Passhe nodded. "But there is absolutely no doubt about it," he said, "of course. But naturally, old chap, the fact of our both being in the hotel in Paris at the very time it all happened gives the thing a special interest for us. When I go back to India everybody will be wanting to know all about it; and as I have got a chance to be present at part of the trial, I really can't forego it."
"That's settled, then," Adams replied, as the two men strolled into the big smoke-room, where the brown-cased Cocoa Tree is put with all its old associations of the past. They fidgeted about a little, smoked a cigarette, while they looked down into the busy St. James's Street from the great Georgian windows, looked at their watches, and then hailed a taxi-cab and were driven to the Law Courts.
Court II. in the Probate, Divorce, and Admiralty Division of the High Court of Justice was crowded almost to suffocation as the two men entered and found, with some difficulty, the seats which had been allotted to them. They settled themselves quietly in their places in the well of the court.
The President was writing something in the book before him, and seated below the judge was the associate, while the usher stood a few yards away.
Lots of people—and these the most fortunate—have never had occasion to visit a law court. It was so with Colonel Adams. This was the first time he had ever entered the great building at the junction of Fleet Street and the Strand, and he gazed round him with great interest.
He saw many faces that he knew. Immediately around him were the privileged of society sitting behind the solicitors; Admaston, Roderick Collingwood, the maid Pauline, and Lord Ellerdine.
In the second row the leading counsel sat.
Mr. Menzies, hawk-faced and saturnine of aspect, the horse-hair wig which framed his face only accentuating the hatchet-like alertness of his countenance. Sir Robert Fyffe, huge-framed, and with a face like the risen moon. Mr. M'Arthur, a youthful-looking man, handsome and débonnaire, but with something rather dangerous and threatening in his face.
Behind the leaders sat a row of junior counsel; and then Lady Attwill, other members of society, and the two friends who had driven from the Cocoa Tree Club.