Paul had asked me to go with him. The two gentlemen we were consulting were Mr Freeman and Mr Kidstone. Freeman, the senior partner, was a wizened, grey-haired man with a high frail voice and a fastidious expression as if a lifetime of acquaintance with the secrets of his fellow men had left him nauseated. Kidstone was blond and dapper and fat and in the middle thirties. He was a member of the Hanover Club and Paul had taken the writ to him. ‘Well’, said Mr Freeman. ‘It’s a very interesting case. Unique in the history of the law, I should think. Though there have been a few not dissimilar precedents. What surprises me is that the Ludwig Galleries is not jointly cited. I can’t see Berriman issuing a writ without including the owner of the premises on which the alleged libel was published.’ ‘He must be acting on explicit instructions from the plaintiff’, said Kidstone. ‘ Though I don’t know quite what her motive can be.’ ‘Perhaps’, said Paul, ‘ she looks on it as a private quarrel, to be settled privately.’ ‘Settled’, said Freeman, looking up hopefully.
