I looked up as much of the case as I could, in unobtrusive ways, among the old law-reports, and found that the barrister who had had charge of the defence was my father's old friend, Mr. Horace Mayfield, a man of elegant tastes, and the means to gratify them.
I went to call on him on Sunday evening at his artistically luxurious house in Onslow Gardens. A sedate footman answered the bell. Fortunately, Mr. Mayfield was at home, and, what is rarer, disengaged. You do not always find a successful Q.C. at his ease among his books, beneath the electric light, ready to give up a vacant hour to friendly colloquy.
“Remember Yorke-Bannerman's case?” he said, a huge smile breaking slowly like a wave over his genial fat face—Horace Mayfield resembles a great good-humoured toad, with bland manners and a capacious double chin—“I should just say I DID! Bless my soul—why, yes,” he beamed, “I was Yorke-Bannerman's counsel. Excellent fellow, Yorke-Bannerman—most unfortunate end, though—precious clever chap, too! Had an astounding memory. Recollected every symptom of every patient he ever attended. And SUCH an eye! Diagnosis? It was clairvoyance! A gift—no less. Knew what was the matter with you the moment he looked at you.”
That sounded like Hilda. The same surprising power of recalling facts; the same keen faculty for interpreting character or the signs of feeling. “He poisoned somebody, I believe,” I murmured, casually. “An uncle of his, or something.”
Mayfield's great squat face wrinkled; the double chin, folding down on the neck, became more ostentatiously double than ever. “Well, I can't admit that,” he said, in his suave voice, twirling the string of his eye-glass. “I was Yorke-Bannerman's advocate, you see; and therefore I was paid not to admit it. Besides, he was a friend of mine, and I always liked him. But I WILL allow that the case DID look a trifle black against him.”
“Ha? Looked black, did it?” I faltered.
The judicious barrister shrugged his shoulders. A genial smile spread oilily once more over his smooth face. “None of my business to say so,” he answered, puckering the corners of his eyes. “Still, it was a long time ago; and the circumstances certainly WERE suspicious. Perhaps, on the whole, Hubert, it was just as well the poor fellow died before the trial came off; otherwise”—he pouted his lips—“I might have had my work cut out to save him.” And he eyed the blue china gods on the mantelpiece affectionately.
“I believe the Crown urged money as the motive?” I suggested.
Mayfield glanced inquiry at me. “Now, why do you want to know all this?” he asked, in a suspicious voice, coming back from his dragons. “It is irregular, very, to worm information out of an innocent barrister in his hours of ease about a former client. We are a guileless race, we lawyers; don't abuse our confidence.”
He seemed an honest man, I thought, in spite of his mocking tone. I trusted him, and made a clean breast of it. “I believe,” I answered, with an impressive little pause, “I want to marry Yorke-Bannerman's daughter.”