Page:The celebrity, an episode (1919) Churchill.djvu/35

22 tactics from becoming the property of his sporting fraternity and of the town.

The more I worked on the case, the clearer it became to me that Mr. Farquhar Fenelon Cooke’s great-uncle had been either a consummate scoundrel or a lunatic, and that our only hope of winning must be based on proving him one or the other; it did not matter much which, for my expectations at best were small. When I had at length settled to this conclusion I confided it as delicately as possible to my client, who was sitting at the time with his feet cocked up on the office table, reading a pink newspaper.

“Which’ll be the easier to prove?” he asked, without looking up.

“It would be more charitable to prove he had been out of his mind,” I replied, “and perhaps easier.”

“Charity be damned,” said this remarkable man. “I’m after the property.”

So I decided on insanity. I hunted up and subpoenaed white-haired witnesses for miles around. Many of them shook their heads when they spoke of Mr. Cooke’s great-uncle, and some knew more of his private transactions