THE TOUT.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 49, 27 February 1935, Page 18

THE TOUT.

(SHORT STOKY.)

(By LEOPOLD SPERO.)

Through the dingy, whitewashed outer eorridor, loud with frowsy riff-raff and dean young constables trying not to look superior, he passed into the office, ■where the sergeant-in-charge bent painfully over a Bheaf of white and blue papers. "Morning, Sergeant." "Good morning, Mr. Astfield. What can we do for you?" The sergeant liked the young solicitor, with his frank open face, his blue and rather compelling eyes and the soft voice which hinted so unmistakably at the strength it masked. There were not many of his kind practising at the Paneras Police Court. They were mostly dingier even than their clients. All except Perry-Stakes, frock-coated, silkhatted, portly of frame and dignified of aspect, skilled alike in the cunning twists and turns of the law, and in the finer arts of the soulful, pathetic plea. There was only >sae Perry-Stakes. That was why he was retained by the Hosiery Combine, fifteen hundred a year, to prosecute in all their shoplifting cases. He knew all the old hands in the game, had studied their weaknesses, and never let them escape, unless there was publicity to be had for the firm —and incidentally for Mr. Charles Perry-Stakes— in a sensational and generous appeal for clemency. It was a chance visit to the Pancras, whilst acting "dog" for the firm which gave him his first job, that persuaded young Astfield to add his nameplate to the unprepossessing row of brass titles in Shelstow Road. He arrived just as one of his more dingy brethren was opening a prosecution in which PerryStakes had been retained for the defence. A shop-lifting case, of course, and from the opening statement, bald and awkward though it was, it looked hard-boiled enough. But that was before Perry-Stakes got up to cross-examine the witnesses for the prosecution. And when he had done with them, and had put his own beautifully coached team through their paces, including a defendant far more ladylike than real life ever should be, the hard-boiled case had melted. The defendant left the dock, a free woman, and Perry-Stakes, silk hat in hand, hovered behind her at the door as if he were protecting something very beautiful and precious from the rough usage of the world. It was the final touch which convinced Astfield that here was his own proper avocation. * • * » "You don't mind me keeping you waiting a moment or two, sir," said the sergeant. "I've just got these few summonses to complete." Why should he mind? The sergeant was perfectly polite. But as if he was likely to bother about what young Aetfield wanted until he had absolutely nothing better to do! If it had been Perry-Stakes, now, all else would have been brushed aside to attend to the needs of the great man. And why not, since both the magistrates themselves set the example? No wonder the sergeant-in-charge went on writing as if nobody was there at all. At last, however, he finished. "Now, sir." "It's about —about that Warne case this morning." "The shoplifter?" "Yes. Mr. Perry-Stakes was prosecuting. He got Mr. Tankard to put it back till this afternoon, if you remember. What time is it likely to come "Not before three.. Are you defending, eir?"

. "Not exactly. But—but I know the girL I say, sergeant, I wonder if you'd mind answering a question?" "Depends what it is, sir." "Well, is anything known about Miss Warne?" "Not a thing. I should think this is her first try at the game. Mind you, some of 'em get away with a good deal before they're caught for the first time. But this one is green enough, I should think, to judge by the way she bungled the job." Astfield thought carefully before he spoke again. "I'd like to see her, sergeant. She's in the cells, I suppose?" "Yes, but why should you see her?" "Didn't I tell you she's a friend of mine ?" The policeman looked at the lawyer suspiciously. "I can't give you leave to see her," he said. "You'll have to tackle the gaoler. I should try now. I don't suppose he's busy at the moment." The gaoler fixed young Astfield with a suspicious eye. "She says she don't know you. . ." •"Lend me a scrap of paper." "I don't like this 'ere," said the gaoler. The gaoler took the note Astfield wrote on the scrap of paper and went to the cell. After a few moments he returned, still suspicious, but more deferential, as to a novice who was at last learning the rudiments of his craft. "She's outside in the corridor. You can't go into her cell." The girl who awaited him had a lovely, mutinous mouth. She was slim and straight and as delicate as a willow sapling. Her hair tumbled in dark richness over stormy violet eyes. Irish, no doubt, as so many patronesses of the Pancras were. But she was not to be classed with them. That mouth had breed in its short lines, and the bravery which could fight down trembling shame. "You're a lawyer, aren't you?" was the first thing she asked him. "Why do you come to me? I've no money." "That's just why I came." "A police court's a funny place to do your picking up in," she said. "But there's no accounting for tastes, is there?" He shook his head. "You can't insult me—'' "Oh, you're one of that kind, then? I thought you might be—" "As for that," he answered, "I'm entirely in your hands, you know. You've only got to give my note to the magistrate when you come into court, and I'm completely in the soup. They'd strike me off the rolls." "What for?" "For touting." "Why shouldn't you?" "Not by going and asking—like I'm doing." "How else can you get business?-' "Lord knows, I don't. But in our profession it's quite immoral." "I shouldn't have tnougnt lawyers bothered much about what was immoral so long as there was money hanging on to it. That's why I can't understand your wanting to help me." "In this case, sir, said Perry-Stakes, "the defendant is an employee—or, rather, was an employee—of the prosecuting firm. Yet I think I am right in not preferring a charge of embezzlement—your Worship raised the point this morning, you will remember —since the goods were actually taken, as I shall prove, while the defendant was a de facto customer of the establishment. . . ." Mrs. Reney Wilson, house detective at Sedgerow's, composed herself daintily to her task of answering the advocate's questions. She knew defendant as an employee in the perfumery department. It surprised her to see the defendant in the shop. She was supposed to be on holiday at the seaside. She kept her under observation for half an hour, at the end

of which time she arrested her. That is to say, she went up to her quietly and asker her to come to the manager's private office. There she was searched,

and the articles in the attache case (produced) were found upon her. "Thank you," said Perry-Stakes. Mrs. Wilson turned as if to go, but came back at the suave summons of young Astfield.

"Don't be in a hurry, Mrs. Wilson," said he. "You haven't told us nearly enough yet. You are, I believe, separated from your husband?" Old Tankard's magisterial eyebrows went up like railway signals. "Really, Mr. Astfield —what have the family affairs of the witness to do with this charge ?" "I hope to show you, sir, by proving that we have in the box a witness prejudiced precisely on account of these family affairs." "Very we!!. Proceed. But please understand that I shall have a word or two to say on the matter if you do not justify yourself." "I'll risk that, sir," Astfield turned again to the woman in the box. "I protest ——" Perry-Stakes rose in his seat. "This is all most improper, sir." In his consternation at seeing his best witness rattled, at the very outset of her cross-examination. PerryStakes was allowing himself to be rattled as well. Which was just what Astfield was aiming for. Old Tankard, however, was not the man to allow any advocate to instruct him as to what was proper or improper. "Please, Mr. Perry-Stakes," he said, and his voice was icy in its politeness, "allow me to decide what latitude I shall allow in the cross-examination." Too late Perry-Stakes saw his mistake and tried to make amends. "I ask your Worship's pardon. I had not the slightest idea of suggest"Quite so, quite so. Let it be." The damage was done. That was very evident from the conciliatory tone in which Tankard told Astfield to continue. '"You have told us, Mrs. Wilson, that the defendant said nothing at all when you arrested her and took her to the manager's office ?" "Well, of course, she abused me a bit. They always do." "Then why did you swear that she. said nothing?" "She said nothing relevant to the charge." Astfield smiled very sweetly. "The prosecuting solicitor," he continued, "has mentioned the generosity of Messrs. Sedgerow. You agree with that 1" '"I do." "There are fines for breaches of discipline ?" "Yes. People who break the rules" —she sent a glance of swift hatred in the direction of the dock—"get fined. It's the usual thing." "And how much in this usual direction might be deducted from a salary of £2 per week in three months?" "I've not the slightest idea." "You'd call thirty-five shillings a good deal to be deducted in twelve weeks from a girl's salary of £2, especially when there was no commission being paid to her on her sales, though it was promised?" Old Tankard interposed, none too amia/bly. "How can the witness be expected to answer that question, even supposing it were revelant to the issue? She's a detective, not a manager. Please keep to the point." "I think, sir," replied Astfield, spiritedly, "if I may say so with respect, that I am not so far from the point as you imagine." "I have no desire to check you needlessly. Only you must keep to the issue." "If your Worship pleases. Now, Mrs. Wilson, your position is a powerful one. isn't it?" "I don't know what you mean by that." "You can make things pretty uncomfortable for people, when it suits you?" "It's a lie!" "Thank you, Mrs. Wilson. I gather that when you say, 'It's a lie,' you mean 'it's true, but inconvenient to admit."" Perry-Stakes rose again. (Concluded to-morrow.).