Charles Snow - George Passant

Martineau mentioned his changes: the ‘Brotherhood of the Road’, the solitary vagrancy, some of his humiliations and adventures (someone in the gallery laughed as he mentioned he slept in casual wards; Martineau turned towards him and laughed more loudly), the settlement. He did not say any word about his future. As the story went on Getliffe stiffened into attention. The whole court was tense.

‘Very well,’ said Porson, ‘I suppose we can take it for granted you performed this very eccentric behaviour on religious grounds?’

Martineau nodded his head. ‘Myself, I should call it trying to find a way of life.’

‘Well — you were already trying to do that when you bought part of Mr Exell’s business?’

‘I think I was.’

‘You weren’t entirely interested in it as a business?’

‘Not entirely.’

‘Scarcely at all, in fact?’

‘I couldn’t say that.’

‘You had every reason not to trouble to get any accurate knowledge of it at all?’

‘I’m afraid that isn’t true,’ said Martineau. ‘I knew it — pretty well.’

‘You won’t pretend you seriously thought of this paper, for instance — as a business proposition? You don’t deny that you wrote religious articles for it?’

‘I thought perhaps I should find others — well, who were trying to find the way too.’

‘I’m glad you admit that. You’ll also admit, won’t you, that you weren’t in touch with more prosaic things — like its circulation?’

Martineau shook his head. ‘No. I was in touch with them. They were still very close.’

‘I hope you’ll admit, though, that Mr Exell still had something to do with it?’

‘Yes.’ Martineau smiled again.

‘Perhaps even more than yourself?’

‘Very likely he had.’

‘Well, then, Mr Martineau, will it surprise you to know that Mr Exell has given the court exact information upon the circulation of this paper, and his information was very different from that which you remember — you vaguely remember — giving to Mr Passant?’

‘It doesn’t surprise me so very much,’ Martineau said.

‘So I put it to you that you were incorrect in your recollection of your talk to Mr Passant? You told him a figure very much less than you suggested a few minutes ago?’

‘That’s not true. Not true.’

‘You realise you are contradicting yourself? You have told us you were thoroughly acquainted with the state of the firm.’

‘Yes.’

‘You’ve also agreed that Mr Exell knew it well, as well and better than yourself? I’ve told you that he gave evidence that the Arrow at no time had a circulation of more than twelve hundred.’

‘Yes.’

‘Then, Mr Martineau, I put it to you that either your recollection of your talks with Mr Passant is untrustworthy or—’

Martineau broke in: ‘No, no, no. Those talks are returning more and more.’

‘In that case, you were never acquainted with the real figures? You’ve been misleading us?’

‘No. I knew them not so badly, not so badly.’

‘How can you possibly justify what you have just said?’

Martineau replied: ‘Because I should have agreed with Mr Exell.’

There was an instant of silence.

‘Yet you said you remembered telling Mr Passant an absolutely different state of affairs? Is it true that you gave Mr Passant to understand that the paper had a large circulation?’

‘That is also true.’

‘While you yourself knew, with Mr Exell, that it was quite otherwise?’

‘That’s true as well. As well.’

‘You’re now saying, Mr Martineau, that you were responsible for telling a dangerous lie. You realise you’re saying this?’

‘I do.’ He smiled. ‘Naturally I do.’

The judge coughed, and said quietly: ‘Would you mind telling us whether you actually knew the position of your paper in detail at this time?’

‘Yes.’

‘On the other hand, you gave Mr Passant a different estimate, a very much larger figure?’

‘I think I never gave him a figure exactly. I’ve said before, I don’t remember too well. But I let him get an impression of something much larger. I certainly let him get that impression.’

‘Can you explain why you did that?’

‘I think so. I’ve already said, m’lord, that the little paper contained some of my plans to find others on the same — well, “exploration” as myself, and it wasn’t always easy in those days to confess how unsuccessful I had been.’

The judge pursed his lips into a smile of recognition (not his friendly smile), inclined his head, and made a note.

Porson kept on, his tone angrier and more hectoring.

‘Was there any reason why a man who had apparently given up something for his beliefs should go in for indiscriminate lying?’

Martineau said: ‘I’m afraid I found there was.’

Could he expect the jury to believe this ‘extraordinary thing’? It was not part of his ‘new religion’ to damage and mislead his friends? The lie might make it more possible to obtain money from his friends, but that was scarcely likely to enter his thoughts? Was the only explanation that Martineau could offer for his ‘completely pointless lie’ simply his own ‘vanity and conceit’?

It was commented on as the bitterest cross-examination which the trial had so far seen; Porson seemed full of personal antipathy. Many people in the court felt pleased at the tranquillity with which Martineau answered. He was still calm when Porson asked his last questions.

‘In fact, your way of life has made you a person with no respect for the truth as the jury and all honest men must understand it?’

‘I don’t feel that’s true.’

‘You’re aware, of course, that if the jury believe this story of your lie it may be of some slight advantage to your friend, Mr Passant?’

‘Yes.’

‘There’s no more reason for them to trust you now than Mr Passant had — according to your story?’

‘I hope they will trust me now.’

When Porson sat down, Martineau rested a hand on the box. Getliffe asked him the one question: ‘You can say for certain, Mr Martineau, that you gave Mr Passant to understand that the circulation was a largish number, in the thousands?’

‘I’m certain,’ said Martineau, in a full, confident and happy voice.

Two more witnesses were called before the judge rose. I stayed with Getliffe in the robing-room after Porson had gone out, leaving us with a loud laugh and a goodnight. Getliffe sat on the edge of the table.

‘Old Martineau did us proud,’ he said. I nodded.

‘You’re lucky to have known him,’ he said with a warm, friendly smile. ‘He’s the sort of man who sometimes makes me want to do something different. You can understand my wanting that, can’t you?’ He was speaking with great eagerness.

‘I knew you would,’ Getliffe said. We took up our cases and walked through the empty hall. Suddenly Getliffe took my arm. ‘I knew you’d understand,’ he said. ‘You pretend not to be religious, I know that, of course. But you can’t get away from your own nature, whatever you like to call it. You can’t pull the wool over my eyes. It’s something we’ve got in common, isn’t it?

‘I don’t mean we’re better people in one way,’ he went on. ‘You know I’m not. You’ve seen enough of me. I can do — things I’m ashamed of afterwards. You can too, can’t you? I expect we can both do more bad things than people who’ve not got the sense of — “religion”. In many ways I’m a worse man than they are. But somehow I think there are times when I get a bit further than they manage to. Because I want to, that’s all, L S.’