So far as the number of the car was concerned, Daphne and Jonah never wavered, and we were certain about its colour and style.  Moreover, we were all agreed that, while the back seat was empty, there were two people in front, and that the one who was not driving was wearing a chauffeur’s dress.  Finally, the village of Swete Rowley lay but some twenty-two miles from the scene of the accident.  But that was all.  It was, of course, unthinkable that the offending car could have sustained no damage, but it was quite possible that it would have nothing more serious to show than a dented hub-cap and a battered wing; and, while hub-caps can be changed in five minutes, it is no great matter to straighten a bent wing, and any traces of battery which still survive can be unanswerably attributed to one or other of quite a variety of innocent mishaps.

Inquiries were set afoot, and the moment we learned that Mr. Bladder in fact possessed a large green high-powered touring car, which he was in the habit of driving himself at a notorious pace, we threw down the glove.  Solicitors were instructed, counsel’s opinion was taken, an information was sworn before a Justice of the Peace, and within one week of the date of his solicitors’ letter, Mr. Douglas Bladder had become the recipient of a writ for four hundred pounds damages and four separate summonses under the Motor Car Acts.  We were out for blood.

At Marvel’s Police Court the defendant appeared by his solicitor, who asked that the hearing of the summonses might be adjourned, pending the action in the High Court.  This request was granted.

Everything possible was done to expedite matters, and by great good fortune the case of Pleydell v.  Bladder came into the Special Jury list during the last week of July.

* * * * *

There is about the High Court a signal air of gravity which to the layman is most compelling.  The majesty of the Law is not apparent:  of severity there is but a suggestion:  something, indeed, of dignity, but less than a visitor will expect to find:  something of silence.  These are but equerries, subordinate.  The Lady Paramount is Consequence.

Here seem to dwell those things that signify.  Here lies that crucial junction which is at once the terminus of Cause, and of Effect the starting-point.  Here are wise analysts, skilled to distil its meaning from the idle word, surgeons whose cunning probes will stir its motive from the deed, never so thoughtless.  Whole walls of law books, ranged very orderly, calf-bound, make up a reverend pharmacopoeia, where you shall find precepts of iron, smelted from trespasses and old-time bickerings, whose long-dead authors, could they but come to life, would gape and stare and scratch their humble heads to find their modest names become so notable.