“You think the result inconclusive, Mr. Herriard?” asked Mr. Lee-Barker, the managing clerk, in a tone wherein professional deference to counsel’s opinion hardly suggested that he had not one of his own.
“It must be inconclusive,” Herriard replied emphatically. “We have won our case; so far Countess Alexia’s reputation is cleared—legally. But she can hardly be quite satisfied with that.”
“Quite so,” observed Mr. Bowyer, in his habitual tone of non-committal.
“The villain of the piece must be unmasked,” chimed in Mr. Lee-Barker pleasantly. He had had the working-up of the case, and was duly pleased with himself, without being in any violent hurry to pursue it farther. Sufficient unto the day, he told himself, is the verdict thereof; at least, when that verdict is favourable.
“Yes,” pursued Herriard earnestly, “he must be found, and without loss of time.”
Mr. Lee-Barker wondered why in the world a counsel of Herriard’s standing and ability should be so keen outside his brief. A smart little man was Mr. Lee-Barker, with an enviable reputation in certain circles in Lincoln’s Inn Fields and Surbiton, where he lived; and he believed in smartness as a paying quality, but not in Quixotism or works of supererogation. So he merely smiled, as deprecating zeal without instructions, and glanced at his chief with a suggestion of getting back to the office.
“Quite so,” old Bowyer assented to Herriard’s urgency: “but it is rather a matter for Scotland Yard, is it not, Mr. Herriard?”
“No doubt,” Geoffrey answered. “But they ought to be kept up to the mark.”
“We can scarcely move in the matter in the absence of instructions,” put in Mr. Lee-Barker, tempering his impatience with the deference due to an eminent verdict-gaining counsel.
“No, I suppose not,” Herriard returned, with a touch of impatience. “I will speak to Count von Rohnburg.”