Charles Snow - The Sleep of Reason

Margaret was seeing all that for the first time. She had never been inside this place before — in fact, she had never been inside a criminal court. The curious thing was, I seemed to be seeing it for the first time too. And yet, when I was studying law in the town, I had gone into this entrance hall a good many times. Later, when I was practising, I had appeared in several cases at these assizes, using that same robing-room at the far end, walking through to the courtroom in the way of business. Once, in the minor financial case which had involved George Passant: often we had forgotten that, or at least acted, despite the premonitions, as though it had signified nothing.

In all those visits, I seemed to have noticed very little. Was it that I had been blinkered by my own will? When I had been a “hungry boxer”, to use Charles’ phrase, there were scenes I had wanted to rush through, like one passing in a train.

That morning, just as Margaret was looking round, so was I. One or two acquaintances said good morning, knowing me by sight. I was more familiar to them than they to me. It reminded me that my presence wasn’t unobserved. So it did when a young man came up, telling me that he worked in the Deputy Sheriff’s office. The Deputy Sheriff would be pleased to find places for us, in his own box, near to the bench. I glanced at Margaret. We were waiting for George Passant: we should have to sit in the public court beside him. I thanked the young man and explained that we should have other people with us. Margaret said, surprising me, that if her husband was on his own later in the trial, he would certainly take advantage of the offer.

It was about twenty past ten. Through the door of the entrance hall George Passant trod slowly in. He was wearing an old bowler hat, as he used to do on formal occasions, though there had not been many in his life: underneath the bowler, his hair bushed wildly out. Before he saw us, his face looked seedy and drawn. But, at the sight of Margaret he took off his hat, and broke into a smile — almost of pleasure, of astonished pleasure. He gave a loud greeting, asked how we were, asked after Charles’ health. It might have been a meeting on one of his visits to London, running into us by a lucky chance, somewhere between our flat and the Marble Arch.

I went to one of the doors leading into the courtroom. A policeman told me it was quite full down below but that perhaps there was still room in the gallery. We climbed up the stairs, and there, at the extreme wing, found seats which looked down into the packed and susurrating court. Packed, that is, except for a gaping space in the dock and for the empty bench.

From the gallery, we looked down at the line, not far away, of the backs of barristers’ wigs. Behind them the solicitors, Sharples massive among them, were sitting, one of them leaning over to talk to his counsel. The courtroom was small and handsome, dome-roofed, the 1820s at their neatest. It struck lighter than in my time: that I did, all of a sudden, notice. Turning round, I saw that a vertical strip of window, floor to ceiling, had been unblocked. The whole court might have been a miniature Georgian theatre in a county town, except that light was streaming in from the back of the auditorium.

Without noise (only those used to the courts had heard the order, put them up ) a policewoman had appeared in the dock, coming up from the underground passage. It happened so unobtrusively that Cora Ross’ head also came up before people were looking. A catch of breath. Then Kitty Pateman was sitting beside her, another policewoman following behind.

The courtroom was quiet. Heads were pushed forward, trying to get a glimpse of them. It wasn’t a natural silence. Something — not dread, more like hypnosis — was keeping us all still.

Cora Ross sat straight-backed in the dock. She was wearing a chocolate dress with white sleeves. That, together with her thick bobbed hair, made her look severe, like some pictures of Joan of Arc. Her face was turned towards Kitty, with a steady undeviating glance. Kitty’s glance, on the other hand, was all over the place. To say she didn’t look at Cora wasn’t true. She looked at everyone, her eyes darting round lizard-quick. She must have seen her parents, whom I had identified just below. She showed no recognition, but her expression was so mobile that it was impossible to read. She seemed prettier than I remembered, in her small-featured peaky fashion: the skin of her neck and forehead, though, appeared stretched, ready to show the etchings of strain. She was wearing a pale-blue blouse of some silky material. She rested her elbows on the front of the dock but shifted about as though she could not find a comfortable position; from above, I could see that one of her legs was entwined with the other.

The silence didn’t last long. From the side door, a couple of barristers hurried in, took their seats, muttered something matey, desultory, to their colleagues, one of them wearing an apologetic smile.

The courtroom clock, high up at the back of the gallery, had turned half past ten. Margaret touched my hand. She didn’t know how casual the timekeeping of a court could be: but she did know that I was irked by unpunctuality, more so when I was anxious, more so still that morning. We had to wait another five minutes before we heard the ritual cry. As we were all rustling to our feet, the assize procession entered, close by the box where Margaret and I had been invited to sit. The old judge limped to his place of state: he was old, but as he faced us, in his red robe and black waistband, he had the presence of a strong and active man. With an amiable, Punch-like smile he made a becking bow to the court in front, to the jury on his left.

He had been a high court judge for many years. The last of the gentlemen judges, so legal acquaintances of mine used to call him. He lived like a country squire, but he was still doing his duty on the assize round — a red judge, my mother would have said with awe — at the age of getting on for eighty. Just as through a chance resemblance I felt I knew Detective-Superintendent Maxwell better than I did, so I felt with this man, Mr Justice Fane, whom I had actually met only once, at an Inn guest night. For he reminded me of a man of letters who had done me a good turn: the nutcracker face with the survival of handsomeness, the vigorous flesh, the half-hooded eyes, tolerant, worldly, self-indulgent, a little sad. He didn’t pretend to be a great lawyer, so my informants said. But he had tried more criminal cases than anyone on the bench, and no one had been more compassionate.

In a full, effortless voice, the Clerk of Assize, just below the judge’s place, was speaking to the prisoners: “Are you Cora Helen Passant Ross?”

“Yes.”

“Are you Katharine Mavis Pateman?”

“Yes.”

“Both of you are charged together in an indictment for murder. It is alleged that you, Ross, and you, Pateman, on a day unknown between September 20, 1963, and October 9, 1963, murdered Eric Antony Mawby. Ross, are you guilty or not guilty?”

“Not guilty,” said Cora Ross in a hard, unmodulated tone.

I had heard that indictment a fair number of times (Kitty Pateman was pleading not guilty, her voice twittering and birdlike): when I was a pupil in chambers in London, with nothing to do, I had attended several murder cases. But there was a difference that morning. In the courtroom — although all of us knew the shadow of horror behind those charges — the air was less oppressive. There was none of the pall upon the nerves, at the same time shameful and thrilling, which in those earlier murder trials I had sensed all round me and not been able to deny within myself. For there was no chance of these two being sent to their own deaths. That was the chance which had, at least in part, in earlier days enticed us to the courts. Yes, young lawyers like myself had gone there to pick up something about the trade: yes, there was the drama: but we had also gone there as men might go, lurking, ashamed of themselves, into a pornographic bookshop. In the mephitic air, the sentence of death would be coming nearer.