"By Jove! my twentieth birthday by the New Scheme--same date as first heat of the ’Diamonds.’ Well, I can’t attend, that’s all. They’ll have to put it off."
A sort of fatality attached to subsequent summonses for grandpapa. The Salisbury people got wind of his address too, and he was ordered to repair to that city on divers charges. I think about six detectives, all working in different interests, were now employed upon grandfather. He was commanded to appear in the Queen’s Bench Division on no less than three different counts, for Marie Rogers brought a case against Daniel Dolphin, and Mrs. Bangley-Brown did the same.
"They’ll look pretty complete fools, those women," said grandpapa grimly, "when I do turn up in the box--a callow, lanky lout of twenty. The detectives have marked you down, Martha, and associate you with the missing Daniel Dolphin. So they think they are on the right track. You’ll have to come and swear anything I tell you to."
But I had my own troubles. There were several summonses out against me for "aiding and abetting" grandpapa in his different enterprises.
"Not I," he answered. "No good chucking money away. I shall plead infancy, and if that won’t wash, I shall throw myself on the mercy of the Court. I shall get up some legal expressions, like _ultra vires_, and _sub judice_, and _suggestio falsi_, and _prima facie_, and so on. With these I shall endeavour to conduct my own case. As a last resort I shall try an alibi. But my own impression is that these fools of women will cry off the moment they see me. I don’t want to drag in the New Scheme if I can possibly help it. What a cur Nick is not to lend a hand at a time like this!"
"Well, you’ll have to stand your trial. As far as I can see, you’ll get about five years if they’re lenient. You might bounce it with an alibi. After all, what does it matter? Quiet rest in a prison cell would be luxury after this life. I’ve foreseen it for some time. In your case it might be the best thing that could happen. You’ll have to be steady there. It’s about the only thought that really worries me, to remember that when I’m a defenceless babe I shall be in the hands of a woman who drinks."
"I know how you succeed. Any excuse is good enough for a whack with you now. Every time a new injunction or process or writ drops in, off you go to the brandy bottle and carouse, as though they were matters to rejoice about. What was the good of signing the pledge if you never meant to keep it?"