiffly at his elbow, and the jury shuffled into their places. Mr Williams, as by common consent, planted himself at the coroner’s right hand.

‘I declare this court open in the King’s name,’ said Mr Mortimer in a deep, impressive voice. The sergeant stood as though hypnotised by the formula. The coroner turned on him suddenly. ‘Now, sergeant,’ he boomed, ‘look alive! We don’t want to stay here all day. Get the jury sworn!’

He dived once more into his papers, yawned, rubbed his hands, glanced behind him at the symbolical buffalo, and then suddenly decided to clean his nails with a pen-knife. Meanwhile, with Testaments lifted in their right hands, the jurymen, one by one in different inflections of the border tongue, repeated the oath which the sergeant administered to them. ‘I swear by Almighty God.’ . . . I swear by Almighty God.’ ‘That I will well and duly inquire.’ . . . ‘That I will well and duly inquire.’ It was like the chorus that one may hear any morning of the week outside the windows of a country board-school. From time to time the coroner looked up impatiently from his manicure, and the sergeant increased his pace.

‘Finished?’ said Mr Mortimer at last.

‘Yes, sir. All correct,’ said the sergeant.