P.D. James on European Legal Philosophy
I found this exchange in P.D. Jame's The Lighthouse (Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 2005) amusing as well as a useful summary of European legal philosophy.
Miss Holcombe is about to be questioned by the police at her cottage. She and her butler, Roughtwood, are just finishing their Saturday-morning Scrabble game. She has a surfeit of vowels, but feels certain that there is a seven-letter word to be found in her letters.
[Detective Sergeant] Benton-Smith said quietly, "MIOSIS, madam. The third line from the top on the right."
She turned towards him. Taking her interrogatory lift of the eyebrows as an invitation, he moved over to study the board. "If you place it so that the second S is on the double over LACK, you get another twenty-two points for SLACK. Then the M is on the double-letter square for six, and the seven-letter word is also on a double."
Miss Holcombe made the calculations with surprising speed. "Ninety-six in total, plus my two hundred and fifty-three." She turned to Roughtwood. "I think that puts the result beyond cavil. You take the score for your four away, Roughtwood, and what does that leave you with?"
"Two hundred and thirty-nine, madam, but I register an objection. We have never said that help is permissible."
"We've never said it isn't. We play by our own rules. Whatever is not forbidden is allowable. That is in accordance with the sound principle of English law that everything is permissible unless legally prohibited, compared with the practice in mainland Europe, where nothing is permitted unless legally sanctioned."
"In my view, madam, the sergeant has no status in the game. No one asked him to interfere."
Miss Holcombe obviously recognised that the conversation was veering towards an uncomfortable confrontration. Beginning to gather up the tiles an dreplace them in the bag, she said, "All right, we'll take the last score. That still leaves me the winner."
"I'd prefer, madam, for the game to be declared null and void and not recorded in the monthly total."
"All right, since you're being diffiuclt. You don't seem to consider whether I might not very well have found the word myself if the sergeant hadn't interfered. I was close to it."
Roughtwood's silence was eloquent.