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“All you are saying is that they are noble and generous,” Gavinton pointed out with a faint smirk. “And possibly that Mr. Taft is a better preacher than most. Thank you, Mr. Knight!” The smirk was wider.
“No!” Knight said loudly as Gavinton walked away from him. “It shows that they believed with all their hearts that Mr. Taft was going to do something with it that they cared about, so much so they were willing to go cold and hungry,” he said angrily.
“Willing to make do with less, you mean?” Gavinton suggested. “Did he ask anyone to go into debt? To fall short on their own commitments?”
Warne rose to his feet. “We shall show that that is exactly what he did.”
“If he did, that is not a crime,” Gavinton shot back. “He could ask, but he couldn’t force anyone to do anything against their will. You are wasting the court’s time and bringing a righteo
us man’s name into disrepute by making those frankly absurd charges.”
“Gentlemen!” Rathbone demanded their attention. “It is you who are wasting our time. We are here to provide evidence and test it on exactly these matters. Please continue to do so, with facts, however tedious they may be to unravel. Mr. Gavinton, have you anything more to ask Mr. Knight?”
“I don’t think Mr. Knight can tell me anything at all,” Gavinton said ungraciously.
Warne raised his eyebrows. “I don’t think anyone can,” he responded.
There was a titter of amusement from the gallery, and one juror laughed outright.
Gavinton was far from amused.
Rathbone kept his face straight with something of an effort. “Have you anything to ask or redirect, Mr. Warne?”
“Thank you, my lord,” Warne said. “Mr. Knight, you deduce from these figures that a number of people, almost the same number every week, gave random amounts to Mr. Taft’s Church. The numbers vary from a few pence to many pounds, in fact whatever they could possibly manage. Is that correct?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And in what way is that a crime?” His voice was very light, curious, no more.
“It’s not, sir,” Knight replied. “So long as Mr. Taft used the money for exactly what it was given for.”
“Ah …” Warne breathed out slowly. “That is rather a big condition, is it not? If … it was used for that purpose, all of it, and that purpose alone.”
For the first time there was attention in the gallery. People moved, exchanged glances. Journalists were busy scribbling on their pads.
In the jury box more notes were made. Suddenly faces were grave, showing sharp interest. Several of them looked up at Taft with the beginnings of doubt and even dislike.
In her seat in the gallery, behind Gavinton, Mrs. Taft was clearly anxious.
The trial went on like that for three days. The facts and figures were boring even to the jurors, who were paying as much attention as they could manage. Many wrote things down, but there was far too much detail for anyone to record, and even then it would have meant little. It was the conclusions that mattered. Rathbone had thought at first that the detail would have affected them. There were no crushing boulders, only endless grains of sand, and the sheer volume of their assumed and monstrous weight. The figures all tallied at first glance, but time-consuming evidence showed again and again that they did so only through sleight of hand, duplicity, and shifting of the boundaries and the terms of reference.
Gradually the jury’s reaction of boredom and confusion changed to one of pure suspicion that they were being deliberately duped. They resented it, as if they had been patronized by someone who thought them too stupid to fathom a trick when they saw one, or too easily distracted to follow a trail of slow and well-concealed theft.
As Mr. Knight had said at the beginning, as much as you might deplore it, taking the last penny a man had to give, or even beyond that, sending him into debt, was not a crime. But when he had given it in trust for a specific and limited purpose, and it had been used for something else, then it assuredly was-and keeping it for oneself was fraud, pure and simple.
On Thursday, the fourth day of the trial, Warne presented Mr. Bicknor, the elderly father of a young man named Cuthbert Bicknor, who had apparently given to Taft a great deal more money than he had the right to dispose of. As a result of his mismanagement, he had lost his job and after that his health had suffered, and he was now confined to his bed with pneumonia.
Warne treated him as gently as he could.
“Mr. Bicknor, could you please tell the court of the change in your son after he joined Mr. Taft’s Church?”
Bicknor looked wretched. The whole situation obviously embarrassed him acutely. He hated being here, stared at by so many people and obliged to recount his family’s shame.
“He became totally absorbed in it,” he said so quietly Rathbone had to ask him to speak a little more loudly.
“I’m sorry,” Bicknor said, jerking his head up to stare at Warne. “He seemed to be able to think and talk of nothing else. He stopped going out to the theater or the music hall, or out to dinner with friends.”
“Did Mr. Taft’s Church teach against such things?” Warne asked gently.
