"Yes, my lord, I believe the witness refers to the same street you
mention, though, if I may be allowed to qualify your lordship's
description of the locality, may I suggest that it was a little further
east--at the side of the old Globe Theatre, which was adjacent to St.
Martin's in the Strand? That is the street you were all arguing about,
isn't it, Mrs. Dawes?"
"Well, sir, my aunt who died from eating tinned lobster used to work at
a corset-shop. I ought to know."
His lordship ignored the witness. He turned to the counsel rather
peevishly.
"Mr. Lowes-Parlby, when I was your age I used to pass through Wych
Street every day of my life. I did so for nearly twelve years. I think
it hardly necessary for you to contradict me."
The counsel bowed. It was not his place to dispute with a chief
justice, although that chief justice be a hopeless old fool; but
another eminent K.C., an elderly man with a tawny beard, rose in the
body of the court, and said:
"If I may be allowed to interpose, your lordship, I also spent a great
deal of my youth passing through Wych Street. I have gone into the
matter, comparing past and present ordnance survey maps. If I am not
mistaken, the street the witness was referring to began near the
hoarding at the entrance to Kingsway and ended at the back of what is
now the Aldwych Theatre."
"Oh, no, Mr. Backer!" exclaimed Lowes-Parlby.
His lordship removed his glasses and snapped out:
"The matter is entirely irrelevant to the case."
It certainly was, but the brief passage-of-arms left an unpleasant tang
of bitterness behind. It was observed that Mr. Lowes-Parlby never again
quite got the prehensile grip upon his cross-examination that he had
shown in his treatment of the earlier witnesses. The coloured man,
Harry Jones, had died in hospital, but Mr. Booth, the proprietor of the
Wagtail, Baldwin Meadows, Mr. Dawes, and the man who was stabbed in the
wrist, all gave evidence of a rather nugatory character. Lowes-Parlby
could do nothing with it. The findings of this Special Inquiry do not
concern us. It is sufficient to say that the witnesses already
mentioned all returned to Wapping. The man who had received the thrust
of a hatpin through his wrist did not think it advisable to take any
action against Mrs. Dawes. He was pleasantly relieved to find that he
was only required as a witness of an abortive discussion.
* * * * *
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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