“Yes, Your Honor. Mrs. Seward, any suggestions you have, you will make through me, not to the Court.”
“But I was just going to say that—”
“Mrs. Seward, keep quiet! You’re here only by courtesy of the Court until this matter of identity is cleared up. I’m sorry, Judge. I advised my clients that, at the most, this was a holding action. I know that Jake Salomon would not risk bringing a ringer—sorry, Miss Smith—a ringer into court.”
“And I know it.”
“But they insisted. If Mrs. Seward won’t control herself, I’ll have to ask your permission to withdraw from the case.”
The Judge shook his head and grinned. “No, sirree, Alec. You fetched them here, you’re stuck with them—at least until Court adjourns. Jake? Is Ned still fronting for you? Or will you speak for yourself?”
“Oh, I think we can both speak up from time to time, without friction.”
“Ned?”
“Of course, Judge. Jake can speak for himself and should. But I’m finding it interesting. Novel situation.”
“Quite. Well, speak up if you have anything to contribute. Alec, I don’t think we can get anywhere today. Do you?”
Alec Train stood mute. Joan mid, “Why not, Judge? I’m here, I’m ready. Ask me anything. Bring out the rack and the thumbscrews—I’ll talk.”
The Judge again rubbed his nose. “Miss Smith, I sometimes think that my predecessors were overly hasty in letting such tools be abolished. I think I can settle to my own satisfaction whether or not you are the person known as Johann Sebastian Bach Smith, of this city and of Smith Enterprises, Limited. But it is not that simple. In an ordinary identity case Mrs. Seward’s suggestion of fingerprints would be practical. But not in this case. Alec? Do Petitioners stipulate that the brain of their grandfather was transplanted into another body?”
Petitioners’ counsel looked unhappy. “May it please the Court, I am under instructions not to stipulate anything of the sort.”
“So? What’s your theory?”
“Uh, ‘Missing and presumed dead,’ I suppose. We take the position that the burden of proof is on anyone who steps forward and claims to be Johann Sebastian Bach Smith.”
“Jake?”
“I can’t agree as to the burden of proof, Judge. But my client—my ward who is also my client, Johann Sebastian Bach Smith—is present in court and I am pointing at her. I know her to be that named individual. Both of us are ready to be questioned by the Court in any fashion in order to assure the Court as to her identity. I was about to say that both of us are willing to be questioned by anyone—but on second thought I cannot concede that there is any interested party other than my client.”
“Judge?”
“Yes, Miss Smith? Jake, do you want her to speak?”
“Oh, certainly. Anything.”
“Go ahead, Miss Smith.”
“Thank you. Judge, my granddaughters can ask me anything. I’ve known them since they were babies; if they try to trip me, I’ll have them hanging on the ropes in two minutes. For example, Johanna—the one you called ‘Mrs. Seward’—was hard to housebreak. On her eighth birthday—May fifteenth nineteen-sixty, the day the Paris Conference between Eisenhower and Khrushchev broke down—her mother, my daughter Evelyn, invited me over to see the little brat have her birthday cake, and Evelyn shoved Johanna into my lap and she cut loose—”
“I did no such thing!”
“Oh, yes, you did, Johanna. Evelyn snatched you off my lap and apologized and said that you had a bed-wetting problem. Can’t say as to that—my daughter lied easily.”
“Judge, are you going to sit there and let that—that person—insult the memory of my dead mother?”
“Mrs. Seward, your counsel cautioned you. If you don’t heed his caution, this Court is capable of nailing you into a barrel and letting you speak only when I say to pull out the bung. Or some such. Squelch her, Alec. Suppress her the way they did in the trial in ‘Alice in Wonderland’—which this is beginning to resemble. She’s not a party to this; she is here only to give evidence in case the Court needs it. Miss Smith—”
“Yes, sir?”
“Your opinions as to the veracity of your putative descendants are not evidential. Can you think of anything that Johann Smith would know and that I would know or could check on—but which Jake Salomon could not possibly have briefed you on?”
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