The door behind the bench burst open and Mr Thurlestone, the magistrates’ clerk, issued his clarion call, ‘Be upstanding!’ as he swished down to his desk, all black gown and tabs and disreputable wig.
In filed a bewildered-looking couple of Worships who should surely be spending their days in a rest home, and the chief magistrate, Colonel de Saumaurez, who at least looked as though he knew which day of the week it was.
Proceedings got under way with the usual squabbles between publicans who wanted to extend their licensing hours and the magistrates, who didn’t go to pubs but drank wine in their dining rooms at home. To them, the idea of a man putting a glass to his lips after 10.30 p.m. was a crime in itself.
Then it was onto the main course.
‘Call Hector Sirraway.’
A tall white-haired man was led up the steps from the cells and entered the dock.
‘Are you Hector Ransome Sirraway?’
‘I am.’
‘Hector Sirraway, you are charged that on the night of the twelfth of December you did cause a public nuisance in Harberton Square. You are further charged that in resisting arrest you assaulted a police officer. How do you plead?’
‘Not guilty.’
‘Sit down. Sergeant?’
The comfortably proportioned Sergeant Stanbridge rose to his feet and prepared to deliver a damning indictment of Mr Sirraway’s inexcusable behaviour.
‘Did the constable get his helmet back?’ asked Colonel de Saumarez, fatally disclosing prior knowledge of the case. Nobody took a blind bit of notice.
‘I believe so, Your Worship,’ said Stanbridge, nodding.
‘Very well. Proceed.’
‘Your Worships, this is a simple case. On the night in question, the accused took up position outside the Conservative Association building in Harberton Square on the occasion of Sir Frederick Hungerford’s annual Christmas party. As guests arrived, he began shouting and carrying on and despite a polite request to pipe down, he took no notice and shouted even louder.
‘Police Constable Staverton arrived at the scene and warned the accused that he would be causing a public order offence if he did not immediately stop. That’s when the accused knocked off his helmet.’
The magistrates were still sufficiently awake to smile at this.
‘The accused was arrested and bailed to appear today before Your Worships.’
Colonel de Saumaurez eyed the man in the dock. He did not look like the usual sort of ruffian the town had to put up with.
‘Mr Sirraway, you have pleaded not guilty to these charges. What have you to say?’
‘I have a statement to make to the court.’
‘No, no!’ barked Thurlestone, the magistrates’ clerk. ‘No statement! You are being given an opportunity to speak in your own defence. Do, I pray, stick to that!’
Sirraway stared at the clerk’s ancient wig and, unblinking, pulled out a piece of paper from his pocket.
‘As I was saying,’ he continued firmly.
‘No, no, no! No statement!’
‘Your Worships, last night I spent a good hour checking the position with Stone’s Justices Manual, and I am within my rights, in responding to the clerk’s question, to make a statement.’
Mr Thurlestone did not like this one bit.
‘On the night in question it is true I stood outside the Conservative Hall in order to make a peaceful protest. I alerted the party faithful entering the building that their Member of Parliament is guilty of a number of illegal acts which…’
‘No, no, no!’ shouted an infuriated Thurleston, the wig on his head waggling. ‘You can’t say anything like that!’
‘Court privilege,’ said Sirraway, reaching for a handkerchief to wipe his nose. He’d certainly done his homework.
‘I really don’t think we need…’ said the Colonel, who’d had dinner with Sir Freddy only the other week.
‘… guilty of a number of malfeasances inconsistent with the public office he has held for the past forty years. In simple terms I pointed out to the party workers that their MP was a crook, is a crook, has always been a crook.’
‘That’s enough!’ snapped de Saumaurez. ‘I’m ordering you to put that piece of paper away! Anything else to say?’
‘It’s jolly easy to knock a copper’s hat off his napper. Have you ever tried, Your Worship?’
The chief magistrate growled through gritted teeth. ‘Anything known?’
‘Nothing, sir,’ said Sergeant Stanbridge.
‘Fined ten shillings. Bound over to keep the peace – and I mean that, Mr Sirraway, keep the peace – for a year.’
‘It’s Professor Sirraway,’ warbled the man joyously over his shoulder as he was bundled away.
Such a moment is always a testing time for the reporter. Your duty is both to cover the rest of the court proceedings, but also to chase up anything that could make a bigger story which might shine its light from under the hedge clippings of the gardening column. An impossible dilemma for Betty when, as on this occasion, there was no other reporter in court. Should she go out and chase the professor, if that’s what he was, and lose the next three cases while she interviewed him and called the office to get a photographer round, or should she carry on drooping over her notebook, inspecting her split ends and waiting for the endless day to be over?
Boldly, she decided on action. Gathering up her things she made for the door under the furious gaze of Mr Thurlestone, who knew his proceedings had been abandoned by the Fourth Estate and that whatever secrets the man Sirraway had been prevented from airing by the Colonel would now go before a greater court, that of public opinion.
‘Just a moment!’ called Betty as she emerged into the front hall. Sirraway was making a quick-march out of the building. ‘Mr… er… Professor…!’
‘Can I help?’ The man who’d been so beastly about the Christmas tree in the public library seemed perfectly charming, if more than a little odd.
‘Betty Featherstone, Riviera Express. I was there at the Conservative Hall the other night. I didn’t see you, though.’
‘You arrived at approximately 5.39 p.m.,’ said the Prof. ‘With a photographer.’
‘Yes, yes I did. But I didn’t…’
‘I thought I recognised you while I was in the dock,’ he went on. ‘But I wasn’t sure. You’ve changed your hair.’
‘Oh,’ blushed Betty, ‘d’you like it?’
The professor did not say. Instead he explained that he started his protest almost as soon as Betty entered the building, then went on until about 6 p.m., by which time his throat was hoarse, his wrists were bound, and a police constable was chasing his helmet down the gutter.
‘It gave me time enough to let the party faithful know the worst.’
‘And what is it they need to know?’ She had her notebook out and nodded with her head to a nearby bench.
‘I came to give Sir Frederick Hungerford a bloody nose for Christmas,’ said Sirraway in lordly fashion. ‘Perhaps you’d like to help me do that.’
‘Oh!’