Dead Against the Lawyers

by Roderic Jeffries

  ‘Her shoes were the same colour as her frock and so was her handbag: proper symphony, she was. Even the buttons was the same.’

  ‘Were you asked by the police to look at a number of different photographs to see if you could identify this woman?’

  ‘A copper comes along with a whole stack of ’em, yes.’

  ‘With what result?’

  ‘I recognized one of ’em.’

  ‘Was the photograph the one that the usher will now show you?’ The usher handed the witness a photograph. ‘Exhibit number forty-one, my lord.’

  ‘That’s her,’ said Wallace.

  ‘My lord,’ said Adems, ‘evidence will be given that this is a photograph of Mrs Charlotte Holter.’ He addressed the witness again. ‘I want you to be utterly frank. Are you positive beyond any doubt that the woman in this photograph is the woman you saw in the High Street, bearing in mind that you have testified you could not see much of her face?’

  ‘No doubt at all.’

  Adems hesitated, but decided that he must leave the defence to do whatever they wanted with this witness who was so patently over-confident. He sat down.

  All the lawyers present knew that what must follow would be a bitterly destructive cross-examination. Wallace had proved to be a sitting target for anyone of Holter’s calibre.

  Holter stood up and came to the front of the dock. He reached up to the right-hand side of his head, as if adjusting a wig. Conscious he was the centre of all attention, he looked slowly from the witness to the jury and then back at the witness. ‘No questions.’ He stepped back to his chair and sat down.

  For several seconds there was a silence, as if no one could believe Holter had refused to cross-examine, then the noise of excited conversation rose.

  The usher called for silence, a cry taken up by the police. Eventually, there was silence.

  The judge rested his elbows on the desk and leaned forward slightly. ‘Mr Holter, I feel it my duty to remind you that if you do not challenge the evidence which has just been given now, you may not do so later.’

  ‘Quite so.’

  ‘Very well,’ snapped the judge.

  The witness left the stand.

  *

  The case for the prosecution was completed in the middle of the morning of the third day. The judge asked Holter whether he was addressing the court, giving evidence, and calling witnesses.

  ‘My lord, I do not propose to open, but I shall myself give evidence and shall then call one witness.’

  ‘Before you do so, I wish to make quite certain that you continue to refuse to be represented by counsel? I feel I should be forgoing my duty if I did not point out to you yet again that had you retained the services of Mr Cheesman and his junior, you would now have the unbiased and expert advice of which you may well have great need.’

  ‘My lord, I consider my own biased and expert advice to be more than adequate.’

  The judge did not answer in case he said something he would instantly regret.

  Holter left the dock and, accompanied by a warder, went into the witness-box and took the oath. He faced the jury.

  ‘On Tuesday, the fifteenth of July, I left chambers just before six o’clock in the evening. When I said I was going, Corry asked if he might stay on and try to look up a point of law in the case books. I said he might. Because I was giving an after-dinner speech, I did as I usually do and walked along the roads without worrying where I was going, composing the speech in my mind. By pure chance, I returned along the High Street just as my wife walked across the pavement and into the building in which were chambers.’

  With a sense of theatrical timing, Holter stopped talking. He looked at the jury for several seconds. When he next spoke, his voice was low and solemn. ‘Thinking she must be looking for me, I followed her into the building, went up the stairs, and along to chambers. Both doors were unlocked and I went inside. I heard the sound of voices from my own room so I crossed to the door. Corry was trying to make passionate love to my wife. At first I was too upset and astounded to do anything, then I went into the room.

  ‘Corry was trying to kiss my wife and she was struggling to free herself. He saw me and was so shocked that he let go of her. She was even more shocked and, not knowing what she was doing, she ran out of the room. I was mad with rage and I rushed at him, desperate to hurt him. But, members of the jury, as you can all too plainly see I am not cast in the mould of a superman. I’m overweight and under-exercised. Corry was younger, fitter, and stronger than me. He thrust me aside with humiliating ease, hitting me on my throat which is how I got the bruise. I fell to the ground and lay there, unable to do anything, whilst he jeered at me for being so weak. I dragged myself to my feet and cursed him and, I suppose to try to cover his embarrassment, he pretended he was terrified of my curses. He begged me not to kill him; safe in his own strength he mocked me by pretending that only my inaction would save him. I was silent and he increased his savage mockery. He went to the cabinet on the wall and pulled out the revolver and said he’d have defended himself with that if only it were loaded. I demanded to know why he was trying to break up my marriage. He expressed bitter contrition for what he’d done and swore that he’d show me how remorseful he was. He pressed the muzzle of the gun against his left breast and said that if only he’d got a bullet and the courage, he’d shoot himself to prove that my marriage meant far more to him than his life. I was silent. He became angry. He asked me what I expected from life when I was too old for my wife and she obviously needed someone younger to wear her out. Those were his words, members of the jury. To wear her out. He played the fool again and said that if I really wouldn’t give him the balm of forgiveness, he’d have to commit suicide to atone for his cruelty. He aimed the gun at his head and tried to pull the trigger, but couldn’t. He said the gun wouldn’t work so that he was denied atonement. I told him it worked if it was cocked. He roared with laughter as he cocked the gun. When he tried to pull the trigger, nothing happened. He made out it was obvious the gods didn’t mean him to sacrifice himself. I told him it wasn’t the gods, it was the safety catch. He asked me where it was and how it worked. I told him. He released the safety catch, held the gun at arm’s length and pointed it at his head. He turned his head to look straight at me, jeered at me once more, said, “It is a far, far better thing I do,” and pulled the trigger. He fell to the ground.

  ‘My wife ran into the room and when she saw him on the ground she believed I had shot him. She was far too hysterical for me to explain the truth to her, but I managed to get her out of the room. I was about to leave when I saw the photograph of her on the desk and I suddenly had the insane idea of dragging the body up to the desk to show the same sort of contempt for the dead man as had the murderer in the case I had defended some time earlier. I dragged the body along the carpet and it wasn’t until then that I realized just how crazy a thing I’d done and how the police must immediately realize the significance of the trail of blood and believe I had killed Corry. That’s why I had the photograph in the bottom drawer of my desk.

  ‘I went out of the room and as soon as my wife was sufficiently in control of herself, I persuaded her to leave. I followed her ten minutes later. She has lied about certain facts from that day to this because I have never been able to convince her I didn’t shoot Corry and she’s been trying to defend me.’

  The judge spoke. ‘You were well aware that the revolver contained four live cartridges?’

  ‘I was.’

  ‘On your own testimony, you allowed him to point this loaded gun first at his heart and then at his head?’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘You knew he believed it to be unloaded?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You knew equally well it was a ridiculous jest when he said he wanted to commit suicide?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Yet you encouraged him to pull the trigger?’

  ‘I merely did nothing to prevent him from doing so.’

  ‘On your ow
n admission you are entirely responsible for his death.’

  ‘But not for his murder, nor can I be charged with manslaughter. Under English law, since I was under no special relationship to him, I was not bound to save him from accidentally killing himself. A man who passes a pond in which a child is drowning is under no legal obligation to try to save that child. A man seeing another about to shoot himself is not legally bound to do anything to stop him.’

  Chapter Fifteen

  AFTER HOLTER had finished giving his testimony, Adems spoke at length to his instructing solicitor and then stood up.

  ‘Your evidence is at complete variance with the facts of the case.’

  ‘Is that in the nature of a question or a comment?’ asked Holter blandly.

  ‘Have you listened to any of the evidence of other witnesses?’

  ‘Naturally. I had to make certain it was correct.’

  ‘Then do you seriously expect the jury to believe that what you’ve just told the court bears the slightest relationship to the truth?’

  ‘Why shouldn’t they?’

  ‘Why shouldn’t they? Can you reasonably ask that question?’

  ‘Very reasonably.’

  ‘How do you explain the absence of powder stains on the hands of the dead man since you claim it was he who fired the revolver?’

  ‘The evidence was that there would not necessarily be any stains on the hand that fired the gun.’

  ‘The evidence was that normally there are such stains, that normally they can be shown to exist, and that because there was none on the deceased’s hand the expert witness was of the decided opinion that the deceased had not fired a gun that day.’

  ‘This was obviously abnormal.’

  ‘That is your only answer?’

  ‘No, it isn’t, as a matter of fact.’

  ‘Very well, then, what other abnormal answer have you?’

  ‘Well, you see, because Corry was fooling around, jeering at me, making me suffer the knowledge of my own impotence, he played the fool from beginning to end. Instead of holding the gun normally, he held it back to front with his thumb through the trigger guard. If you try that you’ll see there wouldn’t be any stains on the hand.’

  ‘You’re asking the jury to believe he held the revolver in that position?’

  ‘Only because he was acting the fool.’

  ‘Far too foolishly for anyone to believe in it.’

  ‘I’m sorry, but that’s what happened.’

  ‘Why should he have believed the gun to be empty?’

  ‘As you pointed out earlier in this trial, it was a natural assumption to make. Didn’t you say in your opening address that a casual murderer would surely have believed it to be empty because it was so openly displayed?’

  ‘Never mind what I said,’ snapped Adems, unwisely giving way to anger. ‘Why should a man, found with your wife, suddenly start acting like a clown?’

  ‘He very soon discovered he didn’t have to fear me in a physical sense, then I suppose there was just enough decency left in him to be embarrassed.’

  ‘If there was an initial scuffle, no matter how ignominious your part, why was there no bruising on the dead man’s body? Doctor Kinnet testified that there was none, yet had there been the slightest scuffle he would have expected to find bruising.’

  ‘I’m afraid my attempts were just as ignominious as you’ve suggested. He fended me off with one jab from his right hand and although it bruised me, it can’t possibly have bruised his hand.’

  ‘And you made no further attempt to hit him?’

  ‘I knew it wouldn’t be any use. There wasn’t anything I could do.’

  ‘Except shoot him.’

  ‘He shot himself by accident.’

  Adems tipped up the seat on his immediate right and stepped into the space he had just created. ‘If all that you say is true, why didn’t you call in the police and explain what had happened as an innocent man would have done?’

  ‘At all costs I wanted to keep my wife clear of everything. I knew what people would think if it came out that she and Corry had been together in chambers.’

  ‘What would they think?’

  ‘That she and Corry were having an affair.’

  ‘But isn’t that precisely what you’ve told this court?’

  ‘My wife was sufficiently injudicious to have a mild flirtation with Corry. Obviously, she was very ill-advised, but she was never in any danger of committing adultery.’

  ‘From what you heard outside that room in chambers, you must have thought they were lovers?’

  ‘From what I heard when I was outside, I knew they were most definitely not.’

  ‘Then it is nonsense to say you were mad with jealousy when you burst into the room. You knew very well there was no need to be jealous.’

  ‘I love my wife very much and the thought that she might have shared even a little of her affections with another man was enough to make me almost mad with rage.’

  ‘Mad enough to want to kill him?’

  ‘At the time of entering the room, yes.’

  ‘If Corry were so much stronger and you knew it, why should he need a gun to defend himself?’

  ‘But he wasn’t trying to defend himself. He was trying to humiliate me,’

  ‘Humiliate you? By shooting himself?’

  ‘By pretending he would like to shoot himself to show how much more important I was than he, when it was so very obvious he didn’t think this and wasn’t going to shoot himself.’

  ‘You’re crediting him with the most ridiculous motives.’

  ‘He was playing the part of a fool.’

  ‘After he had cocked the gun and released the safety catch, which you claim he did, you knew that if he pulled the trigger he would shoot himself if the gun was aimed at him?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You admit you hated him enough not to warn him?’

  ‘At the time, yes.’

  ‘Are you trying to say you didn’t hate him a few seconds later?’

  ‘He was dead then.’

  ‘When, much later, you re-discovered the photograph of your wife in the drawer of your desk, why did you smuggle it out of the building?’

  ‘Once again, to try to hide from the world the fact that my wife had been having this mild flirtation. The world is a malignant gossip.’

  Adems looked down at his brief. He was a reasonably clever man, yet only now did he fully realize how Holter had waited until all the prosecution evidence had been given and then had brilliantly used that evidence to support his own story, as a judo expert uses his opponent’s momentum to win the fall. The evidence had been proved by the prosecution and so could not be challenged by the prosecution. There had been a woman in the room, she had been Charlotte Holter, she was dressed in a strawberry pink dress, it was her compact which had fallen to the ground and spilled some of her face-powder on to the carpet, Holter had arrived at The Three Bells late and in a state ...

  ‘Yes?’ said the judge harshly.

  *

  The verdict was delivered at a quarter to seven in the evening and when it was given the judge began to speak angrily, but checked himself so quickly that no one was certain what he had been going to say.

  The court slowly emptied. Accepting the suggestion of an usher, Holter and Charlotte left the building by a side entrance in order to escape any crowd or newspapermen who might be waiting. They walked, unnoticed, along the street to the car park in which was Charlotte’s Mercedes.

  As they reached the first set of traffic lights, at red, Charlotte braked the car to a halt. Holter lit a cigarette. He suddenly laughed loudly. ‘By God, old Proctor’s expression was one to remember. He’d have pulled the lever of the trap door himself given half the chance.’

  The lights changed and she released the handbrake and drove on.

  ‘It must have been a terrible time for you,’ he said. ‘Worrying yourself sick about me. You were wonderful in court, Betty, absolutely wonderful. Da
mn it, you had me nearly believing you were in the room when Corry was shot.’

  ‘Stop it.’

  ‘No, but it’s true, darling. What an actress. Even the way you showed yourself to be under a mental strain was just right.’ He laughed again. ‘Adems must be wondering what hit him.’

  ‘Someone shot Corry.’

  ‘And as I’ve always said, it wasn’t anyone from chambers. That’s unthinkable. The brotherhood of the Bar means far too much.’ He began to whistle, out of tune. He thought that there couldn’t be as many men as he had fingers on his right hand who could have carved a way through the prosecution’s case as he had.

  ‘What’s going to happen?’ she asked, her voice high.

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘Will the police go on looking?’

  ‘I suppose so. Maybe this time they’ll look in the right places. Any man with any sense of what’s right and what’s wrong would know it wasn’t one of us.’ He was silent for a while and when he did speak again there was an unusual note in his voice. ‘This case has really shocked me, Betty. I was completely innocent and yet I was close to being found guilty. And that in an English court of law. Of course, it wasn’t the law’s fault, it was the evidence. What can you do when a witness like that Wallace makes so gross a mistaken identification? He probably saw some local tart, yet he convinced himself he saw you. Damn’ well makes one remember Adolph Beck.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Beck. He was convicted of a crime he had nothing to do with and served a seven year jail sentence. Nearly happened to him a second time, what’s more. Something ought to be done about eye-witness identification’

  ‘Stop talking about it.’

  ‘All right.’ He lowered the window and flicked his cigarette out on to the road. Fields were beginning to take the place of houses and he stared at them with a vague, undefined feeling that they were the first real proof of his freedom. The harvest, an early one, was over and stretches of stubble alternated with straw-coloured grass which offered visible evidence of the dryness of the summer.

  They turned off the main road and reached Crighton. Two women, with prams, were gossiping outside the butchers and as the car slowed down they looked at it. One of them obviously recognized him because she suddenly gasped. He chuckled. In next to no time the news would be around that he was free and back in the big house. He knew that the villagers would be glad.